DOS Days

Age of Empires

Released: 1997
Published by: Microsoft
Developed by: Ensemble Studios
Author(s): Rick Goodman, Bruce Shelley, Brian Sullivan, Angelo Laudon, Timothy Deen, Mark Terrano, Dave Pottinger, Brad Crow, Scott Winslett, David Rippy, Chris Rippy, Stephen Rippy, David Lewis, Mickey Kawick, Bill Schofield, Thonny Namuonglo, Sean Wolff, Duncan McKissick, Don Gagen, Herb Ellwood, Duane Santos and David Deen.

Introduction

Age of Empires (AoE) is a history-based real-time strategy video game developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft, and the first game in the Age of Empires series. The game uses the Genie, a 2D sprite-based game engine. The game allows the user to act as the leader of an ancient civilization by advancing it through four ages (the Stone, Tool, Bronze, and Iron Ages), gaining access to new and improved units with each advance. It was later ported to Pocket PCs with Windows.

Originally touted as Civilization meets Warcraft, some reviewers felt that the game failed to live up to these expectations when it was released. Despite this, it received generally good reviews, and an expansion pack, titled The Rise of Rome, was released in 1998. Both the original Age of Empires and the expansion pack were later released as "The Gold Edition". A sequel, Age of Empires II, was released in 1999. Age of Empires: Definitive Edition, a remastered version of the game, was released on February 20, 2018.

System Requirements

System Requirements Intel Pentium processor, Windows 95, 16 MB RAM.
Graphics support for VGA only (1 MB video memory required as a minimum), DirectX 5.0.
Keyboard and Mouse required..
Original Media One CD-ROM.
Installed Size (MB) 130 MB

From where can it be run?

.Age of Empires must be installed to hard disk.

Copy Protection

The game requires that the original CD be present in your CD-ROM drive during the game's startup. There are "No CD" patches out there on the internet to circumvent this annoyance. Be sure to get the correct patch that matches your game version (either 1.0, 1.0a, 1.0b or 1.0c) and game language (English, German or French). The patch replaces the main game executable file, so before installing make a copy of this file.

How to Setup

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Problems

Symptom: ?
Cause: ?
Resolution: ?


To Quit the Game

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Supporting Documents

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Additional Files and Utilities

An official expansion pack was released exactly 1 year after the main game, in October 1998, called The Rise of Rome. This was was also part of the 1999 bundle, The Gold Edition, which included the original game plus the expansion.

In The Rise of Rome you are given four new campaigns that cover [you guessed it] the rise and fall of Rome. It includes four new civilizations which are Carthage, Macedonia, Palmyra, and Roman, with a new building design, five new units (slingers, armored elephants, camel riders, fire galleys, and scythe chariots), and four new technologies (logistics, martyrdom, medicine, and tower shield).

It also added several bug fixes to the original game, plus new maps. Gameplay was also improved, with the ability to queue production of units of the same type, use the "home" key to circle through events, the possibility to change the population limit, and a new map size "gigantic" was added.

Save Games

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Versions of the game known to exist

Version Date Comments
1.0 15 Oct 1997 Initial public release.
1.0a  

Enhancements

  • Population Limits - If you are playing a multiplayer game, the game host can increase or decrease the 50.
  • Stand Ground - The Stand Ground button prevents Stone Throwers, Catapults, Heavy Catapults, Catapult Triremes, and Juggernaughts from firing. For all other units, the Stand Ground button causes the unit to remain in its location and fire at military units, boats, buildings, and walls within its range.
  • Attack Response - When a unit is attacked, all units and allied units within two tiles of the unit under attack respond, even if the attacking unit is out of their sight. Villagers that have been assigned a task but are no longer working now react to attacks.
  • Pathing Options - There is now an option to choose how many pathing possibilities your units calculate when moving a long distance across the map.

Bug fixes

  • Infinite Resources During High Latency - Buildings no longer return more resources than they originally cost if you press the DELETE key several times during high latency.
  • Multiple Town Centers During High Latency - You can no longer build multiple Town Centers if you delete your Town Center in the Tool Age or Stone Age and then quickly build several new ones during high latency.
  • Way Points - Villagers no longer complete tasks at a way point that is not at a work site. The way point or villager must be at the actual work site (fishing spot, building site, etc.) before they can work. For example, you can no longer use way points to construct a building on the other side of a wall.
  • Allied Transport Loading and Boat Repair - In order to use allied transports and repair allied boats, both players must set diplomacy to Ally. You can no longer attack enemy boats by selecting the player as an ally, luring the boat to shore to repair or load units onto it, and then changing the diplomacy setting to enemy so you can attack.
1.0b Oct 1998 Came with The Rise of Rome expansion, and included all the updates from the 1.0a patch.


Enhancements

  • Group Movement - Grouped units no longer stop when they bump into each other. Also, movement has been improved so a group of units can move through narrow passages more efficiently.
1.0c 17 Dec 1999

Enhancements

  • Idle Villager Key - Pressing the period ( . ) key selects and centers the view on a villager or fishing boat that is not assigned a task. Pressing ( . ) cycles though all idle villagers and boats in the game. This is a keyboard-only command; there is no on-screen control for it.

Balance Changes

  • Shang Food Cost - The cost of a Shang villager was reduced to 40 food. The amount of food the Shang player starts with was reduced by 40.
  • Phoenician Woodcutting Bonus - Phoenician villagers now work 15% faster. In previous versions of Age of Empires, they worked 54% percent faster.

Bug Fixes

  • Market Tribute Bug - If you have an incompletely built market, you can no longer send a tribute until it is completed.
  • Wall Overrun Bug - If you build a wall from the inside of the map to the edge, it will no longer build wall foundations all the way across the map.
  • Deleted Shallows Object Bug - If you delete shallows in the map editor, units can no longer walk over the old shallows area.
  • Building Through Diagonal Walls Bug - A villager can no longer build a building on the opposite side of a diagonal enemy wall.
  • Converted Dock Bug - You can no longer continue to trade at your dock after it has been converted.
  • Farm Bug - When both a farmer and Farm are selected at the same time, pressing "S" no longer causes the farm to replenish the amount of food available.
  • Building and Training at Incorrect Building Bug - You can no longer train units at a building not intended for that purpose.
  • Cheats Removed from Multiplayer - The GAIA, Reveal Map, and No Fog cheats have been removed from multiplayer.
  • Steroids Bug - Cheating in multiplayer games by using the Steroids cheat has been prevented.
  • Anti-Trainer Technology - Technology has been added to Age of Empires to cause multiplayer games to go out of sync if any of a variety of hacks are attempted.
  • Multiplayer Game Launching - Multiplayer games with larger numbers of players (6 or more) or with bad modem connections are much more likely to succeed on launching.
  • Palmyran Free Tribute on Full Tech Tree Bug - When the Full Tech Tree option is selected, the Palmyran civilization players no longer receive the free tribute bonus.


Original Disc Contents

The single CD-ROM has no specific volume label.

    CD-ROM:

     
                
    Directory of D:\

     

    The Rise of Rome Expansion:

     
                
    Directory of D:\

     

 

Installed Directory Contents

Once installed, the following directory structure exists in the game directory:

    Full Install chosen

     
                
    Directory of C:\GAMES\AOE
    .            <DIR>         05/09/21   13:49
..           <DIR>         05/09/21   13:49