June 24, 2005

The Language Dlls often cause confusion for new designers, and to this end Dark Archer has written a brief introduction to them. Hopefully this will be developed further but for now it's a good starting point for anyone wishing to know about these files. You can find it the in Siege Workshop.

May 15, 2005

How time flies. We made it through another year. AoEH is 8 years old today! What can I say except thank you to our small but dedicated community for making us what we still are - the No. 1 site for this great old game anywhere.

May 1, 2005

The results are up. Congratulations to Richard, it was a very close contest and there was some tough competition. Even the last place entry has once again raised the standards for design at AoEH. Well done everybody.

April 27, 2005

The results are in from the judges but need to be reformatted for import into the contest section. I'm working on that and hopefully it won't take long. Meanwhile, the community can find all the entries for download and make up their own minds.

March 18, 2005

The Forum Code of Conduct has been updated. Please read and inwardly digest.

March 11, 2005

Been a bit of a delay in getting articles up due to having to do a revamp of AoEH for our new banner ads. Sorry about that. BBalazs' article, here, explains to anyone who is still not sure how to use his CTY Editor.

Meanwhile, Andrea's absence is causing some concern. We hope he is alright and I will stand in as judge for the contest if for any reason he can't make it.

February 16, 2005

Congratulations to Dr. Lorenzo for his new red wings!

January 27, 2005

Our contest now has the maximum allowed number of entrants and people seem to be cracking on with them while maintaining some friendly competition. This is what we like to see. The review board in the Scenario Design Forum have been trawling scenarios old and new and are helping to raise the standard there as well. A good month.

January 08, 2005

The contest is shaping up to be a real battle with no less than 8 entrants, and one of those a team of 2. We're looking forward to a close one with lots of good entries as people use the tricks and techniques discovered in the last year, and give the next generation of designers their full creative heads.

Good luck everyone. You can still enter up until the end of the month.

January 03, 2005

Most of the big problems with the new granary have been sorted out, with the few things remaining not interfering with its operation, so we can work those out as and when. Common information is being compiled into FAQs and will be ongoing for the near future.

December 31, 2004

With the new db, reorganised content, a campaign contest and a good, active community, 2005 looks good for AoEH. Thanks to everybody for being a part of it and Happy New Year to you all.

December 24, 2004

Our Xmas present to the AoEH community is twofold. Firstly we have a new campaign from Andrea Rosa, his present to the community for Xmas. Find it in our second present, our new Granary. Finally we have managed to drag this part of the site screaming and kicking into the 21st century and now you can submit and review files online using your forum ID, instead of sending them to me.

You will see that we have got most of the old Granary in but there is still stuff to be added, namely the last couple of months of submissions and reviews. They will be added over the next couple of weeks until everything has been transferred, so if your file is not there yet, don't worry, it will be. Until then the old downloads links will be kept open so you can still access them, but if you intend to review them please wait until they have been transferred over to the new system.

Anyone who has submitted a file in the last few days can submit it online if they wish. You will need to create an account if you don't have one already.

Merry Xmas to all our people, and thanks to Zen, Jayhawk, Pecunia, Elpea and Peter, whose hard work behind the scenes made the new and improved Granary possible.

November 29, 2004

HeroPatrick gets into the Christmas spirit early with his collection of MIDIS including many seasonal tunes plus music from Godspell. Meanwhile BB's CTY Editor is a work in progress with regular updates. Just two good reasons to check out our utilities section.

November 26, 2004

Bbalazs, our regular from Hungary, is making waves with his new CTY file editor. After the work done by SBE and Devyn to analyse these mysterious files, BB has taken it to the next step and created an editor so you don't have to! This is going to be a work in progress so check here for the latest version.

November 20, 2004

Another busy month. Nick's Software updates their Rise of Fiji Campaign and Mod. HeroPatrick continues with his MIDI alternatives in our utilities section. Seems he has a passion for old musicals, so this time we have West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof and Oliver. Fancy something a bit different when playing? Check them out.

Meanwhile, Richard, _Borruma (formerly DanielThe Master, runner-up in the Snakeeyes Contest) and Fudgy have kept me very busy, and themselves by the look of things, with a whole host of new reviews. Regular Firelegion56 joins the best of the best with a 4.8. Top job Tropper!

October 31, 2004

Phew! Well after a week of madness at work I got caught up with the downloads and reviews. We have some alternative MIDI files by HeroPatrick for you to use while playing, some handy bitmaps from Fudgy for your instruction maps, both in utilities, and Richard Ame's reviews for October in the Granary.

We have had a few submissions that were unzipped, so it is worth repeating here that we do not accept them. Also, I am sorry but we cannot put up files in languages other than English. Apart from that, keep them coming, people.

Happy Halloween everyone!

August 4, 2004

Firelegion56 decided the graphics we use for reviews were a bit scrappy so he redid them all. They are a vast improvement and I think they look great. Thanks to him for his hard work.

July 14, 2004

Ok, after some hassle with the connection things should be back to normal and the last batch of submissions are now up, including the (almost) final version of the Rise of Fiji by Nick's software. It's 3 campaigns, several multiplayer scenarios and a mod all in one pack - a big download but worth checking out.

Centy has added some new toons so check them out as well.

June 23, 2004

Due to circumstances beyond my control (a power cut) I have suffered some file damage and lost some recent submissions. If you have sent me anything in the last week please send them again and I will put them up. Apologies for the inconvenience.

June 17, 2004

Yet another comeback for this old game as modding gets a new lease of life. History Guy takes a break from RoN to visit us, read about his modding exploits here. Also, a big new mod is in the works, thanks to Nick for the heads up on that, looking forward to it.

May 15, 2004

Happy Birthday to us! AoEH is 7 years old today!

May 11, 2004

Kudos to Andrea for his campaign "Underhand Dealings from the Hatti Archive". Read the review here as a relatively new designer gets a great writeup from an old master.

March 26, 2004

Peter has decided to step down after sterling work to get the site up and running. As a result we have a new cherub. Please welcome Lorenzo to the staff.

January 05, 2004

What a way to start the new year! Ensemble Studios, makers of AoE and RoR with Microsoft, have just announced that we are to be their official community site for the game. We couldn't have done it without the dedication and contributions of all staff and community members past and present. Thank you all from the oldest surviving heaven for making us what we are.