Age of Empires takes your through 10,000 years of historical accurate events and non-stop real-time war strategy, with randomly generated maps, death matches, campaigns, and custom made maps created with the built-in scenario editor, and impossibly smart AI's that will crush you when you least expect it. Not only is it fun to play, but the great music and beautiful graphics will take your breath away.

Age of Empires presents you with an opportunity to shape history. As you immerse yourself in Age of Empires, you sink into an historically accurate world of eat or be eaten. You'll get to see how good your survival, resource management and commanding skills really are as you take part in the rise of civilizations in the Age of Empires. You begin by choosing from among 12 real ancient civilizations, and your choice of civilization is tied to the type of technology which will become available to you. The architecture you build, the armies you amass, will all reflect your culture. As in world history, the differences between the tribes and their technologies become more apparent at key moments in history (such as the dawning of the Bronze Age).

Starting Off

When you initially start a game you are usually given a few villagers with a town center. From this you have got to quickly get your empire set up ready for attack by the enemy. I usually produce about four men gathering food (until farms can be created), and four or five men chopping wood. You need to quickly create a barracks then 10 or so clubmen, to defend you from the usual early attacks, then start to create more villagers to find food until you can advance to the tool age and build farms and get other military units. If your wood/food sources are far away in the initial stages then build a Storage Pit right next to the source. The investement in wood pays off in a few minutes as your villagers have almost no distance to travel and can spend more time gathering.

Resources

Managing your resources is a large part of the game and to do it well is part of the way to becoming a good player. There are 2 resources that are essential at the begining of the game. These are wood and food. In most games there will be a healthy supply of wood but usually enough food(in the form of berry bushes) to advance to the tool age and get you the ability to build farms. The problem is gathering the resources in the correct ratio so that you do not run out or have a huge stock pile of them. I think that an equal ratio of wood and food collectors/makers is fine and as the game continues increase the food collectors in a 2 for every 1 wood chopper ratio. About 2 men on stone and 2 on gold is fine if you have a nearby Storage Pit. Storage Pits are essential in resource collection. Build them near places where your men are collecting wood,stone and gold to reduce travelling time. For food build granarys.

Under Siege

The best way to keep yourself from an enemy siege is to start building your defences early on. To start with once you have settled and created a few archers then you can build a wall around your base. If your stone resources are low then build it only on the side from which you know your enemy will come. (They should have attacked by now). Watchtowers are also essential. Once your defence is established as you advance so will your walls. Another way of annoying your enemy: Once you have your town set up and running and the food and wood is coming in at a steady rate get a group of about four villagers and send them to an unused corner of the map (watch for lions & crocks). Once there you can start to build up a second town that is totally independant and no where near the other. This is a skill that needs to be practiced as controlling 2 towns sucessfully is difficult but when you pull off the stunt.

Going To Siege

The best way to quickly destroy an enemy base is using Siege engines. Catapults are best for destroying buildings and ballista are the ultimate unit killers. The main problems with the siege engines is their slow speed and their weakness. I find that backing them up with a host (20 or so) of archers (Composite Bowmen if you have them!!!) works best. If you go on a siege with hand to hand units you may find that they get taken out by your own catapults!! When you reach the enemy base your priority is to destroy any units that are there. Use your archers and heleopoli but protect your catapults. Once the enemy units are taken out you then want to remove the buildings that produce units. Once you have reached this stage your opponents pretty buggered. Proceed to trounce the rest of his base and defeat him. Don't forget your other opponents while this is all going on though. It's best to have a sizeable defence force back at home just in case, you might get back home from a succesful siege only to find your town in ruins!

General Tactics

There is a 50 unit limit in Age of Empires. Create units wisely. Get to know the better ones and try to create them rather than bad ones. If you have reached the limit and need to build more, destroy unused units with the "delete" button. There is a flaw in the game that means you can build over 50 units: Once you have reached the limit where you need to build more houses then kill a unit and start to build a unit that takes a long time to create. Whilst that is being made you can create as many other units as possible. This is because the game does not count units until they are complete.

Learn the hotkeys for building and creating units. This saves time and will give you the speed advantage.

You can chase or lead all wild animals back to your town so that there is less time spent travelling and more time spent collecting the food.

When you start the game try to build farms and then start to upgrade them. It means the farms last longer (you dont have to keep going back and building them) and you get more food.

You may be compelled to try to get as far as you can on the technology side of things but try to get in a situation where you have a balance of units and you are advancing your technology. When I originally started playing I tried to advance as quickly as possible but when I was attacked I realised I had no where near enough units to defend myself.

Use up excess resources on units, defence, anything. Do not stockpile resources. In the words of some famous person or other: A man who dies with many toys, still dies.

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