Why is it that a game comes along 'in an excellent format' then falls flat at the first hurdle. Yes a lot players love AoE but then a lot more don't, WHY you may ask. Well when PC gaming became the norm it was new and different but now things must change. Its always been that the faster a player can click a mouse button or use hot keys, then that player is going to have adsvantage over most other players, where is the skill in that?. I am sorry, but why such a great game made, ends up just like a normal arcade quick fire up game. Faster you are the better you are. 'What a load of Crap' we had enough of this type of format and now let see changes. Skill in speed is the only thing needed in AoE, build up quicker than your opponent and the chances you win is something like 80%. I am not the fastest of players but I am also 'no-way' the slowest. Playing on the Zone I have had many players resign after attacking them within a short time, these player resign because they feel that running and trying to build up again is just a waste of time, so off they go to find a weaker player looking for a more even game. But what about us, the player who won. The fun of this game loses its value because the slower player does not have good speed control. In Chess the slower player, is often the better player, because the skill has time to come out. A fast Chess player will win many games but never really be the best. To win a Chess game, one only has to kill the King. There is no luck in Chess just pure skill, no speed in Chess again just pure skill. So how can AoE become a game with many skill factors rather than just one (or two if you think there are any more). The first thing I would do is to change the object of the game, have a King to kill format. Second, one would need to have a unit or two to slow down the fast player. I don't mean what RoR have, you need a real defender. A defender that will need to be skillfully defeated, not just pushed out of the way. If you needed a project done but did not have the skill to do it yourself, you would hire someone to do it for you but I bet you would not get the fastest person. Doing things at speed has always had its downfalls, things get overlooked or parts needed are not up to standard and at the wrong time let you down. Of cause you would not hire the fastest, your hire the most skillfull, the most careful, and even if it means taking a little longer or is a little dearer. In the second world war has we all know when the Germans advanced in Africa they used speed and surprize. The allies could not match their speed but they did not resign to the fact, no, what they found was a weak spot in the German machine. Using skill not speed, the allies destroyed supply lines. Defenses: In AoE the defenses are weak and almost laugh-a-ble. Build what you think is a solid defense and a few Hittite catapults will blow it all away. In real life past civ's would never have build defenses using walls or towers if they did not do their job, what would be the point. No, many of my friends don't play AoE because of this weakness in the game. There is no way a catapult would do the sort of damage to towers and walls that they do in AoE that they would do in real events. I myself having read quite a lot of History about Romans times am surprized the programmers overlooked how catapults were destroyed quite easy and were never used has much as they are in AoE. One weapon that destroyed cats easy was the oil based fire ball. This was fired from a high point (a tower or wall) and on contact spread over a large area burning every thing in its path. If this was added to AoE then the poor old cats would need to be skillfully used to a higher degree. Elephants rushes were dealt with in the same way, lets face facts elephants don't like fire, nor do horses. If AoE were to be improved to a more skillfull level I believe that Aoe (RoR) will became the best ever PC game of all time so far, I only hope AoE (Age of Kings) is what I hope it to be. There are other points to critcize but this is not a book and I am not trying to put people off this excellent game. The game is so good I would always advise PC users to purchase this program. I will be the first to get Age of Kings just like I purchase RoR (my friend and I maybe one of the first people in Britain to have purchased RoR). Not many people have criticized AoE and I base games on some bad feedback, not always good feedback. You don't have to look far to find the good parts of the game, there is so many I can't even list them. But being a Chess player and having many Chess friends you can see why we would like a program based on the same format. A game that has no luck, no dice throws and with no uneven elements. Lets all hope that one day a PC game (except Chess) will arrive in this format, I only which it was "AGE OF EMPIRES"