It's been a lot of years of playing this game.
When I first started using a personal computer in the late 1980s, I was like most people in that I only stuck with exactly what I knew how to do (which was pretty much just using a word processor) and was terrified that if I experimented with doing anything else, that I would somehow break it.
It felt like an enormous step in 1993 when I decided to buy a personal finance program called Quicken. Of course, that was the old DOS version, and I loaded it on, via the half dozen or so 3.5" floppy disks, and it actually worked! In fact, used it for many years, and am now using an online version. That success gave me the confidence to try other programs.
I always loved board games -- though usually had to play them by myself because no one else was interested -- and so computer games always intrigued me. But what often happened is that I'd pay forty bucks or so for a neat looking game, and then load it on my computer, and then couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do. It would say something like "gather resources and build your army", but I had no idea what to click in order to do that. And if it was the sort of game that I understood what to do, it was usually so flimsily put together that it was very unsatisfying to play.
Then in 1997 I saw Age of Empires on the shelf, and though I knew there was a chance it would be another waste of money, I bought it to try to figure out how to play it. It had a tutorial that was wonderful in telling you what to click in order to get certain things to happen. That's exactly what I'd always needed. I learned how to play, and I played and played and played. Even back then, I think there was the ability to play with others via the internet, but I was never interested in that. I loved playing random games against the computer, at various skill levels.
I was as excited as anyone when the sequel, AOE II: Age of Kings came out a couple of years later, and enjoyed that too, but often went back to the original.
After about ten years, I got yet another new computer and when I tried to load Age of Empires, there was an error in one of the floppy disks, so I couldn't load it. And Age of Kings didn't work, either. By that point, I was playing a PC horse racing game that kept my interest, so I pretty much felt "Oh, well." about the loss of AOE.
Age of Empires III, dealing with the colonial era of America, came out in 2005 and it worked on modern computers. I played that somewhat, but the graphics were clunky (my computer was meant for text and data) and it didn't have as satisfying a feel as the first two versions.
Jump to 2018. I was getting my gaming and horse racing itch scratched by playing an online horse racing game for over a decade. I happened to get an email about an upgraded version of a horse racing PC game I used to play. It said it could only be purchased through something called Steam.com. So, I went there and, oh my, what an incredible discovery that was. On a whim, and with fond memories, I searched for Age of Empires and -- gollygeewow! What a goldmine! They had all the games upgraded to modern computers and one could just download them, and they even cost less than they had when they were originally produced. Plus, even the original game had been upgraded with modern graphics and improvements, and yet one could play in the original mode. Plus, there were add-ons and more civilizations for Age of Kings.
Discovering that site was a great day. I've played Age of Empires and Age of Kings many, many times since, and they continue to provide endless hours of enjoyment, and they continue to be improved. I also got Age of Empires III, but that still doesn't feel like the other two. I recently read that the latter has a completely different player base than the first two, and that Age of Empires IV, currently in development, will revert back to the medieval age that was beloved by players in the ever popular Age of Kings.
It is so amazing when things are just... amazing. The Age of Empire series is one of those things for me that is just plain fun. No matter what else is going on in life, it's a completely absorbing escape to another world for an hour or two or three. With 35 different civilizations in Age of Kings, each with their own particular strengths and weaknesses, and various levels of difficulty, and the ability to play against one AI rival or as many as seven, random games continue to provide endless fun for me. And so does the original AOE. Yet, just this past week, I decided to give the pre-programmed historical "campaigns" series, which direct the player to accomplish certain things, a try. Always something new for a game series that's been around for over 20 years. And they're still creating more!
Here's to Age of Empires, and the incredible degree of enjoyment it continues to provide.