When I was a kid I used to love playing a computer game called Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings. For the uninitiated, Age of Empires was a real-tim

Don’t Win the Game Too Early

submited by
Style Pass
2021-06-17 12:00:04

When I was a kid I used to love playing a computer game called Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings. For the uninitiated, Age of Empires was a real-time strategy game where the goal was to gather resources, build an army, and defeat your opponent in battle. Here is a screenshot showing one player’s settlement and resource allocation (along the top of the screen):

The gameplay was fantastic because it combined action-adventure with fast-paced decision making. It wasn’t just a war game, but a strategy game as well. And I enjoyed playing the game for a long time until…I found out about the cheat codes.

Learning the cheat codes for Age of Empires II fundamentally changed my relationship with the game. No longer did I have to worry about scarce resources. For example, if I typed “lumberjack” into the chat screen and hit enter, my wood resources would increase by 10,000 instantly. No more waiting to gather it. I just had the wood now. The same was true for everything else.

I will admit that when I first started using the cheat codes it was the most fun I ever had playing the game. I built massive armies and indestructible settlements unlike any I had ever built before. I surrounded my castles with hundreds of bombard towers that rained down an endless wall of cannonballs against my enemies. My computer opponents didn’t stand a chance. I had become an Age of Empires god.

Leave a Comment