Age of Empires – The age of legacy

Reviews on this game are mixed yet Age of Empires is a game that has won rave reviews and great accolades. For anyone who would be wanting to explore the history, the cross-cultural relationship of the continents, or within continents, grow culture, economy and a kingdom, defend your own country against the others, then Age of Empires is your sort of game.

Released as early as 1997 by Ensemble studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios, this strategy game caught everyone’s attention and is so much addictive that the game could be played for hours together. Earlier versions involved the European and Asian History across the Stone Age and the Iron Age. Then, the expansion version was about the Roman Empire.

Several games released later on as sequels as that of the Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, The Age of Empires III: Asian Dynasties, The Age of Empires III; Warchiefs and a lot more. Typically, the game involves a variety of activities like building ships, administering and protecting the country from invasions, fishing, felling trees to gather resources, gold mining, hunting down animals to enhance food supply, garnering food from trees and plants etc.

You may also have to save artifacts, kingdoms, your country, your people and laborers, attack the opponents who intrude, defending yourself against other invaders etc. This is a delightful game of being an emperor to your own kingdom and participate in war fields to defend your own kingdom. You can also explore the various resources by enlightening the darker areas as you explore.

You come across new resources, animals, trees, goldmines etc. You can also fight against other countries, invade them and explore and exploit their wealth. Whenever somebody is injured, like a civilian or someone in the military units, a priest can come and heal the ones who are injured.

You have various elephant, horse and camel cavalry. You can also use various catapults to attack the oppositions. The newer versions give you options according to the geography of the place. The Asian Dynasties offers options on food and resources and limits them according to the nature of the country such as India, Japan and China. This presents more of challenges and limitations which a player may have to overcome.

This is a very good game for those who love real-time strategy games and the fictional elements in the games are a delight with the historical replications of plot and backdrop! Age of Empires is for those patient, strategy makers who want to play a shrewd game which is not one of impulse gaming!