I have played nearly ALL of the games that you guys are talking about.
EE was by far one of the greatest games EVAR!!!!!!!
RoN & RoL were both awesome as well, i really enjoyed the latter because of its fantasia settings.
AoE I & II were teh 1337!!!!!!! III was when it started the mode.
I will admit the EE and AoE models dont take into account for alot of the real world things, but these games were developed back in the 90s and they ****ing ruled so give them some credit.