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''Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings'' is a real-time strategy (RTS) video game developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft. Released in 1999 for the Microsoft Windows and Macintosh operating systems, it was the second game in the ''Age of Empires'' series. An expansion, ''The Conquerors'', was released in 2000. A PlayStation 2 version was released by Konami in 2001, and a Nintendo DS spinoff, ''Age of Empires: The Age of Kings'' was developed by Backbone Entertainment in 2006. A Dreamcast port, by Konami, was canceled. ''The Age of Kings'' is set in the Middle Ages and contains thirteen playable civilizations. Players aim to gather resources, which they use to build towns, create armies, and defeat their enemies. There are five historically based campaigns, which constrict the player to specialized and story-backed conditions. There are three additional single-player game modes, and multiplayer is supported. Despite using the same game engine and similar code to its predecessor, development of ''The Age of Kings'' took a year longer than expected, forcing Ensemble Studios to release ''Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome'' in 1998 instead. The design team focused on resolving significant issues in ''Age of Empires'', but noted on release that some problems remained. Reception of ''The Age of Kings'' was positive. The significant number of new features was praised, as were the gameplay improvements. Some reviewers were critical of the presentation of units—they were seen as bland and uninteresting—while others considered ''The Age of Kings'' to be overly similar to its predecessor, ''Age of Empires''. Three months after its release, two million copies of ''The Age of Kings'' had been shipped, and it topped sales charts in seven countries. The game won multiple awards and has had a significant impact on future games in its genre. Both the original ''Age of Empires II'' and the expansion pack were later released as "the Gold Edition". In April 2013, ''Age of Empires II: HD Edition'' was released on the Steam digital distribution platform for Windows operating systems. The ''HD Edition'' includes both the original game and the expansion ''The Conquerors'', as well as updated graphics for high-resolution displays. It also supports user-generated content through the Steam Workshop and multiplayer games provided through the Steam servers. On August 16, 2013, Microsoft announced ''The Forgotten'', the first new expansion in nearly 13 years and exclusive to the ''HD Edition''. On November 5, 2015, Microsoft released a new expansion for the game, ''The African Kingdoms''.〔 ==Gameplay== ''The Age of Kings'' focuses on building towns, gathering resources, creating armies and ultimately conquering opponents by destroying their units and buildings. Players conquer rival towns and empires as they advance one of 13 civilizations through four "Ages": the Dark Age, the Feudal Age, the Castle Age (being the High Middle Ages), and the Imperial Age, reminiscent of the Renaissance—a 1000-year timeframe. Advancing to a new Age unlocks new units, structures, and technologies, but players must first build certain buildings from their current age and then pay a sum of resources (typically food and gold).〔Game Reference – Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, Microsoft Corporation, p.31.〕 Civilian units, called "villagers", are used to gather resources; they are either male or female – gender does not affect their abilities. Resources can be used to train units, construct buildings, and research technologies, among other things; for example, players can research better armour for infantry units. The game offers four types of resources: food, wood, gold, and stone. Food is obtained by hunting animals, gathering berries, harvesting livestock, farming, and shore fishing and fishing from boats. Wood is gathered by chopping down trees. Gold is obtained from either gold mines, trade or collecting relics in a monastery, and stone is collected from stone mines. Villagers require checkpoints, typically depository buildings (town center, mining camp, mill, and lumber yard), where they can store gathered resources. Each civilization can purchase upgrades that increase the rate of gathering these resources. Players can construct a market for trade; players can trade wood, stone, and food for gold, and use gold to buy other resources. Market prices fluctuate with every transaction. Furthermore, markets and docks can also generate gold by using trading carts or cogs which are used to visit foreign markets and ports; once they return to the player's market/dock, gold is added to the stockpile. The amount of gold a trade unit earns on each trip is related to the distance it had to travel to a foreign market; more gold is earned on longer trips. It is possible to trade with enemies' markets or docks, but the player's trading units may be attacked or destroyed by enemy units in the process. Players do not need to keep trading manually, as once they select the port or market the trading units infinitely continue to trade. There are five campaigns in ''The Age of Kings'', containing historically based scenarios such as Genghis Khan's invasion of Eurasia, Barbarossa's Crusade, or Saladin's defence of the Holy Land. In the Joan of Arc and William Wallace campaigns, the player can control a unit based on its namesake; in others, players take orders from guiding spirits representative of the army's commander. Additional game modes are available to the player in ''The Age of Kings''. One mode, random map, generates a map from one of several randomly chose map generating scripts, with players starting in the Dark Age with a Town Center, three villagers (or more depending on civilisation), and a scout unit. The game can be won through military conquest, by constructing a special building known as a Wonder and keeping it standing for a certain amount of time, or by obtaining control of all relics on the map for a set amount of time. Deathmatch mode allows players to begin with large amounts of resources, creating a focus on military dominance, while in the regicide mode each player is given a king unit, winning by killing all of the other monarchs. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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