For those who don't have high-end graphics cards, or who are running AOE3 on a laptop or other cpu with integrated graphics:
Make or open a file called user.cfg (text file) and put it in My Documents/My Games/Age of Empires 3/data
The added text:
hideparticles=true
This will help you if your graphics hardware is having trouble with ships, water, and cannon fire.
You also need to turn your shadows OFF and shaders to lowest setting.
Also, watching a large messy battle directly may cause more lag than "paying attention" to it on the minimap while looking at a more peripheral action along the sides of the battle, where the fighting is less intense. # moving units in your viewfinder = degree of lag. If you know the outcome of the battle (e.g. Warrior Defence), look entirely away.
Then you will be limited only by your connection, and your CPU's raw calculation power.
Crunkatog on ESO
Bart331 balance suggestion: aztec: remove civ
Voltiguer: Ender, Sioux in 1.04 will be a top civ, no matter how many layers of Sioux goggles you put on
schildpad on Elephants: ...their mansabdar unit sucks so hard it looks like a black hole
Crunkatog on Steam.