Players can defend Spain as El Cid, rage across Europe as Attila the Hun, or fight to preserve an ancient way of life as Montezuma in new campaigns that extend the single-player experience. Plenty of toys are available to each civilization, including new technologies such as Chinese rocketry and British yeomen. But none of the new technologies or units unbalance the game. In fact, many of the units from AoE2 have been altered in response to gamer feedback so no one unit or civilization has an overwhelming advantage.

Those who hated micromanaging their towns in Age of Empires 2 will appreciate the adjustments made to villager artificial intelligence. You can order several villagers to work a group of farm plots, and they'll automatically divvy up the labor. You no longer have to manually assign one peon to each individual plot. The same applies to mines: tell a villager to build a mine, and he'll automatically start hauling ore once construction is complete.

If you weren't all that impressed with AoE2, this expansion pack won't change your mind. But if you're one of the millions who enjoyed the original game, you'll find that all the new goodies in The Conquerors will breathe more hours of fun into an old favorite. --Paul Sanguinetti

Pros:

• Adds plenty of new units, technology, and wonders
• Tweaks core AoE2 gameplay
• Features maps of France, Britain, Spain, and... Texas
• New King of the Hill and peaceful Wonder multiplayer games
• Jungle and snow terrain add variety

• Armies of civilizations still very similar