Be thankful Ensemble Studios never gave up
Ensemble Studios is happy to have Microsoft to back them with this game series and to produce sequels... I meant 'better' sequels, because this game AI seriously sucks and there bugs everywhere, only to left me confused to why I would play this game in the first place. Fortunately, this is the only problem the game has, however it poor AI and buggy user interface and mechanics is why you shouldn't buy this game.
However the multiplayer would be worth something, considering the age, it another reason to give it a pass.
Considering I'm reviewing this game today in the year 2009 and it was released 12 years ago, it's easy to bash this game, as RTS games came a long way. However when the game is set on the Easy mode and my town has a 5% chance of winning a small scale battle in a 'so called' tutorial levels... I totally lost confidence in the game. It is pure micromanagement and you'll end up restarting, saving, reloading and winning a single battle PERFECTLY.
The plus side is that the graphics are well done and makes for a really nice game. The basics are at least in the game, simple clicking and attacking, level builder, some cheats you can play with and beautiful rendered cutscenes.
Thankfully, the games, later on in the series was able to fix those issues, however why they didn't fix them then, is beyond me, which is why I would ask you to turn away from this game, unless you wanna see all the cutscenes, content and etc... it isn't really worth your time at this day of age. Be thankful Age of Empire 2 & 3 is out. Ensemble Studios did the right thing to leave this game behind.