# Age of Empires Free Software Remake

*All copyrighted material and trademarks belong to their respective owners. This
is an educational non-profit project I am writing in my free time.*

## Preview

![Main Menu](https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/0e12c151-188d-49f0-af74-bb2454ff2ec5)
![Demo map](https://github.com/FolkertVanVerseveld/aoe/assets/5989565/4920f958-da29-44fd-a263-7ab0d5d9a5f6)

## Overview

Cross-platform free software game port of Microsoft's original Age of Empires
and the Rise of Rome expansion.

It tries to take fully advantage of modern technology and APIs while mimicking
the windows API and the genie game engine for compatibility reasons. In order to
achieve this, some code is reconstructed from the dissassembly. We have provided
a couple of tools that verify, test, and inspect the original data files.

You still need to own an original legitimate copy of Age of Empires in order to
run this program, since you need the original game data to run the game.

Community free assets are not supported at the moment, but there are tools
included if you want to make your own. It is not recommended to create your own
at the moment because we haven't figured out what all resources are needed for
and what dimensions, colors etc. the game expects.

## User Guide

A simple, incomplete user guide is available [here](doc/user_guide.md).

## Status

At the moment, there's only very basic gameplay and only multiplayer mode. To
start a singleplayer game, host a multiplayer session and just add some
computer players. The computer only gathers resources and does nothing until
attacked. See the github project for most up-to-date info:
[AoE](https://github.com/FolkertVanVerseveld/aoe).

## Support

The following operating systems are supported:
* Windows 10 and above
* macOS Sequoia 15.7.7

The following Linux distributions are supported:
* Fedora 44
* Ubuntu 22 and above

Other Linux distribution or older OS  versions just might work, but your milage
may vary. The listed ones are tested and actively maintained. For more
information how to install and run AoE, see [INSTALL](INSTALL).

## Troubleshooting

Make sure you own a legitimate copy of the original Age of Empires or Rise of
Rome expansion and you have specified the root directory to AoE (RoR) correctly.
See [known issues and bugs](BUGS.md) for more details.

## Links

* [The project](https://www.github.com/folkertvanverseveld/aoe) on Github.
* [Issue tracker](https://www.github.com/folkertvanverseveld/aoe/issues) on Github.
* [Related projects](related.md)
* [Order the game from Amazon](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=age+of+empires+!amazon&t=canonical&ia=web)