I struggled with Return Of Rome at first. It took me a while just to figure out that my armoury upgrades come from the Storage Pit, while economic upgrades come from the Market. Then I didn’t understand what units were best to use. Some things are quite different, such as the very long range of siege units. I haven’t owned RoR for long and I recently went back to get the Ur Out Of Here achievement, and I beat the mission much faster. I have improved my skill at RoR and now I can win much more easily.
I bought RoR with a Microsoft rewards voucher worth $25 NZD but now I see RoR is half price in the Xbox store. Totally worth it I reckon, ya it’s not AoE 1997 but I still like it. The game comes pretty close to AoE 1997 and you even heal catapults with priests 
uh, anyway, since it’s Christmas I got some money and now I’ve bought Chronicles and Victors & Vanquished. Congratulations to the guy who made those scenarios and got them published by Microsoft. I know Steam reviewers love to whine about V&V, but as an Xbox user I can’t get Steam workshop mods, so I’m happy to throw money at it, so long as the game gets continued support on Xbox.
My next AoE plan is to get more Microsoft rewards points so I can get 1 month of Gamepass Core and play AoE ii online (if anyone plays it… else I’ll just leave a Looking For Group message on Xbox to let people know I’m keen). Eventually I’ll get a more powerful system with more disk space, and I’ll get AoE IV and actually get the license rather than play on Gamepass. It’ll be great when they finally bring out more single player campaigns. I can’t justify buying IV if it’s just an e-sports game with a short campaign that I already beat twice.
A few years ago I easily could have taken the Playstation route, but I bought a second-hand Xbox One because I was poor. Then I was poor again and all I could upgrade to was the Series S lol, but it has paid off because of Age Of Empires 