Reviewed by Game Boy!
Please note, all PC Games reviewed in this series are played by both men and women, boys and girls.
Welcome to Age Of Empires III. In addition to the main game, the race for the colonisation of the New World (America) by 8 European civilisations, each one lead and represented by a famous figurehead from the 16th century onward, there are not 1 but 2 expansions; the second based in Asia.
It is to a player’s advantage that they acquire all 3; the main game plus the 2 expansions for numerous reasons.
First and foremost. Whereas the War chiefs only has 7 additional maps, the Asian Dynasties has twice that number (14) and comes with your number 1 ally in the Chinese while some of the maps offer ways to easily win games, which is what Age of Empires III is geared to. Rarely, if at all, will you find yourself playing a game that lasts as long as those in its predecessor.
Age III differs, and in so many ways to that of Age II. So much so, that it’s a total departure all together.
Each of the 14 civilizations has a home city, one that sends shipments to your colony from a deck of cards. Here, for your understanding, is the Portuguese deck showing the military cards available.
From the top left: Although You can have multiple decks, one geared to naval warfare the other without, so far, there is only one decent map that would require a navy, and only then if the central lake (Great lakes map) isn’t frozen over. The other thing with having more than 1 deck is you cannot pause the game to select it at the start.
Next, you will note that there are five buildings in your home city, each with its own separate type of shipment.
With just the main game installed, the amount of cards you can have in a deck is just 20. With both expansions installed the amount of cards in a deck is 25. Chances are, you won’t use all of them. Indeed, of the 25 cards in my deck, nine are never used. That’s because games take less time to play in Age III compared with Age II, about 30 minutes. Insufficient time to send any more, other than to achieve the most unit score.
Two of the cards in the deck have a green border instead of white. A green border denotes a ‘Team bonus’. That means, the shipment associated with the card is sent to every member of your team, including you, of course.
The key factor of the cards is, taking the Musketeers tree (column 4 from the left) into consideration, in order to gain the shipment of 16 Musketeers, the one at the very bottom, you must select every card above it when offered. In addition to that, all available cards can only be unlocked when you reach level 40.
My current level standing is 122. To gain a level, you have to accumulate experience points, which you receive at the end of the game. Your experience standing can be seen on the Achievements board, where you will also be informed if you have gained a level. In that respect, you need to play a lot of games, and as the same civilization, to reach the 40 limit needed to unlock every card while others can only be unlocked once you reach levels *10 and 25.
*In researching the game as every civilisation for this informative article, I found myself starting at level 10 instead of level 1.
If that were not enough, shipments can only be sent when you reach a certain age.
There are two handy game options that you must apply. You can either change them at the start or in game. On Game U options (the main tab), Enable these by clicking the dull bronze coloured button to the right of the option’s name: ‘Show gatherers per resource’ and ‘Show advanced formations’.
The first of these has two clever uses. First and foremost, it shows how many villagers are gathering each resource and how many are idle. Despite the fact that the top left of the map also show’s that last piece of information, along with units and buildings you have assigned a number to, by clicking on the number of villagers in each box, you are taken to a villager gathering that resource. Once I have clicked the ‘Research Imperial age’ button in one of my Portuguese town centres, I rarely have further use for food, and so clicking the number of villagers gathering food lets me transfer them to coin (silver mines), which I need a lot of along with wood. More on my strategy and use of the cards in my deck later on.
Troop formation. Do not be surprised if your troops ignore the stance you give them, specifically that of stand ground when near an enemy building. One other point. Troops are shipped with a default of attack. If you already have a troop of soldiers, which should be set to stand ground (Alt+G), and then group them with the new arrivals, if you then click stand ground, you may find that the first troop revert to the default.
Play the tutorial to get an understanding of the game, followed by the ‘try a game’ option.
Differentials:
There are two game types ‘Supremacy’ and ‘Death Match’ (vast amount of starting resources). For each of these, you have to have an independent name, despite your playing as the same civilization. In that respect, you can only use the deck associated with your chosen name. The default for Portugal is Lisbon. If you want to play both game types, you will have to add something to ‘Lisbon’ (Lisbon1).
Buildings: You cannot place a building too close to an enemy’s initial town centre. This can actually play to your advantage by giving you some idea where they are.
Teams: Unlike AOE & AOEII, the limit is 2 teams, while no player can have the same colour despite it being possible to select the same colour for two players. The limit is still 8 players.
Player Handicap: When active (a tick visible in a box), you can give players a +% of resources gathered. This lets you play some maps on hard difficulty.
Population count: Oddly, while some of the civilizations start with as many as 2 units; one of which is your explorer, they do not count towards your population limit of 200, while the amount of villagers you start with and the type of resources you receive as your initial shipment, once your town centre is built (Nomad start), differs, depending on the civilization.
Gather points: Town centres have two gather point flags. The plain one is for villagers and any non-military shipment that isn’t a resource = a fort, town centre or outpost. The other flag, which has a shield with two crossed swords on it, is the military gather point one; handy for deploying a shipment of troops to a certain point on the map (see next).
Shipment points: The default for shipments is your town centre. However, shipments can be received at any one of three buildings: town centre, a defence tower or a fort. To change the destination, click the building you want the next shipment sent to and click the image of a house (changes from normal to red).
Naval gather point: A buoy, one the same colour as your chosen civilization, denotes where naval vessels are shipped to.
Navy: Strangely, only fishing ships add to your population count. The amount of each type of war ship you can have is, however, limited. You can increase the build limit of all warships with the Admiralty card. In addition to each type of warship being able to transport units, a galleon, as with a fort, lets you create military units in line with that of a fort while a Caravel can also fish.
Fishing: In addition to fish, whales, when fished, generate coin. Not every map has them, though.
Towers: When assigning villagers to build a tower, the maximum you can use is four. Irrespective of how many you group, any number above four remain idle.
Map reveal: Until you research Spies in the imperial age, or play as the Japanese and build the Great Buddah, there is only one map reveal, ‘line of sight’; what your units and buildings and those of your allies can see, while Spies and Great Buddah only apply to the civilizations that use them; in that respect, they are not shared.
Levels: All players play at the same level as you.
Other players’ decks: At the end of a game, by pressing the F6 function key and then clicking the flag of one of the other players, you can see their deck. Of the two civilizations I play against, the British rarely change their deck compared to the Aztecs. It gives you a foresight for future games.
Hunting & Gathering: You will be pleased to know the following. First and foremost, there are no resource gathering buildings. Hooray! Secondly, there is no loss of meat through deterioration. There is, however, one small thing to keep in mind when using villagers to hunt animals other than elephants. Those animals among a heard not killed will disperse. For that reason, I assign 3 of my starting 7 villagers group 2 (Ctrl +2) and another 3 group 3. Having driven the heard away, I then take the 2nd group past the heard and then drive them back towards the first group of villagers by shooting one of the heard.
Native allies: Shown as a white native Indian tepee on the mini-map. If you build a trading post on their settlement they will ally with your civilization. Be advised, if an enemy destroys it, they can and will claim it for themselves. The same also applies to a trading post (see below).
Imperial age: Unless indicated otherwise on cards, each shipment can only be sent once. That said, more often than not, when you reach the imperial age you can send one time shipments you’ve already received again.
Housing: Each town centre supports 10 people/units. A house supports 10 people/units for all civilizations with the exception of: Iroquois, supports 15 units. Sioux, like the Huns in AGEII, have a support of 200 (no housing needed). Chinese have a village costing 200 wood for 20 unit support. The Japanese have shrines for housing, which generate resources and attract nearby animals for food. In that respect, they do not hunt.
Repairing buildings: Thankfully, you don’t need villagers to repair buildings that are damaged by enemy attacks. You will need to wait until they have been dispersed or killed. You then click on the building and, providing you have the resources to repair it, click on the repair button.
Game speed: Once chosen and the game begins, unlike its predecessors, it can’t be changed.
Experience points: They count towards your shipments. You receive Experience points in game for constructing a building, killing enemy units and destroying enemy buildings. In doing so, you will see the number of points you’ve earned for said action float up the screen in your chosen player colour. In combat, you may also see points in the enemy’s colour, usually when they’ve killed one of your units.
Treasures: Each map has numerous treasures on it, most of which are guarded. Although you can attack the guardians with troops, as well as your explorer, only your explorer can claim the treasure while it’s the amount of treasures you collect that add to your in-game experience points total. I only ever collect unguarded treasures, while being choosy about others. The Plymouth map, however, has more unguarded treasures on it.
Even more experience points = more shipments: Build a church! Research Mercantilism and your experience points shoot up. Enough that you can request 3 shipments. Use and plan wisely, though (see below).
Experience points along with resources, can also be obtained by building a trading post along a trade route (white circle on the mini-map). Every time a Travois, stage coach or train passes your trading post, it generates Experience points. To change it to something else (food, wood or coin), simply click the trading post and click the image of the resource. If you hold more than 1 trading post, you can only set them to the same type.
Game option types: There are several types of games and winning achievements in AOEIII. You or your team control all of the trading posts for example.
Postgame Achievements: At the end of the game, even if you lose or resign, you should check the post game achievements by clicking the ‘Menu’ button at the top right corner of the screen and then select ‘View postgame’ from the list. Your main point of interest is to see if you have gained a level, It does, though, have some oddities. For example, on the Awards screen, collecting the least or the most amount of resources earns you 500 experience points. On the Military screen, unit losses include covered wagons, travois and rickshaws (depending on your chosen civilization).
Hotkeys: These are listed on the AgeIII ‘Quick reference’ sheet. However, there is a noticeable error on mine. The F5 function key actually takes a screenshot. For what it’s supposed to do, press the enter key on your keyboard. F3, objectives, only works with the campaign games. F7 and pressing the Pause key, pause the game. That also places a rectangular box in the middle of the screen; most annoying. F8 is the quick save option. That said, it takes quite some time.
When I hit the imperial age, I build, use & number two buildings. A barracks: 8 and the capitol: 9.
I use the Barracks to upgrade my musketeers twice and use the capital for three technologies.
Esc: To cancel something, an action attributed to the mouse pointer, press the Esc key. If you do not wish to see the entire introduction video, press the Esc key (you may need to press it twice).
Campaigns: Each of the first two have a single campaign while the Asian Dynasties has three; one for each civilization. The problem, however, is, you have to play the Asian campaigns in order. Even on the easiest level, I found it impossible to complete the first part, while getting quite deep into those from the main AGEIII one and the War chiefs.
Home City: There are two interesting inter-active, if you like, things about your home city. Before you play a game you can decorate the buildings in your home city and choose people to take an active part in it. To do that, you need to click ‘Customise’ on the ‘Home Cities’ menu.
In the actual game, when you request troops from a card in your deck, you can, if you wait before returning to the game map, watch as they board the transport ship in your home city.
Choosing a civilization to play as?
If you play as different civilizations, it will take you many game hours to reach level 40, which, as mentioned, is when all the cards are unlocked. In exchange for the resource cost of aging up, you also receive a shipment. With the initial European civilizations, you are given 2 or 3 options, which differ from the other civilizations and differ from the European civilizations with each age. If you play as one of the expansion civilizations, your choice is limited to 4 of 5 fixed options, while differing from the others. That said, the main aspect of the shipment (troops for example) increases in quantity the later you leave it, while the three Asian civilizations need at least 1 villager to build a wonder in order to go to the next age. Each wonder has a bonus associated with it and the Japanese bonus for building the Great Buddah is that it reveals enemy buildings and units for a short while, and, thereafter, shows all enemy buildings permanently.
Which civilization is the best to play as?
It’s more a case of why, considering everything, and I have, in researching the game for this article, played as every civilization.
As with its predecessors, mixed units move at the speed of the slowest unit. Similarly, an all purpose unit, like that of the Mongolian Elite Mangudai in AOEII, is key. For that, there is no better than the Musketeer, and this is why. Unlike cavalry etc, they are a single population count. More importantly, though, I only ever have to pay 100 in resources for just 1, thereby bringing my group of musketeers up to the group limit of 50. (+10 on that of AOEII.)
In addition to that, and since the game is all about destroying the enemy’s town centre(s) and forcing them to resign, the Portuguese receive a covered wagon that transforms into a town centre (maximum of 4) with each age up. That not only makes them hard to defeat but, apart from the Asian civilizations, you can create villagers from your other town centres while aging up.
The other plus point is a spyglass, which only the Portuguese Explorer has. Using the technology allows you see a small section of the map. I particularly play Nomad on all but the Regicide maps and use the spyglass to locate a resource rich point on the map, a skill that comes with playing over 70 games to reach level 40 (almost 300 for my current level of 122) while its use comes to the fore on the Siberian map.
My deck: Give or take the odd differentials (see screenshot below), most aspects of it can be used, irrespective of the level you play at and the locked cards while the maximum amount of cards you can have in each age is 10.
In the main, you only need to reach level 10 for the main benefits. Those that require a higher level and which I actually use in every game are: Economic gathering [level 40], 1600 coin [25], Castramatation (second fort) [25], Tupi Allies [40], and 16 musketeers [25].
Until you receive notice that ‘new cards are available’, you need to build an artillery foundry for mortars, which you need in order to destroy the game’s self-defensible buildings: towers, forts and town centres (among others). When you receive your first cards, be sure to choose and add the 2 mortars card to your deck, thereby saving you the cost of and building the artillery foundry and 2 mortars.
NB. In playing the game as the Portuguese from level 1, I just noticed an oversight on my part. The first card from the left in Age II should be 700 coin and not 600 coin. You should use that larger shipment to boost the coin you need to research the Fortress age.
Play the game for fun and be prepared to loose units. It may be of help to you to record a game, especially if you play against the same enemy civilizations each time, that way, when you watch it back, you can see which of the age up options they click. On that note, and as the Portuguese, these are what you need to select with each age up: Colonial age: 500 food. Fortress age: Age up very fast. Industrial age: 10 Musketeers. Imperial age: 2000 coin (see next).
The Capitol: The following three technologies can be found at the capitol, once built, for the European civilizations. For the six expansion civilizations they can be found in their town centre(s). Immigrants: boosts your population housing by 100, research immediately. Blockade: Prevents (blocks) enemy home city shipments. Spies: Permanently see all enemy units and buildings. All of those cost coin. Blockade is dependant on the strength of the enemy as a whole while Spies relates to the amount of villagers they have. In that sense, as mentioned, once you have clicked a town centre to research the imperial age, move those villagers on food to silver mines for the coin. The maximum villagers I have are 36 (if you play as the Ottoman civilization the maximum amount of villagers you can have are 25). Be prepared, even in the Fortress age, to move villagers from one resource to another; again, it’s all about micro-managing.
Allies and Enemies: Although, and especially on hard difficulty, you will need additional help, I play as a team of 3 V 2. The main one is Chinese plus one from these: Spanish, Sioux, Japanese, Ottoman, Russian.
Enemies: Aztecs, the game’s weakest civilization, plus the British. Others: Spanish and French.
Maps: The two that give you extra resources are Hispaniola and Deccan. Once your villagers have unpacked 800 food (you may need to direct them to do so first), click your town centre and research the colonial age. Doing that so early in the game, will, however, push your planned shipments back by one. Great lakes has a large lake in the middle, one that can be frozen over. The other good ones are: Great planes, New England, Texas, Andes, Araucania (abundant coin and food), N.W. Territory, Unknown, Borneo, Plymouth (start with several settlers, an Indian and turkey scout), Siberia and Regicide Honshu (Discovery age start).
To discover the other civilizations as I recently did, play the game on Amazonia where each team is marooned on a land mass with the Amazon river between them.
Avoid Ceylon, as it’s the same as Pilgrims in AOEII. To increase Experience and gain the levels you need to unlock cards, you need conflict and to be a winner.
Winning the game: Although enemy civilizations will offer their resignation, you don’t have to accept it. In that sense, wipe them out totally to receive maximum experience points. When they do offer their resignation, though, your allies, more than likely, will accept it and cease attacking that enemy.
I’ve left one more thing until last, as it’s something that you’ll rarely have use for, unlike Caesar IV, another game in this series. By rolling the mouse wheel, you can zoom in and out of the map.
Finally, consider all the information contained in this review of a great game, alongside that of the information contained in the game manuals.
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