Age of Empires III
 

IGN PC just released an interview with Ensemble Studio's (developer of the Age of Empire games) about Age of Empires III.

You can find it here: Age of Empires III Interview

Here's the screenshots:
AoE III 001 (1600x1200)
AoE III 002 (1600x1200)
AoE III 003 (1600x1200)

I was a huge fan of the first Age of Empire games, and I can't wait for #3. No release date has been set, but I hope its soon (but it probably won't be).

I cannot tell you how excited I am aboust this. AOE II is my favorite game of all time. I always install this game with each new computer/format. This looks pretty sweet and I cannot wait. Ditto on the release date, omega. Keeping my fingers crossed. Thanks for the info

Should be another good game in the line. I'll most likely buy it. And those screenies are insane looking.

Dammit. Looks like that'll need a computer upgrade :)

Looks pretty sweet...Personally I loved AoE II, and now Rise of Nations.

Dude, that looks incredibly awesome.

Holy crap, that's unbelievable.

I wouldn't mind seeing another Rise of Nations game, I just got the expansion Thrones and Patriots for Rise of Nations, and it is amazing. AoE II and RoN are practically the same game gameplay-wise, but both are absolutely amazing games in their own right.

EDIT: I just found this on some message board.

I found a bunch of scans from PC Gamer and screenshots from a very, very early version of the game, I'll try to gather them all and zip 'em in a file and host it somewhere.

I'm ever-so-slightly confused... I thought Age of Mythology was AoE 3? I must be mistaken...?

The article I read on this says they have been working on this for a substantial amount of time. Expect a (hopefully early) 2005 release date.

Age of Mythology is its own show, Wingless, although I'm sure sales didn't hurt because of its undeserved association with Age of Empires.

Age of Empires 2 was just a little too slow and defensive for my tastes. I went for the sci-fi flashiness and adrenaline of Starcraft back when both games were huge. I thought Rise of Nations was a great improvement on AoE's style, although I'm not interested in playing an RTS beyond its packaged campaign and some LANning with friends anymore.

From all this talk of of a car engine physics engine, I'm hoping to see a more modern-age game.

Awesome looking screenshots. Im looking forward to this one; Im about ready for a new RTS game anyways.

Great screenshots - looks amazing.
God only knows what hardware it will need though :)

We really need to find out its release date !

I have the screenshots/scans from PC gamer, hosting on shitty GeoCities, if anyone can host them elsewhere, PM me and I'll link you so you can host 'em.

thank god i just upgraded... now i dont need to stand on the outside of games like this thinking "man i wish i could play that"

While I agree that RoN and AoE II are very similar, I really liked how RoN is more like a more fleshed out idea on where AoE II could have gone.

Not to derail the thread further, but how was Empire Earth? I think I recall hearing something about it being done by the lead designer of AoE II, but I never tried it.

I never tried it, but Empire Earth II is looking pretty good.

You never got dark rushed did you? Seeing someone attack in the first 10 minutes of the game is quite off putting. I think I have a recorded game of an associate doing a dark age rush in a 2v2 game. The victim didn't know what hit him :)
In my opinion a defensively focused player would probably lose more matches than they win.

I think its strengths were that:
* (if you were good enough) you could attack anytime.
* a balanced team game (even with differing skill levels of individual players) was great fun. I used to play with a sizable group, and we were usually able to setup teams quite easily so that the teams were evenly matched
* recorded games allowed anybody to see what any particular player had done

Quite a lot of the guys I played AOE II with online tried EE. Some of them really liked it. Most of them thought the ages weren't balanced enough. In AOE, if I was in the age before my opponent, it is possible to compete for a short time. The impression I get with EE was once you were "on top" it was difficult to lose.

edit: you have to remember the time that passed between AOE II and RON - RON came out quite a long time after AOE II. You would hope that RON would improve...

Here's some new screenshots I found on GameSpot.com

http://image.com.com/gamespot/images..._screen001.jpg http://image.com.com/gamespot/images..._screen002.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images..._screen004.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images..._screen001.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images..._screen003.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images..._screen002.jpg

Jesus, that looks great!

I'm impressed. These new screenshots are even more amazing.

I do have to laugh about the Havok physics engine implementation. The Myth series by Bungie didn't have the Havok physics engine, but did have a rather good physics implementation, such that people going back to scenes of battles could find limbs, scorch marks and blood splatters and recreate the battles from the forensic evidence. :D

Anyways, I'm looking forward to this game.

I spent a year or two playing AoE every day at lunch with 4-6 other guys until AoK came out... then I spent another year or two playing that every day at lunch with the same guys.

I didn't like Mythology all that much, so I've been playing Rise Of Nations since it came out....

Looks like Age III is going to be a winner!

I'm not too sure.

AoE II had the BEST control of massed armies of any strategy game to date. I love Total War series but their controls aren't as advanced (still) as AoE II. I was to the point where I would fight 3v1 battles all at the same time (with each army the same size) and with sheer control I would be victorious.

But I am wary, it's been a LONG time since they've made a strategy game, and they need to drop their start-from-nothing approach to building bases. I'm sorry but I hated starting with clubmen everytime I started a new campaign. Also I'm wary of how their battles will work in the 3D mode. Though, it would be awsome to be a Native American.

Woah, those screenshots look incredible, especiallly the port city one. I loved AOE I and II, though I didn't play Mythology. I have high hopes for this.

I bet the History Channel could have a field day with this set up showing off battle techniques an the like. That would be pretty impressive - Show Napoleon's take-over initially of Paris, etc. etc. etc. That's just the first thing that comes to mind. There are shows that use a game engine to display ancient battles, but I think that if they can pull it off Age of empires would take it to a new level.

Wow, I loved AoE II. I cant wait to see more of this. Those screens are damn good.

My entire body begs for this game.

Every computer I have ever owned has had AoE or AoK on it at all times. I still love AoK more than any game I have ever owned.

If AoE 3 turns out to be like AoM, I'll have to cut my heart out and mail it to ES.

Here's some new screenshots from GameSpy.com

001 (1280x960)
002 (1280x960)
003 (1280x960)
004 (1280x960)
005 (1280x960)
006 (1280x960)
007 (1280x960)
008 (1280x960)
009 (1280x960)
010 (1280x960)
011 (1280x960)
012 (1280x960)

If you go to Ensemble Studio's website, on the entrance page you'll hear the Age of Empires III "theme" song.

So sweet, they've made everything full 3d.

Damn, this is going to be a kick ass game. Watch out, there are going to be some TFP rivalries.

This is the best news I've heard in ages:

Read: It will be out sometime before Christmas 2005, probably in Nov. I wouldnt expect it before then.

I've wasted countless days playing AOE2AOK with my roomates and friends. This game looks absolutely stunning. Looks like I should save up for another upgrade for this game.

That looks awesome... I can't wait to play this... I was a fan of AOE 1...

I can't find my Age of Empires II game and the expansion :(, so I've started playing Rise of Nations again. Its not quite the same, but the mechanics are similar.

lol.. me and my buddy used to haul some serious ass at AOE 2 conq expansion.. we once did a slingshot for resources and i got him to imp age in 14 minutes.. go byz for the cheap imp upgrade.. you shoulda seen the guys reaction when a treb and some cataphrats were knocking at his door

but yea.. i cant wait for aoe 3 it looks sooo good..

FYI, the playable demo is up.

I played through a single player skirmish and while the screenshots were amazing, the game itself didn't really grab me.

You have a home city to request supplies from. The way you decide what supplies you'll eventually get is through the creation of a deck. You unlock cards by advancing your city through the accumulation of XP.

Go to fileplanet for the file, or google "aoe3trial.exe" to find mirrors.

I've downloaded the game but have yet to play. This blurb of yours makes me think I won't be into the game either. Deck? Cards? Gotta catch 'em all, I guess.

me three - I started up the demo, but only lasted about 5 minutes...

I hope the demo didnt give the final game justice, at least i can sense enormous potential, but the demo was too brief to allow us to explore the game.

I have played a few scirmishes, and while the idea of a deck sounds strange, after a few runs ive grown to like it. The power that a fresh supply of reinforcements can give turned the battle a number of times.

Hmmm, I never really cared for the whole card and supply thing in Rise of Nations. Hopefully it is better in AoE 3.

I wish I could have played the demo, but I don't have WinXP on my main rig and my laptop has an odd display driver that AoE3 didn't like. Oh well.

Well, it's out.

So far I'm very disappointed.

Describe it, man!

Why didn't you like it? Graphics, UI, this 'Card thing' I'm hearing about?!?!

I got it this week and I'm not that far into it but here goes.
1. The game is buggy! Very buggy! It seems like a lot of players are having sound issues, I am. On the official forums, there is no fix yet. Lots of video problems as well. Basically, te game needed another month of testing minimum.
2. I'm not sure on the card system yet. It's interesting, but so far it seems it was just thrown in as another feature to market.
3. Home cities. I admit I don't understand the true purpose of this yet. If it's more than just added on eye candy, cool, but I don't see it yet.
4. Gameplay- not too much different thatn AOE2 yet. However, I'm far out of practice for RTS's so I have found the game difficult so far.

Remember I am far from a RTS guru, so take it as that.

This is a stand alone I hope??? It does not require you have the original AOE does it?

Oh.... where to begin..

Let's start with the UI. It's FUCKING HUGE. There is an option to minimize it, and that makes it better, but then you lose info. There is a shit ton of wasted space on the UI, in both modes, so it's really frustrating.

The graphics look good, but for some fucking reason changing the resolution has no appreciable effects. I change it from 800x600 to 1280x1024 to 1600x1200 and the game looks the same. I may be wrong here, but I always thought that changing the resolution meant you get to see more. Not so in my case. This may be a problem on my side though.

Home cities. A stupid idea in my opinion. Apparently you can't just launch a skirmish game and go. You have to pick the game type, and then you have to use the home city for that game type. In my case, I picked English and made a deathmatch game. Next time I went to go play a deathmatch game, I had to be the English again because that was the nationality of my home city for that game type. And yeah, and there's only two game types: deathmatch and supremacy.

Then you have all this crap with cards and decks and what not, and for a casual game I really don't want to bother with it. Apparently you can customize your deck of cards and what not, but I think the whole idea is so retarded that I haven't bothered doing it yet. Dealing with the cards in game is also a pain. You have to go to a whole different screen in order to pick which card you want to use. Very annoying if you want to pick a card while you're being attacked.

Also, there is no option for 2v2v2. Can't do it. Why you may ask? You can only select two teams. You either put the comps in team 1, team 2 or let the game pick which team to put the comp in. Then picking the map you want to play on is annoying because it doesn't give you a map description until after you launch the game. Oh and another thing is that you can't pick the map size. Why, I have no idea...

Another annoyance is when you mouse over a unit or a building or an option. A huge box pops up to give a description, but there is no way to turn those boxes off. Highly annoying. Also, when mousing over units, it doesn't even give you their attack or defense info. Not even when mousing over their icon in the barracks menu.

Anyways, that is what annoyed me after playing 10 minutes each of two skirmish games. I don't think this game will be on my computer more than three days.

EDIT: It's not all bad though.. The combat is pretty cool looking, especially between ships. The game is definitely pretty, but I just don't like it.

First time player last night, and I had this same feeling???? I would like to be able to zoom out more or at 1600x1200 I should be able to see much much more than I am. Maybe a restart of the game is needed when you change the resoultion?

Damn! I really hate it when companies ship products before they're ready. *grumble*

Producers and development make the game, but marketing and advertising make the deadlines. :(

I got AOE III a couple of days ago.
It's good.... not great
It won't play on my desktop
does good on the laptop
Rise of Nations is way better.
I don't see much difference in gameplay from AOE II
except better ? ? ?-(slower, ram consuming) graphics
But who knows? if I get that new video card for christmas
I'm sure I'll like the game more!

never played the other two games, i enjoy the online setup and the campaign is decent but not very good, i like the game will prbably play it for a long time