Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context VideoGame / AgeOfEmpiresII

Go To

1%%
2%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them.
3%%
4[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ageofempire_ii_6810.jpg]]
5[[caption-width-right:350:Cue the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRtlWfi6jiM opening theme]]...]]
6-> ''Is the will of one man enough to forge an empire?''
7
8''Age of Empires II'' (full name: ''Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings'') is the second installment of the ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpires'' series. It was developed by Creator/EnsembleStudios and released by Creator/{{Microsoft}} in 1999 for UsefulNotes/MicrosoftWindows.
9
10The game retains most of the mechanics and features of ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresI'': players must build a civilization starting from the initial Dark Age, and progress through the Feudal Age, Castle Age and the Imperial Age. In order to do so, they need to gather resources (gold, stone, food and wood) using {{worker unit}}s, mainly villagers, which can also construct buildings which are used to expand the population limit, research technologies and train units. As players advance throughout the ages, more powerful units and technologies become available. New features introduced in this installment are unique units and technologies per civilization (further distinguishing them), the ability to check the civilization's tech tree and features in-game, and a formation system for military ground units allowing them to march in patterns.
11
12The game is set in TheMiddleAges, from DarkAgeEurope to UsefulNotes/TheRenaissance, with 13 playable civilizations (Britons, Byzantines, Celts, Chinese, Franks, Goths, Japanese, Mongols, Persians, Saracens, Teutons, Turks and Vikings), and campaigns based on William Wallace, Joan of Arc, UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan, Saladin and Barbarossa.
13
14An UpdatedRerelease titled ''Age of Empires II: HD Edition'' was released exclusively on Platform/{{Steam}} on April 9, 2013. Developed by Hidden Path Entertainment, it includes ''The Conquerors'' and enhanced visuals.
15
16A ''Definitive Edition'' of ''Age of Empires II'' was announced in 2018, developed by Creator/ForgottenEmpires, Creator/TantalusMedia and Creator/WickedWitch, and was released in November 2019 on Steam and Windows Store. The ''Definitive Edition'' includes updated graphics, the 13 civilizations introduced in ''HD'', a new set of challenges for all player levels called "The Art of War", and four new civilizations: Lithuanians, Bulgarians, Tatar and Cumans, alongside a new campaign set called "The Last Khans", depicting how different civilizations dealt with the aftermath of the Mongol invasions initiated by Genghis; leaders depicted include Tamerlane (Tatars), Ivaylo (Bulgarians) and Kotyan Khan (Cumans). In addition, some campaigns from the ''HD'' expansions are either replaced or changed [[note]]The most significant changes are that ''El Dorado'' was replaced by a campaign depicting Pachacuti, while the historical battle ''Langshan Jiang'' from ''Forgotten Empires'' was replaced by ''Lake Poyang''. The narrations in some campaigns were also changed.[[/note]], as well as fixing factions which were perceived as represented by the wrong civilizations in the old campaigns. An added bonus also returns the [[MemeticMutation Wololo]] sound for the Monk conversion.
17
18Across its vast development history, however, the game and its subsequent releases received a bunch of {{Expansion Pack}}s and [[DownloadableContent DLCs]]:
19[[foldercontrol]]
20[[folder:''Age of Kings'' and ''HD Edition'']]
21* ''The Conquerors'': Released in 2000, includes five new civilizations (Aztecs, Huns, Koreans, Maya and Spanish), three new campaigns (UsefulNotes/AttilaTheHun, El Cid, and Montezuma) and a selection of various historic battles. In addition, each of the civilizations gained an unique technology, which can be researched at the Castle; these techs ranged from improvements to their unique units to an overall benefit for the civilization.
22* ''The Forgotten'': Based on the 2012 fan expansion ''[[https://www.forgottenempires.net Forgotten Empires]]'' created by the eponymous fan group, it restores five cut civilizations (Incas, Indians, Italians, Magyars and Slavs), six new campaigns (Alaric, Bari[[note]]the only campaign named after a city, rather than a historical character, and one of two campaigns to depict a civilization which was introduced in a previous installment (Byzantines), the other being Alaric, a leader of the Goths[[/note]], Dracula, El Dorado, Prithiviraj and (Francesco) Sforza) and more historical battles, as well as improved AI, upgrades, and balance fixes. It was released on Steam on November 7, 2013.
23* ''The African Kingdoms'': Released on November 5, 2015, introduced the Berbers, Malians, Ethiopians, and Portuguese as new civilizations. It also features campaigns depicting leaders from the civilizations (from listed order of civs: Tariq ibn Ziyad, Sundjata, Yodit, Francisco de Almeida).
24* ''Rise of the Rajas'' Released on December 19, 2016, introduced four civilizations based on the Southeast Asian region: Khmers, Malays, Burmese, and Vietnamese. It also features campaigns depicting leaders from the civilizations (from listed order of civs: Suryavarman I, Gajah Mada, Bayinnaung and Lê Lợi).
25[[/folder]]
26[[folder:''Definitive Edition'']]
27* ''Lords of the West'': The first post-''Definitive Edition'' DLC, features two new civilizations (Burgundians and Sicilians), as well as three new campaigns ("Grand Dukes of the West", "The Hautevilles", and the Britons-centered "Edward Longshanks"). Released on January 26, 2021.
28* ''Dawn of the Dukes'': The second ''DE''-exclusive DLC, adds the Bohemians and Poles as factions, and three new campaigns (two for the new factions, and one for the Lithuanians) which form a continuous narrative, telling the formation of the UsefulNotes/PolishLithuanianCommonwealth. Released on August 10, 2021.
29* ''Dynasties of India'': This DLC reworks the former Indian civilization into the Hindustanis and adds three more India-based civs, the Gurjara, Bengali and Dravidians, as well as three new campaigns. Released on April 28, 2022.
30* ''Return of Rome'': This expansion ports content from the original ''[[VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresI Age of Empires]]'' to ''Age of Empires II'' as a cross between an EmbeddedPrecursor and an UpdatedRerelease, including all sixteen of that game's civilizations, plus one new civilization (the Lac Viet) and three new campaigns. In the main ''Age of Empires II'' game, the Romans are available as a new civilization. Released on May 16, 2023.
31* ''The Mountain Royals'': This DLC focuses on the Caucasus, featuring two new civilizations in the Armenians and the Georgians alongside a major rework of the Persians and three new campaigns (Tamar’s Ascension with the Georgians, Thoros the Great with the Armenians, and Ismail for the Persians). Released on October 31, 2023.
32* ''Victors and Vanquished'': A single-player DLC that adds 19 new scenarios by famed community modder Ramsey Abdulrahim; 14 of the scenarios are comprehensive remakes of his previous creations, with the remaining 5 being brand new. Released on March 14, 2024.
33[[/folder]]
34----
35!!''Age of Empires II'' and its expansions give examples of[[note]]Civilization- and Character-specific tropes can also be found in [[Characters/AgeOfEmpiresII the Character sheets]]. Also check [[Recap/AgeOfEmpiresII the Recap page]] for campaign-specific tropes.[[/note]]:
36
37[[folder:A-H]]
38* AcceptableBreaksFromReality: A few.
39** All civilizations have access to naval units and technologies, including those from landlocked regions like the Mongols, or most of the Mesoamerican ones. While it can be handwaved that certain nations do still make use of boats and ships within the rivers and lakes of their geographic regions, full-blown navies are still a bit far-fetched in those cases, especially with large ships. The Mongolian steppes in particular are smack-dab in the middle of the Gobi desert, and thus have little to no access to open water and navies, not that they needed either (they ''did'' have a fairly well-established navy with which they tried to invade Japan twice, but the vast majority of their conflicts were settled on land). This is done so that no civilization will be disadvantaged when playing on coastal or island maps, where a lack of sea vessels means they can't fish or engage in naval combat against their opponents.
40** With the release of ''Definitive Edition'', more herdable animals have been added to maps that can be slaughtered for food like the vanilla sheep or turkeys. This can give rise to rather unusual circumstances that would not fly in reality, such as Indians killing and gathering food from cows, or Muslims eating pigs. From a gameplay perspective, this is done so that no player will be disadvantaged by the random herdable spawns around their Town Center no matter which animals they get.
41* AchievementMockery: There are Steam achievements for ''losing'' buildings and units, though it could be considered a reward for play ''time'' instead of just mockery; even if you're ''bad'' at AOE, you have to play a lot to rack up the number of losses the achievements call for.
42* {{Acrofatic}}: Most Kings[[note]]they get separate appearances depending on the building style from ''The African Kingdoms''[[/note]] are examples of AdiposeRex, yet they can outrun a horse despite being themselves unmounted.
43* AdaptationalNameChange: Some names were changed in the ''Definitive Edition'', for example, Camels and Arbalests were slightly renamed into Camel Riders and Arbalesters to better describe the units (the former especially with the introduction of wild camels).
44* AllThereInTheManual: Each building, technology and unit in the game gets a detailed historical description.
45* AlternateHistory: Yes, some of the events depicted in the campaigns are inaccurate with history, especially for a game that prides itself on being an EdutainmentGame. But the campaigns [[ShaggyDogStory wouldn't be nearly as fun if they ended in failure]], and it's clear that the developers [[ShownTheirWork know that many aspects are inaccurate.]]
46* AnachronismStew:
47** With specific exceptions[[note]]Alaric, Prithviraj, and Tariq ibn Ziyad campaigns as well as the Manzikert historical battle[[/note]], the existence of gunpowder units when it's not possible:
48*** Petards from ''The Conquerors'' onwards are gunpowder suicide bombers available at any castle, in both the original and expansion campaigns (petards only appeared in the 16th century). Enjoy blowing the Spanish up with them as the Aztecs.
49*** The Huns can build cannon galleons, despite ceasing to exist about 500 years before the invention of gunpowder and never being particularly navally inclined when they did.
50** Viking Berserkers have horned helmets. Not only was that proven 100 times over to be a Victorian myth already before 1999, but 'Berserker' would have more than likely reflected someone wearing a bear skin. Hence the name origin; bear skin wearer, could be looked at as 'bear serker'. Alternatively, they could have simply fought naked to show their bravery. But then, logic demands that they'd just be easier to kill...
51** The use of "Vietnamese" to refer to the civilization is also greatly anachronistic. The nation only came to be known as "Vietnam" during the very early 19th century, in 1804, around twenty years prior to the capital being renamed into Hanoi as mentioned above. During the time of Le Loi, it was known as Dai Viet (Vietnamese were meant to be an umbrella term for the Dai Viet as well as the Champa. That's why they originally had the Southeast Asian architecture).
52** The Dome of The Rock is shown (in "The Siege of Jerusalem" and "The Emperor Sleeping") with a golden roof. Its iconic golden roof was added in 1963. Before then it had a black lead roof.
53** The Frank unique unit is the Throwing Axeman, and like all unique units it becomes available towards the Castle age, and improved in the Imperial age. Ironically the famous Frankish axe throwers were most common during early Frankish history, and had long ceased to be a thing by the high and late medieval ages. The units' appearance in the campaigns of Saladin, Barbarossa, and Joan of Arc is an anachronism.
54** The final Imperial age upgrade for the Knight line is the "Paladin". Historically Paladins are the 12 peers of Charlemagne. Not a specific type of soldier as [=RPGs=] often lead people to picture them as. It also means that like the Frankish Throwing Axemen, it makes little sense for them to be at the end of the tech tree in the Imperial age or with civilizations that would not have been under Charlemagne such as the Persians, Cumans, Huns or Spanish who all have access to Paladins.
55** The Celts' unique unit is the Woad Raider, an unarmoured light infantry unit. Besides the DatedHistory regarding woad (see below), this is based on the "naked fanatics" from ''Literature/CommentariesOnTheGallicWar'' by UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar about the Roman invasion of Britain. Like the Frankish Throwing Axeman, this is highly anachronistic in the William Wallace campaign set in the high middle ages. A more period appropriate unit would be the Irish Kern, a lightly armoured light infantry unit common in medieval Ireland and Scotland, or the Gallowglass, a heavily armoured heavy infantry unit which started to appear around the time of the First Scottish War of Independence.
56* AnnoyingArrows: The Goth Huskarl, Vietnamese Rattan Archer and Pre-Columbian American Eagle Warriors are very effective anti-archer units due to their high pierce armor.
57* AntiCavalry: Spearmen and Camels both get a damage bonus against enemy cavalry, making the former two highly effective counters to the latter.
58* AntiFrustrationFeatures: ''Definitive Edition'' implemented some features that make gameplay smoother:
59** The military units' default stance can be set to "Defensive" or "Stand Ground" stance instead of the usual "[[LeeroyJenkins Aggressive]]" stance, because many units would become distracted by a single enemy scout.
60** The "Idle Villager" button now has an indicator on how many of them are idle. You can also Shift-click the button on the period key to select all of the idle villagers. Not to mention the resources also has an indicator on how many villagers are collecting the corresponding resources.
61** As most of the ''Age of Kings'' campaigns got reworked, the maximum population for most of the scenarios now have a population limit above 75. Most "Hints" usually indicate the population limit and Age restriction ''first''.
62** Farms and Fish Traps can now be reseeded automatically. Previously (in ''The Conquerors''), only 40 Farms maximum can be queued, while Fish Traps had to be rebuilt manually.
63** [[DamnYouMuscleMemory While the overall hotkeys are completely reworked]], they are now more consistent to the keyboard key positions.
64** Research and upgrades can now be queued together with unit production. They are also hotkeyed.
65** The difficulty levels in the William Wallace Learning Campaign are all the same, regardless of which setting you choose.
66* ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: You're limited to five units per [[ConstructAdditionalPylons house]] in your civilization, and once you hit an absolute limit (usually 200 in most campaigns) even building more houses won't let you get more population. Converting enemy units (or using mods/bugs) to go over the headcount limit doesn't affect your civilization or gameplay in any way.
67* ArbitraryWeaponRange:
68** Siege weapons, towers and castles cannot fire upon adjacent enemies until [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machicolation Murder Holes]] (in case of the latter two) have been researched (except the Teutons, who invented that and have it for free).
69** Genitours cannot attack close enemies.
70** Slingers cannot fire on units that stand next to them before Andean Sling is researched.
71* ArrowsOnFire: The Chemistry technology sets most of the conventional projectiles on fire, giving them a slight damage bonus.
72* ArmorPiercingAttack: The Lithuanian Leitis deals true damage to all enemy units it fights, completely disregarding armor values. This stacks with the Lithuanian civilization bonus to give them truly obscene melee damage potentials with four relics garrisoned.
73* TheArtifact:
74** The game's original plan was to start off right where the first game ended, that being the dark ages immediately after the fall of Rome, and go up to the dawn of the Renaissance, so many of the civilizations included in the base game are based on that period, like the Vikings, Goths, and to a lesser degree the Celts and Saracens - even the British and French are in the game as the "Britons" and "Franks", names that were outdated after the early Middle Ages. However, the game ended up focusing more on later periods of the Middle Ages, with several campaigns taking place even further beyond that and, with the exception of the Huns, every post-release civilization included having their genesis no earlier than the end of the dark ages; nevertheless, the early "post-Roman" civs remain in the game as a contrast to the direction the game actually went in.
75*** The Celts' unique unit, the Woad Raider, is a specific example of this, being based on the "naked fanatics" described by UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar in ''Literature/CommentariesOnTheGallicWar'', before UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire even existed, rather than a more appropriate unit from medieval Scotland.
76** Due to originating in the fan-mod ''Forgotten Empires'', the Italians in ''The Forgotten'' and across all of ''HD'' and ''DE'' share dialogue with the Byzantines and speak ([[AsLongAsItSoundsForeign bad]]) Latin, while even the later-introduced Sicilians have their own lines.
77** From ''The African Kingdoms'', new civilizations received unique lines for their Kings ("Why do you disturb me?" "Here you go", "By my grace"), but the kings of previously introduced civilizations continue to share their own with the civ's monks. Only the Slavs, Indians, and Incas escaped this because their original lines were taken from ''Age of Empires III'' and had to be redone for ''The Forgotten''.
78** The Indians used the Middle Eastern build set at first. Though they received new, unique buildings in ''Rise of the Rajas'', their kings and ship sails are still of the Middle Eastern type.
79** Despite fielding large elephant armies in the Middle Ages, the Indians (also introduced in ''Forgotten Empires'') and the Ethiopians (introduced in ''The African Kingdoms'') lack battle elephants, because they were not introduced until ''Rise of the Rajas''. Fans often ask for this to be corrected, but doing so would require rebalancing both civs completely.
80** In the original game, fishing ships can be tasked to help make buildings. This was an oversight left over from development, when fishing ships had the ability to build sea walls and towers, but they were removed from the game because test players would wall off enemy docks instead of protecting their own as intended.
81* ArtificialStupidity: The AI from ''The Conquerors'' (called the CD AI in the ''Definitive Edition'') had many flaws that could be exploited by human players. The newer [=AIs=] in the ''HD'' and ''Definitive'' editions (HD AI and DE AI respectively) fix some of these problems:
82** As opposed to the HD AI, which uses the same engine as the CD AI just with better scripts, the DE AI was written from the ground up. It has a new difficulty level beyond Hardest called "Extreme" and has learned some new tricks such as pushing huntables towards its Town Center using its initial scout cavalry, using herdables to scout the map, and building emergency palisades and towers to protect its gold mines if hit by a Feudal Age rush.
83** The CD AI will often send their armies to attack in the form of long columns of units single-mindedly marching towards one spot, totally oblivious to any enemy armies they encounter along the way, sticking together and moving at the speed of their slowest unit. Players can abuse this to decimate AI armies before they reach their target. The HD AI players try to target buildings on the edge of the enemy town first (and less likely to wander into a gauntlet of enemy defenses), work its way in, and retreat if necessary. The DE AI behaves similarly to the HD AI, but is much better at staying just outside of the range of enemy defenses.
84** The CD AI will instantly demolish any building in progress if the villager building it is attacked. This was a hacky solution to the issue of AI players sending their entire population of villagers one by one to finish an incomplete building in territory that had been taken by the enemy. However, it caused at least as many problems as it solved. The HD AI only deletes incomplete buildings if too many builders die trying to finish it.
85** The CD AI will never attack gates, so building your entire fortress out of gates will make it effectively AI-proof. The HD AI however does attack gates and won't fall for this trick.
86** It will also never delete its own units, so it will do things such as wall off its own resources, causing them to be inaccessible to it for the entire rest of the game. The HD and DE AIs don't have this flaw.
87** If you exploit the above two issues, you can trap a CD AI in its walled-off town forever by placing your gates in front of its.
88** More generally, the AIs don't have any understanding of the concepts of "map control" or "micromanagement", making it very vulnerable to hit-and-run tactics by fast ranged units such as cavalry archers or Viking Longboats. The DE AI averts this by building forward bases and even try to steal enemy resources by build forward resource camps.
89** Pathing issues can render Trade Carts easy prey since they wander into enemy positions more often than not. Even if you clear a shortcut through thick forest, they'll insist on taking an inefficient route until you force them to save time by walling off the options that add time to their route. A similar issue affects villagers, especially when they are gathering berries.
90** What's the best visual indicator of an enemy empire at its height? Lots and '''LOTS''' of USELESS Mining Camps and Mills ''everywhere''.
91** The AI's units don't seem to discriminate and just attack whatever they see. For example, the AI will often send its knights to attack a large group of Pikemen. With a little bit of micromanagement a player can easily wipe out the AI's entire army while taking minimal losses.
92** If you don't set your units to "Defensive" or "Keep Terrain" mode, you'll often find later that they have broken formation and spread all over the map running after a random scout, only to be killed in the enemy's base.
93** Pathfinding can sometimes be pretty terrible, but no unit suffers more from this than the Villager. Not only can they sometimes suffer from slow routes, they can sometimes end up deciding the most efficient way to gather the resource you want from them is to go as far away as possible from the collection point instead of move a little to the side.
94* ArtisticLicenseHistory: The game had to take quite a lot of liberties to ensure a balanced and interesting gameplay experience.
95** Outside of the DS version, with exceptions such as the monks and warships, everybody uses the same set of generic unit sprites (models in ''DE''), regardless of their civilization. This means that Mesoamerican or Asian players can field the same Champions clad in platemail and wielding zweihänders as European ones, and all Cavalry Archers look like they hailed from the Eurasian steppes, regardless of your own chosen faction.
96** Some units can be trained by many different civilizations, who never used them in the first place, like Eagle Warriors being available to the Mayans and Incas, despite being iconic to the Aztec alone. Bonus points go to the Paladins, who aren't limited to the Franks, despite being based on the Twelve Peers of Charlemagne and should have been treated as hero units for all intents and purposes, and the player can have much more than that amount at any one time.
97** Some of the unique units are either not unique to that civilization, or do not belong to their particular civilization. For example the Goths' Huskarl is a Norse/Saxon title. The Huns' noble unit, the Tarkan, is a mongol or turk title. Mamelukes were used by several Muslim regimes in history, not only the Saracens.
98** The manual describes skirmishers as throw-away troops, but in the game, presumably for for the purposes of its TacticalRockPaperScissors, the skirmisher is the hard counter to archer troops getting a bonus against them and horse archers. In fact, the game's skirmisher-archer relationship is pretty much the inverse of its [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skirmisher historical counterpart]] in the ancient to pre-modern era, where skirmishers (usually armed with bows themselves), were intended to harass infantry and massed archers were supposed to prevent or stop this. Historically, the Romans being unable to stop greatly outnumbered horse archers with their javelin-armed skirmishers and legionaries (both sides having similar numbers of cavalry committed) resulted in [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Carrhae one of the worst defeats in Roman history]]. In contrast, against heavy infantry, Athenian skirmishers armed with javelins were able to force Spartan hoplites to retreat [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sphacteria multiple]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lechaeum times]] in history. The major advantage of the javelin depicted with the game's skirmisher is that it has a lot of weight to cause problems to enemy's shields and armor, which is useless if he is instead attacking archers. The TurnBasedStrategy Platform/NintendoDS version of the game, however, depicts skirmishers in a more historically accurate light, as they always cause damage to melee units who attack them but are countered by foot archers, which outrange them.
99** American civilizations' trade carts are depicted as human-pulled wheeled carts. No pre-contact American civilization had wheeled vehicles at all.
100** The campaigns are also filled with Artistic License. [[https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/dy7hw7/my_list_of_historical_inaccuracies_in_aoe2/ So much in fact that one could fill dozens of pages in a Google Docs document with only the campaigns up to The Conquerors.]]
101* ArtisticLicensePhysics: When fully garrisoned with Infantry, Mongol Siege Rams ''are actually faster than Dark Age Scout Cavalry''. Mongolian Siege ''Towers'' in the HD version are '' the fastest units in the entire game.''
102* ArtisticLicenseReligion: The Huns' unique technology is Atheism, which is not recorded among what information survives about them. The Huns' religion was Tengrism, a shamanism religion practiced by Turkic and Mongol peoples, as well as pre-Christianity Magyars and Bulgars. The Huns' monastery is also unmistakably a Catholic church due to using the Central European building set.
103* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign:
104** While European civilizations tend to speak Medieval or at least old-fashioned versions of their languages, this is usually not the case for non-Europeans, who speak the modern version.
105** The Goths share voice files with the Teutons, who speak Middle High German. German is a West Germanic language, but Gothic was East Germanic. The Gothic unique unit Huskarl is named after a historical Norse and Saxon unit (who spoke North and West Germanic languages, respectively).
106** The Huns share voice files with the Mongols. The Hunnic language is unknown but it's most commonly speculated to be Turkic. The Hunnic unique unit is named Tarkan, a noble title used by the Mongols and Turks but not recorded among the Huns.
107** The Byzantines speak Latin (and have at least one mistaken line, "I command?" in place of "Your command?"), but their most common language was Greek and they abandoned using Latin as administrative language in the 7th century.
108** The Italians reuse the Byzantines' Latin lines instead of using one of the Medieval Italian languages.
109** The Aztecs speak [[{{Mayincatec}} Yucatec Maya]] (the most common Mayan language) while the Mayans speak K'iche' Mayan. The Aztecs' language, for the record, was Nahuatl.
110* ATeamFiring: Basically any towers and castles early on which just not able to hit moving targets at all, fixed after you research the Ballistics upgrade.
111* AuthorAppeal:
112** Sandy Petersen is a big fan of the Aztecs, which is why ''The Conquerors'' was basically built around them.
113** The Hungarians (a.k.a. Magyars) almost made it into ''The Conquerors'', but the developers changed them to Huns due to better name recognition and so they could have an Attila campaign.
114** Petersen later pushed, for years, for an African-themed expansion with [[TheSmurfettePrinciple a female unit]] that threw knives. Which is why we ended with Malians Gbetos in ''The African Kingdoms'', even though [[SymbologyResearchFailure no similar unit existed]] in the Malian Empire or its predecessors.
115* AutomaticCrossbows: The Chinese special unit is the Chu-Ko-Nu, a type of crossbowman that uses a crossbow of the same name that, in-game, fires three, or five for the Elite version, bolts sequentially for each attack.
116* AwesomeButImpractical:
117** The Trebuchets, when used against units. While immensely powerful, they are tragically inaccurate, fire slowly, and have to be manually unpacked and repacked to fire and move, respectively.
118** Petards in ''The Conquerors'', at least most of the time. Available in the Castle Age, and capable of dealing out huge anti-building damage quickly and easily. However, if you're using them around towers or castles, you're gonna lose two or three before they get there, and it's easy to run out of gold before you breach fortifications. What's worse is that they're ''only cost-effective against Wonders'' which means you're actually wasting time and resources trying to use them against anything else, let alone trying to produce them in the first place.
119** The Spies research. Getting the enemy line of sight is a massive advantage, but at 200 gold ''per enemy villager'' (as well as Fishing Ships and Transport Ships, which are not mentioned in the description), it tends to end up being several thousand gold per opposing player, more than enough to raise a sizable army. With the exception of some special scenarios and the Huns (who have a research that halves the cost), it's generally just better to fight conventionally, and the tech's usage is restricted to getting a rough idea of the enemy's numbers, or when your opponent is trying to artificially prolong an already-decided game by hiding his last villagers.
120** Back in the original ''Age of Kings'', the mighty gunpowder units and Bombard Towers need to be researched first, ''individually'' after researching the Chemistry tech before they can be created. This is so expensive, time-consuming and redundant (even for the Turks, who get free Chemistry and discount for the aforementioned techs) that the research techs for Bombard Cannons and Hand Cannoneers are eventually removed in ''The Conquerors''.
121** For standard multiplayer games, one of the possible win conditions is building a Wonder and keeping it around for 200 (in-game) years. However, this is extremely rarely done as Wonders are insanely expensive (1000 Wood, Gold, and Stone, which could be used for an army instead), everyone is notified when you build one (not even finish it, just laying foundation), and there is an in-game counter to let everyone know how much time they have left until they lose (or win). For this reason, the "Atheism" upgrade the Huns have falls under this category, as it only serves to delay (rare) Wonder and Relic victories.
122** Converting enemies with Monks sounds awesome; you get a free unit, the enemy loses one, and it ignores population limits. However, Monks are slow, weak, expensive, and don't have great range. Furthermore, Heresy turns conversion into a simple instakill, and Faith makes units ''very'' resistant to conversion. Monks are still useful for healing, but conversion is only useful in certain situations (mostly involving elephants).
123** Elephants (War/Battle/Archer/Ballista) ''sound'' amazing; they have massive offensive stats and a pile of HP. However, they've got several crippling flaws. First, they're ''expensive'', costing over a hundred food and a lot of gold. While they've got a mountain of HP, they take lots of damage from AntiCavalry units, especially Pikemen, and since they're so slow, they can't escape on their own. Most elephant-based civs don't have access to Heresy, making them vulnerable to conversions. Finally, since they have so much HP, it takes ''forever'' for Monks to heal them. While elephant units certainly look impressive, they need so much support from other units that you're usually better off eschewing elephants entirely.
124** The Spearmen line actually has a rather hefty +9 bonus damage against ''ships'' of all things. Unless the enemy deliberately beach their ships onto the shoreline, or if their naval vessels path over the shallows, it's pretty safe to say this bonus damage will never be taken advantage of. This is due to camels [[https://youtu.be/FikFPAQe0R8?t=158 having their armor class changed from "cavalry" to "ship"]] in the ''Conquerors'' expansion, before being given their unique "camel" armor class in ''African Kingdoms''; the Spearman line were given anti-ship bonus damage with the former armor class change (though the bonus is not to the same degree as their anti-cavalry bonus damage) so they'd still be effective to some degree against camels. Likewise, the Genoese Crossbowman also deals bonus damage against ships (+4, and +5 for Elite) for the same reasons.
125** The Portuguese feitoria building which, like the Factory in ''Age of Empires III'', trickles out resources every few seconds, only it gives all four at once instead of just one with the Factory. Except it's expensive to build (350 stone and gold, later changed/lowered to 250 wood and stone), is the same size as a Wonder, takes up 20 population spots, can even be converted (though Heresy makes it useless to the other player) and is slower than 20 villagers collecting the same resources. It's useful in late-game when most or all resources are depleted and a level in the Portuguese campaign where you can't create new villagers. It's also impervious to raids and requires siege weapons to destroy effectively.
126* {{Bambification}}: Wild deer do not attack villagers while being hunted.
127* BearsAreBadNews: Downplayed. While bears are present as hostile wild animals that give no food when killed, they only stand a chance against villagers without the Loom upgrade.
128* BerserkButton: The computer will react if you attack its villagers or buildings.
129* TheBerserker: One of the unique units of the Vikings is the Berserker, a powerful infantry unit that can regenerate health over time.
130* {{BFS}}: Two-Handed Swordsmen and Champions come armed with these, as well as a number of {{Hero Unit}}s.
131* BittersweetEnding: Most campaigns have one: Many of them end with the title character dead, others make the player know that the final battle was only a PyrrhicVictory.
132* BlindIdiotTranslation:
133** In the Spanish version, the Woad Raider is called ''Invasor de Pastos'' ("Pasture Invader") and the Briton unique technology Yeomen is ''Voluntarios de Caballería'' ("Cavalry Volunteers"), even though it boosts the attack of ''towers''.
134** "Dirt" (as in the terrain) is translated as "suciedad" (filth or dirtiness), both in the editor and the Kara-Khitai's boast about making Genghis Khan sleep on it. "With the camels."
135** This has only gotten worse after the ''Definitive Edition'', which seems to have been translated automatically with AI. Thus both Knigths and Cavaliers are called "Caballero" despite upgrading into one another, and the Song dynasty in the Genghis Khan campaign is called "Cantar" ("[a] song").
136* BoringButPractical:
137** Battering Rams and their upgrades. The "boring" part may stem from their slow attack rate (when not upgraded) and movement speed. Until you get trebuchets, they're the best way to deal with fortifications, and still useful even afterwards.
138** Massed groups of high end archers (especially horse archers) in close formation on the 'Stand Ground' setting. Because of the physics engine, melee troops can only attack the outermost units, which means they'll do very little damage while all your archers are free to [[RainOfArrows attack back]]. About the only effective counter are high end Onagers, War Elephants, or [[TakesOneToKillOne opposing masses of archers.]]
139** The Spearman, Skirmisher and Scout line have little usefulness beyond being strong counters to a specific kind of unit (cavalry, archers, and monks, respectively; [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Scouts are also good for scouting]]). However, in the late-game, where gold gets incredibly scarce, the fact these units cost no gold whatsoever allows them to be massed with no harmful impact on your economy.
140* BottomlessMagazines: You never have to spend resources on new arrows for your archers, or projectiles for your siege weapons. The Saracens' and Franks' unique units take it even further; they have ''unlimited scimitars and axes to throw''.
141* BrutishCharacterBrutishWeapon: Berserkers, the Viking Unique Unit, are armed with Dane axes and round shields.
142* CapRaiser: The Wheelbarrow and Hand Cart technologies boost Villager carrying capacity in addition to boosting their movement speed. The Aztecs can carry more resources per trip as a civilization bonus, while the Goths add +10 to their overall unit cap. The Chinese and Incas have Town Centers and Houses that provide additional population space, while the Huns start out with the maximum population space available without the need or ability to build Houses.
143* CashGate: Some scenarios or bonus objectives work like this. Sometimes collecting resources is enough, sometimes one will actually have to deliver them to gain the benefits. Units are also used as "currency" on similar occasions.
144* CastFromMoney: Treason, a technology exclusive to Regicide mode, behaves like an active ability with a gold cost. It is researched almost instantly and its effect (revealing all enemy Kings) is very much temporary, but it can be researched an unlimited number of times.
145%% (ZCE) * ChessMotifs: ''Age of Kings''[='=]s [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow4cC-Cz5l8 intro]], especially the "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rS_n3JVTPE long version]]".
146* CitadelCity: The game's AI will eventually attempt to set something like this up in longer games. However, Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors means there are a number of tricks to break through.
147* CivilWarcraft: Each campaign (except for the tutorial campaign, Tariq ibn Ziyad and Kotyan Khan) has at least one mission where (one of the) enemies share the same civilisation as you. Standalone scenarios that feature such enemies are Vinlandsaga, Kyoto, Bapheus, Lake Poyang, Kurikara, Gaiseric, Charlemagne, Nobunaga, Finehair, Ragnar, Robert, Shimazu, Stephen, Temujin, Komnenos, Mstislav, Otto and Seljuk. Pachacuti's campaign stands out for only featuring one single civilisation (Incas) which represents the player, all allies and enemies in every mission.
148* ColorCodedArmies: Each of the eight possible army teams is associated with a color, in order: blue, red, green, yellow, cyan, purple, orange and gray. ''The Conquerors'' adds an option to make the players' colors indicate their diplomatic stance, with the human player always being blue, every enemy being red and every ally being yellow.
149* CommandAndConquerEconomy: As in many other real-time strategy games.
150* CompanyCrossReferences: The building icons in the ''Definitive Edition'' feature the famous Windows XP "Bliss" wallpaper as the background; Microsoft owns both ''Age of Empires'' and the rights to the wallpaper.
151* ComputersAreFast: Particularly important with scout units. Expect the computer to have explored most of the map before the Castle Age.
152* TheComputerIsACheatingBastard:
153** The AI will [[NotPlayingFairWithResources not play fair with resources]] on the hardest difficulty.[[note]]Averted in ''HD'' and ''DE'', where the hardest AI simply plays more skillfully with the same amount of starting resources.[[/note]]
154** Its units will '''always''' dodge (regardless of difficulty) the attacks from your Onagers, Trebuchets and Bombard Cannons.
155** Also inverted: if you play on any difficulty below "Hard", the AI is handicapped. On "Standard" and "Easiest" difficulties, the AI won't attack villagers, making it practically impossible for the player to lose.
156* ConstructAdditionalPylons: Houses, except for the Huns.
157* ContinuityNod:
158** There's a taunt with a pun on the phrase "beat them back to the stone age". It's a reference to the first game:
159-->''"I'll beat you back to ''VideoGame/{{Age of Empires|I}}''."''
160** Another taunt re-uses the sound effect used to represent a priest converting a unit.
161** Ornlu the Wolf is referenced in some new way in every expansion and game released after ''Age of Kings.''
162** In ''Definitive Edition'', relics are modeled after the original's unfinished Piece of the True Cross.
163** The achievement for converting 1000 units is called "Wololo", after the ''[=AoE1=]'' monk conversion sound. ''Definitive Edition'' even has an unlockable mod that replaces the Monks' conversion chant with "Wololo".
164** In some of the Scenarios, you can find what appears to be the old ruins of a [[VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresI Greek Barracks]].
165* CoolSword: The swords carried by several heroes are described as such.
166* CosmeticallyDifferentSides: Downplayed. Each civilization has their own distinct bonuses and at least one unique unit. On the other hand, while there are architectural differences between broad cultural groups, generic units tend to use the same European-esque designs, regardless if they're Italians, Persians or Chinese.
167* CripplingOverspecialization: Spearmen are only effective against mounted units and archers, respectively, and are extremely weak against any other unit type. Trebuchets are excellent against buildings but almost never hit any unit they target - excluding, to some extent, other Trebuchets. Skirmishers are great against archers and can even do some serious damage to towers due to their high pierce armor, but can't defend themselves against a melee attack and can fairly easily be killed by even Dark Age militia.
168* CriticalExistenceFailure: Every unit. Defensive buildings lose their ability to hold troops shortly before being destroyed, but otherwise fit into this trope as well.
169* DamageIsFire: A building that's taken enough damage, even one that's literally built of Stone such as a castle, will show increasingly larger flames. Trebuchets also light on fire as they are damaged, which makes for a strange picture seeing them moving around the map like this.
170* DarkAgeEurope: Represented as the base age a civilization can be in, as the technologies and units associated with it (villagers, militiamen, most economy-based bonuses) as well as the lack of gold-based upgrades can attest.
171* DatedHistory:
172** Despite featuring empires carried over from ancient times like the Byzantines, Persians, and Chinese (and giving them bonuses that make their buildings stronger or faster research to reflect it), the original game's premise (progressively lost in the sequels) and History section emphasize that the player is taking over a nomadic barbarian people following the catastrophic [[EndOfAnAge "Fall of Rome"]] and leading it to greatness through settled civilization (or at least beating every other contender for the place). Nowadays, this particular bit of HollywoodHistory would likely not be used, nor would the first age be called "Dark Age" because of it. Thus, ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresIV'' which is also set in the Medieval era, makes no reference to reclaiming Rome and begins in the Viking Age rather than the Migration Period earlier. The ''Return of Rome'' DLC almost makes a mockery of this early premise by introducing a playable civ that is based on the Western Roman Empire, and showing how much of a different entity to the empire of Augustus it was, rather than being a stereotypically doomed, "decadent" version of it.
173** The Celts have the Woad Raider as unique unit, named after historical speculation that the ancient Britons had tattoos made from the woad flower. Later experiments to use the flower in this manner have been so unsuccessful (the material is caustic and painful to wear on one's skin, and it erodes so easily that rain washes it off) that historians are now sure that their tattoos couldn't have been made out of woad.
174** Native American buildings are based on the appearance of Mayan ruins in the modern day. It was later found that Mayan buildings were covered in plaster and painted in bright colors, mostly red, that decayed after being abandoned. The ''Definitive Edition'' keeps the older appearance, but acknowledges the mistake by giving faded painted colors to the Aztec and Mayan Wonders, and the new Fortified Tower building.
175** The Thirisadai from ''Dynasties of India'' was later exposed as a product of Wikipedia vandalism, being not mentioned anywhere before an article created in 2008 featuring several madeup ship classes, fake sources, and even a photograph identified as an Indian anchor, but that actually belonged to a ship sunk during the Mongol invasion of Japan. By the time it was exposed, the article's creator had not edited Wikipedia in several years.
176* DeathOfAThousandCuts: Archers deal extremely little damage against buildings, but with enough arrows, even a castle will come down. Most likely to occur with British longbowmen, who are the only archers that can hit a castle outside its range.
177* DefogOfWar: Researching Spies allows the player to see the enemy's Line of Sight. In Regicide mode, it is replaced by Treason, which reveals all enemy Kings for a short time.
178* DevelopersForesight: If you're playing as an American civilization, you have no access to cavalry units. However, if you convert a stable, you can create the Xolotl Warrior, a semi-unique cavalry unit.
179* DifficultButAwesome: One particular mod for ''Definitive Edition'', the 256x tech mod, allows you to research any technology effectively an infinite number of times -- this includes the unique techs, which stack -- falls into this. While some of the unique techs are useful and some are useless[[note]]the useful ones tend to be the ones that don't have non-unique counterparts -- i.e., the Spanishs' Supremacy (buffs combat abilities for villagers), the Mongols' Drill (increases siege weapon speed by 50%) -- whereas the useless ones tend to be ones that are available to other civilizations in a different form, or only affect a single unit, but a more broad version is available as a non-unique tech - i.e., Aztecs' Atlatl (+1 attack and range for Skirmishers; inferior to Fletching, which gives +1 attack and range to all ranged units that use arrows) and the Turks' Sipahi (+20 hp for Cavalry Archers; Bloodlines gives all mounted units +20 hp, and is far cheaper)[[/note]] when researched multiple times, one that stands out is the Ethiopian unique tech, Torsion Engines[[note]]increases the blast radius of siege units[[/note]], which after being researched enough times, basically turns catapults into nukes, and can instantly kill almost anything - even Berserks with Berserkergang[[note]]which increases the health regeneration rate of Berserks - it doubles each time it's researched, and additional researches multiply, rather than add; as long as defense is also increased, it can theoretically give Berserks infinite health[[/note]] researched enough times can't survive, since it instantly kills them. ''However'', the tech is also insanely expensive, meaning unless you either exploit trade[[note]]both gold and food are renewable, provided you use trade carts and farms for them[[/note]] or have massive amounts of resources sent to you by allies, it's very hard to pull off, and it's likely you won't be able to pull it off against human players.
180* DigitizedSprites: Every unit and building sprite was rendered from CGI models.
181* DistinctionWithoutADifference: The game has one cheat code for losing instantly and one cheat code to kill all the players's units. Because losing all of your units always result in a defeat, both cheat codes are basically the same.
182* DownerEnding: This ''is'' a game based on medieval history; several campaigns end very poorly for their protagonists. The writers often try to sidestep this by having the campaigns end shortly before their historical downfall, but generally make it clear that things are going downhill.
183* DrivenToSuicide: The Samurai unique unit has a death animation where he stabs himself with his katana. Historically appropriate, as BetterToDieThanBeKilled was an accepted rationale for committing {{Seppuku}}.
184* EarlyBirdCameo: Several features in the post-''Conquerors'' expansions helmed by Forgotten Empires appeared first in popular fan mods made by its would-be founders, such as ''Rome at War'' (changes Aztecs and Mayans to Ancient Romans and Greeks), ''Russian Mod'' (changes the Aztecs and Mayans to Muscovite and Kievan Rus'), or ''VideoGame/AgeOfChivalryHegemony'' (total conversion mod focusing on 12th-15th Western and Central Europe).
185* EasyCommunication: Par for the RealTimeStrategy genre, unit commands are carried out instantly, and the player can always see what the individual units can see.
186* EasyLevelTrick: [[EasyLevelTrick/AgeOfEmpiresII Enough for its own page]].
187* EdutainmentGame: The first purpose of the game is entertainment, but there's plenty of historical information available:
188** The campaigns in ''Age of Kings'' covered historical wars, such as William Wallace's war against England (as the tutorial), Joan of Arc fighting in the Hundred Years' War, Saladin fighting against the Crusaders, Barbarossa forging the Holy Roman Empire, and Genghis Khan's conquest of Asia.
189** ''The Conquerors'' contained campaigns about El Cid, Attila the Hun, and Montezuma, the last one ending before the Aztecs are actually defeated, plus a series of nonsequential missions covering various historical battles like Agincourt, Hastings, Saechon, the Viking colonization of the Americas, and Honnoji-Yamazaki.
190* ElaborateEqualsEffective: The higher on the tech tree a Knight line unit is, the fancier their armor and shield are and the barding on their horse is.
191* EnemyCivilWar: Happens in some scenarios. On the other hand, many scenarios have the enemies allied with everyone but the player -- even with the player's allies who are [[GameplayAndStorySegregation supposed to be fighting the enemy as well]].
192* EnemyExchangeProgram: Your Monks can convert your enemies' units. Research can give them the ability to convert hostile Monks, siege weapons, and even ''buildings''. However, researching Heresy defies this trope and turns conversion into an instakill ability.
193* EscortMission: Quite a few. The escortees are typically under the player's control and possess adequate combat skills, though.
194* FanSequel: ''Forgotten Empires'' stands out against other mods because the authors cracked how to add 5 new civilizations to the 18 present in ''The Conquerors'', rather than replacing the existing ones. A second reason for it standing out is that it ended up becoming an ''official'' expansion for the HD version, known as ''The Forgotten''.
195* FirewoodResources: Wood and Stone are represented, respectively, by a bundle of firewood and a pile of rocks.
196* FragileSpeedster: Camels are fast and are decent AntiCavalry units, but they cannot take that much damage, especially from spearmen and building arrows.
197* FriendlyFireproof: For the most part, units cannot accidentally harm friendly ones except the Mangonel line and Bombard Cannon, who have to be micromanaged to avoid killing off melee units en masse.
198* FullBoarAction: Wild boar are entirely passive unless provoked, but they are sufficiently tough that hunting them for food requires multiple villagers (a lone villager hunting a boar ''will'' be killed). There's also the [[MeaningfulName Iron Boar]] in ''Conquerors'', which cannot be harvested by villagers.
199* GameplayAutomation: Farms need to be reseeded in the original and ''HD'' regularly to continue producing food, which is a bit of a chore on its own; in order to alleviate this, ''The Conquerors'' added the ability for the player can queue up new farms at mills, but this also needs to be done manually. ''Definitive Edition'' finally added an option to automatically reseed farms and replace fishing traps as long as you have the wood. It also added an auto-scouting option to your first scout cavalry units.
200* GameplayAndStorySegregation:
201** Some of the tech trees from different civilizations lack techs that they did invent or made heavy use of. One of the most infamous examples is the Chinese not having access to Hand Cannoneers and Bombard Cannons despite the fact that they invented those techs (and gunpowder itself).
202** It is possible to recruit unique gunpowder units in the Castle Age such as the Spanish Conquistador, before the gunpowder tech (Chemistry) becomes available for research in the Imperial Age.
203** In the original campaigns, a number of factions are represented by placeholders because the proper civilizations were not available at the time. For example, the Russians and Hungarians are represented by Goths and Teutons respectively, because in the original game their more appropriate civilizations (Slavs and Magyars) were not available. This was mostly fixed in ''Definitive Edition'' and the posterior expansions, as well as minor map errors.
204* GarrisonableStructures:
205** Any unit on foot as well as Mule Carts can be garrisoned in Town Centers, towers, castles and Fortified Churches, although only workers and archers (and Relics, in case of Fortified Churches) can attack while inside (except the Teutons, whose unique technology, Crenellations, allows infantry to fire arrows).
206** Production structures can also sort of be garrisoned; units can "stack up" in the building when created but cannot re-enter after leaving. This is mostly useful when you are being attacked: rather than have your reinforcements file out one by one into the arms of the waiting enemy, you can stock up 10 or 15 and release them all at once, which dramatically improve their chances.
207* GenderIsNoObject: The only differences between the male villagers and the female villagers are the spriteset and the voicepack.
208* GlassCannon:
209** Siege weapons (except for the [[MightyGlacier Battering Ram, Armored Elephant and Ballista Elephant]]) are capable of dealing great damage to both sides, but without support they are very vulnerable to fast melee units, especially cavalry, which can destroy them in seconds.
210** Gunpowder units deal exceptional damage per attack compared to similar units in their tech tree, but they have a low rate of fire and unimpressive health and armor. While a group of Hand Cannoneers, Conquistadors or Jannisaries might have an InstantDeathRadius towards enemy units, they'll fall like flies if not all of them die.
211* GratuitousForeignLanguage: Once a unit is clicked, it will speak in the language of its civilization, sometimes the archaic version (i.e. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZxKfVxJzQU Old English for the Britons]]). It's not perfect, but shows a great attention to detail.
212* GuideDangit: The cost of Spies is 200G per enemy villagers, but the game forgets to mention that enemy ''trade carts, fishing ships and transport ships'' are also counted towards the cost, ''including the neutral ones''. So a player may wonder why the cost is still very high even if they have slaughtered all of the enemies' villagers when playing water maps. Not to mention that the technology has a min. cost of 200G[[note]]if if the enemy controls none of the aforementioned units[[/note]] and a max. cost of 30000G.
213* GullibleLemmings: An effective strategy against Computer opponents is to provoke their units into pursuing your own units right into a large group or archers.
214* HeelFaceTurn: Some campaigns have enemies that the player can trigger an alliance with.
215* HerdHittingAttack: Persian War Elephants can inflict trample damage on adjacent enemies, as can Byzantine Cataphracts (after researching Logistica) and Slavic infantry units (after researching Druzhina).
216* TheHeroDies: Most campaigns feature the death of their namesakes.
217* HeroMustSurvive: {{Hero unit}}s in this game aren't subjected to GameplayAllyImmortality. Usually, if you lose your hero, it's assumed that they're evacuated from the battlefield and cannot further take part, but if the hero is integral to a mission objective (like Kotyan Khan in the first three missions of his campaign), you'll be subjected to a game over.
218* HeroUnit: Heroes are special units that are unavailable in standard multiplayer games and only appear in the campaign and Scenario Editor. Most heroes represent real people, with a few being fictional characters, particularly elite forces or famously well-constructed machinery. Gameplay-wise, the only things that distinguish heroes from standard units are (usually superior) stats and appearance. Starting from ''The Conquerors'', heroes regenerate their health over time and cannot be converted; in ''Definitive Edition'', they also glow gold and a warning will appear if you try to delete them. In the Scenario Editor, it is possible to create custom heroes by modifying a normal unit or hero's name or stats and allow them to grow stronger through being used in battle (official campaigns that use this mechanic include The Hautevilles, Jadwiga, Rajendra[[note]]where the heroes don't level up themselves but improve army morale instead, increasing the attack points of soldiers as long as the hero survives[[/note]] and Victors and Vanquished).
219* HighMiddleAges: The "Castle Age".
220* HijackedByJesus: All religious buildings are called monasteries (unless they are wonders) and train Western-looking monks (except the Americans). Most monastery techs have typical Catholic names and icons. To top it off, "[[YouHaveResearchedBreathing Faith]]" has a [[ExaggeratedTrope literal Jesus icon]].
221* HitAndRunTactics: Used correctly, horse archers can whittle down entire armies without taking a scratch, shooting any melee units to death before tackling the now outnumbered archers. The Mongols excel at this tactic, with their unique unit being a horse archer. [[TruthInTelevision It was one of the reasons of why they were such efficient conquerors.]] Hit-and-run horse archers were just ''unfair'' back then. This strategy works also with Spanish Conquistadores, who are Horse ''Gunners''.
222* HoistByHisOwnPetard:
223** Southeast Asian Battle Elephants and Persian War Elephants are two of the most devastatingly powerful units, but they (except the Malay, whose Battle Elephants are the cheapest and weakest) can't research Heresy, meaning it's cake for enemy Monks to convert the elephants and turn them against their owners.
224** Also applies more literally with Onagers, which deal damage to friendlies as well as enemies.
225* HordesFromTheEast: The Huns and the Mongols, who both happen to be the trope codifiers. Their campaigns each showcase how they invade and ravage the lands they conquer. ''The Last Khans'' campaigns in particular puts an extra spotlight on existing eastern hordes while introducing new ones.
226* HorseArcher:
227** The Cavalry Archer, who excel against all Infantry and almost all Archery units, available to all civilizations except the Mesoamerican (Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans, who have a foot soldier replacement), Indians (Bengalis, Dravidians and Gurjaras, who instead have Elephant Archers), and Bohemians.
228** The Mongols' unique unit is the Mangudai, who instead have a bonus attack vs. the Spearmen line and Siege weapons.
229** The Berbers' have two mounted unique units, the Camel Archer who has bonus attacks only vs. other mounted archers, and the Genitour, a mounted Skirmisher with bonus attacks vs. other archers and the Spearman line.
230** The Cumans' unique unit is the Kipchak, a mounted horse archer who fires multiple arrows like the Chinese Chu Ko Nu.
231* HunterOfHisOwnKind: Some units deal bonus damage against the same type of unit as themself.
232** Rams deal bonus damage against other siege weapons, including other rams.
233** The Galley line's attack have bonus damage against other ships. The Galley itself is not exempt from this bonus damage.
234** Camels have bonus damage against all cavalry, including other camels. It's more practical to use pikemen, however.
235[[/folder]]
236
237[[folder:I-Z]]
238* ICanRuleAlone: Last Man Standing, introduced in ''The Conquerors'', is a game variant where players that had been allies during the game instantly turn against each other after defeating their common foes and fight until there is only one player left. The installation screen claims that this was already a popular way to end internet games before the 'instant' part was introduced with the pack.
239* ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy:
240** Ranged units are capable of missing their target, especially if they are firing from a very long-range and the target is moving. This can be compensated with the Thumb Ring and the Ballistics technology, except for those civs that can't access either of them such as the Britons (whose Longbowman are quite inaccurate due to lacking Thumb Ring).
241** The Burmese Arambai have an accuracy that decreases the further the target is from it.
242** With some exceptions such as the Portuguese and their Arquebus tech, and the Spanish Cannon Galleons, many gunpowder units, as they were inaccurate due to being antiquated at the time of its invention.
243** Towers and Castles are utterly hopeless against moving targets until Ballistics is researched at the University.
244* ImprobableAimingSkills: Most ranged units have no difficulty hitting targets behind walls and buildings.
245* InsurmountableWaistHeightFence: Almost all forests in the game are impassable until chopped down.
246* InterfaceSpoiler: The Diplomacy menu will list every civilization in the current match, even ones in the campaigns you aren't supposed to have met yet.
247* {{Irony}}
248** The Goth Wonder is the Mausoleum of Theodoric the Great. Given that Theodoric the Great was the most successful and greatest leader in the history of the Goths, the Wonder takes on an incredibly sad meaning of being a symbol of the decline and downfall of the Goth civilization.
249** The Saracen civilization, who represents Arabs, performs ''poorly'' on the Arabia map setting. Apparently, Saracens being in their historical element is more of a serious handicap than a homefield advantage.
250* IsometricProjection: As with every other game in the series, the player's view is roughly isometric -- the map is diamond-shaped and the elevation of the camera is close to 35.3 degrees.
251* JackOfAllStats: Bombard Cannons. They're fast enough to have some anti-unit capacities, they have long ranges, and they're great against buildings, but they lack the spread of Onagers, the damage of Rams, or the range of Trebuchets.
252* JustAStupidAccent:
253** Practically all of the dialogue in the game is written and spoken in the installation language, and pronounced with exaggerated accents fit for each character. At least they are, for the most part, fairly accurate.
254** Averted by the human units when you click on them or order something to do, whose responses are in the grammatically correct language of their civilization, which is often ''[[ShownTheirWork the medieval form]]'' of said language to boot (so Briton units speak [[UsefulNotes/HistoryOfEnglish Middle English]], Frankish ones Old French, Viking ones speak Old Norse, Saracen units (mostly) speak Classical Arabic,[[note]]Some modern elements seep into the Arabic, but by and large it's Classical. Also, using Classical Arabic is a little odd, since it's a literary register, but given that spoken medieval Arabic is very poorly attested, Classical is acceptable as being as close as possible.[[/note]] A few major exceptions are the Chinese, whose human units all speak unmarred Chinese... [[AnachronismStew of the modern-day Mandarin variant]], with a flat, bored newcaster tone, no less (rather than the more historically accurate Middle Chinese), and the Byzantines (and by extention the Italians), who speak poorly translated Latin instead of Koine Greek or any of the Medieval Italian dialects.
255* KatanasAreJustBetter: Samurai appear as Japan's unique unit and do more damage against other unique units. However, they are vulnerable to arrows.
256* KnightlyLance: Several unique Heroes on horseback wield lances.
257* KryptoniteIsEverywhere:
258** The Militia line and most infantry Unique Units have many counters, namely the commonly-used [[RainOfArrows archers]], [[LightningBruiser heavy cavalry]], [[EnemyExchangeProgram monks]], [[HerdHittingAttack Mangonels/Onagers]] and gunpowder units.
259** The Eagle Warrior line takes bonus damage from pretty much every infantry unit, ''alongside'' every weakness other infantry units have.
260* LeaveNoSurvivors: This is often necessary. Even if the player manages to destroy the entire enemy fortress, a lone villager working at a remote mining camp can use the resources stored in HammerSpace to restart the entire civilization. An annoying multiplayer tactic is for the people who've clearly lost the game to send villagers to all four corners of the map, thus delaying the inevitable. The technology "Spies" counteracts this by making them visible.
261* {{Leitmotif}}: Every civilization has their own theme that plays right before the start of skirmish game modes. In the ''Definitive Edition'', the theme were expanded to music that plays at the first minute of the game, similar to ''VideoGame/AgeOfMythology''.
262* LevelEditor: An in-game one, quite extensive, yet easy to use. This could literally be used to make a [[ShowWithinAShow game within a game]], thanks to the complex trigger system.
263* LightningBruiser:
264** Heavy non-elephant cavalry (Knights, Cataphracts and Boyars) have high speed, attack ''and'' durability. Their high cost mitigates their possible GameBreaker potential.
265** A Mongol Siege Ram with Drill researched and loaded with 6 infantry units can move as fast as the fastest cavalry units, giving you a powerful anti-building unit that can be used for HitAndRunTactics.
266* TheLowMiddleAges: The first two ages ("Dark Age" and "Feudal Age), roughly corresponds to this era.
267* MacGuffin: The Relics. Everybody wants them, because they produce gold and can even win the game for the player who collects them all.
268* MagikarpPower: Spanish Villagers are no different from their counterparts (helpless against anything tougher than a wolf one-on-one) until the unique technology Supremacy is researched. After that, you get Villagers that are stronger than a Long Swordsman or a Halberdier, and become able to fend off rushes, construct buildings in the frontlines with little risk of being killed, and can even be used to take out buildings in combination with Sappers.
269* {{Mayincatec}}: The original game features only Maya and Aztecs as separate civilizations. In the Montezuma campaigns, different states such as Tlacopan and Tlaxcala exist as enemies or allies, but each one of them obeys either the Aztec or Mayan technology tree. "The Forgotten" expansion completes this with the addition of the Incas as a new playable civilization.
270* MedalOfDishonor: The Steam version comes with achievements. Quite a few of them are for ''being defeated''.
271* MercyRewarded: Sparing a defeated enemies's docks or markets allows players to still trade with them, which comes in handy when gold becomes scarce.
272* MightyGlacier:
273** War Elephants and Battle Elephants are effectively battering rams, but deadly at close range against both units and buildings. Their slowness renders them especially vulnerable to conversion by monks. This is in contrast to real elephants, who can easily outrun a human when going in a straight line. While intelligent, they are also not known to hold any particular religious belief.
274** Teutonic Knights are depicted in this game as heavily armoured infantry. They are slow moving, but hard to kill and will make mincemeat of other infantry units. Even [[LightningBruiser Paladin]] go down to upgraded versions in even numbered combat. But God help them if they run into archers as they simply cannot close the distance or get away from them.
275** Siege Weapons are generally slow moving, but adept at destroying buildings (rams, trebuchets, bombard cannons) or attacking mass archer or infantry formations (mangonels or scorpions). They are very vulnerable when attacked at a close range.
276* MisplacedWildlife:
277** Mostly averted in contrast to the previous game, as it uses wide ranged Eurasian animals like hawks, deer, wolves, bears, sheep, and boars that would be familiar to all civilizations in the game. ''The Conquerors'' introduces Mesoamerican maps with parrots, jaguars, turkeys, and javelinas as substitutes of hawks, wolves, sheep, and wild boars respectively. In ''The African Kingdoms'', the new African maps replace the wolves and jaguars with lions and crocodiles, the deer with ostriches and zebras, the turkeys and sheep with goats, the boars with elephants, and the hawks and parrots with vultures and storks. Likewise, in the new Southeast Asian maps of ''The Rise of the Rajas'', the predators are tigers and Komodo dragons, the large huntables are rhinoceroses, and the herdables are water buffaloes.
278** On the other hand, the deer most closely resemble Virginia deer (which as its name suggests, is actually an American species), the wild elephants are clearly Asian despite also appearing in Africa, the rhinos are African despite appearing only in Asia, zebras are not native to West Africa despite appearing in the Sundjata campaign, and Komodo dragons only live in Flores and nearby islands (but [[RuleOfCool smaller]] monitor lizards do live elsewhere).
279** The Saracen Mamluk, despite being named after Egyptian-based Turkic warriors, rides an Asian Bactrian camel. This choice was likely made so Mamluks would be recognizable when surrounded by other camel riders. Still, it is odd to see Mongols and Chinese using dromedaries only while the Saracens have Bactrian camels too.
280** The Persian war elephant is an African elephant (possibly of the now extinct North African species given its small size) when it should be Asian. Indian Elephant Archers in ''The Forgotten'' used to ride African elephants too because their sprites were recycled, but the HD version changed them to Asian elephants.
281** The Incas used to start every game with a turkey - a North American species. After the HD version, it is an appropriate llama instead.
282** Rhinos resembling the Sumatran rhino are huntable on all Southeast Asian maps including the Philippines where rhinos of any kind have not been seen since the Pleistocene.
283* MisplacedVegetation:
284** AllDesertsHaveCacti. And palms, for that matter. Even the ones in Mongolia.
285** Palms also appear in Scotland and Lombardy during the campaigns despite deserts not even being there.
286** All pines are the typical conical version, even in Mediterranean maps where lowland species are mushroom-shaped. There is also no trace of holm oaks in the Mediterranean, although the Italian campaigns of ''Forgotten Empires'' (Alaric, Bari, Sforza) make a commendable effort of using otherwise rare shrubs as obvious stand-ins for them.
287* NamedWeapons: In Saladin and in the level editor there are Trebuchets named "Bad Neighbor" and "God's Own Sling." These names were used for trebuchets in real life.
288* NarratorAllAlong: Every set of campaigns has at least one campaign with this trope in effect.
289* {{Nerf}}:
290** In the first game, catapults and ballistas were the main siege weapons. In the sequel, they're renamed (Mangonel/Onager and Scorpion, respectively) and demoted to decent (but ''very'' situational, especially the latter) units, while Rams, Bombard Cannons and Trebuchets replace them as the main building destroyers.
291** In ''Age of Kings'', the Teutons had a civilization bonus that significantly increased the range of their Town Centers. This allowed a Teuton player to immediately destroy their original Town Center, build another one just out of range of the enemy Town Center and use it to destroy the enemy base. This was perceived as a GameBreaker; the range bonus was nerfed into a line of sight bonus.
292** Horse Archers and Triremes in the first ''Age of Empires'' were considered to be very broken units and can even tear down towers when massed. In ''Age of Empires II'', the Cavalry Archers and Galleons were significantly nerfed when it comes to destroying buildings mostly due to the massive increase in building hitpoints, but they are still very deadly and destructive for hit-and-run tactics and raiding villages by killing the civilian units under the right hands. Unless a civilization have access to Cannon Galleons, they will be lousy in water maps because of these issues combined with fortifications dealing effective damage to ships within their range.
293** Bombard Towers in ''Age of Kings'' deal melee damage, making them very effective against rams. This was changed to pierce damage in ''The Conquerors'', resulting in Bombard Towers dealing pitiful damage to rams' high pierce armor.
294* NeverMyFault: The Random Map AI will always blame anything other than itself when it lost the match.
295* NotTheIntendedUse:
296** Rams can be used as [=APCs=] to transport slower infantry units like the Teutonic Knight. Any infantry loaded into rams will also improve the ram's movement speed and damage. As of the ''Forgotten Empires'' expansion, villagers can also be loaded into rams to safely transport them to the front-lines.
297** Rams can also attack units. While not much of a threat to soldiers, they can destroy a scorpion or mangonel in one hit, and smash a trebuchet or bombard cannon frightfully fast. This also leads to rams becoming a bit of a counter to archers in archers v archers fights. Without micro, AI archers will prioritize the closest unit. With its high pierce armor, and melee range the Ram can tank for a group of archers, allowing them to take out a much larger group of archer effortlessly, because they will focus fire on the ram to almost no effect.
298** Luring deer and boars to your town center started as this, but it's such a common strategy now that the updated learning campaign in the ''Definitive Edition'' includes it. Luring ''predators'' to your ''enemy'', however, is more likely going to come as a surprise.
299** As said in the WhatCouldHaveBeen page, players were going to have the ability to build walls and towers on the sea for defence, but this ability was taken out when the developers saw playtesters using it in an offensive manner only, to wall off enemy docks and prevent them from building a navy.
300** It's possible to bypass the inability to attack your allies by having non-archer projectile units target the ground that just so happens to be where something of your ally's is at. Since you technically aren't attacking ''them'', the AI will never change their stance to you.
301** In "Agincourt" (one of the Battles of the Conquerors), you start with a small army, several Monks, no base, no villagers and 80 Wood and 85 Gold. It is possible to convert enemy villagers but, as the level instructions point out, this will only allow you to repair your siege weapons... ''unless'' you convert four villagers, have them collect 20 Wood each, then build a farm, which will cause them to deposit the wood in your inventory, giving you enough to build a lumber camp, collect more wood and build a base.
302* OneGenderRace:
303** All the deer and ostriches are male.
304** In the Spanish version of ''The Conquerors'', Javelina is translated as ''Jabalina''. While ''Jabalina'' is the source of the English word Javelina, it means "''female'' wild boar" in Spanish. The Spanish gender neutral name of the American peccari is, well, ''pecarí'' (on the other hand, wildboars and javelinas [[PropRecycling share sprites]], so this mistranslation allows Spanish speaking users to make maps featuring male and female boars separately and turning the trope on its head).
305* OurHeroIsDead: This happens in the single player campaigns before it is even over.
306* PainfullySlowProjectile:
307** Bombard Cannons, Bombard Towers, and Cannon Galleons all fire a highly damaging cannonball that is laughably easy to dodge with micromanagement, with the exception of Spanish Cannon Galleons (with Ballistics researched) and Portuguese Bombard Cannons and Bombard Towers (with Ballistics and Arquebus researched), whose cannonballs are fast to the point of being almost unavoidable.
308** Trebuchets sling a large stone that can kill almost every unit of the game in one hit. Granted that you can find a unit that is holding still long enough for the stone to reach it.
309* PercussiveMaintenance: Villagers will repair buildings, ships, and siege weapons by hammering them.
310* PokemonSpeak: Your villagers will speak out loud the job you just gave them as they go about doing it (e.g. "gatherer" if assigned to a berry bush, "chopper" if assigned to a tree, etc...).
311* PowerfulButInaccurate: Gunpowder units tend to miss quite a few shots, but the crowner goes to the Burmese Arambai, who have a powerful ranged attack with ''pitiful'' accuracy unless they're firing point-blank, which is a problem when you consider that Arambai are also rather fragile.
312* ThePowerOfFriendship: One of the Slavs' Unique technologies, Druzhina, lets your infantry deal damage to adjacent units. Exceptionally powerful when using groups of infantry. Druzhina is a Ukranian/Russian word meaning 'Fellowship' or 'Brotherhood'.
313* ProtectionMission:
314** Plentiful in campaigns - most campaigns feature at least one protection mission.
315** In multiplayer, constructing a Wonder or collecting all relics essentially makes the rest of the game a protection mission.
316** This is the entire point of the "Defend the Wonder" multiplayer mode.
317* PurelyAestheticGender: A town center ordered to produce a villager randomly makes either a male or a female. Males and females do exactly the same work. All regular military units are male, however (except for the Malian Gbeto).
318* PyrrhicVictory:
319** Some of the campaigns end this way.
320** Players who managed to kill a wild boar but lost one of their hunters in the process, something which hurts the early game.
321* RaceLift: Due to a bug, an American Monk that's been converted by a non-American civilization will instantly change their appearance upon picking up a Relic. This effect also applies viceversa, when a non-American Monk is converted by an American civilisation and then picks up a Relic.
322* RainOfArrows: [[AutomaticCrossbows Chu Ko Nus]], Longboats and Castles. Town centers, towers and castles (again) can also shoot more arrows than usual if garrisoned by archers or Villagers; this is taken to insane levels when Chinese players combine both and put Chu Ko Nu in castles. The Teutons can accomplish the same with garrisoning infantry units after researching Crenelations.
323* RateLimitedPerpetualResource:
324** Trade Carts and Trade Cogs generate gold by travelling to another player's Market or Dock, generating gold in the process, then depositing it at their owner's Market or Dock. Though slower than mining, trade is an important source of gold when the game goes late and gold mines start running out, but (obviously) is only viable in team games.
325** When a Relic is placed in a Monastery or a Fortified Church, it generates 0.5 gold every second, equal to one fully upgraded Imperial Age Gold Miner working directly next to a Mining Camp. Relics are much fewer in number than gold mines but never deplete and cannot be destroyed, and thus are very important to any long-duration games, particularly on maps with scarce gold or in 1vs1 games where there are no teammates to trade with.
326* RealityIsUnrealistic: The Korean Turtle Ships in real life were actually much more powerful and faster than they're represented in this game. The unit designers intentionally gave them lower stats to give the other civs a competitive chance in naval battles as the Turtle Ships would've been the most broken unit in the whole game.
327* RegeneratingHealth: {{Hero Unit}}s, Viking Berserkers and units garrisoned inside a building slowly regenerate their health over time.
328* RegionalRiff:
329** Each civilization (and Random) has an unique riff that plays after you choose and confirm them in the Random Map game settings menu. The ''Definitive Edition'' expands this further by extending each riff into full-fledged intro themes that play at the beginning of each game like in ''VideoGame/AgeOfMythology''.
330** In addition, clicking on the topics in the History section will play riffs with each civilization getting different songs.
331* ReinventingTheWheel: Technologies are not saved between the scenarios - not even the ages. Society may easily devolve from "Imperial age" to "Feudal age" between scenarios. And in specific cases, you won't be able to tech up to the age you were before, should the mission restrict you in some way. These scenarios seem to stagnate somewhere around Castle Age, even if you were able to somehow reach Imperial in the mission(s) immediately prior.
332* ReligionIsMagic: Monks can convert enemy warriors and heal their own forces very fast. Montezuma's campaign takes this a bit further - in one mission, a mysterious, unidentified voice grants the player's jaguar warriors tenfold hitpoints if a large enough group is delivered to a certain ruined temple.
333* TheReveal: The Barbarossa campaign starts with a man in a bar inviting us to have a few drinks while he tells the story of Barbarossa and how he forged the Holy Roman Empire, including [[spoiler:Henry the Lion's betrayal and subsequent exile. At the end, the man chronicles the fall of the Holy Roman Empire and praises Barbarossa's will to then reveal that he is Henry the Lion himself]].
334* RidiculouslyFastConstruction: Par for the course for RealTimeStrategy. For example, a villager can fill a gap in a town wall by starting construction on a new segment (read: hammering on the ground) for a few seconds, at which point the new wall will be strong enough to seriously impede regular enemy units. Even if it is only partially built, enemies will either have to spend a long time tearing the wall down (taking much more time than it took to construct) or rely on siege engines (only available from the Castle Age) to clear the way for them. A Feudal Age army can be effectively stopped by having villagers half-build a wall along its entire length before the enemies can get around it. What's stranger is that villagers construct buildings faster than they repair them. Averted with towers, which are very time-consuming to build despite their relatively low hitpoints and small size.
335* RuleOfFun: Crossbows in the game are a strict upgrade to normal bows, dealing more damage and having more range. In real life, crossbows would be much slower to fire but could penetrate knights' armor well. This particular aspect would be represented by the Genoese crossbow, [[ScissorsCutsRock which deals bonus damage against cavalry.]]
336* SavageSetpiece: Large huntables such as boars, elephants and rhinoceroses won't attack villagers unless being attacked, and they are so strong that they need several villagers to take them down. However, they give out a lot of food and have high gather rate, so hunting them is worth it.
337* ScissorsCutsRock: The unique units and bonuses of some civilizations can turn the tables on the usual matchup strengths.
338** The Byzantine Cataphract is a superheavy cavalry unit that deals [[HerdHittingAttack trample damage]] to infantry and is highly resistant to AntiCavalry units like camels or spears. The best counter for them, then, is archers, which are normally easily handled by the Knight line, or [[TakesOneToKillOne other heavy cavalry]].
339** The Gothic Huskarl has absurdly high pierce armor and moves quickly, allowing it to close with and slaughter archer units. They lack melee armor, however, and fare poorly against other dedicated melee units.
340** Mongol Mangudai deals bonus damage to siege weapons, bypassing their relatively high pierce armor when massed. This is also helped by their long range and cavalry mobility.
341** The Spanish boost to cannonball speed means that it's quite possible for a group of Cannon Galleons to just blast an incoming Fire Ship to pieces before it can get within flamethrower range.
342** The Vietnamese Rattan Archer has so much pierce armor that it can win a duel with an Elite Skirmisher, the main anti-archer infantry unit.
343* ScriptedEvent: Lots of them in campaign scenarios. [[HeroMustSurvive Mission failures when heroes die]], enemy ambushes in abandoned houses...
344* SecretLevel: The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxon_Wars Saxon Revolt]], a fan made level which was the winner of a Microsoft contest. It was included on the Conquerors CD, and it can be played by following the instructions provided in the Read Me.
345* ShootTheMedicFirst: Priests and missionaries.
346* TheSiege:
347** Many scenarios will have you on one of the two sides of a siege, including China and Milan and Cairo (as the assaulter) and Acre (as the defender).
348** Logistical siege to cut off a player's gold supply is the default way to end a game where a base is too well designed and defended to storm.
349* SiegeEngines: Catapults, ballistas, battering rams, and trebuchets.
350* SlaveMooks: Mamelukes and Janissaries, according to History.
351* SpeakingSimlish: This series gives a nod to this by having two preset voice chat commands taken from the first game, one of which is the sound made when a priest tries to convert one of your units. Most units have soundbites of their native languages, though.
352* SquishyWizard: Monks, who can pick up relics, convert enemy units and heal friendly ones, have very slow speed and low HP, making it easy for ranged units and light cavalry to make short work of them.
353* StormingTheCastle:
354** It is unwise, but entirely possible for a large army without siege weapons to [[DeathOfAThousandCuts destroy a castle]] in game, especially if the opponent player has not researched Murder Holes yet which eliminates the minimum range of the castles' RainOfArrows. On top of that, it's actually quite ''easy'' to storm a castle with the Huns' unique unit, the Tarkans, as they have a sizable attack bonus against all buildings. Enough Tarkans can level a castle faster than siege weapons if Murder Holes isn't researched.
355** Gothic Huskarls work even better as they combine building attack bonus with [[AnnoyingArrows high pierce armor]], [[WeHaveReserves lower gold cost]], and [[ZergRush blazing production speed]].
356* StraightForTheCommander: Killing the opponent's king unit in Regicide mode gives you instant victory, regardless of how many other units and resources the other player still has. Of course, losing your king [[GameOver will do the same to you.]] In several campaign scenarios the objective is killing one particular enemy commander or destroying one enemy building too.
357* StuffBlowingUp: The [[SuicideAttack Petards]] and Bombard Cannons.
358* SuicideAttack: You CAN kill other units with the Petard, it's just not efficient enough to be practical. The same can be said for the Demolition Ship.
359* TacticalRockPaperScissors:
360** On land, archers and cavalry beat melee infantry, dedicated counter units like Skirmishers or Spearmen beat archers and cavalry, respectively, and melee infantry beat those counter units. Unique units sometimes reverse these relationships, as seen in ScissorsCutsRock above.
361** In naval combat, Demolition Ships can safely approach and blow themselves up in the face of Fire Ships due to the latter's short range; Fire Ships can easily tank Galley fire with their high pierce armour; and Galleys can shoot down Demolition Ships from a safe distance where they can't deal any damage.
362** Several units have hidden damage bonuses against other units so sometimes who counters what isn't apparent. For example champions deal bonus damage against Eagle Warriors. As Eagle Warriors are the cavalry substitute for American civilisations, that they are hard countered by Champions isn't directly obvious. Similarly, there are hidden resistances. Light Cavalry is resistant to monk conversion (as well as having hidden bonus damage again them), while Knights are not (and in fact Monks are a very effective counter to Knights/Paladin).
363** TacticalRockPaperScissors is even displayed in the opening cinematic's most obvious parts - the man playing black has his rook be a stand-in for a watchtower, which the white player tries to counter with a trebuchet only for black to use mounted knights to dismantle it. In the castle assault section of the cinematic, the assaulting infantry after the castle's gate is rammed open are scythed down by archers, but they then fare worse against mounted knights, only inflicting a single visible loss to them before getting cut down.
364* TauntButton: You can send audio taunts to your enemy, like "[[ContinuityNod Wololo]]" or "My granny can siege better than that."
365* TechnologyLevels: There are four technological ages: each civilization starts in the Dark Age at the beginning of a game, then progresses through the Feudal Age and Castle Age before reaching the Imperial Age. Each Age requires a significant resource investment to reach, and opens up powerful new technologies and upgrades that outclass what came before.
366* TemporaryOnlineContent:
367** HD Edition had the "Dark Ages Rush or Early Adopter" achievement that could only be obtained by preordering the game.
368** Definitive Edition has a variety of events where completing objectives unlocks profile icons, graphical mods, or even cheat codes.
369* AThicketOfSpears: Steppe Lancers and Kamayuks have a range of 1, allowing multiple ranks to attack a group of enemies at the same time.
370* ThrowingYourSwordAlwaysWorks: The attack animation for the Saracens' unique unit is them throwing a scimitar at their target. Despite their inaccuracy and short range, the swords are frighteningly good at killing villagers and destroying buildings. They're also incredibly good against cavalry and an army of them can turn the War Elephants into target practice.
371* TimedMission:
372** Except for some missions, none of the campaign scenarios feature a hard time limit. However, there are many time-scripted events that force the player to act fast, such as the AI triggers for building Wonders. Some optional objectives, such as the assassination of the Persian Shah, are also time-limited.
373** Some achievements require you to perform a certain action in a certain map within a certain time limit.
374* UnitsNotToScale:
375** When putting people inside Transport Ships. One such example is to be the Persians and load your War Elephants onto transport ships. They do not look ''at all'' like they should fit.
376** Units don't have separate sizes. This was lampshaded by an image of the Age of Empires king with the text "10 Elephants Fit in a Boat. 11 Archers Don't."
377%% (WANE) ** Lampshaded in this ''Webcomic/AwkwardZombie'' [[http://www.awkwardzombie.com/comic/ram-for-one-more strip]].
378* UpdatedReRelease: Twice. The first happened when Microsoft decided to officially endorse the fan-made Forgotten Empires expansion and release it as the HD Edition, with updated graphics, tweaked gameplay, and more DownloadableContent in the form of the ''African Kingdoms'' and ''Rise of the Rajas'' packs. Then, in 2019, they put out an even more revamped ''Definitive Edition'', with all of the aforementioned content, plus enhanced graphics utilizing actual 3D models instead of 2D sprites, along with the ''Last Khans'' [=DLC=].
379* VideogameCrueltyPotential:
380** Not enough forces to attack the enemy's army and fortifications? Ignore them! Raid its base and kill its unarmed villagers and traders, crippling its economy! Come back before it recovers and level up everything!
381** An enemy army coming? Go for [[ShootTheMedicFirst the unarmed religious leaders first]]!
382* VikingsInAmerica: The "Vinlandsaga" scenario is based on the Norse expeditions to the New World.
383* ViolationOfCommonSense:
384** Infantry and ''archers'' can ultimately cut through the heaviest walls if there is no one to shoot at them. It just takes a really long time.
385** Sheep are very useful in multiplayer for scouting.
386** A Jaguar Warrior can defeat a Teutonic Knight. (A Wooden Club studded with Volcanic Glass can cut through Plate Armor and Chainmail)
387** Battering Rams are effective against Ships, and other siege weapons.
388** The Saracens (and in The Forgotten, the Maya after researching "obsidian arrows") have archer attack bonus [[DeathOfAThousandCuts against buildings]].
389** Experiments with enemy ships trapped on one tile of shallow water have shown that all melee units, including the lowly villager, can damage and destroy naval units. What's also surprising about this is that spearmen (anti-cavalry) get bonus damage against fishing ships, galleys, and fire ships. Actually destroying a ship with melee attacks earns a player the ''Out of their element'' achievement in the ''Definite Edition''.
390** Prior to ''The African Kingdoms'', which gave them their own armor class, Camels were considered boats in the game code, which means they take bonus damage from heated shots and building arrows...
391** When fully garrisoned with Infantry, Mongol Siege Rams ''are actually faster than Dark Age Scout Cavalry'', while a fully garrisoned Mongol Siege Tower combined with their unique tech ''Drill'' (Siege units move 50% faster) is ''the fastest unit in the entire game''.
392** Battering Rams are barely scratched by Bombard Towers but are easily decimated by Bombard Cannons, Cannon Galleons and Turtle Ships, even though all use the same weapon. This is because all cannonball-firing units deal melee damage, while Bombard Towers deal pierce damage (starting from ''The Conquerors'').
393* WalkingShirtlessScene: The sprite for male villagers is a shirtless man.
394* WeHaveReserves:
395** Tends to be a fairly common mindset for the CPU and occasionally the player with less expensive units. Overlaps with ZergRush, as seen below. An AI or turtle player that has been stockpiling resources and trade the whole game can do this with ''expensive'' units like Elite War Elephants.
396** Gothic tactics heartily endorse this mindset since their infantry are both inexpensive and created with blazing speed once in the Imperial Age. Losing an army of Gothic infantry will still be costly but there will be another group ready to take their place in no time flat.
397** Also occurs when your Onagers or Bombard Cannons blast enemy units even when your own melee units are attacking them. Though most of the time this is due to ArtificialStupidity.
398* WithUsOrAgainstUs: The "Neutral" diplomacy setting is basically the same as "Enemy" with a few adjustments to automatic targeting of civilian units.
399* YouHaveResearchedBreathing: The Huns in ''The Conquerors'' can research ''atheism''. Everyone else needs to research ''faith''.
400* YouRequireMoreVespeneGas: Gold, Stone, Wood and Food are the resources of the game. Food, Wood and Gold are the most commonly used resources, with Stone mostly being reserved for heavy fortifications, such as walls and castles. Gold is the usual determining factor in attrition, since wood is abundant and can be converted at a positive ratio to food and gold can buy stone at the Market.
401* ZergRush:
402** One of the most common tactics in multiplayer is to attack during the feudal age with large numbers of spearmen and skirmishers to prevent your opponent from being able to develop his economy. Most rounds are effectively decided '''within twenty minutes''' this way. Archers are an alternative, because of their greater attack and the fact they cost no food, so they don't compete for resources with creating villagers. Scouts are also good feudal age units, due to their speed allowing them to harass the enemy's economy effectively. However, they are vulnerable to defensive spearmen. It's even possible to win a match [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCqPGKtPKho with Skirmishers as the only primary unit]].
403*** You can even win with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du79SNqvqNY Spanish Supremacy villagers]] (also involving major contributions by a Mongol villager rush).
404** If you progress to the Imperial Age and are running out of gold, you can try spamming a large number of units that cost no gold, i.e. hussars, halberdiers and elite skirmishers (or whatever your civilisation is capable of producing).
405** A frequent online tactic is to play as the Huns, remain in the Dark Ages, and take advantage of the Huns' unique ability, to endlessly spam hordes of Militia before your opponent can get their defenses up.
406** An occasional bug in the fourth "Sundjata" campaign can result in [[AmazonBrigade Gbetos]] spawning endlessly after rescuing the Mema Princess.
407** As WebVideo/SpiritOfTheLaw describes it, the Goth game plan simply involves dogpiling the enemy with Elite Huskarls, over and over again until they submit. Their civilization bonus allows them to pump out (disturbingly strong) basic infantry from Barracks at a staggering rate for reduced cost, at doubled speed with Perfusion. With the Anarchy tech researched, they can churn out Huskarls from those same Barracks as well. In fact, the Goths are designed with such a heavy lean on AttackAttackAttack and they fight like [[WeHaveReserves they have reserves]] that the best window to counter them is when they're still amassing resources and structures to pour out their flood of units, as once they've managed to hit their stride and reached critical mass, only God can help you. Post-Imp matches against Goth players basically boil down to either them crushing you with superior numbers, or them running out of gold and you bouncing back.
408** Taking a page out of the Goths' book, the Malay have this as their whole strategy. They lack several key Blacksmith and unit upgrades (notably the champion) but their civ bonuses let them conserve lots of resources for pumping out more units. Their unique tech, Forced Levy, also makes Militia-line units (the main infantry) cost ''no gold at all,'' making them extremely potent in trash wars. Finally, their unique unit, the Karambit Warrior, is quick to train, weak, and only takes up half a population slot, meaning they can easily be massed into a terrifying force by virtue of sheer numbers.[[/folder]]

Top