I used to play Age of Empires but I quickly grew into Empire Earth. Very similar to Age of Empires but much much better in my opinion (the original and original expansion only, the sequels changed developers and play style).

Anyways I'm getting off topic. After I got into Empire Earth, most of my family did as well. I became the #1 player in the world in that game for a solid 7+ years until I retired.

I specialized in the "Middle Ages" which aligns with Age of Empires, but the game spanned over 15 epochs.

I remember I had a player speed of around 13,000. The average expert player speed was around 300. The average non-expert player speed was closer to 80-100.

I would literally run across my house, from one side to the other, through multiple rooms, playing on more than one account at a time.

I was the leader of the oldest and largest clan on the game which lasted up until the game was taken offline in around 2008-2009 (several years after I had retired). I did a google search of my old username on the game a moment ago and found some old forum posts talking about me and me interacting as well. Those were some great times.

Starcraft 2 was the next RTS i got into after EE, but it was never the same. EE was my baby, I was obsessed.

I remember sitting in class and planning strategies down to the micro-second. I knew exactly how long it took for this unit to walk this distance and build this building, etc. It was almost sickening looking back haha, but god it was so much fun!

Maybe one day you and I can dig up an old copy and setup a LAN and try our luck at the game again. There are no more online servers anymore, and you'll have to get past the old graphics, but the actual game play was phenomenal.