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Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings
Developer	Ensemble Studios
Publisher	Microsoft
Version	2.0a
Released	September 30, 1999
Genre	Real Time Strategy
Mode(s)	MP over IPX, TCP/IP, Modem, GameSpy Arcade, or GameRanger
Ratings	ELSPA: 3+ ESRB: Teen (T)
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Apple Macintosh
Media	CD (1)
System requirements	Pentium 166 MHz CPU, 32 MB RAM, 200 MB / (550 MB Gold Edition)HD
Input methods	Keyboard, mouse

Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings is a real-time strategy computer game set in the Middle Ages. It was released in 1999, and it is the second game of the Age of Empires series developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft. Because of its commercial success, an expansion pack was released: Age of Empires II: The Conquerors, followed by a Gold Edition, which bundled together the game and its expansion pack along with a bonus map and games recorded by Microsoft strategy experts.

Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings is sometimes called Age of Kings, or abbreviated as AoK, AoE2, Age2 or AoEII.

Contents 1 Game play 1.1 Civilizations 1.2 Single player 1.3 Multiplayer 2 Game mechanics 2.1 Technology 2.2 Wonders and relics 3 Soundtrack 4 User generated content 4.1 Scenario editor 4.2 Artificial Intelligence and Random Map Scripting 5 Other games based on Age of Empires 2 engine 6 Other platforms 7 References 8 External links

The player controls a society and guides them through four "ages". The game begins in the Dark Ages, where very few buildings and units are available. After a short time, the user gains the ability to advance to the Feudal Age, where more upgrades, buildings, and units become available. The next age is the Castle Age, in which the powerful castle may be built, and used to produce powerful units. Finally, the user can reach the Imperial Age, which is reminiscent of the early years of the Renaissance. Once the user has reached the Imperial Age, they gain access to all the upgrades, units, and buildings that may be built for their specific civilization.

The player directly controls the citizens, and can order them to move or attack (all units except for trade carts, fishing- and trade-ships), construct new buildings, gather necessary resources (villager units), and perform a range of other tasks, such as repair damaged buildings or garrison inside castles or town centers for safety.

Although the playing area includes cliffs and hills, these additions do not actually represent changes in the height of the land. Instead, they just represent an obstacle around which units must move. Similarly, buildings are not actually built, they are simply rendered to give the illusion of height.

There are four types of resources, all of which are necessary to foster a civization: wood, food, gold, and stone. Wood is used mainly for building structures, providing renewable food resources, building ships, training archers and for other similar uses. Stone is used mainly for constructing defenses like castles or towers. Gold and food are used for constructing units and researching technologies. In most cases, these resources can be traded for one another at the market rate. Often, one of the difficulties of a certain scenario or map is that it has a small supply of one type of resource, forcing players to adjust to this shortage.

In the original Age of Kings, the player can choose from 13 civilizations. Each has a distinct personality, with particular strengths and weaknesses patterned on the real civilizations. Each civilization also has some unique units (ships and warriors) with more-or-less historically accurate names, e.g. Mameluke for the Saracens. The game's civilizations are sorted into four different architectural styles:

Western European	Northern-Eastern European	Eastern Asian	Middle Eastern
Britons Celts Franks	Goths Teutons Vikings	Chinese Japanese Mongols	Byzantines Persians Saracens Turks

The civilizations can also be classified by their nature:

Cavalry	Infantry	Ranged
Franks (Stronger Knights line) Persians (Full cavalry tech; with War Elephant, which is excellent at destroying buildings) Saracens (Best camel units) Byzantines (Most powerful cavalry)	Goths (Cheaper infantry) Teutons (Full infantry tech; with Teutonic Knight, the most powerful infantry) Vikings (Infantry slowly heals itself) Japanese (Higher attack speed for infantry)	Chinese (Full archery tech; with Chu Ko Nu, which can fire several arrows in one round) Britons (Longer range archers) Mongols (Higher attack speed for Mongol cavalry archers, Mangudais) Celts (Higher attack speed for siege weapons (Also quicker infantry)) Turks ( Turkish Hand cannoneers, Jannisaries, have longer range and can do more damage)

The game comes with five campaigns, all of which reflect some event in history, such as Joan of Arc leading the French to battle, or Genghis Khan's invasion of Eurasia. There is also a Standard Game feature, which pits a player against a set number of computer players for control of a map. The usual goal in standard games is to defeat any enemies and force them to surrender, but other goals, like building and protecting a special type of building (called a "Wonder"), also exist. Additionally, a "Deathmatch" game type gives the player stockpiled resources in the thousands from the beginning of the game to work with.

Campaigns consist of a series of scenarios of rising difficulty, depicting major events in the life of a famous historical character, e.g. a famous battle, the building of a famous monument, or some well-known anecdote. Only the William Wallace and Joan of Arc campaigns allow players to control the said character as a special unit, although Genghis Khan makes a short appearance in his campaign. The campaigns usually start with a range of existing resources, buildings, and units already in place, thus avoiding the laborious process of building a nation from nothing, which can become tedious. The original game's campaigns include those of William Wallace (a tutorial campaign), Joan of Arc, Saladin, Genghis Khan, and Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa I.

In multiplayer mode, up to eight players can simultaneously play against each other, or against computer players. Previously, the Microsoft Zone was a popular online destination for multiplayer, but this service ended on 19 June 2006.^{[citation needed]}

Age of Empires II has a much more advanced and varied set of technology trees than the original Age of Empires. To acquire technology, the player must first construct buildings. Each building offers a range of technology which can be researched, for a price. Technologies build upon each other. As technologies are researched, a wider range of buildings and units become available. Technologies may benefit military units (by perhaps increasing their defense attributes), civil units (villagers can benefit from technologies that make them move faster and therefore collect resources more efficiently, etc), or buildings (e.g. by researching technology that allows castles and towers to fire at units at their base). Technologies vary greatly in benefits and costs.

In the game, technology plays a central role. Early in the game, players must constantly assess priorities and allocate scarce resources between creating new units, upgrading existing units, and researching to upgrade to the next Age. Too much emphasis on researching technology and moving through the Ages without creating military can leave a nation defenseless. On the other hand, putting resources into a large population at the expense of progress can lead to defeat if the enemy has progressed and is able to field a small but more powerful attack force.

The number of technologies increase through the Ages, as does the price of said technologies. A special part of the game that was added in the expansion is that each civilization gets a unique technology in the castle when it goes into the castle age. This technology generally benefits the unique units of the civilization or enable some special upgrade which is not available to other civilizations. In addition to this, some civilizations also have some inbuilt technologies or upgrades. The special abilities of each civilization vary greatly and are roughly based on the specialties of the civilizations as they were in the 10th-14th century. For example, the Mongols can harvest meat 50% faster than other civilizations, the buildings of the Byzantines automatically get more hit points as they progress into the next age, and the Franks can build castles for much less than other civilizations.

Relics are special unique items that are scattered around the map, and can only be picked up by monks. Once placed within a monastery, a relic steadily generates free gold for the civilization that holds it (this reflects the historical realities of the power and influence that possessing famous relics brought to a church). To capture a relic from an enemy monastery, the monastery must be nearly destroyed. Once the monastery has low enough hit points, the relic will then be expelled so that a player may capture it with a monk.

Monks are vulnerable units (they can only defend themselves by converting their assailant, which takes time). A monk carrying a relic will quickly attract enemy units, so strategies are needed to protect him (e.g. researching faster conversion and movement, sending monks in convoy so one can heal the other, protecting the monk with a military escort, etc). If monks are ordered to move with a group of other units, the monks will move to the back of the formation. However, using the box formation will position the units so that they form a box around the monks, protecting them from all sides.

A possible victory condition is the collection of all relics or the construction of a wonder. This is the case in several campaign scenarios. To win a relic victory, all the relics must be held for a specific uninterrupted period of time, depending on the size of the map.

Wonders are massive structures that require large amounts of resources and time to build. If a player completes a Wonder, and it stands intact for an uninterrupted period of time, they win. If a Wonder is destroyed before the countdown is finished, the countdown resets. Each civilization has their own Wonder, typically a famous work of historical architecture, as opposed to the original Age of Empires, where each civilization's Wonder was based on their generic architecture. The Wonders in Age of Empires II are:

British: Aachen Cathedral
Celts: Rock of Cashel
Franks: Cologne Cathedral
Teutons: Maria Laach Abbey
Goths: Mausoleum of Theodoric
Vikings: Borgund stave church
Byzantines: Hagia Sophia
Saracens: Great Mosque of Samarra
Turks: Süleymaniye Mosque
Persians: Ctesiphon
Chinese: Temple of Heaven
Japanese: Tōdai-ji
Mongols: A large tent, meant to represent the tent in which the Mongols would have meetings to oversee the administration of the empire.

In addition, the Dome of the Rock appears as a decorative building in the Saladin and Barbarossa campaigns as do the Pyramids at Giza, but neither can be built by any civilization. Another decorative Gothic cathedral shown in the Joan of Arc and Barbarossa campaigns appears to be also based on the Aachen Cathedral (upon which the Britons' and Teutons' own wonders are based, too). Finally, in the Genghis Khan campaign the Great Wall of China is present, represented by several blocks of conventional walls united with defensive towers scattered throughout.

The following tracks appear on the audio part of the game CD, listed in order of playback. The tracks themselves are not separated, but are instead one long track with floating transitions. The names and times given here are taken from the "Music From The Ages" and "More Music From The Ages" CDs, two audio CDs featuring tracks from both Age of Empires II and The Conquerors expansion, usually only given away by Ensemble Studios as competition prizes^[1]. The tracks are composed by Stephen Rippy. ^[2][3]

Shamburger (3:25) I Will Beat On Your Behind (2:58) Drizzle (Firelight Smoove Mix) (2:40) Machina del Diablo (3:00) T Station (3:13) Bass Bag (3:10) Ride, Lawrence, Ride! (2:53) Smells Like Crickets, Tastes Like Chicken (3:01) Operation: Monkey (3:26) Tazer (2:55)

Age of Kings also includes a built-in scenario editor. It is similar to the one from Age of Empires, in which players can make custom missions and series of missions. The largest difference from the design of the editor of the first game is the use of "triggers". These are used for performing actions once the conditions are fulfilled (if they do).

For example, a player can create a trigger to declare victory as soon as a building or unit is visible. A player can create triggers with multiple requirements or results. Killing certain soldiers can change the ownership of a building to another player as well as increase the health of the building. There is a huge abundance of possibilities.

To use the triggers in the scenario editor, create a new trigger and assign a condition and effect from the list. Occasionally there are variations to how many soldiers can be assigned triggers to. For example, if a player wants to make 6 soldiers patrol, at times they can only select the trigger for one, and six individual triggers must be made, while other times six can be selected at once.

In the expansion there is an addition of a few triggers: units and buildings can have their names changed, their health increased, and attack increased just to name a few.

The game CD comes with complete documentation for both Random map and Artificial Intelligence scripting documentation present in the Docs folder. The scripting can be done in any text editor, however a special editor, named ScriptED, has been developed just for the AI scripting of this game. The scripted AI performs much better than the games' default AI^[4]. The most prominent community for scripting for Age of Empires II is AI scripters. Various other resources for scripting are also present on the internet^[5]. Back in 2000 a contest named AI Wars was held by Heavengames for AI scripting, nowadays regular tournaments take place at AI scripters.

The video game Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds, based on the battles of the Star Wars movies and released in 2001, used the Age of Empires 2 Genie engine.

• The PlayStation 2 version was released only in Europe and published by Konami.
• The Nintendo DS version was released in the US on February 15, 2006. It features a turn based battle mode rather than real time strategy genre used in the PC version.
• A Windows Mobile version exists for Pocket PC.
• A version for mobile phone exists (Subject to country).
• A version of this game was set for Sega Dreamcast but with the lack of popularity and sales of the console, the game was canned with only a demo existing.
• A version of Age of Empires II for Macintosh OS 8, 9 and X was published by MacSoft Game Studios.

• Official Website
• IGZones.com, Age of Empires Game Server
• IGZones Forum
• Age of Empires Union
• GameSpy
• Age of Kings Heaven
• AOK Multiplayer Help
• Collection of reviews of Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings
• GameFAQs' section on Age of Empires II
• GamePark AoEII
• GTADS: Open Source Age of Empires Matchmaker
• Regicide Strategies
• GameFanatic Forum
• vGaming Forum
• [1]

v • d • e Age of Empires video games
Main series	Age of Empires (The Rise of Rome) · II: The Age of Kings (The Conquerors) · III (The WarChiefs · The Asian Dynasties)
Spin-offs	Age of Mythology (The Titans)