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A remastered version of Age of Empires is being released for the game's 20th anniversary:
Microsoft is updating the game for 2017 with a modernized interface and gameplay refinements. In addition, said Isgreen, "We've re-orchestrated and re-recorded the entire soundtrack to the game" with a symphony. Multiplayer will be available via Xbox Live. Microsoft previously remastered 1999's Age of Empires 2 — that upgrade, Age of Empires 2 HD, was released in 2013 on Steam. Forgotten Empires, the studio that developed Age of Empires 2 HD, is also making the Definitive Edition of Age of Empires.
Also at VentureBeat and PC Gamer.
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Age of Empires: Definitive Edition adds 4K Resolution, Zoom Levels, Remastered Soundtrack
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Facts are the enemy of truth.
-- Don Quixote
(Score: 2) by ledow on Tuesday June 13 2017, @12:24PM (12 children)
"We haven't been able to make anything even remotely good since, so let's revamp the oldest things we have that were popular in the hope people will buy them again."
I have AoE2 HD on Steam because it works multiplayer on modern Internets without hassle.
But I'll be damned if I'm paying a lot for it, or for DLC campaigns or anything else.
And notice how we're now revisiting the 2D isometric games in an era of 3D and VR gaming. Because sometimes the gameplay just doesn't lend itself to that method of control / visual, and it's taken us decades to admit that.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 13 2017, @12:34PM (4 children)
See WarZone 2100 for a similiar era game that proves fully rotatable 3d could work, even in the same envelope as Age of Empires, with plenty of units on-screen and a good balance of scalable and rotatable views in the heat of combat.
Added bonus: They actually had veteran units that could carry over between games, and a 'veteran unit stack' so that when you decommissioned units their experience would remain available for the next unit built. Basically any unit you could keep alive in-game, even if it was a shitty older unit, could later become pivotal to your war strategy because it lent you a more experienced crew causing your next vehicle to better hit the enemy and sustain more damage before being lost.
Alas many of the good indie studies died out and the newer generations don't have nearly as many teams pushing the boundaries like they used to.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 13 2017, @12:53PM (2 children)
Ha, thanks for the reminder! Warzone 2100 was one of my favorite games back then. Interestingly, seems it was open sourced, and is still being developed: http://wz2100.net/ [wz2100.net]
So I think I will download and see how good it is now :)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by KGIII on Wednesday June 14 2017, @01:42AM (1 child)
Notably, it even has a Linux build, though you need to go to a different site for it. I'm not sure why they didn't put the build at SourceForge. I didn't look, but it seems likely that one can just build from source anyhow. Still a .deb is nice to have.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Wednesday June 14 2017, @10:25AM
They do have a deb. Also it is in the official repo's. I've been installing and playing it fine for years this way.
root@Phobos:~$ apt search warzone
Sorting... Done
Full Text Search... Done
warzone2100/stable 3.1.1-1 amd64
3D real time strategy game
warzone2100-data/stable 3.1.1-1 all
data files for warzone2100
warzone2100-dbg/stable 3.1.1-1 amd64
debug files for warzone2100
warzone2100-music/stable 3.1.1-1 all
official music for warzone2100
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Wednesday June 14 2017, @02:04AM
Another game that showed that 3d rotatable isometric games could work (really well!) was Bungie's Myth: The Fallen Lords [wikipedia.org].
Awesome game. Looks like it might still be available [myabandonware.com].
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday June 13 2017, @01:35PM (5 children)
I kinda like what they've done with AOE II HD.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Empires_II#Expansions_and_sequels [wikipedia.org]
Age of Empires II: The Forgotten added 5 new civs, quadrupled the maximum map size (debatable on whether that's a good thing, but you don't have to select it), added new random maps, and made more AI adjustments. It took me a while to figure out this existed.
I didn't even know about The African Kingdoms [forgottenempires.net] and Rise of the Rajas [forgottenempires.net] until now. Between them that's another 8 civs, 10 new random maps, and supposedly AI tweaks in both.
The unique units and technologies of each civ are interesting, sure, but the biggest consideration in choosing a civ IMO are the bonuses. E.g. the Britons gathering from
sheeplivestock 25% faster which makes a huge impact on the first 10 minutes of the game, and is useless on hunting-only random maps. And then you have the team bonuses. One Chinese civ on your side, +45 food to farms.The adjustments in Age of Empires: Definitive Edition seem minor in comparison. It's like the original AOE II HD, bringing the game back up to playability on Windows 10 and reviving multiplayer.
Blizzard has done the modernization thing a little better than this Definitive Edition by patching Starcraft for free over the years, and then adding the fancy 4K graphics stuff as an optional paid version.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Informative) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday June 13 2017, @03:30PM (4 children)
Forgotten Empires was a fan-mod production. It started as a compilation by a very dedicated fan who went through years of archived forums and mailing lists to find out one broken plugin to another hardly functioning plugin. He managed the whole thing and got together whoever could return and debugged everything into a workable exe. I can't even imagine the hard work he had to put. I used to play it before Microsoft acquired the whole lot and integrated their work, updated the quality of water, added wide-screen support, called it a day and charged me a lot for it.
The networking code is bad though. I have yet to finish a single game because the connection keeps dropping and you can't join the same match. I am using Voobly which still works with AOE:HD, albeit with some tinkering.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday June 13 2017, @09:05PM
I assume you could also create a simple virtual LAN to handle multiplayer, although matchmaking would be much harder without a pool of interested players you don't personally know.
As sad as the Forgotten Empires acquisition may feel, at least it got more people playing the game, improving multiplayer.
I'm still wondering when 0 A.D. [wikipedia.org] will go gold. It started out as an Age of Kings mod, but is now its own standalone game with the civs of AOE 1, the graphics of AOE 3 or AOM, and hopefully the gameplay of AOE 2 (last time I tried it, it was very unfinished).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday June 13 2017, @09:37PM (2 children)
Looking at the new civs in the 2 latest expansions now.
Berbers: Faster villagers always a plus, and from the start too. Stable units costing less is good, might be best paired with another team's bonus.
Malians: -15% wood to build buildings could easily speed things up. The pierce armor can help for attacking town centers and castles. Gold mining upgrades being free saves some precious food while getting the gold reqs for advancing handled. Town centers firing arrows without a garrison might not be essential, but could help out. The team bonus of university researches being 80% faster is ok. Get that ballistics fast! All in all I like this one.
Ethiopians: Archers fire 15% faster means that with two otherwise equal archer units facing off (no Britons or whatever), the Ethiopian one should win. And infantry can get trashed much faster. Receiving 100 food and gold when advancing is nice. I don't know if this happens when you click the research or advance to the next age, but it makes getting to the Castle Age decently easier. Increased siege workshop blast radius could be OP.
Portuguese: All units cost 15% less gold, ships have +10% HP, has free Cartography instantly, ships have more armor. Better for the late game. "Arquebus: Gunpowder units affected by Ballistics" could be OP and make the Turks look like trash.
Burmese: Free lumbercamp upgrades are OK. Extra 1-4 infantry attack is great. Monastery techs being cheaper doesn't seem like a huge deal compared to monk bonuses in other civs. However "relics visible on map" as a team bonus is outstanding since you don't need to play as Burmese and will be sure to make a grab for the relics.
Khmer: No buildings required to advance seems like a better deal in the feudal age maybe, since you might not want to build the Archery Range or Stable (initially) for this civ. Fast and stronger elephants are always great, although I'd have to compare it more closely to the Persians. Scorpions have +1 range and can fire 2 projectiles. I don't see the point of garrisoning in houses.
Malay: Fast advance to the next age allows you to make more villagers early on, great fishing and fish farming, cheaper battle elephants. Docks can fire arrows, and as early as the Castle Age, as long as you can afford 300 food and 300 gold. The Malays can also research Bracer, increasing the dock range by 3 to 10. I don't know what Militia-line is.
Vietnamese: Reveal enemy positions at game start doesn't seem like a big deal. With Cartography and allies, you can find them pretty quickly. Archery units have more HP. Conscription is free, but you have to get to the Imperial Age first. You can give +500 gold to your whole team at a cost of 800 food and 200 gold... meh. The whole team can upgrade Elite Skirmishers to Imperial Skirmishers, and those units can wreck Cavalry Archers.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Thursday June 15 2017, @05:32AM (1 child)
Well, naval warfare is pretty useless in AOE2 unless you are in a water majority map. How frequent is that? So I would say Portugese and Malay are not a good front player. Also, I played with Malian special unit, Gbeto. And it requires a lot of micro-management because their hit points are very low. And army of Paladins can mow them like anything.
The new AI is vastly superior, so much so that I haven't been able to beat them on hard while I used to beat 2 hardest AI opponents earlier. Give it a try, you will instantly love it. The only problem I encountered is that you need to really become very good and that requires a lot of time and dedication because the new AIs are really surprisingly good.
I hadn't heard about 0AD. I shall give it a try today.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Friday June 16 2017, @11:13PM
I had a lot of success playing Burmese and just spamming their battle elephants. Both of their unique techs upgrade the elephants: +1/+2 armor, and then +6 attack against buildings. So they can end up with
68 pierce armor and just wreck Castles and Town Centers. I threw in some Arambai to handle the pikemen, and Arambai also get the +6 building bonus [wikia.com].With respect to water maps, in multiplayer you could agree to select a water map instead of random, select Full Random, or try your luck at MegaRandom. Selecting a naval civ would be like placing a bet on the map type (assuming you can use the naval civ well).
I like to play 4v4 AI since the AI will cover for my human weaknesses. One of my usual crappy techniques for handling the enemy is putting a Castle near them. On Standard difficulty the AI will just shut those Castles down with extreme prejudice using several rams and knights to kill off any infantry I would use to kill the rams. I probably just suck at the game but the AI do seem better. One weakness that they still have is that AI teammates or opponents can get flaky once they get hit hard and lose their town center. They'll just have a few villagers cutting wood and pretty much bench sit until they or you die.
On Standard, it seems like AI prefer slow Feudal and fast Castle age.
One recent victory I had: Got one relic early on, adjacent enemy got the other one (yes, total of 2 relics despite some random maps having like 15). Allies hit that enemy into nothingness, I grab the relic. Get surprised when relic victory countdown starts. 2 relics are not enough gold for me to make elite units in late game. All of my allies die off, and I resort to protecting the monastery with castles and skirmishers until the countdown runs out. Monastery was about a minute away from being destroyed.
You know, with Google DeepMind taking on Starcraft 2 after having beaten arcade games and Go, it would be cool to see Microsoft's own AI researchers [soylentnews.org] take on AOE2 with expansions. I can only imagine what optimizations a huge machine learning approach would make (maybe they'll do stuff like lure boars to the town center/mill and return hunted meat before reaching 35 [forgottenempires.net] to advance to Feudal a little faster). I think there is one academic paper published about AOE2 AI but I'm finding it difficult to locate.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 13 2017, @01:39PM
AoE was given out free on CD a decade ago.
(Score: 5, Informative) by richtopia on Tuesday June 13 2017, @01:37PM (1 child)
Here is how a mod for AOE2 turned into a proper game studio:
http://www.forgottenempires.net/aof/the-story-so-far [forgottenempires.net]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday June 13 2017, @11:05PM
I can say I never noticed fervor not working or AI not hunting boars (although wikia says Fervor [wikia.com] only worked when holding a relic in The Conquerors, and worked fine in The Age of Kings).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jdavidb on Tuesday June 13 2017, @01:49PM
My nostalgia gaming used to mean playing Atari 2600 hits on Stella. Now I discover that what feels like yesterday was 20 years ago.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Tuesday June 13 2017, @02:29PM (2 children)
*runs away screaming*
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by BK on Tuesday June 13 2017, @11:34PM
At least it wasn't Microsoft Bob. Or Clippy.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday June 13 2017, @11:57PM
The article says it will offer a "Classic Mode" which may make it look pretty similar to the original. Zoom levels are nice, and hopefully screen scrolling will be less choppy.
Improvements to AI pathfinding are a big deal since it was definitely worse compared to AOE 2.
I'm interested to see whether they will make it so that you can walk on top of farms as in AOE 2.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 13 2017, @02:45PM
...to upgrade to Windows 10! Thanks, Microsoft!
(Score: 2) by deimios on Tuesday June 13 2017, @03:17PM (1 child)
Wake me when they pull a real remaster like Starcraft HD that they also give away for free.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday June 13 2017, @06:12PM
Not accurate.
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/starcraft/topic/20753765428 [battle.net]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by mechanicjay on Tuesday June 13 2017, @06:50PM (1 child)
Pretty Sure Ages of Empires (II?) was responsible for my dismal GPA one semester in college. I'm not sure I need that in my life right now -- but I kinda really want it anyway.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Thursday June 15 2017, @06:03AM
We are all thinking the same thing :)