The unrestrained joy of seeing frankish knights and crossbowmen hurled to the ground by volleys of arrows is one which must affect all of humanity - at least i imagine, given my limited understanding of the world - yet few would admit to enjoying that to the level that i would. Perhaps some latent anger towards humanity or aesthetic attraction towards mass violence is hidden deep within my psyche. ( I feel this is cue for my joke: "I wanted to study Psychology at University, but i was a-freud!" Ba-doom-tish...and then when they think its over... "I tried to switch to philosophy but the administrator said 'I Kant!'")
It goes without saying that war, violence and mutilation are terrifically sad and tragic when they occur in reality, but there's clearly something appealing about it which leads to such high sales and popularity of games, film and literature on the subject. I am more guilty than most - I had a major breakdown at the end of last summer when i looked too long into a horse's face; became very upset at the plight of all the millions of beautiful and noble horses that had been slain in warfare in the past milennia, andthen went inside and probably, although i cant remember, played Age of Empires II to cheer myself up, contentedly slaughtering turkish cavalry.
Anyway, i love warfare; especially medieval warfare, and now i've got my excuses out of the way so nobody thinks i'm about to set up a band of mercenaries and take over Reading's town hall (double bluff?), i can get to my point.
The most playable strategy game of all time is 1999/2000 released
Age of Empires II - Age of Kings/The Conquerors. Not its predecessor, Age of Empires, because everything feels like its moving ridiculously slowly, the priests make a sound so annoying you want to lead your empire towards aetheism, and elephants are just stupidly common (more elephants than people?). Equally, not its successor, Age of Empires three, because it forces you to actually give a fuck about america, and it complicates everything slightly too much, as if its trying to be
Cossacks with an actual game engine as opposed to Russian mice prodding at things inside your PC.
No, he says, after a lengthy diversion that will be of no interest to someone who doesn't share my unhealthy obsessions, Age of Empires II is the one. To start with, I learnt most of my early history from the campaigns in this - so it provided me with a background knowledge of the hundred years war, the crusades, the formation of the Germanic Holy Roman Empire, The mongols, the huns, the aztecs... the list goes on. No need to bemoan the fact that they just MAKE STUFF UP like Valencia being rescued from the turks on El Cid's deathbed, or Harald Haadraada joining forces with William at the battle of Hastings in order to suit gameplay, that's just a minor niggle. I've been deeply, intermittently in love with this game for the last twelve years of my life, and it has been bought back into my life as stress relief for actually being an adult, which conversely has made me more of a child.
What makes this game so brilliant is absolute simplicity of commands. Even an idiot could work it; you left click to select someone, right click where you want them to go. The buttons are big, friendly,and all on screen; you dont have to remember any keys, and people generally do the right thing if you just leave them to it anyway. None of those "All of my men are trapped in an annoying bit of scenery in my assault on Jerusalem because of bad hexagons" bullshit you have to put up with when playing other games like the first
AOE, Cossacks, or even the amazing
Populous:the Beginning. There's plenty of opportunity to construct your empire just how you want it and at your own pace; you can fire up loads of troops and invade asia like some crazed napoleon, or you can cover your entire land in castles and then just leave it playing while you watch like a sadistic dictator while your enemies run out of resources, practically starve to death, and try to hack down your castles with their bare hands.
This isn't to say there aren't faults with it: you can generally only have 75 troops alive at any given time, which makes it hard to bring overwhelming force to bear on anyone; and the missions in the campaigns get a bit samey when you realise you have to BUILD A TOWN AND THEN KILL THEIR TOWN after some initial gimick like "Gather support among the population". (This results in you riding around rather nervously, trying to find people who like you, and its all very exciting, and then you find some people but .... THEY WANT YOU TO BUILD THEIR TOWN. And then you think, didn't i just do this in the last mission?)
However, it is a game that's endlessly adaptable. The different cultures are radically different each with their own subtly varied set of technologies and units, and i personally get a kick out of thinking of myself as a spaniard while playing as the Spanish etc., resulting in me shouting "Cono" and "Hijo de Puta" at aztec armies.
So in essence, this game is perfect for anyone whose own existance feels so minor and insignificant they harbour secret dreams of making the world pay by building castles all over it. It may not have the graphical and gameplay sophistication of
Medieval: Total War and its ilk, and as a result, is slightly less exciting, but its just so well made that any scenario in it can occur, and on harder levels it really is a fight for survival. It's just tense, a lot of the time. Maybe i care too much about it. But then if i don't care about the death of frankish knights, what can i care about?
(Rhetorical question)
