(Age of Empires 1 art from microsoft.com)
Ah Age of Empires, a game series that has always managed to take me back to the good old days. Back to the days of warlords struggling for power and of priests being the most important people on the battlefield. A time when Romans were expanding their empire and Greeks were putting faces on boats. A time when I could slaughter a small village while my mom called me for dinner. Honestly, I grew up on these games and they even led to my love of history! Recently I downloaded my old copies of Age of Empires 1 and 3 onto my new computer (which actually has a disk drive!) and then bought AOE 2 on Steam. As I have played each game I've really gotten the chance to compare and contrast them and let me tell you, each game can easily represent an age in gaming. Their campaigns, their styles and gameplay focuses all reflect different aspects of Real Time Strategy games.
Starting off, Age of Empires 1 kicked off this franchise with kind of a bang. The game became a near-instant classic. Having released in late 1997, it sold about four million copies (shared by the initial release and the updated Rise of Rome version) by the year 2000. Back then it was generally well received, although it gained some criticism for having clunky and confusing controls. I can certainly agree with that. While Age of Empires 1 is very fun, I often struggle with units being unable to do what I command them to. This can prove annoying when trying to explore a massive map or avoid enemy detection and attacks. Also the AI's ability to micromanage things far beyond any human made versus AI skirmishes extremely difficult, even in ideal conditions. That said, Age of Empires shines in the wide array of playable nations to play as, upgrades to unlock, places to explore, and tactics to take advantage of. Player choice truly is the name of the game, and in that department it rises above nearly all others. The campaign is also interesting, as the scenarios are unique and the history is fascinating. However, the controls are very very bad and often cause issues with path finding or micromanaging combat. That said, the biggest issue I face is difficulty scaling. Even the tutorial set to easy is completely merciless, and one level opens with you having a small village and a few villagers and soldiers while the enemy being fully established with a navy, army, and vast resources. These flaws make the game feel unplayable at times. Groundbreaking does not always mean good, but it can mean better things are to come.
And come those better things did. Age of Empires 2 smashed its way into the gaming world in late 1999. Graphically superior, faster, bigger, more advanced in every way. This game was GREAT, simple as that. With a huge list of races to choose from, massive maps, more varied combat, and more, Age of Empires 2 became hugely popular. Moving the timeline into the Dark Ages, Ensemble simplified upgrade systems while also making it both more expansive and realistic, which is pretty impressive. All these things culminated to it receiving near absolute critical acclaim. I'm not going to sit and quote hundreds of game critics, but essentially they found every facet of the game to be great, from the sound design and tracking systems to the story lines and historical realism. Aside from critics though, the game exploded in the eyes of gamers with 2 million copies sold in just 2 months. Yeah... 2 months. And it kept going from there, receiving popularity across the globe. Playing it myself, I really love this game. I have sunk (this is embarrassing) over 400 hour into it in my life. I love all the different play styles with the races and the ever changing maps and scenarios. Every match feels completely different from the last, with a different map and different races on the map against you. I love how much each game can be customized to be exactly what I want to play every time I sit down. All in all, Age of Empires 2 is an absolute triumph of an RTS game and in my opinion is the best game in the genre.
Now, Age of Empires 3... oh man where do I start. The thing is, I don't want to sit here and tell you the game is awful, cause it's not. The issue is this: sequels should take what was good about the previous games and then add something new and exciting. AOE 3 adds so much that is new and exciting, but threw away so much that was great from AOE 1 & 2. I can't say that I dislike the game because it really is fun to play, but it lacks that feeling of massive war that the previous games--specifically 2--capitalized on. The graphics are on a whole different plane than the other games. Cannon balls bounce and knock over trees, buildings get blow to pieces, and combat looks like a true struggle. On the other hand, maps are tiny and repetitive, army sizes are highly limited, and there is practically no space to build up an empire. The reason there is no space is because the tiny maps are covered in all sorts of things like treasures, which are actually a cool new feature made a nuisance by the limited space. Hero units actually have special abilities making them a powerful force on the battlefield. You have a home city back in Europe which levels up to grant bonuses for your troops in the Americas, adding a whole new dynamic and really makes sense for the time period. Across the maps you can find Native American settlements which you can build trade posts to ally with the native people. Trade posts can also be built along preexisting trade routes to periodically grant resources or experience. So many very cool new features, but all of these get overshadowed by serious issues. In previous games, you can control how your units behave when you aren't directly commanding them. This included things like keeping them from hunting down the random guy who walks by them or patrolling an area. Instead, in 3 you have no such control: units will naturally attack and hunt down anything in their sight unless you are directly watching them at every moment. You also can't even start creating a military until the second age. Resources are scarce and are collected very slowly, making the game slow and uneventful. I have already gone over how the new features are destroyed by the small maps, but did I did not mention how that effects a navy. You have full access to naval forces, just as in every other game, but now the ocean is just a small piece of the map. There are no island-based scenarios or large spaces for water battles, making the very cool ship battle animations practically useless. The worst thing, though, is the highly limited number of troops you can control at once. Only small armies can be commanded, making combat no longer feel as epic as it once did. It seems they went for a more Starcraft style, small battle set up rather than the massive war themes typical of Age of Empires. All in all, Age of Empires 3 is fun, but it so obviously could have been so much better, hence why I tend to just go back to AOE 2.
Microsoft Games seems to recognize that Age of Empires was at its best during the second games, after all, DLC has been released for that game regularly up until 2015. With that said, Age of Empires 4 was announced a couple years ago and while I'm cautious of it being ruined al la Command and Conquer, I can see the companies focus on AOE 2 as a good sign for the future of the series.
