military and historical

This game has many great selling points. But like most other computer related things, it has its bad points. As far as castle building and war waging, its great. Set your town center, then houses, then get the economy going. Once you are set economically, build stone wall, archery range, a barracks, and a castle so you can build an army and defend your town.
You can even play as the Franks, the Japanese, the Byzantines, the Vikings, the Mongols, the Celts, and one of 7 other races. Each race has their own different building look and each race develops individual technological advances just like they did in real history. I.e. the Chinese develop gunpower later in the game.
The short commings of the game is based upon the weak AI. In this game, when your farm runs fallow (out of food), the villager just stands by idle. This is where the main advance of the Conquerors Expansion comes in. It allows you to queue up several farms so micromanaging doesnt affect the rest of the game. The last thing you need during a battle is to have to go have villagers plant farms.
There is a box set of the game and the expansion, get it. Or bypass the game all together and get Age of Mythologies. If you like medieval times with castles, nights, and kings, get this game.

I read the early reviews of this game,and saw lots of screen shots, and could not get what all the fuss was about. No cutting edge 3-D graphics (although the graphics, set on high detail, are very nice). No warp speed action or laser weapons. Not much blood and gore (just in very tiny scale and in a non-offensive manner). Once I played it, however, I was hooked.

The interface is intuitive (and evidently greatly improved from the original AOE). Gameplay starts calmly at the early levels, but builds to frantic battling as your (and your opponent's) civilization grows in power and size.

AOE II does require a lot of micromanagement - just as you are preparing to attack an enemy (or even a friend :) you will have to rebuild a farm or divert your attention to an attack from your flank. This is not a negative aspect, and is actually very satisfying when you balance all your actions successfully.

Each of the 13 civilizations has unique characteristics and weapons which means you have months of gameplay for your investment. There are also a dozen or so different types of maps to choose from as well as the ability to create your own maps.

Now for the really fun part. If you have never played multiplayer, online games, this game would be a good intro to it. Playing the computer opponent is fun, but playing flesh and blood opponents across the internet is a blast. It heightens the tension and offers you a chance to hone your skills against people with wide-ranging skills and strategies. And best of all, it's free.

Get this game and let loose your own dogs of war.

I bought this game because I really like the first one. This one doesn't compare. The maps are darker, the movement stilted and clumsy. There are some good additions to game play, but the scenes and population are inferior IN USE, if not to the eye. I was really disappointed.