Out of 100

Ensemble Studios has released the latest in their Age of Empires series, Age of Empires III takes you to the new world with eight civilizations to command. Ensemble studios has been & leader in real-time strategy games ever since they released, Age of Empires, ever since they have been reinventing the genre. Age of Empires III is no different with innovative game play & interface changes; they have once again defined what a good RTS should be.

Now lets get into the game, as said above Age of Empires III takes place in the new world. So got your troops ready for conquest because that’s your primary goal in the signal player campaign. In Age of Empires III you can command eight civilizations including, Spanish, British, French, Portuguese, Russian, Ottoman, German, & the Dutch.

The goods; Ensemble studios never release a game without a combo of tried and true, new and innovative, and the reworked. The formula of RTS’s are almost unchanged in this title, everything that made Age of Empires II great is still there. The big new thing in this title is the Home City; a Home city is the back up in the old world. It enables you to get shipment of the resources & technology or people. Strategically this opens plenty of possibilities. Some of the less original yet important addictions to the game included; an explorer, whom is un-killable, trading paths, & Native American, all of which we will go into detail later. City management has changed some since the last installment there are no drop off points for the resources being gathered.

The bad; the sad fact that there was no innovation in the battle system. The battle system looks awesome, sounds great, has a great verity of units, but besides being upgraded there is nothing “new”. Please note there is nothing wrong with the battle system there are just things we would have liked to see. So what is it we would have liked to see you ask? A true battle/unit management system.

Back to the new world now, most skirmish games will start you off with a explore & 5 so settlers. While you have your settlers gather & build you will want to explore the land with your explorer. Once you have things going you should build a trading post near a Native American settlement, there you can get new either units and/or technology. Then if there is a trade route build trading posts along it & upgrade it. This over all is a good strategy, but why?

Well the Native Americans serve as a good but limited economic & war ally. You/ your opponent can’t attack a native village, but you can destroy the trading post & build you/ their own. When applicable the trade rout is a grate thing to retain control of for you economy. It starts off as a covered wagon trade route but can be up graded to be locomotive, which provides faster shipments. With all this, the home city, & all the traditional RTS features. Age of Empires III is an in-depth strategic power house with a ton of ways to win.

Editors notes; not only do I play the game extensively; I also do plenty of research. The research I have done on Age of Empires III seems to show lag in intensive battles, though a few articles show lagging randomly during game play. I personally had no & I do mean no lag in the game. That includes single & multiplayer games. It might be something to look out for but I have had no problems with Age of Empires III plus the updates as of this articles writing.

Random bits; The AI in Age of Empires III, depending on difficulty settings, is very strong. The AI is very apt at building & maintaining an economy & army the only thing the AI seems to be weak with is a navy. This weakness can make for a boring sea level but this doesn’t seem to hurt game play overall.

Age of Empires III is one of the most beautiful games we have seen this year. The detail of the building & ships is absolutely stunning for a RTS game. The over all feel of the game is extremely tight & well designed. If the game was not so engaging you could watch the water ripple on shore for hours. Though you don’t get very much time to enjoy it the animation of the battles is just amazing. The only complaint I have is they could have spent more time in detailing the units face & features. One thing I do have to commend them on is the detail & color in the uniform. Every visual effect in this game is well thought out & executed, from cannon fire, to ships, & buildings being destroyed.

Gun powder is magical, & the sound of it killing your enemy is no less magical. It is awesome hearing your troops cheer at there victory over there enemy. The background music & other sounds all tie into the over all feel of the game setting the mood so to speak. About the only draw back of the sound in this game is the weak verbal warning (being attacked, or your soldiers attacking the enemy), & maybe weak voice acting, but the voice acting is not too bad.

Age of Empires III is a great real-time strategy game, with-both weak & strong points. Through & through Age of Empires III is no disappointment though, with strong game play, fun single player mode , flexible multi-player modes all add up to an over all fun , exiting RTS. Some fans of the Age of Empires series might be disappointed but over all I think true RTS fans will fall in love with Age of Empires III.

Age of Empires III is a thorough and well thought out RTS. The single player campaign will keep you busy & teach you the ropes & the multiplayer action will add many a fans nights of challenging play. Though this game brings a lot to the table there is room for improvement namely in the battle system, but I am sure Ensemble Studios will fix any short comings with patches & expansion packs. In truth we think any strategy fan should go out and pick a copy of this game up.

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