izigame.me

I got into it because I wanted it to train me on how to multitask, react under pressure and be solution orientated instead of defeatist. After 200 hours, can I say that the game has helped me improve? Well maybe I've made about 1% of the progress I had in mind, but the answer is yes, and I can tell you the game provides a platform where you can put more than just those qualities to the test.
I've never played an RTS before and there are points where I find the game almost uncomfortable to play when my little brain wants to rest and to stop thinking about what needs to be done in each moment. Idling is a deadly sin in Age of Empires and every resolution is followed immediately by another decision tugging at your shirt. As a newcomer watching experienced players, they almost seem superhuman - able to simultaneously defend and grow their economy, thoughtfully tuning their resource income while attacking elsewhere on the map, scouting, building, collecting relics, researching technologies and no doubt formulating new plans. I've never felt this sort of ravenous mental demand from a game before and I find it really exciting. Games with more than 2 players can even challenge you with elements of real diplomacy and you can find yourself in the midst of all kinds of funny and tooth-grinding betrayals.
Easy to learn, hard to master has probably never been more true. They make the fundamentals as plain and uncomplicated as you can imagine: select unit with left click, then send him to work with right click. Boundless confidence. And then you squint your eyes, gleefully studying the path of progression until you realise it. Not a learning curve, but a learning cliff. Step online and you can look forward to being chewed up and spat out down the precipice again and again by a loyal and grizzled player base and your rating will be in free fall until you land in with the chumps like me.
While you might envision yourself playing like a coordinated, well-oiled machine, all kinds of different unknowns work against you to grate at your confidence and distract; build orders, costs, training/research times, unit counters, tech trees and even your own custom hotkeys all take time to internalise. Patience, self forgiveness and humility are needed.
When you get sick of getting your arse whooped online, you can find respite and a lot of satisfaction playing against the AI in campaigns where you can control historical figures and their armies. You can play as history's actual real life Dracula defending his kingdom against the Ottomans, Joan of Arc against the English, Montezuma against the Spanish, Genghis Khan against.. well.. everyone. You spank Rome as the Goths, aid in the second crusade as the Germans and, after you've done that, you can undo all of your hard work and kick the Europeans out of Jerusalem as the Arabs.
The game doesn't aim for 100% historical accuracy, so take its narratives with a pinch of salt, but having some imperfect, patchwork ideas of the past beats being completely oblivious in my book. The game will help you to form those ideas if you're interested.
The civilisations are distinct and have unique advantages and mechanics which usually have fun historical or cultural bases. It's a really special game. It's almost like a celebration of different peoples and their achievements and history. Not in some tired, politically correct, virtue signalling, ego stroking sense but in a meaningful sense. Even with its updated MS DOS graphics and theatrical voice acting, it manages to quite profoundly speak to some of the cruel realities of conquest that 6 out of the 7 continents are bitterly intimate with. The test of viability that every nation must consistently pass in order to endure. The desperation and struggle and the threat of extermination and subjugation of your family and people, unless you fight bloody tooth and nail down to the very last scraps of resources just to keep the predators that lurk in the fog from your throat. Your people survived those predators. They passed the test. Or perhaps you think they failed because they lost wars and land and died while bravely fighting. Regardless, I think there's dignity in it and it inspires such love for all of you that I can't even start to describe it or explain why.
Anyway, the game turns 25 years old today. Come join us in appreciating this timeless gem.