Doom_Bringer
Banned
this game is awesome! I loved Age of Mythology, only RTS I could get into. Anyway how do you earn more gold???
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Age of Empires III demo
- Thread starter Nester
- Start date
Teknopathetic
Member
Doom Bringer: Mine it. Have your settlers mine it.
Doom_Bringer
Banned
Teknopathetic said:
Thanks but where is the mine? I don't see it
The demo was very very underwhelming.
At least im satisfied my aging P4 3GHZ Radeon 9600 machine can run it decently at 1024. But I was expecting a Roman, Japanese/Chinese or an acient era campaign.
Heck, even a Revolutionary American campaign would have been more interesting than the single player options we got, which was colonization of America and railroad building in the 1800s. Bleh.
At least im satisfied my aging P4 3GHZ Radeon 9600 machine can run it decently at 1024. But I was expecting a Roman, Japanese/Chinese or an acient era campaign.
Heck, even a Revolutionary American campaign would have been more interesting than the single player options we got, which was colonization of America and railroad building in the 1800s. Bleh.
I like it, seems to be quite a fresh new entry in the series for me. It shares similarities to AOEII, as it should, but it is still a new game.
I have some reservations however that I would like fixed, the first is rather minor but something I noticed in my quick play through, and that is the game seems to be suffering from Rise of Nations 'quick age' syndrome. I played for about 20 minutes and was already well on the way to hitting the 3rd age. It's too quick and I image with practice I could really cut that time down even further.
The second thing that is really bothering me though is no right click camera movement which IIRC is present in Empire Earth II. In AOEIII you either have to scroll to the sides of the screen, use the arrow keys or use the minimap and I know it was the same way with the other games but I expected better in this regard. This probably wouldn't be as evident to others as it is to me because I don't play at a computer desk, so as a result it is not so easy to move around as quickly and precisely as I would like and right click movement would help a lot here.
I have some reservations however that I would like fixed, the first is rather minor but something I noticed in my quick play through, and that is the game seems to be suffering from Rise of Nations 'quick age' syndrome. I played for about 20 minutes and was already well on the way to hitting the 3rd age. It's too quick and I image with practice I could really cut that time down even further.
The second thing that is really bothering me though is no right click camera movement which IIRC is present in Empire Earth II. In AOEIII you either have to scroll to the sides of the screen, use the arrow keys or use the minimap and I know it was the same way with the other games but I expected better in this regard. This probably wouldn't be as evident to others as it is to me because I don't play at a computer desk, so as a result it is not so easy to move around as quickly and precisely as I would like and right click movement would help a lot here.
In short: The game is very similar to AoE2 with a few gameplay tweaks to it's benefit. A couple ideas from RoN.
Yeah, it's similar to AoE2. I'm mostly concerned about that because AoE2's online matchmaking blew. Give me something like Warcraft3, or I don't think I'll play online.
You start out with some villagers, forage bushes, you're close to game/trees/minerals.
Villagers no longer have to return materials to buildings which simplifies things in a good way.
There's three resources: Food, Wood, and Coin.
You can get coin by mining or buy putting up to 10 villagers on a plantation.
There's a church. Priests heal. There's some upgrades in the building.
There's forts, but I couldn't garrison. I think it's a bug, or my ignorance.
The biggest difference between this and AoE seems to be trade, you have a leader kind of like RoN. There's also some sort of communication with your motherland (those very detailed city shots, that pic dark posted on the first page). After so much earned experience from your leader (I think) you can import troops/resources/cityBuildingmaterial/fortbuildingmaterials/etc.
I think you have to import a wagon to build more cities. You can't just build them.
The graphics don't match up to the earlier screens. I was running on a 6800 Ultra OC, P4 3.0C, 2 GB of RAM. It ran at 1280x1024 at about 30-60fps. Fairly smooth.
However, as someone else noted, this is a demo and they likely compressed the textures and possibly don't have all the effects enabled.
The only thing in graphics that were still really there was the building detail as you destoryed them.
Yeah, it's similar to AoE2. I'm mostly concerned about that because AoE2's online matchmaking blew. Give me something like Warcraft3, or I don't think I'll play online.
You start out with some villagers, forage bushes, you're close to game/trees/minerals.
Villagers no longer have to return materials to buildings which simplifies things in a good way.
There's three resources: Food, Wood, and Coin.
You can get coin by mining or buy putting up to 10 villagers on a plantation.
There's a church. Priests heal. There's some upgrades in the building.
There's forts, but I couldn't garrison. I think it's a bug, or my ignorance.
The biggest difference between this and AoE seems to be trade, you have a leader kind of like RoN. There's also some sort of communication with your motherland (those very detailed city shots, that pic dark posted on the first page). After so much earned experience from your leader (I think) you can import troops/resources/cityBuildingmaterial/fortbuildingmaterials/etc.
I think you have to import a wagon to build more cities. You can't just build them.
The graphics don't match up to the earlier screens. I was running on a 6800 Ultra OC, P4 3.0C, 2 GB of RAM. It ran at 1280x1024 at about 30-60fps. Fairly smooth.
However, as someone else noted, this is a demo and they likely compressed the textures and possibly don't have all the effects enabled.
The only thing in graphics that were still really there was the building detail as you destoryed them.
Synbios459
Banned
I get an error every time I try to install: 1607: Unable to install InstalShield Scripting Runtime. My specs:
Windows XP Home.
Athlon XP 2500+
Radeon 9500 Pro
1024 DDR 400 RAM.
120 Gig HD.
Windows XP Home.
Athlon XP 2500+
Radeon 9500 Pro
1024 DDR 400 RAM.
120 Gig HD.
Here's some pics:
Pic 1
Pic2
Pic3
It's definitely been scaled down.
That first pic compared to the original render is like PSX->Dreamcast
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2005/067/reviews/925735_20050309_screen005.jpg
Pic 1
Pic2
Pic3
It's definitely been scaled down.
That first pic compared to the original render is like PSX->Dreamcast
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2005/067/reviews/925735_20050309_screen005.jpg
DreamMachine
Member
you guys are nuts i still think it looks great.
CajoleJuice
Member
That still looks pretty damn awesome.
Too bad it's going to look like shit on my PC, if it works at all.
Too bad it's going to look like shit on my PC, if it works at all.
You don't just earn exp from the explorer..but by building trade routes (which constantly gives exp), killing enemies, building structures, etc.
When you reach a level up, you can go to your home city and pick a card available for your age. (As your Home Cities levels up, you will discover new cards to add to your deck).
When you reach a level up, you can go to your home city and pick a card available for your age. (As your Home Cities levels up, you will discover new cards to add to your deck).
Rise of Nations was overrated. I tried to like it, but it's a halfway game between a pure RTS and Civilization and it really felt more like a variant of AoE than a real-time Civilizaiton game it was pimped to be.
You can't have the strategic complexity of Civilization TBS game with an RTS game. It's just impossible. RoN was just a tactical RTS game dressed in Civ's clothing. It was reaching for something that it really couldn't achieve.
You can't have the strategic complexity of Civilization TBS game with an RTS game. It's just impossible. RoN was just a tactical RTS game dressed in Civ's clothing. It was reaching for something that it really couldn't achieve.
It's growing on me so far. I've played 3 "skirmish" games but I was only able to beat the computer on Easy after getting my ass handed to me on Hard. Everything is a lot more efficient, and it's a little more simplified than AoE2. Seems like the technology trees might not be as deep though, and I'm still trying to figure out what exactly this "Build a Deck" stuff is. It seems like a design feature you would see in a console game rather than a PC game.
DreamMachine
Member
i just beat the first level on the campaign and the graphics are scaled down a little and i was experiencing some "slow down" when there were big battles..
and my machine is p4 1.7ghz
9800 pro
756ram
but aside from those minor gripes
this game is addicting as crack.. a blast to play..
i had a lot of fun so far. looking forward to playing more
and my machine is p4 1.7ghz
9800 pro
756ram
but aside from those minor gripes
this game is addicting as crack.. a blast to play..
i had a lot of fun so far. looking forward to playing more
MrPing1000
Member
I'm not very good at this my base keeps getting swamped with large hordes of red people that I cannot compete with :/
MrPing1000
Member
Rur0ni said:
its not funny, mayb im missing something.
Oh come on, with the right resolution and AA the only real difference is number of people on the street (I tried it on my 6800 too).teh_pwn said:
And either way, old render was still just one row of buildings in front of a bitmap bgr - which reminds me, am I missing something or none of these new "Age Of" games allows me to rotate the camera
What was the freaking point in going 3d other then making games run worse?
The thing about that original bay shot is that it almost fools you into thinking it's more complex than it really is. I've always thought that the background behind those buildings was nothing more than a bitmap (and it is), but the AA almost makes it seem possible that the background was constructed from actual geometry (that is, a full city lies behind the foreground). That, plus the HDR lighting (which only us 6800 and above users can even see), makes a big difference.
Gotta say after spending a little more time with the demo im still not exactly impressed, it is still just AoE. Having said that it is a hell of a lot of fun to blow the shit out of things with Mortars, pieces of buildings fly off every time a shell hits, hahaha feel my wrath bitches. Im also impressed with how well it runs, i turned everything up to max except the tracers and its still running without a hitch.
Well I played two skirmishes, it's AoE alright, and I don't mind since I always liked it.
AI is still as dumb as ever though - I drive my mortars straight into his city and bombard the outposts while all my other units are busy doing other stuff - and he doesn't even make a threatening gesture to them.
It's like - oh, undefended canons, let's leave them to kill my city.
As for visuals - playing it in 1600x1200 and max detail on my 6800 now, and it runs decent enough. It looks pretty much like the preview shots at this detail - but I have to say their use of bloom is annoying the Heck out of me.
You know how in strategy games (including AoE) the glittering stuff was usually signifying something valuable, resources, gold whatever. Now everything freaking glows&glitters - fish, stones, trees - I'm constantly forgetting myself clicking on that stuff to see if it's some resource I want to collect -_-
AI is still as dumb as ever though - I drive my mortars straight into his city and bombard the outposts while all my other units are busy doing other stuff - and he doesn't even make a threatening gesture to them.
It's like - oh, undefended canons, let's leave them to kill my city.
As for visuals - playing it in 1600x1200 and max detail on my 6800 now, and it runs decent enough. It looks pretty much like the preview shots at this detail - but I have to say their use of bloom is annoying the Heck out of me.
You know how in strategy games (including AoE) the glittering stuff was usually signifying something valuable, resources, gold whatever. Now everything freaking glows&glitters - fish, stones, trees - I'm constantly forgetting myself clicking on that stuff to see if it's some resource I want to collect -_-