For reference, there were 18 civilizations and 9 campaigns between the original Age of Kings and The Conquerors releases. Titled “The Last Khans,” this will be the fourth expansion since 2013’s HD Edition re-release and will bring the full game to a total of 35 civilizations and 27 campaigns. Of course there’s a full-scale expansion included in the Definitive Edition as well. This knowledge is attained by trial-and-error, but it doesn’t have to be and I’ll be curious whether Challenge Missions live up to Microsoft’s stated aims. I can’t count how many strategy game tutorials I’ve played that taught me how to move the camera or a character, but never bothered to explain why certain technologies might matter early on, what build orders might be good to start with, and so on. So often, people lose interest in strategy games because proficiency seems unattainable, and it seems unattainable because it’s poorly explained. Like Mortal Kombat 11‘s character-specific tutorials, these Challenge Missions seem like a great step at removing traditional genre barriers. More important perhaps is a series of what Forgotten Empires calls “Challenge Missions.” Despite the name, it’s actually meant to teach people to be better Age of Empires II players, not scare them off.

I’m not equipped to judge that, as I’m a fairly middling (but enthusiastic) Age of Empires II player. Forgotten Empires claims it’s improved the AI on the hardest difficulty, programming it to use tactics that are common in high-level Age of Empires II play-and without cheating, unlike the old AI. Different sure, and some might prefer the classic experience, but personally I’m looking forward to removing some of the busywork and focusing on tactics and army composition and the more big-picture ideas instead of worrying when I hear the shk-shk-shk of a farm gone fallow.Īnd there are some larger changes, albeit in specific and self-contained circumstances. As I said, it sounds like you can either disable many of these features or opt to not use them-but why? A lot of these ideas became standard shortly after Age of Empires II released, and it’s not a better game for their absence. These are small changes, but in aggregate they make for a smarter and less finicky game.

Aoe 2 remastered