Age of Empires Online

A few weeks after launch, my initial judgement of Age of Empires Online holds up: This MMO take on real-time strategy is a great fit for casual and moderate RTS players, but can't compete with StarCraft II or Company of Heroes for competitive multiplayer.

The good parts of AOEO are like if you stretched out a traditional RTS single-player campaign over hundreds of hours and mixed it with the multiple progression paths of a traditional MMO like World of Warcraft. How appealing that sounds to you is an excellent indicator of whether or not AOEO is worth your money.

Most of AOEO's hundreds of scenarios fall into the same major categories we've seen in RTS for years. Defend your base, or an ally or two's bases, for a set time. Blow up the enemy base. Rescue these guys from the enemies (which is really "blow up the enemy base but you don't have to burn the whole stupid thing down"). Collect this many resources. A few fall outside the norm -- straight-up tower defense shows up, as do timed escorts and adventure-style missions, but you'll spend the majority of your time engaged in the handful of activities above.

The scenarios are executed reasonably well, for the most part. Quest progressions occasionally get stuck in a rut where you do the same thing a few times in a row, sometimes even on the same terrain, but it's more of an infrequent annoyance than a serious problem. I find myself wishing I could skip missions that involve water on a regular basis, though, since I'm pretty sure the boats in Warcraft II behaved better than AOEO's navies.

Which brings us to the two-sided nature of AOEO's core gameplay: It's like going back in time a decade. I appreciate that; the Age of Empires II/StarCraft era was a golden age of RTS. I adore the Age II-style slower pacing of AOEO as a contrast to the breakneck pace of StarCraft II. I love the simplicity of building up bases, recruiting a gigantic army, and smashing my enemies with it. That basic loop is what made me fall in love with RTS years ago, and it hasn't gotten any less fun. AOEO gives me hundreds of hours of unique (if often similar) scenarios to do that in and gain persistent rewards for doing so, and that's a fine thing.

One thing missing from AOEO that RTS players expect is a skirmish mode. This is where you (and a few friends, perhaps) take on AI-controlled enemies on a symmetrical map. Microsoft has said that it's planning on selling a beefed-up skirmish mode as a $10 content pack later, but for now the PvE game is limited to scenarios where you typically start with much less than a scripted AI player and have to build up enough to take them out. There is also a $10 DLC pack built around defending against scripted waves of enemies. I happen to like that style of RTS mission, but if such asymmetrical campaigns aren't your bag, prepare for disappointment.

Going back to the same often-problematic pathfinding and questionable-at-best AI that we dealt with back in the day can be rough. Outside of the god-awful naval mechanics, though, nothing is bad enough to be a real problem. I rarely found myself getting all that angry at my units for doing stupid things; they are regularly brain-dead, but they are not that hard to keep a leash on once you learn their quirks.

To my surprise, micromanagement skills (giving orders in the heat of battle, splitting groups to deal with different threats, clearing a path for battering rams, etc.) are as important as macro ability (managing your economy and base expansion). I thought that the high unit counts of a typical AOEO match would lead to more "grab everybody, attack-move, and have faith that your economy can reinforce faster than theirs" engagements, but that's not the case at all. Heated battles are as tense and exciting here as they are in any other good RTS.

Next up: Persistence, muddy unit design, and final thoughts

AOEO's unit design is muddy and confusing. Why do I have three infantry types that seem to mainly differ from each other in the type of units they get a minor damage bonus against, and why are their silhouettes so hard to distinguish on the field? Likewise with archers and cavalry -- having multiple units with minor differences serves little purpose. Compare the AOEO spearman (basic infantry, bonus vs. cavalry) and hypaspist (basic infantry, bonus vs. infantry) to StarCraft II's marines and marauders. The marine and marauder serve hugely different tactical purposes, whereas a blob of spearmen is the same grist for the front line as a blob of hypaspists. This problem isn't that big of a deal -- just build whatever infantry, and you'll likely get the job done -- but it's a poor design that goes against the game's otherwise simple, approachable old-school design.

The MMO-like progression systems in AOEO are a decent enough hook to keep you playing, but they're far from interesting enough to drive anyone who doesn't dig the RTS gameplay on some level to keep playing. Collecting resources to craft into equipment for your units and buildings or powerful consumables is a basic metagame that I don't find all that fascinating. I'll spend 15 minutes on it once every few hours of gameplay for the easy new shinies, but I have a hard time believing many crafting-focused MMO players will see it as a destination.

The leveling system, which grants you tech points to specialize your empire with, is more interesting -- but until the endgame it's a slightly fancier way to dribble out new units and buildings than a traditional RTS campaign's pre-set rewards. At level 40, with more than enough points to pick up the basic buildings and units, the choices you have to make between different bonuses should be interesting.

A common complaint against AOEO is that it forces players to grind through dozens of missions to unlock the basic pieces of their empire. That's true, I suppose, but I never felt pressured to "grind" missions that I didn't want to play or that I had already mastered in order to progress. I've always had a quest I was interested in available. I can see a player who doesn't care for the basic gameplay feeling that way (in which case, why are you playing?) or a primarily PvP player being annoyed. Then again, I find the PvP lacking regardless of what unlocks you have, so my PvP side has bigger things to worry about and dozens of better games to play anyway.

I do find it odd that AOEO didn't launch with any of the planned advanced empires that start at level 20 with a bunch of resources already built up. That seems like a reasonable bone to throw the PvP crowd, but Microsoft and Gas Powered Games are waiting for some reason.

Age of Empires Online is a fantastic game for players like me, who go in phases of wanting to play casual real-time strategy for an hour or a month at a time. I wouldn't recommend it to a hardcore competitive player or to anyone bored with traditional RTS mechanics. If you have the occasional RTS itch and/or fond memories of older Age of Empires games, Blizzard's earlier RTS, or Command & Conquer, I'd highly suggest giving it a try. The free-to-play portion is limited, but should be more than enough to tell you whether you dig the gameplay enough to drop $20 to unlock a real empire.