To help meet the next year's deadline, additional programmers, artists, and designers were employed. Ensemble Studios informed Microsoft they would need another year and instead created Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome, an easily-developed expansion pack of Age of Empires, as a compromise which could be released for Christmas 1998. Several months into the process they found they would not be able to complete a game of the quality they sought in that time. The sequel's, The Age of Kings, design team intended to complete the game within a year by using code from the original and reusing the Genie game engine. Like Warcraft it is real time strategy but unlike Warcraft and like Civilization II it is historical and has an isometric perspective. The game was described as " Civilization II meets Warcraft II" and this shows in the game's engine design. Tony Goodman (in charge of the game's artwork), and Dave Pottinger (in charge of the game's artificial intelligence). Age of Empires was designed by Bruce Shelley.
The designers received much of their inspiration from the game Civilization, with its proven historical setting this was noted among reviewers as something positive. The Genie engine was developed as the basis for Ensemble Studios first game, Age of Empires which had the development name of "Dawn of Man".
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