In…Age of Empires, we see that an easy to grasp, difficult to master theory can sit inside an equally easy to play, difficult to master strategy game, a point where complex historical modelling – even if those models are incomplete or overturned – has a positive influence on the development on a style of gameplay. In other words, AoE, while acknowledging its abstraction of the past, is still an attempt to create a certain kind of historical realism – an understanding and modelling of how societies change through time. For doing this, it was – and remains – both compelling and innovative, and therefore escapes the “realism vs gameplay” trap.
