Finally decided to buy DE after over an year of not playing the game. So happy to realise that my toaster can run it!

Saw the specs when AOE1 DE came out. Decided to pirate the game to check whether my toaster can run it (I pirate every game before I buy them). Had terrible lagg issues. Gave up on it and continued playing AOE2.

AOE2 DE came out, founf out that my PC barely reached the min specs. Decided not to have a super low FPS gameplay and stopped playing AOE2. Still visited this sub and watched SOTL's videos.

Winter sale's on, so the prices dropped significantly. Already had everything up to HD, so it costed me about Rs.200 (3-4 Dollars).Bought today it thinking that I'll get a better PC next year anyways.

Having used a Toaster for this long, I tried to apply some commin tricks that people use, like lowering the resolution, both for my computer and the game via launch options to the lowest the game allows.

The game started up, menu was lagging a bit. Didn't really bother me. Went to settings and made sure all were at the lowest.

Then I founf the mods section AND OH BOY IT REALLY HELPED.

Changed all trees to bamboo, reduced terrain to simplistic ones, removed butterflies and all other unnecessary vegetation.

Now it runs perfectly with maybe a few FPS drops at the most. Not gonna try multiplayer, however. Partly because it might cause my toaster to melt. The other reason being that I can't take the stress of real capable Human players.

Man, I'm so happy that i can finally play this game again.

Tip to those doubtful whether this'll run on their PC, AOE2 is the least CPU intensive DE out of the three AOE. Put on some mods and use other tricks, you'll be able to run the game just fine.