Instead they begin each game with a pre-set limit to their total population. The net result of these differences is that playing each civilisation is a unique experience, and you really do have to use your brain to take advantage of their strengths or overcome their weaknesses. Of the new civilisations, only the South American races are blessed with new graphics.
What's really going to breathe new life into your multiplayer games though, are the new game types. King Of The Hill places a monument at the centre of the map and has the players ranged round the outside.
To win, all you have to do is capture the monument and hold it for years. Well, not quite. The monument is always difficult to get to in the first place. It might, for example, be on an island in a large expanse of water. So first you have to figure the best way to get to it. Then defending it isn't quite as straightforward as it might at first I appear either.
That's largely because you are not permitted to build in the immediate vicinity of the monument, so you can't simply capture it and wall it off.
The other two new games seem to have been designed for those who love resource management and those who don't.
Wonder Race does away with combat altogether, and has everybody living in peace and harmony. Well, almost. There's still something of a competitive spirit among neighbouring civilisations as they race to be the first to build a wonder and win the game. It's all about how quickly you can gather those resources and how well you spend them. If you're an aficionado of big battles and the Wonder Race game sounds as if it will bore you to tears, then Defend The Wonder was made for you.
In this game variation every civilisation begins in the Imperial Age, and all with a ton of resources to encourage rapid build up of forces. One player though, begins in a walled-off area with a wonder at the centre, and has to protect it for years. Meanwhile, the other players are doing their level best to get together some heavy siege machinery with which to break in and spoil the party. Because of the high-tech level everybody starts at and the lack of any need to research advanced weaponry, this game type makes for some truly spectacular battle sequences.
So, you can see that there are a lot of clearly visible additions packed into Conquerors. What is likely to really make a long-term difference to extending the life of AOK are the improvements that have been made under the bonnet.
There are 16 major areas of improvement over the gameplay and features in AOK. Some of the improvements demonstrate Ensemble Studios' commitment to playing its own games to destruction and ironing out the wrinkles. For example, let's take the situation in which you have grouped together infantry with a heavy weapons platform.
How often have you watched in horror when, on first encountering an enemy group, your HWP stupidly joins in the action, wiping out half your own infantry with friendly fire. In Conquerors, siege weapons like Mangonels will hold their fire if they are likely to injure your own troops. Speaking of sieges, these become both more realistic and more complex. You can now garrison foot soldiers inside battering rams, which has the dual benefit of giving the ram more oomph and providing your troops with protection during the approach to an enemy wall.
There are some interesting additions to the resource management side of things too. Now, when a villager has finished constructing a building, instead of idly standing around watching everybody else working, he'll set off and perform an action appropriate to that building. So, in AOK you might have set a villager to work chopping trees and subsequently had another villager building a Lumber Camp.
Fish traps now provide food at a faster rate, about equal to shore fish. Camels are now as quick to train as spearmen. Viking Berserks now move as fast as pikemen. New Multiplayer-only map type 'Blind Random'. This selects randomly between a number of different map types, and you are not told what kind of map you are playing on.
Aztecs now get free Loom Castles now take build points to construct instead of Franks now have the Halberd technology. Chinese start with 50 less food than before for a total of food Bombard Towers now do piercing damage instead of normal damage the major effect is vs.
Fire rate for conquistadors and elite conquistadors is also improved. Cav archers now have equal range to heavy cav archers. Goth infantry now gets its full cost discount in Feudal Age. Japanese infantry now gets its full attack speed bonus in Feudal Age. Which increases the hit points of mounted units, and thumbring, which increases the rate of fire and accuracy of archers.
0コメント