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)

"Great fun for the RTS fan..."

The Good
This game is addictive as hell. Nice historical premise. Lots of units. Great tech tree system. The net play is really good over Microsoft's MSN Zone. Matching up is easy. Smooth fluid graphics all the way through with detailed units and character animations.

The Bad
The AI should have been worked on longer. I don't know how many times I lost a group of men to a ravenous bunch of trees. Obviously, the pathfinding is horrible. Also, a really didn't like the scale of thing. It gets a little annoying seeing villagers tower over houses. Also, a lot of idiots on the net who host games say that the game has cheats disabled, then you find out they were lying when two minutes into the game you are being attacked by sportscars. Oh, well.

The Bottom Line
One of the better historical RTS games that could have been a classic ( a la its sequel) if the developers had put a little more thought into some things.

Windows · by Unrealist (103) · 2000

Another great conquer the world game.

The Good
This game was very, much a Civilization with improved graphics. I was really, surprised at the time that Microsoft coould put out a game like this. A very, good game with excellent graphics and sound for the time.

The Bad
The peasants were pretty stupid, and path finding for the AI was always a problem.

The Bottom Line
Advance from a stone age tribe to a classical empire, beating the tar out of your neighbors along the way.

Windows · by Jeff Watts (18) · 2001

oh my God... what a disappointment!

The Good
It had nice graphics... the intro was nice, and the little guys running around and getting killed by elephants was cute.

The Bad
Good Lord... I was SOOO disappointed... I bought this in a sale box at the local Electronics Boutique and, having heard already so much about Age of Empires, was practically salivating... and man, did it suck! Sure, it looks cute, but the different civilizations are completely unbalanced, the tech tree is small, limited, and sucky, wonders are complete idiocy (someone builds one, go and nuke it or lose the game), the campaign mode is boring and every game ends the same: you try to survive until you build enough whatever and come over to kill. Sure, the same might hold true for Civ or C&C or Dune 2 or Alpha Centauri... but at least you have fun and options and along the way.

The Bottom Line
Avoid like the plague unless you ADORE this genre and are willing to forgive it's flaws. I've heard Age of Empires 2 was a vast improvement but I never dared to take a look.

Windows · by Gothicgene (66) · 2001

[ 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: Pocket PC Edition
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Age of Empires III: Gold Edition
Released 2007 on Windows

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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.