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 (14942)

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The Press Says

GamingTrend	Windows	2005	554 out of 600	92
FileFactory Games / Gameworld Network	Windows	Nov 07, 2005	90 out of 100	90
DarkZero	Windows	2005	8.8 out of 10	88
Game Informer Magazine	Windows	Dec, 2005	8.75 out of 10	88
PC Zone	Windows	Nov 18, 2005	8.4 out of 10	84
Games Radar	Windows	2005	8 out of 10	80
MacLife	Macintosh	Sep 25, 2007		80
Game Shark	Windows	Nov 15, 2005	B	75
Game Revolution	Windows	Nov 01, 2005	B-	67
Absolute Games (AG.ru)	Windows	Nov 08, 2005	61 out of 100	61

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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

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)