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Age of Empires III Review - PC

Balanced, historic and complex are the best words to describe Ensemble Studio's latest impact on the world of real-time strategy. This is another solid release for the Age of … series, and it's very nice to see the theme has shifted to something a little less clichéd.

The game doesn't have any major faults but unfortunately doesn't live up to the compelling brilliance of the company's last game – Age of Mythology.

Gameplay

Age of Empires III is set in the colonial and Napoleonic period. This is the first game of the series to be set in an era with gun powder and it pulls it off very well with almost the identical engine used to make Age of Mythology. So we're talking cannons, musketeers, cavalry, knights, pike men, galleons, fire ships, Native Americans, and so on.

The real problem I had with this game is all the time I was playing it I just kept thinking it should have been much more compelling than it actually was. All the ingredients seemed to be right. The unit's are brilliant, the visuals are nice and the system is all very well balanced. But for some reason, the game just didn't grab me like AOM did.

You have a town centre from which you pump out villagers – aptly called settlers in Age of Empires III to fit in with the colonial theme the game takes.

As usual, these guys can build a whole range of other functional buildings and can also be used to collect resources. Resources are needed to build buildings, research upgrades, and product unit's. In this game the primary resources are food, wood and gold. This is pretty standard RTS stuff eh?

Upgrades include such things as improved weapons, improved resource collecting methods, and the primary upgrade at the town centre which is to advance through the ages. Advancing to the next age has always been a major part of this series as it gives you access to new unit's, new buildings, new upgrades, and so forth.

AOE III features the ability for players to send for shipments from their home city back on the other side of the Atlantic. This is a timed ability which recharges over time. Players can send for shipments of food, unit's, and so on, depending on what cards they have. As a player advances through the ages more cards become available to them. In the single player campaign the cards must be earned by progressing through the campaign.

There are different cards available for each age, and you can only use advanced cards after you reach a certain age. This means that simple cards, such as shipments of 300 food, are still useful because they can be applied early on. Later cards include things such as troops, artillery, larger crates of resources, etc. Some cards may be used as many times as you wish, whilst others are one use only.

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