Age of Empires Online Free Download for PC is a massively multiplayer online real-time strategy game released on August 16, 2011 through digital distribution and optical discs. Based upon the gameplay of the Age of Empires series, it was originally being developed by Robot Entertainment, but on February 24, 2011, it was announced that Gas Powered Games, the creators of Supreme Commander, had taken over production. The game is published by Microsoft.
The game was free-to-play—it was free for users to play, with the additional option of earning or purchasing premium content. Premium content may include access to many special items and blueprints, and more quests and features. Also, booster packs are now available, such as Defense of Crete and Skirmish. The former gives the player the ability to play in a survival type mode game, while the latter allows up to four humans versus up to four CPU opponents in a more traditional skirmish game-mode. The modes can be played in either single-player or co-op. The game also features several player versus player (PvP) modes for up to four people with the option of a PvP «Champion mode» which fully unlocks the players' tech tree and renders the gear for aesthetics only. Age of Empires Online Download free Full Version.
On March 27, 2012, the game premiered on Steam after a major overhaul patch which addressed complaints of an «MMO-like grind» and many other features, along with the debut of the Celtic civilization. On June 15, 2012 the premium content system was changed by offering the option to purchase all past and future content through «Empire points» earned in game, or by purchasing the points directly with real world money. With this change the player now has the option to earn all premium content for free.
As of 3 January 2013, Microsoft has ceased further development on the game and no new content will be released. However, the existing content and servers continued to function and be supported. A Microsoft representative later announced on the official forums that on August 22, 2013, the Games for Windows – Live Marketplace would be shut down, leaving the game only accessible by current or former players, thus meaning no new players can register and download the game as of that date. Empire Points could still be earned through gameplay, but the ability to purchase them was later removed. In September 2013, it was announced that the game would remain functional until July 1, 2014 when the service would be shut down. The closure was due to the content being too expensive to maintain. There is currently an online effort among fans to resurrect the game. Age of Empires Online Game free Download Full Version.
Gameplay
Age of Empires Online, like its predecessors, is a real-time based strategy videogame. The game features much of the gameplay of past games in the series, with the addition of a massive multiplayer online gaming element. The player possesses a capital city for each started civilization, that continues to exist when the player is offline. Also, the game features a great quantity of new content, such as the ability to craft items with earned materials and trading with other players.
The main gameplay revolves around the player being able to develop a civilization from its birth to its peak and fall. To assure victory, the player must gather resources to spend on new units, buildings and more advanced technology. Resources must also be preserved, as no new resources become available as the game progresses. A major component of the game is the advancement through four ages with each advancement bringing new technologies, weapons, and units.
Civilian units, called villagers, are used to gather resources. Resources can be used to train units, construct buildings, and research technologies. The game offers four types of resources: Food, wood, gold and stone. Food is obtained by hunting animals, gathering berries, harvesting livestock, farming and fishing. Wood is gathered by chopping down trees. Gold is obtained from either gold mines or through trade and stone is collected from stone mines. Villagers require depository buildings; a town center, dock, storehouse, or for the Babylonians, an ox cart, where they can store gathered resources. Each civilization can research upgrades that increase the rate of resource gathering.
Players can construct a market for trade; enabling them to either trade wood, stone, and food for gold, and use gold to buy other resources. Market prices fluctuate with every transaction (supply vs. demand). Furthermore, markets and docks can generate gold, by sending trade units (caravans or merchant transports) to visit own or allied town centers and ports. Once the trade units return, gold is added to the stockpile with the amount of earned gold being related to the distance traveled. Age of Empires Online game free Download for PC Full Version.
Units
Age of Empires Online includes five classes of military units: Infantry, archers, cavalry, siege weaponry, and naval units. All military classes are developed to maintain a balance on gameplay, and thus avoiding visible advantages between civilizations. As an example, a unit powerful against buildings can be weak against a certain kind of cavalry. Unique units are available for the Greek, Egyptian, Celts, and Persian civilizations, either from the start of the game or through advisor cards. These civilization-specific units are generally more powerful, but can still be vulnerable to certain units. The priest is a special kind of military unit that has the ability to convert enemy units to the player's civilization, and to heal allied units.
Every player has a limit to the total number of units they can create—a population limit—but may not immediately use the entire potential population. The population limit increases with the number of houses or town centers in the player's village to a maximum of 200, with each house contributing five (or ten for the Norse) and each town center contributing 20 to the limit. There are two important features for unit management: The idle villager button, which helps players identify villagers that have not been assigned a task, and the town bell, which sends all of the player's villagers into the nearest town center, fortress or tower for safety.
Buildings
The buildings in Age of Empires Online are either economic or military buildings. Buildings can research technologies and upgrades that increase economic, military or unit-based efficiency, as well as provide resources for the player. Each civilization has unique buildings, but some are common for all civilizations; the most important of these being the town center, where villagers are created, resources are stored, some technologies researched and in which the player can advance to the next age. The town center can fire arrows at enemy units within range. Other economic buildings available include the storehouse for resources, farms, docks (the dock may also produce several military ships), and houses to support a higher population.
Military buildings include unit-producing buildings such as barracks, archery ranges, stables, and fortresses, as well as defensive buildings such as walls and towers. Military buildings can perform research to improve the abilities of military units, increasing their strength, defensive capabilities, or other attributes. The fortress is a powerful defensive building which can train a variety of units, including the civilization's unique units, and fires arrows at enemy units within range. It can only be built after a player has reached the third age. There are two other important defensive buildings: Walls and towers. Walls are used to prevent access for enemy units to an enclosed area, while friendly units can traverse the walls through inserted gates. Towers are equipped with the ability to fire arrows at enemy units, or garrison friendly units for protection, and can be used in conjunction with walls in establishing defense lines. Watch posts are used for extendings the line of sight.
Development
Age of Empires Online, under the working title Project S, was to be the first game developed by Robot Entertainment, a company founded by 45 of the 110 former staff members of Ensemble Studios, who created the Age of Empires series. The game was officially announced on August 16, 2010. Robot was hired by Microsoft to develop the game over a 24-month period. The entire studio team focused on it as their sole project, in an effort to earn startup funds for Robot's future projects.
During early production, Age of Empires Online was originally called Age of Empires IV. The development team had noticed that over the years many other RTS game developers had moved away from the «economic game». The team felt that Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings had blended the economic and military aspects of the game perfectly, so they decided to play test it with hindsight. They noticed that many features from the game had been lost or changed over time for its successors. It was during this time the team decided to do an «Age of Kings style gameplay in an Age of Empires setting». The designers were surprised that fans of the series were most fond of the simpler aspects of the previous titles. Former Age of Empires II lead designer Ian M. Fischer stated, «When we started floating some of the early [AoEO] out to people other pieces fell into place – I cannot tell you how many times I have had someone email me or talk to me at a show and mention how much they loved the villagers carrying big hunks of meat in the original Age or the priest „wololo“». From that point on, one of the goals was to invoke nostalgia from fans of the series when playing the game, despite the newer and updated features.
The decision to make the game online-only was based in part on the success of Age of Empires II and the popularity of its online integration with MSN Gaming Zone. Since online player interaction through the game was made a priority by the studio, two iterations of the game had to be created; a server version and a client version. This resulted in a heavily modified version of the BANG engine used in previous games of the series, along with requiring large amounts of additional server code and infrastructure to be implemented. Excluding the tools, Age of Empires Online contains over 1.2 million lines of code.
In designing the new look for the game, Robot had six artists come together to create a new art style which would look similar to the previous games from the series, yet look more «visually appealing», «timeless», and «bright». Among the art team was Ensemble Studios' first artist Brad Crow, who had worked on every Age of Empires game produced by the studio. The team implemented several ideas to give the game an improved core visual interface over that of its predecessors such as; increasing the field of view so that the player was able to see more on the screen, a tighter user interface to allow more of the field of play to be visible, a new building design to make them encompass less screen space — while also making them look more recognizable, and giving each unit a unique look and animation making them more easily distinguishable from each other.
The music and sound for the game was developed by GL33k and veteran video game composer Chris Rickwood. In composing the music, Rickwood strove to keep it in the spirit of Stephen Rippy's and Kevin McMullan's work from the prior games of the series. Age of Empires Online Free Download Torrent.
