The first game in the popular Age of Empires series. You command one of 12 historical empires and help them develop their economy, food supply, technology, and military. Naturally, conquest is the ultimate goal. Players start with an empire that is in one of four "ages" – the Stone Age, Tool Age, Bronze Age, or Iron Age – which means that only certain technologies are available. The player can bring his civilization into the next age to make better weapons, armor, and ships available. Creating units requires varying amounts of four resources, so players must chop down trees for wood, forage, fish, hunt, or farm for food, and mine for gold and stone. Historical information is provided before and after every level, making the game educational as well addictively fun. It may be necessary to run the installer in Windows 95 Compatibility mode, and to run as Administrator, to install and play this game on modern computers. In 1998, an expansion pack called The Rise of Rome was released, which adds four additional civilizations and a number of improvements. w7ddpatcher may be necessary to correct the colors on modern versions of Windows. The shareware version is limited to two campaigns: one with a single scenario pitting the Egyptians against the Greeks, and one with five scenarios, following the Hittite empire.

Graphics

Downloads

Greek style	Egyptian style	Babylonian style	Asian style	Roman style
Greeks Minoans Phoenicians	Egyptians Assyrians Sumerians	Babylonians Persians Hittites	Shang Choson Yamato	Romans Palmyrans Macedonians Carthaginians

Age of Empires English Shareware Demo (24,785,176 bytes)	3 October 1997	Win9x
Age of Empires Japanese Shareware Demo (25,019,344 bytes)	19 December 1997	Win9x

Help running Win9x games

Availability

Copyright holder Microsoft no longer sells this game.

It can be purchased from Amazon:

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Age of Empires
Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome Expansion
Age of Empires: Gold Edition
Age of Empires: Gold Edition (Jewel Case)
Age of Empires: Collector's Edition
Ubisoft Exclusive Age of Empires Collector's Edition
Super Strategy 4-Pack