Age of Empires

aka: Age of Empires 1, Age of Empires: An Epic Game of Empire-Building and Conquest, Age of Empires: Bâtissez votre civilization., Age of Empires: Ein Spiel über große Zivilsationen und Eroberungen, Age of Empires: Un juego épico para crear y conquistar imperios, AoE, Dawn of Man, Diguo Shidai, Microsoft Age of Empires, Tribe
Moby ID: 384
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

In Age of Empires, players are able to manage a tribe with their mouse. Command them to build houses, docks, farms, and temples. The player advances their civilization through time by learning new skills. The game allows the player to advance through the Ages: The Paleolithic (old Stone Age), the Neolithic (new Stone Age, or the Tool Age), the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. If the player would rather get away from the historical aspect, the game offers a random terrain generator and a custom scenario builder.

The game has four resources: food, obtained by either hunting, foraging, fishing, or farming; wood, which must be logged by hand; stone, which must be mined; and gold, which can either be mined or obtained through trade with other players.

As a real-time war game, Age of Empires naturally revolves around gathering resources and producing units.

Spellings

  • マイクロソフト エイジ オブ エンパイア - Japanese spelling
  • 世紀帝國 - Traditional Chinese spelling
  • 帝国时代 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 82% (based on 40 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 164 ratings with 11 reviews)

This is a GREAT RTS game!

The Good
Nice graphics, good sound, a lot of depth, campaign and scenario editors.

The Bad
Bad path-finding, you can still "tank rush".

The Bottom Line
I don't know how this game got bad ratings here [MobyGames], but they arn't close to accurate. This game is way better the Warcraft2, Red Alert etc. It has great depth, lot's of units and campaigns, and it's just plain fun. Get it, it's a deal at $19 now.

Windows · by MiG Attack (8) · 2000

Old, but still good RTS.

The Good
Age of Empires contains 36 missions divided to 4 campaigns. All of them has good historical description. Moreover, you can play on randomly generated map. You can set numbers of enemies, resources, civilisations (there are 12 civilisations to choose - each of them has different line-up of units and technologies) and more. There are various ways to win - you can destroy all your opponents, capture all artefacts, build a wonder and even more.

Obviously, you can't win without army - you can train axemen, horse archers and hoplites. Additionally, you can construct chariots and catapults. Your army can be upgraded by researching technologies. You should also build towers and walls to protect yourself from enemy's attacks. And believe me, computer player is hard to destroy and likes to attack you frequently.

Naturally, there is multiplayer. Even today you can find somebody to play it using TCP/IP or Internet. Graphically the game looks good, despite being only a 2D game.

The Bad
Unfortunately, controlling your army is difficult. There are no formations, and your soldiers can spread out or lose their way in narrow places.

In AoE also appears frequently very annoying situation - you have to destroy every unit of your enemy to win, so if there's single enemy unit and it's on the other side of map, you have to find it and destroy it. You can spend a lot of time searching of this unit...

Your units lack of proportions - for example, your stables are as big as your catapults, and your little transport ship can carry 5 elephants bigger than ship itself. There are 4 sets of buildings instead for 12 civilisations - Egyptian, Greek, Mesopotamian and Asiatic. So, Phoenicians use Greek tileset, despite the fact that they were unrelated to Greeks in any way, and Sumerians use Egyptian tileset. Moreover, units' appearance doesn't differ in the game, so you can train Greek hoplites when you are playing as Japanese.

Game uses a CD audio music or MIDI music, but watch out - some re-releases don't contain CD audio music, and MIDI music isn't good enough to listen to.

The Bottom Line
If you like RTS games, you should play it - it's one of most influential games in the history, and it's very entertaining, despite few flaws. Just download a patch, disable music and set the highest resolution. You can still download a trial version, which contains 6 missions unavailable in full version.

Windows · by Sir Gofermajster (485) · 2009

A typical Microsoft failure.

The Good
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Get rid of it NOW.

The Bad
What does this game and Windows have in common? Well, aside from it being written for Windows, it has the same crash factor, same speed and same "fun".

The Bottom Line
Well, in general I'd say this is "a piece of ****". But since this IS MobyGames and I can't swear, I'll say that this is "a huge pile of larvae-crawling dung".

Windows · by Tomer Gabel (4539) · 1999

[ View all 11 player reviews ]

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Age of Empires appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Demo version

The demo released is worth getting, even for those owning the full game. It includes a tutorial campaign featuring the Hittites and two maps not present in the full version.

Documentation

Being a RTS, it's surprising the printed manual in the UK release only covers the game basics, but the game includes a large online help file worth hundreds of pages of both game and historical information. Guess it's true that digital information does save trees.

Online servers

The game's online servers (which were hosted on MSN Gaming Zone) were shut down on 19 June 2006 in the wake of MSN Games' shift from "CD-ROM matchmaking service" to casual online games.

Sales

In 1998, Age of Empires has won both the Gold- and Platinum-Awards from the German VUD (Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland - Entertainment Software Association Germany) for selling more then 100,000 units (Gold) and more then 200,000 units (Platinum) in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. As the Gold-Award is not counted into the Platinum-Award, both awards total in between 300,000 and 700,000 units sold.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • March 1998 (Issue #164) – Outstanding Multiplay of the Year
    • June 2001 (Issue #203) – Introduced into the Hall of Fame
  • Game Informer
    • August 2001 (Issue #100) - #81 in the Top 100 Games of All Time poll
  • GameSpy
    • 2001 – #14 Top Game of All Time
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • Issue 12/1999 - #14 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking
  • Interactive Achievement Awards (Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences)
    • 1998 – Computer Strategy Game of the Year – Won
    • 1998 – Interactive Title of the Year – Nominated
  • PC Gamer
  • April 2000 issue - #21 in the Readers All-Time Top 50 Games poll

  • Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland (Entertainment Software Association Germany)

    • 1998 - Gold Award for selling more then 100,000 units in Germany, Austria and Switzerland
    • 1998 - Platin Award for selling more then 300,000 units in Germany, Austria and Switzerland

Information also contributed by Luis Silva, Maw, PCGamer77 and Xoleras

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Related Games

Age of Empires: Collector's Edition
Released 2000 on Windows
Age of Empires (Demo Version)
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Age of Empires: Anthology Bundle
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Age of Empires: Gold Edition
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Age of Empires II: HD Edition
Released 2013 on Windows
Age of Empires III: Gold Edition
Released 2007 on Windows
Age of Empires: Pocket PC Edition
Released 2003 on Windows Mobile

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  • MobyGames ID: 384
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by MajorDad.

Macintosh added by Jeanne.

Additional contributors: Ummagumma, Andrew Hartnett, Unrealist, Unicorn Lynx, Maw, Havoc Crow, formercontrib, Zeppin, Litude, Paulus18950, Cantillon, Patrick Bregger, Plok, Rik Hideto, Victor Vance, FatherJack.

Game added November 5, 1999. Last modified March 21, 2024.