It’s just that the initial city layout screen you see is more like a management screen or graphical menu. Don’t worry, the core mechanics hasn’t changed at all. If you’re coming to the game having played AoE before, you may be a little confused once you enter the game. Once downloaded, there’s also going to be numerous patches to apply, so be prepared to wait just a little while longer! The download failed twice for me with random network errors, but luckily it resumed nicely when I relaunched the installer. Run the installer to let it download - it took me quite some time despite only being about 50MB. I think the slowness is due to its popularity at the time of writing. It’s Windows only and installs using the Games For Windows Live interface (which will also be added to your system - no doubt this is also a nice attempt by Microsoft to make people aware of their games distribution platform). Head over to Age Of Empires Online to download the installer. Suffice to say, Age of Empire: Online is the latest iteration in the series, and in a dramatic departure and possibility indicative of the future of gaming as a whole, follows a free-to-play model with premium upgrades and expansions.

It also established Ensemble Studios, though they never amounted to much beyond the Age of Empires series. The game itself was standard fare strategy / empire building but at the time it was quite innovative, helping to push forward the genre and shocking many of us with the fact that something good in gaming came out of Microsoft. True gamers among us will likely have fond memories of the original Age of Empires game released by Microsoft Studios back in 1997, and it was a regular at many of my own LAN parties.

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