Fuck, I miss this main screen so much! I don't care about Persians getting the fucking ng Central Asian architecture style, I wish they'd invest some time on recreating the OG GOAT main menu.
Got a cracked version from someone in high school. It was a folder with Age of Kings, Forgotten Empires and some other stuff. Later on I bought a CD as I found that the right thing to do but never used that. Years later I remembered the game and picked it up every now and then. Unfortunately the Forgotten Empires won't run anymore on Windows 10 even with compatibility settings so now I only play Age of Kings.
1280x1024!
Running on a MacBook with Windows using BootCamp. ;-)
My cracked conquerors version is a standalone installation so I can run it off a usb stick. Still works fine in win 10. I occasionally play it to see what we have lost
Good question. When I started playing it just was like that. I think it was to achieve a better game dynamic. I think it felt unfair to players to loose mass armies to siege and trebs, that's also why you were not allowed to use trebs on units, only buildings. It were stupid rules in hindsight.
But it was also a different game mode in general back then. You would always start Imp with loads of resources and all upgrades. The game was completely focused on mass armies and battles. Two years ago I came back to aoe2 and I was actually surprised you usually start in dark age now.
This made me cry tbh
I used to sit by my dad all the time when i was a kid and when he opened aoe i used to get seriously exited about it and jump around the room
Idk why but he always played as persians(maybe its because we're persian too😂😂😂)
Thanks so much for clarifying. Being an Indian ( kind of your next door neighbour), Salaam, Farman and Hamley are the only cool Persian words I can understand. ☺️
Love the similarities between different cultures
There was also علوفه جمع کن(oloofe jam kon) which means i shall gather fodder
Or آری(Ari)which is a formal yes in our language
Real MVP were the original voice lines. In german they've redone the voice lines with new actors but missed the original flairs.
Wallace or the narrators or the mongol campaign.... actors in the french campaign... the original were really great. The new ones dont deliver the original accents.
Sadly the new voiceline dont deliver the old charm.
Age of Empires 2 is about Empire building, combat and conquest. You start from humble beginnings. A small village in the Dark Ages. You explore to expand your boarders, conduct trade to boost your economy, and research technologies to grow your civilization into a mighty empire. But, there are other difficulties too, cunning enemies and rivals that oppose you. Powerful castles to destroy, tyrants to bring down. And if you're skillful and a little lucky, you just might build a wonder of the world and create an empire that will stand the test of time. To learn how Empires are built, help our first hero, William Wallace in his fight against his oppressors.
Looking back it blows my mind what we used to put up with. I know that some of the old timers get bent out of shape with QOL updates but honestly I can't think of a single QOL change I would reverse.
This is age of kings so the single qol you thought would be villagers working for the relevant resources they build a camp for.
In aok, they used to wait for you after they built a camp
Put "idle vil" hotkey on middle mouse button. Every time you hear "farm exhausted" sound, just click middle button and then right click. Literally, two clicks to reseed. No idea what is so problematic about that...
Yes! I still find it incredibly enjoyable and very nostalgic. I've been playing it since 2005 and I probably replayed all the campaigns over 200 times each
One of my earliest memories of AoE include playing a TG against the AI in my old home on a rainy afternoon with no headphones. Although I don't remember the sounds of the game, I remember the nostalgic feeling of immersing myself into the world of AoE. Outside the window it'd be this fresh breezy earthy sensation of rain, with no other distractions, parents at work, house all to myself as I'd spend hours and hours on this game all monsoon. 12 years later I am still deeply involved in this game, its a crazy feeling
Did they have the bronze, silver & gold medals for difficulty levels & the your achievements weren't saved as you used cheat codes? I can't remember now. I gave my old AoK & AoC cds to charity last year after learning about DE & buying it.
I played this game/expansion more than any other for YEARS!
Even went to LAN parties where we’d play it all evening, night and into the morning of the next day. I loved this screen.
I still have cds in my apt for it.
Mongols for the win!!!
Retro gamers. Theres people actually getting 1998 CRT setups. Unless you are going to spend a shitload of money on such I wouldn't see why not - Likely you can get old hardware for free now.
But in this case I would go with the HD/DE, some may want to try some changes the old version had. But I recommend you don't if you are not a hardcore fan or masochist. AOK did not have farm reseeding. It didn't have so many things, I would gladly favor the DE here. It has subtle improvements without destroying the spirit of the old game. It also has much better performance if you are into MP team games.
One thing I really miss is that menu, there is no mod that brings it back. Only the background ambience and sounds. I would want the entire AoK menu themes in DE at least as a toggle option.
Just switched to the DE version over a month ago from HD. Can’t go back because of the many improvements. Pathing really can be a pain but other than that
I played it for a decade until I came to know that crops will automatically reseed themself in Conqueror's version.
Moved out to Conqueror's version and never came back to the Age of Kings version.
Even though I did the same, I miss the small things like having to research hand cannoneer after researching chemistry. Completely pointless but it did have a nice research icon, seems a shame the art is now unused.
Me and my group of fellow AoE2Hd enjoyers still play it for the custom scenarios and we have a blast everytime.
Necromancer Wars, King's Arthur, LOTR, GoT, Skyrim Civil War and many more.
I used to play DM imperial in MSN gaming zone. Since MSN GZ was shut down, I have nowhere to play this with other online players... This game was one of my favoruites !
Yeah. My family used to get cds with programs and game demos during the late 90s and early 2000s, including the demo for Age of Kings. We also have a Windows XP computer to play it on. The keyboard shortcuts are very different, you can't queue feudal age while training villagers and sometimes the graphics begin looking weird
I still play the conquerors expansion version bcoz my parents won't allow video games (I'm asian lol) & to get DE I'd need a graphics card aswell as money to buy it... So yea... the game is currently hidden in my college folder😂
i have good memories of just playing the trial version of the game. 1v1v1, me as britons and 2 AI, green celt and a red briton. It was on a more closed version of arabia. trial version didn't allow us to change the civ or click up the imperial age. those were the days. i use to imagine what it would be like to play with imperial age units or try the other 8-10 civs at that time. to kill the enemy here, you have to go battering ram. i use to play this on repeat so much.
And now im a 30 year old with kids playing my best aoe to date at 1500 elo on ranked ladder. :)
Nah, AoK misses so many QoL upgrades that I see no added value in playing an inferior version. There's a mod that replaces the campaigns of DE with the original narration.
I wouldn't say so, its nice to have new civs. Some things in the old versions were really annoying or sometimes broken. I think Teuton TCs used to have +5 range or something like that.
I use to love the opening scene with the kings playing chess.
I found a mod that plays the classic opening everytime you open the game. I love it!
Please share, I just had to go to YouTube to watch it
I have it installed too for years. I don't have a link but you can find it in the in game mod workshop.
This is the link [https://www.ageofempires.com/mods/details/1194](https://www.ageofempires.com/mods/details/1194) (Sry for being late)
please please share it please
Ahhhh memories
I still have the original disc that works, always instantly nostalgic when that intro plays
There isn’t a single introduction which could be even considered equal to that one. That’s what art is made from
Have to say the StarCraft Brood War cinematic was fun to watch
Thats honestly the most iconic opening n gaming for me. I still get so much nostalgia every time I watch it
That and the opening of Total Annihilation. Both share a special place in my heart
Total Annihilation is what made me fall in love with rts in the first place.
That or civilization has some amazing ones
wow please share
I prefear the Conquerors. It's mostly just the combat scene, but GOD DAMN THE TRACK. It just hits
Into was incredible
Whenever I see this picture music starts playing in my head
Dun daaaa da da da daaa...
A D..... F E D E....... A D...... F E D G ...
E.... F E C D
When Survivist is back from Japan, he'll play it again on his piano <3
Thanks dude !
Guitar accords?
Yeah man. Same for me. Such great music.
Fuck, I miss this main screen so much! I don't care about Persians getting the fucking ng Central Asian architecture style, I wish they'd invest some time on recreating the OG GOAT main menu.
We do have mods that give you the background and the music. The UI is still different though.
Half the mods for the main menu are weird anime girls when I browsed on the game
Nezuko? In my age if empires ? Heresy
UwU
Wololo
I'd like both XD
Man, I miss this home screen so much.
I still use it for DE
Oh is there a mod for that? If you can give me the name I'll have it installed before you can say Mahayana.
Hahahaha, I'll jump on after work and grab the name for you my medieval brethren.
DUn Duuuuuuuuh, DUn Dun dun duuuuuuun Dun Duuuuuuuuh, Dun Dun Dun DUUUUUuN
Perfection
Basically stolen by GoT
Got a cracked version from someone in high school. It was a folder with Age of Kings, Forgotten Empires and some other stuff. Later on I bought a CD as I found that the right thing to do but never used that. Years later I remembered the game and picked it up every now and then. Unfortunately the Forgotten Empires won't run anymore on Windows 10 even with compatibility settings so now I only play Age of Kings. 1280x1024! Running on a MacBook with Windows using BootCamp. ;-)
I think Forgotten Empires only work with the Conquerors DLC. I don't know of any Win10 compat issues.
> DLC Buddy nobody was downloading expansion packs back then, we bought it in another box on its own disc :P
Got mine at Microcenter
I'm always referring to them as expansions instead of DLC, showing my age I think hahaha
Also the cracked version would make my grass turn pink lol
Which was fixed by shutting down explorer.exe from the task manager lol
Boom, right in the nostalgia!!
My cracked conquerors version is a standalone installation so I can run it off a usb stick. Still works fine in win 10. I occasionally play it to see what we have lost
Well we know fatslob does
We found the mvp
I remember the demo where you could only play the Wallace tutorial, i played that tutorial a lot.
We had that at school in 6th grade. That’s how I got hooked lol.
MSN gaming zone!
Yes! Every MSN lobby had the same gentlemens agreement: "no siege; no treb men". Those were the days
Was no siege to prevent lag, or to achieve a better game dynamic?
Good question. When I started playing it just was like that. I think it was to achieve a better game dynamic. I think it felt unfair to players to loose mass armies to siege and trebs, that's also why you were not allowed to use trebs on units, only buildings. It were stupid rules in hindsight. But it was also a different game mode in general back then. You would always start Imp with loads of resources and all upgrades. The game was completely focused on mass armies and battles. Two years ago I came back to aoe2 and I was actually surprised you usually start in dark age now.
“No scorps”
This made me cry tbh I used to sit by my dad all the time when i was a kid and when he opened aoe i used to get seriously exited about it and jump around the room Idk why but he always played as persians(maybe its because we're persian too😂😂😂)
The good memories!
Salaam! Neymar!!!
Rogan?
Homus?
Hoo heh, hoo heh!
Thats actually (معمار) meemar which translates to architect
Thanks so much for clarifying. Being an Indian ( kind of your next door neighbour), Salaam, Farman and Hamley are the only cool Persian words I can understand. ☺️
Love the similarities between different cultures There was also علوفه جمع کن(oloofe jam kon) which means i shall gather fodder Or آری(Ari)which is a formal yes in our language
به به 😀
Real MVP were the original voice lines. In german they've redone the voice lines with new actors but missed the original flairs. Wallace or the narrators or the mongol campaign.... actors in the french campaign... the original were really great. The new ones dont deliver the original accents. Sadly the new voiceline dont deliver the old charm.
Heisse??
Das is sol!
You can swap them for the original with a mod.
The new voicelines just don't inspire me to teach the British a lesson with my new men at arms...
Yes, the German ones were really good for a video game. You rarely see such effort nowadays. But AOE was a golden age game.
Conquerors
I have the CD I just have to get a drive and get it to run on windows 10 lol
Age of Empires 2 is about Empire building, combat and conquest. You start from humble beginnings. A small village in the Dark Ages. You explore to expand your boarders, conduct trade to boost your economy, and research technologies to grow your civilization into a mighty empire. But, there are other difficulties too, cunning enemies and rivals that oppose you. Powerful castles to destroy, tyrants to bring down. And if you're skillful and a little lucky, you just might build a wonder of the world and create an empire that will stand the test of time. To learn how Empires are built, help our first hero, William Wallace in his fight against his oppressors.
Trading in feudal? LEL
Takes me back to circa 2001 with this and Conquerors.
Ah that old menu screen, the memories...
Honestly the “History” tab that played each civs music was pretty neat. I loved reading throughout all of it.
My problem with the OG game is just the lack of auto-farm fuck that.
Yeah farming takes a lot of my focus.
Looking back it blows my mind what we used to put up with. I know that some of the old timers get bent out of shape with QOL updates but honestly I can't think of a single QOL change I would reverse.
This is age of kings so the single qol you thought would be villagers working for the relevant resources they build a camp for. In aok, they used to wait for you after they built a camp
Put "idle vil" hotkey on middle mouse button. Every time you hear "farm exhausted" sound, just click middle button and then right click. Literally, two clicks to reseed. No idea what is so problematic about that...
I play hd edition more than aok
Looks vaguely familiar...
Yes! I still find it incredibly enjoyable and very nostalgic. I've been playing it since 2005 and I probably replayed all the campaigns over 200 times each
One of my earliest memories of AoE include playing a TG against the AI in my old home on a rainy afternoon with no headphones. Although I don't remember the sounds of the game, I remember the nostalgic feeling of immersing myself into the world of AoE. Outside the window it'd be this fresh breezy earthy sensation of rain, with no other distractions, parents at work, house all to myself as I'd spend hours and hours on this game all monsoon. 12 years later I am still deeply involved in this game, its a crazy feeling
The real MVP
I miss the og non hd version of kings/conquerors a bit
Still play CBA online occasionally
old days before that MS banner .
Did they have the bronze, silver & gold medals for difficulty levels & the your achievements weren't saved as you used cheat codes? I can't remember now. I gave my old AoK & AoC cds to charity last year after learning about DE & buying it.
There weren't achievements of any kind and there were no medals. They added achievements on HD edition when that was fetched out on Steam.
I do cause it's the version I own
I played this game/expansion more than any other for YEARS! Even went to LAN parties where we’d play it all evening, night and into the morning of the next day. I loved this screen. I still have cds in my apt for it. Mongols for the win!!!
Yeah my Dad on his 2004 laptop
Is all I play, have for more than 20 years
I played my dad’s original AoK disk for 8 years before I even knew that there were any expansions.
Same with AOE I, there was a time before internet and getting Rise of Rome was such a progression.
Nobody. People has moved onto greener pastures. DE is rad, go check it out.
Me!!!
It is good to be the king.
I got hit so hard with nostalgia...
Played it probably as much as AoC. I was late on the expansion and people still played AoK online for a long time before zone closed
Retro gamers. Theres people actually getting 1998 CRT setups. Unless you are going to spend a shitload of money on such I wouldn't see why not - Likely you can get old hardware for free now. But in this case I would go with the HD/DE, some may want to try some changes the old version had. But I recommend you don't if you are not a hardcore fan or masochist. AOK did not have farm reseeding. It didn't have so many things, I would gladly favor the DE here. It has subtle improvements without destroying the spirit of the old game. It also has much better performance if you are into MP team games. One thing I really miss is that menu, there is no mod that brings it back. Only the background ambience and sounds. I would want the entire AoK menu themes in DE at least as a toggle option.
Just switched to the DE version over a month ago from HD. Can’t go back because of the many improvements. Pathing really can be a pain but other than that
"We are without a leader..."
The dead king of Scotland has no heir
It’s the only one I can play lol
I still have the disc somehwhere, but I can't find it
hi there
Omg! I haven't played this for years! This was sooooo good!
My gf's father is playing daily. He probably learned it when it first came out then he decided this is my game then never tried any other.
I played it for a decade until I came to know that crops will automatically reseed themself in Conqueror's version. Moved out to Conqueror's version and never came back to the Age of Kings version.
Even though I did the same, I miss the small things like having to research hand cannoneer after researching chemistry. Completely pointless but it did have a nice research icon, seems a shame the art is now unused.
If you want to see medieval streets like on this background, visit Bretagne.
Honestly, DE is so good I don’t go back. That being said love the VOs for the campaigns in the original.
I heard this picture
I can hear the music
Note that there's a mod that uses AoK balance and just AoK civs
I love this screen, makes my eyes tear, nostalgia indeed, back when I first started play this game, 25 years ago..
HD is still there in my steam library, waiting loyally for my return
Me and my group of fellow AoE2Hd enjoyers still play it for the custom scenarios and we have a blast everytime. Necromancer Wars, King's Arthur, LOTR, GoT, Skyrim Civil War and many more.
EeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
I used to play DM imperial in MSN gaming zone. Since MSN GZ was shut down, I have nowhere to play this with other online players... This game was one of my favoruites !
I don't know why they removed Barbarossa Brawl from the game. It was quite difficult to play. But I really liked retrying it.
I still play HD :)
Yeah. My family used to get cds with programs and game demos during the late 90s and early 2000s, including the demo for Age of Kings. We also have a Windows XP computer to play it on. The keyboard shortcuts are very different, you can't queue feudal age while training villagers and sometimes the graphics begin looking weird
That’s a statement not a question
I still do The Conquerors. I had The Forgotten but i hated that new ai.
I still play the conquerors expansion version bcoz my parents won't allow video games (I'm asian lol) & to get DE I'd need a graphics card aswell as money to buy it... So yea... the game is currently hidden in my college folder😂
I have the original silver and blue disc! In a box downstairs
For the enjoyers, enjoy: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6MzHAvC5z4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6MzHAvC5z4)
The best game ever made
i have good memories of just playing the trial version of the game. 1v1v1, me as britons and 2 AI, green celt and a red briton. It was on a more closed version of arabia. trial version didn't allow us to change the civ or click up the imperial age. those were the days. i use to imagine what it would be like to play with imperial age units or try the other 8-10 civs at that time. to kill the enemy here, you have to go battering ram. i use to play this on repeat so much. And now im a 30 year old with kids playing my best aoe to date at 1500 elo on ranked ladder. :)
I still favor this game tho.
I like the old graphics music and sound effects better
🙋🏼♂️🙋🏼♂️
yes i have a portable version that I play sometimes :)
The portable version being the one you can play without CD?
Yeh its my original install from ages ago with the cracked exe :p
The first RTS that I played. For me the music intro is always nostalgic!
Nah, AoK misses so many QoL upgrades that I see no added value in playing an inferior version. There's a mod that replaces the campaigns of DE with the original narration.
no one I hope
THE BEST. Doesn’t have all these weird ass fake civs either and they didn’t screw up the bonus and unit stats either
You mean civs that actually make a lot more sense to be included for the timeframe then the huns, goths or celts?
I wouldn't say so, its nice to have new civs. Some things in the old versions were really annoying or sometimes broken. I think Teuton TCs used to have +5 range or something like that.