Pros: Better Graphics, New Time Period
Cons: Horribly Implemented Economy, No Multiplayer Value, Limited Map Options
The bottom line: My final recommendation is to play Age of Empires II and leave this game to rot in its own misery
About a year ago Microsoft finally released the long awaited Age of Empires III. Years ago I fell in love with a game called Age of Empires. I played it over and over again until finally a new game came out: Age of Empires II: Age of Kings. This release was a big improvement on the original game and also had me hooked; I still play it to this day. Last year, Age of Empires fans from across the world celebration in the highly anticipated release of the third Age of Empires. Unfortunately Age of Empires III does not live up to its predecessors.

Graphics 7/10
The graphics in Age of Empires III, from a purely unbiased sense are better than the graphics in the previous two versions. When using your navy, you can see in great detail the smoke from your ships and the damage to enemy vessels. I think most Age of Empires fans, however, might not like the improvement in the graphics very much. I personally feel it is the same change that occurred between Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII. The graphics are better but the game loses some of its originality that it was known for. The graphics are much like those of Empire Earth. They make the game look better but, in fact, they make the feel of the game worse.

Learning Curve 6/10
The learning curve for all the Age of Empires (AOE) games has been quite high. For experienced AOE players, the game isn’t very hard to learn. There are many new additions to the game that one must become acquainted with; however, after a few good hours of playing an old AOE fanatic will have quite the handle on it.

For new players to the award winning series, AOE3 will take some getting used to. Basically the idea of the game is that you are the leader (or God in a sense,) of a civilization. Your goal is to make the civilization prosper economically, militarily and diplomatically. You achieve these by creating villagers, collecting resources, contrasting buildings, and building an army. The instruction manual is a great help in getting new players acquainted with the game. Overall I’d say that after a good week or two of playing a new player to AOE should have the overall hang of the game.

Additions to Age of Empires III 5/10
Your Home City
Unlike its two predecessors, in AOE3 the player has a home city (depending on their civilization,) where than can receive shipments of goods, soldiers or resources from. What you get from your home city depends on the amount of time that you have spent playing with a certain civilization and how successful you have been with it. To give an example: When you first start playing AOE3 you might have the option to receive 2 villagers from your home city when you’ve acquired a certain amount of respect points. As you play with that civilization for a longer period of time (we’re talking multiple games here,) you option might go up from 2 villagers to 5 villagers.

I personally don’t like the home city feature of AOE3. I think it takes away from aspects of the game that used to make it great, such as having to rely on your environment for your resources, etc. I also think it hurts the game because it discourages players from playing with different civilizations. This is because for a player to build a strong home city they must play with the same civilization over and over again. I’m not a fan of the new home city feature.

New Units
AOE3 features a barrage of new units for the player to choose from. Most of the reason behind this is because AOE3 takes place in a different time in history than the other two games. You can now control a multitude of units that fire weapons, instead of just melee units. The addition of new units was necessary for AOE3 because of the time period change, however the game doesn’t seem to run as smoothly as it did before when most of the units were melee units and firing units were just a bonus for certain civilizations. AOE 3 also adds many other new unit options that were not offered in the previous AOE games but for the most part they don’t change the actual play of the game too much.

Economic Changes
The economy in AOE3 is very different than that of the other AOE games. First off the home city feature that I previously mentioned makes it much easier to receive certain resources and units with basically no cost at all (they just go against your population limit.) Also trading in the game has changed because you can now trade with native villages to the region. This feature makes it possible to trade even if you’re just participating in a 1 on 1 game. Another economic change that was implemented is the availability of buildings such as plantations that will continuously produce coin or stone. This makes it possible for players to receive an endless amount of resources throughout the game. I am not a fan of this feature at all because one of my personal strategies of AOE used to be to continuously hit an opposing players economy, colonize near their own city and steal their resources so by the end of the game I would still have a good deal of gold and stone left while my opponent was desperately searching for any resources he could find. I think the economic changes to AOE3 make the game much longer and much less important in the early stages of the game. Microsoft tried to hard in the area and it shows in the final product.

Multiplayer 3/10
AOE fanatics every where waited and waited for AOE3 to come out so we could begin to create our own scenarios in the game and take them online like we did with AOE2. Unfortunately this is the area of the game where Microsoft messed up the most. Previously players were able to go onto the MSN Gaming Zone and challenge their friends in combat. Thousands of players logged on everyday to wage hours of warfare with each other. Disappointingly enough the multiplayer options that Microsoft provided us with in AOE3 are an unbelievable step down from those in AOE2. There is only game play option, which is equivalent to the random map feature in AOE2. This type of game is your basic, build up your economy and military and destroy your opponents. There are no custom scenario options for multiplayer. The amounts of maps available are basically nothing compared to those available in previous versions of the game. Even when you do decide to go online and play there is practically nobody else to play with. The AOE2 servers are much more active than those of the AOE3 servers, sadly enough.

A Little Bit of Microsoft Revenge?
A while ago I wrote a review on the game Empire Earth, in which I released my thoughts on how it was a glorified Age of Empires. Interestingly enough, AOE3 features many aspects that come even closer to those of Empire Earth. The units that were added to AOE3 are very similar to the units available in Empire Earth. The addition of a hero unit is almost exactly the same as the hero feature in Empire Earth. The addition of plantations to continuously produce resources without having to mine them, is almost exactly the same as the resource features in Empire Earth. Empire Earth was a fun game to play but its replay value was nothing compared to that of AOE2. Unfortunately it seems that Microsoft decided to shadow Empire Earth with many of its new features and it ended up creating a final product that is similar to Empire Earth instead of an improvement of AOE2.

Overall 6/10
Overall I was very disappointed in AOE3. I was expecting an upgrade from older versions of the game and instead I received a downgrade. If you’re a big AOE fan then I guess you should buy this and try it out for yourself if you haven’t already. If you’re new to the AOE community I definitely recommend buying AOE2 and the AOE2: Conquerors Expansion instead of this newer version. I feel that this game is nothing compared to AOE2 and unfortunately I don’t think Microsoft, or any company for that matter, will ever top AOE2.