Age of Empires III: Age of Discovery

By Jim Rossignol Published 21 September, 2005

Jim discovers Ensemble's latest.

Previews like this one always contain a certain sense of inevitability. Those who know the Age Of series already know, in terms of general quality and quantity, what to expect. Likewise, the developers, Ensemble Studios, knows exactly what to do, and it's not about to turn its legendary RTS games into an ill-conceived bout of monkey tennis. In fact it's unlikely to put a foot wrong at all - a misplaced toe is about the worst we can expect.

So it’s in a predictably satisfying manner that AoE3 adds new bells and whistles to the usual terrain-conquering formula, as Ensemble attempt to capture the spirit and flavour of the colonial era New World, while at the same time expanding on the challenges that gamers’ enjoyed in the previous games.

The colonial era was a quiet time for videogames, but a good time for conquering heroes and railroad networks, since all the debauched old European Empires decided to deliver packages of imperialism and influenza to the unsuspecting native Indian populations as they searched for gold and ate turkeys for the very first time. Destruction of these natives is actually fairly limited, and the key receiver of your musket-fire is actually going to be the conquistadors of the other rival powers who are also setting up their empires across the virgin territories. The crosses are huge stretch of time, going from log cabin beach-landers, right through to the revolutionary times of the railroad and the fully fledged yankee.

A Bit Townie

'Age of Empires III: Age of Discovery' Screenshot 1

Home cities pump proverbial steroids into the long arm of your empire.

The biggest change, which reflects the over-arching theme of colonialism, is the ‘home city’ screen. This is where assets from your European patron nation can be organised for shipment to the colony. Just as you’ll develop and upgrade facilities in your town, so you’ll also upgrade the capacity to ship people and goods across from Europe, or back again. As the game arc progresses so a sturdy economic base will make the forthcoming challenges easier.

Each of the cities can be customised over time by collecting a deck of ‘cards’, or resources that the city can offer. You can have up to 20 of these and can swap out elements of the deck as you game progresses. The deck will decide what kinds of support your city is going to be able to offer in a particular game. This might vary depending on your nationality too: the Brits will have the strongest economy, while the Spaniards have a head start in extra support for their overseas colonies.

The home city concept adds some extra tactical depth, yet it’s actually simpler to deal with than it sounds. Whether the concept will really prove its worth is probably going to depend on whether it works long-term across many hours of play. In Rome: Total War, for example, the town-development only ever really seemed to add something in the mid-game, with starter towns needing a predictable set of developments, and endgame towns being so big that they might as well be left to their own devices. Hopefully the AoE3 home city will parallel those midgame cities, giving us something else to tinker with throughout the all stages of the game, as towns consolidate and empires grow.

Microsoft Explorer

'Age of Empires III: Age of Discovery' Screenshot 2

Cannons make for fine musical instruments in times of boredom.

The meat of AoE3 though, with all its resource gathering, building and fighting, is delivered with a host of new knobs to play with, including an experience system that adds to how quickly you can import and develop, and trade routes, in which you can set up trading posts near roads, to collect a bit of extra coin, or collect bonuses from a trading post built near the villages of various native tribes.

Key to all this activity is the hero character who is both a strong combat unit and a vital explorer. It’ll not be worth using standard units to explore the map without a hero leader, since only the explorer can collect the treasure caches, which are hidden across the terrain. These will usually incur a brief fight or two, as your explorer and entourage are forced to fight off crocodiles, bears or whatever else has ambushed a wagon train or murdered a woodsman.

These fights themselves demonstrate the excruciating level of detail that AoE3 is going to. Muskets flash and smoke, and then soldiers get stuck in with bayonets and rifle butts as they club and stab enemies to death. Likewise, buildings are destroyed by squads of infantry hurling Molotov cocktails onto the roofs and watching them burn. Combat is fast and amusingly colourful. Conflict in AoE3 is going to be a delight. It’s vital that we mention that Age of Empires 3 really is very pretty, although the screenshots we’ve seen could fool you into thinking that it’s rather more pretty than it actually is: this is still a 3D RTS and a lot of those screens are really rather static.

No Human Contact

If the hours of click-explore, click-gather, and click-build derived from our preview assets are anything to go by, then PC strategists are likely to return from the shops with this clutched between hungry paws and then not be seen by another human being for many weeks. Engrossing ‘tidying up’ of conquerable regions is a hallmark of Age of Empires and it is no different here. AoE3 looks diverse enough to bestride the genre once again, taking all comers with its numerous environments from across the Americas, and its well-matured mix of combat and trade.

For many people, though, the real value of this third instalment will rest on whether or not it the multiplayer is as strong as it has been in previous incarnations. We’ve not had access to that yet, but when the time comes we'll be tolling the patriot bell, or something. Everything from the single player game - the trade routes, the fact that peasants no longer have to carry resources back to base, the speed and versatility of different combat unit types, even the ships that fish and explore along the coastline – all suggest that the multiplayer game will be as demanding and distracting as anything else out there. For some of us, it’s almost certainly going to be an imperial winter.

Age of Empires III: Age of Discovery is due for release on PC on November 11th through Microsoft. Check back shortly before the game's release for a full review.

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About Jim Rossignol

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Comments (35) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • bionutz #1 6 years ago

    it’s almost certainly going to be an imperial winter..
    Loved that.

  • UncleLou #2 6 years ago

    I can't bloody wait. I loved the demo, and I don't want innovation in the AoE series, thanks a lot, I just want my own personal Playmobil-playground for grown-ups with pretty graphics. :)

  • UncleLou #3 6 years ago

    Age of Empires 2? Oh that mea....

    *clonk*

    /falls asleep with boredom

    Hey, I can post that in every Pro Evo article if you want! ;)

  • Hog-lumps #4 6 years ago

    'monkey tennis'

    Commendable use of a 'partridge'ism' there!!!

    Where's the Advance wars DS review then? - I'm getting impatient!!

  • Talha #5 6 years ago

    I played the demo and agree with EG that it isn't as pretty as it looks in those shots. That said, it is PRETTY AS HELL - I would have properly played it had I stopped goggling at the rippling water and unbelievable terrain. In many ways it seems like a Myst RTS.

    That said, the game is pretty much the same, but with added attractions of a Home City and of course, those Havoc physics. A nine-point-fiver, in my opinion.

  • UncleLou #6 6 years ago

    Don't quite know what everyone is on about as well, with everything set to the max it looks exactly like in the screenies. Not that it's still playble on my system then. ;_;

    Though I guess what Jim might have meant is that you'll hardly ever have a scene that has been so nicely set up during a real game.

  • Talha #7 6 years ago

    X800 not a proper card for you? Are you Bill Gates or J K Rowling? I... I am ashamed to admit I have a 6800 GT. IT COST AN ARM AND A LEG, SO DON"T YOU DARE INSULT IT IN FRONT OF ME!!!

    As for not being as pretty as the screenies, all I meant is that most publicity shots of the Home City are renders of the same world taken from an angle not possible within the game. So naturally, they don't look as pretty when seen from an isometric point of view.

    Or is it possible to move the camera somehow?

  • Talha #8 6 years ago

    Well first of all I didn't mean to be sarcastic about the screenies - I was merely asking a question. You ask me have I even played the demo? Hell I know I did. Did I find anything resembling the first screenshot in the interview? No, because it is a whole different angle. It was that particular shot I was talking about, not the gameplay shot. Did you even read my post, where I termed it a Myst RTS? Please correct me if I am wrong.

    For your information, I DO set the settings to maximum and get 35-40 fps, no sweat. Just don't tell me that 6800GT is not good enough because it is just one generation down from the 7800 GTX.

    And if I am 'poor' for only being able to afford a 6800GT, Microsoft can say goodbye to any sales expectations for this title - it is a high-end graphically rich title, but it has to run on millions of people's machines addicted to AoE series.

  • Talha #9 6 years ago

    You can be patronizing all you want, but I still don't know where that first screenie came from.

  • Talha #10 6 years ago

    Well don't knowy the linky, but it was the firsty oney in the article of this forumy.

  • UncleLou #11 6 years ago

    Talha, you can switch to your home city in the game where you get exactly the perspective as shown in the first screenie - the home city not being the first settlement you build on the map, but your European city. You can't move the camera there or anything, although it's done with the game engine, not pre-rendered.
    Edited by 1 at 21/09/05 @ 10:59

  • renzo #12 6 years ago

    If you click on certain buildings in your home city the camera pans around iirc.

  • Talha #13 6 years ago

    Ok now I get it. Thanks guys for your advice. ALthough I should clarify that I was not alleging these to be pre-rendered or anything.

    Great looking game, all in all.

  • Talha #14 6 years ago

    The only way I can think of AoE 3 demo disappointing is that you saw all the screenshots and the game looks exactly like that! Surprise!

  • UncleLou #15 6 years ago

    first thing first the demo looks nothing and I mean noothing like the screenshots, its margnialy better looking then aOE 2, but with real damage physics. You need a beefy PC to display with all details set to high.


    Must be your PC. Looks 100% like in the screenshots on mine.

  • t #16 6 years ago

    i am a big man with a giant penis cos i have a big expensive video card and i feel big being able to lord it over other ppl.

    tremble before the might of my superior wallet and general worth as a person.

    begone plebs!
    Edited by 1 at 21/09/05 @ 13:21

  • Talha #17 6 years ago

    No need for that degree of subtlety or restraint, t!!!

  • jawolf #18 6 years ago

    Poor is the person for whom money is the only wealth, for their graphics cards do not appreciate(nor do thy people in forum care). For others are rich when the technology comes down to a fraction of the original cost when the game cometh out (or from optimisations are not of need of such a costly device).

    AMEN

  • Talha #19 6 years ago

    "Poor people" (meaning anyone not having a 7800 GTX), rejoice! I have the perfect news for you. 7800GTX = $600. Xbox 360 (with three 3.2 GHz processors and a card way better than 7800GTX) = $300-ish. And MS would be crazy NOT to bring AoE to XBox360 to show off its graphics.

  • jawolf #20 6 years ago

    Talha you are right, I like your logic. In the price you could consider you would be getting:
    *the console
    *the game FOR FREE (if it does get released)
    *and actually the whole 360 launch library in the money!

    As you should base the amount of money on the purchase price of two 7800 GTX's ($1200) as anything less would be being weak anyway, and only a real wanker would buy a single 7800 GTX to show off cos he can't afford two in SLI)!

    Just like me Talha, you must be a poor person too. Let all us underpriviledged people sob together at our inadequacy. I feel sorry for me, I am so impoverished.

  • jawolf #21 6 years ago

    don't make excuses cheap boy! SLI is the way it is meant to be played. So what if the buffer tears, if you are running at 200fps your eye will not be able to tell, so your arguement is moot.

    Buy two so the technology becomes cheaper for me! You might be able to claim your wages(?) back on contributing to the "poor players who don't care about latest GFX card" charity. You will be doing the technology world a favour by being an double early adopter! And the gaming industry will thank you by giving you less optimised games thus making your investment worthless in a shorter time(or at least minimum spec).

  • jawolf #22 6 years ago

    btw if your monitor be it an lcd / projector or whatever can't do 200fps.

    Get a better one too! That will allow the manufacturers to improve processes by the spend of the "high cost, high margin" purchases to produce commodity items that are better and cheaper for the rest of us.

    edit: added reason why people should get most expensive item
    Edited by 1 at 21/09/05 @ 14:31

  • t #23 6 years ago

    buy a heap of sony memory stick pro duo things too while your at it.

  • t #24 6 years ago

    taxes too high?

    not by half, raise them i say, bring on the socialist welfare state!
    Edited by 1 at 21/09/05 @ 14:46

  • jawolf #25 6 years ago

    FluffMeister: my taxes too high?

    Obviously Fluffy' ain't rich. Rich people don't pay much tax, they know good avoidance of the tax system (and they probably would go down the route of having their GFX card purchase as a tax deduction... I know I do!).

  • jawolf #26 6 years ago

    Fluffy' call it a tool of trade purchase (dependent on tax system and industry you work for), get some of your money back. Mr Credit Card is friend, as long as it has Mrs Interest Free Period
    Edited by 1 at 21/09/05 @ 14:57

  • Xerx3s #27 6 years ago

    I actually found the demo to be rather disappointing. Dont get me wrong, i think its great, and yet ....

    They fucked with the game concept, something they shouldnt have done imo. This felt a lot like Age of Mythology (a crap game imo). I wonder how well this "improved" game concept will last with the MP fans. I doubt that this will give the same MP fun as AoE2. That said, it still remains a good demo with great graphics :)

  • Ryuken #28 6 years ago

    "This felt a lot like Age of Mythology (a crap game imo). "

    On the contrary, the only thing I really recognised was the choice screen for governors (gods in AoM). I think most people are disappointed because Age of Empire III feels like a 2D game with (imo very decent) graphics and that they expected a sort of Rome/TA in terms of combat mechanics. Just look at the way archers shoot here, exactly the same as in AoEII. The physics are just eyecandy, you can't use terrain to your advantage... this feels as 3D as WarCraft III was. I don't think you can blame Ensemble for that. The only thing I didn't like was the pace, a bit too fast for me.

    Besides, anyone knows another rts released this year that provides a full campaign, skirmish maps, an map editor, a fully supported and revamped multiplayer service AND a map generator? Maybe EEII but I am not sure.

  • evak #29 6 years ago

    the demo is great and runs well on my geforce 3 at 1024x768 with all the settings on high. Of course it has the more simple shaders, but it still looks about 70% what the screenies have in gameplay shots, minus HDR style lighting.

    Only the city looks bad in comparrison to the screenshots, probably 40-50% mostly due to poor lighting. But overall I'm impressed, I wasn't expexting it to be that scaleable, but it runs smooth and doesn't look bad. Probably the athlon64 makes the biggest difference as far as the framerate and physics go. Can't wait to get the game :)

  • MoFo #30 6 years ago

    Do you folks only care about graphics? What sad times we live in indeed. I played demo and was bored to tears. I kept forcing myself to play it saying to myself "I love Age of Empires - I will enjoy this". But it just wasnt woking for me. I adored AOE2 and have been looking forward to this for ages, but now I feel hollow inside.

    And what the heck's the thing where you have to turn camera rotation on in a menu and then the only seeming way I've found to rotate it in game is by holding ctrl+arrow (or sommat like that). can you make it any more awkward? I have mouse buttons that do bugger all when clicked. Lemme use them!

    Personally would've prefered them to try adding new core gameplay to it rather than re-hashing the old stuff with nicer graphics and adding gimicks like the home city. what's that about? It's a big fat stupid waste of space.

    Sorry to all you die hard fans out there if I'm upsetting you. I used to be one of you. Now I am all alone on the streets with nowhere to go.

  • T4RG4 #31 6 years ago

    Oh.my.god

    I'm not going to pull any punches here so off I go... that demo was strikingly bad! Its not pretty, its quite substandard IMO, seriously (and yes, my pc is very hot, work PC you see). The Interface sucks so many balls... its so old fashioned, its as if NO thought went into it. A total crock... I played for 20mins and quit in disgust.

    Am I being harsh? Perhaps... but I expected far more. Looks like the only worthwhile purchase in the next few months on PC will be The Movies ;-)

  • Talha #32 6 years ago

    jawolf: You and I are soulmates! Let's form the Non-7800GTX Holders Protection Soceity right here and now. Hell, someone has run the demo on - God Forbid - a GeForce 3!!!!! That's blasphemy. The game is NOT supposed to run on anything costing less than an arm and a leg!!! Burn the witch ! (Or Wizard)

    Seriously though, what were you guys expecting? Gameplay wise this WOULD be AoE 2.5, and maybe that's the way fans want it. I agree about the menus and interface though - it looks hedious. Flight Simulator 2002 menus were better.

  • t #33 6 years ago

    whats with the damn dashboard taking up a third of the screen?

    when it doesn't crash, it seems smooth enough on a 9800pro.

    /me shrugs

  • Talha #34 6 years ago

    Oh t, do not DARE mention 9800 pro since it is the hallmark of PC users living below poverty line in the farthest outskirts of antarctica. Anyone not possessing a 7800 GTX is sub-human and not worthy of daring to SET SIGHTS upon AOE III, let alone play it. No, change your post and declare that the game refuses to run on a 9800 Pro, t, you will make some people very happy indeed.

  • Lauper #35 6 years ago

    'whats with the damn dashboard taking up a third of the screen?'


    The user interface has been reduced in size after comments on AoE forums that it was too big