Real-time strategy is a genre that once sent an entire generation of video gamers into a frenzy. Whether it was amassing legions of infantry in Rise of Nations, or following China’s quest for glory in Command & Conquer: Generals, everyone was glued to their campaigns. But the once revered genre now lies in a pitiable state.

The growth of StarCraft into an international esports sensation signalled the heydays of real-time strategy (RTS). However, the gaming community does not look so favourably on the genre anymore.

While StarCraft 2 rallies the beacon despite some slowdown, it was Age of Empires 2: Age of Kings (AoE2) that has recaptured the essence and charm of RTS video games for the international community.

AoE2 received universal acclaim upon release in 1999. The game was praised for improving upon its predecessor, and as pointed out by GamePro’s review, made “new additions to the genre itself”. After the release of ‘The Conquerors’ (expansion pack to AoE2) in 2000, and the disappointments that were Age of Empires 3 (in 2005) and Age of Empires Online (in 2011), Microsoft went back to AoE2 in 2013 with the ‘HD Edition’ made available on Steam. A delighted fanbase that had diligently played AoE2 for 14 years responded positively, and international communities have organised several LAN parties and tournaments since.

Steam artwork of Age of Empires 2 © Steam

A budding Indian community

Among these passionate international gamers has been a renegade group of AoE2 lovers in India. This band of gamers took it upon themselves to gather Indian fans and build the country’s first community dedicated to the game. They aim to bring the Indian community — which has been under the radar so far — on par with international counterparts to compete in tournaments.

“The renewed vigour that the international community brought to the table was infectious,” reminisces Raunak 'Vizrd' Sudhakar, who is an architect and one of the organisers of the Indian micro-community .

The community has organized LAN parties over the last few months © Raunak Sudhakar

Without a fraternity to turn to or any professional Indian AoE2 gamers , it was just luck that Raunak found other fans of the game on YouTube.

“We've all played AoE from the time we've had access to computers, but the situation was different,” says Sounak 'KTGO' Mukherjee, a photographer by profession. “There wasn't anyone close to home whom we could admire enough to support. It was in this situation that we found each other in a comments section on YouTube of all places; it was triggered mostly by how Indian our names sound.”

Both Raunak and Sounak had been attempting to get people together to play AoE2. Finding each other on YouTube was the spark they needed to finally form the community they dreamed India would have one day.

“We realised we'd both been involved in trying small things within the AoE community. What started as a place to find people (searching for Indian AoE gamers on YouTube), has now grown into something much bigger,” says Raunak.

With no commercial prospects from playing AoE on the horizon, the enthusiasts have had to stay focused on their professions while working on aspects of the community. Aside from that, family commitments also rank high up on the list of priorities.

“Some of us are married,” laughs Sounak. “It's incredibly challenging to find time to work on the community, but at the same time, it's something we look forward to.”

Raunak adds, “The number of games I play has dropped, but the trade-off — playing less to spend time on building the community — is something I’ll take every single time.”

Picture from a LAN party in Mumbai © Raunak Sudhakar

The first AoE tournament in India

From the nascent days of YouTube comments, Raunak and Sounak’s vision for the community took fruition late last year when they hosted the first AoE2 tournament.

The tournament was titled ‘Rise of the Sultans’ and held in November 2017. Participation for the round-robin tournament was restricted to just 32 players in the hope that casual gamers could get a better understanding of the game.

Poster for Rise of the Sultans © Raunak Sudhakar

“Rise of The Sultans was the first tournament our trifling community organised,” says Pavan 'Wildling' Reddy, a transplantation biologist who also happens to be one of the more dedicated AoE2 players from India.

“What made this tournament unique was that our two senior-most players were to lead a bunch of newbies. That brought in a host of skills that aren’t usually seen in simple 1v1s,” says Pavan.

With a successful first tournament behind them, the community immediately started building towards a second tournament. Registration for Rise of the Sultans 2 was kept open during February 2018 with participation doubled to allow 64 players to compete.

“It (the first tournament) was an enjoyable format, and we loved it. In fact, it was so enjoyable that about two months later we had another (tournament) all set up and ready to go,” says Raunak.

Growing the community

Enthusiasm can only go so far in encouraging newcomers to join the community. The game’s multiplayer support would have been an ideal place for newbies to learn the technicalities of the game. However the multiplayer was discontinued in June 2006.

“There are currently two predominant platforms where Age of Empires is being played by thousands every day, one is Steam, and the other is Voobly,” says Aravind 'Srini Mama', an engineering student.

“In terms of performance, support, mods and competition, Voobly outperforms Steam. It also provides you with the opportunity to spectate live games and download recorded games of top players,” he continues. Adarsh 'Adxy' Bhadauria adds that there is a third platform known as Gameranger, but isn’t used as extensively.

LAN get-together of the AoE2 Indian community © Raunak Sudhakar

To make it easier for new members of the community to understand the game, the senior players are developing their own analytical software.

“We are working on a software and algorithm which can decrypt the complex game data and give out small comparison graphs,” reports cell biologist Pavan Belayur. The software aims to pinpoint gaffs in the strategy of new players making it easier for them to learn from their mistakes.

While Voobly already offers analytical data from games, the software being developed will go into deeper detail; for example, it will display villager cap and show how the player’s economy was spread per worker. “Finally, a mega-database will store all the information and dole out strategies per player with precision,” Pavan says.

The senior players also want to encourage new players added to the community to develop their skills rather than merely toying around with the game. They make the point that starting with understanding the macro aspects of the game is great, but they would like players to develop their professional gaming skills by immersing themselves into the micro aspects as well.

“The basic metric for measuring skill in RTS is that as skill increases, the player’s time spent idle decreases,” was how AoE strategist Dorje Bodh put it.

Longbowmen (middle) are archers available n the Briton civilization of AoE2 © Microsoft Studos

Adarsh says it in simple words, “Do more with less”. He further pointed out how immersive play could teach gamers professional skills, like using hills to maximise the advantage of an archer, or using one archer to attack two foot soldiers with a basic move-and-attack strategy called kiting.

AoE2 enjoys a decent international gaming base despite the many numbers of years since the title was launched. “Its two-week-average players are around a consistent 400,000 on Steam alone,” says Rohan 'BDK' Sabnis. The number of Indians playing the game ranges between 400 and 600 on Voobly, the most popular platform among Indians.

What helps the international scene is that celebrities like Zero Empires and T90 Official cast the games. Additionally, there are a few professional players that have sustained at the top over the years, including TheViper and DauT.

The winner of a best-of-21 games international tournament received $2,000 © TaToH

However, there has been one particular event responsible for largely shaping the modern scene. “Escape AoE, an organisation consisting of the titans from the scene has given a new lease of life to the game. They now organise several online tournaments over a year, and at least one big LAN tournament will soon take place,” says Rohan.

The Indian community organisers have one great aim for their initiative — to form a national team capable of taking on international counterparts in AoE2.

Like many other ‘start-ups’, the AoE2 community in India is also in need of financial backing to realise their dreams. But if the pieces fall in their right places, they plan on hosting events throughout the year, and at least one LAN finale for all the AoE2 enthusiasts that stuck by the game for more than a decade.