Playing Age of Empires 2 on a Windows PC in the 1990s instilled my lifelong love of real-time strategy games

With Microsoft turning 50, I find myself reflecting on how Ensemble Studios' Age of Empires 2 was one of the first video games I ever played.

While I was also given a handful of educationally geared computer programs — think JumpStart Kindergarten and Treasure Mountain! — that I was using from the moment I could remember anything, it was the stories of William Wallace, Joan of Arc, Genghis Khan, and Saladin that formed the basis of the first true game that I was allowed to play.

I still distinctly remember my mom grabbing Age of Empires 2: The Age of Kings from Walmart's game section when I was five years old. Her reasoning at the time was that it was based around history, so it would be good for me to play something fun that could maybe teach me at the same time.

Perhaps understandably, she was less enthused when I wanted to look at the box for Diablo. (Ah well, give it a decade and some change, mom.)

From the moment it finished installing on the old Windows 98 desktop in our house and I started moving a scout around, I was hooked. I didn't even understand a lot of concepts at the time, but one word I quickly grasped was "strategy," and shortly thereafter came "real-time strategy," or RTS.

I was instantly hooked, spending hundreds and hundreds of hours completing the campaigns and building out my own custom scenarios using the level editor. When I received The Conqueror's Expansion a year later for my birthday, those hundreds of hours became thousands.

I should note that my mom's hope did pan out, and my interest in reading history books at an early age largely stems from wanting to know more about the historical figures presented in the game's campaigns.

Playing Age of Empires 2 was also important to my earliest impressions of games for another big reason, as it primarily geared me toward enjoying games strictly on a computer for the next several years.

Sure, I was able to occasionally play something at a friend's house, but it wasn't until several years later that my brothers and I actually had a console of our own, an OG Xbox.

That meant that for the immediate future of my post-Age of Empires gaming escapades, I was limited to other games that could run on a desktop that didn't get a lot of upgrades, setting me up for a life of enjoying RTS games.

My interests in strategy and tactics piqued, but the technological restraints thus set, I turned to other late 90s and early 2000s strategy games like Civilization 2, Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood, and Star Wars: Force Commander.

When I was finally able to build my own gaming computer, I quickly raced to catch up on even more titles the genre had to offer, including Blizzard Entertainment's StarCraft 2.

Growing up and spending my formative years near-solely on PC-centric strategy games shaped my tastes, something I've grown to appreciate more and more as time has gone on.

When I finally owned an Xbox and started playing more console-oriented experiences, my tastes in different genres naturally broadened, but I never lost that original love for what strategy games could be. Indeed, I actively hunted for RTS games on consoles, something that remains sadly rare to this day.

There were fun exceptions, though, such as the surprisingly solid Xbox 360 port of The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-earth 2, as well as Ensemble Studios' swan song, the first Halo Wars.

All these years later, RTS games in particular still offer a uniquely comfortable experience for me, and it's easy for me to get lost spending dozens of hours on some new grand campaign playthrough, even in a game I've played for years and years already.

The main challenge now is in finding enough time to balance all my hobbies (which include playing games outside of work) and the fact that not many big developers are focused on RTS titles anymore.

There are definitely exceptions that are still going strong, especially Sega-owned Creative Assembly, whose support for titles like Total War: Warhammer 3 years after launch should be lauded.

Microsoft also continues to shepherd a suite of strategy games under World's Edge, the team responsible for overseeing Age of Empires and Age of Mythology. I just recently reviewed the first expansion for Age of Mythology: Retold, and I'm looking forward to yet more DLC for Age of Empires 2 later this year.

With Microsoft now also owning Activision Blizzard and its myriad properties, I'd like to hope that maybe StarCraft and Warcraft could see the light of day as strategy games again, but I'll have to wait and see what the years bring.

Ultimately, it's nice to reflect and see where it all started for me. My love for gaming as a whole began with strategy, and that's the throughline that has continued through my life into my professional career.

So, thanks for everything, Age of Empires 2, and thanks for taking a chance, Mom. I'll never forget what it did for me.