Aging & Wisdom Quote by Sid Meier

Sid Meier praising Age of Empires lands with the quiet punch of a master carpenter complimenting a rival’s joinery: it’s less fandom than a professional endorsement from someone who helped define strategy games as a language. The line is doing two jobs at once. On the surface, it’s a genial show of taste - he plays RTS “all the time,” he “loves” this particular landmark. Underneath, it’s a deliberately disarming move in a genre that’s always been fueled by tribalism: Civ vs. Age, turn-based thinkers vs. click-fast tacticians, “depth” vs. “APM.”

Meier’s choice of “respect what they’ve accomplished” is the tell. Not “it’s fun,” not “it’s the best,” but accomplishment: design as engineering, shipped results as proof. That framing also sidesteps the winner-take-all comparisons fans love. He’s not crowning Age of Empires; he’s acknowledging the sheer difficulty of making an RTS that’s readable, teachable, and broadly popular without flattening into mush. RTS design is a constant battle against its own complexity: information overload, snowballing advantages, the gap between beginners and the ladder diehards. Age managed to make history feel tactile and pacing feel humane.

The context matters, too: Meier is often treated as a lone auteur of “thinking games,” so this quote humanizes him as a working player who studies peers. It’s also a subtle reminder that genres don’t evolve through manifestos; they evolve through mutual borrowing, envy, and the occasional public tip of the hat.