> Age of Empires 1 & 2 were special because they were designed by a special team at a company called Ensemble Studios, which was bought by Microsoft and sadly shut down in 2009. None of that team remain with Microsoft.
Ensemble also made AoE3 which I loathed and Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds which was a bit of a turd. Also note that Microsoft acquired Ensemble in 2001, during the development cycle of Age of Mythology (which was phenomenal), so an independent Relic could be as good as or better than an internal Ensemble.
> Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds was developed by LucasArts by licensing the Genie game engine from Ensemble Studios. The game, as well as the Clone Campaigns expansion pack, was designed and directed by Garry M. Gaber.
Taken from Wikipedia. Garry M. Gaber worked at LucasArts. Ensemble had nothing to do with SW:GB.
Ensemble also made AoE3 which I loathed and Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds which was a bit of a turd. Also note that Microsoft acquired Ensemble in 2001, during the development cycle of Age of Mythology (which was phenomenal), so an independent Relic could be as good as or better than an internal Ensemble.