Age of Empires started out as a bane to me because one of my friends was always playing it when I called him. I could hear it over the phone, and kept asking him what channel he was watching. At last, I got a copy for myself and found out why he was in the game all the time.

This game is great! It is kind of similar to Civilization, but the strategy comes into play much more. You start at various levels of advancement (Stone Age, Tool Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age) and as you build more advanced structures (Stables, Marketplaces, Granary, etc) you gain the ability to create more buildings and units. In order to gain these advances, you have to grow peasants to mine stone and gold, hunt and gather food, or chop wood. These are the basics of creating everything in the game.

There are several ways to win the game. You can gather all the artifacts into your control, have control of all the ruins, be the first to build and KEEP a wonder for 2000 years, have the highest score (points) or just kill off all the other players!

This game also has several series of campaigns with certain goals for each "game" in the scenario. These are extremely difficult to complete because in most of them, the opponent players start at a higher Age than you do.

Overall, this game is one of the finest examples of advancing the human race through time. The only other game I have seen to date that is better is the second version of the game, Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings. This series of games is a must have for any serious real-time strategy gamer.