The first real thing for me to remember this game well, was the time I saw the Demo-version mission with the Priest only mission (same like the 1st Babylon mission). I played it with a friend of mine when we were like 9-10 years old. It was very satisfying to outplay the demo-version, this feeling of competence, competition and completion. 
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I remember getting AoE RoR as a trial when I was 9, sank about 3 months into it til I got to the point of being able to picture the entire map of the Rome vs Carthage campaign in detail at any given time. then I finally got the full game, followed by AoK, AoC, AoM, AoT, AoE3, AoEO and even had a hand in Castle Siege for nearly a year after launch. Got the full catalogue on Steam and still play when able to this day. 18 years later and I can safely say that I would have only sunk more hours into school than this franchise. Maybe⊠Canât wait for my sons to get a few years older to be able to introduce them to the games as well.
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@SirenianDrake11 said:
I got this game when it launched when my dad bought a new Gateway computer that came with an assortment of games including The Neverhood which was a claymation puzzle game, Close Combat: A Bridge Too Far, Monster Truck Madness, and, of course, Age of Empires! I grew up on this, Rise of Rome, AoK, AoC, and AoM. I played countless hours, stayed up til 7am all the time during the summer, made a friend of 20 years from California who I actually had build me my first computer and send it to me in Minnesota.I also met Roy âRoysterâ Rabey, the IT guy for Ensemble Studios, online in a ranked match. We became friends and he sent me an AoK t-shirt and a â Music from the Agesâ cd signed by him, Sandyman, and the Rippy brothers. For such a young age, that was an amazing experience for me.
Age games have since been one of my top 3 games to ever play, including Diablo 2 and WoW. No other games compare to the amount of time I put ino these games.
My first experience with AoE, though, was pretty funny. I played for who knows how many hours vs the computer in Random Match. Every game I would get out-teched as I had club men and the comp would come crashing in with axemen and archers. I would get slaughtered. The next game, Iâd have a ton of club men and hold off a few waves and theyâd eventually come in with cavalry and better archers. Slaughtered again. It took many games and many hours before my child brain realized I could advance to the next age to access the better units. That was such a revelation for me and from that point on, I was hooked. I still play AoM and AoC on occasion to this day. I also listen to my Music from the Agesâ cd all the time. It is my go-to soothing, relaxing, nostalgia-filled music along with 90S Pop And Alt Rock.
THIS!!!
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A friend of mine in New Zealand had the game and showed it to meâit was the first time I had seen an RTS, let alone a strategy computer game (I remember learning to right click to move units being the most difficult thing for me to get used to). I was wowed by the graphics and the way the fog unrolled, with maps full of those giant discovery icons and enemy units (lions, etc) alike. I played the campaigns after getting my own copy, and lost most missions, but eventually I won the first Babylonian mission, and I was hooked! Many years later, after playing all the other Age of games released through Age of Empires Online, I returned to Age of Empires Heaven (Heavengames), and downloaded Andrea Rosaâs single-player Age of Empires campaigns, which I played fullyâthey were great. Really reinvigorated my love of the game.
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I was 3 years old, I visited my relatives, and my distant one had AoE 1 on his PC. So me and my dad sat there, oddly enough I remember visually sending the villagers to their death to hunt some elephants, but then the red colored enemies attacked. If Iâm not mistaken, it was the Greek Mission 1.
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This was literally my first game ever, i was 5 years old and i used to play it on my parents computer, i remember even back then they were yelling at me because i spent too much time playing it, and here i am 15 years later, praying to play that same good old game, haha.
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Usually I donât look back for good memories but I canât forget the moments of joy and excitement playing AoE II and discussing its tactics with my friends gave me in early 2000âs. My greatest thanks to the Ensemble devs and artists.
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When I was really young, my grandpa would watch my sister and I once in a while. He would play AoE, DOS games, and a few other older games with us. That is pretty much where my gaming started. 
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My first desktop PC came with an OEM CD of Windows 98. One day I browsed it and found the games folder with the AoE trial. I installed it and immediatly âfell in loveâ with the game, bought all editions including the expansions until AoE II. AoE III only one expansion but rarely played it, (got AoM through MS Beta, though would have never bought it).
Two years ago I found AoE II HD on Steam and bought it but it didnât really thrill because, well, I donât really know, and now I have a Surface Book and am keen to play AoE on a high res screen
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I was six when I saw my brother playing it. And I was immediately captured. It is probably the first game I played and has driven me so far.
Now AoE II HD is the game Iâm currently playing more on steam
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Played it as a child from a demo disc at first, then bought AoE2 and forgot about 1, then 3, and then bought the Collectorâs Edition - I was buying it for AoE2, but saw that it included AoE1 tooâŠso I decided to try the full game :). The rest is history.
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When me and my neighbour friends were like 10 years old. We opened scenario mode in AoE1 and created our own armies by colour. So we pretty much kept spawning all kinds of armies in different colours. Then we started to let it run so we had this massive battle between different armies and we were really curious about which army was going to win. We had spent days doing this.
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@JarringTooth663 said:
Wonder if you guys want to share some stories/ memories you have of back in the day.For me, age of empires was the first game I ever played, when I was only a few years old. My dad had the old age of empires collectors edition box, with aoe1 and aoe2 in it. He thought me how to play the games as I remember. That is why they will always be special to me.
We share similar stories. My dad also got me into Age of Empires when I was very young, like maybe 7 or 8. I remember I called it the red game because at the time there were I believe only red and blue guys. From that point on I became a life long fan, still playing to this day on Voobly.
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1st time I remember was way back in 1999, was only 5 years old and my dad showed me the game. After he saw how interested I was watching him he bought a 2nd pc just so we could play LAN together.
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My mother was very anti-violence when it came to video games. I knew the game from seeing my elder cousins play it. So i pestered my parents for over a year until my aunt finally gave it for my birthday. It was my first non-child oriënted game and it has polluted my fragile little child brain with RTS-beauty ever since. So when I saw the new trailer it took me back to that first time.
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Played the trial version to death. I was so excited when I got the full game. Had to pay extra for the Rise of Rome expansion of course. So many hours of fun. I remember setting up some weird serial connection with another computer to play against my brother before we had a home network, we both had defensive strategies so the games would last 3+ hours each! Then finally got internet and went online only to get completely slaughtered by everyone playing âlegion warsâ and building hundreds of barracks to get around population limits. Figured it out in the end though.
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Found the game under the Christmas tree for my 7th birthday, a magical moment that started my passion for gaming.
I remember playing over and over the Egyptian learning campaign because I loved the aesthetics of some of the scenarios, and trying to expand my base without cutting too many trees because they were such a nice eye-candy.
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1999 playing Age I demo installed on the classroom computers before school started, grade 5, what got me out of bed in the morning, and motivated me to attend school. From this, asked mum to buy me AoK for Christmas the year it came out, bought every title release since.
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I used to play a lot of RM in the beginning until I discovered DM. Later RM with cheats again (I was twelve) Also the campaigns
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For me it was when I was a young kid, getting dragged along by my parents when they visited one of my cousins (my cousins being closer to my parents age than to mine) and my cousinâs husband offered to try and counter my childish boredom at the adult conversations by letting me play on a couple of his PC games. He showed me the original Age of Empires and I was hooked right away, suddenly I looked forward to those previously boring visits as I got to play Age of Empires. Then when I was older and was given my first PC of my own, the first game my parents ever bought me as a birthday present was Age of Empires 2 as they remembered me loving playing the original, and I was hooked all over again 
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