I have AOE II on Steam, but it's not really my cup of tea. I really didn't like AOE III the first few times I played it. It's very different from its predecessors and the experience system you refer to can seem a bit odd. You do get used to it though and perhaps, like me, get to a point where you come to love it. The more buildings you construct and enemy units you neutralize nets you XP. With that XP you can select new cards to upgrade your culture. I've accumulated so much now I can send factories to my colony (a factory can mass produce any single commodity: wood/gold/food, and produce Heavy Cannon in addition to that), order mercenary troops (which are far more powerful than anything I can build), get perks to my resource gathering, combat prowess/power, and many other things. Then you can make customized "decks" of these cards for specialized purposes, like Naval warfare, or for laying siege to your opponents, or cavalry-heavy ones, or infantry-heavy ones, etc. I've been meaning to mess around with the Ottomans...they have this ginormous cannon they can produce called the Grand Bombard which looks like someone's dragging an enormous railroad tunnel around the battlefield.

As for AOE II I will usually play either the Celts or the Mayans. AOE I is a game I miss terribly and played lots of. I usually played the Minoans, who had great farming ability. But the Phonecians with the war elephants and mighty fleet units were my preferred cup o' tea.

Rosie, have you gotten anymore HL2 game done? I've been waiting impatiently for you to report!!

Lol, sorry that I've been tardy on my updates! I finished Half Life 2: Episode One a couple of weeks ago, if I remember correctly. I've really been liking Half-Life 2: Episode Two so far; I think it might end up being my favorite. I love how a lot of it takes place in the rugged countryside and I like how most of my enemies are zombies, antlions and Synth. And those Hunters, dang. Oh, and Griggs and Sheckley were hilarious.

Right now, I'm

Spoiler

trying to defend the rocket from the Striders and Hunters, and it's driving me crazy. There are only a few more Striders to take down, but I've been having a heck of a time finishing the job. I took another shot at it a few minutes ago and managed to take down a Strider one second after it fired the fatal shot at the silo. GAH.

That's a really tough part of the game. I read a strategy piece someplace that said that there's really only 3 Striders you have to look for, that the defenders will off the remainder. But for the life of me I cannot recall which ones they are. I think they're the ones that crouch before they fire. I loved Episode 2! They were supposed to release Episode 3 six months later...and here we are...what? 6 or 7 years later? @ Valve. I believe they're working on the next part, but the end of Episode 2 leaves you at a serious cliffhanger, at least plotwise. Then you're just going to have to go ahead and get Black Mesa Source to keep your addiction going .

I did it! Took down all of the Striders myself, too.

Spoiler

By far, the worst part was taking out the Hunters; I finally just ended up running most of them down with the Muscle Car and finishing the rest off with whatever rockets I had on hand. Poor Eli, though!

They had better release that Episode Three soon. This is just cruel. I saw this on Reddit a few months before starting the game... suffice to say, I understand the pain of the artist a little better now.

Now, time to work on Portal soem more. Annnd to pester my brother about downloading Black Mesa Source.

You'll like Black Mesa Source, methinks. And don't forget, Team Fortress 2!!! We can get a multiplayer game going You think the ending of Episode 2 is bad, *some* of us have been waiting 7 years for the next installment. It was supposed to be just 6 months. I think "Prepare for unforeseen consequences" was Valve's way of saying "It'll be 8 years, not 6 months". @ the HL3 poster!

In other news I've been fooling around with an older game this past week that has been a beloved favorite of mine since it came out. Tron 2.0! Lots of fun running the main character, Jet Bradley (son of Alan Bradley from Tron), through the computer world. The graphics still seem to be just as pretty today as they were back in 2003 (or so) when the game was released, probably for the very same reasons the film is still lovely. It's techno-modernism...lots of flat surfaces and cool neon lines. Did I mention Light Cycles? If you can find this wonderful title and are a fan of the original Tron film then you will love this game. Love it. I would not lie to you!

/interrupts the Half-Life discussion with a brief update of her own.

So, I've actually been playing a new-to-me video game. My brother lent me his 3DS and I've been playing Fire Emblem: Awakening. It's pretty fun though I enjoyed Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (Wii) a bit more than this one so far. But I am not far into the game at all so I probably shouldn't judge. If you're not familiar with this game, it's a turn based strategy RPG.

Anyways, so yeah. Actually have a game to talk about.

Meanwhile, my husband downloaded a SNES emulator on his old phone to play Earthbound. That game is HILARIOUS. Hubby described it best... it's like some creative person built the framework for the game, but then had his six-year-old and four-year-old fill in the details. It's just so weird and random.
For example, if one of the kids drinks a cup of coffee, you get this big ol' monologue, you get a several minute lecture on how awesome you are because you're trying to save the world and then gives you a pep talk on the challenges ahead.
Enemies include Violent Roaches, Mini-Barfs (yes, exactly what it says), Cranky ladies, Unassuming Local guy. Yeah...
Your weapons are frying pans, toy pop guns, and baseball bats.
Yeah, it's hilarious. Anyone else play this back in the day? (Since half the people on this forum probably weren't even born when it came out. )

I played Earthbound many years ago and thought it was a fun little game. Finding a copy of it for your SNES can be a bit pricey because apparently everyone who plays this game loves it and wants it and unfortunately there were only a limited number of copies made for distribution in the US. I remember the "Unassuming Local Guy"! I have an SNES but a super tiny collection of games for it. Maybe I should start looking for a copy, eh?

Talking about retro gaming, I was thinking about purchasing an N64, I spent many hours playing games on it in my childhood, but it hasn't worked for at least 4 years and my mum gave many of the games away. Though I will wait to the uni semester is over, so I have more time to replay old games. I will have to see how much people are selling them for now.

So, I've actually been playing a new-to-me video game. My brother lent me his 3DS and I've been playing Fire Emblem: Awakening. It's pretty fun though I enjoyed Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (Wii) a bit more than this one so far. But I am not far into the game at all so I probably shouldn't judge. If you're not familiar with this game, it's a turn based strategy RPG.

I'm actually playing Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon for the DS right now. A friend of mine was getting rid of it because he stopped playing it so long ago he forgot where he was in it. He's planning on going through the GameCube and Wii games now, though. I'm enjoying it well enough so far. I'm familiar with the style of gameplay from the GameBoy Advance version of LotR: The Third Age, though that game had the option to keep your characters that died in battle.

I'm also working on completing what extra bits I can in Kingdom Hearts on PS3 and Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance on 3DS. I'm on the last world for each of them, but I want to do everything I can before reaching that point, especially for the original KH, as I can't go back and collect stuff post-final battle. I need to get a move on, though, as there's another KH game on this disc and the second collection is going on my Christmas list.

I'm actually playing Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon for the DS right now. ... I'm familiar with the style of gameplay from the GameBoy Advance version of LotR: The Third Age, though that game had the option to keep your characters that died in battle.

I'm kind of surprised Shadow Dragon doesn't because Awakening does. Of course I'm the kind of person that if one of my characters dies, I immediately reset the battle.

I don't know that there are very many gamers left on Nweb that go for the new games the moment they release, but I'll ask anyways... is anybody going to get Destiny on Tuesday? My brother actually took all of next week off of work so he could play it. I guess it's supposed to be like a cross between Halo and World of Warcraft? I haven't looked into it much because I don't have the time for mmos anymore, but it still kind of intrigued me.

Shadow Dragon is a remake of the original game in the series, and I think one of its trademarks was the Real Death aspect. At any rate, I tend to restart if I lose a character as well.

SL, you may be interested to know that my husband fired up WoW again. I think only for a month or so, and he did so just to level his paladin to 90 to see if he could solo the old classic instances like Molten Core and Black Wing Lair.

Ohh? How did that go? It's really worth it to go hit up Pandaria. I thought Northrend was fun but Pandaria brings a whole new level to the game.

PS: You can own your own little farm now and grow crops, use them in different recipes (each boosts certain stats of course), turn them in for faction rewards, or just sell them and make piles of money.

Well, I was wrong in my above statement, my husband is now lvl 100 with his big ol' castle and personal squadron of heroes. I have to admit, Warlords of Draenor is pretty darn cool. Definitely better than Cataclysm and a billion times better than Pandarea. The storyline is pretty cool, though I'm curious to see where it goes. It's got that whole "I'm my own grandpa" thing going on.
I've been playing about one set of quests a day (maybe an hour?) and my own paladin is up to lvl 20. I'm just having fun following the quests to see the new storyline. I played a bit with Cataclysm, but that was a long enough time ago that I've forgotten what happened and it's been updated even more since then. And is it just me or has the land healed up since then?

Out of curiosity what server are you on? I've been working on my garrison and it's still level 2. I'm level 98.