If someone asks you, what's your favorite game to play?
Then your answers may be varied: those who like the competitive type will say LOL and King Glory; Those who like real-time strategy will say that Warcraft; If you like MMORPGs, you may say World of Warcraft or Sword Net 3; Those who like two-dimensional and open world may be said to be Genshin.
But if anyone were to ask you, what is the most educational and realistic game? Then in the mouth of the vast majority of people, there will only be one game left - the Age of Discovery series.
As one of the most classic games in the series under the Japanese company Koei (of course, now Koei & Tecmo), the Age of Discovery appeared very early, as early as 1990, the first work in the series, the Age of Exploration, was born.
Even from the current point of view, although the graphics of this game are rough, there should be a lot of details
This time is so early that it is in several glorious classic series. Only the housekeeping strategy products Nobunaga no Nobono and Mikuni Shi appeared earlier than the Age of Discovery.
Different from traditional cognitive strategy games, once the Age of Exploration appeared, it immediately created a new category of strategy games.
Set in the Age of Great European Navigation in 1502, Portugal, the pioneer of European navigation, is the orthodox protagonist; With the ultimate goal of opening up trade between East and West, exploring every corner of the world at that time, and becoming the world's richest man and commander of the strongest fleet.
This is the core game idea of the Age of Discovery from the 1st generation and continues to the present. And this game idea, even from now on, is extremely forward-looking and pioneering.
Including what we now call the metaverse, open world and virtual reality, in fact, you can find similar examples from the game content of the Great Voyage series,
And if you want to learn about medieval history or geography, you can also play the Age of Discovery series, which is almost 100% restored to geography and history, so that you have a solid foundation in the classroom than others.
So, what is so fun about the Age of Discovery series, and what are the three sets of gameplay for business, adventure and fleet warfare? Let's take a look at them one by one:
1 Business gameplay in the Age of Discovery:
Historically, the fundamental reason for the emergence of the Age of Exploration was that Europe sought sea routes in order to open up new commercial routes and open up commercial exchanges between the East and the West.
The fundamental purpose of this act was to transport oriental spices and porcelain to Europe in large quantities by sea.
Therefore, starting from the 1st generation of the Great Age of Exploration, how to find a business route is the most core gameplay in the game, and it is also the gameplay that players are most interested in.
Take the more familiar 2nd generation as an example, I'm afraid that as long as you are a player who has played 2nd generation, there are few people who don't know some of the golden business routes in the game, right?
For example, the early sugar - olive oil trade route from Madeira to Lisbon, and the fine art trade route from Athens to Istanbul - blanket trade route. They are the most famous near-port trade routes in the early days.
Through the inverted goods between these trade routes, we can quickly accumulate several gold nuggets and quickly expand our fleet.
In the later stages of the game, the ivory trade route and gold trade route from East Africa to Europe have become the core business routes in the game.
The thrill of quickly doubling or even doubling your assets dozens of times is something that no other game can give. And with enough money, we can naturally buy bigger ships, have more positions, and get more equipment.
Finding the price difference between different ports for different goods, as well as achieving price reduction through their accounting skills, and selling goods to form price changes to obtain greater profits, etc., also became the main test of whether the big sailing players of that era were senior.
This set of gameplay, in the later 4th generation and OL, was even more honorably carried forward.
Take the Age of Discovery OL as an example, whether it is the Golden Triangle near port of Spain to pull firearms, or the traditional Portuguese Lisbon and Madeira brushes; Or the middle path of East Africa and South America pulling gold to Northern Europe; Even the later Indian pepper and gem route, and the ultimate version of Southeast Asian beans and East Asian southern barbarian exchange and other gameplay. All of them show the various business methods that are in line with medieval history at that time.
For players, whether it is a short-distance cargo pull-up to save trouble, or a half-way trade route in pursuit of profit, or a trip to Asia that still has to go even if there will be pirates and storms, it is a gameplay choice for sailing and business.
Of course, whether to pursue the largest position to ensure the profit of a one-time trade, or to pursue high speed to ensure that it can be efficient many times. It's all about players making strategic judgments.
The operations such as increasing the profit of price increase through accounting, reducing the failure of price increase through social networking, and maximizing experience with Lite Combo are all to allow players to enjoy a profit of tens of millions or even hundreds of millions at the moment of final sale, and maximize the pleasure when obtaining tens of thousands of experience.
Unfortunately, the Age of Exploration OL also encountered the most common studio and plug-in problems encountered by Japanese and Korean games, so after barely supporting it for a few years, both national and foreign servers also ushered in the process of rapid depreciation of the game currency. For a game with business as the core, currency depreciation means that the cost performance of business itself decreases. In the end, the game's popularity declined rapidly and even closed several times, which also proved that the core gameplay of this series of games is business and trade.
2 Exploration gameplay in the Age of Discovery:
However, why is it that OL in the Age of Navigation can still be strong in international and Taiwan servers after the collapse of the core business gameplay, ensuring that a group of core users can always play. The main reason is because the Age of Discovery series is not a game that relies on a single gameplay.
As a sailing game with a high degree of freedom, in addition to being a big businessman to do business, players also play as adventurers to explore the world, and act as One Piece or imperial officers, leading fleets to fight in all directions.
However, compared to the latter, the gameplay of exploring the world as an adventurer is obviously more in line with many single-player players with an adventurous spirit and desire to explore.
Since the 2nd generation of the Age of Discovery, there is an important thread in our main line, which is to sign contracts to explore the mysteries of the whole world for scholars, as well as to find the mysteries of the East.
Because of the search for trade routes, and then open the window of communication between the East and the West, find countless relics of animals, plants and treasures that Europeans have never seen, which is precisely the trajectory of Magellan and Columbus in history.
Therefore, even in the early Age of Discovery 1 and 2, the game will provide nearly 100 discoveries (the actual game limit is 50) for players to explore.
For players at that time, in fact, the joy of finding a star discovery was no less than a successful business, and even the feeling that when they found treasures after various trials, they were explorers were more exciting than business income.
It may be that seeing the fun that adventure brings to players, in the subsequent 4 and Grand Voyage OL, Glory also further strengthens the setting of adventure finds.
By the 4th generation, the total number of found items renamed treasures increased to 174, more than tripling from the 2nd generation (only 50 in the 2nd generation), and the number of ways of discovery has increased:
Follow clues: Some treasures require players to follow clues to find. A clue could be a map, a conversation, or a document. Players need to read the clues carefully and then follow the prompts to find the treasure.
Search for specific areas: Some treasures will only appear in specific sea areas. Players need to check the map or ask other pirates to find these waters and search them.
Use divers: Some treasures are buried at the bottom of the sea and require the use of divers to find. Players need to hire divers on board and then dive in specific sea areas.
Battle Sea Monsters: Some treasures are guarded in the hands of sea monsters. Players need to fight these sea monsters and get treasure.
And when OL was launched, Glory regarded the discovery of object gameplay as the biggest weapon to kill players' time.
After more than ten years of updating, in the latest version of the Great Voyage OL, the total number of found objects has reached more than 3,000, and it is divided into more than ten categories, such as historical sites, religion, history, art, treasures, fossils, plants, animals, marine life, birds, celestial bodies, etc.
All in all, even if a player is just playing an adventure, it is basically impossible to collect all the above discoveries in three or five years.
Among them, players also need to have high-level, high-level skills, exclusive props, confrontation ability, luck, clues, series inheritance and many other conditions, even compared with the real adventure, the scale to prepare is not much less. The difference is just to prepare in reality, and the other is to prepare in virtual reality.
In any case, for players who like to play games alone and have sufficient patience and curiosity, the adventure gameplay of the Great Voyage can indeed meet most of his needs.
But for those who like to be lively, like to fight and win, and like to play with a group of people, adventure alone is not enough. They also needed something more exciting to play – and that was the third component of the Age of Discovery series, combat.
3 Naval Warfare Gameplay in the Age of Discovery:
As a game on the ocean, ships are indispensable in the Age of Discovery, especially warships.
Compared with modern steel behemoths, the marine combat units of the 16th and 18th centuries were basically based on wooden sailing ships and wooden platoon ships. But on the main battleship, the simultaneous configuration of dozens or even hundreds of giant guns is nothing new.
Like the picture above, it was already the top battleship of the British Royal Navy at that time, which could be equipped with 80~120 guns and carry hundreds of people. The deadweight is more than 1,000 tons.
So the top-of-the-line galleon we saw in Age of Discovery 2 is pretty much this configuration. Historically, the degree of restoration is high enough.
And the big sailing players who owned these top sail battleships at that time naturally hoped to have a few vigorous naval battles.
From the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generations of single aircraft, we commanded up to 10 large warships as fleet commanders and fought fleet battles with the enemy.
In the Age of Voyage OL, we can form alliances with other players to achieve real-time battles of 5v5 or even larger.
In the Age of Exploration, as the commander of the fleet, we can command many warships under our command and have a head-to-head battle with the enemy on the sea; You can also decide at what angle you should give the enemy a deadly row of shelling as the captain of a battleship; You can also rush in front of the opponent and take advantage of the large number of sailors on the platoon to launch deck battles.
Of course, the most classic is the captain's head-to-head duel from Age of Discovery 2.
Although this kind of one-on-one duel with the spirit of Japanese bushido is still just a strategic comparison of fist scissors, the effect of our characters wearing different armor and holding different weapons is completely different.
Many players should remember to find the strongest star armor - Paladin armor, and the experience of matching the magic sword, right?
It is precisely because of so many competitive PK gameplay that many players who are keen to fight against strong social networks have also liked the Age of Navigation series.
Of course, for these players, it is to choose to be a pirate to rob every day for a living, and experience the thrill of Drake's unearned gain; Or choose to become a national officer, in turn to fight pirates, proud of their elimination. It depends on the player's own choices.
4 The development path of the great maritime age:
Starting from the birth of the generation in 1990, the Age of Discovery went through 1994, and the two generations that successfully laid the upper limit of the series were established; It also experienced 1996, and although the evaluation was average, it became the 3rd generation on which the OL version of the later Age of Exploration was based; Then in 1999, the 4th generation that really made this game reach the highest peak in evaluation was launched; There is also 1995 in the middle, which can be regarded as the Great Age of Discovery Gaiden of the 2nd generation MOD.
Throughout the period of 1990~2000, the Age of Exploration successively launched 5 works, although it cannot be said that the department has risen, but it is also steadily improving, from the 2nd generation to lay the foundation of the series, to the 4th generation to climb the peak of the series. Even if it is not as classic as the Nobunaga series and the Three Kingdoms series, it is still a very stable and popular series under the Koei Company.
However, after 2000, unlike the single-aircraft route that Nobunaga and Mikuni always followed, the era of exploration suddenly changed its style, becoming the most widely attempted outward in several series.
In 2006, Age of Discovery OL appeared as the first MMORPG in the series, coinciding with Warcraft around the same time.
Although it was also popular at the beginning of its launch, the number of beta users was once as high as 400,000, but the relatively immature operation of the agent Sheng Xuanming, and the reason why the pace of the game itself was too slow in that era. Soon after a year, there was a farce of the agent running away and the game being aborted.
Then, although many agents were repeatedly changed, the game OL of the Age of Navigation still failed to survive in China, and now the few players can only switch to Taiwan and Japanese servers to continue the game.
In 2013, Glory put its orthodox sequel, Age of Navigation 5, on the page game platform. Although Three Kingdoms 12 also did this, there are many Three Kingdoms series, and they are not afraid of an unsuccessful trial and error.
But the Age of Discovery 5 is different, finally waiting for the orthodox new work, but at the same time encountered such a bold attempt, the result is naturally self-evident, only a few years later, the Age of Exploration 5 also died down and declared a failure.
The latest generation of the Great Age of Discovery: Origin is the latest MMORPG that combines Age of Discovery 2, Age of Discovery 3 and Age of Discovery OL.
Although it is an MMORPG, this generation of Great Voyage is distributed through Steam, and it does not look for agents in China or carry out large-scale publicity.
Combined with the quality and gameplay of the game itself, we can roughly judge that the upper limit of this game is not even as high as the OL of the Great Age of Exploration.
At this point, the Great Age of Navigation series, which could have become the three glorious phantom gods, has officially been reduced to a niche product between the second and third lines.
Many people are actually dissatisfied with this result. After all, the Age of Navigation can be said to be the pioneer of the nautical genre of games, and it is also the earliest open-world game that integrates virtual reality gameplay.
But perhaps the shackles of history are too thick, or perhaps the glory is not able to support such a huge proposition. In any case, the Age of Discovery, now in 2023, has indeed become a game that only fans discuss and like. Even this fan group is as high as one million in China, it will not help.
This is the fate of the Age of Exploration, even if these users are loyal, this game is not aimed at mass players who like to cultivate PK, like to guide through brainlessness, and like two-dimensional kitchen power.
Do you think so? If you also think so, it is not easy to write a small article, welcome to like and forward the collection; If you don't think so, welcome to leave a message in the comment area, say your cognition and opinions about this game, and let's talk about this classic but not so successful series~