Age of Empires III is the third installment in the series of very popular real-time strategy games. The main idea of the gameplay remains unchanged: with the limited amount of resources and a handful of settlers, you must think about the expansion of your colony. Besides the strong economic thread, you should also think about the development of your army. Like in the previous games your people start in an early part of humanity's history and progress to new ages (up to the industrial age) with better weapons and other possibilities.

The game offers you a complex single-player campaign that is divided into 24 missions and three acts. You take the role of Morgan Black and his family which struggle against a mysterious European cult. You can also challenge yourself in the multiplayer mode where you can command one of the eight European powers (from French to Russian). A new addition to the game mechanics is the home city in Europe which regularly sends supplies or military reinforcements. It is persistent and after multiplayer successes you gain the ability to upgrade it through a tech tree.

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Alternate Titles

"帝国时代III" -- Chinese spelling (simplified)
"世紀帝國3" -- Chinese spelling (traditional)
"Rocket" -- Internal development title
"AoE III" -- Abbreviated title
"AoE3" -- Common abbreviation

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Part of the Following Groups

Merchant	Title	Platform	Price
	Age of Empires III	Windows	$6.89
	Age of Empires III (French Edition)	Windows	$37.29
	Age of Empires III
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User Reviews

Nothing groundbreaking, but a solid game	Windows	Cadorna (190)
A good game, but not a worthy successor	Windows	D Michael (221)
Nothing new under the sun	Windows	Sebastian Cardoso (45)
The best RTS since WarCraft II	Windows	Chris Wright (101)
Show me an AOE fan that actually likes AOE 3? I didn't think so.	Windows	Indra was here (15465)

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The Press Says

GameZone	Windows	Oct 16, 2005	9.5 out of 10	95
Worth Playing	Windows	Dec 05, 2005	9.3 out of 10	93
GameStar (Germany)	Windows	Oct, 2005	89 out of 100	89
Gamigo	Windows	Nov 08, 2005	8.8 out of 10	88
Game Vortex	Windows	2005	88 out of 100	88
JustPressPlay	Windows	Nov 30, 2005	8.6 out of 10	86
Gry Onet	Windows	Feb 02, 2006	8.5 out of 10	85
GameSpot (Belgium/Netherlands)	Windows	Dec 13, 2005	82 out of 100	82
Video Game Talk	Windows	Jan 12, 2006		80
TotalVideoGames (TVG)	Windows	Nov 03, 2005	8 out of 10	80

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Trivia

Engine

Age of Empires III uses a modified version of the Age of Mythology engine.

Physics engine

The Windows version uses the Havok physics engine. Few modern Mac titles use it because of its licensing fee. MacSoft gutted Havok from the game and substituted it with a significantly less expensive technology called PhysX, developed by AGEIA for its Mac port.

Awards

GameSpy
- 2005 – #5 PC Game of the Year
- 2005 – PC RTS of the Year
- 2005 – Best Graphics of the Year (PC)
GameStar (Germany)
- 2006 - Best PC Strategy Game in 2005 (Readers' Voting)
Golden Joystick Awards
- 2006 - Online Game of the Year
PC Powerplay (Germany)
- Issue 04/2006 - #1 Strategy Game in 2005 (Readers' Vote)
- Issue 02/2006 - #3 Strategy Game in 2005
Puget Sound Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication
- Early January 2007 - Distinguished Award for Technical Writing and Editing (for the manual and quick reference card)