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.
Empire (PLATO)
The first version, Empire I, was written by John Daleske as project coursework for an education class in the Spring of 1973. Silas Warner helped out by providing Daleske with disk space (known as "lesson space" in the PLATO environment). The first version of the game was a strategic turn-based game for eight players. Each had ships, industry, and budgets. Players had to keep the budget up to build more ships, maintain industry to help pay for it, provide raw materials to turn into goods, and trade. This was likely the earliest example of an online, multi-player, interterminal computer game. Games prior to this were two player or one player against a computer.