Age of Empire 3 will undoubtedly successfully spread the classics of the Age of Empire 1 and 2 and carry forward them. We will play it for a long time, and we will talk about it many years later and will never forget it. In general, Age of Empires 3 is undoubtedly the best real-time combat game of the year, and there is no doubt that it is.
Evaluation
Others
Overall Comments
The Age of Empires series can be said to be the most successful real-time battle game in history along with Blizzard's Star Warcraft series. Westwood's Command and Conquest series. Although its player group is far less than that of the latter, there are still a large group of AOEFANSs. Not long ago, I got off work and heard two men in their 30s discussing town centers, Rangers and so on the subway. From this, we can see the charm of the Age of Empire series. Now its latest work, Age of Empires 3, has finally been grandly launched, which makes us empire FANS very happy. Now let's see if it can continue the classics of the Age of Empires 1, 2.
Evaluation
Game Screen
Age of Empires 3 adopts the improved 3D engine of the Age of Mythology (although the engine is 3D, it has no substantial impact on the game. Rather than saying that Age of Empires 3 is a 3D game, it is a 2D game with 3D performance). The new game screen adds a lot of DirectX 9 special effects, and the picture performance is even better on NV4x, G70 and X1000 series graphics acceleration cards that fully support Shader Model 3.0. On Very High, Age of Empires 3 uses a high dynamic light and shadow range (unfortunately, the full-screen anti-aliasing is invalid if HDR is turned on), making the picture softer and more gorgeous.
Shorts of wild deer and boars wandered in the forest, the golden sea surface shining by the sunset was wafting, the fish flipped up their white belly and jumped beside the fishing boat, three or two white swans cruising leisurely by the lake, seagulls were flying from time to time in the sky, farmers were working hard by the mills on the land, smoke from the surrounding houses, and trains were rumbling by the next, all the scenery was so vivid, slowly like life. The 3D picture of Age of Empires 3 is as exquisite as 2D. The game era Beijing moved from the cold weapons era to the beginning of the hot weapons era, MusketCannons all appeared one after another, the castle was not so invincible, the war scenes were even more popular, and the explosive particles and smoke effects were brilliant. The game uses the powerful Havok physics engine to make the effect of the bomb hitting a more realistic one. If the shell hits a soldier, he will be blown away far away, and his arm may still be left on the ground; if the windmill in the mill drops one of the fan blades, the other three fan blades will slowly turn up and fall quickly when they turn down. The mast of the shooting down ship will fall into the water and cause water splash.
Age of Empire 3 relies on the real simulation of physical characteristics such as gravity and inertia by Havok's physics engine, making the effect of each attack different, and even making demolition of the house a pleasure. But this is limited to visual effects and has no substantial impact on combat. The unit modeling of the game is pretty good, but the appearance of most units will not change before and after the upgrade, which is a bit regrettable. The buildings and units of each country have their own ethnic characteristics, and this is even more so in the mother city. In the game, you can also use points to customize the appearance of the mother city to make it more beautiful and personal.
Music and Sound Effects
The background music of the game on the main interface still uses the classic Age of Empires 2 theme song, but there are other background music in the game. These music are not electronic music, but real orchestral music. It sounds very exciting, and the music part makes people feel very satisfied. In terms of sound effects, the sound effect positioning of the game is accurate, and you can clearly determine where the cannon sound is emitted. For example, in the scene of bombing the arsenal, people can hear obvious echoes when talking in the cave. The background details of the game are also excellent. You can scroll the screen to the church and listen to the bells, or you can hear the chirping of crickets, the sound of wind and dogs slowly moving away from you as you move the mouse to pull the screen away. The problem of losing the Demo sound effect still exists in the official version, especially when moving the screen quickly, sometimes the sound cannot come out. I first thought it was a problem with my hardware, but I asked friends who use the latest driver Audigy 2 ZS to have this problem.
The operation of the game basically maintains the previous work method. Perhaps it is to accelerate the game rhythm and competitive balance. Some operations have been simplified. For example, collecting resources does not require bringing resources back to the town center or warehouse. Repair can be repaired directly by hammers on the building without the need for farmers. The formation and unit control have also been simplified, with only scattered and dense formations, and only simple controls such as defense status, without commands such as forced attacks. The problem of the problem that the lower part of the user interface has been criticized has been improved in the official version, and players can choose large interfaces and small interfaces. However, in the past, the unit attribute setting of the mouse pointer hovered on the icon was gone, and it was changed to a property page. It was not as convenient as before, and the information was not as detailed as in AOE2.
A big change in constructionChange is the addition of trade points. Controlling trade points can obtain XP or other resources. The grabbing of trade points also makes the game's battle more frequent and intense. Upgrading to the later stage, since both unit and unit upgrades are very expensive, the importance of economic construction has been fully experienced. In Age of Empires 3, it was also stipulated that the building should not be built too close to the enemy base, thereby partially limiting the attack of castles and turrets. Of course, it is still feasible to use this method to curb its development.
The biggest improvement of the game system is the addition of the home city setting, in which players will receive different supplies and support if they want to choose different cards and build docks. If some can obtain additional material supplies and technical upgrades, some can obtain musketeers or hire special troops, and some can obtain carriages to build fortresses and town centers. The choice of cards is very complicated, and you need to choose according to your own situation and even the opponent's strategy. This is a very worthy issue.
The basic arms settings of the game are simpler than Age of Empires 2, with fewer types and simpler upgrades, but there are relatively many indigenous and mercenaries that can be used in the game. The balance is still based on the principle of mutual restraint, but I personally think that the artillery is still too strong, the cavalry is weak, the artillery has no recent range and no accidental injury, and even has the function of automatic tracking and calculation of advance quantity. In this way, even if the cavalry rushed in front of him, they would still be blown away by the cannons. I hope they can weaken the cannons in the future. Computer AI is also relatively average in multiplayer battles. Even under Hard difficulty, computers only have good economic control. The specific micro-operation and military cooperation cannot be compared with people, and there is also suspicion of cheating.
The game has added hero settings, such as some heroes with long-distance sniping skills, one shot per shot. In the early stage of the game, the heroes are responsible for exploring, obtaining treasures, catching sheep and building trade points, but under the iron cavalry cannon in the late stage of the game, the effect is not so obvious. I personally feel that the hero should be slightly strengthened, or there is more room for upgrades, such as adding some auxiliary skills to increase attack effects in the surrounding troops should be good. But after the game ends, I am disappointed that the technical statistics chart is not as detailed as AOE2, but here is a technical statistics for all players. Looking at this, you can tell what level most players are, which country has a higher winning rate, and what soldiers they create, etc.
The single-player game plot design of the game is quite excellent, such as defending fortresses, blowing up enemy arsenals, destroying pirates, and eliminating Turkish forces, all of which left a deep impression on me. I felt that the level design was diverse and unrepeatable, making people feel that they couldn't stop and wanted to continue playing one level after another. I always want to play this level and then exit after saving a file at the lower level, but when I find it exciting, I will reluctantly exit and then have the same idea of the previous level. The plot of the game is composed of a series of fictional characters and battles. If some specific historical real battles and events are integrated, it will be more appealing and the historical heritage will be deeper.It's even more perfect. But I have encountered bugs that cannot continue to develop during the single player game, and other players have also reported that it seems that this is not just my RPWT.
The overall system of the game is very complex. In this short time, I cannot fully understand the designer's intention and the complete connotation of the game. Therefore, it is not possible to make a relatively comprehensive evaluation of its system settings.
Other
The game comes with a map editor that you have seen and obtained, which is also relatively simple to use. Most of the games are written in a language similar to XML, making Chinese and MOD simple. In less than a day after the game is released, Kuankuan will release a relatively high-performing Chinese package. I believe that the future MOD resources will be very rich.
Total Review
The game screen, single-player level design, and multiplayer settings are almost perfect. Although there are some bugs in the sound effects and single-player games, and the balance of troops also needs to be adjusted, the flaws do not conceal the merits. The 3 generals of the Age of Empires have undoubtedly successfully passed on the classics of the Age of Empires 1 and 2 and carried forward them. We will play it for a long time, and we will talk about it many years later and will never forget it. In general, Age of Empires 3 is undoubtedly the best real-time combat game of the year, and there is no doubt that it is.
