Why Age of Empires Games Actually Lack Real Empires
Why Are There No Empires in Age of Empires? (2019)
I argue that games like Age of Empires and Civilization fail to simulate actual empires because they rely on total annihilation rather than resource extraction from distinct populations. Real empires thrive by controlling peripheral peoples, whereas these games force players to destroy rivals entirely, creating a fantasy of murderous nation-states instead of historical imperial mechanics.
There has never been an age without empires. We are certainly not living in an age without empires even now – ask the Tibetans, the Uighyrs, the Chechens how 'ended' imperialism is!
- fylham
For those who aren’t aware, AOE2 is thriving today with a huge player base, fan base, ongoing development and large international tournaments (recent Red Bull Wololo tournament in London, for example). I play this game regularly with friends and love it.
- arjie
Wow, that’s actually really interesting. I knew of other empires in this shape (to me the Kushan empire is the most obvious syncretic example) but I didn’t know they were all shaped this way. I suppose I always imagined empire being a bigger thing than kingdom but this definition seems more useful. It seems that other definitions don’t involve resource extraction necessarily but power over multiple nations. Still, it’s a useful frame.
In practice I suppose this must have been the case because you can’t easily impose monocultures especially when information travels slowly.
That makes me curious if military tactics of the time also had regional variation and if the relative strengths of various regions came from their awareness of certain tools being effective. Bringing in a foreign army with its foreign techniques might have been like bringing small pox to a population- they’d have no defense the first time around so if you’re fast you get them all.
Altogether an enjoyable read. Thanks.
- paxys
I think Rise of Nations (an amazing spiritual successor to the original AoE games) fits their definition of empire a lot better. You create multiple cities in your “empire”. The ones at the core naturally grow larger and prosperous, while peripheral ones generally have specific uses like training a military or mining resources. You can also capture cities from neighboring civilizations.