Just got back home from a Microsoft seminar on Game Development of today and tomorrow (or some such title), and among other things, he showed off AoE3 as an example of physics in a game engine.
Now he did say that someone at the production team (so I'm guessing either ES or Microsoft Games US) had told him not to show the trailer, since supposedly it's still a bit hush-hush, but his boss had told him he could, so he did.
I felt a bit bad for ES when I heard that, but this was Microsoft showing it, so I couldn't keep the bad feeling for long. Besides, everyone in the audience (99% advanced computer geeks and nerds) were, to my impressions, totally awed by the graphics (and physics) of the game, so kudos to ES. The only question was "what kind of a computer will I need to run I haven't seen the Italian movie clip in any good resolution, but it seemed to me that parts (or all, possibly) of this trailer was same as or similar to the clips in that one. Lots of cannons firing, both on buildings and units. Musketeers falling down cliffs, etc, buildings blowing up. The roof of a town center being blasted into the air, and falling back down on the building, upside down. Some quick shots of the home city, which looks just as good in-game as on screenshots. And it all looked awesome. The only thing being a bit ugly was those battle xp + 1 boxes. I'm really trying to recall more of it, but it was followed by more talk, the coding of a 3d engine in 40 minutes, dinner, beer, and an x-box championship. Perhaps more details will come to mind later. And no, I didn't bring a camera.