Pros: GRAPHICS AWESOME!!! Still just as fun as the others.
Cons: Not really any except it isn't really any different.
The bottom line: I would recommend this game especially to others who have played the previous games in this series.
Age of Empires III picks up where Age of Empires II leaves off and you have a European power to explore, build your empire and conquer the new world in this game. There isn't much of a difference in this game as Age of Empires or Age of Empires II. It's still fun to play and enjoyable like the previous games.

The graphics are awesome! Even down to when buildings get destroyed. Catch fire and the roofs of buildings actually get holes in them and pieces fly off. The ships are really awesome when they are attacking as well. They blow holes in each other and actually sink. The trees look real, and when a villager is chopping wood, leaves actually fall off. When the tree is out of resources, you can see the tree actually fall over. It has a more realistic feel to it.

The gameplay is the same as the previous games in the series. You pick your civilization, create villagers to build your empire, gather wood, food and coin. All you need to do is drag a villager to the resource and they start working. Building lumber mills make chopping wood quiker because the villager doesn't have that far to walk. The same with mines when gathering gold. You create villagers in your town center. The farms are easier in this game since you can have a villager build a windmill and the fields replenish themselves. To make a villager build something, you choose what you want to build and move a villager to the building and they start building it.

You build an army by producing them from a Barracks, Stable, and an Artillery Foundry etc. A villager must build these before you can create them. There are all kinds of different units that you can create from each building. Also the different units depend on what civilization you have chosen. Infantry includes Pikeman, Halberdier, Rodelero, Doppelsoldner, Janissary, Musketeer, Minuteman, Crossbowman, Longbowman, Strelet, Skirmisher, and Cassador. The Calvalry includes Hussar, Cuirassier, Cossack, Uhlan, Lancer, Oprichnik, Spahi, Calvalry Archer, Dragoon, Ruyter, and War Wagon. The Artillery includes Grenadier, Falconet, Abus Gun, Mortar, Culverin, Heavy Cannon, Great Bombard and Rocket.

To make millitary units attack, you can laso a group of them or double click on one and all of the same kind of units will be selected. Then all it takes is clicking the mouse button where you want them to go or clicking what you want them to attack.

Each civilization also has special units as well. Creating villagers and millitary units require a certain amount of food or gold to create them. Every building requires certain resourses to build them as well.

You advance through technologies and advance through the ages. There are Five ages:

Discovery Age
Colonial Age
Fortress Age
Industrial Age
Imperial Age

Each advancement in the ages you get more building options, create more powerful army units and more technologies to research. Like better ways to gather resources that make things easier. You can improve your empire by being able to build a wall to keep enemies out. You also get more research options to be able to create a better army.

There is even a point where you can build a dock and produce fishing ships. What I think is really neat is that there are whales in the water. It is really neat watching them swim. You can send a fishing boat to fish where the whale is and you not only gather food but it is also an unlimited amount of gold you can collect!

The game modes include:
*Story-based campaign--to win you have to complete all missions in the campaign
*Single player or multiplayer skirmish--whoever conquers first is the winner. There are also to ways you can play a skirmish. Supremacy-which means you start with no resources and deathmatch-which means you start with a stockpile of resources and you play at a high speed.
*There are also random map and Online & LAN multiplayer.

My favorite way to play is the skirmish. I like to play supremacy because starting out with resources is to easy to me. I like starting from scratch and I like to just destroy everything. And believe me, you have to destroy everything. I had a couple of the enemies villagers walking around and I had to track them down. Poor guys!

The story based campaigns are fun to play as well. Sometimes they can be difficult doing what needs to be done but I think that makes it better! But there actually has been a few times I quit and came back to it later.

There are 8 civilizations to choose from:

Spanish
British
French
Portuguese
Dutch
Russian
German
Ottoman

Each civilization is different and have different abilities and weaknesses and the all have different kinds of military units. I don't really have a favorite civilization. They each have their own unique units but I have fun with them all. I normally have the game randomly pick what my civilization is. Either way, It's fun.

In this game you can ally with Native Americans that live in the new world. You form alliances by building a trading post next to their settlement. They will help you in battle. You never have to fight Native Americans unless they are allied with an enemy. To ally with them, a lot of the time you have to build a trade center near their campsite. You can find areas all over to build these and a train will actually run from one place to the next delivering resources. The train looks pretty neat and is fun watching it for the first time.

You have a Home City in Age of Empires III. You gain experience in this game unlike the others. There are different ways to gain experience and as you gain experience your home city gets stronger and can provide more powerful units resources and improvements. With leveling up, you gain the use to play certain cards after leveling up so much. There are cards for elite units which you can choose and you will have those units in your empire when you get back to gameplay. There are others like having resources delivered to you and warships and many more.


System Requirements

Windows XP-256 MB RAM
*1.4 GHz Processor
*2GB Hard Drive Space
*64MB Video Card with support for hardware transformation and lighting
*Sound Card and Speakers

Online/Multiplayer requirements
*56K dial-up Internet Access or LAN

It was worth buying this game even though it's about the same as the others when it comes to the gameplay. This one has just a little more to it. I have enjoyed all of them.