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 - Terrible, worse than the last edition!This game is not an improvement over the previous edition. I would not recommend buying this. Reasons why it sucks: -The graphics aren't that great. -You can only see a small area of the playing field at once. -You have to build up civilizations over time, you can't take full advantage of their attributes immediately. -I hate the card system, it's lame. -You can't double-click to select all the units of one type in an area. -No real improvements over the last game, just different. As in crappier. Rating:  - Excellent But Archers on the Plains of Abraham?This is an excellent strategy game. I am very interested in colonial and Eighteenth Century warfare so I enjoy the era and the animations of musket loading pioneers and soldiers. It mimics linear tactics although it is not an exact reproduction. The naval warfare is also good although you will not see ships in linear formation. There is a definite improvement over Age of Empires II in that there are very real differences between the cultures that require differing strategies when playing different nations. I really like how they were able to make it so that particular nations have an edge in certain periods. For example the Spaniards and the Ottomans are stronger in the colonial age while the other nations such as the British and French begin to excel in the fortress and industrial ages. There are more nation specific technologies than in the earlier version and there is no denying certain what I would call basic technologies to certain nations to create variation. I like buildings that will produce resources continuously such as mills and plantations, and factories, rather than relying on mines that are eventually "dried up." The shipments from the home cities is an interesting feature although "additions" to those cities seems to be little more than "decorating." My quibbles with the game have nothing to do with game play but more to do with historical accuracy. One of the British special units is the longbowman, also featured in the earlier AoE2. The computer will continue to produce this unit well into the industrial age of the game because it remains cheap and effective. I want to battle against redcoats, not medieval yeomen! Pikemen and halberdiers are other soldiers that will be produced "years" after the socket bayonet made this type of unit worthless in real European warfare. I wonder at some of their choices of colonizing nations--the Turks never colonized America--but perhaps they were already planning their later versions such as the Asian Dynasties. The Swedes might have been a better choice than the Germans; I don't think much of Frederick the Great commanding armies of swordsmen rather than musketeers (fusiliers). I also think Louis XIV would have been a better representative of France than Napoleon for the colonization of America. Rating: - Age of Empires didn't get worse; other games got betterI think this is a really fun game. It has lots to do and some nice improvements over Age 2. The reason people don't seem to be liking this one so much is that it's nothing revolutionary. Age of Empires 2 was far better than other games in the genre, and AOE 3 isn't, but it's still a great game that's well worth the money. Rating:  - Maybe it's me......but I was a big fan of the first AOE. I play on a Mac, and one disappointing aspect of version 3 for me is that they made it so you have to right click for certain commands and left click for others. Since a Mac really only has one mouse button, in my experience it "misses" commands often if you don't click the one button correctly. Version 1 had a "command + click" control and in my opinion it was a lot easier. Sounds stupid, but when you're in the middle of getting attacked after playing the game for an hour, it really gets frustrating when you can't even give commands properly. Cool game, and great graphics, but they should have built in an option for "Classic Controls" or something. Quit trying to make my Mac a PC! Rating:  - Good time killer.This game is good way to kill an hour if you have one to kill. The games main storylines are decent but it is very to tell who was good and who was bad just on their voices alone. The storyline was also pretty predictable. The gameplay is right on par with the other age of empire games in the sense of he who produces the most the fastest wins. Playing the skirmish mode and developing the home city and your deck gives you reason to keep playing if your one of those completionist types. Aside from that in skirmish mode the computer is pretty predictable and anyone with any RTS background should be able to handle it fine except on hard where I believe the computer is given a handicap I have only beaten a hard computer with a team not one on one. The units are pretty well balanced and there are definately easier country's to play as then others and it comes down to your style of play which is usually a turtle or an attacker. I give this game a four out five because it is fun, it looks great, and it has some interesting concepts associated with it (homecities, deck building, etc) however like most AOE games the gameplay gets to be pretty repetitive if you sit down to often and to long to play it.
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