I wanted to see that castle shoot at someone. And I agree: having a castle was a big deal, back in the actual middle ages, especially for a single town or village, and it would be absolutely unheard of for a single town (or even city, for that matter) to have more than one.
@@c182SkylaneRG towns or villages didn't build castles, the lords of the lands did. But yeah, it was a big deal and the lords needed the king's approval before building any fortification.
"We are missing some thing like Halberdier and Hussar..." "We don't have any of the unique techs." "This is looking *very* similar to what we get in the final game." *All* of those didn't even exist in the original 1999 release version of "Age of Empires 2: The Age of Kings" and were added in the "Conquerors" expansion. The whole tech tree is actually the *exact same* as the final/release version, they just didn't balance the civs, techs and tech & unit costs yet.
I guess the archers and crossbows were like how it was done in AoE1, where the basic bowman only cost food and wood while the improved and composite bowmen cost food and gold. Keeping the old unit as a cheaper alternative.
I never understood why AOE didn’t have a different unit for crossbownen and normal bows. Normal bows could’ve been stronger vs crossbows and light units whereas crossbows would’ve been slower firing, but superior against armoured units.
@@lvsoad22 that said, a dedicated archery/bowman line would be a worthwhile deterrent to just throwing trash units into battle. Archers made with food-wood and crossbows/arbalests with gold-wood would make for an interesting dynamic. 👌
I love how some of these units survived. The Heavy Swordsman at 5:46 remains unused in the final version and was made fully available in HD and recently in the Definitive edition.
Awesome video!!! You should do one about the differences between Age of Kings and Conquerors expansion. I have played both and there are a lot of curiosity you sure can find
This is a great idea! I played both, but I was very young during AOK, and didn't know it very well. Only from reading these comments did I realise that Hussars and Halberdiers didn't exist. I do remember never being able to queue up any farms. That was a nightmare.
Nice one. It is indeed interesting to see how it developed. My usual wall of remarks: 3:28 I would guess this was just a placeholder mechanic. Just use the same drop-off code for all 4 resources instead of having to code and artist up 4 different resource points 4:08 Interesting. So you used to be able to recruit all Tiers of a unit, but with increasing cost including adding a whole resource like gold? 5:45 Yeah, they did not have all the keyframes forthe standing unit yet. Or even an idea how the units should look and work :) And as we learned soon after, apparently some towers have no sprite at all :D 10:00 In theory you would use the old ones to save resources. It seems that most units have a variant that costs 0 Gold, meaning you got a dedicated "trash fight" version. 11:10 If that is the castle, I do not want to see the wonder. Would it be like half the map. Oh, and apparently it builds around as fast as a Wonder does too - are you sure that was not actually the wonder instead of the building we would end up with later? 12:35 Okay the pre-battle UI was definetely done at that point. 13:14 I think you missread: They do not have +50 Food at hte beginning, but exactly 50 food. They traded initial villagers for food at a better rate. 13:32 x3 Healing Speed for Monks? Just consider how much it would change the math for healing monks. 14:30 You had the game still set to "Hardest". Maybe the Beta accidentally used the settings from the Alpha for this one thing? Or the default was poorly set? Or was it you playing around and forgetting to go back down? 16:40 Back in "Planned Features Cut From AoE2" you mentioned that facing used to mater for Pikemen. And I would say it is save to asume that facing would not have only matered for them.
maybe there are a lot of options to implement new formations, that could be real game changing features. i hope that aoe4 will surprise us positively in that regard.
That whole AOE1 feel of early version was because both games use Genie Engine, AOE2 obviously upgraded version, but it still is iteration of same engine. Hence why early versions felt a lot like AOE1, since they likely just took AOE1 and started changing that. And this is normal for games that have direct sequels made with same engine and aren't too far apart. You know why reinvent whole wheel, if you already got some things done to start with. Of course as things progressed they likely tried different stuff and concepts and as time passed, game and engine took more and more of shape we know with AOE2. But early versions had more similarities with 1. Since they were more concerned with implementing mechanics and stuff necessary to make game what it is under the hood and trying different things. Of course balancing is usually as well as bug fixing left for last, once other "variables" stop changing, since nothing is worse than tweaking, fixing or balancing something for weeks, just so it ends up being removed, or completely overhauled. So end result would be same if you spent all that time just doing whatever. Also with beta versions, sometimes they also will simply not enable everything yet, so they can first focus on base gameplay and balance that, then add stuff, which is what feels like was reason for unique techs being absent. So you don't get overwhelmed with everything at once. Since some things can easily have multiplication effect on work you have to do. Also AI in early alpha, likely was still mostly AOE1 AI trying to figure out what it is supposed to do with this. Since things likely were so much in motion, there was little to no point in updating AI on it, since by the end of next week, it could have already been irrelevant. Edit: I saw in comments that some of stuff were added in expansion, so I guess that is that. Yeah, after all those years, it is easy to forget how original base game looked or what was added latter. But yeah, expansions could bring some more major changes even to the base game. Before whole DLC and stuff began, which is less likely to do that. But expansions used to be big.
Aren't the trade workshops in the released version's campaign? And I remember playing a version pre a patch (2.0b, I think? So 2.0a or something) that had trade workshops (that did nothing) and seawalls (palisades) that could be built by fishing ships.
@@JeanC705 It's kinda interesting to see that they developed aoe1 into aoe2 and didn't switch engines or so, because 1-2 years till release, this still looks really rough compared to the end product.
Interesting that the Trade Workshop survived all the way into the scenario editor... Might indicate just how late in development they were when they decided to merge it's functionality into the Market.
Yeah but they cost the same number of resources because they cost 55 wood instead of 40. Those 70 gold CA made the Huns discount in Conquerors all the more insane!
14:05 It's a little embarrassing that you say that cause you didn't have unique techs in the final game either. This was a feature introduced by the expansion.
It looks like a lot of the building that got changed, like the church etc. had designs that looked more like AoE1 graphics, and the stuff that stayed looks more like the AoE2 designs we're familiar with, since they seem to have a higher graphical quality and detail. So maybe it was a result of upscaling and the engine switch which led to the changed designs. It also seems like a lot of the original buildings and units were quite large and in play testing probably made town design quite tricky when buildings like castles and TCs hide things behind them (even more than they do now). Ships and docks in particular seem massive compared to the final version.
SOTL ever thought about giving the old Age of Empires Online a little go? The game has been resurrected by fans who have even added new content to the original game
It's more useful as a featureless building for scenario design. Since it doesn't have anything else associated with you can use it as a way to train units or research technologies not available to the civ being played. Also kind of glad they simplified everything into the market instead of needing 2 different buildings for trade and purchases.
I can understand why they upgraded the looks of the buildings, but I wish they had kept some of those buildings around even if they didn’t do anything! They look neat as heck
it looked like the AI in the Beta brought a relic into the fight at 15:55. maybe this version actually had relics doing bonuses in battles Like the devs had imagined during development?
I played Age of Kings as a kid and remember getting really hyped with The Conquerors that I got for my birthday. And it is stupid I know but to this day halberdiers, hussars, Meso-American civs feel exotic and somewhat 'new' for me.
I know the feeling, they still feel exciting and alien. The same with Turtle Ships and the Vindlandsaga campaign in my case. The nostalgia value of this game is immense.
Adding those things in changed the game dynamics alot. It's crazy to think there were no halberdiers or hussars at one stage (but still have Paladins).
same yo! for me it's garrisoning in rams that feels super foreign (petards too though they're not super popular). also the campaigns changed a lot with heroes healing themselves
I wish they kept the archers, they historically had different roles. Archers were often used instead or with Crossbowmen, depending on the culture or time period. Elite archers should be more powerful than Crossbowmen.
Well yes and no, they would be super expensive compared to crossbow men. And whilst they fire faster then crossbowmen they wouldn't be as good vs armored targets. That's why im fine with the way they did it in AoE2 where you upgrade to crossbows but still have archer unique units.
Or imagine if like the skirm line, you got "elite archer" and then crossbowman as a seperate unit. Then the Britons could have the unique upgrade (similar to imperial skirm) longbowman for the archer line.
Archers were the better and more flexible unit. However, they were also way more valuable. It takes way longer to train an archer then a crossbowman. Crossbows were kinda the early version of guns and rifles, use wise. It was the weapon you could give any idiot,and they be able to do damage to the enemy. Just, the crossbow didnt have the huge power multiplier of guns. So it didnt outshine all army weapons. It took gunpowder for the gun to start doing that, and rifeling for the gun to compleatly outcompete every other man wielded weapon in warfare. The crossbow was the first 'anyone can use it effectivly' weapon though. Unlike the sword, bow, spear, horse, etc.
@@LJL85 It's much more than that. It improved in many ways upon concepts introduced in AoE, calling it a reskin is dishonest to the devs when you can clearly see how much work they put into it. You wouldn't call new version of existing car a reskin.
This is to be expected. I feel like many game developers utilize the engine and concepts of previous games they have made in the early developments of new games to at least get started
@@rubz1390 Yep, there was one in the Greek campaign where you have to escape from and then destroy the Minoans. It was also available in the scenario editor
Also, I'm a little mad Spirit of the Law didn't experiment better with the market, like, it had a little image of people where it displayed "0/15". I wonder if perhaps you should bring villagers to it to do something, why didn't he see it, I need to know now 😱
Something neat I noticed. If you pay attention to the beta Paladin's animations, you'll notice that the asset was reused for Joan's hero unit. They share a bunch of animations, like some of the attack animations as well as the death animation.
And also the first game had a useless Trade Workshop! Then AOE 3 made an actually functioning and useful 'Trade' building. Though it would have been amusing to continue the trend of every 'Age of' game having a scenario only 'Trade Workshop'.
"it looks like that copy-pasted the files" .. let me tell you : this is what happen(ed), for every sequel game (and non-sequel ones made by same studio) you start working from the previous ones
@@saladtea9708 unsure about that one. In very rare cases (especially when the sequel is done by another studio) it can be started from the ground up or from another game. For instance AoE4 is probably based on Company Of Heroes 2 since it's now Relic Entertainment making it ;)
That's mostly when you are using the same engine or an engine built off the same engine. AoE and AoK are on the same engine as each other, but AoM and AoE3 are then on a different engine. It doesn't make a lot of sense to port assets if you can't use them as-is, especially if they are only going to be placeholders; also not really helpful to port code if it's for an unrelated engine with substantially different architecture. When and why engines are updated or changed doesn't seem to have a consistent logic between developers. I guess it's driven by preferences/familiarity/quality-of-life for developers who actually have to work with it, and how well the engine is maintained in respect of taking advantage of improved consumer hardware and software. I don't believe the AoM engine is based off of Genie, but for instance Bethesda have been using Creation for a decade which is based off of Gamebryo/NetImmerse that got its first release in 1997 (people seem to expect a new engine for TESVI, whether a new version of the old engine or a new ground-up build I don't know).
When I was wee little lad I had a russian version of this game that was published by a company that had no license to localize the game, so I think they just took the Age of Kings Beta and sold it as the full game. I remember being very confused as to why I remembered age of kings looking so different as a child vs when I finally came back to it with an official copy later.
@@tomasgonzalez9740 The only reason Rise of Rome was even made was because AoE2 took longer to develop than intended. LOL the early years of the RTS genre. Still have incredibly fond memories of beating every single campaign mission in StarCraft and Brood War in 2011.
@@swiftlaker6 in game you clic on the screw ( the settings logo), neer your profil than it should have the option historia ( in the french version of the game, it's where you can find it)
That makes sense. I could definitely see something like an iron resource being used instead of gold for making military units. It probably got removed because there wasn't really a meaningful difference in how they were obtained and how they were used (I suspect most military units used both ore and gold, for example), so they just combined them. AoM did something similar when they got rid of stone, using gold instead.
@@Greywander87 I wonder if it perhaps wasn't more specialised with ore->units, gold->tech, stone-> buildings, since without it we had gold->units/tech, stone->buildings, and then gold->everything.
I actually love the look of those dark age, aoe 1 buildings. They're a good call back to where the game came from. The mill, smith, dock, house, all being stonework. Really cool.
I remembered playing either alpha or beta version when I was a kid. It was possible to use villager to "salvage" resources from destroyed buildings and killed trade carts. Some sprites looked much better, like gold and stone veins, berry bushes, horse archers, man at arms(the texture has a saggy chainmail feeling), etc. The weirdest thing was when some certain units(mostly ranged) attack they instantly shapeshift into someone else due to the sprite not done by the time it was implemented, I remembered it as one of the most hilarious things in this game you can never get to enjoy post 1.0.
The spin feature might be there because of the cut "special abilities", as you called them. I could see it creating situations where you'd want your units to turn around without actually moving them
The "horde"/no formation actually lasted so long it made it into the manual I had as a kid: I spent ages trying to figure out where the button was hiding. The units had collision by that point of course, but sometimes you just wanted to send stuff to the battlefield staging area without having your cavalry wait for your seige
Great video. The Alpha looks like it is a just AoE 1 with new skins and some new features, which makes complete sense. It made me also realise that some of the aspects of it were incorporated into the Mod "Age of Chivalry Hegemony", like keeping seperate units instead of always upgrading them (e.g. archers and crossbows or swordsmen and champions). You kind of have light, medium and heavy units of the same kind in some cases. I kind of like that and it makes sense, imo, though it might also make it too complicated. Anyway, I can thoroughly recommend the mod for a different experience of the game. It is only available for the original Conquerors though, not for HD or DE, as far as I'm aware.
funfact in the Alpha the west european set had different the stonewall that where reused for the Mediterranean set in the The Forgotten empires mod and AOE 2 HD (2013)
I have so many found memories of the base game. It was the only one my dad had when i became old enough to play it, and i was young enough to not understand the how to play so i always set it to death match, all visible, all techs and played as the teutons 😂
I have a sneaking suspicion you started playing AoE2 with the Conquerors, which people keep forgetting was an expansion to the original Age of Kings, and haven't played the OG Age of KIngs in a looong time. But as someone who had an Age of Kings CD and played it religiously, I can tell you that tech tree is pretty much exactly the same as the Age of Kings tech tree. If anything, the techs that *might* be missing are Hand Cannoneer and Bombard Cannon, which enabled the units of the same name. On release, Age of Kings didn't have Hussar, Halb or Unique Techs, so they're not *missing* from this tech tree really, since this is the Age of Kings beta. Those were added in the Conquerors expansion. So this tech tree is actually complete.
It used to be called Normal armor back in the days of The Age of Kings and the Conquerors as well. I think this changed only with the definitive edition. During the Age Of Kings days, Teutons used to have towers with 2X garrison capacity AND 2X garrison arrow. Town Centers used to have +5 range even in the Age Of Kings days. Unique techs were introduced only in the Conquerors. The goths were the only civilization with two unique techs back then. I think they got Anarchy in the Castle age. However, from the times of the Forgotten Empires, all civilizations had two unique techs.
I'm sure you've seen some of the interviews Sandy, one of the devs, has done on UA-cam. I;d absolutely love if you could sit down with him for an hour or something and just discuss the beta, alpha, general development and stuff. He's full og so many cool tidbits from the small videos on youtube now.
Anyone remember that big-ass island map from the AoE2 trial? That was a really good map and I miss it. It wasn't quite a hybrid map but the option for water was still there, kinda like Arabia but with TONS of fish.
Should of looked at the ship units more in the 1.5 version, some developer (cant remember his name) said that water had a lot more units like Boarding Ships (conversion units like monks), but they dumbed it down for release
The castle being 9k HP makes sense as building a castle was meant to be a major event
What if you're daut?
I wanted to see that castle shoot at someone. And I agree: having a castle was a big deal, back in the actual middle ages, especially for a single town or village, and it would be absolutely unheard of for a single town (or even city, for that matter) to have more than one.
I think that castle actually became what we now have as the Wonder
@@cybersteel8 That would be weird, then, because I saw a different button labeled "Wonder".
@@c182SkylaneRG towns or villages didn't build castles, the lords of the lands did. But yeah, it was a big deal and the lords needed the king's approval before building any fortification.
it makes sense that unique techs, halbs and hussars aren't there since they were added in the Conquerors expansion
Man, I still remember being all excited about it, and begging my dad to get me the expansion for my birthday.
Damn I'm old.
@@jlqe3401 rly great times🙏❤
was about to say the same lmao, i thought someone like SotL would know that.
LOl, Spirit becoming forgetful
I came into comments to say the same thing but momentarily thought I might just be going crazy...
Glad I'm not
"We are missing some thing like Halberdier and Hussar..."
"We don't have any of the unique techs."
"This is looking *very* similar to what we get in the final game."
*All* of those didn't even exist in the original 1999 release version of "Age of Empires 2: The Age of Kings" and were added in the "Conquerors" expansion. The whole tech tree is actually the *exact same* as the final/release version, they just didn't balance the civs, techs and tech & unit costs yet.
Yeah, I just posted the same. Us old AOK players unite!
Seeing the old Teutons tech tree brings back memories of pushing forward with their Death Star TCs
13:46 Hussar, halberdiers and unique tecnologies were not introduced in the AOK game either, only in The Conquerors expansion.
Without halberdiers, Age of Kings Frankish Paladins with +32 hp were insane (bloodlines didn't exist)
@@Panzermeister36 Don't forget, too, that pikemen only did +16 bonus damage (spears did +8) instead of their current +22. (spears do +15)
I guess the archers and crossbows were like how it was done in AoE1, where the basic bowman only cost food and wood while the improved and composite bowmen cost food and gold. Keeping the old unit as a cheaper alternative.
For longer games where one of us exhausts their gold mines, this is key!
I never understood why AOE didn’t have a different unit for crossbownen and normal bows. Normal bows could’ve been stronger vs crossbows and light units whereas crossbows would’ve been slower firing, but superior against armoured units.
I guess the trash units sort of replaced this concept
@@lvsoad22 *sadface*
@@lvsoad22 that said, a dedicated archery/bowman line would be a worthwhile deterrent to just throwing trash units into battle. Archers made with food-wood and crossbows/arbalests with gold-wood would make for an interesting dynamic. 👌
I love how some of these units survived. The Heavy Swordsman at 5:46 remains unused in the final version and was made fully available in HD and recently in the Definitive edition.
Awesome video!!! You should do one about the differences between Age of Kings and Conquerors expansion. I have played both and there are a lot of curiosity you sure can find
This is a great idea! I played both, but I was very young during AOK, and didn't know it very well. Only from reading these comments did I realise that Hussars and Halberdiers didn't exist. I do remember never being able to queue up any farms. That was a nightmare.
I remember when Korean siege onager had 12 range :), it did counter bombards
Nice one. It is indeed interesting to see how it developed. My usual wall of remarks:
3:28 I would guess this was just a placeholder mechanic. Just use the same drop-off code for all 4 resources instead of having to code and artist up 4 different resource points
4:08 Interesting. So you used to be able to recruit all Tiers of a unit, but with increasing cost including adding a whole resource like gold?
5:45 Yeah, they did not have all the keyframes forthe standing unit yet. Or even an idea how the units should look and work :)
And as we learned soon after, apparently some towers have no sprite at all :D
10:00 In theory you would use the old ones to save resources.
It seems that most units have a variant that costs 0 Gold, meaning you got a dedicated "trash fight" version.
11:10 If that is the castle, I do not want to see the wonder. Would it be like half the map. Oh, and apparently it builds around as fast as a Wonder does too - are you sure that was not actually the wonder instead of the building we would end up with later?
12:35 Okay the pre-battle UI was definetely done at that point.
13:14 I think you missread: They do not have +50 Food at hte beginning, but exactly 50 food. They traded initial villagers for food at a better rate.
13:32 x3 Healing Speed for Monks? Just consider how much it would change the math for healing monks.
14:30 You had the game still set to "Hardest". Maybe the Beta accidentally used the settings from the Alpha for this one thing? Or the default was poorly set? Or was it you playing around and forgetting to go back down?
16:40 Back in "Planned Features Cut From AoE2" you mentioned that facing used to mater for Pikemen. And I would say it is save to asume that facing would not have only matered for them.
Cool! I recently found an ald PC Games magazine with pictures of this early alpha. Man I was hyped back then.
the mystery resource is ore witch was planned for all military research and units i think
in age of kings u had to research techs to unlock bombard cannon and hand cannon alongside chemistry
I remember they moved those extra arrows from the towers to the TC by giving it extra range, moving the rushing potential to the Dark Age.
It's cool to see how the one game led to the next. Reminds me of how starcraft evolved from Warcraft 2.
Hearing AOE2 music with AOE1 sfx and grunts is trippy.
maybe there are a lot of options to implement new formations, that could be real game changing features. i hope that aoe4 will surprise us positively in that regard.
That whole AOE1 feel of early version was because both games use Genie Engine, AOE2 obviously upgraded version, but it still is iteration of same engine. Hence why early versions felt a lot like AOE1, since they likely just took AOE1 and started changing that. And this is normal for games that have direct sequels made with same engine and aren't too far apart. You know why reinvent whole wheel, if you already got some things done to start with. Of course as things progressed they likely tried different stuff and concepts and as time passed, game and engine took more and more of shape we know with AOE2. But early versions had more similarities with 1. Since they were more concerned with implementing mechanics and stuff necessary to make game what it is under the hood and trying different things. Of course balancing is usually as well as bug fixing left for last, once other "variables" stop changing, since nothing is worse than tweaking, fixing or balancing something for weeks, just so it ends up being removed, or completely overhauled. So end result would be same if you spent all that time just doing whatever. Also with beta versions, sometimes they also will simply not enable everything yet, so they can first focus on base gameplay and balance that, then add stuff, which is what feels like was reason for unique techs being absent. So you don't get overwhelmed with everything at once. Since some things can easily have multiplication effect on work you have to do.
Also AI in early alpha, likely was still mostly AOE1 AI trying to figure out what it is supposed to do with this. Since things likely were so much in motion, there was little to no point in updating AI on it, since by the end of next week, it could have already been irrelevant.
Edit: I saw in comments that some of stuff were added in expansion, so I guess that is that. Yeah, after all those years, it is easy to forget how original base game looked or what was added latter. But yeah, expansions could bring some more major changes even to the base game. Before whole DLC and stuff began, which is less likely to do that. But expansions used to be big.
it s funny that the paladin skin nowdays it s Joan d'arc hero, looks really cool, even when the paladin dies it s exactly like the Joan
Many of these old graphics seems good to port them to Aoe2HD and use for scenario making
Aren't the trade workshops in the released version's campaign? And I remember playing a version pre a patch (2.0b, I think? So 2.0a or something) that had trade workshops (that did nothing) and seawalls (palisades) that could be built by fishing ships.
15:36 THe Point where i realize, that i play not with the BGM ingame. And start to miss them :)
This looks like a love child between aoe1 and aoe 2
Almost like a aoe1 mod inside aoe 2 engine
@@Lgrneto in fact it was the other way around, aoe 2 1998 alpha used aoe 1 engine
@@JeanC705 It's kinda interesting to see that they developed aoe1 into aoe2 and didn't switch engines or so, because 1-2 years till release, this still looks really rough compared to the end product.
I think you can take all the resources to the mill because in Middle Ages, mills could be used for a great variety of works.
"Beds for cats." ROTF
The teeny tiny lil fishing ship. XD
Interesting that the Trade Workshop survived all the way into the scenario editor... Might indicate just how late in development they were when they decided to merge it's functionality into the Market.
Can you have a look at the civ bonuses too please ?
Nevermind I was too impatient 😂
Omg. the CA are SO much cheaper! They are 55 gold here, if you didn't know. They cost 70 when AoK came out
Yeah but they cost the same number of resources because they cost 55 wood instead of 40.
Those 70 gold CA made the Huns discount in Conquerors all the more insane!
@@jefffinkbonner9551 7
so that's where the trade workshop came from
I think age of kings didn't have unique technologies. I think the "Conquerors" expansions brought those, along with the american civs and the Spanish
Monk on a donkeeeeeey!
Don’t apologise for the resolution - this is the SotL Cut
14:05
It's a little embarrassing that you say that cause you didn't have unique techs in the final game either. This was a feature introduced by the expansion.
Damn the nostalgia
So much has been changed to become one of the best RTS in History
Ikr
it is the best RTS in history
@@Zockerx96 I think you could definitely make the argument that SC1/2 or WC3 are pretty solid as well.
@Nguyễn Hải Dương well, they didn't take much risk breaking the balance with the few factions...
11:24 i wish they still had a big castle
13:55 - did halberdiers exist on release? I thought that they were an age of conqueror's addition?
just booted up the CD version of age of kings
chinese have +3 villagers but start with 150 food
It looks like a lot of the building that got changed, like the church etc. had designs that looked more like AoE1 graphics, and the stuff that stayed looks more like the AoE2 designs we're familiar with, since they seem to have a higher graphical quality and detail. So maybe it was a result of upscaling and the engine switch which led to the changed designs. It also seems like a lot of the original buildings and units were quite large and in play testing probably made town design quite tricky when buildings like castles and TCs hide things behind them (even more than they do now). Ships and docks in particular seem massive compared to the final version.
the villagers look like teutonic knights lmao
SOTL ever thought about giving the old Age of Empires Online a little go? The game has been resurrected by fans who have even added new content to the original game
i kinda wish the current DE team could find a use for the trade workshop
It's more useful as a featureless building for scenario design. Since it doesn't have anything else associated with you can use it as a way to train units or research technologies not available to the civ being played.
Also kind of glad they simplified everything into the market instead of needing 2 different buildings for trade and purchases.
@@michaeltaylor8698 could be a good mercenary building ngl
Age of Empires 2 - Snyder's Cut
Need to now play that unreleased AOE 2 for PlayStation that I think was European only.
AI: My final cheat code! Freeze game!
I can understand why they upgraded the looks of the buildings, but I wish they had kept some of those buildings around even if they didn’t do anything! They look neat as heck
it looked like the AI in the Beta brought a relic into the fight at 15:55. maybe this version actually had relics doing bonuses in battles Like the devs had imagined during development?
You're right, interesting... give this guy some upvotes!
@@KaiserFranzGaming reddit gold too?
@@KaiserFranzGaming Evacuate the city!
Engage all defenses!
And get this man some upvotes!
Spirit actually mentioned this in one of his old videos.
It's still depicted in the extended original cinematic, you can see some monks bringing a relic to the battlefield.
I played Age of Kings as a kid and remember getting really hyped with The Conquerors that I got for my birthday. And it is stupid I know but to this day halberdiers, hussars, Meso-American civs feel exotic and somewhat 'new' for me.
I know the feeling, they still feel exciting and alien. The same with Turtle Ships and the Vindlandsaga campaign in my case. The nostalgia value of this game is immense.
Adding those things in changed the game dynamics alot. It's crazy to think there were no halberdiers or hussars at one stage (but still have Paladins).
@@owenwebb5095 Turtle ships and jaguar warriors for me.
same yo! for me it's garrisoning in rams that feels super foreign (petards too though they're not super popular). also the campaigns changed a lot with heroes healing themselves
american civs still feel new to me as well
I like how the houses were slightly off angle. It made the town look more like an actual medieval village.
Very nice.
It's just too bad that they removed the feature to do victory spins with your units in your opponent's base as you destroy them.
timestamp?
@@easternhills1329
about 16:30, SOTL showed how you can spin your formation, sorta.
It feels people would have used that feature to do a type of "teabag" to other players.
11:41 That castle looks pretty realistic!
Reminds me of Bodium Castle
@@hallamhal yes!
would be awesome to have this castle actually in game xD with 9000 hp
Looks like the castle from the intro cinematic, where the young king droppedthe chess piece.
I wish they kept the archers, they historically had different roles. Archers were often used instead or with Crossbowmen, depending on the culture or time period. Elite archers should be more powerful than Crossbowmen.
Turks byzantines most Asian cultures preferred archers
Well yes and no, they would be super expensive compared to crossbow men.
And whilst they fire faster then crossbowmen they wouldn't be as good vs armored targets.
That's why im fine with the way they did it in AoE2 where you upgrade to crossbows but still have archer unique units.
Or imagine if like the skirm line, you got "elite archer" and then crossbowman as a seperate unit. Then the Britons could have the unique upgrade (similar to imperial skirm) longbowman for the archer line.
Archers were the better and more flexible unit.
However, they were also way more valuable. It takes way longer to train an archer then a crossbowman.
Crossbows were kinda the early version of guns and rifles, use wise.
It was the weapon you could give any idiot,and they be able to do damage to the enemy.
Just, the crossbow didnt have the huge power multiplier of guns. So it didnt outshine all army weapons.
It took gunpowder for the gun to start doing that, and rifeling for the gun to compleatly outcompete every other man wielded weapon in warfare.
The crossbow was the first 'anyone can use it effectivly' weapon though.
Unlike the sword, bow, spear, horse, etc.
@@corbinanderson6587 that sounds like the most realistic use
Wow no kidding it’s an early alpha, it just looks like a slight reskin of AOE 1
Aoe2 ***IS*** just a resking of AoE1
@@LJL85 It's much more than that. It improved in many ways upon concepts introduced in AoE, calling it a reskin is dishonest to the devs when you can clearly see how much work they put into it. You wouldn't call new version of existing car a reskin.
This is to be expected. I feel like many game developers utilize the engine and concepts of previous games they have made in the early developments of new games to at least get started
@@egonomics352 Also it's Age of Empire 2, not a knew franchise. Going for with something realy different would be strange.
@@MrMorvana "AOE3"
The trade workshop!! Finally makes sense now...
Next up: uncovering the incredible use of Siege tower!
If I recall correctly therr where trade workshops in AoE1 aswell in some scenarios. They didn't do anything however.
@@rubz1390 Yep, there was one in the Greek campaign where you have to escape from and then destroy the Minoans. It was also available in the scenario editor
@@chingamfong Season finale: The Mystery of the Korean Hussar
Also, I'm a little mad Spirit of the Law didn't experiment better with the market, like, it had a little image of people where it displayed "0/15". I wonder if perhaps you should bring villagers to it to do something, why didn't he see it, I need to know now 😱
Something neat I noticed. If you pay attention to the beta Paladin's animations, you'll notice that the asset was reused for Joan's hero unit. They share a bunch of animations, like some of the attack animations as well as the death animation.
Yep, also Joan was one of the first hero units made, her sprite is still in the alpha along with the various animations if I recall correctly
Joan of Arc?
oh so that's from where the trade workshop came from, it was a scrapped building from alpha
IIRC the building was suposed to have vils working, probably generating gold or something
Why is nobody talking about how damn cursed that imperial TC looks?
It is kinda weird
Is babylon tower
Looks like that one ugly car
@@lagunalibre117 Fiat Multipla TC! LOLOL!
@@TheMokaKiller thats the one :D
anyone else kinda love how big the castle was? that would have been cool to keep
I see what you did there, cool to KEEP.
the castle was basically wonder
It looked like the Palace from Majesty
i like the 75 garrison space. Try raiding me now, 11
The current castles are more like keeps, as you're free to surround them with walls and even include towers within the walls
Hussar, Halberdier and unique techs came with the conquerors expansion. Originally, the base game did not have them
This was what I was looking for! I remember AoK and then getting the CD for AoC
That thing has the trade workshop that i spent years trying to figure what the hell it did
And also the first game had a useless Trade Workshop! Then AOE 3 made an actually functioning and useful 'Trade' building.
Though it would have been amusing to continue the trend of every 'Age of' game having a scenario only 'Trade Workshop'.
I'm pretty sure the Battle Royale mode in the Definitive Edition uses trade workshops as a means to generate resources now.
Timestamp for the trade workshop?
@@KCzz15 after 6:30.
"it looks like that copy-pasted the files" .. let me tell you : this is what happen(ed), for every sequel game (and non-sequel ones made by same studio) you start working from the previous ones
The more extreme example would be the likes of FIFA and PES.
Age of Empires 3...
@@saladtea9708 unsure about that one. In very rare cases (especially when the sequel is done by another studio) it can be started from the ground up or from another game. For instance AoE4 is probably based on Company Of Heroes 2 since it's now Relic Entertainment making it ;)
@@saladtea9708 Age of Mythology?
That's mostly when you are using the same engine or an engine built off the same engine. AoE and AoK are on the same engine as each other, but AoM and AoE3 are then on a different engine. It doesn't make a lot of sense to port assets if you can't use them as-is, especially if they are only going to be placeholders; also not really helpful to port code if it's for an unrelated engine with substantially different architecture.
When and why engines are updated or changed doesn't seem to have a consistent logic between developers. I guess it's driven by preferences/familiarity/quality-of-life for developers who actually have to work with it, and how well the engine is maintained in respect of taking advantage of improved consumer hardware and software. I don't believe the AoM engine is based off of Genie, but for instance Bethesda have been using Creation for a decade which is based off of Gamebryo/NetImmerse that got its first release in 1997 (people seem to expect a new engine for TESVI, whether a new version of the old engine or a new ground-up build I don't know).
When I was wee little lad I had a russian version of this game that was published by a company that had no license to localize the game, so I think they just took the Age of Kings Beta and sold it as the full game. I remember being very confused as to why I remembered age of kings looking so different as a child vs when I finally came back to it with an official copy later.
The lack of a queue makes me think they started working from the vanilla version of AOE1, before The Rise of Rome.
Correct, AOE2 started development before The Rise of Rome.
@@LinkMarioSamus Ah that makes sense. I was wondering why it was missing that since Rise of Rome had it.
@@tomasgonzalez9740 The only reason Rise of Rome was even made was because AoE2 took longer to develop than intended. LOL the early years of the RTS genre. Still have incredibly fond memories of beating every single campaign mission in StarCraft and Brood War in 2011.
I really miss the 'history' button they used to have! Spent many a time reading that as a kid
the history bottom (to explain you the historia of the civ) is still in the definitive edition
@@felix-antoinebergeron9924 oh really? Do you know how to get to it??
@@swiftlaker6 in game you clic on the screw ( the settings logo), neer your profil than it should have the option historia ( in the french version of the game, it's where you can find it)
It worked, thank you!!
@@swiftlaker6 yw :)
The version I played had ore, the missing resource. Downloaded it from the Age Of Empires newsgroup.
That makes sense. I could definitely see something like an iron resource being used instead of gold for making military units. It probably got removed because there wasn't really a meaningful difference in how they were obtained and how they were used (I suspect most military units used both ore and gold, for example), so they just combined them. AoM did something similar when they got rid of stone, using gold instead.
@@Greywander87 I wonder if it perhaps wasn't more specialised with ore->units, gold->tech, stone-> buildings, since without it we had gold->units/tech, stone->buildings, and then gold->everything.
Empire Earth ended up utilising Iron as a resource a couple of years later. Tbh Iron really does belong in a game such as this. 👍
Do you still have a download link around?
@@arispatolus No, that was back in maybe '98 and downloaded from the long extinct newsgroup. I wish I still had it.
Hey SOTL, at 13:50, you said some things were missing, but both Hussar and Halberdier acutally only came into the game with the Conquerors expansion!
archers: let's all stack together in the corner, so knights can't kill us properly! we'll be unstoppable!
beta paladins: hold my beer
actually, hussars, halbediers etc and unique techs were introduced in the conquerors. The original age of kings don't have them either.
This game is presented in a 4:3 format to preserve the integrity of Ensemble Studios' creative vision.
I actually love the look of those dark age, aoe 1 buildings. They're a good call back to where the game came from. The mill, smith, dock, house, all being stonework. Really cool.
Nostalgia hit me like an elite war elephant with this video
17:30
Everyone remembers when the Franks used machine gun trebuchets with invisible projectiles, right? (Bottom left)
256x kataparuto lmao
The rotate formation stuff was actually still referenced in the original release manual.
So it has been scraped realy late.
And in the official strategy guide.
Ship sizes (compared to units) were actually more realistic in the alpha
The giant Alpha castle looked like it could garrison 75 units
For me it looked like it could garrison a whole feitoria....
I remembered playing either alpha or beta version when I was a kid. It was possible to use villager to "salvage" resources from destroyed buildings and killed trade carts. Some sprites looked much better, like gold and stone veins, berry bushes, horse archers, man at arms(the texture has a saggy chainmail feeling), etc. The weirdest thing was when some certain units(mostly ranged) attack they instantly shapeshift into someone else due to the sprite not done by the time it was implemented, I remembered it as one of the most hilarious things in this game you can never get to enjoy post 1.0.
16:20 Ah, I see the cavalry have been learning their tactics from Starcraft Mutalisks
SOTL: *_Destroys siege workshop_*
Also SOTL: where do you make gunpowder units?
The spin feature might be there because of the cut "special abilities", as you called them. I could see it creating situations where you'd want your units to turn around without actually moving them
Halberdier, Hussar and unique techs were added in "The Conquerers" Expansion pack SoL ;) For those of us who played the original AOK :)
Ngl the dark age look of the buildings looked pretty good
These were mostly graphics from old age of empires 1 if I'm not mistaken
@@sirlight-ljij The houses are different dont know about the rest
@@sirlight-ljij Nop, they were unique graphics for the alpha. None of the buildings were from Aoe 1.
The sizes of these buildings make me feel like I'm going insane lol
This game is as old as I am and I'm still getting endless entertainment out of it. You really can't say that about other pop culture at that time.
Ayee 98 bois?
I wish I could be as young as you are
Diablo (II)?
I also think the C&C franchise still works :)
@@mscbijles1256 Still play CnC to this day, my favourite RTS ever
The "horde"/no formation actually lasted so long it made it into the manual I had as a kid: I spent ages trying to figure out where the button was hiding. The units had collision by that point of course, but sometimes you just wanted to send stuff to the battlefield staging area without having your cavalry wait for your seige
You should make a video about a post apocalyptic world if aoe2 never existed
1
@@twohandedswordsman852 how many champions did you kill but the better question would be how many cataphracts have you beaten :^)
@@adnanhuzaifa6391 Malay: "Two-handed swordsmen together strong"
I remember playing an age of empires 2 version that had manual open and close gates and the castle shoot a weird thick just one arrow..
Halberdier and Hussar aren't in the base game Spirit.
exactly my though. They were released with Conquerors
Spirit showing his (lack of) age.
Great video. The Alpha looks like it is a just AoE 1 with new skins and some new features, which makes complete sense. It made me also realise that some of the aspects of it were incorporated into the Mod "Age of Chivalry Hegemony", like keeping seperate units instead of always upgrading them (e.g. archers and crossbows or swordsmen and champions). You kind of have light, medium and heavy units of the same kind in some cases. I kind of like that and it makes sense, imo, though it might also make it too complicated.
Anyway, I can thoroughly recommend the mod for a different experience of the game. It is only available for the original Conquerors though, not for HD or DE, as far as I'm aware.
funfact in the Alpha the west european set had different the stonewall that where reused for the Mediterranean set in the The Forgotten empires mod and AOE 2 HD (2013)
As someone who bought AoE2 as a teenager when it first released, it's comforting to hear you talk about the tech level we had in the 90's ^^;;
I have so many found memories of the base game. It was the only one my dad had when i became old enough to play it, and i was young enough to not understand the how to play so i always set it to death match, all visible, all techs and played as the teutons 😂
I have a sneaking suspicion you started playing AoE2 with the Conquerors, which people keep forgetting was an expansion to the original Age of Kings, and haven't played the OG Age of KIngs in a looong time. But as someone who had an Age of Kings CD and played it religiously, I can tell you that tech tree is pretty much exactly the same as the Age of Kings tech tree. If anything, the techs that *might* be missing are Hand Cannoneer and Bombard Cannon, which enabled the units of the same name.
On release, Age of Kings didn't have Hussar, Halb or Unique Techs, so they're not *missing* from this tech tree really, since this is the Age of Kings beta. Those were added in the Conquerors expansion. So this tech tree is actually complete.
Man I would love the top 10 civilization allies as a remake.
would be cool if they made a trebuchet skin in DE to look more like the ones in alpha/beta
17:30 is no1 gonna talk about the cool dancing treb there
And why is reds tower blue with a red flag on it?
Doctor: don't worry, elongated town centers aren't real, they can't harm you
AOE2 Alpha version:
*tiny dark age hut TC*
ERECTUS
Hey Spirit, we would like you to make a Q&A about yourself, we're big fans of you but we dont even know your name. Greetings from USA!!
13:20 Chinese with historical accurate hand cannoneers~
It used to be called Normal armor back in the days of The Age of Kings and the Conquerors as well. I think this changed only with the definitive edition.
During the Age Of Kings days, Teutons used to have towers with 2X garrison capacity AND 2X garrison arrow. Town Centers used to have +5 range even in the Age Of Kings days.
Unique techs were introduced only in the Conquerors. The goths were the only civilization with two unique techs back then. I think they got Anarchy in the Castle age. However, from the times of the Forgotten Empires, all civilizations had two unique techs.
I'm sure you've seen some of the interviews Sandy, one of the devs, has done on UA-cam.
I;d absolutely love if you could sit down with him for an hour or something and just discuss the beta, alpha, general development and stuff. He's full og so many cool tidbits from the small videos on youtube now.
Anyone remember that big-ass island map from the AoE2 trial? That was a really good map and I miss it. It wasn't quite a hybrid map but the option for water was still there, kinda like Arabia but with TONS of fish.
I remember playing the trial. From what i remember it was a coast map with green red and blue. I think it still downable online.
Should of looked at the ship units more in the 1.5 version, some developer (cant remember his name) said that water had a lot more units like Boarding Ships (conversion units like monks), but they dumbed it down for release