As seen at PAoM: Eagle Games has announced the expected release date for its AoM-style board game that we've heard about from time to time last year. On May of this year, you can get your hands on this board game if you need even more of an AoM fix than the game can provide. BoardgameGeek has the press release, here's a bit of it:
New York, NY – February 16, 2003 – Eagle Games, Inc., today announced that it will release the board game version of the PC game Age of Mythology® in May, 2003. The most recent title in the phenomenally successful Age of Empires® franchise was developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft® Game Studios last October, and quickly became one of the top selling PC titles of the year.
The Copperhead Website has posted a movie featuring the siegelet. Note; there are some stuff there that could be considered "icky" by some people, so if you feel like you're one of them, well, maybe this movie isn't for you.
As to what it shows, I'll leave that for yourselves to discover. You can find the file here. (1.6 MB, WMV-Format)
The old poll, "The first time I play a new Siegelet, I play with...", at the official site has been updated yet again. The results of the last poll looks as follows.
I haven't played any Siegelets yet
51.9%
A new character
23.1%
My oldest
10.6%
Whatever is suggested by the Siegelet creators
10.2%
An Uber character
4.2%
52% never having played a siegelet? You're missing out on something people! I know I must sound like I'm advertising, but playing siegelets really add to the game, since many players are bound to have played through Ehb and the Utraean Peninsula many times by now. If you want a new map and feels like you want something more official, download and try Yesterhaven, a 3rd map by Gas Powered Games. It's available at Siege Network.
Back to the gas powered poll! There was a total of 1583 votes, and the new question is "The style of Siegelet I would most like to see more of is: Fantasy, Historical, Modern, Future/Sci-Fi, RTS (Real Time Strategy), Team-Based Competitive or Other".
Resident newshound for the Rise of Nations Community, Rohag, has added a new section to his site that recalls many of the great debates that have raged since the announcement of Rise of Nations. It's very interesting to read and provides a lot of history on the game. You can view the page here and for anyone who isn't on Rohag's daily news mailing, you can sign up for it here.
EMPEROR HEAVEN Trivial Pursuit Round 2 Results Posted 1/31/2003 @ 7:43 AM EST by GillB
Busy news day today :)
Trivial Pursuit Round 2 in the Community Forum finished last night when the first person reached 1000 points.
Many congratulations to the winner, Fortuna, with 1000 points and third place Alex_pharaoh with 900 and also to the second place participant with 950 points who isn't a million miles away from this news article.
It was an excellent competition with 21 different forumers taking part. Many thanks to Debbie who organised the whole thing, finding about 40 new questions every day, marking all the answers and adding up points. She deserves a short rest ... then on to Round 3?
Apologies for the quality of the picture but it was in a fairly dark corner. I’ve enhanced it as much as I can. Anyway … it’s a tablet but not quite what it seems as it was specifically made for long ago collectors and is a reproduction.
The questions:
1. What is it made of?
2. What is the Chinese name for it?
3. When was it made (the Dynasty or approximate date within 100 years)?
4. What period was it reproducing (the Dynasty or approximate date within 100 years)?
Answers to me (link under the title) by 1.00am forum time next Friday, 7th February. As before, no prizes except for the honour and glory of being congratulated in the news.
Thank you to so many of you for having a go at the picture quiz. Many of you knew what it was, four of you got the right dynasty and two of you got the date within a hundred years. The answers, according to the V&A Museum in London where I took the photo, is that it was a stone pillow or headrest and was made in the Song Dynasty, slightly later in the dynasty than most of you guessed in about 1200-1250.
Anyway, congratulations to the two winners:-
Graywolf and Ice
Very close behind them in third place were the two people who had the right dynasty, but were a little further out on the date - Runhe Zhang and Trevor Keller.
CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OF YOU
I thought it was quite hard ... I'll have to try to find a picture that might cause you all a few more problems - probably later today.
Gamers.com has recently updated their preview for Rise of Nations. This new article covers their impressions of the Marketing Beta that was released in october of 2002. There are a number of screenshots from the game as well as an area where people can rate the game's hype. So head on over and check out the full article.
For those that have been suffering the from the problem of not knowing exactly how many villagers are on each resource, _StorM_Siegfried_ over at MFO has made a program to aid in the counting. On the resources stockpiled section of an AoM screen, it separates the amount of resources with a slash and gives the number of villagers working on that resource. 'Tis a very useful tool, download it.
...according to Deathshrimp in a thread in our forums. People have been looking at the different changes that the patch made to the game, and one of those that was investigating noticed that Egyptian farming upgrades only increase gather rate by 1% instead of 10%. Deathshrimp's response explains how quickly Egyptian villagers gather compared to other civilizations, and that he doesn't believe that there is a bug in the game.
"In this case, the effects are cumulative. Egyptian Villagers are villagers, after all. So while Greeks get a 1.10 bonus, Egyptians get a 1.11 bonus (1.10 for being a Villager and 1.01 for being an Egyptian villager). The extra 1%, while small, helps to make up for the fact that Egyptians are inherently slower than Greeks at farming, so the farming upgrades are actually better for Egyptians. They can never quite catch up with Greeks though (without Thoth), which is the price they pay for having such cheap buildings..."
"...I don't believe there is a bug. I can't say for certain it doesn't exist, but according to those lines from the techtree (which are correct), Egyptians get a +1% bonus above and beyond what Greeks get." - Egyptian Farming...
Spotted over at MFO: MAD Leaders is hosting a 1 vs 1 tournament, the second year they've done it. First prize is a 50 dollar MS game, which isn't all that bad. Here's what they had to say about the tournament:
I welcome you all to join the fun this Sunday, Feb. 2nd, to celebrate our 2 Year anniversary. Like last year we will be hosting a 1x1 Rm, Random Map tourney. All games will be played that day and it is guaranteed to be fun. The 1st prize is a 50$ Microsoft Game so it will be well worth your time!! Sign up now at: http://www.madleaders.net
P.S. Sign ups/Rules are at the Forums and spread the word, the more the merrier!
AGE OF KINGS HEAVEN Farming Water? Mining Water? Cutting...? Posted 1/30/2003 @ 6:02 PM EST by Luke
ell, you tell me. Not an easy resource to gather, but certainly an interesting one. I can think of a few people who would have been very glad with it... In any case, Hector Ocampo launched a discussion about water as a new resource, sweetening the "bait" with a bag full of quoted opinions from other forumers. I for one think it's an interesting angle... What do you think? Go to this thread and share your mind with us. The more opinions, the merrier, nay? ;-)
GAME.NET has finally opened and now offers a new way to play cossacks. The site allows you to play games on GAME.NET's own servers. GAME.NET has free and subscription based services, the services are varied to whether or not you choose to subscribe.
yxomma100 is starting a screenshot competition. If you have some interesting screenshots lying about, or could craft one in a jib, header over to his thread, read the rules, and participate.
Some time ago, we received a few comments from Ensemble Studios' Sandy "Sandyman" Petersen that indicated the guys at ES were working on a 'secret project' aside from AoM. A recent post at MFO by Sandyman however indicates this is longer the case, since it seems this secret project has been ditched.
If you only had a minor role with AOM, what were you doing all that time?
Ensemble Studios' Mike "Captn_Kidd" Kidd dropped by MFO to give some perspective on some of the topics that have received some criticism throughout the Age community - in particular about the buggy nature of computer games and the interaction developers have with the online community.
Why are computer games so buggy? The best explanation is that the industry constantly searches for the sweet spot between flashy new technology/features on one hand, and reliability on the other. Any company could ship an absolutely rock-solid game if they were willing to give up on features...or if they were willing to greatly increase their development cost and timeline. The "right" answer for a business is to find the balance point, where the quality is high enough that investing more in it won't generate enough additional sales to make it worthwhile. Because computer gamers put a very high value on graphics quality, depth of gameplay, performance and other features, game companies put much more emphasis on those areas. The good news is that consumers are in control. The more that buggy games flop, and solid but perhaps not as flashy games do well, the industry will respond. And piracy as "punishment" only makes it worse, it reduces the total amount that a company can afford to invest, reducing quality and feature set.
Why does ES ignore the online community? As much as it may seem like it, we don't. The online community is getting (and will probably continue to get) a disproportionately large part of our focus. The majority of our customers never play our games online. The majority of those who do go online don't follow the fan sites regularly. Yet since AoM shipped, we've put more programmer time into ESO and patch improvements than we have into one of our "main" projects. Why would we do that, and "shortchange" the majority who play offline and would like to see our next product ASAP? One reason is because the online community is a big influencer of the casual gamers. Another is because ESO is very new, and we want to do what it takes to make it the best in the business. To date, you've seen three patches that represent some of the work we did in the first 10 or so weeks since AoM hit the shelves. Other work continues - lots of work, and I think you'll like what comes out when it's released.
If you've got your own thoughts or feedback, then head over to this thread at MFO.
AoM Center has redesigned their downloads section. The design - like the rest of the site - looks to be quite good, here are the changes that were made:
- New design for the section. - Downloads section works with our forums. - You can edit your added files. - You can re-upload your excisting files. - You can link forum topic discussions about your file with the downloads section. - and some smaller improvements here and there
AoM Universe is holding a Ra Fast Heroic game clinic this Saturday, Feb. 1st at 1pm & 7pm EST. In those clinics, both Heavens_Myst and L_Clan_Justin will be helping out players to improve their skills. If you're looking for some game help - especially adapting to the changes made by Ra in the patch - be sure to head down to the clinic this Saturday.
Just a quick newspost: duM has reported in our forums that he's made a program that calculates the rating a player would have after playing another, provided each players' current rating were input. Considering that rating opponents are chosen randomly, this really isn't incredibly useful, but it's a nice program to give players an idea of how the rating system works.
GameSpot presents a Rise of Nations Hands-On Preview with 14 new screenshots, including shots of Conquer the World.
Here's an excerpt:
Rise of Nations seems more and more intriguing each time we see the game in action. Could this unusual game bridge the gap between turn-based strategy and real-time strategy?
Beyond the text and pictures, GameSpot – for its premium customers – has added a video of an interview with BHG’s Tim Train and Paul Stephanouk.
"Dungeon Siege: This 3D RPG from Microsoft, to be distributed by Destineer's Bold Games, has already made it to beta testing. Glenda said, "It's one of the best looking games Westlake has ever done. The graphics are really gorgeous. We're really excited to get a full scale RPG out the door, too.""
Rise of Nations Planet is the host for this week's Weekly screenshot. It's a very nice shot of an air raid being made on a Japanese town. If you look to the top of the shot you can see what appears to be a brand new addition to the Japanese Nation's art set. The Zero Fighter. Now head on over and check out the shot by clicking here.
In a best of three game Finals between Myll_Slaghter and TOAO_Tarzan to decide who would become AOKH's New Ladder Champion......Myll_Slaghter came out a head 2 games to one over TOAO_Tarzan.
Congratulations to Myll_Slaghter for this victory. For those who didn't know..... Myll_Slaghter was the very first AOKH Ladder Champion over a year ago! ...Who says lightning can't strike twice!
A big congratulations also goes out to TOAO_Tarzan who has become one of the best players playing the game!
.....Good show guys!
To get more information and or add your comments go ------> HERE!
Gaming Illustrated has reviewed AoM, giving it a score of 92%. They gave perfect 10's in all categories besides Originality, which was a 6. Not bad. Here's a bit of what they have to say about the game:
"A Strong Handle!The Final Word: Fantastic, so addictive I can't quite believe I've managed to get this review done, really high quality gaming nice-ness. Would probably even convert non-fans."
NPD Techworld released their top 10 list for the PC game sales of last year. Understandably enough, Age of Mythology was not on that list. This is due to the fact that it was released very late in the year, giving it only two months to sell. Next year, though, it's hoped and expected that AoM will be on that list. Check back next year to see if my expectations were correct.
1. The Sims Vacation Expansion Pack - Maxis/Electronic Arts $28 2. The Sims Unleashed Expansion Pack - Maxis/Electronic Arts $28 3. Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos - Blizzard/Vivendi Universal Games $54 4. Medal of Honor: Allied Assault - 2015/Electronic Arts $44 5. The Sims - Maxis/Electronic Arts $42 6. The Sims: Hot Date Expansion Pack - Maxis/Electronic Arts $29 7. The Sims Deluxe - Maxis/Electronic Arts $41 8. Zoo Tycoon - Microsoft $27 9. Harry Potter and the Sorcerers's Stone - Electronic Arts $29 10. Roller Coster Tycoon 2 - Infogrames $27
Angel Izzy, modpack maker extraordinaire, wrote up a nice tutorial that gives step-by-step instructions as to how to edit the textures of units in Age of Mythology. For modders, this is a nice article to read, and definitely something to take a look at.
"This article is a step by step introductory in the creation of texture-edited units for Age of Mythology. The tool being used for this walkthrough is Ykkrosh's AOMed, which you can download at this location. (1.26 MB) If you haven't already downloaded the editor, please take the time to do so now. This article only edits texture maps, nothing else. Unfortunately, transparencies are not editable either. And before you go on, please take note that I was not the first one who started AOM texture editing, people such as Ykkrosh himself, The King of Cheese and ra5946, did this many days before me, so I in no way should be taking all the credit." - Texture Editing Tutorial by Angel Izzy
Our very own ZhaZ has written an extremely informative article on Isis, the "Byzantines of AoM". He goes over the god's choices as it progresses through the ages, along with an overview of a recorded game between Kasa (Isis) and BoDyGuArD (Odin). Here's a snippet:
"Best Myth Units of Isis When choosing which God to advance with there is usually in competitive AoM the focus on god powers and technologies. But one should not neglect the potential to utilize Mythological Units.
Anubite vs Sphinx: Definitely Anubites are the best here. With their speed and cheap cost they are great in all Classical armies adding the punch Egypt tend to lack."
You can take a look at the rest of the article here.
If you log onto ESO now, the 1.03 patch will be downloaded to your computer and installed. The majority of what it fixes are gameplay imbalances(such as Ra), and major bugs in the game. Here's all of the things that the patch fixes, as seen at ES' AoM page:
Fixed an exploit that could give permanent LOS from building foundations.
Fixed a potential memory overwrite.
Spy no longer goes away when the spied unit constructs a building.
Fixed a problem with IME cursor placement.
When placing buildings, automatic alignment now works against other foundations . as well as other buildings.
Fixed a targeting issue with Walking Woods that could sometimes cause it to do nothing.
When restoring a savegame, god power icons should be immediately visible.
Fixed some positioning problems with the post-game timeline "tooltip diamond".
Customized hotkeys are now reflected immediately in the UI help text.
Long filenames should now display more properly in the load & save dialogs.
In the editor, the "Set Tech Status" trigger now presents an alphabetized list of techs.
Popup dialogs in the editor can now be dismissed with the 'ESC' key.
Unit Balance Adjustments (NOTE: Save games from versions 1.00, 1.01, 1.02 will not be affected by the balance changes. Recorded games from versions 1.00, 1.01, 1.02 are still supported and will replay as before): - Egyptian First Age farming is slower; Plow restores the rate. - Plow takes longer to research. - Ra's Chariots and Camelry have a smaller hitpoint bonus. - Ra's Priests now empower gathering less than Pharaohs empower gathering. - Mercenary Cavalry pierce and hack armor decreased. - Build limits (max number you can have at one time) imposed on Mercenary (12) and Mercenary Cavalry (8). - Mercenary and Mercenary Cavalry lifespans are 5 seconds shorter. - Heavy Chariot, Camel and Elephant improvements are more expensive. - Chariot speed decreased (Ra's are still faster, but less fast than they were). - Animals of Set cost 1 less pop slot. - Heroes no longer get bonus damage vs. animals of Set. - Set's Slingers have more hitpoints. - Roc hack armor decreased (easier for Throwing Axemen to hit them). - Roc speed decreased. - Cyclops has more hitpoints. - Poseidon's Towers produce only 1 Militia.
Update: Forumer Celois has made a thread which gives the exact stats on the changes made by the patch.
Cossacks Tech depot are apparently working on another excellent AI mod pack! The pack will be even better than the current one and the AI will make the AI use even more diverse units than before To find out more watch THIS SPACE!
Please welcome Cherub Flammifer, the latest person to join the staff here at Age of Mythology Heaven. Flammifer is administering our AoMH Forumers Ladder, which has already had a flurry of signups, and judging by the present activity is already off to a good start.
Until now I had pretty much thought that the (questionably practical) AOK market-buying strategies wouldn't translate to AOM due to everlasting farms. However, a preliminary analysis supports the opposite conclusion: it appears that in AOM several civs, particularly Norse and specifically Thor, can get a HUGE benefit from the market in early heroic by deferring farming in favor of buying food.
If you're interested, you can find the full post here. Yeah, alright...I get my kicks out of looking at numbers. Sue me.
Legion clan member L_Clan_Justin has been kind enough to submit his guide to Loki to AoM Heaven's strategy section. the article provides a great step by step buildup for playing Loki on both land maps and water maps, and taking advantage of his early attack capabilities. Personally, as a die-hard Loki player, I find this article very helpful. Hopefully you will as well.
"Starting off Assuming you get Hunting Dogs nor Husbandry:
Villagers 1-6 go to food.
Make an oxcart
Create 2 dwarves to be sent to gold
Make another oxcart
Send 2 vills to wood
From that point I send 3-4 vills to herd animals around TC after
being created
Mix in 2-3 more dwarves to help preserve food to advance
1 more villager to mine gold, eventually going up w/ 22 population at approx. 3:55. (Reach Classical Age by approx. 4:55)"
The rest of the article can be found here. Also a quick note: Strategy articles are now dated along with the version of AoM they were published under.
Old school AoK player Little_Wing has posted a very nice thread concerning Baldr's Mythic Age god power, Ragnarok. It goes over just about any point or fact that you would like to know about the power, so that players can use the game-changing power to its optimum level. Check out the thread for sure, it's a very nice piece of work.
"*** And perhaps most important of all: Trade caravans! These are vital, have a good trade network up and running before using Ragnarok. Caravans don't get converted into heroes, and they will be your econ for the next while. Caravans will keep the gold coming in even though you are over pop and have no vils, and with gold you can buy wood/food if needed. Caravans are vital in quickly recovering your econ, don't be afraid to buy food/wood if needed, by Myhic the prices should be low anyway. Trade caravans let you enjoy the benefits of Ragnarok (huge army, breaking the the pop limit) while greatly reducing the econ hit. It is quite possible to run a no vil econ for a while, with caravans supplying the gold. This is the number one method to avoiding the econ crunch of Ragnarok."
PAoM has had two interesting threads pop up in their forums, containing some very interesting information. The first one is a poll on Einherjar where KS_Josey_Wales makes the point that they are the most powerful classical MU, due to the largely unknown damage given by its hornblowing special attack. If you're interested(and you should be, if you're a Norse player), take a look at the thread.
The second post in their forums has been made by Mowie666, going over many of the stats and facts of the Egyptian Pharaoh. It's a very good way for players to see just how powerful that unit is.
From the main page of Big Huge Games' website comes news that their upcoming title, Rise of Nations, will be featured in the March issue of Computer Gaming World.
Judging by an early beta CGW has been playing for weeks, Big Huge Games' Rise of Nations appears to be on the verge of absolutely nailing the real-time strategy sweet spot in a way very few games have accomplished."
So keep an eye on the newstands for this issue, it should be a good read, and we might even some brand new screenshots from the game.
EMPEROR HEAVEN Fayuum - An Upcoming (Pharaoh) Attraction Posted 1/27/2003 @ 1:50 PM EST by Jayhawk
Our favourite Pharaoh scenario maker, Granite Q has been at it again and has devised another fiendish scenario, titled Fayuum.
The competition will open February 1st If you want to know more, you'd better keep an eye on The Competition Corner.
Knight_Robby of the webquad network has written an interesting article on Rise of Nation's Gameplay.
Rise of Nations exceeds in both keeping the traditions of the RTS Genre while at the same time offering very unique and exciting twists. As with nearly every economic buildup and military-oriented RTS Game, Rise of Nations gives players the chance to create a bustling nation, one either proud with economic growth and military might, or burdened by war and economic constraints.
Multiplayer client Ensemble Studios Online is currently down. Ensemble Studios' Paul "winter" Bettner has dropped by the forums to give us a quick update - it seems the recent SQL worm has been creating problems on the ESO servers.
... as many of you guessed, related to the SQL Slammer worm/virus that started attacking the internet yesterday. We are doing what we can to resolve the issue and hope to have the ESO servers back online soon. I'm very sorry for the inconvenience.
Arthur of Kings has posted a great new topic in the AOE III Forum called Age of Empires Redux. It deals with taking the two prevoius Age games and thier expansions and putting them together to create one great epic game!
Instead of advancing to the Rennaisance and gun eras, how about moving backwards again. You could improve on AOE and then redo AOK. Maybe even combine the two into one game...
There has been much deabte in this thread and it is worth reading!
Western_Rebel's Deathmatch Tournament is off and running with 12 players going for the Championship. AOKH has not seen a Deathmatch Tournament for some time and it is great to see that there are still so many players that alos like this side of the game. AOK:TC offers so many different ways of playing the game that many are forgotten. Deathmatch games are still very popular and this Tournament proves this.
The Tournament is into it's 2nd round and the action is heating up!
To get more information on this event go -------> HERE!
Macdaddy's Ladder League is going strong and seeing some great games. Over 32 players are involved in 8 different divisions. Each player is trying to end up on the top of their own division and the compitition is heating up.
Macdaddy has put a lot of effort into the Ladder League and it shows by the level of participation it is seeing! Good work guys... keep it up!
To get more information or find out ho to sign up for next season go ----------> HERE!
It's been a while since we've had cossacks related news but Gamespy has finally got around to reviewing one of the best games of last year...Cossacks:BTW! The review is split into two sections, one for Cossacks fans and the other for cossacks newbies. An extract from the second section can be found below :
Although Back to War is a standalone product, seemingly to help introduce new players to the series, it has one glaring deficiency holding it back: no single-player campaigns. There's an introductory campaign that acts as an excellent tutorial, but after that -- nothing. The new player is thrown back on his or her own resources.
Back in June 2002, back when the multiplayer alpha test was still a distant but exciting prospect, the idea of a ladder, similar to the community ladder run at our sister site, Age of Kings Heaven was raised. Unfortunately, various administrative problems meant that it took a long time for it to finally happen...but it's now here!
If you are not familiar with the AoKH Ladder, head over and check out the rules, and even sign up. Remember the idea of the ladder is first and foremost to have fun playing other AoMH'ers.
The ladder is being administrated by long time community member Flammifer, who is a great guy and fun to play a game of AoM with. (And you can frequently find him at our prestigious - okay maybe not prestigious - forum parties!) It's a big commitment he's made, and if the success of the AoKH ladder is any indicator, I'm sure his work will help nurture the community here.
A big thanks to Kumar Shah who helped us resolve some problems and finally get the ladder started. Not to be forgotten are ArmageddonUnlimited and Dark Side of Day who developed the system on which the ladder is based. Finally thanks to Talon who is putting his efforts into developing a brand new ladder program to hopefully make Flammifer's job a little easier! Now...all that said, go sign up fer the dern ladder, ya gits!
There are many AoM clans around the net, and the newest one comes directly from Through The Ages itself. Take a look at the official TTA clan, if your interested. Here's what Soggyfrog has to say about it:
"Welcome to the opening of the TTA clan, after so many failed attempts (all of them being my fault), they're finally opened... Or being opened..."
AoMUniverse had the chance to catch up withChris "Swinger" Rupp, former ES playtester and among the top players on ESO.
AoMU: Are there any plans to ESO improvements in the works, such as an improved PM system?
Swinger: I'm somewhat out of the loop now, so I don’t know for sure what the current plans are, but I do know that ES wants to do a lot more with ESO to improve its functionality and performance. Considering we had to build the system from scratch, I think it turned out pretty well, but there is certainly room for improvement.
AoMU's Cowboy had the chance to talk to Swinger about a few different subjects...so if you're interested, head over and check it out.
Halfman has sent in another piece of fan art, this time a pencil sketch of a lance wielding Centaur. To check it out, head over to the fan art gallery.
KS_Josey_Wales is back, this time with his guide to Anatolia. Head over and check it out for some great tips on what to do and what not to do on Anatolia.
The Wargamer has a brand new interview with Oleg Yavorskyy about American Conquest. The interview is pretty interesting as Oleg tells us who AC is targeted at and why. To read the article click HERE
Time to exercise your brains a little. Firstly, if you haven't already, visit Debbie's Trivial Pursuit Round 2 in The Town Square.
Secondly put your thinking caps on and have a look at this picture:
I can tell you that it's painted stoneware; it's solid (ie there's no lid) and its dimensions are about 2 feet wide x 6 inches high x 8 inches deep.
Question: What was it used for; approximately when (within 100 years) was it made and which dynasty would that have been?
Answers to me (email link at the top of the article) by next Friday morning 1.00am forum time. No prizes I'm afraid, but the closest to the right answer will get the honour and glory of being mentioned in Emperor Heaven's news.
IGN has just released an updated preview for Rise of Nations based upon the latest build of the game. This brand new build shows off a great many of the changes that have happened in the game since the Marketing Beta was released late last year. It even includes a few unexpected and pleaseant surprises.
By far, the best new feature in the game is the Conquer the World mode. This is where the old AH roots really come out. Combining the basic concepts of games like Risk or Diplomacy with the regular RTS gameplay results in a game that will probably remind you of the campaign modes in Creative Assembly's Total War series.
The mode is remarkably open-ended. Rather than providing you with a set story with defined plot points, Rise of Nations opts instead for a more Civilization-like approach where the player's actions allow them to project their own narrative into the game. As such, no two games of Conquer the World will necessarily hit the same high and low points.
The article goes on to describe more about the game and even talks about a few of the newer touches that have been added to the artwork on the units in the game. Things like making the Japanese carrier plane look like a Zero.
So head on over and read the full article and also be sure to check out their media page for some cool new screenshots and even a few gameplay videos. Very cool stuff!
Programmer Josh Farley shared a little insight about AoW2's engine and how blood is realistically rendered on the tactical battlefield:
"The blood is AoW2 is actually part of the complex particle system, so it's "real" drops of blood you're seeing when units get struck. However, rendering those drops onto the 3D terrain would have been a complete performance killer on low-end machines (besides the likely ratings issues), so was never implemented."
You can read the full thread here in the AoW2 General Discussion forum.
To follow-up on their list of last week's sales, NPD Techworld has also released the top 20 list of game sales for the month of December. Age of Mythology took the solid spot of 7th, well ahead of any actual competition. How will AoM do this month? My guess is that it will probably be in the same area, maybe one or two spots lower. All in all, the sales are and should be quite good.
1 The Sims Deluxe - Electronic Arts $41 2 The Sims: Unleashed Expansion Pack Electronic Arts $27 3 Harry Potter & The Chamber Of Secrets - Electronic Arts $29 4 Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 - Infogrames Entertainment $28 5 MS Zoo Tycoon - Microsoft $28 6 Backyard Hockey - Infogrames Entertainment $18 7 MS Age Of Mythology - Microsoft $43 8 The Sims: Vacation Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts $28 9 MS Zoo Tycoon: Marine Mania Expansion Pack - Microsoft $28 10 Warcraft III: Reign Of Chaos - Vivendi Universal Publishing $42 11 Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault Spearhead Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts $32 12 The Sims: Hot Date Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts $28 13 Backyard Football 2002 - Infogrames Entertainment $16 14 Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault - Electronic Arts $42 15 Dark Age Of Camelot: Shrouded Isles Expansion Pack - Vivendi Universal Publishing $29 16 Backyard Baseball 2003 - Infogrames Entertainment $17 17 The Sims Online - Electronic Arts $48 18 Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone - Electronic Arts $23 19 Backyard Basketball - Infogrames Entertainment $18 20 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring - Vivendi Universal Publishing $41
NPD Techworld has released the top 10 selling games of the week of Jan 5-11, and Age of Mythology jumped all the way from 10 to 7. It seems that the low sales were just due to the slump in purchasing following Christmas. Hopefully, this pattern will continue and next week's list puts AoM even higher. It was outsold by one of its only real competition - MoH - but the 7th spot is still great.
1 The Sims Deluxe - Electronic Arts $43 2 The Sims: Unleashed Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts $30 3 Harry Potter & The Chamber Of Secrets - Electronic Arts $28 4 MS Zoo Tycoon - Microsoft $27 5 Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 - Infogrames Entertainment $27 6 Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault Spearhead - Expansion Pack Electronic Arts $32 7 MS Age Of Mythology - Microsoft $42 8 The Sims Online - Electronic Arts $45 9 MS Zoo Tycoon: Marine Mania Expansion Pack - Microsoft $28 10 Warcraft III: Reign Of Chaos - Vivendi Universal Publishing $44
I was doing a quick run through all the gaming sites to see if anything interesting was happening. Found some details on Rise of Nations, but saw our sister heaven already handled it. So, I'll just say April.
Microsoft might be obtaining Vivendi Games Division (was up for sell while ago, somewhere in news archives) although there's been no official word. Who else would you expect to take over an entire game publisher though? Vivendi is also the indirect publisher for Counter Strike, Empire Earth, and Starcraft. While Microsoft published the Mech Warrior series, Age of Empires & Kings, and of course owns Age of Mythology. Maybe MS can make it even better.
Also, GameSpy is currently listing their top 15 picks for 2003 in PC and Console games. Tommorrow, they'll be releasing the top 7. So far most of the games seem like they deserve it, hopefully the top 7 aren't bad. Anyone else cheering for Pacman 3000?
I was looking around at Cnet when I spotted this. The now widely known RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is finding new ways to take out illegeal file sharing. In a court trial, RIAA won a dispute to find the name of a Kazaa user who supposely shared hundreds maybe thousands of illegeal files. Also, RIAA is now attacking ISP companies saying ISPs should pay money because their users are using the internet for illegeal means. Very hard to believe that any company could possible gain the name of one of its users and definely want to see how the ISPs vs RIAA works out.
*-Added Later-* I also just created a new thread in the General Forums. For those of you that generally don't post in the forums but just browse the site, really would appreciate it if you voice off your ideas even if you say my idea is impossible. I'm debating in the thread of making RTS games be more server-sided.
Finally, the biggest news of today. Our infamous Cherub Azn has finally upgraded from a 56k modem to a DSL line! Amazing, just 3 years ago I was one of the few in my area to have it, and now its the norm......yeah sorta a slow day, by the way infamous actually means Having an exceedingly bad reputation; notorious
With all the excitement over the recently announced release date for Rise of Nations today, I almost missed the posting of the weekly exclusive screenshots over at Rise of Nations Empire. The two shots show oppossing armies from the enlightenment age lining up for a battle. If you look to the top right of the screen You can see one of the British Nation's Unique Units, The Black Watch, lined up and ready for a fight.
Now head on over and check them out by clicking here.
I recently recieved an email from Gerry over at AoM Network - the largest German AoM fansite - informing me that 100,000 copies of the game have been sold in Germany. This means that AoM got the "gold award"(probably similar to a record getting a gold/platinum record for selling a certain number of copies), and it's well on its way to getting the "platin award". Congratulations to Ensemble!
3rd one in a row, Fragland.net wrote up theirs for AoM. The site gave it a 91%, pretty good. Here's a snippet:
"This is truly a great extension of the Age of Empires series, worthy of the Microsoft stamp. I had loads of fun playing this game, and I assure you, once you've started playing the campaign, you can't stop playing it untill the end. The only downside is the multiplayer, but with some effort, Ensemble Studios can fix that too."
Its Official! MS has finally published the release date for Rise of nations!
Microsoft Game Studios today announced that Rise of Nations, the latest real-time strategy game from famed game developer Brian Reynolds, will ship to stores in North America on April 22 and to most of the rest of the world in May. Poised to reinvent the genre, Rise of Nations allows players to overwhelm opponents with military might, or to apply the tried-and-true art of diplomacy to campaign over 6,000 years of history from the Ancient Age to the Information Age -- and ultimately, to achieve global prominence.
Developed by Big Huge Games, Rise of Nations combines the epic scope and depth of traditional turn-based strategy games with the pulse pounding thrill and speed of RTS games, providing unprecedented excitement while maintaining rich gameplay. The game allows players to create new cities, improve their city infrastructure and expand national borders. Players have the option to win through military might using everything from slingers, cannons, musketeers, tanks, aircraft carriers to nuclear missiles, or corner the market on key commodities, and wheel and deal with 18 highly diverse and unique nations. Rise of Nations also features innovative approaches to gameplay through features such as national borders, spies, generals and flank attacks.
In addition to streamlined and fast-paced multiplayer games, Rise of Nations also features the in-depth Conquer the World campaign, which allows gamers to expand their empire across the globe as they face a variety of tactical challenges on the road to global domination. More information on Rise of Nations can be found at the official Rise of Nations website:
Well, Dungeon Siege just scored in one of the categories! Namely Best Graphics of 2002! Here's the words of why.
"Why it rocked: To paraphrase Elvis Costello, Talking about graphics is like dancing about architecture. More than any other aspect of game design, graphics quality is something instantly apparent to even the most casual players. As such, it's harder to say why we like this one than it is to show. Nevertheless, the world of Dungeon Siege seems truly alive at times with breathtaking environments, a sensible camera and wonderful models. On top of that all, the lack of load points creates a seamless world where all of these assets exist together."
Thought we were finished with reviews, but they still filter in...the latest comes from Worthplaying. The comprehensive review goes over what impressed them, and evidently the guys at Worthplaying were very impressed, scoring it 8.7 out of 10, and awarding it their editor's choice award.
Clearly Ensemble has devoted a lot of talent to Age of Mythology, what was already an excellent RTS series is only exponentially improved with AoM. It goes without saying that if you are a strategy fan that this game should be in your library of titles, but what is really surprising is that AoM is also extremely accessible even to newcomers of the genre. Start saving those pesos hombres, because Age of Mythology is a do-not-miss-under-any-circumstances experience that will keep you glued to your monitor for ages.
The Wargamer has put up their review of Age of Mythology. They were extremely pleased with the game, giving it their Award for Excellence. Here's a bit of the review:
"In the beginning, there were Real Time Strategy games, and they were good. Without a doubt, predecessors to this fine title such as Age of Empires I and II caused many game hours to be logged on thousands of PC's, not to mention a few faked sick days (ahem). When Age of Mythology hit the market, my initial reaction was one of complete despair; how was I going to convince my loved ones that I needed a spare day (or week or two) to really play this title down to its nuts and bolts? Fortunately, reason won out, and fortunately for all of us, Age of Mythology is an absolute hit."
Just head on over to PAoM. My friend Xiphoid recently posted an 8-question Q&A on the god, and it gives players a very general idea on how to go about playing the god if they've never played it before(such as Norse-loving moi). Take a look.
Over in the forums, Cherub Aetius has posted Chichiri's compilation of all of the known bugs in Age of Mythology. The list is quite helpful for those looking to avoid getting into sticky situations by being aware of just what will happen when, say, they cast spy on an enemy unit right before the unit builds a building. Here's a snippet:
Norse bugs: Flaming Weapons (God Power): > When flaming weapons is cast, Drakkars (Norse ramming ships) gain almost +400 attack. Frost (God Power): > Son of Osiris does not get frozen and gains 99% of both armors when frost is cast on it. > Frost does not affect Set animals. > Frozen villagers can still garrison into town centers if the town bell is rung. > In some cases, if frost is cast on a army that is bronzed by the bronze GP, once frost has ended - the bronzed units remain bronzed permanently - even if the bronze timer has ended. Spy (God Power): > If Spy is cast on a unit that can build, and then that unit builds something - the god power dissappears. > If Spy is cast on a hero carrying a relic, the spy stays on the relic that is dropped in the temple instead of the hero. > If Spy is cast on a Son of Osiris, the spy stays on the area where the other player used the Son of Osiris GP. > If Spy is cast on a sheep, and the enemy claims the sheep, the spy effect dissappears.
You can find the rest of the list and comment or suggest an addition to it here. Speaking of bugs, Ogre from Though The Ages has mentioned to myself that Railwolf has come across a rather large bug for AoM. Here's what he had to say:
"I ran a test on AoM last night. I was playing against one Titan comp on the Nile map. After one hour and a half AoM started taking up more than 300MB of RAM and 500MB in the page file!!! The comp and I were fighting eachother every few minutes on his side and everything stayed the same for at least half an hour (we both kept creating about the same size army and kept killing eachother's army off), so there's no reason for it to have eaten up so much memory. I bet there's a memory leak in the AI."
Spotted at PAoM, the top 10 sales for the United Kingdom have been released for the last week. AoM is holding its ground at number 5, which is better than how it’s faring against other games in the US.
1 Sim City 4 2 The Sims: Unleashed 3 The Sims: Deluxe Edition 4 Norton Antivirus 2003 5 Age of Mythology 6 Medal of Honor-Allied Assault Spearhead 7 The Sims: On Holiday 8 Norton Antivirus/Firewall 2003 9 Medal of Honor: Allied Assault 10 Microsoft Office Xp Student Edition
According to a thread in our forums, the LKSware team has been working on a program that - like the name indicates - helps you manage parts of AoM. They've just finished with the beta, and it's up for download at their site. If you're interested, here's all of what it does:
1. Ability to rename, delete recorded games 2. Ability to store "profiles" about each recorded game 3. An online database of recorded games 3a. Able to search for games using player name, map, deity 3b. All games downloaded go directly in the savegame/ folder (no more unzipping, or going to the savegame/ folder!) 3c. No banners, no websites to visit. Just search, click, download, and watch. 4. Ability to view Top 20 on ESO in Supremacy, Deathmatch, Lightning etc. 5. Renaming, Deleting, Adding ESO friends 6. Ability to export, and import ESO friend lists (great for Clans who want to distribute an updated ESO list to all members)
You can get the rest of the information about the manager in LonelyKnight_Imperator's thread
RISE OF NATIONS HEAVEN Gamespy Names Rise of Nations 15th Most Wanted Game of 2003 Posted 1/21/2003 @ 3:20 PM EST by Tonto_Z
That's right, Gamespy has named Rise of Nations as the 15th most wanted game of 2003, saying that Rise of Nations has bridged the great gulf between turn-based strategy lovers who swoon for careful empire-building and real-time strategists who love clickin' and killin' at hyper speeds.
Not too shabby I'd say. Check out the rest of the aricle here, and be sure to check out all the rest of the upcoming games of 2003 here.
The things people do (and have done) for beauty are sometime as strange as they are painful. GillB did some research into the old Chinese practise of foot binding. The article is...well, different
If you are squeamish you may not want to read any further as the actual mechanics of footbinding were not pleasant. The idea was to stop a girl’s feet growing and it usually began between the ages of about three and six although it might be later in poor families to allow her to work for a while first. As would be expected from the size of the country, there was no one standard age or even style.
Droptricking has become a problem on ESO, with players basically dropping and getting a free win. Well, L_Clan_Justin from MrFixitOnline has written a short article on what to do if someone tries to do that to you. It's a nice page to spend maybe 3 minutes reading, as it will probably save you a decent amount of points in the future.
"1. Dropping is all about timing, beat the dropper...you win 2. Remember the 5 second rule. You have 5 seconds after he re-enables his connection to beat him out 3. When the "player not responding" screen comes up, you have 3 choices: "wait", "drop player", and "save". Never ever press save. Saving gives him 30 seconds to run away with your points "
Our latest fan art submission comes from Halfman. It's a pencil sketch of the Norse Einherjar...and personally I think it looks great. You can check it out here.
GameSpy have posted a five page article written by Ensemble Studios' Stephen Rippy, who along with Kevin McMullan composed the original music used in Age of Mythology.
We had always wanted to work with an orchestra, but never really had the resources for it, let alone the understanding of how to go about doing such a thing. So the idea stuck around in the backs of our minds as a pleasant daydream … until the management folks suddenly made it a priority for AoM's opening cinematic. Once we were committed to that, we decided to really push ourselves and use the orchestra for all of the game's bookend tunes and a short marketing piece.
Community Relations Manager Graham "Thunder" Somers has dropped by the forums to answer a few questions.
"Will the game enable RPG-type scenarios?"
Yes you could make quite a creative RPG like scenario, especially given the versatility of our scripting language. With the huge variety of units and time periods that we cover, there is a massive amount of material for scenario designers to work with.
You can check out the rest of his answers, and post a few more of your own in this thread. Thanks for stopping by Thunder!
With the activity level of the AOE III forum growing everyday it is hard to find a topic that stands out above the rest.... however after saying this, there is one topic that does just that!
Another great new topic can now be found at the AOE III Forum at AOKH. This Thread created by forumer War_SythVic279 deals with New Units and Techs. It has generated well over 100 replies and growing.
To add your comments and to get more information go ----------> HERE!
TOAO_FunkyGus has picked this weeks Ladder Warriors. The three players that topped the list this week are all very good players that everyone knows.
The #1 Ladder Warrior player of this Week is: Morningthaw
Morningthaw is the #1 Ladder Warrior. Morningthaw is only one of a few select AOKH forumers who has played 300+ AOKH Ladder games, so it's no surprise to see him on the Ladder Warrior list! Morningthaw has played hard all week and only lost 2 games against AOKH's finests! He can also be seen playing AOKH Ladder Games and played a large amount this week which earned him the #1 spot. Great Job Morningthaw!
The #2 Ladder Warrior player of this Week is: TOAO_Tarzan
TOAO_Tarzan is the #2 Ladder Warrior. Tarzan has played 180+ AOKH Ladder games and has made the Ladder Warrior list before. TOAO_Tarzan has emerged into one of AOKH's great players and earns the #2 Ladder Warrior spot this week for his ability to play all 8 AOKH Ladder Champion Tournament games and winning them all. He was up against some of AOKH's top players and took them on without fear! Congratualtions TOAO_Tarzan!
The #3 Ladder Warrior player of this Week is: Myll_Slaghter
Myll_Slaghter is the #3 Ladder Warrior. Myll_Slaghter is a long time AOKH'er who always enjoys a good game. With his hand a lot better, we have seen Myll_Slaghter getting active on the ladder again. Also in the AOKH Ladder Championship Tournament, he played a load full of games. Myll_Slaghter took on some tough contendors and had a solid week of gaming!
Congrats goes out to all the Ladder Warriors!
To get more information on the Ladder Warriors go --------> HERE!
I'd just like to say a happy birthday to CH and to congratulate all of it's staff members for making the great little community that we have here Hopefully next year we will again be able to look back at everyones achievements and celebrate CH's third birthday with as much happiness!
The official site, dungeonsiege.com, has compiled a library of links to various resources in the DS community.
"Ever wondered how to develop your character to become a Grand High Siegemaster? Curious about the creatures you can summon with Nature magic? Stuck in the swamps? Wonder no more!
Today we've added a Library to Dungeon Siege.com to help you find the answers to your questions. The Library contains links to many excellent community created resources to help you enjoy Dungeon Siege to it's fullest. The Library contains information on character development, items, spells, creatures, maps, and walkthroughs."
In your quest for knowledge, don't forget our own Library here at Dungeon Siege Heaven. A lot of it is linked to from GPG's bigger library.
(Alright, I'm a little slow with this one. It's in the news though now, right?)
I admit, the concept of setting yourself up to rely on a myth unit didn't buy me when I first heard it...after all, myth units often don't appear at all in competitive games, or at least, not in a major role. But KS_Josey_Wales has written a great article on what he calls the Zeus Centaur Strangle. Having read what he wrote and checking out the recorded games demonstrating it, I'm convinced. Just what is it about? I'll let you find that out for yourself...head over and check out the article. (And definitely watch the recorded games.)
Natalinasmpf, on the forums has found a way to create AC maps using the cossacks map editor. Hopefully this will help any of yu eager map designers at bay until Febuary 14th. To read more about what she has to say take a look HERE
A special apology to Natalinasmpf for assuming she was a male!
The momment we have all been waiting for has occured! Now we can be left to count down the days until we head out to the stores, buy the game and lock ourselves in for hours of playing!
Quoted from the CDV newsletter :
American Conquest - due for release on February 14th, 2003 - portrays 300 years of historical conflict in North America. From the moment Columbus arrived in Newfoundland to 1492 to the War and Declaration of Independence in 1776, this game covers it all. Up to 32,000 units - a gaming record - can take part in each battle, resulting in some of the most sophisticated and epic depictions of war ever seen in a computer game. The game is unique as an educational tool as well as a great strategy game: it utilizes historically accurate weapons and strategies of the period at hand, which evolve throughout the game
daveoh77 has made an interesting post at MFO to help clear up those nagging questions about how Norse favor gathering and Loki's hersir summoning work. If you'd been wondering about how exactly these work and why, head over and
For those that have been suffering the from the problem of not knowing exactly how many villagers are on each resource, _StorM_Siegfried_ over at 
Legion clan member L_Clan_Justin has been kind enough to submit his 
ur favourite scenario maker, Granite Q has been at it again and has devised another fiendish scenario, titled Fayuum. 
Thought we were finished with reviews, but they still filter in...the latest comes from 
