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    HeavenGames
    Welcome to Age of Empires Heaven
    Welcome to AoEH! The premier website on the net covering everything Age of Empires, The Rise of Rome Expansion, AoE: Definitive Edition and Return of Rome - from playing the games to designing with and modding them. If you are looking for custom campaigns and scenario's, you can find these and other files in the Granary. Our Forums are a great place to discuss a variety of subjects: feel free to sign up and have fun!
    Designer Bio: PhatFish
    Posted by Fisk on February 17th, 2024 @ 12:25 p.m.
    I'm sure some of you have already noticed, we have a new page under the desinger bios in our Town Center. As he resigned from his position as Seraph Phatty had thought of writing something lengthy about his AoE journey that has lasted over 20 years, and I told him he should definitely do so. After all stories like this are a part of the site. So if you are curious about his thoughts on leaving the site and notes on his marvellous maps, try giving it a read!

    It seems my last post may have sparked some renewed interest in Imhotep's classic designs, and I just wanted to say I really appreciate seeing some new users commenting about how you've been (re)discovering these classic campaigns over twenty years later. You guys make this site worth running!

    Let's see, what else is going on? Right, I'm submitting a new AI for a tournament being run by The AoE1 AI Scripters. If you're interested, casting will start on the 19th on twitch.tv/aoe1scripters, or you can join us on the AoE1 AI scripters discord to learn about the craft and perhaps join for future events.
    Another Christmas gift
    Posted by Fisk on December 24th, 2023 @ 2:42 p.m.
    But I was just going to do the Christmas wishes! I had half a post drafted and everything! And now I have to follow up on that...

    So first of all, since Phatfish is saying farewell to the AoE community, I guess I will be the first to thank him for everything he has done: The hard work he has put in not just to keep AoE Heaven afloat but also heading multiple redesigns, leaving us as perhaps the most modern HG site today despite hosting the most ancient game, his amazing scenarios like Night of the Dragon which almost seem like witchcraft to us mortals who only dare play around in the editor, the multitude of mods he created and all other projects which he assisted with his wisdom and technical knowledge. Oh and not to forget his one of a kind work with documenting everything he could about the game's development, culminating with his most recent Christmas gift to us.

    It's hard not to feel like the lesser Seraph compared to him. I'm almost always around but I put nowhere near that amount of passion in keeping the site alive and putting out new content. That said I still have my occasional bursts of nostalgia, during which I like to think back to a time when I was just one of a dozen little nerds putting out content for a game which was already then an old relic. Arriving to the site in 2007 I was a bit too late to experience the golden age of HeavenGames or multiplayer on The MSN Gaming Zone. But I was just in time to witness Andrea Rosa's last release and to be part of the last few scenario design contests hosted on AoEH. I guess I'm quite unique in that my nostalgia for Age of Empires 1 centers mostly in the period around 2010.

    Which finally brings us to my Christmas gift for you all. Recently I've been digging through an old hard drive from that time and I found what I was looking for. I always felt a little weird about the prospect of leaking this to you given that I had been teasing my own unreleased campaign to you all for over 8 years. But now I finally feel like the time to share this with you all has come.

    I think there are few tales from the Bible which lend themselves quite as well to Age of Empires scenarios as those of the first kings of Israel. Captured before in the all time classic David Saga by Imhotep or Helelix's excellent Samuel 2:20, I can assure you that Gumble's two scenarios focusing on the rise and fall of Israel's first king Saul bring a unique experience, maybe one of the most impressive created for Rise of Rome. From the awestriking effects depicting the wrath of God to the unique experience of raising cities from pre-placed foundations (a trick at the time just made possible through Zapdotep's Composite Editor), these scenarios conceived by Gumble in 2010 may very well present the peak of the scenario design craft for AoE: Rise of Rome, while also being so typical of Gumble's style of design and the time period they were drafted in. So without further ado I bring you:



    As I see how Phatty has thoroughly tracked down lost media from the game's official development through the years, I find myself wondering, what about all the user made content? Who else might have had projects like this, practically finished, or still in development, which never got shared to our Granary? What happened to those campaigns others sent screenshots of in the Designer's board on the forums? Where are those contest entries that we seemingly just lost track of after they were judged? To anyone still holding on to pieces like this, I just want to say, I would be very interested to see them.

    Merry Christmas to you all!
    Happy Holidays... and goodbye
    Posted by PhatFish on December 24th, 2023 @ 11:22 a.m.
    Hope you have a nice Christmas, Yule, or Holidays with your loved ones!

    I am very happy to see that in our last poll the original game and it's expansion came out on top - what's the most complete AoE1 experience according to you? Here are the results:

    Rise of Rome Expansion (1998) (42%, 115 Votes)
    Age of Empires (1997) (22%, 61 Votes)
    Return of Rome (2023) (22%, 60 Votes)
    Definitive Edition (2019) (14%, 39 Votes)
    Total Votes: 275

    Gaming in general seems to have regressed in many ways (a prime example being communication, lol) even though technical advancements have been made. Strange how that works, at least we always have the original to go back to and enjoy - something they can never take or replace. Thank you to all who voted!

    This may come as a surprise - I am leaving the AoE community - I feel like I have achieved everything I could have with Age of Empires, and I thoroughly enjoyed the years I spent here on AoEH and playing the Age games and designing with them as well as making friends along the way.

    I feel a disconnect with gaming in general and my priorities have changed significantly the last months/years. I was thinking of writing the story covering my AoE journey here but I really don't feel like posting a wall of text that most of you are probably not really interested in or already know about. So with out further ado, thanks to everyone for keeping AoE and AoEH alive, and be sure to keep things going into the future, I will probably drop by from time to time maybe.

    Farewell.
    The Dorian Invasion
    Posted by PhatFish on September 04th, 2023 @ 09:15 a.m.
    We get yet another treat from PartizanLegis, this time a single scenario for the original Rise of Rome game. As with all his releases, this is high quality work, and I'm putting it in the spotlight so it receives the attention it deserves.



    Download The Dorian Invasion

    I absolutely loved playing this over the weekend, and I suspect fans of the original game might enjoy this one as well - good ol' fun FF and B&D with a great history section - a captivating and great scenario!
    A guide to using Triggers
    Posted by PhatFish on July 20th, 2023 @ 3:44 p.m.
    We had some unexpected downtime last week but that has been fixed (thanks Pecunia), we're back now, sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.

    As you probably know, Return of Rome allows the usage of Triggers in custom scenarios. But where/how do you start? This guide explains everything very well and provides descriptions of what every condition and effect does:

    SpoOky's Guide To Triggers and More! (DE Version)

    As ROR uses the exact same Triggers as AoE2DE, this guide can be applied. It may be a bit overwhelming at first, especially if you have never used Triggers before. I suggest taking it step by step and just start fooling around with some of the more simple ones, and eventually you'll get the basics down. There are countless ways you can achieve the desired results, wether that be changing the stats of a unit or a diplomacy change, pretty much anything you can think of can be done. Be creative here and of course don't forget to do multiple tests to make sure everything works as it should!
    OST for ROR
    Posted by PhatFish on July 02nd, 2023 @ 4:05 p.m.
    Seems there is quite the effort being made in the modding community of ROR to get us back to the "stone age", or the original AoERoR game experience - I am thankful for this, because I certainly like to play ROR that way too. A mod changing the buildings to their originals is currently being made, for example.

    If you are a fan of Stephen Rippy's amazing musical creations (I certainly am!), you can now listen to the original AoERoR soundtrack in ROR by going to the in-game mods section and search for [RoR] Original Music (CD Order), which was just released by FE member StepS. I was the very first player to subscribe to the mod - thank you
    Yamato Empire of the Rising Sun
    Posted by PhatFish on July 01st, 2023 @ 6:07 p.m.
    If you did not know yet, the campaigns from the original first game, just plain good old Age of Empires, are getting ported to Return of Rome by FE - Ascent of Egypt, Glory of Greece and Voices of Babylon will arrive in a future update.

    That leaves out Yamato Empire of the Rising Sun, for reasons not exactly clear to me but my guess would be exclusivity. I understand the choice of not wanting to port every campaign, and I welcome the three new campaigns in ROR - but that does mean there is no official campaign representing any Asian civilization or architecture at all. I think that is probably one of the reasons ES made the Yamato campaign. Since we can now port over scenarios to ROR I wanted to do the Yamato Empire of the Rising Sun campaign myself, and it's now here for you to enjoy!



    The campaign includes all eight original scenarios. To sum this up, this means all of the original AoE1 campaigns will available eventually. That still leaves the Rise of Rome campaigns however - anyone up for the challenge?
    Steam summer sale
    Posted by PhatFish on June 29th, 2023 @ 3:31 p.m.
    If you haven't bought Return of Rome yet and have been waiting for a discount, here's your chance. Steam is having a summer sale with discounts up to 75% off the Age series. You can buy the AoE2DE + Return of Rome bundle for €/$15 now, which is a good price. Sale starts today and lasts until July 13th.
    Gilgamesh
    Posted by PhatFish on June 27th, 2023 @ 09:59 a.m.


    Maybe the image above looks familiar - I hope so. For those who have been wanting to play some of the legendary stuff we have in the Granary in ROR, you're in luck. This scenario, called Gilgamesh and the Quest for Immortality is from Andrea Rosa's A Short History Of Lost Sumeria campaign for the original AoERoR, which has been ported over to Return of Rome! Andrea isn't back though (that would make for some interesting times...), but FE campaign designer Filthydelphia ported this scenario. It remains true to the original of course, with some minor tweaks to make things work for Return of Rome. I have just started playing it, and like the original, it's simply incredible and a lot of fun - download it from our Granary or look it up in the in-game mod section.
    Sargon
    Posted by PhatFish on June 20th, 2023 @ 4:21 p.m.
    After experimenting with what can be done with ROR a little bit more, I finally sat down to play the Sargon of Akkad campaign again. I found the second scenario, Divine Will, quite difficult, but still beatable. That population cap surely is limiting - in a good way - which forces the player to think and make different choices rather than just building up and spamming units. I like this very much and is kind of a fresh breath of air after being used to the 200 pop cap.



    The third scenario, The Prophecy, is beatable under 15 minutes (hint: scout wisely). I am currently at the 4th scenario, The land of Kings, which seems to be a very difficult one from what I read on both AoEH and the ageofempires.com forums. I'm looking forward to the challenge, will see if I can beat it. Props to the designer - like the Trajan campaign, Sargon is excellent, really well designed, every scenario is a challenge to beat and a treat to look at!
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