Age of Empires II: The Conquerors continues diligently along the real-world timeline, taking place during a period of exploration, which ultimately leads to a nice bit of combat as well. Five new civilizations take part in the brand new campaigns that have been carefully scripted to deliver accurate representations of real-world events. Of course this was to be expected, but an additional campaign was added. This particular campaign holds several battles of historical importance that are all very intense and because of this, demand some real skill from the player.

New civilizations include: Aztecs, Spanish, Mayans, Koreans, and the Huns. As with all the other civilizations they share a large amount of ‘common units’ leaving the unique units and visual building styles as the real defining features. In the past there have always been slight edges that make playing with one civ preferred, but Ensemble has added new unique traits that can be researched by the player. These new traits create even wider divisions between each civilization and do help quite a bit. Yet it still remains somewhat difficult to pick a side to identify with or prefer since many of the old and new enhancements work in the background. It ends up taking a bit of time to find a civilization you are comfortable with.

As mentioned above all new civilizations bring with them a few new units. New units like the turtle boat and the kamikaze siege unit have come into use. Some modifications to older units have also been made. Most of these changes involve attack rate and unit speed but some have new features. One really cool new option is to place units within a battering ram. Not only does this protect the troops inside, (assuming the ram holds together) the troops lend their speed to it allowing the ram’s attack rate to increase. Garrisoned units can also heal when the ‘herbal medicine’ technology is researched.

Beyond the new civilizations and the campaigns that come with them, the multiplayer aspect has to be held in question as well. The multiplayer experience will benefit from the many new variables thrown into the mix, as well as the balance tweaks, but new map tile sets and game modes offer a great deal more. Some of the new tile sets look nicer than the older ones, showing off terrain that would be found in South America and Eastern Europe or Asia. The new game modes are also quite inventive with two of them involving defense or siege of a Wonder. The third mode removes combat altogether in a competition to build a Wonder the fastest.

With all of the new enhancements there is still one small gripe I have involving the AI’s path finding abilities. It is in most cases acceptable, but I still find that one odd villager wandering around hopelessly lost. Ensemble did put some work into the way workers transport resources and build things in town, but trees and other objects still pose a problem from time to time.

The demand on the modern expansion pack is getting pretty intense. Most of this is due to the fact that they seem to go up in price every year while even some of the newer stand-alone titles retail at lower prices. Microsoft’s Age of Empires II: The Conquerors has an MSRP of thirty dollars, which is admittedly a nice bit of coin. Yet Ensemble has put together a very expansive and well thought out package that should be worth the money for most PC gamers.