Age of Empires Ii the Conquerors Mac Download UPDATED

Age of Empires Ii the Conquerors Mac Download

The Age Of Empires series is becoming something of a trusty old dog. Y'all've enjoyed its company for a few years at present and y'all've grown comfortable with information technology. Not only does it await just like all the other dogs in the neighbourhood (no fancy 3D shenanigans from this beast), it's too somewhat predictable, and the terminal thing you'd await it to do is learn whatever new tricks. But let'southward face information technology, that's what gives this series its entreatment. Information technology might only sport a tired old three-quarter isometric view, simply then once more you don't accept to readapt your one-time flight-sim keyboard claw merely so you tin move the game camera and give orders at the same time. And, dissimilar some young RTS upstarts I could mention, it still has a healthy dose of resource direction, which, believe it or not, some players still enjoy.

On the evidence of the beta version nosotros received, The Conquerors sticks firmly to that tried and trusted formula. Information technology would be wrong though to assume that this expansion CD is just more Age Of Kings campaigns given a bit of spit and polish. Equally was the instance with the Rise Of Rome expansion for the original Age Of Empires, Ensemble has packaged up a smorgasbord of enhancements and extras that will take seasoned fans salivating from the moment they read the box blurb.

And so What's New?

The nearly obvious addition, as you'd expect, is a set of four unmarried-player campaigns. While the Age Of Kings campaigns focused very much on the underdog (William Wallace, Joan of Arc, et al), Conquerors turns its attending to some of history's more successful bullies. Then this time yous get to play with the likes of Attila the Hun and EL Cid. Every bit earlier, the entrada games are strung together with a series of vignettes outlining the story in a "Meanwhile, back at the farm..." kind of way. Unfortunately, the actors providing the voice-overs have once again all been hired from the Dick Van Dyke School of Crap Accents.

In Search Of New Civilisations

New campaign games are all well and skilful, only let's face up information technology, they don't add that much longevity. Fortunately, Conquerors adds some spice to the standard single and multiplayer games by sprinkling in a mix of new races, units and technologies.

I of Age Of Kings'due south strengths is that the civilisations are distinguished non just past unlike color schemes and graphics, but also by the technologies and unit types bachelor to them. This is too the case with the 5 boosted civilisations (Aztecs, Huns, Koreans, Mayans, and Spanish) that are included in Conquerors. Huns for example, on business relationship of their being nomadic and preferring to sleep on their horses (or with them, depending on their personal preferences), do not have the ability to build houses. Instead they brainstorm each game with a pre-fix limit to their total population. The net consequence of these differences is that playing each civilisation is a unique experience, and you really do take to use your brain to take advantage of their strengths or overcome their weaknesses. Of the new civilisations, just the Due south American races are blessed with new graphics.

What's really going to breathe new life into your multiplayer games though, are the new game types. King Of The Colina places a monument at the middle of the map and has the players ranged circular the exterior. To win, all y'all have to do is capture the monument and hold it for 500 years. Simple? Well, not quite. The monument is e'er difficult to become to in the first place. It might, for case, exist on an isle in a large surface area of h2o. And so showtime you lot take to figure the all-time way to get to it. And so defending it isn't quite as straightforward as it might at first I announced either. That'due south largely because you are non permitted to build in the immediate vicinity of the monument, then you can't simply capture information technology and wall information technology off.

The other two new games seem to have been designed for those who dear resources management and those who don't. Wonder Race does abroad with combat altogether, and has everybody living in peace and harmony. Well, almost. In that location'southward still something of a competitive spirit among neighbouring civilisations as they race to be the first to build a wonder and win the game. It'due south all well-nigh how quickly yous tin gather those resources and how well you lot spend them.

If you're an aficionado of large battles and the Wonder Race game sounds as if it volition bore yous to tears, then Defend The Wonder was made for you. In this game variation every civilisation begins in the Royal Age, and all with a ton of resources to encourage rapid build up of forces. One thespian though, begins in a walled-off area with a wonder at the centre, and has to protect it for 500 years. Meanwhile, the other players are doing their level best to go together some heavy siege machinery with which to break in and spoil the party. Because of the high-tech level everybody starts at and the lack of any need to research advanced weaponry, this game type makes for some truly spectacular battle sequences.

New And Improved

So, you can see that there are a lot of clearly visible additions packed into Conquerors. What is likely to actually make a long-term departure to extending the life of AOK are the improvements that take been made under the bonnet. There are xvi major areas of comeback over the gameplay and features in AOK.

Some of the improvements demonstrate Ensemble Studios' delivery to playing its own games to destruction and ironing out the wrinkles. For case, let's take the situation in which you take grouped together infantry with a heavy weapons platform. How often have you watched in horror when, on first encountering an enemy group, your HWP stupidly joins in the activeness, wiping out half your ain infantry with friendly burn. It'south an AI oversight that many RTS designers are guilty of. In Conquerors, siege weapons like Mangonels will hold their fire if they are likely to injure your own troops.

Speaking of sieges, these become both more realistic and more complex. You can now garrison foot soldiers within battering rams, which has the dual benefit of giving the ram more than oomph and providing your troops with protection during the arroyo to an enemy wall.

In that location are some interesting additions to the resource management side of things too. At present, when a villager has finished constructing a building, instead of idly continuing around watching everybody else working, he'll ready off and perform an action appropriate to that building. So, in AOK you might have ready a villager to piece of work chopping trees and later on had another villager building a Lumber Camp. Now you simply get the first villager to build the Lumber Campsite near the tree line, safety in the cognition that equally shortly as he'south done he'll begin chopping abroad.

I major time-saver is that, one time y'all take built a Mill, y'all tin queue farms, so that whatever you already have will be automatically replanted, even if y'all are tending to a battle on the far side of the map.

Every bit you lot can see then, Conquerors stretches the term "expansion" somewhat. The Age Of Empires series might exist a scrap of a trusty old dog, simply it tin yet surprise yous every now and then by getting itself over a few fences rather than just looking on pathetically at all the younger dogs on the other side. Equally to whether AOE will finally get itself onto the 3D bandwagon - well, I guess nosotros're going to take to wait for Empires III to discover that out.

Download Age of Empires Ii Expansion: The Conquerors

PC

System requirements:

PC compatible
Operating systems: Windows 10/Windows 8/Windows 7/2000/Vista/WinXP

Game Reviews

Overview

How do you amend on perfection? The same way y'all swallow an elephant, one small bite at a time. Age of Empires Ii Expansion: The Conquerors does not boast whatsoever huge spectacular changes from Historic period of Empires Two: The Age of Kings, but gives a lot of great little extras. With 5 new civilizations to choose from (Aztecs, Huns, Koreans, Mayans, and the Spanish), it is almost impossible to pick a favorite one to play -- I currently accept four favorites with the Korean and the Spanish topping the list. It is a really huge dilemma: then many civilizations, and so picayune fourth dimension. All the civilizations are now better balanced. There is a unique technology available for research for every civilisation, just like each i has at least one unique unit. Each civilisation poses new challenges and new opportunities. In that location is actually no fashion to decide which civilization is "best." A lot depends on how yous similar to play and what types of units you use near effectively.

Gameplay, Controls, Interface

Gameplay has been improved with the power to queue the rebuilding of farms and the power to immediately start villagers collecting resources once they have built a collection-type building. These small-scale enhancements make a lot of sense. For example, one time you build a mine, the workers first mining -- also for gathering nutrient and cutting wood. This improves the villagers' productivity and makes it then you do not accept to practise so much babysitting to keep your workforce active (you know how villagers like to slack off). With these improvements, I did not have to use the "idle villager" button equally much any more than.

There are four new campaigns to examination your mettle: Attila the Hun, El Cid, Montezuma, and Battles of the Conquerors. Each is elementary enough to play right away on the piece of cake setting, yet withal provides lots of challenges as the difficulty level increases. How practiced are you? In that location is merely one fashion to notice out. One time you lot've installed this expansion, jump into a random map and see the new terrain types and unique map types. There are some surprises, so be gear up to laugh, "ya'll" (hint hint).

Graphics

Graphics quality has not changed much, but of course, with new civilizations, there's new artwork. I similar the Korean civilization artwork a lot -- nice blitheness on the state of war cart. You will notice that there are small-scale tweaks to the user interface just not much of a alter at first glance.

Audio

Audio is right on track -- the new civilizations have great sounds just like the original game. I generally pass up the music in most games, merely not this one. The one thing I would similar to see is the sounds as wav files on the CD and so I could assign them as system sounds on my estimator. I would actually like to have original clean clips.

System Requirements

If y'all can run Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, y'all tin can run the expansion, provided you take the additional hard drive space: 50 MB for a minimal install or 200 MB for a full install. I recommend the full install for best operation. AOEII: The Conquerors is an expansion pack and requires Age of Kings to play.

Documentation

My review copy did not come with a "Quick Reference Carte" but I have been told that the retail version does. This is my favorite part of documentation for all the Age of Empires games. It gives you a quick look at the engineering science trees and what you need to build to get the stuff y'all need to become a "King."

Lesser Line

If y'all play Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, this expansion package is a must. I highly recommend this game and this expansion pack to anyone who plays figurer games. If yous have non tried Age of Empires: The Age of Kings, this is the fourth dimension to get both the game and expansion package. Rule well, make practiced decisions, and you will live to reign supreme. Choose poorly and you volition be trampled into dust and spread to the four corners of the earth.