Age of Empires 2: The Conquerors Walkthrough

Age of Empires II: The Conquerors Expansion
History Guide
By: GurraJG
Version FINAL
Contact me for corrections, suggestions, comments, etc. at:
ggullberg@msn.com
Proper credit will be given for corrections.
Please put this in the subject line:
AOEII History guide,
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Copyright January 17, 2004 by Gustav "GurraJG" Gullberg
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Version History:
Version FINAL - IGN FAQs granted permission to use this guide.
- This is most likely the final version of this guide.
Version 1.00 - Everything completed.
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Introduction:
This is a guide which compiles all of the text from the History section of The
Age of Empires II: The Conquerors Expansion. NOTE: THE FOLLOWING TEXT IS _NOT_
WRITEN BY ME!!
---
The Aztecs (1325 to 1521)
Political control of the populous and agriculturally rich central valley of
Mexico fell into confusion after 1100. Gradually assuming ever-greater power
were the Aztecs, probably a northern tribe that had migrated to the valley
and occupied a minor town on the shore of the great central lake. They were a
society that valued the skills of warriors above all others, and this
emphasis gave them an advantage against rival tribes in the region. By the
end of the 15th century, the Aztecs controlled all of central Mexico as a
military empire that collected tribute from rivals.
The Aztec culture drew upon the experience of those that came before it and
invented little that was new. They had an advanced agriculture that supported
a very large population. They built immense buildings of grand design and
flourished in many arts. They were adept metal workers, but had no iron.
Lacking any suitable draft animal, they made no motive use of the wheel.
One of the distinctive features of the Aztec culture was its penchant for
sacrifice. Aztec myths dictated that human blood be fed to the Sun to give it
the strength to rise each day. Human sacrifices were conducted on a grand
scale; several thousand in a single day were not uncommon. Victims were often
decapitated or flayed, and hearts were cut from living victims. Sacrifices
were conducted at the top of tall pyramids to be close to the sun and blood
flowed down the steps. Although the Aztec economy was based primarily on corn
(or maize), the people believed that crops depended on the regular provision
of sacrificial blood.
The incessant demand for sacrificial victims meant that the Aztecs tolerated
loose control over satellite cities because frequent revolts offered
opportunities for capturing new victims. During times of peace, "garland
wars" were arranged strictly as contests of courage and warrior skill, and
for the purpose of capturing victims. They fought with wooden clubs to maim
and stun, rather than kill. When fighting to kill, the clubs were studded
with obsidian blades.
Despite their great agriculture and arts, the Aztecs appear in retrospect to
have been a waning society. They passed on no significant technology or ideas
of religion or political theory. Their civilization was brought to an abrupt
end by the arrival of the Spanish in the early 16th century. Already
devastated by European disease passed by early traders, they fell to a small
Spanish army armed with steel weapons, firearms, and riding a few horses. The
cruelty of the Aztecs contributed to their downfall by making it easy for the
Spanish to enlist allies among the non-Aztecs in Mexico.
The Britons (500 On)
Following the withdrawal of the Roman legions to Gaul (modern France) around
400, the British Isles fell into a very dark period of several centuries from
which almost no written records survive. The Romano-British culture that had
existed under 400 years of Roman rule disappeared under relentless invasion
and migration by barbarians. Celts came over from Ireland (a tribe called the
Scotti gave their name to the northern part of the main island, Scotland).
Saxons and Angles came from Germany, Frisians from modern Holland, and Jutes
from modern Denmark. By 600, the Angles and Saxons controlled most of modern
England. By 800, only modern Wales, Scotland, and West Cornwall remained in
largely Celtic hands.
The new inhabitants were called Anglo-Saxons (from the Angles and Saxons).
The Angles gave their name to the new culture (England from Angle-land), and
the Germanic language they brought with them, English, replaced the native
Celtic and previously imported Latin. Despite further invasions and even a
complete military conquest at a later date, the southern and eastern parts of
the largest British Isle have been called England (and its people and
language English) ever since.
In 865 the relative peace of England was shattered by a new invasion. Danish
Vikings who had been raiding France and Germany formed a great army and
turned their attention on the English. Within 10 years, most of the Anglo-
Saxon kingdoms had fallen or surrendered. Only the West Saxons (modern
Wessex) held out under Alfred, the only English ruler to be called "the
Great."
England was divided among the Vikings, the West Saxons, and a few other
English kingdoms for nearly 200 years. The Viking half was called the Danelaw
("under Danish law"). The Vikings collected a large payment, called the
Danegeld ("the Dane's gold"), to be peaceful. The Danes became Christians and
gradually became more settled. In time the English turned on the Danes, and
in 954 the last Viking king of York was killed. England was united for the
first time under an English king from Wessex.
In 1066 the Witan ("king's council") offered the crown to Harold, son of the
Earl of Wessex. Two others claimed the throne: Harald Hardrada (meaning "the
hard ruler"), King of Norway, and Duke William of Normandy. The Norwegian
landed first, near York, but was defeated by Harold at the battle of Stamford
Bridge. Immediately after the victory, Harold force-marched his army south to
meet William at Hastings. The battle seesawed back and forth all day, but
near dusk Harold was mortally wounded by an arrow in the eye. Over the next
two years, William, now "the Conqueror," solidified his conquest of England.
During the remainder of the Middle Ages, the successors of William largely
exhausted themselves and their country in a series of confrontations and wars
attempting to expand or defend land holdings in France. The Hundred Years War
between England and France was an on-and-off conflict that stretched from
1337 to 1453. It was triggered by an English king's claim to the throne of
France, thanks to family intermarriages. The war was also fought over control
of the lucrative wool trade and French support for Scotland's independence.
The early part of the war featured a string of improbable, yet complete,
English victories, thanks usually to English longbowmen mowing down hordes of
ornately armored French knights from long range.
The English could not bring the war to closure, however, and the French
rallied. Inspired by Joan of Arc, a peasant girl who professed divine
guidance, the French fought back, ending the war with the capture of Bordeaux
in 1453. The English were left holding only Calais on the mainland (and not
for long).
The Byzantines (476 to 1453)
The Byzantines took their name from Byzantium, an ancient city on the
Bosphorus, the strategic waterway linking the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea.
The Roman Emperor Constantine had renamed this city Constantinople in the
fourth century and made it a sister capital of his empire. This eastern
partition of the Roman Empire outlived its western counterpart by a thousand
years, defending Europe against invasions from the east by Persians, Arabs,
and Turks. The Byzantines persevered because Constantinople was well defended
by walls and the city could be supplied by sea. At their zenith in the sixth
century, the Byzantines covered much of the territories of the original Roman
Empire, lacking only the Iberian Peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal), Gaul
(modern France), and Britain. The Byzantines also held Syria, Egypt, and
Palestine, but by the middle of the seventh century they had lost them to the
Arabs. From then on their empire consisted mainly of the Balkans and modern
Turkey.
The first great Byzantine emperor was Justinian I (482 to 565). His ambition
was to restore the old Roman Empire and he nearly succeeded. His instrument
was the greatest general of the age, Belisarius, who crisscrossed the empire
defeating Persians to the East, Vandals in North Africa, Ostrogoths in Italy,
and Bulgars and Slavs in the Balkans. In addition to military campaigns,
Justinian laid the foundation for the future by establishing a strong legal
and administrative system and by defending the Christian Church.
The Byzantine economy was the richest in Europe for many centuries because
Constantinople was ideally sited on trade routes between Asia, Europe, the
Black Sea, and the Aegean Sea. It was an important destination point for the
Silk Road from China. The nomisma, the principal Byzantine gold coin, was the
standard for money throughout the Mediterranean for 800 years.
Constantinople's strategic position eventually attracted the envy and
animosity of the Italian city-states.
A key strength of the Byzantine Empire was its generally superior army that
drew on the best elements of the Roman, Greek, Gothic, and Middle Eastern
experience in war. The core of the army was a shock force of heavy cavalry
supported by both light infantry (archers) and heavy infantry (armored
swordsmen). The army was organized into units and drilled in tactics and
maneuvers. Officers received an education in military history and theory.
Although outnumbered usually by masses of untrained warriors, it prevailed
thanks to intelligent tactics and good discipline. The army was backed by a
network of spies and secret agents that provided information about enemy
plans and could be used to bribe or otherwise deflect aggressors.
The Byzantine navy kept the sea-lanes open for trade and kept supply lines
free so the city could not be starved into submission when besieged. In the
eighth century, a land and sea attack by Arabs was defeated largely by a
secret weapon, Greek fire. This chemical weapon, its composition now unknown,
was a sort of liquid napalm that could be sprayed from a hose. The Arab navy
was devastated at sea by Greek fire.
In the seventh and eighth centuries, the Arabs overran Egypt, the Middle
East, North Africa, and Spain, removing these areas permanently from
Byzantine control. A Turkish victory at Manzikert in 1071 led to the
devastation of Asia Minor, the empire's most important source of grain,
cattle, horses, and soldiers. In 1204 Crusaders led by the Doge of Venice
used treachery to sack and occupy Constantinople.
In the fourteenth century, the Turks invaded Europe, capturing Adrianople and
bypassing Constantinople. They settled the Balkans in large numbers and
defeated a large crusader army at Nicopolis in 1396. In May 1453, Turkish
sultan Mehmet II captured a weakly defended Constantinople with the aid of
heavy cannon. The fall of the city brought the Byzantine Empire to an end.
The Celts (500 to 1500)
The Celts (pronounced "kelts") were the ancient inhabitants of Northern
Europe and the builders of Stonehenge 5000 years ago. Julius Caesar had
battled them during his conquest of Gaul. The Romans eventually took most of
Britain and the Iberian Peninsula from them as well. At the end of the
ancient Roman Empire, the Celts occupied only parts of northwestern France,
Ireland, Wales, and parts of Scotland. During the course of the Middle Ages,
they strengthened their hold on Scotland and made several attempts to take
more of England.
The Irish remained in small bands during the early Middle Ages. By 800 the
four provinces of Leinster, Munster, Connaught, and Ulster had risen to power
under "high kings." Viking raids began in 795 and then Viking settlements
were established in the middle ninth century. The most important of these was
at Dublin. Brian Boru became the first high king of all Ireland around 1000.
In 1014 the Irish defeated the Danes of Dublin at Clontarf, although Brian
Boru was killed.
An Irish tribe called the Scotti invaded what is now southern Scotland during
the early Middle Ages, settling permanently and giving the land its name.
They pushed back and absorbed the native Picts who had harassed the Romans to
the south. The Scottish kingdom took its present shape during the eleventh
century but attracted English interference. The Scots responded with
the "auld (old) alliance" with France, which became the foundation of their
diplomacy for centuries to come. Edward I of England (Longshanks, or "hammer
of the Scots") annexed Scotland in 1296.
William Wallace (Braveheart) led a revolt of Scotland, winning virtual
independence at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297. Defeated the next year
at Falkirk, Wallace waged a guerrilla war until he was betrayed, captured,
and executed in 1305. Robert the Bruce declared himself king of Scotland
after murdering his main rival. He drove out the English, winning the battle
of Bannockburn in 1314. Edward III of England recognized Scotland's
independence in 1328, but war between the Scots and English carried on for
several centuries. The crowns of the two countries were united in 1603, long
after the Middle Ages were over.
No prince in Wales proved strong enough to unite the country. In the late
thirteenth century, Edward I took over the government of Gwynedd, one of the
strongest Welsh principalities in Wales. He proceeded to build five great
castles in Wales, effectively placing the country under English rule.
The Chinese (581 to 1644)
China was reunited in 581 AD after a long period of internal war by the
founders of the Sui dynasty. For most of the 1000 years that followed, China
was one of the largest and most advanced civilization in the world. Because
of its geographic isolation from the West, it was able to develop and
maintain a unique culture that spread its influence over much of Asia.
An emperor generally held supreme power as the son of heaven. Natural
disasters or other calamities were taken as proof that the mandate of heaven
had been withdrawn, however, and could justify revolt. Mandarins were
conservative civil servants who operated most of the government at the local,
province, and imperial level. Mandarins earned their positions by passing
detailed civil service examinations based mainly on the works of Confucius.
The T'ang dynasty ruled China from 618 to 907. China under the T'ang was
large, wealthy, and powerful. There was extensive foreign trade and interest
in the arts among the upper class. Printing and gunpowder were invented. The
last 100 years of T'ang rule witnessed tumultuous peasant revolts, however,
and wars between local military rulers that the imperial court could not end.
The years from 907 to 960 were known as the Five Dynasties period. Northern
China was held by barbarians, and southern China split into 10 rival states.
From one of these, an army general named Zhao Kuang-ying seized power and
unified the southern states, founding the Song dynasty. His descendants
reunited China within 20 years.
The Song dynasty ruled at least part of China until 1279. This was another
period of cultural brilliance, and it was considered the great age of Chinese
landscape painting. There was a dramatic improvement in economic activity,
including a large overseas trade. Population and cities grew, food production
grew faster than population, a money economy developed, and industrial output
increased. No city in Europe could approach the populations of Chang An,
Beijing, and Guang Zhou, all with more than 2 million inhabitants.
The wealth of China attracted enemies, however, and the Mongols began attacks
in 1206. By 1279 they had completed the conquest of Song China and moved the
capital to Beijing. The dramatic economic improvement of the Song dynasty
ended with the Mongol conquests and the estimated 30 million deaths that they
caused. The Mongol Yuan dynasty reunited China and reestablished it as a
great military and world power. Chinese influence was spread into Asia. Hanoi
was captured three times and tribute was extracted from Burma. Trade with
India, Arabia, and the Persian Gulf was developed. Marco Polo visited China
during this period.
Natural disasters and higher taxes in the fourteenth century caused rural
rebellions. A Buddhist monk rose to be one of the leaders of the Red Turbans,
a secret society opposed to the emperor in Beijing. The rebels seized Nanjing
in 1356 and drove the Mongols from Beijing 12 years later, establishing the
Ming dynasty. The Ming presided over another cultural flowering and
established a political unity that outlasted the Ming and continued into the
twentieth century. The Ming clamped down a strict conservatism and isolation,
however, discouraging change and innovation, banning foreign travel, and
closing the Silk Road.
Some of the most noteworthy aspects of medieval China are the technologies
that were invented there, usually many centuries before a similar technology
was invented in, or transmitted to, the West. Important Chinese inventions
included the compass, the wheelbarrow, the abacus, the horse harness, the
stirrup, the clock, iron-casting, steel, paper, moveable type (printing),
paper money, gunpowder, and the stern-post rudder.
The Franks (509 On)
The Franks were one of the Germanic barbarian tribes known to the Romans. In
the early part of the fifth century, they began expanding south from their
homeland along the Rhine River into Roman-controlled Gaul (modern France).
Unlike other Germanic tribes, however, they did not move out of their
homelands but, rather, added to them. Clovis, a Frankish chieftan, defeated
the last Roman armies in Gaul and united the Franks by 509, becoming the
ruler of much of western Europe. During the next 1000 years, this Frankish
kingdom gradually became the modern nation of France.
The kingdom of Clovis was divided after his death among his four sons,
according to custom. This led to several centuries of civil warfare and
struggle between successive claimants to the throne. By the end of the
seventh century, the Merovingian kings (descendants of Clovis) were rulers in
name only. In the early eighth century, Charles Martel became mayor of the
palace, the ruler behind the throne. He converted the Franks into a cavalry
force and fought so well that his enemies gave him the name of Charles the
Hammer. In 732 the Frankish cavalry defeated Muslim invaders moving north
from Spain at the Battle of Poitiers, stopping forever the advance of Islam
from the southwest.
Charles Martel's son, Pepin, was made king of the Franks by the pope in
return for helping to defend Italy from the Lombards. Pepin founded the
dynasty of the Carolingians, and the greatest of these rulers was Charles the
Great, or Charlemagne, who ruled from 768 to 814. He expanded the Frankish
kingdom into an empire and was responsible for a rebirth of culture and
learning in the West. Charlemagne's empire was divided among his grandsons
and thereafter coalesced into two major parts. The western part became the
kingdom of France. Later kings gradually lost political control of France,
however. Central authority broke down under the pressure of civil wars,
border clashes, and Viking raids. Money and soldiers could be raised only by
making concessions to landholders. Fiefs became hereditary and fief holders
became feudal lords over their own vassals. By the tenth century, France had
been broken into feudal domains that acted as independent states.
In 987 the French nobility elected Hugh Capet their king, mainly because his
fief centered on Paris was weak and he was thought to pose no threat. He
founded the Capetian line of kings, who worked slowly for two centuries
regaining the power by making royal roads safe, adding land to their domain,
encouraging trade, and granting royal charters for new towns and fiefs in
vacant lands. By allying themselves with the church, the Capetians took a
strong moral position and benefited from the church's cultural, political,
and social influence. Royal administrators were made loyal to the king and
more efficient by eliminating the inheritance of government offices.
Beginning with Philip II in 1180, three superior rulers established France as
one of the most important nations in Europe. They improved the working of the
government, encouraged a booming trade, collected fees efficiently, and
strengthened their position atop the feudal hierarchy. Although a national
assembly called the Estates General was established, it held no real power
and was successfully ignored.
From 1337 to 1453 France and England fought the long conflict called the
Hundred Years War to decide ownership of lands in France that had been
inherited by English kings. The eventual French victory confirmed the king as
the most powerful political force in France.
The Goths (200 to 714)
The Goths were a Germanic tribe on the Danube River frontier known to the
Romans from the first century AD. Pressured and then displaced when the Huns
moved west out of Central Asia, the Goths moved west into Europe and over the
Danube River to escape the oncoming hordes. After taking part in the fall of
Rome, they vied with other barbarians for the leavings of the Western Roman
Empire during the Early Middle Ages.
The Goths originated on the island of Gotland in the Baltic, to the best of
our knowledge, and split into two groups as they migrated south across
Central Europe. The Visigoths, or West Goths, settled in modern Romania
during the second century. The Ostrogoths, or East Goths, settled farther to
the east on the northwest coast of the Black Sea. In 376 AD the Visigoths
were driven from modern Romania by the Huns and moved south across the
Danube. Their strength was estimated at 60,000 men, women, and children. They
defeated a Roman army from Constantinople, settled briefly south of the
Danube, and then pushed into Italy. In 409 they sacked Rome under their king
Alaric and then moved north into Gaul. The Romans gave them southwestern
Gaul. From there they eventually extended their rule into all of modern Spain
and Portugal.
The Ostrogoths broke away from Hunnish rule and followed their cousins into
Italy late in the fifth century. They were encouraged to invade by the
Eastern emperor, who wanted deposed the barbarian then ruling as viceroy.
Under Theodric, king of modern Switzerland and the Balkans already, the Goths
entered Italy in 488, completing its conquest in 493.
Theodric's kingdom did not last long following his death in 526. Using a
struggle for succession as an excuse, the Byzantines sent an army to Italy in
536 led by their great general Belisarius. The Byzantines hoped to regain
Italy and restore the old Roman Empire in the West. The war dragged on,
devastating the countryside in conjunction with plague and famine. In 552 the
Ostrogoths were finally defeated in Italy. They ceased to exist as a separate
group by the late sixth century when northern Italy was invaded by a new
group of barbarians called the Lombards.
The Visigoth kingdom lasted somewhat longer. In the late fifth century Clovis
of the Franks pushed the Visigoths out of France and over the Pyrenees
Mountains. Following the death of Clovis his kingdom fragmented and the
Visigoths were temporarily left alone. In 711 a new threat appeared from the
south. Islamic armies crossed over from North Africa and destroyed the last
Gothic kingdom in four years.
The Goths are remembered for being the first to sack Rome and thereby
beginning the final collapse of the ancient world order in Europe. Their
admiration for Rome and attempts to preserve it, however, allowed much of the
Roman culture to survive. For example, the modern languages of Italy, France,
Spain, Portugal, and Romania are derived from Latin influenced by later
settlers. They are not variations of German, as was the case in England.
The Huns (408 to 453)
The Huns were a nomadic people from around Mongolia in Central Asia that
began migrating toward the west in the third century, probably due to
climatic change. They were a horse people and very adept at mounted warfare,
both with spears and bows. Moving with their families and great herds of
horses and domesticated animals they migrated in search of new grasslands to
settle. Due to their military prowess and discipline, they proved
unstoppable, displacing all in their path. They set in motion a tide of
migration before them as other peoples moved to get out of their way. This
domino effect of large populations passed around the hard nut of
Constantinople and the Eastern Roman Empire to spill over the Danube and
Rhine Rivers, and ultimately overwhelm the Western Roman Empire by 476.
Finding lands to their liking, the Huns settled on the Hungarian plain in
Eastern Europe, making their headquarters at the city of Szeged on the Tisza
River. They needed large expanses of grasslands to provide forage for their
horses and other animals. From this area of plains the Huns controlled
through alliance or conquest an empire eventually stretching from the Ural
Mountains in Russia to the Rhône River in France.
The Huns were superb horsemen, trained from childhood, and some believe they
invented the stirrup, critical for increasing the fighting power of a mounted
man charging with a couched lance. They inspired terror in enemies due to the
speed at which they could move, changing ponies several times a day to
maintain their advance. A second advantage was their recurved composite bow,
far superior to anything used in the West. Standing in their stirrups, they
could fire forward, to the sides, and to the rear. Their tactics featured
surprise, lightning attacks, and the ensuing terror. They were an army of
light cavalry and their political structure required a strong leader to hold
them to a purpose.
The peak of Hun power came during the rule of Attila, who became a leader of
the Huns in 433 and began a series of raids into south Russia and Persia. He
then turned his attention to the Balkans, causing sufficient terror and havoc
on two major raids to be bribed to leave. In 450 he turned to the Western
Empire, crossing the Rhine north of Mainz with perhaps 100,000 warriors.
Advancing on a front of 100 miles, he sacked most of the towns in what is now
northern France. The Roman general Aetius raised a Gallo-Roman army and
advanced against Attila, who was besieging the city of Orleans. At the major
battle of Chalôns, Attila was defeated, though not destroyed.
The defeat at Chalôns is considered one of the decisive battles of history,
one that could have meant collapse of the Christian religion in Western
Europe and perhaps domination of the area by Asian peoples.
Attila then invaded Italy, seeking new plunder. As he passed into Italy,
refugees escaped to the islands off the coast, founding, according to
tradition, the city of Venice. Though Roman forces were depleted and their
main army still in Gaul, the Huns were weak as well, depleted by incessant
campaigns, disease, and famine in Italy. At a momentous meeting with Pope Leo
I, Attila agreed to withdraw.
The Hun empire disintegrated following the death of Attila in 453 with no
s