Age of Empires III

Ensemble Studios set the bar high after making 'Age of Empires 2: The Age of Kings' which is highly regarded as a classic by a surprising amount of people. Any changes to the formula would be put under scrutiny and would be sure to annoy fans.

Surprisingly, there are so many changes in the game. Once you get used to them, you realise that Age of Empires 2 probably wasn't as good as you thought it was, and a lot of the changes here highlight the flaws. The majority of the changes have been to make the game faster and generally streamline the whole game. In The Age of Kings and many other strategy games, you spend far too long building up a base before training soldiers which should have a larger focus; given that the game is about conquering.

First of all, you start with a hero type figure (“Explorer”) who cannot be killed completely, although he can be temporarily beaten. This replaces the scout and is also vital to collect treasure on the map. To collect treasure, you must first defeat the Treasure Guardians who can take the form of animals such as crocodiles and bears, or humans like tribal warriors, or bandits. The treasure is a small resource boost and rewards exploration.

There are also tribal villages and trade routes which you need to control by building a Trade Post on them, usually with your Explorer. Placing them on the trade route gives you a resource or XP boost at regular intervals. Placing them on villages gives you access to create tribal warriors and access to extra research technology.

A major change is the concept of a Home City. Given that the games' focus is on colonies, you can receive 'shipments' from your Home City to your colony. This is done by an XP system. As you collect resources and eliminate enemy soldiers and buildings, you accumulate XP and when you reach a level, you become eligible for a shipment. This can be any sort of perk, be it research, soldiers, or resources. The available selection is based on your 'deck of cards' which become available as you level up your Home Town. At first, it seems out of place, but once you get used to it, it gives an extra level of customisation and strategy so works well.

A fairly large change is the removal of resource deposit buildings such as the Lumber and Mining camps. Instead, when villagers collect resources, it is instantly deposited in your stockpile. This does speed up the process and is one less thing to worry about since you don't have to keep an eye on the distance your villagers are travelling. There are some new resource buildings like the Mill or Plantation which give infinite food and gold respectively. This takes away strategy as you no longer have to fight over certain areas of the map to protect resources which is disappointing. Stone has been completely removed so you have only Food, Wood, Coin to worry about.

The majority of military units can be queued up five at a time so they all leave the building together and is a faster way of producing an army. It takes the same amount of time to train one soldier as is needed to train five. The process can be taken advantage of by training one troop, then when you have more resources (but before the troop has been trained); and some more to the queue.

There are now caps placed on certain buildings and units, in addition to the limit on placing buildings in close proximity to the enemies town centre. This means you can no longer build an insane amount of castles, especially outside the enemies base. The forts do seem to be way underpowered too, and since cannons are very powerful, you can quickly decimate buildings and troops.

The animations are much improved, and there's nothing more satisfying than taking a few cannons to rip apart your enemies colony. Buildings fall apart with each hit, pieces tear off as they are hit, and enemies fall and roll.

In the standard game (without expansion packs) you can choose between eight different civilizations: Spanish, British, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, German, and Ottoman. There are quite a lot of differences between the civilizations, including different buildings and units being available and some major ways of working (especially with the expansion packs; the Asian civilizations build wonders to age up).

The single player campaign seems quite lengthy and is split over three interconnected acts; each one a generation apart. The campaign follows the fictitious story of the Black family going in search of the Fountain of Youth. There are all sorts of missions with various objectives and map types. There's the usual skirmish mode plus network/internet multiplayer which is sure to keep you busy; even if you can complete each match/scenario much quicker than the previous games.

There's enough about Age of Empires to still feel like the core game is still here, and enough tweaks to make it feel like a completely different game. The changes have streamlined the process a fair bit, which means the matches shouldn't drag on as much, with a far quicker build up. Some players may hate the changes, but I learned to appreciate them.