Hello, Sleepless Nights! (The AoE III Story)

As many of you might have noticed (or not, you savage beings), the Age of Empires III demo was released a few days ago. And as you might have already guessed, I'm a HUGE RTS fan. So, this was like a 4th X-mas for me (the other 3 are private matters).

I loaded up the demo, and began my journey back into the "Ages." It took me a few minutes to get back into the groove (hadn't played AoE II in ages... hehe, ages). The 1 campaign battle offered in the demo was sufficient enough to have me drooling over my keyboard. The skirmish mode was what really got my hormones worked up, though. Honestly, it was the best 8 hours of my life.



Now, my graphics card is "average" at best, so I didn't get to experience the high texture quality in conjunction with the awesome shadowing. Unfortunate, yes, but the game looked great nonetheless. The characters in all their polygonal glory, it took me back to my time with Rome: Total War. Mind you, this isn't a first in RTS, but it was great to see the AoE series in such a complex graphical order.

From the moment I sent my villagers out to gather, I knew I was home. Once again, I took the seat as a omnipotent figure, barking orders constantly with a flick and click of my mouse. The demo had its limitations (only two empires to choose from, the Spanish and the British - except for in the campaign mode, obviously), but it was a demo that kept me glued to my seat, occasionally getting up to go to the bathroom or just general rest session every hour or so.



Honestly, any screenshots of the game will not do the game justice at all. Sure, they look fantastic, but the heart and soul of the game lies within the actual gameplay. Watch the videos, if you can. Those provide some better insight into the elements of play. Or, just download the demo.

Taking control of the Spanish and building a heavy economy and military honestly gave me a chill down my spine. I was as gitty as a schoolgirl, madly patrolling the map and moving my soldiers around. AoE and myself, we were made to be. It must have been somewhere in excess of a hundred soldiers and cavalry, with some artillery in there for good measure. I marched into the British colony, and madly attacked their town centers, while easily toppling any other buildings that got in my way.

Alas, the means to which I could establish such an impressive and offensive army came with the work of the settlers, happily chopping, mining, or gathering food. The home city provided much-needed supplies of gold, lumber, and food to keep my economy and population going. I steadily upgraded my military and gathering tactics through the subtle use of the "Improve" menus for each building. But there it was, the siren of despair. I've been attacked.



I scrolled as quickly as I could, and to my horror I saw a small British army attacking my settlers (whose attack power and hit points/defense had been improved, so they put up one hell of a fight). I was in panic. I shot a few screens away to my barracks and my stable, where my soldiers were standing in position, idly awaiting orders. I quickly gathered them up, and set their attack power to the British attack force, headed by their own Hero (of which, I have forgotten the name of).

The few settlers that had been attacked had finally collapsed, fighting the good fight in defense of their colony. I immediately received a message from the Queen herself, claiming something to the effect of "That was too easy." Now, naturally, I wouldn't just stand there and take it. I set up my mortars and general artillery to attack the spot where the British force was attacking an outpost of mine. I looked at the outpost, and saw a horde of my men savagely beating the life out of them, while my artillery sealed their fate.

What really struck my was the amazing physics. I saw a canon shot hit an area of ground between three British soldiers, and was just amazed. two of them got a direct hit, slowly falling to an agonizing death. The other, less fortunate one, was propelled a great distance from the ground hit, and met his maker. Soon, the small skirmish was over, me only suffering one casualty, the British completely toppled over. As the smoke cleared, the smell of victory was in the air, and a huge grin was on my face. I was in my happy place.



From here on, I knew it would be futile to put all my effort into a strong economy, and not focus on building and strengthening my troops and fleets even more. So, I quickly sent my settlers to build walls around my colony and Native American trading posts. To an extent, it looked almost like the great wall of china from the mini-map in the corner. Surprisingly, I noticed that my territory and trade posts pushed the wall so that my area covered 3/4 of the map. Smashing.

I ordered a fort cart from my home city, and put my settlers to work on another fort on the northern side of the map. The fort arrived, and I quickly sent it to be established on the southern end of the map. There was a great lake in between the forts (in the middle of the map), so I was well-guarded from any sort of attack (unless the British colony militia enjoyed wading through the lake, only to find a shallow grave).

I built up a dock on the lake, and another dock in the ocean to the south (which would allow transportation to the British colony, oddly enough). I bulit up a Galleon and two Men-of-War and set them to stand guarded along the shores of the gates, if any one enemy troop dared to cross over. Thankfully, the fort was a means of creating all available infantry (even the Native American infantry was able to be created here, awesome). I slowly but surely built up my infantry, now taking up a good portion of the screen. I sent some cavalry to the "rendez-vous" point, and awaited my artillery to do the same. Soon, I had a massive attack ground force, and a steady and armed naval force. My economy was in the best condition ever, so I coordinated my attack. This was it, the big moment.



I rallied as much infantry as possible into a transport ship, and set it to stealthily attack the British from the east, while the rest attacked from the west. They moved out, my forts ready and willing to defend my colony. The navy moved into position, and I watched the unsuspecting British settlers cheerfully gathering, unaware of the horror that would follow. Once everyone was in position, I made sure we had all the military upgrades we could get. Yep, we were ready.

It was a battle of epic proportions, one could say. My troops coldly killed the poor British settlers on the outskirts of the colony. Now, obviously, I wasn't too worried about the British army coming over to attack me. I was arrogant. There it was again, the siren of battle. British mortars were attacking my infantry. This, my friends, was war.

I poised all my artillery and my Men-of-War to attack the defensive forces, defeating them in a matter of seconds. No time to lose, I thought. So I quickly set my troops' main goal to overthrow the colony and destroy the town centers. They marched, they killed, the conquered. I had forgotten all about my troops in the boats, as well as the Galeon. A costly mistake, as a surge of British forces came from the side my navy and onboard infantry were supposed to attack. More casualties suffered, I quickly scrambled to get the infantry off the boats, and had my Men-Of-War attack what troops they could reach. My Galleon set its target to the primary British town center.



Crash! Burn! Victory! As I watched my troops and ships victoriously toppling the British colony, I couldn't help but sigh a sigh of relief, keeping a big grin on my face. They marched by the hundreds, defeating as many troops as they did buildings. The eastern front troops and navy claimed victory on the primary town center, sealing the deal and single-handedly defeating the British colony once and for all. My soldiers cheered wildly, as the Queen finally resigned under the pressure. I did it. I couldn't be more happier.

What I then realized was that the whole time, I had almost forgotten that I was playing a game. It just sucked me into the experience, I couldn't get enough. Honestly, Ensemble Studios has one hell of a game here, easily topping the first two in the Age of Empires series. I will definitely be one of the first few to obtain a retail copy. This game is just too good for me to pass up. It'd be gaming blasphemy if I did otherwise. October cannot come here soon enough.

Farewell, my fellow community members. I'm off to experience the game again, but from the British side of things. Time to take down the Spanish... hehe. May your experiences with the game be as amazing and satisfying as mine was.

Regards,
DSdude

[Fatvod]

this looks like a great game! i might buy it.

[ShadowMarth]

Holy crap man, that's a preview all right. I havn't read it all, but I intend to get my two cents in anyway. I downloaded the demo yesterday, and was quite suprised at the tech specs. So low! That's a great thing though, assuming it's a good game. I tried, but having never played the previous AoE games, I was kind of lost. They need a tutorial in the demo.

Yeah, and I agree with mormon... You rock at writing.

Hehe. Yeah, so now you know why they hired me as a game reviewer here at teh TDS...

:P

[Pilot_51]

Got the demo a couple days ago and it was really slow on default settings and incredibly slow on highest settings (minus antialiasing and anisotropic filters), so I just put everything (except res.) on low settings and it ran fine. Kinda strange how an overhead RTS demands more at mid/high settings than Doom3 or BF2 (or any other demanding game for that matter) at low/mid settings.

Odd, I didn't have that sort of problem. Must be my luck, then. :P

[alex]

cant wait for this game lover the ones befor it

yea i got the demo the day it came out but i haven't any time to play it yet... i haven't played a single video game since like last saturday

[fischju]

i didnt know that many words could be put together like that! its a modern marvel

[ShadowMarth]

Yeah, once again referring to gamespot journals, his is quite fun to read. Just wish you'd do them more often. And you'd better make time mormon, chuddy finally sent out AW.