You have a parenthesis in the wrong location, so you're doing

if (string including equals signs and a 1)

An echo following the if() condition shows the strings used on each side of the ==:

//echo -a $v1 vs $v2

shows: %ageCount. == 1 vs

As an additional debugging tool, you can use the -s switch for /var and /inc to give a display of the variable name being set, and the value being placed into it. When used in the editbox, the display shows in the active window, but from an event it will be in the Status Window.