Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings (PC, 1999)
Graphics-8 Sound-8 Control-8 Challenge-7* Story-6
Level Design-7.5 Frustration-7* Fun-8* Originality-6
Overall Score-8
*Single player, Normal difficulty
+
Tech tree page in the menu
Large variety of troops (different civilizations have unique troops and upgrades but also downsides)
Great interface overall (waypoints, hotkey groups, select/queue more than 12 units at once, idle villager button)
Speed and difficulty options
High res for the time
Troop formations (not that useful)
Diplomacy (trade via markets and trade carts, send resources to allies)
Pretty good tutorial campaign, bell (call all workers into town hall, lets them shoot arrows from within)
Alternate ways of beating some campaign levels, save feature (anywhere) with plenty of slots
Good voice acting overall (every civilization's units speak their own language)
+/-
Triggering some events via a scout can turn out awkward or make you lose more units than expected
No "attack move" (patrol sort of works but isn't always reliable)
Units' area of reaction to threats is pretty small (if one of your buildings near a unit is being pummeled there's no reacion if the enemy is a long ranged unit on the other side of the building from where your unit is)
No pre-mission choices in the campaign (deployment, units, upgrades etc. - see Heroes 3, Langrisser II)
AI is inhumanly (?) good at dancing ranged units in large numbers
No traps (perhaps planned but scrapped as they're mentioned in a document with the game on combat tactics history)
-
Can't waypoint workers to build then do something else (build then gather etc.)
Pathfinding problems (troops don't move around larger obstacles, troops get stuck around ship transports)
Somewhat grainy graphics
Somewhat hard to keep track of what you have researched (several different buildings to check, researched upgrades disappear from the menu)
The isometric perspective is slightly problematic in terms of getting a good overview in some situations as well as targeting/selecting things behind large buildings
Some pathfinding/AI problems (when a unit is hindered by a river and a tower on the other side is attacking it, it doesn't move away, cavalry can get stuck in a few spots, paladins won't attack enemy musketeers when in defensive stance)
Saladin stage 2 (annoying voice from allies keeps repeating when nothing is attacking them, need to kill even transports to win) and 5 problems (Orange sometimes doesn't build a Wonder)
Enemy AI problems (patrolling AI not reacting to attack, AI not attacking gates (can be exploited in final Saladin mission), enemy villagers can be lured by building a tower near their town center, attacking an enemy villager building something makes the AI cancel the building - wasting resources, no boar hunting by AIs, etc)
Can be hard to keep track of triggered speech messages due to on screen action and loud sfx
No hotkey for going straight to the action when the under attack horn sounds?
Volume controls don't work properly (music is too loud) and some sfx are overly loud (troops attacked sound)
Mostly repetitive sfx
The mini-map is somewhat less readable than other games of the time such as Starcraft and Heroes III (stone/gray can be particularly difficult to see)
The storytelling in the campagin is a bit plain for its time (Warcraft II style) and romanticizes/bastardizes the history it's based on
Notes:
-Farm queue and better worker AI in the expansion
-Trading cart bug on maps with shallows (goes idle)
Level Design-7.5 Frustration-7* Fun-8* Originality-6
Overall Score-8
*Single player, Normal difficulty
+
Tech tree page in the menu
Large variety of troops (different civilizations have unique troops and upgrades but also downsides)
Great interface overall (waypoints, hotkey groups, select/queue more than 12 units at once, idle villager button)
Speed and difficulty options
High res for the time
Troop formations (not that useful)
Diplomacy (trade via markets and trade carts, send resources to allies)
Pretty good tutorial campaign, bell (call all workers into town hall, lets them shoot arrows from within)
Alternate ways of beating some campaign levels, save feature (anywhere) with plenty of slots
Good voice acting overall (every civilization's units speak their own language)
+/-
Triggering some events via a scout can turn out awkward or make you lose more units than expected
No "attack move" (patrol sort of works but isn't always reliable)
Units' area of reaction to threats is pretty small (if one of your buildings near a unit is being pummeled there's no reacion if the enemy is a long ranged unit on the other side of the building from where your unit is)
No pre-mission choices in the campaign (deployment, units, upgrades etc. - see Heroes 3, Langrisser II)
AI is inhumanly (?) good at dancing ranged units in large numbers
No traps (perhaps planned but scrapped as they're mentioned in a document with the game on combat tactics history)
-
Can't waypoint workers to build then do something else (build then gather etc.)
Pathfinding problems (troops don't move around larger obstacles, troops get stuck around ship transports)
Somewhat grainy graphics
Somewhat hard to keep track of what you have researched (several different buildings to check, researched upgrades disappear from the menu)
The isometric perspective is slightly problematic in terms of getting a good overview in some situations as well as targeting/selecting things behind large buildings
Some pathfinding/AI problems (when a unit is hindered by a river and a tower on the other side is attacking it, it doesn't move away, cavalry can get stuck in a few spots, paladins won't attack enemy musketeers when in defensive stance)
Saladin stage 2 (annoying voice from allies keeps repeating when nothing is attacking them, need to kill even transports to win) and 5 problems (Orange sometimes doesn't build a Wonder)
Enemy AI problems (patrolling AI not reacting to attack, AI not attacking gates (can be exploited in final Saladin mission), enemy villagers can be lured by building a tower near their town center, attacking an enemy villager building something makes the AI cancel the building - wasting resources, no boar hunting by AIs, etc)
Can be hard to keep track of triggered speech messages due to on screen action and loud sfx
No hotkey for going straight to the action when the under attack horn sounds?
Volume controls don't work properly (music is too loud) and some sfx are overly loud (troops attacked sound)
Mostly repetitive sfx
The mini-map is somewhat less readable than other games of the time such as Starcraft and Heroes III (stone/gray can be particularly difficult to see)
The storytelling in the campagin is a bit plain for its time (Warcraft II style) and romanticizes/bastardizes the history it's based on
Notes:
-Farm queue and better worker AI in the expansion
-Trading cart bug on maps with shallows (goes idle)