Age of Empires was a series of computer games the first of which was released in 1997. The game series was developed by Ensemble Studies and published by Microsoft Studios. Since the first series release, there have been seven more titles and three spin-offs released.
The first series, Age of Empires, is centered on events from the Stone Age to the Iron Age that occurred specifically Europe, Africa, and Asia. To win, the player must gather enough resources to pay for new units, buildings, and advanced technology. Preservation of resources is also important.
Age of Empires is one of the first history-based-real-time strategy games ever made. At its outset, the game gives players a choice of 12 civilizations to develop from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. Each civilization is unique in the sense that they all have different technologies available and each civilization also has a different set of attributes and available units.
The first series of the game also had an expansion pack, The Rise of Rome, which was released in 1998 and introduced new features and four new civilizations, one of which was the Romans. Many of the software bugs were patched over in the expansion pack.