Byzantine Lead

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Age of Empires II: Age of Kings puts you in control of a powerful ancient civilization and challenges you to become the dominant power! Use the Map Editor to design your own campaigns See if you can conquer a worthy opponent online!

When it comes to vast, kingdom-spanning ambition, you can't do better than Microsoft's Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings. Microsoft went all out to create this real-time strategy game, and it fairly hums with gorgeous graphics, sophisticated AI, and challenging scenarios for the novice and experienced player alike. The point of the game is to shepherd your fledgling civilization to world domination, using war, trade, and exploration. You start with the bare minimum to get going, and you've got to balance your people's needs with your desire to be a little Napoleon. The Age of Kings gives you a ton of new units and technologies to enrich your strategic options. Each scenario is placed accurately within history, but you're also free to create your own. The multiplayer format is robust, allowing up to nine players to share a world. When battles commence, you can take control of every aspect of your workers and soldiers, sending them running for shelter in the town center, ordering them to defend a watchtower, or setting their combat stance to "aggressive" for free-for-all sword smashing fun. When you're not fighting, find your idle peasants with a mouse click and send them back to work chopping trees, rounding up sheep, fishing, or mining gold and stone. As you acquire more resources, you can improve your soldier's gear and skills, start to trade more efficiently, and make life better for everyone in your empire. You can choose from 13 groups to manage, from the Japanese to the Teutons and Franks. Each group has unique units and special characteristics, making this a game that changes every time you play it. If all this sounds complicated, it is. New players may be intimidated by the range of choices, but the teaching scenarios are very helpful in conquering the controls. Age of Empires II is a sophisticated, gorgeous successor to the wildly popular original. It's a real feather in Microsoft's cap--a world-building game that will hold you captive. --Therese Littleton

Age of Empires 2 spans 1,000 years, from the fall of Rome through the Middle Ages. Players control the destiny of 1 of 13 civilizations. The game keeps the epic scope of Age of Empires' gameplay while evolving the combat and economic features. Developed by Ensemble Studios, Age of Empires 2 features the expertise of Bruce Shelley, codesigner of Age of Empires and the hit strategy game Civilization.

Features

• You will take an ancient people through a 1000 year span, and develop trade, armies and technology to lead them to greatness
• Amass and equip an army like none ever seen, and use strategy to have them conquer enemies
• Construct means of commerce and diplomacy, while discreetly employing intrigue and regicide
• Command one of 13 civilizations - including the Franks, Japanese, Byzantines, Vikings, Mongols, and Celts
• Battle alongside heroes of the day - Joan of Arc, William Wallace, Genghis Khan, Saladin, or Barbarossa

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Medieval: Total War is a game of empire building and epic real time battles. Encompassing four centuries of warfare from the first Crusade in 1095 to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Rule your kingdom through four centuries of brutal Medieval warfare. Lay siege to mighty fortresses and command vast armies across the battlefields of Europe and North Africa. This is no time for the faint hearted. Medieval Total War - Viking Invasion Expansion Pack takes the action back in time to 793 with all new campaign and playable factions. Build an empire using trade, diplomacy, subterfuge and the art of war.

On the heels of their successful Shogun: Total War Creative Assembly moves back in time and westward on the map to shed some light on the Dark Ages. Medieval: Total War concerns the power struggles of pre-Renaissance European kings and Middle Eastern powers, as well as the conflict between the last vestiges of paganism and the growing influences of Islam, the Orthodox (Eastern) Church, and the Roman Catholic Church. These were violent and passionate times to be sure, perfect for a historical strategy game that thrives on brutality, dynasty, and war. There are three time periods to choose from, the earliest of which features more fragmented factions and primitive weaponry, the last represents a more unified period where most power struggles have been decided and gunpowder has entered the scene. With three time periods and 12 factions representing three different religions, there's a lot of replay value in the strategic game alone. Like Shogun, the game is divided into two parts: strategic and tactical. The strategic part features a map of Europe, some of Asia, and some of Africa. It's divided into territories à la Risk or Axis & Allies, and each territory represents a kingdom. Each faction begins with its own holdings and must quickly begin to out produce and conquer its neighbors. Each kingdom has its own population, loyalty rating, economy, and religious affiliations. Installing a feared or loved general as governor can enhance the kingdom, but giving an unscrupulous general the job could lead to revolt. Building structures can enhance the kingdom as well; a dock or a salt or silver mine can lead to riches while a castle protects. A bowyer or spear maker can outfit new troops. As time progresses, your king will grow old, have children, and die. If he dies without a male heir a revolution can occur. Daughters are used primarily to reward your governors and generals or offered to allies as wives. The tactical portion of the game is the 3-D battlefield, complete with deserts, rivers, rolling hills, forests, mountains, and the vast rainy plains of England. It is here that you will decide the fate of your empire. You have to use terrain effectively to win, managing your varied troops with efficiency and skill: pikemen against mounted troops, mounted troops against archers, archers against pikemen. The specialized troop types of the Turkish, Byzantine, French, and other cultures offer unique abilities and open up combat options to wily generals. Guiding the actions of thousands of meticulously researched troops and watching them execute historical military maneuvers on a giant battlefield is a joy, but if deep tactical combat is not to your liking, you can skip individual battles or have the computer control them for you. Creative Assembly added sieges to the game as well, and those can be spectacular undertakings--complete with castle walls, sorties, and machines of war. A multiplayer option is offered, but only using the tactical battle engine. There are also a few warfare only historical battles and scenarios. The two halves of the game make a rich whole. The AI is sharp, and a sense of history permeates the game. From the eerie medieval chanting that underscores playing as a Western power to the lively Islamic music that you'll hear if you play as a Middle Eastern power. The game recreates history well, but more importantly it's also fantastic to play. --Bob Andrews Pros: Excellent gameplay; strong AI Two perfect game engines working together Cons: Deep, intellectual subject matter might be too dense for some Multiplayer only exists in battle mode

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Choose the path to greatness: Will it be an economic path created out of craftmanship, trade, and technology? Or a military route of seige and naval warfare? Command one of 13 civilizations - including the Franks, Japanese, Byzantines, Vikings, Mongols, and Celts. Each has unique attributes, units, buildings, and technologies based on its historical counterpart. Battle alongside heroes of the day - Who will fight for victory under your flag? With historically - based campaigns it could be Joan of Arc, William Wallace, Genghis Khan, Saladin, or Barbarossa. Conquer a worthy opponent over the MSN Gaming Zone, LAN or Modem. Or a nearly human artificial intelligence opponent in single player mode. OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 95 / 98 / NT. WINDOWS SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: Multimedia PC w/pentium 166MHz processor.32MB RAM.200MB hard disk space;add'l 100MB hard disk space for swap file.SVGA monitor supporting 800x600 resolution.Local bus video card supports 800x600,256 color resolution&2MB video memory.Quadspeed CDROM drive.Microsoft mouse or compatible.28.8Kbps modem for Internet or head to head play.To play on the MS Gaming Zone need to have either Web browsers:Internet Explorer 3.02 software or Netscape Communicator 4.0.Audio board w/speakers or headphones rec'd.

Features

• Animated Violence & animated Blood
• Lead with cunning and might - Place your military in formations or give them intelligent stances and commands to add interesting tactical choices
• Build a rich empire - a market-based economy lets you open up new avenues of trade with your allies
• From the Dark Age to the Imperial Age - Experience real-time evolution as you build your civilization into a flourishing empire
• In age of Empires II The Age of Kings - sequel to the award winning Age of Empires - you have 1000 years to lead your people through the Middle Ages to greatness. Control one of the most powerful civilizations of time. Decide whether to conquer the world through military might, rule through commerce and diplomacy, or seize power by means of intrigue and regicide. There are many paths to power but only one civilization will reign supreme.

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This digital document is a journal article from Journal of Archaeological Science, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.Description: The secondary production (working) of glass from imperial to early Byzantine times has been proven at the ancient city of Sagalassos (SW Turkey) by the existence of glass chunks, fuel ash slag and kiln fragments related to glass processing. It had been previously suggested that local green glass might have been recycled from two other locally found glass types (blue glass vessels and chunks and HIMT glass chunks). This paper provides analytical evidence for the recycling of glass next to the use of imported raw glass. The heterogeneous lead isotopic composition of the green and HIMT vessel glass at Sagalassos, with as end members on the one hand the isotopic composition of local blue glass vessels and chunks and on the other hand that of the HIMT glass chunks, could indicate the production of 'recycled' glass, although heterogeneous raw materials could have been used. However, the use of Sr-mixing lines confirms local recycling. It is clear that the Sr in the green and HIMT vessels is a mixture of the Sr in the aforementioned end members. It cannot be proved whether the green 'recycled' glass was produced from a mixture of chunks alone, or from a mixture of cullet and chunks. Suggestions are made towards the possible origin of the raw materials for the blue and HIMT glass on the basis of Sr isotopic signatures and absolute Sr contents in the glass.