Just finished playing the campaign of AOE3. Man it’s wonderful! Age of Empires III – the third installment in the Age of Empires series by Ensemble Studios and Microsoft is one step ahead of its predecessors. The basic gameplay is history based like the previous two games and most of the things are the same. AOE 3 boasts of an improved 3D graphics engine which is used for the first time in this series. It also uses Havoc physics engine to render the animations and stuff.

A lot of things are new – especially the concept of Home city. The game is set in the era of colonization of the Americas so while you play to setup your colony in the new world, your home city sends you shipments of resources from time to time although you have to earn them through XP(Experience Points). Most of the units (even villagers who are called settlers) now use guns instead of bows and arrows. There are cannons and even rockets. The best part is the Railways! Yes you do have a railway although only for trade!

AOE3 is a lot like Age of Mythology. It has a single campaign with an interesting story line and cinematics at the beginning of each scenario. In AOM when you advance thorough ages you have to select a god, here you select a politician. There are lots of native American tribes in the game like the Inca, Maya and Aztec with whom you can ally and trade and there are eight European civilizations which you can choose to play with. The exhilarating campaign tells the story of three different generations of the Black family in three different Acts and a mysterious Circle of Ossus and their pursuit of the fountain of youth. The unique part is the single player Skirmish games which are like random map games in other versions. You can carry over the experience points earned from one game to the other. Experience points enhance the level of your home city and make cards of resources available for you.

Age of Empires III is very demanding on the computer resources – minimum 1.4 Ghz processor, 64 MB graphics card and Windows XP. So before you buy this game make sure to upgrade your hardware to enjoy the game to the max. Age of Empires III is a must play for any RTS (Real Time Strategy) game fan.

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