Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties

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Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties
Developer(s)	Ensemble Studios Big Huge Games
Publisher(s)	Microsoft Game Studios
Designer(s)	Bruce Shelley Brian Reynolds
Series	Age of Empires
Version	1.01a/April 8, 2008
Platform(s)	Windows XP, Windows Vista (workaround available for Windows 2000)
Release date	October 23, 2007[1] November 2, 2007[2] November 8, 2007[3]
Genre(s)	Real-time strategy
Mode(s)	Single-player Multiplayer
Rating(s)	ESRB: T[4] OFLC: PG
Media	CD (1)
System requirements	1.4 GHz CPU (SSE), 256 MB RAM, 2.0 GB hard disk space, 64 MB GPU, 56k modem for online use play, DirectX 9.0c'[5][6]
Input methods	Keyboard, mouse

Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties is a real-time strategy (RTS) video game developed through a collaboration between Ensemble Studios and Big Huge Games, and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The game is the second expansion pack for Age of Empires III, following The WarChiefs. The game introduces three new civilizations; the Indians, Chinese, and Japanese, as well as several minor peoples, campaigns, maps, and game modes.

Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties was released in North America on October 23, 2007. The game was generally received well by critics, mostly praising graphics, and sometimes criticizing predictable aspects of the game. It earned an 80% score on both Game Rankings and Metacritic.

Contents 1 Gameplay 1.1 New civilizations 1.2 Campaigns 1.3 New game modes 1.4 Wonders 2 Development 3 Reception 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Gameplay

In general, the gameplay of Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties followed a similar format to the original game, Age of Empires III. Rather than introduce new methods of gameplay, most changes were focused on introducing new content to the game.

[edit] New civilizations

Three new civilizations are added in Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties.^[7] Each Asian civilization has monks, instead of explorers as in previous games.^[8]

There are six new minor civilizations added in The Asian Dynasties. They are the Sufis, the Shaolin, the Zen, the Udasi, the Bhakti, and the Jesuits.^[8]

• India — This civilization has no villager cards, but they receive one villager with almost each shipment.^[7] All villagers that are not shipped from the Home City cost wood instead of food. Sepoys (Musketeers), Gurkha (Skirmishers) and Rajputs (Swordsmen) are the primary infantry units. Both of India's monks ride elephants and heal units in combat. Their Home City is Delhi and leader Akbar the Great.^[8]
• China — The Chinese get only one monk at the start of the game, along with a disciple, the monk is the only 'explorer unit' who can train military units during the "discovery age" (disciples) and have the largest attack points compared to any other monk or explorer. The Chinese have a higher population limit than all the other civilizations; up to 220 population points, rather than the usual 200. Their Home City is Beijing and their leader is The Kangxi Emperor.^[8]
• Japan — This civilization has the Daimyo and Shogun units.^[7] Japanese villagers cannot gather food via herding or hunting, but can build shrines around huntable and herdable animals to gain a slow trickle of food, wood, or coin. The shrines also act as houses, supporting 10 population units. They have the unique ability to ship most cards twice. Their Home City is Edo with leader as Tokugawa Ieyasu.^[8]

[edit] Campaigns

There are three new campaigns, one for each new civilization. Furthermore, these campaigns return to the historical, civilization-based single-player campaigns, which are different from the past campaigns in the Age of Empires III series.^[3] Each campaign consists of five new scenarios.^[9]

• Chinese campaign — The Chinese campaign focuses loosely on the 1421 hypothesis and is about a Chinese treasure ship discovering the New World before Christopher Columbus. The story mainly focuses on Jian Huang, a Ming captain who dreamed of seeing the outside world, and his partner, Lao Chen, a large and powerful sailor and friend of Jian Huang, who are given orders to help expand the Ming Empire. But before exploring the New World, Admiral Jinhai, a cold and power hungry admiral, hopes to become emperor of the new lands. Interestingly, Jinhai seems to "disappear" upon arrival.^[10][9] However, Jian eventually learns of his treason and defeats him and his supporters. He then returns home to China, hoping that no one knows they were once there. This campaign has many similarities to the film Apocalypse Now.

• Japanese campaign — The Japanese campaign focuses on the unification of Japan, which was also a scenario in Age of Empires II: The Conquerors. It mainly concentrates on the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate, which players will control, and a young general, named Sakuma Kichiro, the "adopted son" of Tokugawa Ieyasu, who leads numerous scenarios before the Battle of Sekigahara.^[9] Kichiro eventually learns that Tokugawa destroyed his home when he was a baby and murdered his parents. Despite this, Kichiro continues to follow Tokugawa because he is his master.

• Indian campaign — The Indian campaign is about the Sepoy Rebellion of the 19th Century.^[9] The protagonist of the Indian campaign is Nanib (a portmanteau name of Nana Sahib), a member of the Sepoy regiments, who first allied with the British East India Company, but slowly becomes disillusioned from its cruel ways and abuse of the Indian citizens. However, Nanib eventually joins the rebels in the Sepoy rebellion after he and his men are forced by the company to use new Enfield Rifles, despite the cartridges' coverings of beef and pork fat, which was a taboo to Nanib's and the sepoys' Hindu and Muslim beliefs. Nanib leads his forces in rescuing the Shah from his captivity in Delhi. Nanib eventually leads his forces in an assault on Colonel Edwardson's stronghold and kills him. Nanib's situation is very similar to Chayton Black's situation in "The Warchiefs" campaign: "Shadow".^[9][10]

[edit] New game modes

A variety of new game modes are introduced in the game.^[6] The four new game modes are: King of the Hill, Regicide, Treaty and Treaty No-Blockade and two traditional game modes are: Supremacy and Deathmatch.^[11]

• King of the Hill: Players must capture and defend a particular fort until the time runs out. If a player manages to hold the fort for the whole time specified, then that player wins the game. However, other players may capture the fort, reseting the timer.^[11]
• Regicide: The goal of this game, much like that in the Age of Empires II version, is to defend your Regent, a single unit that represents your king. If he is killed, you lose the game. The game ends when all enemy Regents, or all friendly Regents, are killed. This mode is currently available only on the Honshu map. You start in an already fortified town. (One layer of walls around your Town Center.)^[11]
• Treaty: The host specifies a peace period (ten, twenty, thirty, or forty minutes) in which no player can attack another. Furthermore, blockades to prevent Home City shipments can be put on a player's opponents.^[11]
• Treaty No-Blockade: Similar to the forty minute treaty mode, but no blockades are permitted. The game was not balanced for this mode and therefore some civilisations have clear cut advantages, such as France, Russia, Japan, Sioux, Spain, China and Portugal^[11]

[edit] Wonders

In Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties, each of the three new civilizations must build Wonders to advance from age to age. Unlike previous Age of Empires games, the player will not achieve victory by building a wonder. Players will have to choose a wonder which is beneficial and unique to their civilization. Once built, this wonder will provide an initial bonus of units or resources (rewards), while continuing to provide a benefit to the players civilization. Unlike advancing from the Town Center — like in past Age of Empires games — a player must select a desired number of villagers to build a wonder and advance. It is possible to continue building the wonder without villagers, however, the rate of advancement is dependent on the number of villagers working on it. Thus, more villagers increases the building speed, and the more villagers building a wonder, the faster the civilization will advance, but this is negated due to economical reasons, as taking villagers can dent overall resource production. Wonders can be destroyed but not rebuilt.

There are a total of 15 wonders; 5 for each civilization. The wonders for the Chinese are the Confucian Academy (produces flying crow), the Porcelain Tower (generates resources), the Temple of Heaven (gives your monk the ability to heal), the Summer Palace (produces banner armies), and the White Pagoda (increases your monk and disciples' attack and hitpoints, increases the number of disciples your monk can train). The Japanese wonders are the Toshogu Shrine (acts as a shrine, gives 20 pop, and increases shrine income), the Great Buddha (allows you to see your enemy for a short period of time), the Golden Pavilion (choose a bonus to land based units and provides advanced arsenal upgrades), the Shogunate (land military units train faster and are less expensive), and the Torii Gates (1.5 times xp earned). The Indian Wonders are the Tower of Victory (temporary attack, hitpoints, and speed bonus), the Agra Fort (defends surrounding area and can train units), the Charminar Gate (trains Mansabdars which boost the attack and hitpoints of other units), the Karni Mata (nearby resource gathering is increased), and the Taj Mahal (has a cease fire ability which stops fighting for a period of time).^[12][13][14]

[edit] Development

In developing Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties, Ensemble Studios worked with Big Huge Games for the first time. This partnership came about as a result of Ensemble Studios being busy with other projects including Halo Wars, and Big Huge Games' real-time strategy time with spare time on their hands. Several Big Huge Games employees, including Brian Reynolds, had declared they were fans of the Age of Empires series, and thus they asked Ensemble Studios if the two could work together on the upcoming expansion.^[15] The two studios did large amounts of communication through the internet, and Reynolds says the entire process worked well.^[16] Ensemble Studios took the role of the "customer" in their relationship with Big Huge Games, and thus the game was designed to satisfy Ensemble's needs. Ensemble designers Greg Street and Sandy Petersen were also heavily involved in brainstorming and developing the game.^[15]

A demo version of Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties was released on October 4, 2007. The demo featured the Japanese civilization, the Honshu random map, and the King of the Hill game mode.^[17]

[edit] Reception

Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties was received positively by reviewers, with an average score of approximately 80%.^[20][21] This was similar to the reception of Age of Empires III.

IGN praised the graphics in Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties, noting the graphics engine used in the game was strong enough to support the game; able to "render high-level battlefield action and ground-level cinematics easily".^[18] Gamespot agreed, approving of the added "visual pizzazz" in the form of Wonders, buildings, and units.^[9] The greatest praise came from GameSpy though; reviewer Tom Chick described the "gorgeous pagodas, arches, minarets and colors" as "a rare and generous package of new visuals".^[19] IGN called the game's voice acting "great", also praising the "livelike" sounds of the characters.^[18] Gamespot disagreed, complaining that the audio was overly similar to past games in the series.^[18]

The gameplay generally received praise from reviewers, with some caveats. While IGN's Steve Butts "loved" the game's new units and operations, he complained of a predictability in the missions, asking for more surprises.^[18] Gamespot's Jason Ocampo agreed, noting that the "campaigns feature familiar plot twists", while praising the "new twists" on the Age of Empires series-style gameplay.^[9] GameSpy noted that some of the changes were well overdue. However, the gameplay was given a big ticket, with the hypothetical question posed; "Ever play an expansion or sequel and then realize you can never go back to its predecessor because you've been spoiled by the new?"^[19]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Age of Empires III: Asian Dynasties official site
• Age of Empires III Unit Database

v • d • e Age of Empires series Main series Age of Empires (The Rise of Rome) · Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings (The Conquerors) · Age of Empires III (The WarChiefs · The Asian Dynasties) Spin-offs Age of Mythology (The Titans) Other The Age of Kings (Nintendo DS) · Mythologies (Nintendo DS)