I’m getting back into Age of Empires 2. Have you guys ever played that game? It was like, my childhood.
A few years ago, a company that was created by a mod maker for AOE2 worked with Microsoft to release an updated version of the game. Then they added quite a few new civs over the years (one DLC added African kingdoms as well as the Portugese, another split the originally modded “Indians” into 4 or 5 Indian and South East Asian Civs with thematic links and regional units; they did something similar with the various steppe civs like Mongols and Cumans getting Steppe Lancers; etc.
Now they’re revamping the old “Chinese” Civ with a DLC, and a lot of people were hoping for a continuation of the current theme: Chinese being split into Tanguts, Jurchen, etc.
Instead they’re adding a confusing line up of five Civs. Oh, and revamping the Chinese themselves, which is nice. But the lineup is:
Jurchens
Khitans
(So far, so good… Medieval kingdoms from China)
Shu
Wei
Wu
??? They’re adding civs based on the Three Kingdoms, from an era closer to what we’d consider the Classical era.
It’s a bit weird, and disappointing compared to options that won’t be, like Tibet. But I guess we’re already pushing the boundary of what is “medieval”, with Huns and Romans alongside Aztecs.
It’s cool that they’re still developing this game. I’d love to see them “fix” some of the other civs that feel overly broad or lumped in the future. “Vikings” could be split into a few groups, so could “Saracens”.
But all that drama aside, I’m just enjoying some ranked 1v1 games. It’s much more competitive and fast paced than anything else I play, but it kinda scratches an itch no other game does.
What drew me back in this time was actually a graphical update. The game has a few different architectural sets - different Civs in a group share building graphics. But Civs had unique Wonders. However you almost never build a Wonder - it’s a way to win the game, but in any serious match you’d just fight your opponent rather than building a wonder.
Now they gave every civ a unique castle. They also gave different religions different graphics for the “monk” unit. Small visual changes, but enough to make me hyped to play again.
It’s very fast paced and competitive, like I said; the early game kinda relies on “build orders” (though what made them click for me was realizing why you do build orders. You almost always start with 6 on food, because you need 6 villagers harvesting food to keep up with the food requirements of a town center pumping out villagers at full speed. And then you get 3 or 4 on wood, depending on how much wood you need in the next age, depending on what units you’ll build; and then it’s back to food, because you need food to advance to the next age. From there, it opens up; but like chess, the opening is key, and often something you practice).
Last time I played I figured the way to improve would be to pick a strategy (cav rush, archer rush, economic boom, etc) and pick 3 or 4 Civs that do that strategy well, then alternate between them while repeating the same strategy.
This time I decided to do it differently. I play Random Civ every time, and pick one of a handful of strategies based on the Civ I roll. I feel like it’s made me a better player, and I’ve been a lot more adaptive. For example, the other day I rolled one of the DLC southeast Asian Civs - one that specializes in battle elephants - and so I adapted a knight build in order to pump out elephants, figuring they’re similar enough in cost and usage to knights.
Oblivion and Skyrim are so dumbed-down in comparison.