Age of Empires II: The Conquerors

Age of Empires II: The Conquerors Expansion
Developer(s)	Ensemble Studios
Publisher(s)	Microsoft Game Studios, Konami
Series	Age of Empires
Version	Windows - 1.0c Mac - 1.0.6
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh
Release date(s)	August 24, 2000
Genre(s)	Real-time strategy expansion pack
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer over IPX, TCP/IP, Modem or Microsoft Zone (now shut down).
Rating(s)	ESRB: Teen (T)
Media/distribution	CD (1)
System requirements Pentium 166 MHz CPU, 32 MB RAM, 100 MB HD (plus 200 MB from AoE2)

Age of Empires II: The Conquerors Expansion (sometimes abbreviated to AoC or AoK: TC) is the expansion pack to the 1999 real-time strategy game Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings. The Conquerors is the fourth installment in the Age of Empires series by Microsoft Game Studios and Ensemble Studios. It features five new civilizations (the Aztecs, Mayans, Spanish, Koreans, and Huns), four new campaigns, eleven new units, twenty-six new technologies, new gameplay modes, new maps and different minor tweaks to the gameplay.

Gameplay changes

The Conquerors Expansion also introduced various new gameplay features and tweaks, including the new game modes Defend the Wonder, King of the Hill and Wonder Race. Additional maps, some based on real life geographic locations, and new winter and tropical terrain textures were included. In-game, infantry are able to garrison in battering rams, protecting the infantry while increasing the ram's speed and attack, while ships are able to form formations for more effective fighting. The graphics are left unchanged, but new civilizations have been added such as the Spanish, Huns, Koreans, Mayans and Aztecs. In addition to new units, the in-game upgrade lines have been extended to provide more unit choices.

Micromanagement is made easier, by an improved scripted Artificial Intelligence of villagers and siege weapons. Villagers will now automatically commence gathering resources if they build resource gathering sites. Wall construction has also been improved: when assigning two or more villagers, they evenly spread out instead of working on the same patch, and when multiple farmers are sent on one farm, the surplus will start cultivating adjacent farms instead of idling. Siege onagers will not fire if their attack is likely to harm friendly units. Additionally, a button was added to the mill, which would allow farms to be paid for in advance, so that when an existing one was exhausted, it would automatically be replanted. Chat commands are introduced, in order to communicate more effectively with allied computer players.

Campaigns

The Conquerors Expansion adds four additional single player campaigns. These are based on Attila the Hun's rise to power, Moctezuma's defense against Hernán Cortés and the adventures of El Cid. The fourth campaign, "Battles of the Conquerors", is actually a group of unrelated single scenarios, each based on a significant historical battle. These include the Battle of Agincourt, the saga of Erik the Red, the Battle of Hastings and the Battle of Tours, among others.

Online play

As of June 2006, The MSN Gaming Zone CD-ROM section was shut down for Age of Empires players, as well as many other CD-ROM games. There are several other Age of Empires II: The Conquerors servers worldwide. Microsoft has officially redirected matchmaking to GameSpy Arcade (AOE Landing Page).

In the online realm, there exist not only built-in random maps, but also user-generated scenarios.

Patches

1.0c was the final official patch by Ensemble Studios, it fixed many bugs and balanced units. Before 1.0b bombard towers were able to defeat armies of rams easily; after 1.0b and 1.0c, cavalry archers and bombard towers were balanced to be less powerful. The graphics of the armored Korean "turtle ship" were modified as well.

There exists an unofficial fan made patch 1.0e that prohibits most forms of cheating (it does not change anything else).

New features

Civilizations

Five additional playable civilizations come with The Conquerors Expansion, including the Aztecs and Mayans, who share a newly created New World architectural style:

Architectural style	Civilization
West European	Spanish
East European	Huns
Far Eastern	Korea
New World	Aztecs
	Mayans

The Aztecs and Mayans completely lack the ability to train cavalry units. This is partially balanced by the fact that they start with eagle warrior infantry units, who have many of the advantages that cavalry have. Both civilizations also lack access to gunpowder units. The Huns are also unique in that they do not build houses to support their population, allowing them to ignore the maximum production limit of units, and focus on building up their economy and military instead (However, they can not ignore the maximum population limit decided before the start of each game).

Units

A screenshot of Age of Empires II expansion shows several units, including the Eagle warrior.

"The Conquerors Expansion introduces twelve additional units to Age of Empires II: Age of Kings:

• Eagle Warrior & Elite Eagle Warrior (fast-moving infantry, resistant to monk conversion).
• Halberdier (an upgrade to the Pikeman).
• Jaguar Warrior & Elite Jaguar Warrior (strong infantry, unique to the Aztecs).
• Plumed Archer & Elite Plumed Archer (foot archer, unique to the Mayans).
• War Wagon & Elite War Wagon (heavily-armored ranged cavalry, unique to the Koreans).
• Conquistador & Elite Conquistador (mounted gunpowder unit, unique to the Spanish).
• Hussar (an upgrade to the Light Cavalry; available to almost all civilizations capable of creating cavalry units).
• Tarkan & Elite Tarkan (anti-building cavalry, based on Tarkan, unique to the Huns).
• Petard (one-use siege unit that explode; available to all civilizations).
• Turtle Ship & Elite Turtle Ship (heavily-armored and short-ranged cannon ship, unique to the Koreans).
• Missionary (swift-mounted monk that cannot carry relics, unique to the Spanish).
• Genitour & Elite Genitour (A Light Cavalry Skirmisher that is only available in map editor).
• Bleda The Hun (A hero unit in map editor that cannot regenerate health).

New heroes

New heroes added in this upgrade include Belisarius, Yi Sun Shin, Attila the Hun, Scythian Wild Woman, El Cid Campeador, The Imam (in the second campaign of El Cid), Oda Nobunaga, King Sancho, Harald Hardraade, Henry V and King Alfonso.

Wonders

As in Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, each new civilization has its own unique wonder.

Game Civilization	Wonder
Aztec	Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan
Hun	Arch of Augustus, Rome (devastated and filled with the Huns' gold obtained from looting)
Korean	Hwangnyongsa
Maya	Temple of the Great Jaguar
Spanish	Torre del Oro

New maps

There are a total of eight new random map types. The Conquerors expansion also introduced 10 real-world maps, which are pre-made.

New Random Maps

Name	Description
Arena	A perimeter of forest encircles a large central area abutted by each players starting location, which includes a walled perimeter.
Ghost Lake	A large frozen lake on which nothing can be built fills the center of the map.
Mongolia	A large number of short cliffs constrains unit movement.
Nomad	Players start with no town center and with units scattered over the map.
Oasis	In this desert-tiled map, almost all the forest surrounds a small central lake.
Salt Marsh	The land is divided by large number of marshes and rivers.
Scandinavia	There are no berry (forage) bushes in this winter-themed random map.
Yucatán	This map uses the tropical tileset, with turkeys instead of sheep.

There are several custom scenarios in which users can create various objective based games.

New Real-World maps:

• Britain
• Byzantium
• Central America
• France
• Iberia
• Italy
• Mideast
• Norse Lands
• Sea of Japan
• Texas

The expansion also introduces the "Blind Random" option for multiplayer games, in which the type of map randomly chosen is not revealed in advance, and the "Random Land Map," which selects only from the list of primarily land maps.

Technologies

The Conquerors Expansion introduces in total twenty-six additional unique technologies to Age of Empires II: Age of Kings video game. These technologies can be purchased from various in-game buildings, most notably the castle (which now being able for the player to research the unique technology(ies) of the civilization), and give the player an additional bonus depending on the technology.

New technologies

All of these technologies are available to more than one civilization.

• Bloodlines - Cavalry have +20 hit points.
• Caravan - Trade carts and trade cogs move twice as fast.
• Thumb Ring - Archers fire faster and with 100% accuracy.
• Parthian Tactics - Cavalry archers have +1 armour and +2 pierce armour. Also, cavalry archers get a +4 bonus against spearmen, pikemen and halbardier. while mangudai get a +2 bonus against them.
• Herbal Medicine - Units garrisoned in buildings heal four times faster.
• Theocracy - If several monks convert an enemy unit, only one of them must rest afterwards.
• Heresy - Units converted by an enemy monk die instead of becoming the enemy player's unit.

Unique technologies

All of these technologies are unique to a specific civilization.

• Garland Wars — Unique to the Aztecs. Increases infantry attack by +4.
• Yeomen - Unique to the Britons. Foot archers have +1 range, and towers have +2 attack.
• Logistica - Unique to the Byzantines. Cataphracts cause trample damage, meaning they can hit other units near them while attacking.
• Furor Celtica - Unique to the Celts. Siege weapons have +50% hit points.
• Rocketry - Unique to the Chinese. Chu ko nus have +2 attack, and scorpions have +4 attack.
• Bearded Axe - Unique to the Franks, and gives throwing axemen +1 range.
• Anarchy - The Goths are the only civilization with two unique technologies, and this is one of them. Unlike the other unique technologies, it is available in the Castle Age. It allows huskarls to be created at barracks.
• Perfusion - The other Gothic unique technology. Barracks units are created +50% faster. Combined with the Gothic team bonus of barracks units created +20% faster, and the technology Conscription, barracks units can be created +103% faster. Combine this with the Goths' cheaper infantry, and the fact that they have +10 population in the Imperial Age, you can create a very large army of infantry in a matter of minutes.
• Atheism - Increases Wonder and Relic victories by 100, and the Spies and Treason research at Hunnic castles cost -50% resources. (So 1800 gold goes down to 900 gold).
• Kataparuto - Unique to the Japanese. Trebuchets pack/unpack quicker, and fire faster. ("Kataparuto" is the Japanese katakana equivalent to "catapult".)
• Shinkichon - Unique to the Koreans. Onagers have +1 range.
• El Dorado - Unique to the Mayans. Eagle warriors have +40 hit points.
• Drill - Unique to the Mongols. Siege weapons move +50% faster.
• Mahouts — Unique to the Persians. War elephants move +30% faster.
• Zealotry - Unique to the Saracens. Camel riders and mamelukes have +30 hit points; combined with Bloodlines, they can have +50 hit points.
• Supremacy - Unique to the Spanish. Villagers have +40 hit points, +6 attack, +2 armour, and +2 pierce armour, which makes them a lot more useful in battle.
• Crenellations — Unique to the Teutons. Castles have +3 range (Bodkin arrow can bring their range up to +5), and garrisoned infantry fire arrows.
• Artillery - Unique to the Turks. Artillery (cannon galleon, elite cannon galleon, bombard cannons and bombard towers) have +2 range.
• Berserkergang - Unique to the Vikings. Berserkers heal themselves faster; 40HP per minute (instead 20).

Miscellaneous Changes

Various others changes were done from the age of empires: age of kings to the Age of empires: The conquerors expansion ( patch 1.0c ), some of them included

• Cavalry Archers Reduced fire rate - The rate of firing of cavalry archer was reduced to some extent and they were made less powerful.
• Town Centers no longer gain increment in range but only firing power. However it hasn't been updated in the help box that appears in this research in blacksmith ( namely Fletching, Bodkin Arrow and Bracer ). Pointing your arrow to one of these researches tells you there would be increment in range as well as attack power of town center, but only increment in power is observed. This was done to promote the usage of units in game instead of military war mostly done by buildings, and to bring some balance to aggressive vs defensive strategies, with long ranged town centers the defensive was strong ( also the Teutonic Town center bonus also increase only the Line of sight of town center )
• Bombard Towers are no longer effective against battering rams, as one bomb causing only 1 HP damage and with 175HP of battering ram ( more HP for capped and siege ram ) the tower was no match for rams and should rely on ground units to prevent ram attack. This reduced the concept of trebuchets and bombard cannons being the only effective siege weapons against bombard Towers.
• Ships can now be arranged in various formations similar to ground units.
• Villagers now go automatically to work after they build the appropriate buildings ( Lumber camp for food, mill for wood, mining camp for gold and stone ), after they build the required building and the resources associated to that building would be in line of sight of the villager it will automatically start the gathering.

Modifications

Age of Kings has some finished fan modifications and still some fans are developing new modifications for Age of Kings The Conquerors. Perhaps the most famous and most heavy modification is Age of Chivalry Hegemony. It changes all civilizations to medieval western European civilizations and adds new units, buildings and technologies. Because it is a total conversion, old units graphics are changed to new ones.

Another popular mod is the widescreen mod by boekabart which allows resolutions of 1920x1080 and higher, see an example of HD gameplay here

Also there are modifications that do not edit the graphics, but add new objects to make the map editor more flexible and stronger. Renaissance made by Oliver adds more than 100 new units.

Soundtrack

The game disc itself is a mixed mode CD (contains both Data & Audio tracks). Track 1 appears as the data track, and track 2 is the soundtrack as a Red Book audio track. According to Gracenote^{[citation needed]}, it is called "Subotai Defeats The Knights Templar". As in the PC version, the file is very long and uses small transitions to separate tracks. It lasts 30 minutes and 48 seconds. The Age of Empires Collector Edition Soundtrack CD's tracklist gives a lot of the individual tracks own names. The tracks were composed by Stephen Rippy and Kevin McMullan

These are the tracks that appear on the audio part of the game CD, in order of playback. The tracks are not separated, but instead are one long track with floating transitions. Some of the tracks are featured on the "More Music From The Ages" CD, though these are usually only available as prizes from Ensemble Studios.

Pork Parts (3:06) Pudding Pie (estimated 3:11) Tide Me Over Warm 'em Ups (2:51) Voodoodoodoo (2:55) The Bovinian Derivative (3:10) Case in Point: Paste (2:58) Mountain Lie On / Seamus and Chamois (3:24) Subotai Defeats the Knights Templar (estimated 3:06) Roi-r! / Basura! Basura! (2:42) Neep Ninny-Bod (3:16)

External links

• Official Microsoft site
• AoCZone - International AoC Community (news, discussions, recorded games, resources)