Age of Empires II

[AdrianCC100]

For those who still have this game and are looking for other players to play with. Check out Voobly.com, it looks allot like MSN Zone and it has over 1,000 players playing each day! I'll be playing their this Thursday, so if you want to hook up and play some matches, feel free to message me or post here! Also if you know of other players where many players play AOEII please post the link here!

[Scott Kevill]

It's mentioned in the Age of Empire Online thread, but yeah, GameRanger is the most popular place to play Age of Empires II now. Microsoft recommends it as a replacement for Zone.

[AdrianCC100]

I went on GameRanger, there is not nearly as many people on there as Voobly. But yes, that is another place people can play AOEII.

[Scott Kevill]

With all due respect, that's definitely not the case.

Where were you looking in GameRanger exactly, to make that assessment? I want to clear up any misunderstanding in how GameRanger works.

[Thalium1]

The game was amazing in its prime..

[AdrianCC100]

With all due respect, that's definitely not the case.

Where were you looking in GameRanger exactly, to make that assessment? I want to clear up any misunderstanding in how GameRanger works.

I installed the GameRanger client, and looked through all the Age of Empires II: The Conquerors room and the majority of them were empty.

The game was amazing in its prime..

It still is an amazing game. Old, yeah, but still amazing. Better then Starcraft in my own opinion.

[Caradinist]

Is there like a section for people who play the Age of Chivalry:Hegemony mod?

By the way, if you don't know what i'm talkin' about:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/age-of-chivalry-hegemony

Made me dust off my Age of Empires II copy.

[patrickshagel]

I give this game a 10/10. It is absolutely addictive. I recommend it. If you already have the game, look in AOE II: The Conquerors. It is an extension of the game that makes this great game better.

[Deleted]

My and my mates can still discuss those intense, awesome AoEII-sessions we had years ago. Really addicting, really difficult.

It's a shame the professional way of playing it differs so much from how the game is, uhm, intended to be played...

[Scott Kevill]

I installed the GameRanger client, and looked through all the Age of Empires II: The Conquerors room and the majority of them were empty.

Again, not sure what you're looking at, but that's definitely wrong. The "Main Chat Rooms" at the bottom of the main window are optional and default to closed. Only a very small fraction of users choose to join those rooms. The game list above is where everyone is. The game list is global, and does not require you to be in any main chat room / lobby to use it.

As I type this there are 2,288 AoC players currently online in GameRanger. That's not counting the AoK players. This isn't even peak time.. it's nearly the lowest point of the day.

Is there like a section for people who play the Age of Chivalry:Hegemony mod?

Yes, the Age of Chivalry mod is listed as a separate game in GameRanger. There's a game being played right now. On good days, there are around 80 games played per day.

My and my mates can still discuss those intense, awesome AoEII-sessions we had years ago. Really addicting, really difficult.

It's a shame the professional way of playing it differs so much from how the game is, uhm, intended to be played...

Unfortunately, ladders/ratings/points tend to cause people to play that way. In GameRanger people play for fun, as it should be, so even random players actually chat in the waiting game rooms rather than "go go go go go!!!!!!!!!!!" It's a very friendly place for all levels of skill, especially beginners.

[Andrac]

I have really been thinking of reinstalling this and playing it as of late. I remember fun times while playing it, plus I have seen people talking about it in various forums over the past week or two.

So far this has been the very best RTS I have ever played in terms of multiplayer options. I don't really play them online, just against the cpu, but AoE II pretty much got it perfect. The five difficulty levels as opposed to everyone else using three really does make a huge difference in tailor fitting a game to your skill level. I have found the ones that use three tend to be so random that its near unplayable at times. One setting is to east and the very next setting is to hard. Then AoE II lets you choose what civilization era you start in and how far it can go up, as well as the pop limit and its just awsome.

Damn, now I do have to install this again. Better hurry up and beat OoT first though.

[Scott Kevill]

I don't really play them online, just against the cpu, but AoE II pretty much got it perfect.

Why not play online co-operatively in a "comp stomp"? Play with a friend (or stranger) against a team of CPUs. Not nearly as adversarial or competitive, but can be a ton of fun and ease you into the idea of online play.

[Leylin]

Black forest was my favorite map , more than half of my pop cap was villagers , cut the trees down make a secret back passage , attack from behind.

Best.strat.ever.

[Deleted]

Black forest was my favorite map , more than half of my pop cap was villagers , cut the trees down make a secret back passage , attack from behind.

Best.strat.ever.

Lol ya totally! My mates began shielding themselves from the forests with walls... Then they paniced and screwed over their resources in the market when they realized they had no wood.

So what's a good place for beginners/intermediate players to play a couple of games?

[Scott Kevill]

So what's a good place for beginners/intermediate players to play a couple of games?

As I said in an earlier post, GameRanger. It's not hyper-competitive, and is a very friendly place for all levels of skill, especially beginners.

[Deleted]

I guess I'll check that out sometime soon, cheers. Which patch is most commonly used for online play?

[Scott Kevill]

I guess I'll check that out sometime soon, cheers. Which patch is most commonly used for online play?

No problem.

2.0a for playing Age of Kings, 1.0c for playing The Conquerors. Both updaters are still available on Microsoft's website. (I'd provide the links, but apparently haven't reached the posting threshold yet.)

[Andrac]

So I finally got around to reinstalling this and sadly its near unplayable for me because it seems to have some weird graphical problem. I have no idea what is causing it, but things seems to be much smaller then I remember them ever being before, there is these weird lines across the grayed out areas of the map I have already discovered. I'm not sure if it is stretching because I have a wide screen monitor where I didn't when I first got the game. Unless the patch I downloaded from the official homepage for the game is doing it. I never had that patch when I played the game years ago and didn't have the graphical problems either.