AOE2 is the game that has withstood the test of time.

Age of empires II is one of my first experiences as a child playing games. I used to play it on a computer in the back of my mother's pharmacy. A friend of mine was a huge fan, but I truly sucked at it.

Later I bought Lord of the Rings: the Battle for Middle Earth II, and to this date this is the only RTS that I actually enjoy playing a lot (I later also played the first one which is also amazing).

Still, I played Age of Empires II a lot, mostly the tutorial levels and the early missions of Jeanne d'Arc. I think the micromanaging and constantly having to do multiple things at once (like constantly making new units, etc.) were to much for me (and it still is). Still, a classic in gaming history and a part of my childhood!

BIGDADDY

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e=mctrooper

Definitely one of my favorite series as a kid! I used to play it more as a city builder to be honest. AOE3 is still gorgeous, and apparently a Age of Mythology remake is about to come out

I played the 3 CD OG Age of Empires III with my brothers as a kid. It was great. We rigged up Hamachi to create a private network and manually edited some AoE config files with our Hamachi IP addresses to be able to have LAN coop sessions. Half the session was getting everything installed and working.

Now it’s even easier and we play regularly, decades later.

Got eaten by lions the first time playing it.

10/10, still loved it.

Loved AoE II. I still play it on occasion, and I grew up playing it with cheat codes (there's some silly ones). I think it still holds up well to this day, even with my nostalgia glasses off.

If you've never played it, my only caveat would be to expect the AI to not compare to modern iterations. "Balance" in campaign missions sometimes comes in the form of giving the AI an unfair advantage, but everything can be overcome, and you can always save-scum your way to victory. It's fun, and I definitely recommend a play if you are into retro gaming or RTS's.

Recently got into playing AoE 2 with some friends and had a good time with it. I didn’t grow up playing it but a couple of those friends did and boy were they good at it. I think I would enjoy it more if I didnt have to constantly micromanage all of my units, as that seems to be where their experience would beat out mine as a newbie. Still had some fun game nights with it though despite getting trampled when we do a pure pvp match

We got AoE 1 on the computer as a demo when I was a kid. Think the CD came in a cereal box or something. Played through the same beginner campaign a bunch of times. Was fun.

AoE2 changed the game though. Absolutely amazing. The controls felt so much more fluid and the campaigns were so much fun to play though and see the story. We managed to network all the family computers and would have big family multiplayer battles against the computer (dad carried us kids though).

My brother loved Mythology and while it looked pretty I never really got into it. Something about it felt slower paced and kinda hand-holdy.

AoE3 was just weird. You had a home base that persisted through games, how is that fair? And playing cards were involved somehow? The ragdoll physics was cool though.

AoE4 is okay I guess. I participated in the beta program because I was so excited for them to produce something that might surpass AoE2 but... Naah. It just doesn't have the right feel to it. Very pretty though. They keep coming out with new content but until it feels right (something about the way the window scrolls and zooms) I just cant enjoy it.

i remember getting age of empires ii at compusa in rhode island while i was in university and playing multiplayer with the rest of my roommates all the time. it was the best.

i already remember not being very good at conquest but loving the design aspects and being so sad when i got raided.

What was Gold Edition all about?

My first experience was with a demo of the first game, it came with 3 maps, the only one that I remember by name being the Battle of Kadesh, despite the 2nd map being the one that I played to absolute exhaustion (it was the map with base building, but no gold), since it was very easy to beat the first computer enemy.

Once I got a 🏴‍☠️ copy of AoE2 (2002-ish?), brother, I spent more time on the map editor than anything else for the first couple of weeks. I loved the huge map size but hated the paltry 200 unit limit. My older brother definitely spent more time playing than I did during that period.

As much as I played, I was always kinda bad at it, mostly because I'm more of a turtle player and always got pissed at how medium AI enemies would always build 4 separate town centers with at least one being very close to my starting area. Yet I would still play and, more importantly, I always loved the numbers and graphics at the end of a game.

Frankly, I think AoE2 really stood the test of time. For a game originally released in 2000 to remain not only relevant but also enjoyable without any official updates or patches for over 15 years (the remaster was announced in 2017) is a noteworthy feat.