A Video Game I Play

For this introduction blog, I want to write about my favorite game: Age of Empires 2 (AOE2). The game has been around since 1999 in various forms, but I first discovered it in 2022 when my brother recommended it as the next game we should play with my friend. AOE2 is a real time strategy game (RTS), that I would describe as a cross between Sid Meier’s Civilization games and Company of Heroes.

There are many single player campaigns where you can play as a historical civilization, like as the Saracens during the Crusades. But the campaigns aren’t what I like the game for. It is primarily the vibrant community and multiplayer. In a typical multiplayer game, each player tries to gather resources to advance their civilization and muster a more powerful military to conquer their opponents through destroying their buildings and killing their people. Each civilization has access to some technologies or bonuses that another civilization might not have and this keeps each civilization playable and unique while keeping it balanced.

While the graphics and gameplay haven’t changed much in the last 2 decades, the player base has remained active the entire time, while many other live service games have died. I attribute this to its deep gameplay, dedicated community, and continuous developer support. There’s regular content updates and patches to keep the game interesting, and no pay to win microtransactions that have plagued many other multiplayer games.

Here’s a video about the game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRNQb0Z7Z3Q

If you made it this far, post “broccoli” in the comments.