AOE III - My Review

[Geforce255]

Age of Empires III is a game I've waited for since the first rumblings of it were heard a year and a half ago.

When the first Age of Empires burst onto the computer scene in 2001 it represented a brand new type of Real Time Strategy game. Rather than the fantasy games represented by War Craft or skirmish modern Sci-Fi of Command and Conquer, AOE focused on historical empires. And it did it well. The scope of the game was magnificent, a dozen distinct empires spanning hundreds of years of history.

Ensemble/Microsoft followed up with AOE success by releasing AOE II - Age of Kings. Bigger and better than AOE, Age of Kings was an instant classic. 4

But a lot has happened since then. The unique formula of AOE isn't unique anymore. In fact the creator of the genre, Rick Goodman has created a competing franchise with the Empire Earth games.

On top of that, Rise of Nations took the RTS community by storm.

Empire Earth II was released 4 months back, and the real test is how Age of Empires III fares in the new market of historical RTS games.

The first thing that hits you with AOE III is the graphics. The new engine is very nice. Water effects are well done as are mist, smoke, and lighting. Textures are good, but polygons are fairly low. This surprised me as AOE III, like it's predecessors remains small in scale, a maximum of 1,600 units. Empire Earth 2 supports about 4 times that number.

The effect of the low polys is as would be expected. Over all the graphics look superb. But zooming in on a particular unit or animal is disappointing as you'll be greeted by something that appears to have been made out of Lego blocks.

I have to put out a disclaimer, I haven't played the single player missions, and probably never will, so I'll leave the strengths and weaknesses of that aspect to others. I've played strictly multiplayer which is my way of playing all RTS games.

Once you begin the game it isn't long until you remember all those things you loved, and hated in prior AOE games. Each player is given an explorer, who interestingly enough is invincible, at the beginning of the game. Oddly enough though, there is no option to set the explorer to actually explore the map. Those of us used to EE and RoN are expecting to set our explorer to go out and discover the map. No such luck, as with Age of Kings, you must select straight line paths and manually explore the map.

Resource gathering has been streamlined though. There are now only four resources. Food, Ore, Wood, and Knowledge. Villagers remain absolutely stupid, as they did in prior AOE games. Don't expect them to do anything without explicit directions. The don't gather resources and there is no spiffy resource manager such as in Empire Earth II to assign tasks. Rather you must individually select villagers and set them to building, gathering or hunting. If a villager depletes a grove of trees, don't expect him to seek another like they do in Rise of Nations, instead they will stand around and drool.

One of the new feature in AOE III is the "Home City" which "sends resources" when enough knowledge points are gathered. Despite Ensemble making a big deal about this, it really doesn't change game play much. The resources sent don't affect the status of an Empire. Sure, 2 free villagers or 6 soldiers are nice, but aren't enough to tip the balance of power.

Path finding is improved, villagers and soldiers will find their way around most obstacles. And the AI of combat units is better than it was in AOE II. Even so a single unit will engage a large force resulting in slaughter.

Even so, combat in AOE III is glorious. Beyond just the graphics, which are spectacular is the physics engine. A cannon ball lands next to an infantryman and rag-doll goodness follows. No longer to buildings fall in predictable patterns. Artillery shells fly through roofs and walls tearing down houses and forts chunk by chunk. Musketeers set up bi-pods and prime their weapons, reloading with ram-rods after each shot. Cavalry are blown off the backs of horses. Infantry clutch at arrows as they pierce gut or neck.

Over all, this is Age of Kings with modern visuals. That isn't a bad thing, Age of Kings was a great game.

But when held to Rise of Nations or Empire Earth II standards, AOE III comes off lacking.

While the visuals are slightly better than EE II, they aren't vastly better. Both games look great.

But in game play both Rise of Nations and Empire Earth II are still far ahead of AOE III. It's hard to not give AOE III better marks; it's really a good game. It's just that there are better games of the same type.

I'd give it a 7 out of 10.

[taggart6]

But in game play both Rise of Nations and Empire Earth II are still far ahead of AOE III. It's hard to not give AOE III better marks; it's really a good game. It's just that there are better games of the same type.

I'd give it a 7 out of 10.

Kinda disappointing considering I wasn't a big fan of EE2 which I found to be unbalanced and a bit of a grind when tyring to reach epochs.


I had mixed feeling about AOE3 and will probably pass since I'm more focused on Civ4.

Regardless, great review!

[spamjedi]

bummer I liked AOE II. I need some demos for all these games!

[Samduhman]

Oh man I dont know what to buy now. I was soooo looking foward to AOE3. Do I need to go and buy EE2 now instead? Never bought EE or EE2 but loved Rise of Nations.

How did EE2 compare to Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War? Im currently playing it's expansion and love it.

[kbw]

I tried the demo and was put off by the fact that you could only play as the English or the Spanish, do you get more chioces in the full game?

[Skywize]

Isn't AOE III the game where everyone complained about the demo having a too big interface?
Did that change in the final version?

[Timman_24]

Yeah, I would like to know about the interface also. That was awful. From playing the demo it seems like the bad points did transfer right over to the full version according to your review. I will get this game, but only once it hits the bargain bin.

Nice review!

[Freddy_Kruger]

I often wonder why age of mythology doesnt get any respect, I must have played that game for a hundred hours.

[Transfurzz]

I often wonder why age of mythology doesnt get any respect, I must have played that game for a hundred hours.

Ditto, I loved it.

[Samduhman]

I often wonder why age of mythology doesnt get any respect, I must have played that game for a hundred hours.

Your not the only one

[mansionman]

Isn't AOE III the game where everyone complained about the demo having a too big interface?
Did that change in the final version?

There is an option to make the UI much smaller in the game options of the final version.

[Freddy_Kruger]

Your not the only one

one thing AOM did was allow you to build walls and upgrade them 3 or 4 times, I loved that. I used to make mazes, then put towers and archers close by. The monsters will walk through the maze rather than destroying the wall if it senses there is an opening. By the time they get through my mazes there dead, lol.

So much replay value in age of mythology, way too adictive for me.

[spamjedi]

one thing AOM did was allow you to build walls and upgrade them 3 or 4 times, I loved that. I used to make mazes, then put towers and archers close by. The monsters will walk through the maze rather than destroying the wall if it senses there is an opening. By the time they get through my mazes there dead, lol.

So much replay value in age of mythology, way too adictive for me.

There used to be a ton of "Tower Defense" custom maps for Warcraft 3 on Battle.net using that same maze concept. Pretty fun.

[Spaceman Spiff]

I couldn't stand Empire Earth II. And I've played and at one point owned every game in the series (EE, Empires, and EE II).

IMO, it was just mindless farming/resource gathering and mindlessly cranking out as many fodder units possible to throw at the enemy before he tank-rushed your colony.
Compounded by the fact that no matter what the difficulty, the CPU was always vastly more efficient and coordinated than any human could ever be, made it completley unenjoyable. By the time I had a decent economy and 5 basic defense units, the CPU was already up to 40 strong units and expanding all over the map with perfectly managed little resource colonies everywhere you looked.
I can see how multiplayer might be fun, but SP was a chore.

I found older RTS games like AOE 2 and Starcraft to be much more balanced in that respect than any of the EE games.

[Kamakazie]

Oh man I dont know what to buy now. I was soooo looking foward to AOE3. Do I need to go and buy EE2 now instead? Never bought EE or EE2 but loved Rise of Nations.

How did EE2 compare to Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War? Im currently playing it's expansion and love it.

I can't stand EE2, and I love DoW, so I say there is no comparison, lol.