Customer Reviews

Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties Official Strategy Guide (Official Strategy Guides (Bradygames))

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is the worst strategy book I have ever seen. I can't understand why a company like Ensemble Studios/Microsoft approved this book by BradyGames.

I have read every book since Age of Empires II and strategy guides for several other games. This is the worst I have ever seen.

Multiplayer strategy
It basically contains one short page with multiplayer strategy. Advice like: "Share your resources with your teammates to make them build whatever they need." Is that supposed to be helpful? How about some tips regarding, booming, rushing, turteling, special strategies, etc. There in NOTHING in this book regarding these important issues.

Strategy on different maps
Age of Empires III, The Asian Dynasties includes 36 maps (including the ones from AoE3 and The War Chief expansion). This guide has a very short strategy for 27 of them! Most strategies for these maps are only one sentence long! Where is the description for the rest of the maps? (Andes, Auraucania, California, Upper Himalayas, Northwest Territory, Orinoco, Ozarks, Painted Desert and Plymouth)

Civilizations
This book have basically unit tables for the three new civilizations and for the reference tables for the Europeans too. Where is the reference for the Aztecs, Iroquois and the Sioux? There in no reference to the natives either. Actually they are not even mentioned. There is no strategy in this book for any civilization!

Overall
This book include 174 pages. It is basically divided this way:
7 pages of basic game information
73 pages of unit tables for the three new Civilizations
31 pages of "Walkthrough" single player campaigns
3 pages of information regarding single player skirmishes. No strategy.
1 page multiplayer strategy
7 pages with poor maps strategies containing 1-2 sentences for each 27 maps
46 pages with European unit tables
1 page with single player 11 cheat codes
3 pages covering the Scenario Editor

Conclusion
How can they call this "Official Strategy Guide - Age of Empires The Asian Dynasties"? It contains basically lots of unit tables and "walkthrough" single player campaigns. There in only a few pages with poor strategy included. I will NOT recommend this book to anyone else than those who need a "Walkthrough" single player campaigns.

This book is not very helpfull. I don't know why they are using "Brady Games" instead of Sybex, but it was a bad choice.

The information listed in this book can all be found in the game itself. Unlike previous strategy guides which at least provide you with statistics on imporvements, such as percentages on economic upgrades. Plus, there are several mistakes.

If you want a quick reference guide for some in-game information then go ahead and buy it. But don't expect to learn anything you don't already know.

You can get most of the same information from the internet and the official website under forums. Barely mentions MultiPlayer. The walk-thru of the 3 new civs was informative but nothing I did not know from just playing a few times. Some of the numbers were not correct.

Good overview and strong strategy guide of this latest expansion to Age of Empires III. Overall game play strategy for each of the 3 Asian nations as well as for each scenario in campaign mode.