grimjack2's Full Review: Age Of Empires II: Conqueror 2.0 for Windows, Mac
The Conquerors add-on pack for Age of Empires 2: The Age of Kings is so good that you can never go back to playing the original sequel. See my review of that game at
to get the details of how this game is played, if you don't already know.
First the great news.
All the complaints from the old one have been fixed; Farms can now be queued. Boats will travel in formations. Mangonels no longer fire into your own troops. When you command a peasant to build a lumber mill, mine, or something else, once completed, they will immediately start to collect whatever resources that building processes. The programmers have also fixed a lot of play balance that I hadn't even noticed, until I realized how much better they work. The pathfinding and wall building is noticeably better. The already excellent A.I. is slightly improved.
On top of this, they also added five new races, all of whom are interesting, and not just retreads of the previous ones. All the races have been given new unique units as well. All units now get Petards, which are exploding men. And, there are new elite versions of spearmen and skirmishers, making them an even more likely part of your army. The really listened to the playtesters and fans of the old game in order to make any seldom used troop more valuable, and any overly used troop more vulnerable. Light cavalry have bonuses against monks. Battering Rams can now be garrisoned making them faster and stronger.
We even get new maps to play on, although nothing is too different from the first. One nice difference is that on snow maps you can see troop footprints in the snow. This makes it easier to find an enemy. There are also some unusual maps available on the game's web site. One I particularly like is where each player has three starting town centers spread across the map. This means that you and your opponents have three times the potential resources to start with, but also have three times as much stuff to keep track of.
There are many new campaigns to play, but I never tried very many of them from the first game. I really enjoyed playing on the random maps against a few computer opponents. I never get tired of these. The single player campaign maps are a little too scripted for me to enjoy.
I got to play this version on a LAN game, with two other friends, and all of us against the computer. It worked great, and played smoothly. Set up was easy, and the computer had no problems trying to play against all of us at the same time.
As a matter of fact, I don't think any of the changes make it a worse game. They all make it a better one. Usually expansion packs stink, and don't really add anything worth buying. Or they come out so late that you are tired with the game. This is definitely not the case here.
If I have any complaints to make, the biggest one would be that I wish it wasn't an add-on, but a patch. It is currently well worth buying for anyone who even remotely enjoyed Age of Kings, but $30 seems like a lot for what cannot be played stand-alone. It is so large, I almost think it should be a stand-alone product.
I also cannot figure out why there is a bundle containing the first Age of Empires, its Rise of Rome add-on pack, and Age of Empires 2. I think that is a slimy marketing idea because no one would ever go back to playing any of the other games once they've installed this add-on.
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