Excel tables made by me, containing list and tree of buildings, villagers, military units, boats, animals, research and upgrades. Hit points, attack, armor, piercing armor, range, speed, cost, time required to produce, etc.
Download here:
Age-of-Empires.xls
Age-of-Empires-The-Rise-of-Rome.xls
I got Age of Empires I in 1998 from a neighbor, in fact, it was my first Windows-based game, started playing on our brand-new computer with Windows 95 (previously I played only DOS-based games, as my first computer had only MS-DOS and Windows 3.1).
It is probably most played game by me, in first year, my “playing” style was just roaming around with the four villagers, trying to hide from attacks. I was too young to understand english, I did not know purpose of Houses (that allows creation of 4 more people), once I built houses but seeing that they do not create any units, I did not build them again. I did not know how to advance through ages, that I need two buildings from each age, etc.
But later, I learned english and read entire Help file and became a great Age of Empires player, frequently defeating computer on any map! I also built about 20 own maps, intended for multiplayer gaming, thinking that in some day I will join a LAN network and I can challenge with other players. I played these maps only against computer.
Got connected to apartment block’s LAN in 2004 and internet in 2005, but I was disappointed that nobody play this game anymore. I never challenged any human.
In 2007 I got Age of Empires II but never enjoyed it so much like first Age of Empires. I hate that the Age of Empires 2 map is so zoomed in, cannot even see a quarter of my city even at biggest screen resolution, in first Age of Empires I could see entire city at once.
In September 2012, due to increase popularity of my Caesar 3 fan page, I decided to create a page for Age of Empires too, as both games were launched almost same time and are played by same kind of people.
Let’s see how many visitors I will get, and if they have any suggestion to improve my Age of Empires fan page!
Age of Empires game review
- I hate that Age of Empires AI is very poor.
- Computer never put villagers in transport boats, to be able to construct buildings and manage resources on other lands.
- On my own maps I banned siege weapons. Computer frequently bring catapults to hand-to-hand fights, they shoot enemy units but the catapult damage area kill own units and allied units too. If you hit allied civilizations 2 or 3 times, alliance is broken.
- I cannot command troops to return in original position after the threat has been eliminated, the computer do this all time. As human, I can only command them to Stand Ground, but they will not move at all, making them vulnerable to archers.
- When I play on hardest difficulty, computer civilizations advance through ages faster than my civilization, I get numerous early attacks of bronze age troops while I am still in tool age, and only with a good city planning and good controlling of troops I can survive. Computer can control individually 50 units at same time, no human can do this.
- If I survive the early attacks, and reach Iron age, I do not get any more attacks! For unknown reason, computer stops creating new villagers if I kill them, so it is unable to get more resources or to repair the buildings, this made computer easy to be defeated. The game is NOT fun anymore!
- I did some experiments, using a small map with 4 civilizations, all enemy each other, plus a 5th civilization controlled by me, allied with all four. I used cheats to reveal entire map and see the computer-vs-computer fights. In one hour 3 civilizations were almost defeated, killed all villagers and they did not had resources to create new villagers, I donated them food, and I revive them. But after 10 hours, the game still had NO WINNER. Computer never take care to fully kill a civilization, they just attack buildings and people that they find in the way, while other buildings remain.
- CONCLUSION: if you use a large map and know where to hide, computer will never beat you!
My playing strategy
- I take care of natural features when place the city. Optimal is to built at least 4 towers in a narrow pass and some walls around towers to make enemies to walk in zig-zag within tower range and get shot by all towers before being able reach the towers and do damage to your city.
- I start attacking only when I have created an army with at least 30 units and resources for making a second army.
For more strategies and tricks, just ask me!
