Age of Empires
Age of Empires is a series of historical real-time strategy video games, originally developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft Studios. The first title of the series was "Age of Empires", released in 1997. Seven titles and three spin-offs have been released.
Empires: Dawn of the Modern World
Stainless Steel Studios started work on "Empires" in 2002. The project was led by company head Rick Goodman, designer of Ensemble Studios' "Age of Empires" and Stainless Steel's earlier "Empire Earth". The "Empires" team began by studying their previous game for features that could be reused or improved. In addition, they mined history books for interesting "events, battle tactics, weapons, technologies and economic factors", according to Goodman. A list was drafted of 100 historical elements that excited the team, and it formed the basis of the project. Although a heavy focus was placed on historical accuracy, designer Richard Bishop explained that "fun always comes first." As it had with "Empire Earth", Stainless Steel delegated separate teams to the multiplayer and single-player modes of "Empires".