Age of Empires III

Main Features:

• New Feature - Home Cities - Players have access to their own European Home City for economic, technological and military support. Your Home City's success depends on you, with your city's improvements retained between games.
• Full 3-D Graphics, Destructible Environments and More - The goal of our Age of Empires III team here at Ensemble Studios wasn't just to build the best-looking graphics ever in an RTS game. It was to build the best-looking graphics in any game. Period. Did our team succeed?
• In this action adventure tale of historical fiction, players take on the role of Morgan Black and his family, struggling against the hostile wilderness and a mysterious cult that's crept in from Europe. In a series of 24 scenarios divided into three acts, In this action adventure tale of historical fiction, players take on the role of Morgan Black and his family, struggling against the hostile wilderness and a mysterious cult that's crept in from Europe
• In a series of 24 scenarios divided into three acts, Morgan Black and his descendants help the Aztecs resist conquest by Spanish conquistadors, pit the French against the British in the French and Indian War and help Simon Bolivar lead revolutions in South America
• Whether you're searching for a quick game or hoping to talk strategy with friends online, Age of Empires III's Multiplayer site is your community destination
• Here, you can play with persistent Home Cities that gain power and strategic options the more games you play, compete for a spot on dozens of ladders, help organize your clan or chat after a game - all without leaving the multiplayer portal
• Fans of Age of Mythology's Quick Search can still look for games swiftly, while players looking for something specific can browse game lists to find the set of options that matches their tastes
• Full 3-D Graphics and More: Tone mapping - This photo imaging technique balances the colours in a scene on the fly. The end result is a rich, warm game where bright colours are vibrantly rendered alongside darker counterparts, such as shadows
• Lighting and shadows - The sun is always shining in Age of Empires, so it's important that lighting and shadows be an awe-inspiring experience. Units and buildings cast shadows according to a real sun position, and even cast shadows on each other. High Dynamic Range rendering allows us to represent the shiny glints of sunlight that bounce off highly reflective surfaces
• Bump and specular mapping - Water glistens like water. Metal shines like metal. These advanced techniques serve to provide an extra level of rendering detail heretofore unseen in real-time strategy (RTS) gaming
• Water - We felt that portraying stunning, realistic water effects in the game was so important that we devoted a programmer to it full-time. You'll find the water rich with details like foam near the shore, accurately modeled water motion, flotsam in rivers and realistic water colours. Plus, reflections change with the viewing angle, the angle of sunlight and the motion of the water. The overall effect is breathtaking
• Cliffs & Riverbeds - Instead of just stretching terrain, we built a system to attach geometry to the terrain map to allow for realistic overhangs and steep cliffs, from areas like the American Southwest. This effect is supported on random maps too
• More to command - Not only are you in command of large and diverse armies of infantry, cavalry and artillery, but also Native American warriors, mercenaries and tall ships
• Multiple formations - You can assign different formations to your army for different strengths and weaknesses, or have the game automatically choose the most appropriate formation. Examples include:
• Volley - ranged infantry, like musketeers, take turns firing at enemies ahead of them
• Charge - your soldiers walk, then run into combat. Cavalry wield sabers, and musketeers fix bayonets. This formation does tremendous damage but makes your soldiers more prone to injury
• Bombard - your soldiers protect the cannons, while the cannons shell enemy ranks. Available only when you have artillery in your army
• Battles are easier to follow - You can still command individual units. But when the units fight in formation, you'll be able to tell exactly who is winning the fight
• Real-time physics - Infantry struck by cannon fire will be thrown like rag dolls, perhaps even over a cliff and into the water. Cannonballs bounce and ricochet
• Detailed destructions - Shingles, shutters and whole towers may fly off a building and interact with the terrain, such as crashing into nearby water. This next generation effect is done on the fly so that each building always has a unique destruction, no matter how many times you see it
• Unique animations - With hundreds of unique combat animations, you'll never see the same battle twice