Age of Empires II
The Microsoft real-time strategy game that has occupied a stable role in the chat's vocabulary continuously since **2020-10-23** and has been the basis of the chat's longest-running aspirational gaming project: getting [[Bruce]] to play.
Age of Empires II
The Microsoft real-time strategy game that has occupied a stable role in the chat's vocabulary continuously since 2020-10-23 and has been the basis of the chat's longest-running aspirational gaming project: getting Bruce to play.
Age of Empires II (chat shorthand: aoe or aoe2) is the chat's only documented multi-year recurring video game. It is mentioned in 44 messages across 2020-10-23 → 2026-04-07, with Daniel Miller as its primary advocate and Kyle Derrick as its principal external commentator.
First mention
The earliest mention is by Kyle Derrick on 2020-10-23, in a single bare-word post:
"Aoe" — Kyle Derrick, 2020-10-23
Three minutes later he produces the chat's first observational note about Daniel Miller's personal aoe practice:
"I like that you're drunk, on paternity leave and playing aoe" — Kyle Derrick, 2020-10-23
This is the corpus's earliest field report on Daniel Miller's life under the dual constraints of new fatherhood and Age of Empires II; the chat has filed similar reports periodically ever since.
The Bruce project
The chat's most enduring aoe-related project is the multi-year question of when Daniel Miller will introduce his son Bruce (born 2020-10-31) to the game. Kyle Derrick floats the question for the first time on 2020-11-03, three days after Bruce's birth:
"Teach Bruce how to aoe yet?" — Kyle Derrick, 2020-11-03
Daniel claims partial progress the same day ("And yes bruce is already notching some GGs") and the question then lies dormant for five years. Kyle reopens it on 2025-11-11:
"You haven't started Bruce on aoe2 yet?" — Kyle Derrick, 2025-11-11
The status of the Bruce-aoe2 project is not, in the corpus, finally adjudicated.
Friday aoe / "Friday aoe during work time"
A separate sub-tradition surrounds the chat's aspiration to a regular, work-day aoe session. Daniel Miller poses the question on 2021-01-22:
"When is Friday aoe during work time?" — Daniel Miller, 2021-01-22
Evan Bbbender elaborates on the model on 2021-01-29:
"Otherwise I'll end up napping and probably playing AOE2 with dan until it's time for pizza" — Evan Bbbender, 2021-01-29
The Friday-aoe-during-work-time concept is, in essence, the proto-form of what would five years later be formalized as Fuck Off Friday. The encyclopedia notes the lineage but stops short of calling it a direct ancestor.
Critical assessment
The chat's only direct comparative aoe assessment is from Evan Bbbender on 2021-03-20:
"Aoe2 is the best rts I've ever played" — Evan Bbbender, 2021-03-20
The opinion has not been formally challenged in the corpus.
Late-corpus references
By 2024–2026 aoe references function principally as a means of reporting on Daniel's hobbies in absentia:
- 2024-02-02 — Daniel Miller: "Should we have a vintage covid livestream AOE session today?" — proposing a back-to-2020 nostalgia run.
- 2025-01-15 — Daniel Miller: "It's about his evolution as an AOE Smurf" — a third-person tournament summary from the broader competitive aoe world.
- 2025-11-08 — Kyle Derrick: "I can picture you wasted playing aoe with a full beer tower next to you".
- 2026-04-07 — Kyle Derrick: "He's playing aoe" — the corpus's most recent aoe attestation, as a status update rather than an event.