Age of Empires II - Alpha Build, 1998
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- Опубліковано 11 січ 2021
- We go back in time to 1998 to the Alpha build of Age of Empires 2! This build is a weird mixture of the original Age of Empires and the final release of Age of Empires 2, as you can see many AoE 1 units, sounds, and animations still in this, and some familiar AoE 2 units and buildings mixed in as well! You can also see other features, such as huntable wolves, that were removed from the final game. Enjoy!
Permission was taken from nhoobish to upscale the video to 4K 60fps from the original: • AoE2 Alpha
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#AoE2 #AgeofNoob #AgeofEmpires2 - Ігри
Massive Castles, wolves give food, trebuchets with stone, larger docks and wavy water, old AoE units/arts/music, fast cannon balls, old berry bushes and many more! This alpha build is indeed a mix of AoE 1 and 2, and it's an experience to see it the first time!
I love the giant castles. Looks way better
Bring back the alpha build TC!
what happened to this?
@@Jaypes1 hahahaha
@@Lucas_Jeffreythey did that in aoe3
Age of empire 1.5: Fever dream
11
lmao
I recognize a lot of these subtle in-game quirks. At one point, the bombard tower switches from attacking the trebuchet to the long bowman, just because the AoE1 AI always targeted units with the lowest remaining HP.
@@xotl2780 Nice catch
😂
Therapist: You need to stop fixation on Age of Empires 1.5. It doesn't exist, it can't hurt you.
Age of Empires 1.5:
11
11
11
11
@@SilverKnightPCs lllpp0
1998: Coat of Arms of Brussels in the menu screen
2021: Burgundy makes it into the game as a civilization
Finally
All calculated!
Took only 23 years. In AOE years that's not much :)
TheViper: "Burgundians"
Still, didn't replaced the French in OG campaign
these older, MIDI tracks are giving me strong old school runescape vibes.
MIDI tracks scream pre-2000s :)
MIDI is NOT a type of old sound.
It's just data.
Modern music is also produced with MIDI!
A MIDI note tells a computer/synth/drummachine to play a specific sound. It can sound how old or modern as you want. No limitations.
@@cederickforsberg5840 I think that's what he meant by that - the notes stored in the midi file is played out with whatever sound the program you're running on has. Since now everything's recorded, MIDIs now sound old school.
Feel like I have just loaded up in tutorial island, and now making my way to Varrock for the First time XD Truest comment I have ever read!
@@cederickforsberg5840 lets face it though, saying "these older, GM.DLS tracks" doesn't sound as nice
I love the sense of scale of this. everything is so massive as they should be
It's gonna be even more realistic in AoE4!
@@AgeofNoob little did he know
@@benwazeh It was 11 months ago mate, I man could dream.. :D
I see why they changed it though the game was starting to look a little to much like stronghold , and yeah it looks good now but that's just because of the novelty
realism doesn't mean it's gonna be better, it's already excellent the way they are originally
Those castles are badass
They were massive indeed - and more realistic to real-life castles too! Unfortunately, those structures would've been OP for sure.. 11
That was the best part. I with the new aoe had forts which would be like halfway between castle and towers
@@MrKYT-gb8gs You could make a Castle and wall/towers around it technically but indeed not as a single structure
@@AgeofNoob yeah that's what I meant.. It would have been cool. Maybe even in aoe3 where forts became more prevelant.
@@MrKYT-gb8gs The Bulgarians have the Krepost, which is halfway between a regular tower and a castle :D.
I love how TC is a cake.
That's why Hoang eats it as the Celts 11
Goddamn that soundtrack at 11:10 this gameplay is gold material
The original Age of Empires' soundtrack is so good!
@@AgeofNoob Do we know the name of this song?
@@karimlasdoug937 I think its queen of Palmyra Now search the old name
@@karimlasdoug937 Its Age of Empires Rise of Rome Music 5 (aka Mean), just slight different instrument/quality but same melody
@@akisaria4553 @mrzmbie thank you
The double-decker town centre at 11:37 is the stuff of nightmares
11 No time to create sprites for TC I suppose :D
It's a cake!
Packed town center? that's some age 3 shit right there.
Unpack it on a hilly nomad if you dare 11
It's still there in AoE2DE scenario editor, it has the look of this ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Ox_Wagon but named "Town Center(Packed)" which you can unpack like a trebuchet, then it becomes a TC foundation and slowly build itself.
@@quyenmojos9004 Ah Nice, I didn't know that. Thanks for sharing!
You also get it in DE if you play nomad with empire wars mode turned on
@@AnteQu Indeed! There are many assets in DE that are not utilized at all that they hopefully will in the future!
Those ships are gorgeous. Wow
Yeah the ships were great tbh! :D Not sure why they changed them
The sheer memory of happiness this game brings me makes me want to cry out in joy
lol, I used to spend many hours in the map editor when I was a child, and only now I realise that all those "useless" building that were used as decorations are actually rejected early concepts)
That’s exactly what I was thinking
That MIDI version of Tazer is an absolute banger.
MIDIs of old soundtracks are all bangers tbh :D One of the reasons why I still love the original AoE's sountrack
Eh, the final AOE2 soundtrack is also MIDI.
MIDI is still being used in music production. MIDI is NOT just "retro sounds". MIDI is only a point of data!
It simply dictates something (a keyboard, an outboard sampler, VST-instrument or whatever) to play a sound.
You can even use MIDI to control robots, lights, and a lot of other things.
@@cederickforsberg5840 No we all know that, but this is a lot more barebones and VERY distinctly MIDI - whereas the final music is more polished! :)
@@AgeofNoob Not everyone knows that because some people still think "MIDI is this old school 90s sound" but MIDI is not sound at all
@@cederickforsberg5840 I'd like to believe that most people who are, say, 25+ years old now should know that :D But perhaps not and you may be right.
those castles look so fucking cool
If they weren't OP, it would've been great to have them in DE :)
That castle is so big and sexy
AoE4 will follow suit!
I thought you were talking about me for a second
Thicc*
That town center is terrifying lmao!
Indeed :D
Ah, one can see from the start they wanted traditional civs and raider civs. Very cool to see this early build
Yeah lots of ideas changed for sure :D
There are too many fans born in this year ;)
Indeed! Thanks for stopping by!
@@AgeofNoob I must say I find it very interesting that this game has such enduring popularity, especially amongst a younger generation. When this game came out I was about 13, and I've been playing it on and off for over 20 years now. Really says something about the quality of the game that it's managed to hook people who were babies or not even born when the game came out, and is still popular to this day even amongst all the modern strategy games available. I do however suspect that the fact that you can play it on a potato might have something do do with it's lasting popularity. A cheap game to get into for those with limited funds. Crappy laptop will do, no high end gaming pc needed.
@@PumpkinHoard Indeed! Hopefully AoE IV will also be playable on older machines!
Which military unit creation sound is better?
A) Pooowaaaaat
B) Eesh-WOO
A for me personally
The final sound effect is so iconic now that it's difficult to go to anything else :D
Eesh woo always scared me as a kid
B) is nostalgic and brings me back to when I was 3 years old.
I wish castles were that big, and that they could connect smoothly with walls.
Would be interesting to see how it'd play out today with a mod perhaps :)
It's like looking through history of games. God, I am becoming impatient about AOE4 release
I have high hopes for AoE4 for sure!
I'm honestly worried. I like watching competitive AOE II and I really like that Microsoft is supporting the scene and that there are a lot of great tournaments. 3-4 years ago it was nothing like that and I fear that the support for AOE2 won't continue. That wouldn't be so bad if 4 will be a good game and they push it heavily. But what if it fails and they go back to pretending this game doesn't exist...
And there is also the possibility that it will be meh (or just too different so it might not attract the people who are into DE) and half of the community plays DE and the other half 4.
I'm excited but deeply worried.
@@zuiop9993 I mean the way I look at it is this: If it's great, fantastic. If it's not, no harm done, AoE2 DE is absolutely great and will continue to grow. :) Though I do get your point
@@zuiop9993 i honestly think that no mather how good or bad 4 would be that 2 would keep the most loyal fanbase. As long as a proper sized fanbase keeps playing it. So it would be wise for Microsoft to keep supporting it. Many people grew up playing it and are not planning to ever stop comming back to it. Just like how people still today are still playing the classic world of warcraft and runescape for example.
@@2009heyhow @Age of Noob I'm not so sure about that. I think a big part of why Microsoft is supporting all these tournaments is because they see the popularity of AOE2 as a way to drive up interest in AOE4. Just look at the new DLC new civs and a campaign. They can't do it forever that way. I am seriously underwelmed by the thought of having more civs... That's the last thing the game needs. I highly doubt that the DE and DLC sales are enough to justify all that money they spend. I'm not saying they're operating at a loss, but I doubt that it's worth it. And like I've said, it will become increasingly difficult to monetise the popularity as many people would rather have less civs with more differences.
I'm not saying there won't be an active player base and I'm sure I'll always find someone to play. I'm mostly concerned about the competitive scene.
How can a game I've never played make me so nostalgic?
Haha lots of folks have been saying this! :D
Its the music.
This looks so different from the final product xD
Also those TCs are huge
Massive packed TCs let's go! :D
@@AgeofNoob I read that, at a point, you'd have to pack and unpack catapults like with trebuchets.
Also, I wonder if this is from before raider civilizations would be implemented or from after they were discarded.
@@Ratciclefan Gah that would've been an awful unit then :D
@@AgeofNoob Just noticed you can see that in the video with the mangonels. I first ran into the video in the middle of the night, so I just skipped through it. xD
This explains the unusual things in the campaigns such as towers placed in the middle of 2x2 area and cyan castle in joan of arc #2 taking up 5x5 space, and the nice 3x3 mills that perfectly fit 8 farms around them. How did the community access this particular development build?
They gave out Beta CDs back in the 2000s, so some of the community members must have dusted off their old boxes and found one of those bad boys! :)
What 5x5 castle do you mean? And do you have an example for a tower in the middle of a 2x2 area?
@@Horstmaniacman In joan of arc #2, the cyan castle is not placed properly and you can with your villager and a building check that. They seem to have fixed the tower situation in that scenario, but in Saladin #2, the yellow towers of your allies are placed in the middle of a 2x2 space...
@@hbarudi yoooo thats crazy, I never noticed before!!!
Age of Stronghold
Sire, the desert awaits you...
Not enough wood, m’lord...
@@auliafajar9346 MOAAR WOOD IS NEEDED.
Now i wanna see Aoe 2 visual mods on Stronghold Crusader so bad or even opposite of that works too.
@@Sherlock-Eco I will be making a video that crosses both games... stay tuned!
I love Age of Empires I and I love Age of Empires II, but this I find mostly... fascinating. I mean I love this from artistic point of view, and idea of fusion between AOE I and II sounds great. But I can see why they decided to wait and glad that in the end we had "our" Age of Empires II.
Yeah of course :D It's nice to see a bit of history!
welp, now we've got Return of Rome lol
If this were to be released in this era, the publishers would have probably released it in this state itself promising day one hotfixes and what not
11 Actually true
And then 5 years later we have 73 civilizations and hundreds of skins, and you need to subscribe to get the good ones, but still running exactly the same as day 1
@@Oleg-oe1rc 11 Hopefully not
And it would be developed in Unity and run like garbage.
Boat reflections huh. Wonder why they scrapped that.
Thanks for the designers who pushed some fluidity in the various designs
I have the Gold Edition of the first AoE and I remeber stumbling upon a few screenshot of AoE II Alpha build when exploring the CD files when I was a kid. I already had AoE II back then, but it was fascinating seeing those screenshots.
Man this tugs on my heartstrings, I remember fixing two cups of coffee then (one for me and one for my dad) and then my dad and I would play Age of Empires 2 and Empire Earth together until 3 AM.
I remember the old games and the CRT monitors and the slow ass internet. Thanks for sharing this man.
Good ol' days with our parents playing AoE2.
Something about the in-game music is so unsettling! The buildings look much cooler.
Old MIDI files my friend :D
Ha, FE used those walls for the Italians
Yeah quite a few folks had a keen eye and spotted this too!
The background of the single player game options screen really gives me a nostalgic feel. It has a certain vibe to it that was somehow so characteristic of games from the late 90s and early 2000s.
It reminds me of Stronghold
Well I always wanted to know why in basic introduction(Before starting William Wallace campaing) the design was more... realistic in some places. Thank You for this video O:-)
No problem Michal! Glad you stopped by :)
That old menu is fyah 🔥🔥 and the midi Tazer 😍
Old menu still better than current one :D
Very interesting and crazy looking. Impressive they came up with full AoE2 one year later.
Game development was different then than it is now... 8 years of development to release a bugged game :D
1:54 I love that there was an option to change the pathfinding
I think the reason for that was that pathfinding back then was taxing on the computers, so if your game lagged, you could simplify the pathfinding - making it worse, but the game run smoother. :D
@@AgeofNoob oh, thanks for the insight!
@@Pepenosoy No problem!
12:09 epic song starting. Love these songs. Brings back memories from being kid
The concept of Packed Town Center existed back then
I know it eventually ended up in AoE3, but I love that it reminds me of MCVs
I was just about to comment this, but I had to look for a comment saying the same! Definitely reminded me of Mobile Construction Vehicles from Command and Conquer and CnC Red Alert!
amazing! everything is pretty much on the same scale, buildings are huge, and even siege and boats too
i like how you see people moving siege, it's weird how mangonels, scorps and rams move by itself now haha
Yeah :D But it would be weirder for them to have such high pierce armor and have an undefended man operate them :D
I remember these designs in one of the alpha looks on the trial version, I believe.
Those choppy, Stronghold-esque textures.
I never had the chance to play one of these unfortunately.
Age of Empires 1.5
Age of Empires Ii
16:16 Janissary has got 240 HP, 16 Attack, 7 melee armor, 1 pierce armor and 0+1 range. I want to cry.
Edit: and Klux Klan like hat (!) 🤭😂
Damn I didn't even realize that.. :D Elephant Janissaries lmao
The castle with towers and walls with village inside it kind of remind me the Stronghold game series.
Indeed! Looks very much like it
how do you even have footage like this?
I smoked some of your good stuff with some old devs and we came up with this.. 11 Jokes aside, this upscale was done on a video that already existed on another channel (linked in description), though I'll try to get my hands on the actual alpha :)
@@AgeofNoob gimme all your green you greedy bastard.
@@xotl2780 I'm not the expert here I'm afraid 11
This was released even before Rise of Rome if you watch carefully. (Some functions as selecting same units with double click, weren't enabled yet).
It's insane to think that I wouldn't be playing this until 6 years later, then would play for 6 following years, and then 6 years after than find that they'd continued to work on the game and that there was a massive online community and get back into it. I always say Journey is the greatest game experience of all time, but AOE 2 is the greatest game to come back to. I don't think I've ever once not enjoyed a game of it. Well, except maybe the first few games of nomad when I didn't realise what Nomad was.
I hope Spirit of the Law sees this video!
Perhaps one day :D
@@AgeofNoob He saw. He also made a video about this version.
That’s awesome, man. Great content.
Thanks Mike!
love the bigger buildings. and that giant castle is absolutely amazing
Holy crap that music and the menus bring back some memories. Jaw dropped.
Tazer here is really something
Well tazer is something every time
Tazer is a classic, never gets old!
Bro castles look like freaking wonders 😂😂🤣🤣. Thanks for the vid!
Man this first music still makes me go way back when i first started gaming
I now want Age of Empires 1.5 DE... more than AoE 4
AoE 1.5 DE would be some fever dream for sure.. :D
@@AgeofNoob nah no I want to see that 2.5 :P (which I know it doesn't exist)
@@happilyendme3521 I'll see if I can find it :p
@@AgeofNoob LOL if it's real it would be the most cursed thing ever
@@AgeofNoob also I wonder why I'm not a sub I remember subbing to this channel months ago lol
Now I can never unsee that Age of Empires II is just reskinned Aoe 1
I love how that little cart at the beginning is basicallly a MCV.
Trees over farms 9:00, I kinda like the aesthetics.
Looks nice indeed!
Am glad I found this channel... It made my day... And my frnds say age of empires is ded lmao... Imma show them ur views
Thank you reclaimer! :) Glad you liked the content
am i mixing sth up or are the very first seconds of the music , the music thats also playing in "Tzar burden of the crown"?
i feel that the mobile Town center might be inspired by Command & Conquer: Red Alert which also had the SCV as a mobile unit.
Menu screen and music are so awesome!
Indeed, I like the old style for sure!
When i was young i laid on the couch and studied the tech tree that was delivered with the game on a nice big high quality print.
Man, age2, settlers3 and later diablo2. My youth man. Miss that time.
We've got Age of Empires II at home.
So cool to see!
More of this to come! :)
They should add this as a bonus mode in definitive edition lol.
Maybe one day :D
I like how bombard canons turn into ballistae for animations. Also I feel like fast bombard towers might have made it to release?
Any guess on why they scrapped the old castle model? It was the one from the start cinematic, right?
Indeed! We don't know for sure, but I think it's cuz it would be too OP. It covers way too much area, and dropping those on hills would be a nightmare. The way the game is played today would fundamentally change for sure :)
I still have this CD copy of first release including Age of empires 1. It’s funny the relic cart from the first game is your town center in the 2nd.
I like how the cav archer from 1 became the Mangudai in 2
You had the alpha/beta release or the final release you mean?
The prototype full?
@@AgeofNoob should be the first release to public. A complete game without DLC.
@@joseb.7168 full version at the time. No DLC.
What a strange feeling. Im nostalgic, but because its so different, I feel like a kid in the late 90s playing this for the first time again. Newstalgia.
holy shit, it looked very visually busy.
I mean the castles are massive, but MAN do they look good :P
If anything the "Castles" we have in our current AoE2 are keeps.
It is true 100%, but the game balance would change unfortunately :D
Those buildings look epic
Castles did indeed :D
That midi song on the first scenario is freaking creepy.
that MIDI track at 10:32 SLAPS
Old MIDIs
I liked. I subscribed to the channel.
11:19 you can fnd a trade workshop in the siege of paris, joan of arc. I always knew that it was an unused building from an early release
I like it at 11:11 that the music gets metal for like twenty seconds and then like back to Imperial age
I like the town hall and castle. It was super huge.
The music too
1998: AOE2 through the AOE1 engine
2023: AOE1 through the AOE2 engine
That map is massive
The size scaling was much better than final release in this build.
Indeed!
So awesome! Looks really cool, though i can totally see why it was changed, looks quite muddy, you might not immediately know what units you're dealing with.
Exactly - they worked really well with unit models!
This is giving me a more nostalgic feeling than the actual AoE 1 game
It's the game you never saw that you miss the most :D
This looks great.
Aoe 2 with Aoe1 graphics nice
This is AoE2 with AoE1 graphics and AoE1 with AoE2 graphics all in one! :D
Interesting that one of the in-game ambients used to be the menu soundtrack
Never knew vikings used giant brownies as town centers.
Not a bug but a feature :D
we've come a long way. this game looks/feels like 1994 though its hard to believe total annihilation was released before the first age of empires game while having much more sophisticated engine.
I actually had this game . The skin of knight line was so unique. I remember that slow animation of hand cannoneer , Mangudai would shoot cannon , they had boarding ship that could convert ships ,. Castles would missile like ballista from aoe 1 , trebuchet had different skin , gate could be used to kill unit . The archer skin was very pretty. Their spearman would turn into phalanx. They had only 1 campaign of Joan of arc in which bridges can be destroyed.
Oh nice the Bridge thing could be interesting :D
I saw picks of this version way back in 1998 alongside a demo collection that came with Rise of Rome (I think?)
Where can we get this to play it?
that castle looks cooool
Any way to get our hands on this build somehow ?
This is quite interesting, because you can tell this alpha version uses an aoe1 interface and some graphics as a base, but with aoe2 functions and buildings.
I wonder if the developers perhaps tested the hard mechanics first, before then overlaying with some of the easier elements like graphics, into something that looks entirely more like aoe2, and not aoe1
Changing up the Archery Range graphic was a smart move. Easier to tell what it is at a glance, and makes it look nicer alongside the other buildings.
Indeed, they've polished up the clarity a lot!
I remember boring testing it before it was a thing, never imagined it gonna become one of the biggest RTS ever made