Age of Empires III

Age of Empires 3 (also known as Age of Empires III) is a popular real-time strategy developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios on home PCs in 2005. After two celebrated games and their expansions who focused their visual style on showcasing hundreds and thousands of 2D Sprite-based units, the third game of this franchise moved completely to 3D visuals that were first introduced by the studio in their popular Age of Mythology release from 2002. Immediately after launch, the Age of Empires 3 managed to become one of the bestselling PC games of its time, reaching over 2 million gamers in its first three years on the market.

Set in the age of the exploration of the Americas, the core offering of this game is centered on the eight civilizations (British, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, German, and Ottoman) that move through the five distinct “ages” and all unlock access to more capable home base buildings and military units. In this game, the ages include Discovery Age, Colonial Age, Fortress Age, Industrial Age, and finally Imperial Age that unlocks access to all buildings, upgrades, and defensive/offensive military units. The game also introduced several advancements that were not present in the earlier releases of this franchise, most notably the addition of “Home City” and a “Politician System” that can grant bonuses when certain goals are met. In addition to eight playable civilizations, the game also supports several other non-playable civilizations (mercenaries and pirates) as enemies in the campaigns and as a playable force in the Scenario Editor. In addition to them, the game also features thirteen native American tribes and civilizations.

Instead of separate campaigns linked to specific civilizations, this new game focused on a new campaign structure that followed the fictionalized family in three large Acts.

Due to the great success of the game in 2005 and 2006, the developers from Ensemble Studios created two large expansions – “Age of Empires III: The WarChiefs” in late 2006 that centered on three native American tribes of Iroquois, Sioux (Lakota), and Aztecs, and “Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties” in late 2007 that unlocked access to Indian, Japanese, and the Chinese.

In addition to two official expansions, the Age of Empires 3 was also re-released several times. In 2007 the game was sold under the “Gold Edition” package that bundled the original game with War Chiefs expansion, 2010 the game and both expansions were sold under the “Complete Edition” package, and the fully-featured remaster called “Definitive Edition” was released on October 15, 2020.

Age of Empires 3 is incredibly resource-light, and therefore can be played today on almost every PC you can find around you.

Also Available: Download Age of Empires III for Mac