Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition

[Wirdschowerdn]

https://www.ageofempires.com/games/aoeiiide

Spoiler

https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/upcoming-age-iii-de-beta-sessions-read-all-about-them/67530

Hello and Happy New Year, Age Insiders! We thought we’d start this year off by sharing some exciting news with you all first. Starting early next month, we’ll begin inviting select Insiders to beta various elements of Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition 759!

If you joined us for the Age II: DE closed beta last year, we’ll be structuring things a bit differently this time around. Instead of one longer closed beta with a gradually expanding audience, we’ll be splitting the Age III: DE beta into several different, shorter sessions, which will feature focused slices of the game.

Our larger Age III: DE closed beta sessions will be dedicated to multiplayer, matchmaking, and the way the game feels when you play with others. We’ll be kicking off these multiplayer closed beta sessions starting in early February. Our plan is to ramp up by first including fans of the original Age III, so the February session will include a limited number of invitations; however, we’ll be making room for more Age fans and inviting a larger audience come March.

We know that our Insider community also loves to contribute to the success of other, non-multiplayer aspects of our games. Because of this, we will also provide some opportunities to give feedback on the Age III: DE campaign. To ensure our developers get the feedback they need, we will limit the campaign beta sessions to a very small group of players and only certain missions.

Each of our Age III: DE beta sessions – no matter the focus – will include plenty of opportunities for invited users to tell us about their experiences. Not only that, but we’ll also work to share updates on how the sessions are going and highlight some of what we’ve learned right here in the Age Insider Newsletter. (Just a reminder that if you’re reading this, you’ve signed an NDA – we know that stuff’s not fun, but please remember to honor it when we start sharing these updates!)

So how do you prepare for the Age III: DE closed beta sessions?

• Make sure you’ve updated your “Insider settings” on your Profile 1.5k. We’ll be selecting participants for each beta session and platform (either Steam or Microsoft Store) based on that information.
  
  
• Upload a DXDiag, if you haven’t already. Given we’re looking to confirm the look and feel of the Age III: DE experience during these closed beta sessions, we will only be inviting participants with DXDiags that meet certain technical specifications. All invitations require hardware that meets or exceeds the following specs:
  • Windows 10 64-bit
  • 8GB RAM
  • 2GB video memory
  • DX11 / D3D11
  • HD Graphics 4400 or more if using integrated Graphics
• Keep an eye on your inbox! If you’re invited to a closed beta session, you’ll be notified by email. This email will include key details about the content offered in that particular session, as well as resources for providing feedback and reporting bugs. We’ll also use the Insiders 91 forum to note when invitations have gone out.

Take some time before Jan. 28 to polish up your Insider settings via your Profile and let us know what and where you like to play! And remember: whether you’re invited to an Age III: DE beta session or not, there will be loads of other ways to take part as an Insider.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[LESS T_T]

Steam page:

 

[Feyd Rautha]

New empire added

When it comes to civilizations, Age of Empires III and its expansions featured 14 civilizations from across Europe, the Americas, and Asia, and we’re adding two brand-new civilizations exclusively to the Definitive Edition: The Swedes and The Incas!

• The Swedes are a brand new addition to the franchise and cover one of history’s most unlikely great powers: a small European nation which eclipsed all military convention and became a powerhouse on the European battlefields thanks to their innovative military tactics.
• The Incas are a more traditional Age of Empires civilization, covering one of the largest empires in South America, where they constructed mighty stone cities, citadels and palaces.

e: How do they balance nations such as Inca against Spain for example? Kind of destroys all suspension of disbelief if Incas are on pair with Spain. Or if all of a sudden you have Incas with guns

e2: Indian nations should just be cannon fodder that you can fight against for a laugh

e3: Other source of decline:

Speaking on civilizations, a key focus of our work at World’s Edge is to authentically represent the cultures and peoples that we depict in our games. While developing Age III: DE, we realized that we weren’t upholding that value as well as we could regarding our Native American cultures; so we set out to fix that: working directly with tribal consultants to respectfully and accurately capture the uniqueness of their peoples, history, and cultures. Returning players will find there’s been some fundamental changes to the Native American civilizations, and we hope you find them as compelling as we do!

Politically correct representation of indians.

e4: I never played AoE3 but I'm pretty hyped for this! Will definitely give this new version a spin.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Iirc the campaign had you going from colonisation to the industrial era through a familys perspective. That's why there's incas and kwanboons.

 

[Hellraiser]

Sweden and Inca are ok additions. Would of course like to see Potatoland, but there's always Cossacks 3 for that.

As for the natives and conquered american civs, they should just embrace implausible alt history that they caught up and modernized without getting subjugated by colonial powers instead of going the bows and arrows vs rifles route.

Iirc the campaign had you going from colonisation to the industrial era through a familys perspective. That's why there's incas and kwanboons.

The first expansion to AoE3 was about natives, and mostly the north american natives at that (only Aztecs are an exception) in some dumb kwan injun tribals fetishism instead of the more prestigious and civilized Mayas or Incas. One of the main problems with that game was its north-america-centrism (although I guess Big Huge Games, not Ensemble, fixed that in the second expansion which focused on Asia). The ages of discovery, colonization, imperialism and industrialization offer so much potential and they went the "hurr durr kwanzania" route for the campaign. Well that and the dumbing down, such as removing the need for peasants to drop off resources at a building. And they added the bulk build of units in groups of up to 5 (if it was parallel queues with some tweaking it would be ok). Also IIRC the defensive structures were hardcapped. I think monitor ships were also hardcapped? Quite a bit of decline there compared to AoM or AoE 2.

Trade route control was interesting and the creep camps copied from warcraft 3 also as far as new things added in AOE3 were concerned. Home city cards are a bit iffy as they involved grinding to unlock them, per nation at that. For the campaign the grind might have been ok, but if you just played skirmish or worse multiplayer (where the home city level was obviously separate from the singleplayer one, so you had to grind again, per nation), it was just fucking dumb.

 

[JarlFrank]

There were already Aztecs, Mayans and Incas in AoE2, fighting against Franks and Saracens and Mongols in the dark age lmao (not in the campaigns of course, there it was Aztecs vs Spanish, but in multiplayer you get such matchups). Their tech trees didn't give them any cavalry and gunpowder, but crossbows and swordsmen on par with the other civs. Meh. Who cares.

In AoE3 each civ is more unique, but it's also unbalanced as hell. In fact, it's considered bad form to play Japan in multiplayer due to how OP they are.

 

[JarlFrank]

Trade route control was interesting and the creep camps copied from warcraft 3 also as far as new things added in AOE3 were concerned. Home city cards are a bit iffy as they involved grinding to unlock them, per nation at that. For the campaign the grind might have been ok, but if you just played skirmish or worse multiplayer (where the home city level was obviously separate from the singleplayer one, so you had to grind again, per nation), it was just fucking dumb.

I kinda like AoE3's gameplay but please for the love of God and all that is holy I hope they remove that home city grinding shit for multi.

 

[Duralux for Durabux]

I may be the only one who prefer AoE3 than AoE2, Shame on me.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[fizzelopeguss]

The model upgrades are excellent. Very loyal.

Just shows what a fuck up war3 reforged was.

 

[LESS T_T]

Heh:

More comparisons:

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

That actually looks really nice. If I didn't already own the complete game that would be really tempting.

 

[Narax]

I half expected the new civs to center around africa, it would have been an interesting area to explore considering the colonial history there.

 

[Vincente]

Politically correct representation of indians.

They are reworking Sioux and Iroquois so they don't trade gold, but rather fur. They haven't talked about the exact mechanic yet.

 

[a Goat]

Played Age 3 for like 30 minutes to 2 hours years ago. Is it worth it or should I just ignore it and stick to 2?

 

[Delterius]

Heh:

snip

The funky thing about these comparisons is the amount of people who are just remembering AoE3's melted wax 3D graphics. I think that's a testament to the game's art design tbh. The game was really pretty despite the graphical quality.

 

[JarlFrank]

Heh:

snip

The funky thing about these comparisons is the amount of people who are just remembering AoE3's melted wax 3D graphics. I think that's a testament to the game's art design tbh. The game was really pretty despite the graphical quality.

Yeah if you told me the new models were the originals I would believe you.

 

[Delterius]

The ages of discovery, colonization, imperialism and industrialization offer so much potential and they went the "hurr durr kwanzania" route for the campaign.

TBH all the campaigns are horrible.

First Campaign: a Scotts Templar - Ottoman Turk - Poirates of the Caribebebe Grand Alliance stops the Illuminati from getting the fountain of youth and it all started because there's a cave in malta with aztec drawings showing you the way to Mexico.

Second Campaign: mercenary man and the iroquois stops the million russian march on the Thirteen Colonies from all the way in Alaska, cross the heartland, the rockies because Illuminati did it.

Third Campaign: railroad worker apparently veteran of the Alamo tries to keep the Illuminati away from all the barrels of magic water the Incans transported from Florida to the lost city of whatever, which they stole and brought to Cuba for some reason.

AoE2 had Joan of Arc be saved in the end. But all of the above is just a big pile of 'why'.

My only hope is that the historical battles scratch the decades old itch I have to play some semi historical shit in AoE3.

 

[Vincente]

My only hope is that the historical battles scratch the decades old itch I have to play some semi historical shit in AoE3.

You'll play as Francis Drake raiding Spanish ports in one of the missions, or so I've heard.

 

[Tacgnol]

AoE2 had Joan of Arc be saved in the end. But all of the above is just a big pile of 'why'.

Uh, I don't remember this. Joan gets captured and burnt in the penultimate mission and the final mission is all her compatriots seeking revenge.

 

[Delterius]

AoE2 had Joan of Arc be saved in the end. But all of the above is just a big pile of 'why'.

Uh, I don't remember this. Joan gets captured and burnt in the penultimate mission and the final mission is all her compatriots seeking revenge.

oh

nice

in my defense its been ten thousand years

 

[BING XI LAO]

The Incas are a more traditional Age of Empires civilization, covering one of the largest empires in South America, where they constructed mighty stone cities, citadels and palaces.
e: How do they balance nations such as Inca against Spain for example? Kind of destroys all suspension of disbelief if Incas are on pair with Spain. Or if all of a sudden you have Incas with guns

Well AoE2 already added native american retardation in 2002, except in that game it was worse because they had plate-armoured zweihander infantry, arbalestiers and trebuchets.

If anything it's less obnoxious in the aoe3 era, which added native civs ages ago in the Warchiefs, because a native american that's learned to shoot a rifle and ride a horse actually is a respectable guerilla warrior who existed IRL.

 

[FreeKaner]

e: How do they balance nations such as Inca against Spain for example? Kind of destroys all suspension of disbelief if Incas are on pair with Spain. Or if all of a sudden you have Incas with guns

e2: Indian nations should just be cannon fodder that you can fight against for a laugh

e3: Other source of decline:

A lot of things were involved in Spanish conquest of Incas, including the shipyards and banks of Genoa, pikes and horses from Castile boldness and bravery of Pizarro and his men, political situation of the newly formed Inca empire, mistakes of the Inca emperor, the two artillery pieces. Firearms, on the other hand, played nearly no role. No role that bows couldn't have anyway. Pizarro had less than 200 men, there was no technological advantage in the world at the time that assisted much with what he did, except breastplates and pikes. Both of which Incas themselves had access to in some capacity.

Presenting such a situation, either of Cortes or Pizarro whose accomplishments are legendary to a simple civilisational or technological disadvantage on part of Incas is not only being completely ignorant and unaware of the actual events themselves but paints a picture of Spanish monarchy deliberately exercising an organisational and technological superiority. Spanish monarchy was hardly aware of these events as they happened in both cases, let alone actually directing them. There is no "Spain" for Incas to be on par with here but a palace coup by a highly determined and successful warband, whose leader ironically also fell victim to another coup.

Casting Aztecs or Incas as cannon fodder would not only be false, as per commented by Spaniards in Americas themselves, but rather than exalting the Spanish triumph rather denigrates it. It's also a misunderstanding of what "Spain" was in 16th century but that's a book worth of misunderstandings that's better not written here.

 

[BING XI LAO]

Pretty sure Cortez or Pizarro would've been fucked beyond belief if they were riding llamas into battle armoured in cotton breastplates and wielding hunting bows and javelins as their missile weapons. They wouldn't have had much luck getting there in canoes either...

 

[karoliner]

This looks really nice, they should do the same for age of mythology.

 

[FreeKaner]

Pretty sure Cortez or Pizarro would've been fucked beyond belief if they were riding llamas into battle armoured in cotton breastplates and wielding hunting bows and javelins as their missile weapons. They wouldn't have had much luck getting there in canoes either...

Reread what I wrote, since I mentioned both ships and horses. Nevertheless, even if they had AK-47s, what either Cortes and Pizarro did was not a success of military strategic, tactics or technology (aside from actually getting there in the first place), while state of Spain and its regular army did possess superiority of metallurgy, military organisation and military tactics, none of that was relevant to the what is essentially the loose streetfight type of melee they got involved. In Cortes' case it was his resourcefulness in managing to muster an alliance of native tribes to topple Aztecs and establish a central governance, in Pizarro's case it was a successful coup to a recent empire and incorporating the Inca elite into the system quickly, though he himself got killed in a coup by another Spaniard. It's an excellence of endurance, persistence, survival, wit and boldness. Reducing it down to technological comparisons at state level only diminishes what amounts to perhaps two greatest conquests in history of the world. There is many conquests which happened because of tactical and technological superiority on the side of one over other, such as concurrent Ottoman conquest of Mamluks, British and French conquests of Africa, American expansion towards west coast and many others in long history of warfare. Meanwhile conquests like Cortes' and Pizarro's, they are a vast rarity.

Moreover what I initially responded to was about firearms, which had very little effect in either case (this is a common misconception, whereby people think some sort of 19th century wild west movie or British and Zulus type of "battle" where by one side is using rifles to shoot incoming hordes of loosely charging men), while pikes and swords were very instrumental. It's not only misunderstanding what type of "warfare" took place in Americas, but also what 16th century firearms were.

It's not at all different than type of conquest Spanish did in Tunis with Hafsid dynasty, even though the North Africans possessed more similar technology, however in that case because there was other local powers they couldn't maintain it (In this case Ottomans, which took Tlemcelen and Tunis from Arabs and Spanish respectively) while there was no opposition left after Spanish separately took control of isolated regions.