Age of Empires III

by Microsoft

Product Features

• Start out playing as the British and begin with a solid economy, or lead the French into an easy alliance with Native Americans - 8 total civilizations to choose from
• Work with Native Americans to your tactical advantage, for the first time ever
• Develop your own Home City, and customize it make it wealthier and more powerful as you take over Europe
• Explore the New World and create colonies while seeking out new resources and making allianes with the Native Americans
• Recover buried treasure from the Caribbean, hunt bison on the Great Plains, compete for trade routes and fortify the coast of New England

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000AB6044
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: October 18, 2005
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,297 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Platform: PC | Edition: Collector's

From the Manufacturer

Age of Empires III Collector's Edition presents the game with a hardbound 210-page book titled The Art Of Empires, a making of DVD with behind-the-scenes video and commentary, an official AoE III soundtrack, full-sized poster, player's guide and special game manual.

It's the dawn of a new age in real-time strategy (RTS) games. A brave New World is rising--a hostile yet beautiful world, filled with innovative gameplay, new strategic scenarios, eye-searing graphics and much more. Welcome to a world called Age of Empires III.

Campaign
In this action adventure tale of historical fiction, players take on the role of Morgan Black and his family, struggling against the hostile wilderness and a mysterious cult that's crept in from Europe.

In a series of 24 scenarios divided into three acts, Morgan Black and his descendants help the Aztecs resist conquest by Spanish conquistadors, pit the French against the British in the French and Indian War and help Simon Bolivar lead revolutions in South America.

Multiplayer
Whether you're searching for a quick game or hoping to talk strategy with friends online, Age of Empires III's Multiplayer site is your community destination.

Here, you can play with persistent Home Cities that gain power and strategic options the more games you play, compete for a spot on dozens of ladders, help organize your clan or chat after a game -- all without leaving the multiplayer portal.

Fans of Age of Mythology's Quick Search can still look for games swiftly, while players looking for something specific can browse game lists to find the set of options that matches their tastes.

New Feature--Home Cities
This revolutionary new feature to the RTS landscape is incorporated into all aspects of Age of Empires III -- from Campaign to Multiplayer -- and is unlike anything you've experienced before.

Much like the persistent character from a role-playing game that encourages you to keep playing, your Home City is an important support system to your efforts in the New World. During a game, your Home City can regularly send you supplies or military reinforcements.

You are the leader of your colony, but your success brings glory back to Mother Europe. The more games you play, and the better you do, the more powerful your Home City will become. Every few games, you gain the ability to both upgrade and customize your Home City:

• Upgrade your city by unlocking new types of soldiers or buildings, or improving those you already have.
• Broaden your tech tree in whatever direction most fits your play style--invest in warships, native alliances, cavalry, artillery or economy.
• Customize your Home City by changing the appearance of buildings, the weather or even the types of people who walk, work and perform in its streets.
• Throughout a game, as well as in between games, you can visit your Home City to watch its citizens go about their lives, get an opinion on how you're doing, plot your next move or just marvel at the beautiful sunset.

Full 3-D Graphics, Destructible Environments and More
We first set out to reproduce the rich detail of Age of Empires II: Age of Kings. As we strove to make the fascinating Age of Empires III time period come alive, that goal quickly evolved: We at Ensemble Studios wanted to create the best-looking game ever. From the stunning water effects to the hundreds of units battling on-screen, you'll feel like you're a part of the action in the New World.

• Tone mapping--This photo imaging technique balances the colors in a scene on the fly. The end result is a rich, warm game where bright colors are vibrantly rendered alongside darker counterparts, such as shadows.
• Lighting and shadows--The sun is always shining in Age of Empires, so it's important that lighting and shadows be an awe-inspiring experience. Units and buildings cast shadows according to a real sun position, and even cast shadows on each other. High Dynamic Range rendering allows us to represent the shiny glints of sunlight that bounce off highly reflective surfaces.
• Bump and specular mapping--Water glistens like water. Metal shines like metal. These advanced techniques serve to provide an extra level of rendering detail heretofore unseen in real-time strategy (RTS) gaming.
• Water--We felt that portraying stunning, realistic water effects in the game was so important that we devoted a programmer to it full-time. You'll find the water rich with details like foam near the shore, accurately modeled water motion, flotsam in rivers and realistic water colors. Plus, reflections change with the viewing angle, the angle of sunlight and the motion of the water. The overall effect is breathtaking.
• Cliffs and Riverbeds--Instead of just stretching terrain, we built a system to attach geometry to the terrain map to allow for realistic overhangs and steep cliffs, from areas like the American Southwest. This effect is supported on random maps too.

Civilizations

British Quick access to Settlers gives the British one of the strongest economies in the game. The ability to upgrade two key units -- the Musketeer and Hussar -- make the British military formidable in the late game. The British Home City emphasizes improvements to technology and naval warfare.	Dutch Although Dutch Settlers are limited and costly, their civilization makes up for this economic disadvantage by building Banks and generating coin automatically. The Dutch Home City emphasizes upgrades to defense and economy.
French Although the French economy starts slowly, the Coureur unit, a Villager with strong fighting skills, makes the French difficult to attack early. The French also have the strongest cavalry unit in the game -- the Cuirassier. Plus, the French are experts at allying with the Native Americans.	German The Germans have fewer Settlers and therefore a slower economy. Fortunately, both the Settler Wagon and Uhlan cavalry spawn for free from the German Town Center. Plus, the Germans start with the ability to send Mercenaries from their Home City (long before other civilizations can).
Native American European civilizations can learn new technologies and gain troops by forging alliances with the Native Americans. A British player who allies with the Iroquois is essentially playing as two civilizations: the British and the Iroquois.	Ottoman For the Ottomans, Settlers spawn automatically from the Town Center. Building a Mosque and conducting research help keep that Settler production steady. Befitting their position straddling Europe and Asia, the Ottomans have more unique units than any other civilization.
Portuguese Starting the game with two Town Centers, the Portuguese can quickly produce Settlers, control territory or support their allies. The Spyglass ability allows the Portuguese to easily spy on the enemy. The Portuguese also have a strong navy, strong light infantry and the best Dragoons in the game.	Russian Starting the game with extra resources but fewer Settlers gives the Russians the flexibility of focusing on economy or an early raid. Russian infantry, individually weak, are trained in blocks at a faster rate, providing the Russians with the opportunity to overwhelm their enemy with greater numbers.
Spanish The Spanish have a strong military, with both hand infantry and cavalry. Flexibility in early shipments from the Home City give the Spanish the option to attack early or set up for a strong, late economy. Spanish Home City improvements benefit soldiers, buildings and naval units.

Combat
Age of Empires III gives players an amazing amount of control over their side of the battlefield.

• More to command -- Not only are you in command of large and diverse armies of infantry, cavalry and artillery, but also Native American warriors, mercenaries and tall ships.
• Multiple formations -- You can assign different formations to your army for different strengths and weaknesses, or have the game automatically choose the most appropriate formation. Examples include:
• Volley -- ranged infantry, like musketeers, take turns firing at enemies ahead of them.
• Charge -- your soldiers walk, then run into combat. Cavalry wield sabers, and musketeers fix bayonets. This formation does tremendous damage but makes your soldiers more prone to injury.
• Bombard -- your soldiers protect the cannons, while the cannons shell enemy ranks. Available only when you have artillery in your army.
• Battles are easier to follow -- You can still command individual units. But when the units fight in formation, you'll be able to tell exactly who is winning the fight.
• Real-time physics -- Infantry struck by cannon fire will be thrown like rag dolls, perhaps even over a cliff and into the water. Cannonballs bounce and ricochet.
• Detailed destructions -- Shingles, shutters and whole towers may fly off a building and interact with the terrain, such as crashing into nearby water. This next generation effect is done on the fly so that each building always has a unique destruction, no matter how many times you see it.
• Unique animations -- With hundreds of unique combat animations, you'll never see the same battle twice.

Product Description

Age Of Empires 3 Collectors Edition is the sequel to the critically-acclaimed stretgy game. It introduces all-new gameplay elements, new civilizations to discover, random maps to conquer and a single-player campaign like any other. This special edition includes a hardbound 210-page book titled "The Art Of Empires", a "making of" DVD with behind-the-scenes video and commentary, an official AoE III soundtrack, full-sized poster, player's guide and special game manual. A.I. opponents are now well-developed characters with deep strategies, motivations, and personalities-and more than 4,000 audio taunts at their disposal New lighting and shadow effects, in a game world designed to have real physics and depth -- you'll almost feel like you're there The first 3D iteration of the series uses bump- and tone-mapping to render realistic water and shadows Havok engine's cause-and-effect physics bring battles to lurid life

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A worthy successor to the Age of Empires franchise, October 20, 2005

By 

Wes D (Sunny Florida) - See all my reviews

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Age of Empires III Collector's Edition (CD-ROM)

Age of Empires 2 is my favorite PC game ever (see my review) but I've been anxiously awaiting the release of AOE3 since I read about it a couple months back.

Here's my first take of the game. I'll post an update in a month or two.

The Collectors edition is very nice; I personally think it's well worth the $20 extra if you're a AOE fan. A pocket strategy guide is included and provides pretty good information and is enough information for anyone who has played AOE2. (Saves $20 on the regular strategy guide). Read above for the other stuff included - but let me say that I think it's a heck of a deal.

My hardware - I play it on a P4 2.5 Ghz, 512 MB ram, ATI Radeon 9200 256MB. The game loads and plays fine. This game requires a massive video card to have smooth-scrolling during gameplay, and mine barely cuts it. If you can live with a little chop, it should play on almost any recent card. My laptop with Intel Integrated Graphics even plays it just the same without any problems (even though the card is not specifically supported by the game).

About the game - The neatest feature is called "home city". It gives each civ some certain advantages and creates a more challenging gameplay since not only do you have to collect resources for your colony, you also must send resources back home to mommy and daddy. Sending certain things gets you certain things in return; this is handled through the "cards". I'm not a big fan of the 'card' method because it reeks of Civ and other kiddie RTS games, yet the idea is good.

I've not yet tried any of the campaigns so I will not comment on them, but playing single player has been fun. The map is much smaller than AOE2, and I have yet to figure out how to change the size without adding more players (if it's possible to do so). The interface is 3-D and is very similar to Empire Earth and Age of Mythology. The buildings look very sharp and villagers need to mine silver, food, and wood. (I haven't yet seen stone).

There are lots of different military units; this gives a different dimension to gameplay although some (archers, calvary) are very familiar to AOE2. Work on gathering resources, building armies and buildings, trade, and barter with Native Americans (a new, interesting feature). Managing a home city also provides a different dimension that presents it's own challenges.

Comparing AOE3
1. Empire Earth II - I find EE2 overloads me with information. Just playing the game is almost too much work. It looks like AOE3 is quite a bit less complex although creating a huge village, fighting strong players, and managing a home city might prove to be a little more "challenge" than a casual gamer would like to take on.

2. Rise of Nations - I consider RON to be the real update to AOE2. It has a very similar look and feel to AOE2. I find RON to be too much about upgrading civs but if you set up the game to have only 4 civs the gameplay is almost exactly like AOE2 with better units and graphics.

AOE3 is very similar to Age of Mythology in game play. I was not impressed with that game so after playing AOE3 a while I'll have a better feel for how long it holds my interest.

Complaints - My main complaint about AOE3 is the graphics size. I love huge screens and small resolutions (1280x1024 or larger) but the game characters seem way too large, like the game is being played in 800x600. I hope that ES fixes this in a update or future version. I much prefer the size of the Rise of Nations characters, even if it involves a little less detail.

All in all, my early judgement of the game is that of a winner. I only give 4 stars though because of the resolution size. I'm also leery of the 'cards' system for shipping back things to the home city. If I wanted to play a 'turn-based' game I would have looked elsewhere. Hence, I'll reserve final judgement until I get to play with the game more.

I would say that anyone looking for a true updated AOE2 should look at Rise of Nations in addition to this game. I'm probably not alone in saying I would be more than happy to buy another update to AOE2 with more CIVS and a RON graphics look and feel.

Good luck and happy gaming.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excelent choice, October 30, 2005

By 

Ronnie A. H (Costa Rica) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Age of Empires III Collector's Edition (CD-ROM)

As a fan of this kind of games and an owner of previous titles and similar games like Command and Conquer and Empire Earth series, I can say this game is great, the visuals are amazing, and in some aspects this game is more realistic, for example:

An unit which uses a gun, in any preious game this unit will fire his gun even when the enemy is close in this one it will just take out a sword and use a diferent attack, also you can command your units not to use the gun and use its melee attack instead.

The visual are great, when a cannon ball hit a building or when you hit infantry and you see them flying around.

The game play is similar to this kind of games but you have to activate options to enable use of formations or diferent tactics.

I also the like the option where your home city sends you supplies, men, boat, artillery etc.

I have it running in my laptop and i have not have any single problem so far, and i am not using any patch i am using the game as it came from the box so i don't share this kind of comments where people say the game doesn't works, because it does :)

Get the game if you like this kind of games and if you have a computer which has the requeriments you won't be dissapointed

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining though it's a bit of a letdown, December 5, 2005

By 

Chris Ling (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Age of Empires III Collector's Edition (CD-ROM)

I've been a fan since AoEII and I must admit that I was fairly stoked when this game was first announced.

I went ahead and purchased the limited edition and was extremely impressed with the packaging. It's a nice box and the art book and soundtrack more than made it worth it.

Now onto the game. I'll be honest and say that I am not the biggest fan of 3D games as a whole as I feel that in the attempts to transition from 2D that most companies rush their products and the ends are just...not so good. AoEIII unfortunately feels that way. The graphics are beautiful without a doubt, but play mechanics could have been improved. Unit graphics and animation on the other hand is a bit weak and stilted. Also, given that this period of history (despite how important it is) is not so interesting in terms of military and historical points makes it less than interesting.

Certain aspects were also strange. I am of course referring to the trade posts that (as they get upgraded) can accomodate trains. However, the train just randomly appears then terminates from blank points which kind of reduces the realism. The fact that you can walk your army through a train passing through (which would otherwise scrap your army instantly in C&C: Generals) is kind of odd. The inclusion of the Ottoman is a nice touch, but their involvement in the storyline is...weird.

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