Age of Empires® III (2007) (2012)

This game was overhated on release, but trying to create a proper successor to AoE2 is kind of a nightmare task to begin with. The game also cuts out many of the "middle management" aspects that AoE2 had but it isn't replaced with anything particularly satisfying. I think thats probably the biggest issue with this game for me. RTS game fans are usually into learning more complicated games and the fact that so many aspects of this game are dumbed down due to "modernization" is kind of depressing. The logistic management of villages was always a massive gameplay mechanic of 1 and 2. Here there is no travel time back to resource drop off points for villagers. Which was likely a change done for technical limitations. Buildings also "autorepair" on the click on a button, thus reducing the role of villagers to constructing buildings and gathering resources. The story is also not a historical narrative, its just historical fiction and really uninteresting fiction at that. Theres something kind of endearing because it does genuinely lack the weird moralism you get in a lot of historical fiction now. I do wish they did make the campaigns actually based off of real history instead of…

I've been playing this game since my parents bought it for me as a CD as a kid. Always amazing and certainly a nostalgia trip. But just as much fun as when I first played it.

It's easier for beginners and just plain fun.

good

older game but has withstood the test of time. Hours of fun

I still enjoy playing this in 2026. Love the concept of having home city shipments. Despite being purely cosmetic, the native and Asian civilisations would be more enjoyable if their home cities were customisable as per the base civilisations.