Let's Play Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Let's Play Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

Count me for Saladin too, I was hesitating between that and Genghis Khan but that one is pretty :catstare:

so it's probably best left for latter.

Also you can eventually make a triptych between Franks fighting Britons, Saracens fighting Franks and Teutons fighting Saracens.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2023 14:24

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 14:56

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

It's not really (or at least only) about her character but about what she was supposed to be the symbol of. To quote a comment from this video series, which is directly about this campaign:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZbBi9DwtUI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRAZpfst3Dg

UAnchovy posted:

I think it was helpful that you highlighted just how contested the legacy of Joan is. Even before she died, you could see the beginnings of a war about how to interpret her. Both of Joan's trials - the original one leading to her death, and the nullification trial in 1452 - were extremely propagandistic.

Was she a witch or a saint? One thinks of, for instance, Shakespeare's 'Henry VI part 1', which wavers back and forth between showing Joan as holy and chaste and showing her as a harlot deceived by evil spirits. It reads as though Shakespeare himself couldn't make up his mind.

Today the debate isn't put in the same terms, but I think there is still a fascination with her visions. I think the modern consensus is probably that Joan was sincere and did believe in her visions, but a wide range of naturalistic interpretations are posited. In her day the question was whether they were heavenly or demonic: today we're much more skeptical of both possibilities. For me I'd argue that she did certainly have intense spiritual experiences, even if the cause remains murky. I find it a bit tricky to take the visions entirely at face value - for a start, one of the saints that she claimed to see, St. Catherine of Alexandria, is probably fictional; rather strange to see a vision of a person who never lived, surely? - but Joan's sincerity and her lucidity come out clearly from all accounts of her life.

But this is all complicated even further by the patriotism angle. AoE2 puts the question of her visions to the side and focuses its campaign on the birth of French patriotism. This is another very common reading of Joan, using her as a symbol of selfless and courageous devotion to one's nation. Mark Twain said of Joan, "shall not this, and no other, stand for Patriotism through all the ages until time shall end?" Nor is it a coincidence that Joan was canonised in 1920, at a time of resurgent French patriotism. Perhaps her canonisation might have been even earlier, if France had not had troubles with the church and with kings. Joan's piety and royalism didn't always go down well.

I guess what I'm saying is that the legend of Joan has grown up over the centuries and become far larger than the girl herself. The idea of Joan of Arc has been taken and weaponised for many causes: French nationalism, triumphant or traditionalist Catholicism, monarchism, and so on. In that furor it's easy to lose sight of what Joan herself would have understood about her cause. She fought for Charles VII, not for an abstract nation of France. She consistently claimed submission to the pope, but defied the directives of church authorities. Were Joan alive today, I'm not sure she would be particularly congenial to either France or the church.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2023 22:43

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

NewMars posted:

I've heard of this mission being somewhat infamous for being a slog.

Also the annoying "HELP! CRUSADERS ARE ATTACKING OUR TRADE ROUTES!" quote that you'll be hearing a lot if you don't immediately deal with the AI.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2023 22:42

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

The narrator in this is laying on pretty thick how much more civilized the Saracens are, it's like I'm really watching Kingdom of Heaven.

Not that I'm complaining, I like that the campaign actually makes no mystery of being biased accounts, and the previous two were also kind of like this though with a more proto-nationalistic/religious bent.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2023 07:25

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

Rody One Half posted:

The number one expansion I think I want is just campaigns for the East Asian civs. Japan and China in particular have been in since Age of Kings, but they and the Koreans have to sit with just historical battles (as do the Persians and Magyars).

For every civ a full campaign I say!

E: Vikings too. They and Japan do have 2 though.

A North American expansion would also be nice, not the least so in Vinland we're not fighting Celts anymore.

It's a shame you can't neatly divide China into civs the way they did with Dynasties of India, it's a part of the world that could with increased focus.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2023 14:49

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

anilEhilated posted:

Is there a list of what historical buildings were used as reference for AoE 2 sprites somewhere? That could be interesting.

There's these ones for the wonders at least:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb-Mb2VhEZA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFy-aBEtJH8

Then there's also the wiki:
https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Castle_(Age_of_Empires_II)#Architecture

# ¿ Apr 14, 2023 20:25

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

Let's complete the trilogy with Barbarossa.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2023 09:31

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

Yeah Genghis Khan seems like a very interesting figure in general and the accounts of his early life sound suitably dramatic, I'm guessing they didn't want a repeat of "rivalry with another Mongol commander" in the campaign and favored Kushluk for some reason.

The stuff about boiling enemies alive is also continued throughout the campaign with the narrator cheerfully describing horrible things that are :catstare:

and

in equal measure, compared to the others this is pretty explicitly a much darker and "villainous" campaign.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2023 12:04

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

Smiling Knight posted:

Hell yeah, I spent so many hours pouring over this as a kid. Truly, the golden age of feelies in video game purchases.

Speaking of, what were everyone's "small child who does not understand RTS" quirks with this game? For me, I would never age up as soon as I had the resources; I would wait until I had a bunch of extra food and gold, so that I could immediately research all the new techs once I reached the next age.

I usually only attacked the enemy once I had researched almost everything and my army would just be a mix of all units available.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2023 17:33

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

The Conquerors campaigns are pretty good and in some ways more ambitious than what we've seen so far, but let's finish what the base game had to offer with Barbarossa.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2023 07:10

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

more like Henry the Lyin' imho

# ¿ Apr 25, 2023 20:12

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

Do you lose the scenario if you have less than 10 units?

Also :lol:

that's some anticlimax.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2023 07:50

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

Let's go with Battle of the Conquerors since those mostly deal with civs from the base game.

# ¿ Apr 27, 2023 06:20

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

anilEhilated posted:

I always liked the little touch that our narrator was Henry the Lion all along.

There isn't a lot of spaces for characterization in these games so it's nice to see how they manage to give a smidge of personality to each campaign's narrator. The Scottish guy is a firm believer in the cause who gradually gets more optimistic, Guy Josselyne is a jaded commander who looks up to Joan of Arc with the faith of the convert, the guy from the Saladin campaign falls in love with Arabic culture and comes to identify more with his captors than his original allies, the Mongol guy is a professional author of an epic cheerfully describing horrible deeds while also highlighting the brutal simplicity of the underlying logic, and the Barbarossa narrator is someone you initially believe to be a simple admirer before the twist gives a new perspective on his attitude.

# ¿ Apr 27, 2023 12:45

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

missing the intro text unless that's deliberate

This mission was pretty weird as a kid. Not just the sea of worms but there was some bug in Conquerors where the trigger for the wolves would also affect a local deer, that would start lowering your buildings' HP despite ostensibly having no attack points. Pretty freaky.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2023 23:20

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

Noob question here: what makes gold that limited given trade carts and relics?

# ¿ May 2, 2023 07:05

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

cuc posted:

For most of the community who are laser-focused on the chosen game they play, what they got out of this documentary is this one concept presentation slide showing Forgotten Empires' suggestion for cultural Monk and Monastery models during AoE2DE's development.

They'd actually attempted this in the AoE2HD period, and made a batch of cultural Monk models, including a Buddhist monk and "Imam". Both times they were ultimately turned down, and these models became used only by heroes, or never saw the light of the day.

When something like that happens in revival-period AoE, it's usually because of either or both of two factors: 1) the developers are concerned about backlash from the competitive playerbase, who are naturally conservative when it comes to drastic changes; 2) Microsoft being cautious about offending real-life political parties.

They've added so much content over the years that the absence of new models for monks (outside of American civs) keeps surprising me. I guess it could get a bit culturally dicey though, or represent a lot of work if you get sufficiently granular like this concept page does.

# ¿ May 3, 2023 19:40

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

Rodrigue, as-tu du coeur ?

Let's go with El Cid.

# ¿ May 6, 2023 23:22

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

Yeah this campaign seems to experiment with a more personal and narrative-heavy style compared to the base game.

I'm surprised they make you lead Saracens and not Berbers once those were introduced but I suppose Moors is an ambiguous term to begin with.

# ¿ May 10, 2023 05:34

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

let's go with the OG Scourge of God, Attila

# ¿ May 20, 2023 20:35

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

Attila was the original mean girl

# ¿ May 22, 2023 19:17

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

I don't think it's quite the same twist as the Barbarossa one, we know this guy joined the Huns for a while, it's the part where he's revealed to be more hosed up from the experience (or hosed up in the wrong way) than you'd assume. Props for using the original artwork for this, it's a bit DUN-DUN in its mood but it really helps selling it.

Anyway, let's conclude The Conquerors with Montezuma.

# ¿ May 26, 2023 17:24

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

As a kid I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the Aztec campaign with its exotic details and mystical omens, the technological disadvantage and the feeling of doom you get from knowing how real history went. Obviously with age and hindsight one can see how it's more based on pop culture perceptions of the Aztecs (notably the extremely dubious idea that the Spanish were seen as gods), but I appreciate that the narration neither whitewash the sacrifices nor condemn them (I mean it's narrated by an Aztec, why would he?). It adds to the idea that these campaigns are all about perspective.

And yeah, Pachacuti sounds good.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2023 11:07

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

In addition to everything else it'd probably look very odd for Native American civs to share an architecture set. Here's a cool bunch of drawings of what a Mississippian architecture set could look like, but I doubt something like that would look very good for, say, the Puebloans or the Haudenosaunee. The Incas already look awkard enough with Mesoamerican buildings.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2023 19:23

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

That narration's writing felt a bit more amateurish for some reason. It's a bit more blatant about its expository nature and the twist feels reheated - though obviously, there's only so many ways to
frame that kind of narrative.

Anyway, let's see if they can do a Dracula campaign without any vampire reference.

YaketySass fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Jun 9, 2023

# ¿ Jun 9, 2023 18:12

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

I'd never played this one before but I remember a rather high-quality fanmade single scenario for The Conquerors about the guy that was also very RPG-like, with a lot of detailed setpieces, side quests to improve your stats, a bonus vampire ending, etc: https://aok.heavengames.com/blacksm...mFjdWxhIjt9fQ==

Some of what fans managed to do and posted on that website was pretty impressive.

Also I can't help but have this playing in my head reading these updates:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRNpPYIBMXI

# ¿ Jun 10, 2023 20:54

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 14:56

YaketySass: Jan 15, 2019; Blind Idiot Dog

Bari

# ¿ Jun 15, 2023 09:05

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Let's Play Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition