Age of Empires
"Age of Empires", released on October 26, 1997, was the first game in the series, as well as the first major release from Ensemble Studios. It was one of the first history-based real-time strategy games made, utilizing the Genie game engine. GameSpot described it as a mix of "Civilization" and "". The game gives players a choice of 12 civilizations to develop from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. The expansion pack, "The Rise of Rome", published by Microsoft on October 31, 1998, introduced new features and four new civilizations, including the Romans. Although the two games had contained many software bugs, patches resolved many of the problems.
Age of Empires II
The team was less successful in resolving other issues; programmer Matt Pritchard complained following the release of "Age of Empires" that there was still no process by which patches could be issued. Extensive cheating in multiplayer games of "Age of Empires" came as a result of several bugs in the game, which resulted in Microsoft promising Ensemble Studios there would be a patch process for "The Age of Kings". On release, there were several bugs that needed immediate attention, but the patch process was not yet ready. The first patch was released 11 months later.