AoE 2 in likely the most engaging strategy game I've ever played. I got rather involved in it in college, but was surprised that there were certain "basic strategies" that one had to follow to hope to even survive (e.g. getting to castle age within a certain time for a certain civilization). With the voobly client, its possible to challenge aoe players across the world for a game, and its kinda awesome to cooperate and deal with the mess that comes from playing an RTS game at that level.
Probably true for most strategy games, but aoe seems light enough (requirements wise) and has a great enough balance (and the fact that the game is almost freely available worldwide) enables anyone with a computer with a decent internet connection to play.
> I got rather involved in it in college, but was surprised that there were certain "basic strategies" that one had to follow to hope to even survive (e.g. getting to castle age within a certain time for a certain civilization).
This is always going to be true for a strategy game. Heck it's probably true in general for any competitive game that that there are certain things that you just have to do.
The more competitive the game is, the more obvious this is (which is why you see more people complaining about this kind of thing for Starcraft than AoE), but it's still always present, lurking in the background.
That same realization made me feel very naive, especially since I'd grown up in the competitive Quake LAN scene.
My house mate and I would play AoE2 vs the AI as a change of pace. We'd done this enough to get a basic understanding of the game and I would have considered us "pretty good" at the game. I recall the moment when I stumbled onto MrFixitOnline and learned about the concept of Villager Seconds and just how important it was to get that 2nd boar in the very early game.
I have a vivid memory of yelling across the hallway to my buddy, "I just found out that we're terrible at this game and no nothing at all".
Probably true for most strategy games, but aoe seems light enough (requirements wise) and has a great enough balance (and the fact that the game is almost freely available worldwide) enables anyone with a computer with a decent internet connection to play.