AOE III - My Review

[Snakespy]

ya there is a demo, i got it a while back, i bet u could look at some forums in the last month or so and find it, i think it was from microsoft.com

[Kamakazie]

theres an updated demo available at www.fileplanet.com

[Freddy_Kruger]

This games lags my computer out big time, even the menu, with the people walking around, stutters.

[Hadsus]

I was also put off by the huge interface. In fact I think I spent all of about five minutes with the demo until I uninstalled it. Real dumb to cover up so much of play space with a steriodal UI. But, if this is more of the same with just better graphics, I'm out anyway. I'm done with sequels that do nothing more than give us better eye-candy along with a token gameplay twist here and there.

[Kamakazie]

This games lags my computer out big time, even the menu, with the people walking around, stutters.

Turn the shaders down a notch.

I had a problem where the game didnt have choppy FPS, but the camera lagged a bit - turning down the shaders to one below the maximum fixed this.

[Actvs Dei]

Well I just finished the tutorial, basics and a skirmish.
It's all cute and stuff...BUT...
I could not find a way to repair buildings, apparently villagers forgot how to do that since AOK, IMHO that's a major downer.
You get 1 fort through shipment (can't build it any other way), and if the enemy nibbles away at it there is nothing you can do about it, nor can you replace it (unless you earn another card of the right type). I dunno about you guys but i like repairing stuff. Priests seem VERY limited they can heal units but you have to select the skill and manually use it it seems, in AOK that worked automatic. Can't convert buildings or troops.
I find everything a little too big, and I'm playing with very far zoom. In particular those trees, thems bigger than forts :P I liked the size of trees in AOE, the roman expansion, AOK, and the conquerers expansion (in short i find trees in all previous AOE games look better).
Natives are like buildings, you can place an outpost next to a village which enables you to create native warriors that fight for you, but on their own they don't do anything.

Isn't AOE supposed to be the historical RTS? Natives don't roam, don't hunt buffalo, don't scalp the white man, don't play any independent role. Natives should be like in 7 Cities of Gold. They should be friendly or hostile to varying degrees, you should be able to build up a relation with them by selling them useless junk and fire water which might persuade them to occasionally raid your enemies.
They "give" us their land, we give them disease.

I'm telling you the native aspect of this game is a MAJOR disappointment, they are as active as the trees. (actually, at least in the tutorial game, natives are 2-3 little buildings and occasionally 1 or 2 of them can be seen around the campfire).

I'm probably making too much of this, but if ES didn't want any redskins in their game why didn't they relocate AOE III to Mars?

Imagine AOE IV plays in africa and there are no black people in the game ... IMHO ES dropped the ball big time on this one...AOE III might just as well take place on the canary islands :P

heres a clue if a buildings damaged. click on it and hit the repair button. Its at the very bottom on the right.

[n8j]

Anyone else getting really bad lag playing AOE3 online? The battles are soooo sticky, and .... crappy! It takes 5 minutes for a full on battle to take place which should only take like 30 seconds! This has put me offf on online play into single player, until they fix it.

[Geforce255]

I could not find a way to repair buildings, apparently villagers forgot how to do that since AOK, IMHO that's a major downer.

Right click on the building, then click on the hammer icon.

Priests seem VERY limited they can heal units but you have to select the skill and manually use it it seems, in AOK that worked automatic. Can't convert buildings or troops.

I view this as a good thing. The whole conversion nonsense seemed cheesy. This is supposed to be historical combat.

I'm probably making too much of this, but if ES didn't want any redskins in their game why didn't they relocate AOE III to Mars?

They have the Indians. But in the conquest of America Indians amounted to little more than support troops, which is portrayed here.

[Freddy_Kruger]

Turn the shaders down a notch.

I had a problem where the game didnt have choppy FPS, but the camera lagged a bit - turning down the shaders to one below the maximum fixed this.

Yeah, I turned down the shader and turned a bunch of other things way up and it runs pretty good now.

[Skywize]

heres a clue if a buildings damaged. click on it and hit the repair button. Its at the very bottom on the right.

Thanks man.
Kinda used to peasants repairing buildings...
Self-repairing buildings, didn't know they had the technology 500 years ago, sounds "Borg" to me
And when playing with small UI those buttons are tiny (1280x960), I pitty the fool who plays at 1600x1200 (get a microscope to find the repair option).

[Actvs Dei]

Thanks man.
Kinda used to peasants repairing buildings...
Self-repairing buildings, didn't know they had the technology 500 years ago, sounds "Borg" to me
And when playing with small UI those buttons are tiny (1280x960), I pitty the fool who plays at 1600x1200 (get a microscope to find the repair option).

I play at 1600x1200 on my dell 21 inch. Very delicious.

[Freddy_Kruger]

All in all the game is very lame.

No one could consider this one a classic.

I give it 2 out of 5.

[Skywize]

All in all the game is very lame.

No one could consider this one a classic.

I give it 2 out of 5.

All in all i must agree with you.
Cards and Home Cities are a nice addition though.
Once you've played RTW you are a little spoiled in the combat area, but AOE never was about strategic mass combat, so I don't really have a problem with that part.

I find the implementation of natives lacking, basically they have been degraded to a building type. There's only 1 campaign and it's mediocre at best.

Guess we can take ES off the list of great game developpers...Blizzard is getting mighty lonely up there.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Darn, and I had been really looking forward to this one too, but all the reviews and comments seem to be very average at best. I guess I'll pass in favor of Civ IV then, so its not a complete loss.

[spamjedi]

I really like AOE II this is a bummer.