Almost 9 years ago, Microsoft asked me promote their products. They shipped a box of software and hardware to my house. My job was to just stand at Tech stores and show off hundreds of MS Products. 1 week went by and I realized that people are just not interested in MS Word or Windows 2000 O/S demos... so i went and sift through the piles of softwares... A Gold CD with a Trojan like Soldier caught my eye. And as I stood there with dozens of walk-by customers amazed by the introduction I have just played for the 1st time... I said to myself "wow... this is something". It is then that my life changed and in the next 5 years I've met players online life Sheriff, Maimin Matty, Aloha_Archer, Helicon, Vasago, WaterGod, Mina, GambleGod, my DevilZ buddies and so many others.
These are the old AOE/ROR sites that thrived during those times.
Anyways, I hope we still keep playing because there has never been anything close to this game.
http://members.core.com/~helicon/articles/goodplayer.htm
http://lightning.prohosting.com/~devilz98/main.htm
http://web.telia.com/~u31423018/events.html