any Age of Kings

[Lemernis]

I was very much into AoK/Conqeurors before I came across BG and got sucked into the CRPG and AD&D universe.  What a great game.  I was into creating scenarios* and was about to get into scripting but I had a major crash last year that forced me to wipe my hard drive clean and all that good work went 'poof'.  Ah well.  

I know most of you here are primarily RPG/AD&Ders.  But have any of you played it?  Did you have a favorite civilization?  A favorite strategy?

* Two that I particularly liked:
  Spaniards vs. the Atzecs and Mayans
  A siege game set in the desert, reminiscent of the Crusades: Byzantines (me), Franks (ally), Teutons (ally) vs. Turks, Persians, Saracens  

[Krezack]

My favourite before AoC was Saracens because they were great when used properly and my AoC favourites were saracens and goths.
Try a heavy camel with 170 life 11 damage 3/4 armor and a mamuluke with 130 life and erm 3/4 armor? and 14 damage? and 3/4 range and they didnt cost all that much.

[Lemernis]

Yeah, the Saracens are neat.  They supposedly have a great navy although I never used that capability much.  The Marmelukes just look very cool also.  <br>
I never played the Goths much because the only way to win with them is to hit hard early.  I prefered the longer siege style games.  For that reason the Byzantines eventually turned out to be my favorite.  With them I would build heavily fortified, walled cities with several additional side gates, let the enemy come to front door, and then hit his flank from armies streaming out of the various gates.  About the only problem with the Byzantines is that their walls are vulnerable to trebuchets because the Byzantines lack the masonry technology (ridiculous from a historical perspective but do they have the most techs of any other civ).  But if there wasn't a challenge it wouldn't be fun, eh?  <br>

[Krezack]

goths in aoc rock have you tried researching both thier unique etchs then researching the tech that builds units faster then create about 5 barracks near the enamy? goths are really cheap at imp age it just rox!!! i personnaly idont like the saracens much but that civ just rocks in gameplay byzantines were a bit weak haveing low attack and low armor they rocked but i dont know i could never get anywhere with them also i tend to play just 1 way so the byzantines archers areuseless if i am using horses thus a more specialized civ is preferred.

[MasterD_Evil]

Only played AoK (never the expansion), and liked the Byzantines most in there.

Personally I liked AoE+Rise of Rome a lot more, it was less complicated and that made it more fun online for me. I wasn't the greatest by far, but I did have some fun matches.

But then I stopped for a long while, playing against a friend and found I was waaaaay behind on the latest tactics... He had me rushed with elephants while I was still building out (A Deathmatch game, with 10000 of each resource... I hate those games)

[Lemernis]

I never tried playing AoK online, but if I did I'm sure I would get my clock cleaned.  Playing against the computer I have a tendency to plod along at building my civilization up, anally trying to attain the technological peak and full military strength before launching an attack.  A player like Krez with his marauding Goths would probably waste me early on with his blitzes.

I'm assuming that MP games are played in 'real time', i.e., there is no pausing capability...  So another reason I would be poor at MPing AoK is that I also got conditioned to pausing all the time in the battles because there was so little discipline among the ranks.  Once your soldiers engage the enemy they tend to scatter--it's like herding cats.   I paused all the time, constantly trying to redirect their attack.  Usually without much success--whoever I would be trying to direct upon, they would still just start fighting the nearest enemy regardless of my 'orders'.  I guess the AI has them acting out of a survival instinct so that they will always keep themselves alive first by defending themselves.

I usually played 3 civs vs. 3 civs games, i.e., me/ally/ally vs. enemy/enemy/enemy.  That way I could set up trade with allies, I would have to run off and assist my allies when they were under attack, etc.  

Anyway, playing against the computer, I found the toughest opponent to be the Turks (although those Persians rolling into your village with their damnable war elephants can also be devastating).  Since I wanted the toughest fight, I almost always included the Turks among my opponents.  And because they were often the opponent, I prefered the Unique Unit that was most effective against their Janissaries--the Byzantines' Cataphracts.  I tested every other UU against the Janissaries in 10 vs. 10, 25 vs. 25, 50 vs. 50, etc. battles in special test games I created for that purpose.  The Cataphracts were the only ones who could beat the Janissaries.