Note: For now I think the most important things are expanding my imagination of what's possible, developing solid foundational skills (but not doing overkill), finding friends (high in intelligence+openness) to hang out with, and learning what I'm good at and what I'm not. What I regret is getting too obsessed with social signalling.
Also keep in mind that there are a lot of things I would have done differently if I could have relived my life again. My life now is ok, but it could have been a lot better if I made better decisions (but I have to also remind myself that it could be a lot worse, in the sense of ending up in a position where I was wasting years of my life in dead ends).
The more I think about it, the more I realize that my AoKH days were times when people actually valued me and considered me pleasant to interact with. I was very well-respected there - not due to my AoK skills (since I wasn't great at the game) - but rather my contributions to the community. I joined a clan and became well known for recruiting other people to the clan (and I'm noticing that this is a particular talent of mine). I was also voted as the "nicest forumer" way back when I was 12, and it helps me remember that me being nice to people was actually a real strength I used to have. It's hard to find stories of other people you know (especially those who were older and more experienced than me), but this was the place where I read them.
I also got to see clan politics in action, which was also really interesting - almost a precursor to the types of politics you see later in a real-life environment.
They were the days before I became neurotic, self-centered, and obsessive about academics, and I feel that I've lost a lot by being so obsessive over them. When I think about how many years of "social experience" that I've really had, I count the AoKH years among them (with a huge gap for the year where I became neurotic and obsessed with maintaining an academic image of myself - a gap that finally ended when I joined Quora).
Was there a risk that I could have spent too much time playing Age of Empires II? Yes. Certainly, playing too many custom scenarios like castle blood/germs blood is a waste (it's something I'm tempted to do given that I'm not great at random maps). Also, I really don't think I would have gotten much lasting value from playing numerous 1v1 games and becoming an "expert". I'm glad I didn't do either of those too much, and I'm glad I got involved with the community more.
Also, what I did really reminds me of this: Alex K. Chen's answer to What is the single insight that most changed your life?. I excelled not due to competition, but rather due to having a very unique skillset that made me feel highly valued in my community. There were parts of that skillset (like emotional stability) that I later lost when I later became hyper-obsessive about academics.
Also, it helped me build up a rich repertoire of social experiences. This is an extremely important thing when it comes to developing one's imagination of what works and what doesn't. After all... as Temple Grandin said...
One of the keys to becoming socially adept and being able to understand the social rules of relationships is getting out in the world and gaining experience. And, that means taking risks and making mistakes. It's just something you have to accept and push yourself on, even though it might cause some anxiety. I remember talking to a young autistic man about fifteen years ago. He spent his days locked away in his room reading all sorts of mag-azines, because he thought if he took in enough information he'd be able to think in social ways. He didn't realize that he had to get out and experience the world first-hand, and that he had to learn how to be in the play.
The only way you're going to learn is by doing, you've got to get on the stage and act, even if it means making mistakes. You could look at that as an unwritten rule of social relationships specifical-ly for people with ASD—I don't know how much this is actually verbalized to children with ASD because neurotypicals can learn by observation, by reading, through the experiences of others. Not so for the majority of us on the spectrum. "
[if you want to see more gory details of what I used to consider "good decisions of my life", view my edit log. In retrospect, I'm not completely sure if some of those decisions were the "best" of my life given that they only contributed to my academic obsessiveness, and I'm realizing that maybe I would be better off if i wasn't so academically obsessed]. My academic obsession was justifiable to the point that it made me value smart people [1] and helped me get into an early entrance program that allowed me to drop out of school 2 years early (which is, IMO, the main benefit of early entrance programs, as I know that I would have been even more emotionally stunted in high school). Beyond that, it created a lot of unnecessary wasted stress that also delayed my self-development. See Alex K. Chen's answer to What is the one piece of life advice you wish someone could have told you when you were younger?, Alex K. Chen's answer to What are the best ways for a teenager to spend his/her time?, and Alex K. Chen's answer to As a teenager, what's the least productive way to spend one's time? for more
[1] But they don't have to be from College Confidential or from elite colleges. HeavenGames/Quora/other online communities is good enough.