Age of Empires is a real-time strategy game for Windows PCs. Players build an ancient civilization from a few villagers into an army able to defeat rival empires. The current edition, Age of Empires: Definitive Edition, is a remaster of the original game from World’s Edge and Xbox Game Studios. It is a paid game, sold on Steam and the Microsoft Store, and it is also part of PC Game Pass.
The Definitive Edition contains the original game and its Rise of Rome expansion. Together they cover 16 civilizations, among them the Greeks, Persians, Carthaginians and Palmyrans. They span history from the Stone Age to the Roman Empire.
Growing a civilization through the ages
A match starts with a Town Center and a handful of villagers. Villagers gather food, wood, stone and gold, construct buildings and farm. Those resources pay for new units, buildings and technologies, and for advancing to the next age. Each age opens new options: walls, for instance, become available at the granary once a player reaches the Tool Age.
Civilizations differ through bonuses and through access to particular units and technologies. Carthaginians start with an extra 50 of each resource, and the Greeks can build the Fire Galley. An in-game tech tree shows which units and upgrades a civilization can get, so players can plan an advance without leaving the match.
Campaigns and the scenario editor
Age of Empires: Definitive Edition includes 10 campaigns built from the original game and Rise of Rome. Each mission has new narration recorded for this edition.
The campaign and scenario editor lets players build their own maps, missions and full campaigns. Players can share custom campaigns with others through the Age of Empires website. The same site has a mod browser where players subscribe to community mods, manage their own uploads and submit new ones.
Controls added to the original design
The remaster keeps the original game’s pace but adds controls that the original version lacked. Most of them reduce the amount of clicking needed to run an economy and an army at once.
- Production queues: repeated clicks on a unit portrait queue units, and Shift-click queues five at a time. Selecting several buildings of the same type with Ctrl spreads the queue evenly between them. Buildings can also queue different units and technologies together.
- Global queue: a single panel lists every unit and technology currently in production across the empire.
- Rally points: right-clicking the ground with a production building selected sends new units to that spot. With the Town Center selected, right-clicking a resource sends each new villager straight to work on it.
- Farming: villagers can reseed an exhausted farm with a right-click, and the granary offers automatic reseeding. Farms no longer block movement, although a legacy setting restores solid farms.
- Army control: attack-move sends troops to a point while they engage enemies on the way. Units take stances such as Aggressive, Defensive, Stand Ground and No Attack, and hotkeys find idle villagers and idle military units.
The camera zooms with the mouse wheel, scrolls by right-click dragging, and jumps between recent map events with a key press. Players can change font and interface panel sizes in the settings.
Remastered graphics and sound
All art assets in Age of Empires: Definitive Edition were rebuilt for resolutions up to 4K, and the minimap was improved. The soundtrack was re-recorded with a new orchestral score, and hundreds of sound effects were rebuilt or added. A classic mode recreates the look and feel of the original release for players who prefer it.
Skirmish, multiplayer and ranked play
Outside the campaigns, players set up matches against computer opponents or other people. The game creation lobby controls options such as the population cap. This can go up to 250 per player compared with the original limit of 50. The computer AI uses several strategies and plays more aggressively in Deathmatch games.
Online multiplayer runs through Xbox Live. Ranked play has separate Elo ladders for Random Map and Deathmatch, each split into 1v1 and team ladders. Quickmatch finds games from 1v1 up to 4v4. Lobby options include a Mirror Civilization setting that lets a player pick the same civilization as an opponent. Chat shortcuts address allies, enemies or all players.
Spectators can follow a match and switch between player views to see each side’s resources and production queue. The official website keeps leaderboards and personal statistics for Age of Empires players. The game also supports Xbox achievements.
