News Archive 1997
December 31 [ News Index ] [ Main Page ] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Rumor or Fact ? Vs Interesting side note here – Imperious Rex (The mighty Master of Gamestats) is offering to send a block of cheese to the winner of this possible match up? Cheese? – Whats the deal with the Cheese, IRex? – The Archangel Modem to Modem Connection Ok here’s the step by step instructions to setup a modem to modem multigame. First both players choose the modem-modem option. At the show games screen the one with the CD chooses create game, names the game, and presses the answer button and waits till the other person calls. The caller chooses show games, types in phone number and calls. The modem connects and both should be brought into the chat room to setup the game. That’s all. One thing thought if you have problems with connecting the modems you have to make sure both players have their modems with compression on and hardware control not software control selected. Happy gaming. Please post if further problems occur. – Kublai99 Scenario Designer Question Mutant or Non-Mutant Age of Empires? – Follow up Ah – the !nomute command! – another trick to use – is just to kill the other tribe, that seems to shut them up also 🙂 – The Archangel Age of Empires Comment New Ager Comments Age of Empires Strategy Tips – New Agers Age of Empires Fan Sites Max’s Ages of Empires Page – Another beginning Age of Empires Site. Webmaster didn’t send me any information about it, but its worth the time to check it out. – The Archangel |
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December 30 [ News Index ] [ Main Page ] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Ummm.. – Ensemble Studios? Maybe they are working on their own FirstPersonShooterGame :). Of course if you remember the last game between Ensemble Studios & Ion Storm… Let see now, how can I say this is a Heavenly sort of way :).. Well… I will just put a little “Twist” on that greatDaikatana Ad wording they have running in the Gaming Mags and say “Ensemble Made Ion their Spiteful Woman.” – The Archangel and the PG rated Gaming Page Oh No! – Ion Storm Plays Age of Empires – DaBug, Ion Storm Ion Storm website – Daikatana website – Don’t tell anyone, but The Archangel visits the Ion Storm Website daily. The webmaster there actually has a sense of humor 🙂 Unreal Team Plays Age of Empires AGE OF EMPIRES ROCKS!!!! We play it all the time when we’re not working on Unreal!!! – Myscha the sled dog, Tallahassee, FL USA Unreal Com – A great website for Unreal Information! – The Archangel IRex one ups the Archangel! 1. Round Farms 2. Start Quick – Finish First Our mission in life now, is to read Gamestats news page daily and send The Archangel each and every error you find on their main page. The best “Kick them When they are Down” error will be posted in Heaven. Mutant Age of Empires? Age of Empires Heaven “Granary” Download Area Sorry Hamlet! – I just wanted to say Hamlet has done a job above and beyond his “Heavenly call to duty“. AoE Heaven now has the largest collection of AoE Scenarios and the nicest place by far to storage them! Check out The Granary daily for all the latest in your Age of Empires Downloads! I “The Archangel” will not be posting information about scenarios (or any downloadable files) in this news area again. The Granary has their own updated information area that gives you all the details as only they can. Please drop Hamlet a line and tell him what you think of this new look! On a side note, all files were sent directly to Heaven and NOT downloaded off other AoE Fan Sites. Heaven’s policy is to NOT to take user submitted files, graphics, text, etc off of other Fan Sites without author and/or webmaster permission. – The Archangel Age of Empires Question In the box that comes up you need to enter the IP address of the computer you want to play against. This is what someone has to do if they want to join a game you have created. What this basically means is that you will need to arrange with your gaming partners to play at a specified time and then, when you log on, use something like ICQ or AOL Instant Messenger or the Zone to tell them what the host’s IP address is. Then they can enter this is in the appropriate box. When they do that, the computer will search that IP for games and should hopefully show you the host’s game. Select it and click Join. You probably want to know what your IP address is in the first place. Typically this will be assigned to you by your ISP when you log on, and will be different each time you go on the Internet (unless you have a static IP address). To find out your current IP address, click Start|Run and type in “winipcfg” without the quotes. Press enter and a box will come up with various bits of info. including your IP address. It takes the form of, e.g., 123.145.167.189. Good luck. – Jagusti, Sage of Empires Age of Empires Strategy Tips Age of Empires Patch Problems – One possible Solution Age of Empires Strategy Tips – New Ager Info on Pop Limits…. The pop limit (as set) will also apply to the CP. If you lower the pop cap, the game will have MUCH LESS LAG (we were playing with Pings in excess of 500 ms, which is normally fatal to game play…) and the chance of dropout will diminish. Playing against humans will still be very fun (more, because of less lag), resources will last longer, so you will have more battles. Playing allied against the CPs is much easier, because the CPs will still build too many Villagers (it will think it still has the 50 unit limit) so it is advisable to increase the number of CP (from 2 to 3 or 4…). Since the CP does not “delete” Villagers, this will make them weaker, so play more CPs in each game to compensate… In conclusion: For Internet MP, I advise you to lower the pop limit to 35/40, which will greatly improve the stability of the game. – Leo. Age of Empires Fan Sites |
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December 29 [ News Index ] [ Main Page ] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Age of Empires Strategy Tips
Age of Empires Strategy Tips Age of Empires Fan Sites The IRN started out as a little zone xvt squadron of about 15 members..we had wars and alliances and all that good stuff….Then when xvt(x-wing Vs tiefighter) lost interest the IRN went out to find a new game to keep it around the zone; we ended up with TA,Star Fighter,and yes AOE…Since I was a long term member in the IRN and serving it well the leader (Varrus) gave me the right to rule and run the AOE section of the game. I took it . To me clan is just a medium group of players who would play all the time in the zone and have allie and wars…certainty you can’t have a squadron in aoe so I though clan worked the best. – Vaider Got a Fan Site that is not listed in my Links Section? Send me an email with the name of your site and the URL and I will post it up for you. Message ” HELP” Forum Index Display Configuration The Help Forum should be one your first sources for “Help” information and then the Heaven Tips Pages. The Help Forum Archive is a good place to start to look for information also. The Archive contains messages from the normal Help Forum, when that forum has reached its 800 messages maximum. – The Archangel. Opitions of Listing of Messages – |
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December 28 [ News Index ] [ Main Page ] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Age of Empires Fan Sites On a site note here, I saw on Scribbb’s Page this little note, “Anyone know if there is any rule about scenarios, I was looking around today at a few sites and saw a scenario I sent to one person up on 2 other sites. By all means I don’t mind having my scenarios passed out, that is what I made it for, but I do think some credit is due to the author.” – Scribbb Well Scribbb, I don’t know about any rules, but Heaven does not take scenarios or files from other sites, without the authors permission, and to my knowledge we have not done this yet. I have seen files/graphics etc posted on other Age of Empires Fan Sites from Heaven, but “Gamestats” handles this with an one on one email to the webmaster of the site to cease that practice unless credit it given to the author. Some of the larger graphics and “Gems” were given to Heaven with special permission of use by Ensemble Studios and Microsoft, but they still seem to pop up on other sites for time to time. We (Heaven) have given permission to a couple of Fan sites to use information/graphics from here to get them started on a Fan site and proper “Credit” notices have been given on those sites. Also if Heaven uses “News Items” from other fan sites, we use the common practice of giving a credit line, please see Gamestats or Area-S for good examples of how this is done. – The Archangel Got a Fan Site that is not listed in my Links Section? Send me an email with the name of your site and the URL and I will post it up for you. Age of Empires New Ager Cheat Tips Age of Empires New Ager Strategy Tips Age of Empires Strategy Tips Age of Empires New Ager Strategy Tips Well, I think a sure bet is to send 5 villagers – and chances are you willn’t lose any of them. – The Archangel |
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December 27 [ News Index ] [ Main Page ] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Best Real-Time Strategy – E3 Awards Age of Empires (Microsoft/Ensemble) Just as there was a pressing need for a non-biblical ancient history adventure that Spartacus filled brilliantly, so too does Age of Empires fill the need for bringing the ancients to real-time strategy gaming. Ensemble has done a admirable job creating gameplay that delivers more involved resource management than Red Alert, but builds in less to be concerned about than Civilization II. With three major cultural groups to choose from, plus numerous sub-cultural choices from there, you can play as Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Shang, Minoans, Sumarians and many more. Unlike C&C and its clones, the animated figures are larger and their animations are wonderful to watch. — George Chronis, PC Games Nominees: E3.Net (Electronic Entertainment Expo) This may be old news for most of you, but The 1998 Electronic Entertainment Expo (1998 E3 Expo) is coming May 27 – 30, 1998 at the Georgia World Congress Center. Age of Empires New Ager Strategy Tips What’s Your Favorite Random Map type? – Results
– The Archangel |
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December 26 [ News Index ] [ Main Page ] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Age of Empires New Ager Strategy Tips Resource Garthering To begin the game with an extra advantage send your peasants to gather resources near the center of the map immediately. Later in the game you can use the nearby resources with the protection of well built walls or fortification. This also cripples other players when they run out of resources. – Ziggy Walls & Priests Overrun and Destroy Temple & Seige Workshops Age of Empires Heaven New Pages & New Look – Tips/FAQs/Help Age of Empires Christmas Present Age of Empires Patch – Pop Limit Age of Empires Strategy Comment Cheats and Priests Age of Empires Fan Sites Got a Fan Site that is not listed in my Links Section? Send me an email with the name of your site and the URL and I will post it up for you. |
December 25 [ News Index ] [ Main Page ] |
Age of Empires Heaven – Strategy For All Agers! Submit Strategy Tips – Here & Patch – Here No Updates Todays – It’s Xmas in Heaven! |
December 24 [ News Index ] [ Main Page ] |
Age of Empires Heaven Yes, even the almighty Heaven is going to slow down for the Holdays. We will be around, but only posting as we have the time. All of Heaven’s Angels wish you a happy Holdiay(s). “Zakko, Hamlet, Hemlock, Vidguy, and Alexander I”. – The Archangel A very special thanks to the people at Ensemble Studios (The “Bossman” & his group of Dudes), Gamestats (IRex, his Dino-mite Tech Staff and all of his fine gaming sites!), Microsoft (Mark Thomas, Chris Di Cesare & Gang), arbuthnot communications (Lesli & her BOLD MEDIA ALERTS & Candy!), the thousands of daily visitors to Heaven & of course Mr. Grinch… that have made Heaven what it is today! Age of Empires Heaven New Download Area A special big Heaven thanks goes to Hamlet for all the hard work he has put into this during the holidays! – The Archangel Age of Empires Patch More Christmas Humor – NO – Wait! – Its Alexander I’s Review of a Hamlet Scenario! Before I set out on a description of my latest journey through one of the adventurous, ‘heavenly’ scenarios let me set the mood once again. If you notice any pauses in my writing flow it’s only because I’ve heard a sub-tropical bird call after I removed the AoE CD. I then pop out the CD caddy to investigate only to discover that the bird call is real. I swear that Ensemble recorded that lilting, rolling call right here—probably from the same bird–it’s so real. Yes, I’m in the South American sub-tropics (actually, we can dispense with the ‘sub’ part: it’s about 31 Celsius in the shade). The next thing I know, I catch myself repairing our fortifications (perimeter walls) and checking out the local wildlife for food (our 2 strangely skittish, resident felines) and eliciting foreign language responses from the locals when I ‘click’ on them (Spanish-speaking villagers prompted by me to finally understand what I want from them). Folks, you’ve gotta watch out for this mingling of reality (whatever that is) with Age of Empires. Before you know it, you will be in the AoE Twilight Zone—reincarnated as a catastrophically careening catapult (no, no, anything but that)! Now let’s see what a tragic figure has to offer us in his scenario. It had to happen sometime: the perfect score. There is always a problem with giving a perfect score: where do you go from there? Well firstly, the score is not entirely perfect, but close enough. Secondly, I can’t think of a more complete rendering of a scenario that is more deserving of a resounding 5 out of 5. And, lastly, it is entirely possible that there are more ‘perfect’ scenarios out there so they will simply also get a perfect score. Hamlet is a pretty chatty guy in the Shakespearean play. Accordingly, Hamlet provides us with great lengths of explanatory dialogue. Both scenario description and hints are copious and quite rightly so. Any player attempting to play The Summit would do well to read and heed them carefully. Plots thicken like molasses in winter and then some. He has also taken the time to map out the entire Mediterranean Sea area and indicates the important locations of the forces at war in this particular play. A professional touch that makes you think that you are playing a scenario originally shipped with the game. Actually, I don’t think that this is true. The scenario is better than most of the ones included on the CD. The map of the scenario itself is of course a meticulous rendering of the Mediterranean Sea provinces as well. The time and dedication it must have taken is astounding. Its plot is carefully thought out and exquisitely woven into gameplay. For example, the peace orientation of the objective is beautifully portrayed in the opening ‘scene’ of the scenario. The game focuses on a master priest who releases a lovely, semi-circular, white flurry of seven doves that head out to sea. That all is not well in the State of Tyre becomes obvious when moments later a massive hawk pursues the doves. Again you would do well to heed this ominous warning too. The principal idea of The Summit is exactly that. Get your two pushy priests to the summit peace conference and you win. Sounds kind of wimpy, doesn’t it? Famous last words is all I can say. Let’s just say that Middle East peace initiatives are easier in real life than winning this scenario. Saying that gameplay is challenging in this scenario is much like saying that Arafat may find the peace process rather taxing. But then Arafat is only fighting two sides, not five. Now you are starting to get the idea of just how much of a challenge this scenario is. After the doves drift off you have time to see that your empire has been split into three parts and they all come under attack, usually at the same time. You really do have to divide up your attention among them initially. For those of you who are like me and like to take things one at a time, here are some tips when playing in moderate mode (there is no way I will play this in any harder mode). First quickly go to your northern settlement. Initiate one of the temple upgrades and paste those cats to the ground. This will keep things stable there for some time. Now go to your Cartage colony in the west and do another temple upgrade. Pull your ships closer under protective fire from the towers and use your priest to convert one of the ships already attacking you. This should keep things in balance there for a while too. You can build a priest later to heal your hero priest. Now go to your main province of Tyre. Again pull in your vessels under the protective fire of your towers and the elephant archer unit. Do another temple upgrade here as well and get those villagers working on the farms, berry bushes and woods. Convert one or two enemy ships but watch out that you don’t lose your second master priest in the process. What this has done for you is gained you some time and established somewhat of a protective perimeter. It’s a good idea to get to the Iron Age as quickly as possible because, among other things, you are going to need some heavy stomping elephant units and support to wipe out the Egyptian wonder that they always build early on. Be sure to take out those darn priests (4 of them) before attacking the wonder or you will have elephant footprints all over your face. Be prepared for heavy opposition. My best bet for winning the scenario is to then build up a defensive navy with some nice units and villagers and drop them off at the summit site. Then go back and do the same for the Cartage priest. If he’s died in the meantime you’ll know about it because you will be dead too. Don’t like this type of approach? Well try out one of Hamlet’s strategies: don’t fight, just slip by the ‘towering’ opposition with both priests and you’ve won. You just know that Hamlet is being straight with us here of course, because he has recently become one of Heaven’s Angels. And we all know that angels are angelic and wouldn’t lead us down hard paths, now don’t we? Right? Yeah right! Mucho multi-tasking is not my thing but I love the scenario. It has that richness of decent historical accuracy, fine detail (some of which I’m sure I missed) some mysticism, lots of suspense and mega strategic potential options for playing this one people. Do you want all this and are you an advanced player who knows what to do if he/she has bitten off more than he/she can chew? Then try out this well designed, well thought out best scenario that Heaven has to offer so far. – Alexander I (Heaven’s Own Traveling Thesaurus) Alexander I – We seem to have a problem here! – You gave Hamlet’s Scenario a higher rating my my own! – Lets TRY to remember, I am the “Archangel”, you guys are just plain run of the mills “Angels”. – The Archangel You can find all of Alexander’s Wisdom on the VIdguy’s Pages here! |
December 23 [ News Index ] [ Main Page ] |
Age of Empires Patch A new patch has been released for Age of Empires! You should definitely download this patch to play Age of Empires on the Zone. The patch is for the English, French, German and Spanish versions of the game. The patch greatly improves pathing, unit AI (artificial intelligence), and other multiplayer game enhancements. Units under attack will now automatically notify all friendly units (including allies) within a certain radius. Catapults and Catapult Triremes will no longer fire when they are in stand ground mode. This patch will upgrade your version of the game from 1.0 to 1.0a, so download the patch now at the Zone! or Here at Heaven! Microsoft Age of Empires 1.0a Readme December 1997 © Microsoft Corporation, 1997 Microsoft Age of Empires 1.0a is an upgrade of Age of Empires 1.0 that includes several enhancements and bug fixes. Note: If you are playing a multiplayer game, all players must be using the same version of Age of Empires. Microsoft Age of Empires 1.0a includes the following changes: Enhancements
Bug Fixes
Changing the Population Limit Increasing the population limit decreases game performance. For example, with a 50-unit population limit, the potential number of concurrent units in an 8-player game is 400. With a 200-unit population limit, the potential number of concurrent units in an 8-player game is 1600. This increase in the number of units can seriously degrade overall game performance. If you are playing a multiplayer game, the game host can increase or decrease the 50-unit population limit by adding the Limit= parameter to the Age of Empires command line. If you are playing a multiplayer game through Microsoft’s Internet Gaming Zone, the game host must also add the Limit= parameter to the Age of Empires registry. Players can check the population limit of a multiplayer game by looking for the Population Limit setting that appears in the Settings list after they join a game. To add the Limit= parameter to the command line in the Age of Empires shortcut
To add the Limit= parameter to the Age of Empires registry for multiplayer games using the Internet Gaming Zone
Warning: Games saved in Age of Empires 1.0a cannot be played using Age of Empires 1.0. If you attempt to play a 1.0a game using version 1.0, your computer will freeze. Age of Empires Heaven Some Christmas Humor II. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means Santa’s sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second — 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour. III. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the “flying” reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job can’t be done with eight or even nine of them — Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch). IV. 600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance — this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion (cool word don’t ya think) joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accellerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to centrifugal forces of 17,500 g’s. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo. V. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he’s dead now. – Fury Age of Empires Fan Sites Got a Fan Site that is not listed in my Links Section? Send me an email with the name of your site and the URL and I will post it up for you. – The Archangel Age of Empires New Ager Strategy -or is it a Comment? Age of Empires Comment – Leo, Leo, Leo – What are we going to do with you? – Part II Here’s why: Counter Point by Gamestats own IRex! Cavalry to take out cats, archers. A lower unit limit would not allow me to do this and games would end up being “guessing games” to see who picks the correct rock, paper, scissors combination. Using your troops effectively with combined arms is what makes a good player great. Lowering the limit would not allow this. How would you harass with chariot archers while attacking with elephants and covering with priest with a lower limit? I normally run with 28 villagers so I can only get 22 military tops off the start anyway. Just my 4 cents. It’s Canadian money. I need more. – Imperious Rex Well IRex has spoken! – What do you think? Should we have a poll? Do you really care? And why are we playing AoE, when we could be playing “Rock, Paper, Scissors”? These are other questions will be answered soon! – The Archangel |
December 22 [ News Index ] [ Main Page ] |
Bruce Shelly Chats on the Zone On Monday, December 22, at 6:00 P.M. Pacific Time in the Tournament Room, the Zone will host a special chat event with Age of Empires co-designer Bruce Shelly. Bruce has been a game designer for a number of years, having previously worked with the incomparable Sid Meier at Microprose. Now Shelly and Ensemble Studios have created one of the great all-time strategy games, and this is your opportunity to talk to one of the men behind the scenes. This is a big Zone event, and we’re expecting a LOT of people to check it out, so be prepared. Read our moderated chat rules and get your questions ready. Take a break from your holiday shopping and come visit us on the Zone to talk with Bruce Shelly! Moderated Chat Rules Get your questions ready for Bruce! – the Zone Age of Empires New Ager Strategy – Hoplites Age of Empires Comment – Leo, Leo, Leo – What are we going to do with you? Here’s why: Counter Point #1 I haven’t thought about it for long, but there is something appealing in this idea of yours, Leo. I very rarely have more than 35 units on the go at once, including my villagers. Generally about 15 military units is sufficient if handled correctly. If you don’t have 20 more to co-ordinate, then you can do a much better job because you have less to worry about. Small is beautiful, in this case. But 15-20 maximum … including villagers? This would horribly unbalance the game in favour of Shang (or is it Sumerian? – I don’t have the details at hand) or any other race who has villager bonuses. You cannot build an empire ith a total of 15 villagers AND military units. There was a post a short while ago that suggested a limit for villagers, and a different limit for army units. Two separate limits of about 15 each would be superb. This would seriously increase the tactical elements of the games, as well as the strategic aspects (I can no longer build 25 villagers and exhaust that gold mine in 5 minutes, or blitz that wonder up; maybe I should start putting up towers and kerb my population growth because I have fewer villagers gathering food, etc%, or at least, team games. There would have to be better collaboration between players (allies) to balance their armies with complementary troops. The exchange of resources (friendly tributes) would have to be better utilized and the co-ordination of troops would be paramount to avoid being slaughtered by teams who do communicate. At the end of the day though, if anything like this should become a part of the game, it should be optional (as should any increase). But I have my doubts as to whether anything like this will be implemented by Ensemble. The 50 unit limit is a good number. It allows like-minded people to play large battle-oriented games, or small skirmish-type games. Making the limit optional may make it difficult to find people who are willing to play with fewer units or unlimited troops. Too many user-definable parameters can compromise the generally friendly way in which the game is played multiplayer (too much arguing about which variant to play, etc) – it’s bad enough with deathmatch and cheats sometimes. Apologies as ever for the extended delivery. If you have made it to the end, thanks for reading. – Jagusti, Sage of Empires Counter Point #2 I’ll raise you one Counter Point Counter Point #3 But…. Counter Point #4 Ah.. This “little” exchange is now taking place in the “AoE Designers Forum“. Here is another “Two Cents” from Heaven on this subject; I enjoy the 50 units level myself, it makes AoE the true Strategy game it is. I also enjoy playing the game on a “Slower” speed. But limiting the combat units to lets say 20 or so and villagers to another 20-30 (also limiting the towers to a dozen or so) does open up a whole new “Strategy Option”. What I would like to see (In the up and coming Patch?) is an option to set your units level, whether it 20 or 200 units. – The Archangel PS – Thanks Leo for your comments! Leo has been another long term user of Heaven and a frequent Forum poster and also one big pain in ###### (###### Forum script kicked in again ;).. Just ###### Kidding Leo! |
December 21 [ News Index ] [ Main Page ] |
Age of Empires co-designer Bruce Shelly on the Zone Age of Empires Question – New Ager The market doesn’t appear in the same list as the other building types. You need to click on the right-arrow to the side of the other buildings, and you will get a new list of buildings. At first, it will only be a market, but in the later ages other buildings will appear on this “second page” of building possibilities. – Sandy Petersen (Ensemble Studios) Age of Empires Comments – Popular Maps Well, we just had a poll concerning this issue. Seems that most people like the scenerios, because sometimes the random maps give a player an unfair advantage. – Patrick Sullivan Here’s is the results of that poll if you missed it: – The Archangel Scn (04), Random Maps (009), Death Match (02), Cpn (06): M 13-Under: (21) Scn (0), Random Maps (01), Death Match (0), Cpn (00): F 13-Under: (01) For what it’s worth, we here at ensemble play mainly random maps. This might be because we rarely play two-player games, so any unfair advantages are generally equalled out between the two sides. We also get a lot of input from folks that like the random maps — in fact some of us were surprised to learn that most of the folks in AoE Heaven like the scenarios. Live and learn, I guess. Coastal maps are also very popular among us, because they let the naval civs use their advantage, but there’s lots of places to put wonders & towns that are out of range of the cat triremes. – Sandy Petersen(Ensemble Studios) Here goes my two cents – I play mostly random maps (Highlands). The “Swamp” areas between different areas of the maps are nice choke points to hold off the other tribes early in the game. – The Archangel Age of Empires Question – Difficulty Levels – Start with Different Resources? Well, that makes sense for “hardest” because I did presume the computer does not cheat, so I was trying to figure out how the heck it got to Tool Age in under 4 minutes. 🙂 I can typically beat 4 computer opponents on hard starting with normal resources (200/200/0/200), but one computer opponent in a death match can periodically cause me trouble. Two is very difficult to beat. There ought to be some tangible descriptions of the differences in difficulty somewhere… for example, I know moving from moderate to hard lets the computer predict where a ballistic weapon is being fired to and allows it to move out of the way. – Tom It’s too many small changes to really list here (we basically tweak just about every one of the AI variables). For example (as you’ve noticed), at the higher diff levels, we allow the CP to “hear” the catapult firing sound and “see” the map light up where the catapult is. He then moves his units out of the way. On the lower diff levels, we make him ignore that message. Other small differences would include how many units the CP puts into groups to attack you and how he makes up that group, etc. Everyone has pointed out the diff between Hard and Hardest already. it might help to give the rough guide to progression to Iron Age for the different levels (this assumes unhindered progress for the CP, i.e. no attacking from you or other CPs:): Age of Empires Strategy – Walls and Towers Age of Empires Comments – Blame the Beer! Solution: Vice squads, assigned to root out those beer makers! This would provide those old clubmen with jobs during advanced ages. Or maybe a “prohibition” technology, researched at the Government Center… – Scott Robert Ladd I’ve instituted a no drinking policy while at war, however during farming and hut building I allow a few drinks – Ant |