AOE II

[idiotekniQues]

man i miss this game. and i miss an RTS game like it.

i see now that the main players developing RTS now are completely moving away from this model of play. Relic and the World in Conflict guys are driving to a style of RTS with little resource management and base-building and going towards games that resemble more a RTT - real time tactical game. you more control smaller squads and work with much smaller number of units across a board vs an open map with a variety of resources to target and gauge which one you need more of for your units, etc..

any RTS out there that harken back to the glory days of AOE II: The Conquerors?

i like the managing 3 resources and establishing trade routes to maintain economic superiority that translated into military dominance IF you had your counters and speed down. and i mean big full-scale military wars throwing lots of units into frenetic battle.

man oh man i miss it.

 

[Andrew1990]

ditto

Maybe try AOE III? Not sure if that has a large player base though.

 

[Bateluer]

I enjoyed AOEIII myself, and Supreme Commander. Lot of people didn't like SupCom though.

 

[TridenT]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
I enjoyed AOEIII myself, and Supreme Commander. Lot of people didn't like SupCom though.

SupCom is a made for really long games unfortunately.

 

[NoSoup4You]

AoE3 is definitely the closest thing you'll find to AoE2, for obvious reasons. But it's not the same as AoE2 and many AoE2 players I know did not like it. If you're open minded, you might get really into it. It features huge army battles, and if you have friends that play it or you join a clan to get some 3v3 games going, the battles can be enormous.

Resource gathering and efficiency are critical, but these things aren't as difficult as they were in AoE2 and speed is not as valuable. You can't just 'be faster' than the opponent and win, you have to have more than that. In AoE2, I could often win with any strat I felt like using if my opponent wasn't particularly fast or good at micromanaging, that's not the case in AoE3.

The pop cap is 200 in AoE3, but you can go way over it with war ships (they don't count against pop) and native units (same as warships). Even with a maxed vill pop of 100, you can potentially have an army of 135+ units late game. Usually it's around 40-50 because cannons and stuff take up multiple pop spaces. Whether your economy can support that many is another story.

Check it out for sure, it should be bargain bin by now.

 

[evident]

i thought aoe3 was ok, but didnt like the multiplayer because of the community. no one online wanted to play a regular game, rather they wanted 2 hour no rush games.. what's with that

i really missed AOE1 and ROR ex pack. and kali, and MSN gaming zone!!! those were the days

 

[LightningRider]

I loved AOE3, more than 2, but I think it was because I was older at the time and able to play competitively. I ranked in the top 20 players at one time and I played the game to death for about a year and a half. Excellent game but the player base has dropped substantially. I don't know how many play now but I imagine there can't be many...

Too bad Ensemble Studios is closing. What a dumb move by M$, they made great RTS games IMO.

 

[Via]

I have to say I also miss AoE 1 more than AoE 2.

 

[Zenoth]

I don't miss AoE II since I still own it, it's installed, and I play it from time to time. I bought AoE III (no expansions though), and I liked it, but I prefer AoE II.

 

[Sam25]

I loved AoE II, played it to bits!

 

[Lord Banshee]

AOE: ROR the best and is the game that got me hooked to PC gaming

AOE3 is pretty good (a pain to play with a 24" monitor as it kills my PC for some battles).. I have not tried any expansions for it either (not sure why...)

Also AOE3 is probably the last PC game you will see for a while seeing that Microsoft Axes the ES team after Halo Wars (Boo!!! MS).

On another thought i thought Company of Heroes was a pretty cool RTS.

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: Via
I have to say I also miss AoE 1 more than AoE 2.

Yup. This is also true for me.

 

[Riceninja]

aoe 2 was the definitive "medieval" rts. ive spent countless hours doing 4v4 with friends over hamachi on black forest. aoe 3 can't come close to the variation in tactics or units.

teutons ftw.

 

[TidusZ]

Try Empire Earth. Pretty similar to AoE2, but decisively better. Co-op Lan games against cheating ai's is particularly satisfying and difficult. 15 epochs ranging from stone age to nano age. Game is old, but with resolution turned up it looks as good as somewhere between aoe2 and 3.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: Lord Banshee
Also AOE3 is probably the last PC game you will see for a while seeing that Microsoft Axes the ES team after Halo Wars (Boo!!! MS).

Ensemble has actually split into two studios, one for support for their existing titles and the other for unspecified future development. I imagine both saw their manning and budget shrink considerably though.

And the prospects for an Age of Empires 4 remain dim.

 

[Farmer]

I've always called it AoK, but yeah, great game. Second only to Starcraft in my opinion.

 

[A5]

Originally posted by: TidusZ
Try Empire Earth. Pretty similar to AoE2, but decisively better. Co-op Lan games against cheating ai's is particularly satisfying and difficult. 15 epochs ranging from stone age to nano age. Game is old, but with resolution turned up it looks as good as somewhere between aoe2 and 3.

Rise of Nations >> Empire Earth.

 

[ViviTheMage]

Aoe1,2,3 were great! I am usually not into RTS too.

 

[KMFJD]

Spanish Super Villager Rush ftw....

 

[Robert Munch]

Need another age of mythology minus the titans.

 

[SuPrEIVIE]

Age of Conquerors is pretty much my favorite pc game of all time, i just cant get into other rts games, though i only loved specifically death match and some Custom Scenario is fun, but Random Map has always been the popular scenario and the main one of the game but i think DM is more time efficient and balanced in terms of war and economy.

 

[acheron]

check out Rise of Nations if you missed it.

 

[sandorski]

AOE2, Warcraft/2, and Total Annihilation were all awesome.

 

[idiotekniQues]

do any of the suggestions for similar games still have an active online multiplayer community?

heck, does AOEII still have an active multiplayer?

 

[TidusZ]

Never heard of rise of nations before, what multiplayer modes are best? I generally play with 4 people either lan or hamachi. Is the expansion worth getting? Is it similar to EE with lots of ages and epic games, or more like age of mythology/aoe3 with quicker games?

I gotta admit I'm not crazy about the whole A >B, C > A, D > C etc etc. In EE there were no damage types and certain units simply worked better based on their speed, range, accuracy, or attack radius. I preferred that.