I've always loved the Age of Empires series and recently got interested in RTS games since I played the Civilization stage of Spore, so needless to say, I'm quite curious about this game.

I heard some of you say it's turn-based? Does that mean it plays like a boardgame? You take a step - your enemy takes a step etc. etc. ? If it is... I might have to revise my interest in the game...

Quote from (SaM) :

I heard some of you say it's turn-based? Does that mean it plays like a boardgame? You take a step - your enemy takes a step etc. etc. ? If it is... I might have to revise my interest in the game...

Well you got both turn based and real time play.

Moving armies and managing cities (some of this has changed in the Empire) are made on your own turns, could say it's like board game. It's like in Civilizations really.

The battles, unlike in Civilizations are real time strategy. Which you can pause or speed up.

Managing your empire in real time just wouldn't work because there is too much to do, especially when it starts to cover the whole European continent and it would be a game of who can click stuff faster.