Age of Ensemble, Part 1: A Titan Passes
12/16/2008 7:00 PM | 1 Comments | Page 2 of 3
Shelley pushed for other changes, including random maps. "Fixed maps -- like in
StarCraft -- are like chess; you know everything on the map. Random maps are like poker. You play the hand you're dealt."
Age of Empires would be poker, using maps that followed basic templates (sea maps, continental maps, forest-rich maps, etc.) but emphasized the exploration part of the game (a central mechanic from the Civ series). Shelley also insisted on varying levels of difficulty and alternate victory conditions.
The game's development was so extended that another Ensemble team developing a fantasy strategy game (
Sorceror) was poached of talent so that
Age of Empires could be completed. Sandy Petersen, the lead on
Sorceror, declared the project dead and worked instead on making an
Age of Empires expansion pack (
Rise of Rome). Throughout the life of the studio, Petersen says, the pattern became familiar. "[At least] six or seven different projects that I was working on weren't Age games [and] got canceled for one reason or another."
"We had to sell 400,000 copies [of
Age of Empires] to break even, because it took three years to make it," says Shelley. But in spite of delays, Microsoft never lost faith in the project. Except for
Microsoft Flight Simulator, Microsoft hadn't had much success as a game publisher. With an established designer in place and producer Stuart Moulder firmly behind the team,
Age of Empires was the first Microsoft game to grace a
Computer Gaming World cover.
The original campaigns were short history-based affairs that basically mimicked the main game.
topped one million sales relatively quickly, exhausting the holiday supply in 1997, and has sold over three million in its lifespan. It reached -- and maybe even created -- an RTS market that no one was sure was even there. Breaking out of the fantasy/science-fiction mold without changing the gameplay,
AoE brought in new gamers with its historical content and drew in veterans with familiar gameplay. It became the singular Ensemble franchise. "[Former
Computer Gaming World editor] Jeff Green once told me that it was the only game he'd seen lots of women play," says Shelley with pride, something he attributes to the game's willingness to open up new ground in a genre that was already full of clones. "We were the only ones doing a real historical game."
It was
Age of Empires that set the pattern for so many historical RTSes to follow. The first two Empire Earth games,
Cossacks: European Wars and a slew of lesser games all fell into the rhythm of gold-mining, forest-clearing and counter-units established by
Age of Empires. Even the campaign system wherein the player would replay historical events was replicated, and has persisted in some corners well after Ensemble itself decided it didn't work. In
Age of Empires and Blizzard's
StarCraft, released within months of each other, real-time strategy would have its two iconic models, each breaking decisively from the
Warcraft and
Command & Conquer designs and leading a golden age.
Building a workplace
Though Shelley espouses the standard employer line that Ensemble should "make great games and be a great place to work," both he and Tony Goodman had very firm ideas about the type of company they wanted Ensemble to be. Major decisions would be based on consensus. Employees should know each other on sight. And there should be an understanding of game design deeper than what is on the computer monitor.
