We still don't have a real name for RTS3, but there were lots of interesting answers from Tony Goodman in the GameSpot Interview posted yesterday along with the video. One that's generating a lot of responce is this:
"GS: Is the game based on historical events, or does it draw its influence from fantasy or sci-fi themes?
TG: I can't say what the theme is yet, but I can say that both history fanatics and fantasy fanatics will be very excited about RTSIII."
That little mention of the word "fantasy", touched a nerve with quite a few Agers, many of whom are those "history fanatics" Tony mentioned. It sounds as those they are working on developing a middle ground of some sort between the two with this game.
We've certainly narrowed the scope of RTS3 down a bit, but it appears much is still to be decided. Whichever company publishes the game could have a pretty big effect on the finished product, and as was obvious by the inteview with Tony, that's still up in the air. Until the game has a publisher, it's likely that we won't be seeing much of it. ...add your two cents to the hysteria here...I don't know about you, but my eyes hurt from squinting at that video and probing its blury background.. ; )
The AoKH Destiny of a Dynasty - Chinese Campaign Contestofficial page has been updated to include an addition to the Grand Prize. In addition to all the cool stuff already up for grabs, the lucky person that is our contest winner will also walk away with an AoE Collector's Edition (signed by Bruce Shelley!).
As well, remember that the Contest Deadline is Febuary 15th, 2001 - a mere 15 days away. If you are planning on entering, make sure to have your entry in by the deadline, or you miss out on your chance for glory!
I have to give credit to Angel Zen for showing me this. If you have ever looked around Stainless Steel Studios you've probably noticed their Jobs section. SSS is also hiring voice actors or were hiring them. On the page though contains links to male/female scripts. The female ones are quite interesting and could possibly be taunts some are:
Queen Elizabeth - "As you wish." peasant British villager - "Certainly, my lord." modern American woman - "Yes?" Medieval Priest voice (old voice) - "Bless you my child." Death Screams
The death screams seem to get my eye the most. Go check out the page now and if you're a voice actor perhaps you could join, although the date has already passed.
Empire Earth Command Center has written a new Bob The Clubber article this time entitled, "Babes and Beer." Like always it is a fun article to read, and you might get to learn some tricks with staying off the computer. Also learn his smurf names and meet Becky. Can go see all the Bob The Clubber articles or just Babes and Beer.
Augustus has completed his redesign of Empire Earth Manor. The design looks much better and all the pages seem to be in working order except for maybe one or two. Be sure to go check it out.
The calendar contest over at Empire Earth X has come to an end. The 25 winners that will receive a signed historical Empire Earth calendar by Rick Goodman will be shown Thursday. The winners should by now know by email if they've won or not. These calendars are becoming more rare, but we'll will also be opening a contest soon that will give lots of chances to win.
I just watched the ES video at Gamespot, and most of it talks about the lessons they learned, what they like about making games, and even some background on how the company was created. All very interesting, but not even half as interesting as this bomb that was dropped by ES President Tony Goodman:
"We're working on a console game... in the future, we'll be working on an online game, possibly a massively multiplayer game" - Ensemble Studios President Tony Goodman
The video also showed some game play from super early versions of AOE. I'm sure there are things I missed, so check out the forums for all the other pairs of eyes taking it apart. Post your thoughts on the video here.
"See what goes on behind the scenes at Ensemble Studios, the company behind the incredibly popular Age of Empires series, with tons of interviews and a brief history of the company and its games. Look closely and you'll even get a glimpse of games it currently has in development."
**Update** The interview with Tony Goodman is also live now. Check it out here, GameSpot Interviews Bossman. They talk a lot about RTS3...a pretty much nothing but! ...will be seeing it at E3 in May...a safe bet there... ; )
Hey 'Sax! It has come to my attention that there is a great new review out by ign pc! See it here. Here is a piece of the review by Steve Butts:
Although things are kind of complicated, they're still quite fun. Like the good reviewers we are, we're still waiting to see how things look once the game is released. At this point the difficulty level is really high, even for a game of this type. It's not so much the interface that's the problem as it is the challenge posed by the AI. I guess I should just look at that as a chance to get better at the game. One further point of note, however -- the developers have already expressed interest in an expansion pack to the game. All they'll say so far is that it's set on the North American continent. Hmmm…
North American continent? AoK Americans vs. Cossacks Americans...
An interesting and bold list to post is a top ten list of the biggest legends of the Age series in terms of how good they were and their effect on the community. Xiphoid from Planet AOE has posted such a list, and I agree for the most part with his selections. His offcial definition for a legend is "as a player of every capability who has built an overwhelming reputation as having game anytime from tournament victories or big matches and a little attitude mixed in." He gave top honors to:
Notables missing from this list that come to mind are atsq, Lakuma, Dustin, Thump, Debaser, Helicon, and Staffa. There are certainly others who are escaping my mind at the moment, but X's list was certainly arguable in an informed ager debate.
Augustus has put up a new great design for his site. Since the new design is up though the rest of the site is being redone so you cannot view anything else. Go check it out now here.
CH Forumer Lord of Silla wants to know what strategy you plan on using. Will you go with cavalry? Artillery? Infantry? What about staying historically accurate? Put some suggestions here. Looks like the Strategy Forum is alive and kicking.
ngel Draco just informed me Stringbags Perfect 4C city, can now be downloaded from our site. A slight glitch with the scripts and the original name kept it from being available when it was put up earlier.
For those of you that wonder what a 4C city is, it's a city where all scores are at 100.
Just one more thing, every now and then we get emails from people wondering about why the need a User ID and password before they can download scenarios.
Well, you don't.
The messages is generated by various Downlaod Accellerators, which are not supported by our sites. You'll just have to download them the old-fashioned way.
A very interesting thread has popped up in the forum all sparked from PsychoRabbit wondering what would happen to a Castle once you upgrade to another epoch. Both Gordon_Farrell and Eggman of SSSI helped to provide some great information on that topic and more:
"In Empire Earth, you don't build houses to increase your population cap. You build them to increase the morale of your citizens --- but you have to build them near a TC in order for that effect to occur." -Gordon Farrell
What's the big deal about moral? The higher your unit's moral, the less damage it will take when it is hit! Drop in on the source link above to check out more on Town Centers, Capitols, and how buildings change when you upgrade to new epochs. ...you have to build something that's worth fighting for...something to inspire your army, I likes it! ; )
Today the long awaited ES video will be released. Rumors on what the video will contain vary widely, but most likely it will show us what it's like to work at ES, and some of their game development ideologies. Don't expect much in the way of RTS3 information, but keep your eyes peeled for any dry-erase boards or computer screens.
Check back here often for the latest word on the video's release. In the meantime, check out these sneak peaks:
We've received a new unit from Stainless Steel Studios called the AH-64 Apache. This is perhaps the best attack helicopter made today. You can usually find a few screenshots with this unit in it including Petard Rusher's unit pages. Here is just part of its description:
Production of the AH-64A Apache began in 1983. Over 900 AH-64A Apaches were delivered to both the US and international customers by 1997 before production switched over to the updated AH-64D and the Apache Longbow.
Sophisticated weapons, navigation and target acquisition systems, and night vision technology made the Apache the most advanced, combat-tested attack helicopter of the 1990's. It was primarily designed for anti-tank operations, but was effective against other ground vehicles and troop formations as well.
Stainless Steel Studios has released a new mini-interview with the infamous Eggman. Like all the past ones the interview is pretty small but still gives lots of information. Here is just one of the questions:
4) If you had to pick a single event that most influenced your decision to enter the gaming industry, what would it be?
That day in the 5th grade I made my own version of Risk.
Go check out his interview here or visit the interviews page for more interviews with other members.
The skilled Ager Corrupt Halberdier has sent me an excellent article on the ins and outs of the Turkish civilization and their infamous Gunpowder Rush.
BTW, if you are sending a strategy that you would like to be posted on the University, please include all of the HTML code required - Youch, forgot to add the closing bold tag:p.......
A pair of blokes from Ensemble Studios have popped into the forums this morning to help clear up a few misconceptions and let us in on a few interesting design decisions that were made on the expansion pack. With the big video about the Studios past, present, and future to debut sometime tomorrow Sandy "Sandyman" Petersen takes on a few RTS3 related issues:
"Q) When ES tells everyone about RTS3 on Tuesday...does that mean you can start asking questions about RTS3? A) I think you’ve mixed up 'ES is releasing a cool company video on Tuesday' with 'ES is going stark raving mad'. The video isn’t about RTS3.
Q) Is it true that 3d rtsgames do not have the same potential to create random maps as 2d rtsgames because of the amount of data involved? A) I know what website YOU’VE been reading As a matter of fact, it’s not as easy to make a random map in 3D as in 2D. So most companies don’t even try. Poor babies." -Sandy Petersen
For anyone expecting ES to spill the beans on RTS3 in their video, you may have to wait until E3 in May of this year for some real meaty details. It's very likely that the video is going to give us a peak, but no more. Thankfully Sandy also has given us a hint that the ES folks are likely breaking some new ground and throwing in random maps with their 3D game!
Xpack designer Greg "DeathShimp" Street dropped in on an RTS3 thread that turned out to be nothing of the kind. He did leave behind a very intriguing post about what was left out of the expansion:
"We experimented with giving the Koreans a super-Scorpion (which would be more historically accurate for a Shinkichon upgrade), but it was hard to balance. In order to justify the expense, the weapon had to be pretty effective, which meant that on those rare occasions when a player could get an army of 40+ together, they were unstoppable.
Cataphracts, Mamelukes, Elephants and War Wagons all seem pretty tough in large groups as it is. If any one of those units had been able to do ranged, area-of-effect damage...well, you get the idea.
I desperately wanted a Siege Tower in the Xpack, but there were too many gameplay problems. Everyone wants siege towers to be able to go over walls, otherwise it is just a garrisoned battering ram that shoots. But how can units go over walls? Do they just get to hop over the wall? Won't that make player just build two rows of walls with a gap in the middle? Late game walls are pretty useless anyways and there are much cheaper and safer ways to knock them down." -Greg Street
Well I don't know about you, but I'd rather have a slow moving super scorpian hunting me down as opposed to those War Wagons. Of course, that probably would have made taking out those nasty Korean Onagers pretty impossible to take out with super scorps around. A tough call there. Glad you're not a game deisnger? ...lots of Agers wanted siege towers...glad they aren't in the game now though, they woulda been pretty useless... ; )
Those of you who remember the World Cyber Games, and the role Battletop played in it will no doubt be interested in this very candid interview. John Varley, CEO of BT, responds to critiques and discusses plans for the future at Challenge.World. The topics are largely FPS in nature, but it's a good read if you're looking to stay on top of the big time tourney scene. ...looks like I wasn't the only one squinting real hard at this picture... ; )
The pointy but cute Angel Spineman let's us know of a change to the submissions process in the Blacksmith. If you're already a member of our forums, it won't be that big of a change for you. Your forum ID and password will be needed to submit scenarios and the like in the future, but head to the Blacksmith for the full story. ...thank you to dedkrikit for sending in the recorded game of the big shimado game from the forum party...cheers! ; )
My thanks to Xiphoid who sent a subspace message from Planet AoE that the ballots have been counted over at GameSpot in their Reader's Choice Awards for 2000. Over 20,000 GSpot faithful cast their votes, and the final results from all of their polls can be viewed for all genres. There are some surprising results, but few quite as close as the race for Strategy Game of the Year where The Conquerors edged out Command & Conquer Red Alert 2 to take home the award!
The winner of the Game of the Year for 2000 according to us readers is, Baldur's Gate II! Drop in and check out the entire set of results for yourself. ...surprised MW4 got an award...might have been good, but I'll never know because it refused to run on my system... ; )
Angel Jayhawk has been busy this weekend taking screenshots and doing clever things with them. You can see the fruits of his labours on the brand new Zeus Heaven Walkers Page.
...and a good time was had by all! Apparently there was a big shimo showdown that actually ended with a wonder victory. Hopefully one of the blokes involved will upload the recorded game for us!
I stuck with standard RM this time around, first tangling with GrEEk_OuTcAsT in a random civ game. I was Turks, he was Spanish and the hard fought game went into the Imperial Age despite my failed feudal attack. (thankfully I didn't get hit with knights or it woulda been game over)
Afterwards, Angel_Washizu, Angel_Socratieus, and me teamed up to take on The_Piemaster, Tintagil, and krud139 on the infamous The_Unknown random map script. The map turned out to be similar to arabia, very wide open, which leant itself well to my Mongol feudal attack on Tintagil, but an untimely drop by The_Piemaster (who was doing very well) spelled the end for the other team. krud139 got some revenge though in a 1on1 random civ game with me later. Turks again for me, and Mongols for him...doh.
Thanks to all who came out and enjoyed some games with us! Hopefully we'll see you all again next week. ...I'll be making sacrifices to the gods of randomness all week...enough with the Turks! ; )
**Update** Head to the downloads section to grab the giant 8 player shimo game from the party! Downloading it myself right now, thanks GUNS_N_ROSES for uploading it.
It seems that Petard Rusher has completed his pages on all the known units in Empire Earth. You can go check out this thread to view the pages that include aircrafts, tanks, siege, and more! We all thank Petard Rusher for doing such a great job and now we know more on Empire Earth
No, this isn't about the Superbowl. Rather, it's about two of the most anticipated games to come out soon-- Empire Earth and our dear Cossacks. Cheer on your favored game here!
Updated our poll today asking "Who's your favorite Forum VIP?" Last week's poll on the favorite wonder was won by The Roman Coliseum with The Great Library just behind a few votes. Here are the results:
The Roman Coliseum 26% (24 Votes) The Great Library 19.5% (18 Votes) The Lighthouse of Alexandria 18.4% (17 Votes) The Gates of Ishtar 14.1% (13 Votes) The Temple of Zeus 10.8% (10 Votes) The Tower of Babylon 10.8% (10 Votes)
Just a quick reminder that in a few hours we will be meeting in the Agincourt game room on the Zone for some games! Join us at 7pm EST! (4pm PST and EST=GMT-5) We'll be playing all sorts of different game types, so if you drop in you're likely to find a little of everything. ...maybe even a little shimado...shimo/nomad ; )
The votes have been counted at IGN PC's 2000 awards, and The Conquerors was not only chosen by the editors as best X-pack for 2000, the readers voted heavily in favour of it as well:
"What the readers thought: This wasn't even a contest. With The Conquerors stealing over 60% of the vote, your choice for Expansion Pack of 2000 was clear, so The Conquerors captured both our praise and yours."
Congrats to the Studios crew on more awards to add to their growing collection! (and thanks to Archangel for this great news) Drop in on the IGN PC awards and see how your favourite games of 2000 faired! ...I'm surprised Giants won for best action game...it's fun, but it had it's flaws too...well, the in game movies sure made up for much of that...some of the funniest I've seen! ; )
Looks like Angel Bingman is doing himself proud. He's been hard at work on the latest event in the AI Tournament League, an all Deathmatch showdown! The event has just finished up the third round, and Bingman's own script is currently the only one undefeated. Scripts by Keita, coteti, and AllTooEasy have been putting on impressive showings as well!
For results, the recorded games, information on upcoming events, scripting tips, and more, drop in on the AI Tournament League! ...there seems to be an echo in the Tavern...and some amazing artwork by Pigin...amazing he's still alive after posting those drawings! ; )
Hey 'Sax, CHers, EWarriors, Kasaks, and other assorted Cossacks-fans-yet-to-be-named! (Let your voice be heard on this subject here) A new game called Heaven and Hell is being published by CDV, the same folks who are bringing us Cossacks. Visit it's webpage here, it looks pretty cool. Here's what CDV has to say about it:
CDV's staff would even go through hell to offer heaven to gamers worldwide! This time with the assistance of Zweibruecken-based, talented developers from MadCat Interactive Software, who are ready and willing to overcome possibly upcoming obstacles to develop and release "Heaven & Hell", a God-Game with real-time strategy elements for the PC as well as for Microsoft's impatiently expected Xbox. Heaven & Hell will be the first real God-Game since Populous!
The gamer chooses to be either God or the Devil at the beginning of the game. According to each gamers' taste and mood two totally different game strategies can thus be pursued: building and growth or battle and destruction. The aim is to win over settlers from four different peoples who are not converted and to strengthen one's divine or diabolical power. In this sense the gamer can also show divine or diabolical behavior, by for example taking direct influence on the subjects to punish, hurt or reward, for example to show divine kindness and affection.
The gamer can display his power through wonders or catastrophes and convince or respectively scare the settlers. This game which follows the most popular book in the world, the Bible, will put gamers in seventh heaven with its love for detail and animation, with its divine and diabolical sense of humor and innovative interface!
The forum over at Sierra's Official Empire Earth site seem to be down right now. Most likely they'll be up and soon. We'll keep you informed on what is wrong.
The people at Empire Earth Total have changed their design for their site once again. It looks better in some ways but many of the links right now are disabled. Here is what Aragorn had to say:
Yes, I know...this is about the 4th "redesign" in the last month. If you are wondering what happened to all of the old news, it has been moved to the archive. One thing did not change, however, the name of course. We plan to remain Total Empire Earth, and serve you as long as possible. I encourage you to click the banners and come back often, so this site can get better and better. Look for some upcoming events...and some suprises.
This Tuesday will see the debut of a video that will give us a look at where Ensemble Studios has been, and where they are headed! (RTS3!!) For those of you who miss it, or want to watch it a few more times to look for any of those sweet dry erase boards and the like, we'll have it here for you on Wednesday.
Keep a close eye on www.ageofkings.cc and Planet AoE for other images from the video, and clear your calenders for Tuesday... ...not a bad Australia Day gift hmmmm? I hope ya'll had a good one.. ; )
IGN.com has a good reputation for providing news to gamers and hosting some top notch sites. Their post today, however, puts it in the category of e-tabloid. IGN Chats with Bruce Shelley is an article that says Ensemle is not working with LucasArts for their next strategy game. Maybe this site has been guilty of it at times, but I really thought "what was the point of posting this?" when I read the IGN article. I guess maybe they wanted to reiterate the rumor that ES may not be publishing a game with Microsoft:
"We just had some talks with them," he said, "That's all." Ensemble at this point is just acting as sort of a sounding board for some of LucasArts' ideas. "We're not writing code or doing any art for them," Shelley explained. "The simple truth is that we've done RTS games and they haven't -- at least not any that have been successful." Seeing as how LucasArts would like to make something of their Star Wars franchise in the strategy arena, it's no surprise that they'd turn to Ensemble, developers of the spectacular Age of Empires series.
Do you think Zeus was the best PC game of last year? If so, then Daily Radar's Awardasaurus wants to hear from you! Once again, thanks to award-spotter extraordinaire Angel Thunder for letting me know about this.
And you thought Ogre was only the great webmonster of Through The Ages. He also is trying his hand at game design. During his senior year, he and six others designed a 3D Adventure Game called Theseus, set in a futuristic/ancient Greek period. He based it on the excellent Genesis3D engine, which is freely available on the net:
Over the next few months of the semester we had to work on getting the project done. We were only given about 3 months to finish it and it had to work when it was done to receive a grade. There was no set time to meet or anything such as that. But to make sure everyone on the team was on the same page, we met every Friday. Some meetings lasted more than two hours at times. I would like to point out that teamwork is key in completing any project. Though all of us had our separate jobs, we were all part of a team.
Hopefully, this future Bruce Shelley will give us a link to download the project, so we can all give it a grade. In the meantime, read the whole article here...."where's the PATCH!" "It's so unbalanced!" "How do you take screenshots!!!"... Get ready for comments like those
Most of us are slightly following the movements around the country to prevent minors from purchasing violent and adult themed games. The latest report on the issue was released today by the Institute on Media and the Family, which approved of the direction video games were going, although according to them, retailers are not doing enough to stop young people (as far as I could tell, this means anyone under 14) from getting a hold of games that depict violence. CNN.com posted the story about the report, which can be found here. Supposedly, they also have statistics supporting the idea that games can make kids more violent. If you're interested in how they rated Age of Empires 2, head here. I have to say, AOK was probably rated pretty fairly.
I really hope that games don't go the way of movies, and restrict 16 year olds from seeing and hearing things they experience on a weekly basis. Personally, I think a 14 year old is plenty mature enough to watch an R rated movie, but that is just my opinion. I'm 22 years old and I'm not kidding when I say that I have been carded twice in the past year for movies I have been legally allowed in for 5 years now. If publishers and retailers want to restrict sales to certain ages, I don't have a big problem with that, as long as they do it SENSIBLY. A game like AOK should be purchasible by anyone, but maybe games like Kingpin or Soldier of Fortune should not be available to pre-teens. Just my opinion
Ya noticed that "Future" part too? It's looking like Tuesday may be the day we finally get a peak at RST3! ...blast it! All the good stuff happens when I'm commuting to school and back... ; )
Designer man, Sandy "Sandyman" Petersen dropped in to the forums in his spare time today to to provide some answers to burning questions, such as one I've been meaning to ask...What's displayed Duncan McKissick's monitor right now? (might get a scarey Lara Croft related answer to that one...) Here's a few of the catchy responces:
"Q) What is the last thing you'd want to hear from a fan of your games? A) 'We have your dog hostage. If you ever want to see Naomi again, you better make Canada the dominant civ in your next game …'
Q) Do you let your kids know about any news on RTS3 or any other games under development? A) Hell, they get to play it." -Sandy Petersen
I'd be far more worried about being swamped by requests for adoption rather than having your dog taken hostage by some nutty Canucks. Drop in on Sandy and see what other pressing questions he's taken on. ...hmmm bonuses for a Canadian civ would be? ...won't be any military bonuses, that's for sure! ; )
Any fans out there want more information on Empire Earth like say units? Well Petard Rusher, one of our popular forumers, has taken from the screenshots all the barracks, archery, and ship units that are known into an easy to see page. This is something you really cannot miss, and we'll all be waiting for the rest. To go check it out visit this thread. Can anyone say "WOW"?
Joffe will be launching EEfiles again on Sunday with some new features. Not sure what all the new ones are, but it'll still be worth a visit. For more information go visit EENC.
Yesterday it was reported that everything was reported that the folks at Microsoft had solved their technical difficulties. A quick scan of major MS sites today will tell you that they've still got some serious work to do as most are down and out, including the Zone. (thank goodness for GameSpy Arcade!)
A couple members of the SSSI crew popped into the forums here to answer some questions regarding unlimited resources and natural disasters:
"There are no random "natural" disasters. At least not in multiplayer... in the campaigns though, you can never be too sure a volcano won't suddenly pop up :-)." -Eggman
Yes, having a natural diaster randomly occur in the middle of your town in a multiplayer game might be a tad unfair, thankfully that won't be the case!
B Donor, also from SSSI, dropped in to give his take on why giving players resources that never expire is a good idea. Dislodging players from resources would be much more important, and would no doubt lead to some pretty major wars! Leaving a player to mine a little lump of gold, as you could in AoK because it wouldn't last long, won't be a good idea at all, forcing you to take action.
Drop by the forums to check out the rest of the answers from Eggman and B Donor, or to share a few thoughts of your own.
Switzerland is getting ready to rumble in a big Conquerors way. Ensemble Studios has just posted a link to www.agemasters.ch/, which is apparently hosting a Swiss championship tournament, sponsored by Microsoft! The finals will be taking place in Bern, and the two best players from there will be awarded a trip to the USA. That trip, paid for by Microsoft, will be to a World Championship?
There's been no official announcement of a World Championship that I know of. The french version (I'm german impaired) of the site does say:
"Les deux meilleures joueurs suisses de la Finale d’AoE 2 pourront participer au titre de Champion du Monde qui se déroulera aux Etats-Unis. Le voyage aux Etats-Unis est payé par Microsoft."
...Champion du Monde...it basicly says that the two best players from the big showdown in Bern will have the chance to go to the USA and participate in the World Championships!
Very interesting stuff. The qualification events for the finals in Bern are underway and continue into February. Hopefully we'll soon have some more information on this, but in the meantime be ready for anything.... ...I dunno what to say...I'm in bloody shock... ; )
**Update** The Ager who sent in word of a German add on not long ago, jk, has dropped me a line with a translation from the german version of the site that is a little less/more revealing than the french version:
"Microsoft can not tell yet wheter (!!) and when the world championship will take place....but Microsoft promised, that the 2 best players will travel to the USA in any case, even if it will turn out to be a holidaytrip only"
The staple of your army is infantry, which comes in a variety of forms from the basic pikemen and musketeers to grenadiers and mercenaries. Officers and drummers can then be built to organise soldiers into larger units which can include literally dozens of men in line, column or square formations. You can even take multiple formations and put them into whatever shape you want, and when you march them across the battlefield each unit will stay in the right position relative to the others. Sometimes this does break down causing units to bunch up or spread out, and even modest terrain obstacles can sometimes prevent you from putting large formations exactly where you want them, but overall it's a step in the right direction and helps to make combat rather less haphazard than in most real-time strategy games.
This is a blurb from the latest Cossacks preview, by EuroGamer. Check this article filled with nice insight into battle and other aspects of the game here.
Some great new info on Melee Cavalry and Miscellaneous Units is on the site, thanks to Angel Socrateius, the writer of the articles. Check it out in the Units section!
I received 2 articles today, both of excellent quality. Thus, I added them to the University. The 1st one, Nomad Strategy, was made by a team, Magicmel and Dedkrikit. Though, the 2nd article, The Saracens, was made solo by frequent forumer Micr0boy.
Just a neat little fact: Micr0boy's "The Saracens" article was the 100th article submitted to the University . [100th including all the test articles that are in there that you don't see ;) - Washizu]
The super quick reference card created by Mike "Captn" Kidd that catalogues available units and such for all civilizations has had an update. Some folks were very quick to notice a couple of errors, and some of the scores have been adjusted. You can snag the update from the ES Strategy Journal, and it's once again available in PDF and XLS formats. ...never realized how much I use the left shift key until I used a keyboard where it didn't work...had 34 to choose from and I picked the busted one... ; )
The first review is one you'd expect. Wewp! Entertaninment gave The Conquerors an 8/10 in its review. The real curious thing is that the reviewer said "Not much music. Mainly sound effects." Hmm... it's very possible that he had the music turned off, because unless you're deaf (which he must not be, unless the sound effects came from inside his own head), you'll hear plenty of music while you play.
The biggest part of this expansion is probably the 26 new technologies (such as theocracy or caravans) not including the technologies that are unique to the individual civilizations. Some of the best enhancements are in how your characters play in the game. The villagers are smarter and thus work and build more efficiently (a definite plus). For those who like to build farms, they will defiantly like the ability to have your farms be replanted automatically without having to manually assign a farmer to them. After getting used to the game, the Advanced tab comes in very handy. Another one of the enhancements to the game is that you can now place your ships in formations rather than having them go wherever they feel is best.
The second review is something I just HAD to write about. Not often do you see companies reviewing four year old games, but it seems that Gamer's Uplink is trying to change that trend with their review of Age of Empires. Yeah, that's right, the original Age of Empires with the Yamatos, Assyrians, chariot archers, gazelles, etc. Stay tuned for their reviews of Civilization 2 and Sim City 2000. haha
Ok, so this review is just a few years late, but you just can't have a site without a review of Age of Empires. The Age of Empires (or AOE) is one of the best games that has ever been released for the PC. It's durability and playability are second to none but it's own sequels.
It's definitely a good review for someone who's considering purchasing the AOE Collector's Edition, and wants to see if installing AOE is worth it. I have very fond memories of that piece of software, and there aren't many greater feelings than running a large force of lethal horse archers into your opponents town.
Apparently people all over the world are having troubles accessing Microsoft websites. This includes their host of official games sites, such as the official AoK site, and could quite possibly include the Zone as well. (which hasn't been loading for me, but isn't mentioned in this article) ZDNet has received the official word on the subject:
"Microsoft sites offline for hours
By Melanie Austria Farmer Special to ZDNet UPDATED January 24, 2001 8:29 AM PT
Microsoft confirmed on Wednesday that a number of its online sites are currently unavailable and have been down for a number of hours. Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is temporarily experiencing problems with its various Web properties, including Microsoft.com, MSN.com, WindowsMedia.com, Encarta.com, Carpoint.com and Expedia.com, said Adam Sohn, a company spokesman.
'Customers aren't able to get to some Microsoft Web properties,' said Sohn. "We're working as quickly as we can to resolve those issues.' Sohn said it was unclear how long the sites would remain offline."
Drop in on the source link above for the full article! The MS folks are working on this problem, so it surely won't last much longer. ...and if the link to MS above works for you, then it's likely fixed already... ; )
Plenty happenning at SCN Punk of late! Most recently, newly appointed Cherub Enrique Orduno has released his latest work, a scenario entitle "The Running Man", which is apparently a blast multiplayer. Drop in the the Punks to find out more. ...hmmm, perhaps we can try it out at the next forum party hmmmm? I'll give ya a head start! ...and no it wasn't meant to be a joke posting this so close to the item bellow... ; |
A letter posted this evening on Blues News. It's hard to ignore something like this:
"Just prior to New Year's eve, Bob Quinn was paralyzed in a skiing accident.
Most of you don't know Bob Quinn, but you do know his work. If you are playing multiplayer games on a Windows platform, or for that matter using almost any networked application under Windows, you are building upon his contributions to the Winsock standard.
But beyond the work he has done on the standards, beyond his work in seminars and as an author, he has also donated countless hours of his expertise to helping networked applications developers (students, professionals, games or not) privately and on mailing lists.
Multiplayer games on the Windows platform have built upon and depended upon the time he has spent; the games we make and play depend upon his efforts. Now, he needs our efforts."
Click on the source link above for the full letter, and for information on how you can make a donation to help out Bob Quinn. ...if you can't make a donation, perhaps help spread the word... ; |
Rumor has it that Cossacks will actually have an in-game multiplayer server, as opposed to needing GameSpy, as previously thought. However, this does not seem to have been officially confirmed yet.
Are there any new ideas left in videogames? And more specifically, are there any new ideas left in the RTS market? Has the RTS genre devolved into clones of a few good ideas, traceable back to games like Dune II and Warcraft? Or is there someplace for the genre to go from here? If there isn't a place for it to go, will it become like driving, fighting and shooting games in the arcade and consoles -- the same ideas repeated endlessly?
These and many other questions are thrown onto the board in this article by James Samuel at Daily Radar
I myself am fully convinced that Cossacks will bring some great new things to the RTS genre.
Our fantastic historian, Cherub Marechal, has posted a historic overview on the country of Spain, written originally by himself. Check it out here. Here's an excerpt:
Spain is one of the most famous (well-known) of the European powers at the time of Cossacks: European Wars. If one remembers one thing from world history class, it was that the Spanish conquered the Aztecs and Incans. Everyone is familiar with Cortes and his muskets conquering the mighty Central American cultures. We all know of Pizarro and his destruction of the Incan Empire in South America. Some of us even remember King Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, who sent Columbus on his voyage in 1492 to discover the New World. As important and influential as the Spanish conquest of the New World was, we forget and overlook the events and actions that took place on the Continent, where Spain was as active as ever.
I received a note from jk who pointed out a couple of pages on www.pcgames.de which may be of interest. Now, as my deustcher is limited to a few insults and asking where the bathroom is I just blindly downloaded the campaign they have there, and was pleasantly surprised. It's for Age of Kings, not TC, and is completely in German. I played the first scenario for about 10 mins and it's quite nicely done, with a cool map, triggers, everything you'd expect. Aparently it's just a two scenario demo of a much larger add on which has four campaigns and twenty-five scenarios about German history!
**Update** Scenario designer, and all around nice fella, Zanzard Lothar has sent in a note regarding this add on:
"I may be wrong, but i guess that the frquent AOKH visitor and renowed map maker Ingo Van Thiel had a big role on this Add-on from which you played the scenarios... well, at least he told me that he had been in a project of a AOK german add-on about german history, so i guess that it is this one you were talking about in the news..." -Zanzard
He's a good guy to write in and let us know about that eh? Ingo Van Thiel sure does know how to design an entertaining scenario, which makes this add on all the more worth looking into.
The dynamic duo at Quarter to Three have turned their eyes on Empire Earth for one of their infamous 60 sec previews. They sum up the games specs, provide a few screenshots, and wrap up with sharing their opinions on this upcoming title which includes this great one liner:
"The RTS genre needs a kick in the ass, and this game's wearing steel-toed boots." -Mark
It's short, and pretty sweet. Tom has some reservations about the game, but I think he's also one of the few who didn't like Deus Ex. ...didn't like it, and nominated it for worst game of the year no less...so he's got some unique tastes... ; )
AGE OF KINGS HEAVEN More To Those Mayan Farms, Gender Specific?!? Posted 1/23/2001 @ 1:50 PM EST by Thunder
After Mike "Captn" Kidd revealed that Mayan farms lasted longer on some maps than others, Emissary did some testing to see what happenned on which maps, and he posted his results here. PBS_Tinky_Winky tried to duplicate his results, and wasn't having much success. Here's what he's now concluded:
"First I tried on arabia and the farms lasted 20% longer which they didn't in Emissary's test. Then I thought it was the terrain and tried making farms on both grass and dessert but I got inconsistent results sometimes on grass I got 20% extra and sometimes not same thing happened on the dessert, all in the same game. After that a weird thougt crossed my mind and I tested if the villagers' sex had any influence on the farms durability and sure enough when females farm, the farms last longer and not so with male villagers. I have tested this quite a few times and have gotten the same results everytime. Oh yeah it doesn't matter who build the farm just who farms it." -PBS_Tinky_Winky
Unbelieveable? About as possible as farms lasting longer on certain maps and not others I suppose. The Mayans appear to have some issues with their workforce at anyrate. ...just seems to get weirder and weirder doesn't it?... ; )
Thanks to Angel Thunder for pointing out to me that Zeus has been nominated as one of IGN PC's candidates for the title "Best Strategy Game of 2000". As always with awards like this, competition is pretty stiff, so you'd better get voting .
leopatra (recently patched, see story below) has been nominated by the folks at IGN PC as one of the candidates for Best Expansion Pack of 2000. It's up against some pretty stiff competition, but let's try to get it asd high up the list as possible .
You can cast your vote here. Thanks to Angel Thunder for the tip.
The return of the arcade challenge! Xiphoid, master blaster of Planet AoE, heads to the Conquerors lobby on GameSpy Arcade tonight for a bit of action. There'll be some prizes if you and your team can take down the big guy in a 4 on 4 rumble, and failing that (many do, he's darned good), you'll have some great games! Things get underway at the usual arcade time, 4pm PST which is 7pm EST.
Also worthy of note, you can catch some delicious recorded games from the recent PAoE forum tourney on the news page. Just break your orbit and prepare to go in hot, find em at Planet AoE. ...we were so poor my parents gave me words to play with when I was growing up... ; )
If you're a fellow smack talker who has hold of the Sidewinder Game Voice or the freebie Share version, an update to the software has just been released. Version 1.2 beta offers:
"-Full compatibility with Windows 2000 -Better keyboard injection for improved voice command recognition -Keyboard Push-To-Talk for your chats -Keyboard activation for voice commands -Improved compatibility for American and British English profiles -Internet auto-dial will no longer be triggered automatically"
Those are some handy new features worth downloading!
Communication is key. Check out our GV review if you're wondering if it's going to be right for you. The review is getting dated, as it was done using v1.0, but it'll give you an idea of what the product can do. ...whoever thought up the toggle switch on the Game Voice for switching from headphones to speakers is my hero...I use that switch absolutely everyday! ; )
Campaigns have been a hot topic of late in our forums, and who better to toss in some great information than Strike Team member Gordon Farrell? He stopped by this topic in the forums to answer some questions about just how much of Greek history will be covered by the campaign and more:
"The Greeks Covering the whole history of the Greeks from the Trojan War to the conquests of Alexander. ___________________________________________________________ This is completely correct. Actually, we'll start in Greek pre-history and trace some of the mythological and archaeologically-known early peoples of Greece. Then onwards -- we will visit several battles/wars between Athens and Sparta, as well as Alexander and Darius III.
But as Eggman said, this ain't Alexander's Greatest Battles! So we won't be distinguishing between Hypasists and Thracian Javelin units (for example) --- but there will be surprise and I hope pleasing appearances by some major Greek individuals, and some of the most famous Greek military units." -Gordon Farrell
Gordon also discusses the big differences between designing after market scenarios and campaigns for a game that players have already played a great deal, such as his scenarios for Age of Kings, to creating for a game that's yet to hit stores in Empire Earth, and one that players will still be getting used to when they tackle his single player work. It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it. Many thanks Gordon!
Some screenshots from the campaign Gordon has been working on can be viewed in the screenshots gallery on the official EE site. The gallery there recently went from three pages to four, but I'm not sure that anything new was added. Perhaps they were shuffling things around to make room for more. ...the one with the trojan horse is a G.Farrell original... ; )
The winner of the most recent tourney on the Zone, Kaiser_Willhelm has had a nice sit down chat with the FOPT Clan folks. (thanks to FOPT_Strawberry for sending word!) This guy is a talented player who's tangled with the very best, and answers a wide range of questions:
"Question: In last years World Cyber Game Challenge in Korea you made the 4th place for $ 4.000 of prize-money. Further more you are now "officially" the best non-Asian player in the world. Did your life change after this experience in Korea in one way or the other ?
Kaiser_Willhelm: Yes. After Korea i became a MUCH better player, and sure it has changed my life. It was a fantastic experience , i still can´t believe these things really happened.
Question: Let's stay at for a moment at hotkeys. I was told to ask you about your personal hotkeys. Do you know and use ALL the hotkeys ? Did you even edit hotkeys for smarter playing ? And if so would you tell us which were the most important changes you made ?
Kaiser_Willhelm: When i returned from Korea, i immediatly re-arranged the hotkeys in about 30 minutes. I´m very happy with my new settings. I put all important stuff to the left on the keyboard and changed my fingerstance. I use my fourth finger on "A" , which i´ve set to "villager build" and i use "W" to "select Town Center" and "E" to "create villager". WEWEWEWE...very smoothly actually. I changed practically all hotkeys but i don´t want to tell about ALL the changes. I think that you should set the hotkeys in a way that suites yourself the best and not copy others. People´s minds are different and work in different ways. For instance i use "G" for mill. That´s left from AoE to build "granary" and i don´t think that many players in AoK would feel comfortable with that."
Head on over to the interviews section at the FOPT site for the entire interview, it's well worth it and available in both english and deutsch. Afterwards, check out their downloads section for recorded games from Kaiser_Willhelm and many more great players! ...make sure you turn up the volume before visiting the site for the interview... ; )
There's been an aweful lot of articles (it may just seem that way) lately that are looking ahead in the RTS genre. Many of these articles have been some what critical, or a lot, critical of the 3D RTS as the general opinion seems to be that no one has done it "right".
The Mule, a Daily Radar butt kicker, has put together an editorial on this very subject:
"Due to the success of a few key titles, developers and publishers are under no onus to really change the genre. Why do anything but refine what's been successful? Clearly going it on your own isn't a guarantee of success -- games like Battlezone and Battlezone II, while critically successful, didn't sell well. Hell, why even do 3D? Not one of the 3D-based RTS games have been successful in comparison to those in 2D."
Well, we all know that Ensemble Studios has been at work developing a 3D RTS game, breaking from their traditional, and top notch, 2D games. There's way more questions in the article then answers, but as we wait for more news on ES's future project it may be of interest.
Another very popular series heading the way of 3D is Warcraft. The third installment in that stellar franchise may be out by the end of this year, but of course we all know those dates don't mean much to the folks at Blizzard. From what little I got to see of it at E3, it's got a familiar look to it, but it is obviously 3D as just looking at the units tells you that much. It'll be very interesting to see who does 3D better, ES or Blizzard. ...or EE... ; )
Daily Radar has posted an article about the future of RTS games and the sort of boring characteristics of them. I do kinda agree with some of the parts although RTS games still rule number one on my list with action games like Unreal Tournament a close second.
The resource models are clearly the most popular; Star Craft and the Age of Empires series both dominate sales charts years after their release. The player gathers resources, builds a base, creates a military and either attacks the enemy or defends against them. There are a few variations on this theme, but for the most part it's the same over and over again.
By the way this article doesn't talk about Empire Earth, but still is interesting to read. Go check it out here.
Itchy of Impressions dropped by today and announced the long awaited news. You can find the download here. Check your CD to make sure you get the correct language version.
Eggman has appeared in our popular forums again to answer a few questions. One of the threads catched my eye about the scenario editor in Empire Earth. The Eggman said:
We've added a lot of AI manipulation to our Editor, so having to pull up a text editor to do extra AI work out-of-game should be a thing of the past. You also won't have to worry about passing lots of files around to get your scenarios to work right.
Big relief to the map makers out there that have trouble making those AI files and for single players that always get confused where to put what file where. Go check out the thread here and start posting.
Hey there! We have added a new section to Cossacks Heaven; it is a list of all the "hotkeys" for the game. For those of you that don't know what a hotkey is, it's a key that you press to do something in-game, such as build a certain structure. Make sure to drop by and check it out here!
rowsing through the forums I bumped into a message from Cherub Baltic. I guess this is what many of you have been waiting for:
Don't you think this forum looks sad when it is so deserted? Let's bring some life into it! I know some of you can't wait to get their hands on a nice competition mission... but we won't start right now. First, I would like to invite you to take part in a Caesar 3 competition! I'm sure most of you have Caesar, too - well, if you don't, please be patient for a while. Pharaoh competition will come right after that.
I don't plan any big event right now, it will be just a few independent missions, like the preolympic competition last year. I have posted first preliminary info on C3 Heaven. More info will be available during the week... be sure to check Caesar Heaven on Friday 26th, if you intend to participate or are simply curious about the competition.
Having recently had my first taste of the newest rm script from the gang at ES, and having enjoyed the randomness of it, I took it for another spin tonight. This random map script from the Studios, The_Unknown, threw a new variation at me tonight. You never know what you're going to get with this script, islands, land map, resources and relics vary, it's always an adventure. As you can see by the mini-map, both the enemy and I were sealed up tight in forests in this odd variation! It would make for a very lopsided game as the red player could chop his way out with relative ease, and have free access to all of the resources on the entire map.
Having pointed out that strange map out, I must say that I just generated a bunch of new maps using The_Unknown script and not one of them was even remotely like it, so the chances of a repeat aren't high. ...is it just me or does that map have two eyes and a mouth? ...it's laughing at me... ; )
It's only been around a year? I couldn't believe that the prestigious site, Planet Age of Empires, had only been for a year, but the word came from Xiphoid so I imagine it must be so. Perhaps it's the history of commitment that Xiphoid has shown since the very beginning of the Age series that's foggied up the facts for us.
At anyrate, as we all get older, we tend to take a look back to see how we've come along. With PAoE celebrating the big one year anniversary, Xiphoid has written up an account of his journey down webmaster road that lead him to his present success:
"Yes, it really doesn't seem like it's been that long but exactly one year ago from today, January 21, PlanetAgeofEmpires was launched on the GameSpy Network to provide a complete resource for Age of Empires and Age of Kings fans. The site has definitely come quite a long ways from its launching status, with now hundreds of downloads, thousands of forum members, 100k forum posts, an archive of hundreds of daily news updates, and last but not least, many new visitors. My deepest thanks to all the visitors and contributors to the site because you're the ones that make it run.
To commemorate the event I wrote up an editorial on how PlanetAOE began as a small hobby site of mine a few years ago and how it's grown into what it is today. The editorial sheds some light on what the Age community was like back in the day of its infancy and some of the primitive tools I used to create my first sites. Whether you recently discovered PlanetAOE or have been visiting my line of sites since Age of Empires Atrium, this should be an interesting read for all. Thanks again and here's to another year of success and happy gaming." -Xiphoid
Not only has he shared a great deal about himself and his work over the past four years, Xiph posted some old artwork from the many changes that his Atriums went through.
Our congrats to Xiphoid! His dedication and fantastic work over the years have both been of tremendous quality and quantity. I'm sure you've got many many years of success ahead of you. ...getting a bit too mushy? ...ok dear, I'll take your roses back to the store... ; )
Our own Cherub Baltic is preparing a map to challenge all Caesar III Governors in a little friendly competition. You can let him know if you are interested here in the Reviewer's Corner forum. You will not want to miss out on this opportunity. As one who helped test the maps for the Pharaolympics, I can tell you Cherub Baltic has a reputation for interesting and some say diabolical maps. Just ask some of the veterans.
Be sure and check back on Friday Jan. 26th for all the details.
Hey there! Every good gaming community should have a name. Those that play the Age series are called Agers, those that play by Impressions Games are called Citybuilders, etc. So I think we Cossacks fans need a name, no? Brainstorm about it here.
Thanks to Eiji for sending this my way. eToys has a great price on The Conquerors Expansion for Age of Empires 2: The Age of Kings, so if you haven't picked it up yet, or would like to buy it for someone else, you'll only need $16.99 (plus shipping).
Jace has created a 5-6 minute slideshow of Empire Earth with screenshots and good background music. It requires you to have Real Player though. It runs and downloads very smoothly, and it is worth a look. For more information and to check it out visit Empire Earth X. Be sure to wait for more great slideshows from Jace in the future.
Everyday for over a week now the IGN PC crew have been adding another category for their readers to vote on. RPG, action, sports, strategy, and now the all important vote for expansion pack of the year! The Conqerors is in tough against some big sellers, some big names and some of both in the case of The Sims xpack. Be sure to vote for your favs from last year!
The ballots are to have been counted by the 26th, so you've got a little time to make up your mind, hum haw and play a few nominees that you may have passed up on. ...oooo my, the Pharoah xpack was nominated too... ; )
A few bumps along the way, generally provided by the staffers at the Zone, created a little tension, but everything went smoothly in AOK Battlefield's tourney yesterday. Congrats to the stoneless champ, FanatiC_PaLadiN! For recorded games and final results drop by the SF Showdown tourney page for the works. ...rock on... ; )
ngel Draco just informed me Stringbags Perfect 4C city, can now be downloaded from our site. A slight glitch with the scripts and the original name kept it from being available when it was put up earlier.
?
Rather, it's about two of the most anticipated games to come out soon-- Empire Earth and our dear Cossacks. Cheer on your favored game 
leopatra (recently patched, see story below) has been nominated by the folks at IGN PC as one of the candidates for Best Expansion Pack of 2000. It's up against some pretty stiff competition, but let's try to get it asd high up the list as possible 
es, it is.
rowsing through the forums I bumped into a message from Cherub Baltic. I guess this is what many of you have been waiting for:
Having recently had my first taste of the newest rm script from the gang at