Age of Empires a HUGE Success

Author's Rating:

Pros: Great gameplay,excellent multiplayer,many different players to be

Cons: no the greatest graphics, sometimes slow

The Bottom Line: 
A very entertaining game full of twists and turns and just a great game to play.

Author's Review
Age of Empires

This game is about the ancient tribes of the world. You can play as many different tribes such as the Greeks, the Egyptians, and even the Babylonians. It's an eat or be eaten game. You have to gradually advance along the timeline and upgrade your units so they are more capable for defending and attacking your enemies. It's a "Take over the world" type game.

The Tribes

There are 12 different tribes you can choose to play as. You can be the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Choson, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Hittite, the Minoans, the Persians, the Pheonicians, the Shang, the Sumerians, and the Yamato.

Advantages

Each tribe has a certain advantage over the others. It could be that a certain military unit does more damage or it may cost less to make different units.This is a list of each tribes advantages.

Assyrians: Their bowmen, their chariot archers and also their cavalry archers have an advanced fire rate of +1/3,and their villager speed is +1/3.

Babylonians: They have an advantage with their walls and towers. They both have their hitpoints doubled. Their priests have their recharge rate reduced by 12 seconds, and their villagers stone mining ability is hightened by 30%.

Choson: The Choson's swordsmen and Legions hit points are raised by 80, their tower's firig range is +2, and their preists cost 1/3 less to buy.

Egyptians: The Egyptians preist's range is +3, their gold mining ability is hightened by 20%, and their chariot and chariot archers hit point are raised by 1/3.

Greeks: The greeks advantages are mainly speed. Their Hoplit, phalanx, centurion, and their warships all have their speed raised by 30%.

Hittite: They have stronger stone throwers, catapults and heavy catapults have their hitpoints doubled, +1 damage for their archers, and their warships range is elevated by 4.

Minoans: All their water ships cost 1/3 less, their longbowmen's range is +2, and they have increased farm production.

Pheonicians: The Phoenicians elephants are 1/4 cheaper, their higher catapult trireme's range of fire is hightened by 2/3,and their woodcutting ability is +2.

Persians: They have better hunters, their elephants are 50% faster, their higher trireme range of fire is +50%. The Persians are the only tribe with a reduced ability.Their farmers are -30%.

Shang: The Shang's villagers cost 30% less money, also their walls have their strength doubled.

Sumerians: The Sumerians have villagers which are harder to kill, their higher catapults range of fire is +50%, and their farm production is doubled.

Yamato: The Yamato have cheaper archer and cavalry training(-25%), their villager speed is +1/3 and they have stronger ships.

The Buildings

There are many different building you can have. Some are to make military units, some are used to store food, and some are used for defence.

Town Center: this is your main building. It is usually placed in the center of your village and you almost always have it when you begin. From this building you can make villagers which are the main part of your population.

There are Academys where you can construct heavy phlanx, they are very slow but can do a considerable ammount of damage. There are Cathedrales, archery ranges, stables andeach of the can produce diferent units that can do many different things.

The Ages

There are 3 different ages in the game. You need special requirements to advance to the next one. It might be that you need a certain building or maybe a certain ammount of resources to be able to pay to advance. There are also many upgrades possible that you can get. If you have enough resources you can go to a storage pit and upgrade your gold mining ability or your woodcutting ability ...etc.

You can play online against friends and different opponents which gives you a variety of players and strategies.

It is a very challenging game but also very amusing. The most challenging part of the game is trying to complete the one player mode. There are objectivs that you must complete and some of them are extremely outrageous. Such as going inside an enemy stronghold and trying to kill their leader. Well when you only have about 15 units, which are all outnumbered 10 to 1, you have to be very cautious and extremely strategic.

Overall this is an amazing game and I highly recommend it. You might also want to buy Age of Empires 2 and some of the expansion packs because they are equally excellent.