Thank you for the nice comment Rakovsky. As of now we seem to be keeping our heads above the water, as the server move a while back and some other things have brought down our expenses.

Also I think Superfrizzio at some point went ahead and downloaded literally every campaign in our granary. I just hope he sticks around and keeps his list updated. If the site ever goes down I guess it's your job then to get in touch with him and go make your own AoE downloads archive.

I am glad to hear that, congratulations.

Fisk, like I mentioned on another thread, I got into AOE and ROR a lot in the last 3 years because there are almost no significant computer or video games related to Christianity. Other than AOE:ROR Scenarios and a Facebook game, the other thing that comes to mind is the simulation game "The You Testament". Probably one reason is that computer games seem to tend to be fighting games or sports games, although there are also puzzle and simulation games.

Christianity is important in Sweden's historic culture of the last 1200 years or so, and almost half of Swedes identify as Christians in surveys. Do you think that it's something that's important to them, though? What do you think that Swedes would typically think on the topic in terms of beliefs? Like Jesus was a moral, monotheist philosopher but that neither the Bible's supernatural claims nor pious ritual observance like church attendance are important?

Historically in American society, Christian piety and dedication has been very important. Maybe it had to do with the "Hobbesian" nature of American society compared to modern Swedish society. Religion is a way to console personal trauma that people suffer due to immorality or natural disasters that a rather "Hobbesian" society may not acknowledge or address as well. In the last 20-30 years or so American society is much less observant though. It may have to do with society being able to meet people's needs or to provide other activities. It is hard to say. It is not a case of groups of people or TV hosting public speeches on religion and learning information and scientific theories that openly discount Christianity's miracle claims.

Marx accepted modern science-based Skepticism of religion's supernatural beliefs like God, not to mention those in Christianity. His idea was that as society evolved and people's material needs became met, they would turn less to religion. It looks like this has happened to a major extent in Sweden and now in the US in the last 30 years. I think that this principle actually applied to European society in the Reformed Protestants (eg. Calvin) when the Reformed Protestants stopped believing in different early Christian miracles like holy relics, exorcisms, and Christ's direct Presence in the Eucharist. They claimed that holy relics were a medieval "Catholic" invention, but this is not the case, and in fact one feature of Reformed Protestantism has been modern-style Skepticism toward several traditional Christian claims. Nonetheless, when Marx got old and sadly was dying from terminal illness, he became pious, wore a phylactery, lit candles and went to synagogue. I think that this is a sign that there is still a need for God and piety. Apparently many outwardly strong Atheists and Christians secretly doubt their beliefs, which is also natural.

Hey Rakovsky I replied to you post in the VVV as it probably doesn't have all that much to do with this topic.

Rakovsky, if you are interested in scenarios based on Biblical events, you should check out my "The Story of Exodus" campaign for Age of Empires: Definitive Edition.

Download link here:
http://aoe.heavengames.com/dl-php/showfile.php?fileid=2733

Filthydelphia in Chicago, Thanks for sharing. I saw your campaign when looking at the AOE DE ads and it looked neat.

Looking back, it came to me that since the AOE1 design came with an ark as well as a Moses-type staff-wielding priest, that the game designers had the story of the events of Moses' life in mind when designing their scenario. After all, Egypt is the first campaign in their original campaign series.

I wondered why when playing Civ II that there was no Israel Civ. Certainly the ancient Israelites played a key role in world history, yet there are few games dedicated to ancient Israel. One guess is that Israel was not really a world civilization like Egypt or even like the Phoenicians, who stretched to Carthage. Plus, it did not have grand armies in the way that Babylon or Persia did. Their big hope for instance regarding Babylon's oppression was that the Persians would rescue them. They did have some serious engagements though. For instance, they may have defeated the Assyrians or at least defended their city well enough so that the Assyrians left them alone. Plus, even losing battles like the ones against Babylon are still major battles.

On a sidenote to our discussion on the Ark of the Covenant, I think that the theme song of AOE2 might be based on Hava Nagila, or else on the chorus of "The Farewell of Slavianka", a famous Russian march.
They are have two long notes followed by a short triplet and ending in a long note, twice, like this:
1__ 2__, 3-4-5 6__ , 1__ 2__, 3-4-5 6__.

[This message has been edited by rakovsky (edited 10-11-2020 @ 10:20 PM).]

Part of the Israel problem is: Israel was never technically a civilization or country and it also brings up political issues in the middle-east that have been going on for a long time. They had their own lands, but they were always a group of tribes. I will point out though, that Israel was actually a kingdom; along side the kingdom of Judah.


On the Ark and Moses: Judeo-Christian beliefs have had such an impact on western civilization that the developers probably used these objects as visual representations because they're easily recognizable and probably had some sort of religious background themselves.

[This message has been edited by The_Patriarck (edited 10-11-2020 @ 12:13 PM).]

Good input.

[This message has been edited by rakovsky (edited 10-13-2020 @ 10:55 PM).]

I'm very glad AoEH isn't dead yet.
Now I've at least the chance to show my work, the Hostage scenario's, to others.
I also have the chance to download campaigns and scenario's to have some playing fun with.

On the other hand, it's strange when yo realize that this game is some 23 years old. Why would someone bother to play ancient games?
I sometimes get that feeling when I'm working on my campaign, sometimes it feels a stupid thing to do.

Another thing is, how long can we keep on playing this game in the original version. W10 offers the possibility by means of the "Direct Play" option in the control panel.
But how long will it last.
PC's are from the old times, tablets and mobile phones are the new standard.
It wouldn't surprise me at all when in a few years, AoE/RoR can't be played anymore due to the fact that there are no machines anymore to play it on.

It's all a part of the evolution, things come and go away after a while. Anyway, I'm playing AoE/RoR since the spring of 1998 and I used to regret that I didn't know about AoEH before. I came here for the first time in 2017 and have used this site intensively. Lots of the campaigns I've downloaded have brought me hours of fun in playing.

I truly hope that the top rated campaigns and scenario's, the true pieces of art, as well as the extensive info that can be found here , will be archived for the future.
Like old paintings and so on.
Lots of people took lots of effort to produce beautiful things. I hope It won't be wasted.

And to me personally, I thank AoEH a lot, a very lot for the pleasure and knowledge about designing and playing it has given me in the past 3-4 years.