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As your villagers stockpile food, wood, stone and gold, your scouts look for places to find those resources and protect the villagers from wild animals and enemy troops. You can create more villagers, and soon you can begin to erect buildings such as houses, mills, and barracks, which are essential for creating militia units and assembling your army (each civilization has a unique military unit; see the guide to civilizations and campaigns for more information).
Hometown life.
Once you have the required buildings and the necessary stockpiles of resources, you can move on to the Feudal Age. From there you can progress to the Castle and Imperial Ages. In each new age, you have access to better buildings, more powerful military units, and more valuable research technologies.
When you reach the Imperial Age, you can build a Wonder of the World (which will appear as a massive structure in the style of your individual civilization). Depending on the size of the game map, you have a certain amount of tine to keep your Wonder standing and win the game. You can also become the winner by collecting and controlling all the relics that are hidden around the map at the beginning of the game.
Intense Action, Precise Detail
Of course, the most popular way to conquer the world is through brute force, a method that both Tamte and Street appreciate.
“I like the real-time battles the best,” says Tamte. “It’s a rush to watch my knights slice through enemy spearmen after being loosened up by a barrage of arrows from my archers. It’s even more fun to watch my cavalry flank my enemy after blowing through a castle wall with my siege weapons.
“The level of detail and the intensity of the action makes me feel like I’m really commanding an army of knights, archers, and long-swordsmen.”
The Mayans expand their holdings.
“The huge number of units and civilizations brings a lot of depth to the gameplay,” adds Street, “and it shows in contests between closely-skilled players. You might see your walls come down to enemy battering rams and think that the end is near, only to see the bad guys driven away by fierce bombardment by your castles and towers.
You never know what’s going to happen until the game is finally over.”
More Ways to Win
If you’d prefer to explore other ways to win, you can choose regicide (every player has a king to protect
from assassination; the last one with a living king wins). Or, try the
death match, where everyone starts with huge stockpiles of resources and
fights to the death. Other alternatives are games in which the player
with the highest score at the end of a time limit, or the player who
reaches a predetermined score first, becomes the winner.
The Vikings prepare for war.
You can also create your own scenarios or campaigns, and then challenge other would-be conquerors over the Internet by trading the files. According to the game’s developer, Westlake Interactive, Mac players can download and use custom campaigns developed for the PC version of the game.
And if you want to host a multiplayer game and invite your friends to join in the fun, you can do so over the Internet with the free GameRanger service, or you can use a local area network (LAN).
AOE II: Gold is clearly a game with enough depth to keep you busy for a very long time.
Prepare to Conquer the World Again
The original Age of Empires was a major success on the Macintosh, and both
Tamte and Street expect nothing less with this release.
“We’re excited about it,” Street says of AOE II: Gold’s release for the Mac. “A good friend of mine felt bad for having to apologize to me for uninstalling the first Age of Empires on his Mac because it was interfering with his work too much. I can’t think of a nicer way to hear about someone not playing my game.”
Are you ready to get hooked and conquer the world all over again? Look for Age of Empires II: Gold on the online Apple Store, a Apple retail store near you, or an Apple authorized reseller. You’ll turn from armchair commander to conquering hero in no time.
 The Civilizations 
Britons: Almost no written records survived the period after the Roman Empire fell and the British Isles descended into chaos as barbarian hordes invaded them continuously.
Mayans (Conquerors): Natives of Central America, the Mayans developed the simple bow and arrow earlier than their neighbors.
 Campaigns
Each campaign is a single-player, story-based game that consists of several missions which you must beat to win the campaign. William Wallace: Lead the Scottish tribes against the better-equipped Britons. Joan of Arc: The French and the British have fought a war that has lasted nearly 100 years. Although the French are losing badly, a peasant girl has arrived to declare that she will save France.
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 Mac OS X (or Mac OS 8.6 or higher) 233Mhz PowerPC processor or faster 32 MB RAM
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