One of the new features, and one of my favourites, is the diplomacy menu. Now instead of just attacking your enemies without any sort of reason other than "they're there". So now you can make aliies, neutral neighbours, and trading partners. Making an ally is easy. Sometimes the AI approaches you spewing out things like "Thou must give me 1000 gold, 100 stone, and 500 wood if thou wants me to spare your city from my terrible wrath". Usually, you should listen to these guys! Or (this will only work in online play) you can lay siege to a city, and terrorize the citizens before demanding a pay for peace. Then, move into their city, so if they try to revolt, first of all you can see them on your map because you are allies, and second of all you have an entire army in the middle of their town. It just gives you a sense of security.
Another feature that increases the replayibility is the vast differences between different races. The Goths cannot build walls, towers, or really any stonework (other than castles) and as a result, they have strong melee forces and a destructive unique class to balance it out. This makes playing this race a whole different strategy than any other race. Now you must place watchtowers all around your territory as a line of defense, so you can see the enemy coming and prepare for it. It doesn't matter if you have the supposedly "weaker" race in the game; All you need is somebody who knows the advantages of one race, and another player who thinks he can wipe out that race easily, and you have a very satisfying victory for the underdog.
A feature that does a little to add to the gameplay is the formations. You can have a legion of longswords-men marching across a plain in formation, so they all attack at once, and don't get picked off by enemy archers, like you did in the first game, walking in a line.
The main feature, I think, are the campaigns. You can play the French heroine Joan of Arc, or the Mongol leader Genghis Khan, Teuton leader Frederick Barbarossa, Saladin in his fight for the desert, or the introductory campaign of William Wallace's defensive struggle against the greedy King Henry.
97% -For exploring a new genre in PC gaming, Age of Empires II gets a marvelous score. For both newbies to the type of gameplay and veterans, this game will appeal to you. Unfortunately, there are minor glitches and low graphics that bring the game down a tiny amount.
