Review

It’s here, after a very long wait.  Bruce Shelley’s newest concoction, Age of Empires III has finally arrived. It has been six years since the much-celebrated Age of Empires II: Age of Kings came out and now all you loyal fans of the series are finally to be rewarded with this impressive follow-on to the Age of Empires franchise.

Age of Empires III, although maintaining the franchise’s identity, has seen some change. The designers at Ensemble Studios have created some interesting twists to this edition of the game that put them on the map.  The most noticeable improvement is the stunning visuals that have at last brought AOE up to par with, if not far beyond, the competition. 

Possibly the most revolutionary feature to this game is the home city feature.  It enables you to bring supplies, troops, technology and more from your home city in Europe to the new world.  The Native American villages that you can ally with will give you access to special technology as well as Native warriors that you can train from that village.  The trade route has also been changed  Instead of building markets and trading with your allies to generate gold by building special units from your market, all you need to do now is claim and hold a trading post on the trade route. 

Our faithful friends at Ensemble have also taken much of the headache out of managing  economies.  Villagers no longer have any need for drop sites to take their gathered resources to, and farms are permanent, at least until your enemy finds them.  Soldiers can also be trained in groups of five, probably to make defending your colony easier.  There are also Minutemen, who you can train at your town center for a last stand or a very early raid, but you can only train these once, and their health goes down over time, reaching virtually zero in about a minute. 

Ensemble Studios also has attempted to ward off loneliness for those playing a single player game by having AI opponents insult you with ridiculous accents as often as possible.  However with all that said, the cream filling (combat) in this wonderfully glazed doughnut does not appear to have evolved much at all.  The maps are also smaller then expected but recent patches have already started to remedy that situation.

Age III features eight different civilizations to choose from, including the Spanish, French, British, Portuguese, Dutch, Russians, Germans, and Ottomans.  They also each have their own unique characteristics and advantages, like Ottoman Villagers, who continuously train for free from the town center but train slower then other civilizations’ villagers, and the Russians’ ability to field a large army of light infantry very quickly.  Although there is a decent assortment of unique units, there is a surprising lack of difference between the civilizations when the flint hits the powder.  For example, Janissaries are the Ottoman version of the musketeer,but have no great advantage over them, and are just as weak against skirmishers. 

The creators of Age of Empires III have given gamers a variety of ways to enjoy the game.  The single-player campaign is well done and lengthy, taking you on an adventure from the Mediterranean to the western frontier of North America .  There is also a single-player skirmish mode that enables you to create an explorer and gain experience every time you play as that explorer.  The experience you gain can then be used to acquire more “cards” from your home city that you can then send to your colony in future games.  Then you can take your hardened explorer and face off with other players on ESOnline or over a LAN game. 

Although the days of having to continuously rebuild farms and create new drop sites as your villagers cut farther and farther into a forest are over, your military units require as much attention as ever.  Now your armies will automatically form nice, neat columns while marching, but as soon as they join in battle with the enemy those nice, neat columns disappear and are replaced by mass chaos.  It is a good idea to group cavalry, Infantry and artillery separately because all your units will move at the speed of the slowest unit in the group even when attacking.  Although having your cavalry move at the same speed as your heavy artillery is not the end of the world it could be the end of your cavalry.

Fortunately, Ensemble has made many hotkeys available to make controlling a diverse army easier.  Naval units also have a tendency to act strangely when close to shore or other ships.  However they have done a good job at preventing any one type of unit from being completely dominant on the battlefield, and forcing players to create a diverse army.  Ensemble has also placed a limit to the number of units of the same type that the player is allowed to create.  Although you can acquire cards that will expand the number of a given unit that you are allowed to build, do not plan on recreating the Spanish Armada, because without bonus cards you are only allowed three frigates.

There is nothing quite as gratifying as watching the deck of an enemy warship being torn to pieces by a broadside from one of your own warships, or watching a round from one of your fort’scannon send several enemy infantry flying before bouncing off across the field, creating divots in the ground as it goes, and finally rolling to a stop.  The visuals in this game are nothing short of miraculous.  Ensemble has done an extraordinary job on the art for this game.

In spite of the lack of evolution in the combat aspect of this game it is still a very impressive game.  The many new additions and changes that have been brought about in Age of Empires III make for an enjoyable gaming experience, and I would say a favorable direction for the Age of Empires franchise to take.  I would not hesitate to place Age of Empires III among the best real-time strategy games on the market today, and it is definitely a worthy heir to Age of Empires II: Age of Kings.