Conquering the World
A review of Age of Empires II in one of my columns

I love to blast anything that dares to move in Quake, or hack and slash through the dungeons of Diablo II. But the game that I play most is Microsoft's Age of Empires II. I have thoroughly enjoyed playing Age of Empires II since it came out about a year ago. And to make a great program even better, Microsoft recently introduced Age of Empires II: The Conquerors Expansion, which gives the game some needed improvements, as well as new civilizations and technologies that broaden the experience.

While most of the emphasis seems to be on the addition of five new civilizations- the Aztecs, Huns, Koreans, Mayans, and Spanish-I've been more impressed with the improvements that make the game less frustrating to play. Since Age of Empires requires you to collect and manage resources, it was always a nuisance to manage them while in the heat of a big battle. It's here that the new version offers some needed changes. In fact, I can't think of better ones for the designers to address.

If you've played the game, you've undoubtedly had it happen that your food was getting low, all your farms have dried up, and the farmers are simply standing around while you're taking your army to war. In The Conquerors, you can create farm queues, so that villagers will automatically replant the crops once they expire-an outstanding and welcome enhancement.

Or how many times have you built a mine near an outcropping of gold or stone, and forgotten to tell the builders to mine the gold when they finished excavating the mine? I often discovered that I had neglected to do this when I was building gold-intensive weapons and running low on gold. It was particularly frustrating to see my miners simply standing around the mine waiting for their next order. In The Conquerors, villagers automatically begin to harvest resources after they finish building a nearby mine or mill.

A problem with earlier games was that your powerful weapons, such as the stone-heaving mangonels and onagers, could wield devastating results on enemy forces, but if your armies were nearby, they might also be destroyed. With the expansion, these weapons no longer fire on enemy targets if they are in the midst of your vulnerable troops.

Another plus: you can now garrison foot soldiers inside battering rams, which makes the rams move faster, and also acts to shield infantry units from archer fire. With this enhancement, I found that I began to rely more on battering rams, whereas before I almost always used those cool tribuchets.

The expansion offers new map types for battles on snowy or tropical terrain, as well as games that emphasize production over combat. Also, I particularly like the new formations that make it easier to control and position ships. In the past, fleets of ships had a tendency to spread out all over and be rather unwieldy.

I discovered that the computer's AI is smarter and offers more of a challenge than before. At higher levels, the computer opponent is quite adept at harvesting resources and building a significant and aggressive army.

The new civilizations are notable, and each has its own skills and technologies. I like the eagle-masked warriors and tribal monks of the Aztec and the Mayan civilizations, as well as the strong Aztec infantry and Mayan archers. The Koreans have their powerful turtle-shaped boats and armored horse-drawn war wagons.

Other civilizations from the original game have benefited from this upgrade, too-for example, the Chinese can now experiment with rocketry. With the new civilizations come campaigns based on the exploits of Attila the Hun, El Cid, and Montezuma. A fourth campaign offers a series of unrelated re-creations of historical battles.

Overall, Age of Empires II: The Conquerers Expansion is a satisfying upgrade that offers needed improvements, as well as new civilizations and technologies that will provide new challenges for die-hard players. In a sense, this expansion is a minor upgrade, but this is because Age of Empires II was such a great game to start with.

I've always considered real-time strategy games such as Age of Empires II as "SimCity at war." Once again, Microsoft proves how compelling and entertaining this genre is. With this expansion, Age of Empires II remains one of the best real-time strategy games on the market. Personally, I've got work to do, but I just want "one more" shot at conquering that Aztec empire with my favorite Byzantines. Oh well-I've got all night.

909-593-9675 e-mail:wkawamoto@earthlink.net