Just when you thought that you finally beat your Age of Kings addiction by mastering the game through those sleepless months, the folks at Ensemble Studios cooked up the extraordinary expansion pack Age of Kings : The Conquerors, yet again proving that the saying "the sequels are never as good as the original" does not apply to the Age Of Empires family.

The Conquerors add-on addresses the very few shortcomings of what is still one of the (if not THE) best Real Time Strategy games, Age Of Kings (read our review of it here), and introduces new civilizations and balancing tweaks to existing races and technologies. Just for an extra measure it also throws in a great selection of historically significant campaigns and battles. All these improvements on an already excellent game definitely make you feel like you are getting a good bang for your buck. (Now, if only Microsoft produced OS upgrades as good as it does game expansion packs)

NEW RACES
There are five new races with unique characteristics : the Koreans, Spanish, Huns, Aztecs and Mayans.

Throughout the ages, the Koreans were forced to repeatedly defend their homeland from various groups of would-be invaders. This wealth of experience in defensive warfare is evident in The Conquerors: they have heavy armour war wagons and turtle shaped steel plated ships, backed up by strong siege and guard towers.

A missing world power from AOK was finally introduced in The Conquerors: The Spanish conquered the Americas and were intent on capturing Britain, until that fateful naval battle that resulted in the decimation of the Spanish Armada. In this expansion pack, the spaniards have mounted units with powerful guns, and their missionaires have improved speed. The historical overtures are also evident in the Spanish Navy, whose powerful cannons can be devastating to your shoreline cities.

The Huns are a nomadic civilization (although that might not be the appropriate term) that relies on its mounted ability to move its base of operations fast, by living mostly in tents and having minimal permanent structures. This lightning strike ability, the grandfather of Rommel's Blitzkrieg, helped them to capture most of Europe under the leadership of Atilla the Hun. In The Conquerors, they do away with the house requirement, which, along with their cavalry heavy military provides for a potent rapid attack force very early in multiplayer games.

The Aztecs share a brand new set of Inca-like, Central American building architecture with the Mayans, which, along with their new eagle and panther masked units (strong and fast infantry for the Aztecs, and sharpshooter archers for the Mayans) and lack of cavalry (remember, there were no horses in the Americas until the europeans brought them in) create a very distinct look, feel and gameplay to these two races.

NEW CAMPAIGNS
One of the complaints about Age of Kings was the difficulty setting of the campaigns. Even at the easiest level, beginners had a very hard time succeeding in these crusades. In The Conquerors, the AI has been scaled better to provide an enjoyable hour or two of gameplay to the beginner, at the same time providing a lip biting adrenaline filled "workout" session to the highly skilled user.

The new Conqueror campaigns help greatly in enrichening your single player experience. The historically accurate adventures include the capture of most of Europe by Atilla the Hun, the cross-continent struggles of the Iberian hero El Cid, and the first contact of Montezuma with the European explorers, as observed by the aztecs. There is also a fourth campaign that is a collection of historic battles and encounters.

GAMEPLAY MODIFICATIONS
I ALWAYS end up having half my villagers standing around enjoying the scenery in my economy bases while I am busy commanding the military offensive in the latter stages of the game. Well it looks like there is enough of us with this "problem" that Ensemble Studios added queueable farms. Basically, if you have enough wood, you just select your Mill and keep clicking on farms to expend up to 15 farms worth of wood. Now as soon as your farmers complete harvesting a farm, they will automatically restart a new farm, until you run out of queued farms. While you will still have to periodically check on your farming, the removal of this economy micromanaging is a huge bonus and effective use can decide the outcome of your conquest.

Speaking of villagers standing around doing nothing productive, the game now increased the IQ of your peons a little bit. Upon completing an assigned construction task, instead of hiding behind the building and avoiding your gaze, the villager decides that he she is on your team and obediently goes off to collect whatever resource is nearby. Works like a charm when you send off a villager to build a mine or lumbercamp. This feature too is a crucial aid in multiplayer games: maximum productivity is the key to winning games, especially against someone of your own skill level.

On the military side, you can now garrison units inside rams, providing protection to the troops inside, as well as increasing the speed of the rams. Nothing like the panic of your opponent when you send a harmless looking group of rams only to unleash a sneaky force of Teutonic Knights, or better yet, a bunch kamikaze Petards, one of the new shared units that explodes for area damage. Of course, next time around, you send a couple rams empty and your enemy will move all its forces to that area, leaving your main force free to pillage on the other side. The mangronels got smart too; they will now cease to fire when your OWN troops are in their area of damage. This is a huge help in that you can now mingle your siege forces with your regular army. Previously, you were likely to sustain anywhere from 25-50% of your casualties from friendly fire.

One of the most annoying shortcomings of AOK has also been fixed in The Conquerors: your ships can now adopt the formations that previously were only available to the land units. This can make for strategically very interesting battles on the high seas, particularly if you command the Spanish Armada.

There are new maps with new features such as an icy and snowy terrain, as well as real world maps that allow you to reconstruct your own version of historical engagements.

Finally, one of the most overlooked changes, but one that is the most significance in multiplayer games, is the addition of stone cost to the building of Town Centers. TC Rushes now require a significant change in your strategic planning, and the importance of reaching Castle age first for maximum economic boom is now lessened as well.

FINAL WORD
Understandably, other than the new races, most of the improvements to the game will be apparent to the more experienced players. Since the original was such a great game, any improvement will only have a marginal effect. Nevertheless, every new feature of The Conquerors expansion pack improves on AOK, and together the new races and all the balance tweaks will provide endless nights of strategic battles for both the newcomer and the hardcore Ager.

Review by: SirZ 
Date: 31 Dec 2000