The Empire Strikes Back

By Martin Kingsley

When your collective resume reads like Ensemble Studios’ does, people come to expect a certain standard. Age of Empires, Age of Kings, Age of Mythology, and many and various expansion packs, games that refined and redefined the RTS genre as we know it, it would not be an understatement to say that the third instalment of the Age of Empires series has been one of the most anticipated releases in recent memory.

And it’s understandable, what with all the hype and those gorgeous screenshots floating around Ye Olde Interweb (as we crusty curmudgeons of a bygone age like to call it).

Sporting a spiffy new graphics engine to put Doom 3 to shame and refinements a-plenty, AoE3 is likely to please even the most hardcore of RTS fans, but, as we are about find out, there’s just not enough new here under this glossy coat of paint that the dedicated Age fan won’t be suffering from a moderate-to-severe case of deja-vu.

Set during an imaginary conflict between eight European powers over the colonisation of North and South America (complete with politically correct invulnerable tribes of Native Americans), AoE3 is historically quite a step ahead of the previous instalments in the series, and each play session offers up five technological eras (culminating in steam-power and the industrial age). As such, where once the serious player invested in ballistae and cavalry, now he looks to cannons and musketeers to soundly flog his enemy into oblivion.

Also, the European sides are not carbon copies of one another, even despite a few highly similar units as, in practice, their differences make a significant impact on the way you play, from cheap infantry for the Russians to the biggest guns in the game for the Ottomans.

Still, there is not a single elephant to be seen, which could be a big slap in the face for those looking forward to pitting Aztec warriors against mounted artillery and the like. And while this is maybe a little less exciting than pounding thine foe with wave upon wave of samurai warriors, there is no doubt that not much can compete with hill-top cannons bowling over ranks of foot soldiers.

I mention combat first because as we all know, Age of Empires has always been a game with its roots firmly in the art of beating the crap out of people -- resource harvesting and town development aside. Build a town centre, get a few drones out looking for resources, build houses as your army grows, expand your town, look for more resources, build more soldiers, and so on and so forth.

Keen to keep micromanagement down to a minimum, Ensemble has seen fit to simplify a few aspects of their tried-and-tested formula this time around, and thus you find yourself dealing with the collection of only three resources (cash, wood, and food), as the fourth, stone, is nowhere to be seen. Neither does one have to deal with workers coming back all the time to drop their hard-earned bounty off (a little less realistic, maybe, but helpful nonetheless). We now have the introduction of mills and plantations, which negate the need to search out new sources of food and wood (a very handy introduction for the late game).

A completely new addition, on the other hand, to the AoE universe is the concept of a ‘home city’, an idea partially reminiscent of the city screen from the Heroes of Might and Magic series. Here you buy upgrades for your race based on your experience (garnered mostly by killing infidels but also via the expansion of your city), including economic bonuses, new military units and batches of surplus troops.

The home city is an interesting diversion from the main game, and is persistent throughout campaigns and also online (you have two separate cities for offline and online play), levelling up much like an RPG character as you go, to the point of being, to a certain shallow degree, customisable (loincloths optional). Furthermore, which race you join has an impact on what upgrades are available to you as time goes by, as all the races have several unique shipments each.

Strangely, however, the theory of refining the old and adding in a little of the new has not been applied to the combat model, which remains pretty much bog-standard, both by AoE and basic RTS benchmarks. The greatest problem here is that your units are not quite the smartest little military men of all time. Indeed, the more powerful units need to be explicitly ordered around to get the most use out of them, and long-range units need to be ordered similarly apart from the melee units lest you end up having seven shades of jam kicked out of you by an unforgiving opponent.

It does not help that in the midst of the bigger battles things get heavily chaotic as your units spread out and the frame-rate drops like a stone on some systems, unlike, say, Rome: Total War, which handled large-scale battles a lot better, although one has to admit that Rome didn’t look nearly as good while doing so. Water ripples, waves roll, men collapse under the force of a cannonball in their midst, and generally things look great.

The environments of South America in particular are especially lush, and it can be quite fun just to sit around and take in the scenery (that is, until some nutter takes a musket to your facilities). Beauty aside, it’s just a pity that, as a result, whether online or off, it is more who has the better graphics card than who is the better tactician that determines the outcome of most battles.

Speaking of which, here’s something that may really get on the wick of the long-time Age fan: insistence on the decimation of your opponents. While this sounds like fun from a theoretical standpoint, in practice it’s a right regal pain in the arse. Games don’t end with the destruction of your opponent’s town centre or surrounding buildings, no, if you want to win you have to find and eliminate every single last unit. Previously, if faced with a situation like this, one could simply build a Wonder and defend it for the allotted time period, thus winning you the game with the minimum of map scouring. One has to wonder about the motives behind this shift in winning conditions, which, in this reviewer’s mind, needed no tweaking.

A game with a proud heritage and a lot to prove, Age of Empires III is a pleasing addition to Ensemble’s long line, and should go on to be a resounding success both with the home crowd and those of us that get their jollies online (from gaming, that is, ahem). Sadly, however, for all its development time and promise, it’s all just a little samey, and doesn’t manage to avoid some of the pitfalls that other, lesser strategy games inevitably fall victim to (or, occasionally, avoid). 

Slightly disappointing, maybe, but don’t let that get in the way of your rollicking take-over of the New World.

Game: Age of Empires III
System: PC
Players: Multi
Online: Yes
Developer: Ensemble
Distributor: Microsoft

Rating: 85%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)