A to Z Challenge: Age of Empires

 For my A to Z Challenge, I decided to focus on video games.  Mostly video games I played, except maybe where a weird letter doesn't give me many options.

While I first thought of doing console games, I remembered one of my favorite strategy games was a PC game:  Microsoft's Age of Empires.  I bought the original game in late 1997; I think it might have actually been New Year's Eve.  And soon enough I was hooked on it.

The original game allowed you to create a city/country based on a variety of ancient Mediterranean/Middle Eastern cultures like Egyptians, Greeks, Phoenicians, Babylonians, and so on.  Different cultures would have access to different skills and different weapons.  Some like the Greeks and Phoenicians were good at making boats.  Some of the desert ones had camels.  One had villagers who came armed.  Egyptians had chariots and things like that.

When the game starts, you only get a couple of villagers.  The villagers gather food, wood, stone, or gold and also build stuff.  You start in the "Stone Age" with a very small variety of stuff.  Basically Flintstones-looking buildings and dudes with clubs.  Then as you advance to the Bronze Age and Iron Age, you get better buildings and weapons and so on.  By the time you advance in the Iron Age, you get siege weapons like catapults and some get "juggernauts" that are ships that can launch stones.  

The game has 2 players up to 8 or 10 or something like that.  The more players means the more conflict for the limited resources on the map.  You typically want to find supplies of food, wood, and stone to get to the Bronze Age and better weapons.  At the same time you need to make more villagers to gather more stuff and build more stuff, including defenses like walls and watchtowers.

The wood, stone, and gold your villagers can chop/mine and dump into storage pits or the town center, whatever is closer.  Food you start off only being able to forage berries, fish in shallow water with spears, or hunt gazelle/deer animals.  You can try to hunt elephants but it can take a number of hits to bring one down and in the meantime, the pissed-off elephant might stomp your villagers.  Once an animal is dead, you only have a limited time before it decomposes.  After you advance, you can build farms and a dock for fishing boats.  There are spots throughout the water parts of the map that show fish jumping.  You can also try to hunt whales, though that's less reliable because they'll disappear and pop up somewhere else.  The farther you send your fishing boats out, the slower it is to get food, which can be a problem.  The farms expire after a while and need to be rebuilt, so it can be tricky to keep your food stocked.

Another tricky thing can be if another player--especially an AI-controlled player--advances faster than you.  The computer of course has an advantage over a human player in being able to micromanage all the various villagers, troops, and priests you end up with.  Other times it might be that one player is closest to a bigger supply of resources.  If the other player(s) is advancing faster they might be able to slaughter your club-carrying cavemen with cavalry--including war elephants!

The ultimate thing to build is a "wonder," which for Egyptian-type cultures is a pyramid.  Greek-type ones get a statue.  Sometimes the objective for a scenario requires building a wonder or destroying the opponents.  In more free-flowing scenarios the objective is simply to destroy everyone else.

You could play just random maps or there were some campaigns where your goals might be more limited.  I forget exactly what they were but it might be like to advance to the Bronze Age and build a fishing dock or something like that.  Or you might get only a set amount of units and have to defeat the enemy or whatever.  I was never that much into those as just playing random maps.

After a year or so they came out with the "Rise of Rome" expansion pack.  This added Rome and a couple other cultures.  I think Carthage was one where you got elephants like Hannibal.  Rome was similar to the Greek ones but had some better soldiers and I think not as good boats.  Their wonder was a colosseum.  It was pretty sweet.

What could make the game more fun is there were a slew of cheat codes.  Some were pretty useful like "pepperoni pizza" would give you 1000 food units.  Or "woodstock" I think gave you 1000 wood.  Those really helped when I was trying to manage a military campaign and didn't really have time to micromanage stupid villagers.  I never really felt bad about that because most countries (including this one) take out loans in times of war; I just considered it like getting a loan from the bank.

There were more fun things you could do like get "Photon Man" who was this dude in sort of a spacesuit with a laser gun.  There was another one who launched missiles that were a little less useful.  And there was the "Daddy Z" that was a car with missiles.  Sometimes it was fun to create some of those and go fry some cavemen or whatever.  Sometimes I'd just post a Photon Man in my village as a cheap defense so I'd have time to advance.

In the game, priests could heal guys and also sometimes convert enemy units to your side.  But the priests were really slow and weak--unless you used a cheat code.  Then they'd move like the wind and have a ton of hit points.  Since the map only shows what area you've explored, the fast priests would be helpful to quickly explore the map to locate resources--and the enemy.  And it was neat sometimes to convert things you can't build with your culture, like war elephants.  And a few times, I nearly got wiped out by the enemy and used the priest to convert some villagers and troops to stay in the game.

The danger with the priest code is sometimes the enemy would build a ton of priests and deploy them defensively.  One priest against another priest isn't likely to convert him, but when the enemy has a bunch of them, it can work a lot easier.  Then the enemy has your super-fast priest with a lot of hit points, who's almost impossible to bring down.

(Fun Fact:  When the priests would chant, to me it always sounded like they were saying, "Lemonade!  Lemonade!")

As I've mentioned before, you can build boats to fish but also to fight.  There are a couple of types of ships besides fishing ones.  Triremes shoot sort of like big darts.  They're pretty much just for attacking other ships.  Then there are the catapult ships that launch big rocks.  Those are mostly for attacking ground targets because the rocks are slow and other ships can just sail away before they hit.  There are also transports that you can stuff units into.  I think about 10 was the limit, though it might be more.  Transports could be essential if it's a map with islands and you need to land troops to take out the enemy's town.  Another use is if things aren't going great for you, you can load some units on the transport and hopefully sail away to another part of the map and start over.  Sometimes I'd take a couple of villagers and maybe a priest if I had them by then and drop them somewhere else on the map.  Or even just keep the transport in a distant corner of the map as a backup.

The Rise of Rome expansion added fire boats into the mix.  The fire boats are small, fast boats that basically have flamethrowers to set other boats on fire.  They can be devastating but they are pretty volatile so they can be destroyed fairly easily.  So you probably wouldn't want them hanging around with your main fleet or grouping a bunch together. 

I loved the original Age of Empires enough that I made a page for it back in 1998 or so.  It listed the cheat codes and some strategy and stuff.  Here are my Tips & Tricks, including the cheat codes I frequently used:

Since I’ve played Age of Empires a lot, in many situations, I thought I’d impart some wisdom to players or would-be players. As well, I’ve posted some cheat codes I found on the Net that, when used properly, can enhance the fun of the game.

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Tips

• Your first priority should always be to gather resources in a random map game. Build a lot of villagers and have them gather food and wood in the Stone and Tool ages, then have them gather food and gold in the Bronze Age. Once you're to the Iron Age you'll need to amass a large army, so work on food, wood, and gold.
• Don't worry about an army early on. Keep a small force on hand to repel an invasion, but just work on gathering resources and building the buildings you'll need.
• On any map with a lot of water, fishing boats are vital. They can get a lot of food and you don't have to sacrifice some of your existing food to build them, which is definitely a good deal. Just be sure to keep warships nearby in case the enemy decides to try and interdict your fishing operations.
• On an island or coastal map, naval supremacy is key. Upgrade your warships as soon as possible and build a lot of them. You can use them to disrupt the enemy's fishing, destroy targets on the shore, and to help stop invasions by land or sea. As well, warships can serve as excellent scouts and since they have higher resistance to conversion they can help rid you of pesky priests.
• If you have Monotheism, then you can drop priests behind the lines to wreak havoc on the enemy by converting guard towers or other buildings. Capturing a military target like a stable, archery range, or dock may also allow you to produce some units to cause the enemy some pain. Of course your units usually get destroyed, but in the meantime the enemy had to expend time and resources on dealing with the threat. If your enemy has Monotheism then things can get tricky, as your priest can get converted. This plan works best by using the cheat code to upgrade your priests described below.
• The best kind of troops to have are heavy cavalry, cataphracts, chariots, and other faster troops to begin your assault. Slower foot units like phalanxes, centurions, swordsmen, or legions take longer to get to the target and can be picked off easier by guard towers, ballistae, ships, or catapults. Elephants are slow, but have enough hit points so they can often whether the storm better.
• Whether on the offense or defense, numbers count more than the quality of troops. A swarm of axmen can take down a cataphract or legion. If the enemy starts an invasion or when you're ready to launch an offensive, build troops like crazy, as many as you can get. If you're in dire straits with the enemy inside your walls, then it might be smarter to produce axmen, archers, or scouts because they take less time to produce. Also have a few priests on hand to convert enemy troops and heal yours. Massed fire in the form of a group of archers, catapults, or ballistae can work great in repelling the enemy.
• It's best to fortify your city as soon as possible. You should have a villager or two get stone so you can build walls and guard towers to protect your city from attack. A good city plan is to group your buildings near each other, but so that your troops have plenty of room to maneuver. Spreading out only makes it harder to defend the city from attack. Put storage pits outside the walls close to resources, but leave military and other buildings inside the walls.
• A good trick to help defend your city while you are building up resources is to create a perimeter far outside the walls. Guard towers, warships, or scouts can help alert you to an invasion so you can be ready long before it gets to your walls. Another trick is if there are swamps that link islands or land masses, place guard towers and walls there to block them off. That way the enemy has to blast them before he can get to you and you'll have notice of how many and what kind of units are on the march. It also keeps the enemy from leeching off your resources by sending villagers into your territory to mine resources.
• Whenever possible, upgrade your abilities through the market, storage pits, and government center. Ballistics and Alchemy are two key upgrades from the government center that give you flaming arrows and cannonballs as well as ballista towers (if possible). Engineering, Nobility, and Architecture are also a great help, so build a government center as quickly as possible.
• Typically I strive to win through conquest, but you can take the easy route and build a wonder. If you want to do that, make a lot of villagers to gather resources and then construct the thing. You'll need to put it in a fortified location, away from the sea, so it will be harder for the enemy to destroy. Have troops nearby to put down an incursions, because the enemy will have to make an attempt to destroy the wonder or they'll lose. If ruins and artifacts are in the game, you probably won't be able to get all of them, but just make sure to have one under your control or else your enemy can beat you by controlling them. Walling an artifact with fortifications can keep enemies from making off with it and putting a guard tower at a ruin can keep the enemy from controlling it.

Tricks

Here are some codes that I find extremely useful. I'll also explain how best to use them, because if you cheat rampantly then it ruins the game, but using codes in moderation can make the game better and more interesting. I'll also give you a few codes that I don't use much, but you may want to if you're into victory at any and all costs. To use the codes, just hit Enter and type the code in as indicated, then hit Enter again.

Code	Best Way to Use
pepperoni pizza	Gives you 1000 food. Use when you're under heavy attack or deep into an offensive when you need food to build troops or villagers.
woodstock	Gives you 1000 wood. Use when you're under heavy attack or deep into an offensive when you need wood to build troops, buildings, or ships.
quarry	Gives you 1000 stone. Build to quickly get materials for walls and guard towers.
coinage	Gives you 1000 gold. Use when you're under heavy attack or deep into an offensive to build troops, priests, or ships.
big bertha	Upgrades catapults to super-powerful Big Berthas. Great for when you can't get catapults or just as a shortcut to upgrading your catapults. Berthas cause a lot of damage around where the rock hits, so keep your troops away from where it fires at.
flying dutchman	Upgrades juggernauts to flying dutchmen that can go over land. It's fun to use and allows you to upgrade to juggernauts without wasting a lot of resources.
medusa	Makes it so villagers become Black Riders when they die. Black Riders then become heavy catapults. It's a great way to get troops quickly. However, the code only works on villagers who haven't ever been signed as a builder, repairman, etc.
photon man	Photon man is a great way to easily defend your city from a heavy attack. His powerful weapon and long range allow him to quickly wipe out an invading force. I only use him on defense.
reveal map	Reveals the map so you can see all the terrain. Doesn't show enemy positions, though.
hoyohoyo	One of the most useful codes. Your priests get 600 hit points and move like the wind. Always use this since priests are so weak and slow otherwise.

Other Codes

bigdaddy	Creates a missile car that can quickly wipe out everything. It's so powerful that it really tips the scales in your favor. I don't recommend it unless you really want to cheat.
E=mc2 trooper	Creates a photon man who launches ICBMs. Can easily wipe out any enemy buildings. He's very powerful, so don't use him unless you want to cheat.
icbm	Gives ballistae and nuke trooper longer range so they can hit just about anything. Allows you to take out anything without taking damage, so it really lets you cheat.
hari kari	Kills all your forces. It's kind of pointless.

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To me, using the resource codes really isn't cheating. In wars, nations always borrow heavily, so why should your war be different? As well, when you're out on an offensive, it's hard to control the gathering of resources. Any general in the field assigns someone else to supervise things at home, so if you're running a war in the field, it's easier to use the codes then trying to run both fronts.

Flying dutchman is a really fun code if you want to pretend you're fighting in some kind of weird fantasy universe where ships can fly. Big berthas are cool to easily get some land-based firepower, but they're a danger to your own troops because they cause so much damage around the target that if they hit close to your guys they can wipe them out too. Photon man is a last resort if the enemy is close to wiping you out. He can easily dispose of enemy troops to defend your home. Like I said, it's a last resort. Reveal map just lets you see the terrain so you can plan attacks. What general doesn't know the terrain before they launch an offensive? Medusa gives you troops really fast, so if you're under attack, it's a good way to go.

 The hoyohoyo code is great. Your priests can do far more, especially harassing the enemy behind the lines. A cool combination is to use the code and then go to the temple and buy the upgrade to double your priest's hit points. Then they get 1200 points, making them almost unbeatable. Just don't let them be converted by the enemy, because they're really hard to destroy.

With these tips and tricks, hopefully you can easily beat Age of Empires and have a lot of fun. This really is a great game with lots of possibility for game play. The campaigns can be fun, but sometimes the codes don't work so they're more challenging.

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When Age of Empires II came out, I was excited to play it.  Then disappointed.  The sequel takes place in the Middle Ages and there were some tweaks to the gameplay.  After a few times of playing it, I found I just didn't really like it and went back to the original game.

I never bothered with Age of Empires III, which was in colonial times.

Eventually they came out with Age of Mythology, which was more like the original game.  Except in addition to "wonders" you could make a Titan, who was basically a kaiju.  There were Greek, Egyptian, Norse, and some other cultures.  The Egyptian ones had an eagle-headed dude, the Greeks had a Cerberus, and then there was one other one.  The kaiju could do a lot of damage, but they weren't invincible and making one took a lot of resources--unless you cheat.

Besides the Titans, you'd also get magic spells, or blessing from the gods or whatever.  You could call down meteor showers and things like that.  Those spells could be limited--unless you cheat.  Even more than the original game, cheating could be fun just to rain meteors down on an enemy or have a swarm of Titans stomp all over them.

I guess they came out with an Age of Empires IV last year or so.  Like the second one it takes place in the Middle Ages but covers most of the major civilizations of Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa.  It's not really something I would care about.

I might still be able to play Age of Mythology or Age of Empires.  It might be streaming somewhere or on Steam or whatever.  I don't think my old discs would still work, though I'm pretty sure I have both games somewhere.

Maybe some snobs would sneer and say it's a bastardized version of Civilization or something like that, but I had a lot of fun with it.