» General view | New features and maps | Single player campaign | Multiplayer | Graphics and sounds | Conclusion

The second expansion pack to the successful Age of Empires III game by Ensemble Studios, is surprisingly not done by ES itself but by Big Huge Games, a company most known for Rise of Nations games. The first expansion pack introduced 3 Native American civilizations to the game, along with some additions to the original 8 European civilizations. With the second expansion pack, the battles move away from America to Asia while still staying true to the original theme, introducing the Chinese, Indian and Japanese civilizations.

The three new Asian civilizations are very different from the already existing civilizations. For instance, they don't advance in ages traditionally, but do so by building different types of wonders. There is also a fourth resource for the Asian civilizations: export, which represents the long sought products that Europeans craved for. However, they are hardly similar to each other: the most noticeable differences are that the Indian villagers cost wood, the Japanese don't hunt at all and the Chinese don't train individual units, but armies of multiple, different units.

Old dogs can learn new tricks

The expansion pack is rich in new features. Regicide game type makes its return to the series: each player has a Regent unit, which must be protected at all cost - if you lose the Regent, you lose the game. King of the Hill game type is another old favourite, in which you must hold a fort for a certain time to win.

The new maps are in one word, excellent. They feel relatively well balanced and some resemble the popular maps from Age of Empires II. There are new treasure types as well: a treasure that marks every mine on your map and treasures on water feel like fresh ideas. Some of the treasures feel a bit too good for what is guarding them though - for instance a treasure that increases all cavalry hitpoints may spell trouble.

One of the most pleasing things in The Asian Dynasties to an avid gamer is the multitude of options. Small things, such as showing all unit hitpoints by pressing down ALT key and the possibility to disable camera movement when using find building hotkeys really raise the spirits. There are also a lot of new hotkeys, such as selecting all barracks-type buildings on the map. These are no doubt small things, but give the game a polished feel and increases the playability of the game drastically.

No more Black family

In Age of Empires III and The Warchiefs expansion, the campaign revolved around the Black family while centuries turned in the history of the America. Big Huge Games decided to go for a different approach: there are very different campaigns, one for each new civilization. The Indian campaign tells the story of a Indian patriot in the beginning of the Sepoy rebellion in 1850s. The Japanese one is historical as well, telling the tale of Tokugawa Ieyasu's subordinate in the unification of Japan. The Chinese campaign takes on a daring "what if" -scenario with a Ming treasure fleet sailing to America before Christopher Columbus.

With the Black family abandoned, the campaign storyline manages to focus more on the point of view of the civilization in question, rather than an eurocentric view. At parts, the campaign feel is similar to that of Age of Empires II, in which historical events were portrayed without unnecessary external storytelling, á la Black family. Though at parts the storyline feels somewhat easy to deduce, it's hardly a problem since the campaigns resemble short stories instead of novels. The storylines are well written and even though the campaigns have strong protagonist and antagonist characters, only at small parts it seems their petty squabbles stand in the way of re-creating the history.

All in all, the campaigns are positively surprising. While the hypothetical Chinese campaign leaves some questions unanswered, it's still a good companion to the two historically oriented campaigns. With the highest difficulty rating, the scenarios provide a decent challenge and a good number of playing hours. The campaign AI isn't particularly bright and an able human player manages to outplay it as expected, but the scenarios are well designed and complement the weaknesses of the AI very nicely.

Konnichiwa, fellow player

Multiplayer is an essential part of the game and the area where it most shines at. Most often the criticism hits the balancing of civilizations and with the new civilizations being as unique as they are, balance problems will be rather inevitable. For instance, the value of some cards may be revealed only after months of playing. These sort of things can of course be fixed in future patches. However, there's one thing that can't be fixed in a patch - and luckily doesn't even have to: the game feels fun to play!

The new civilizations will have to be played in a manner very different to the existing civilizations. While the transition from European civilizations to Native american civilizations was somewhat easy, the decisions that have to be done while playing the Asian civilizations provide great strategic depth to multiplayer battles. Wonders can be built even without villagers for a slow age-up or with 8 villagers for a much faster one. Using the export resource at the consulate building gives the possibility to include european units into your armies along with various other boosts. To name just a few.

It will be interesting to see how well the new civilizations do with the old ones in multiplayer. Some of their traits seem really powerful, whereas some weaknesses feel very difficult to overcome. Are they enough to balance each other? Time will tell.

Soothing to eyes and ears

Even though the graphics engine is now a couple of years old, it still serves its purpose very well. The graphics are great and detailed, although some new units resemble each other a little too much. After some time it gets easier to recognize them, but for new players it may be slightly confusing and during a heated match it may not be possible to pay attention in such detail. The elephant animations are especially noteworthy, elephants banging their heads to the buildings never cease to amuse.

The sound environment manages to create an enthralling ambience in the game. The voice actors sound convincing and the exotic asian music instruments are well used throughout the soundtrack. The sounds of the battlefield fit to the existing sound environment of Age of Empires III and the Warchiefs. In general everything feels the way it should - the only thing is that there could always be more such music.

A fresh take on the game

The decision to have the second expansion pack done by Big Huge Games turned out to be an excellent idea. The game stays true to the Age of Empires atmosphere and provides a very fresh view of the game. The game feels new since the design doesn't feel recycled and it breaks out of the mindset built by Age of Empires III and The Warchiefs expansion. Interestingly enough, Big Huge Games manages to grasp the essence of the earlier games (Age of Empires I and II) even slightly better than Ensemble Studios in Age of Empires III and The Warchiefs.

The Asian Dynasties is exactly how an expansion pack should be. It stays true to the original game but instead of rehashing the already used ideas, Big Huge Games has come up with a multitude of out-of-the-box solutions that should keep any player who enjoys playing Age of Empires III glued to the chair for many, many hours.

The review by Qazitory,
Age of Empires III Heaven,
HeavenGames LLC.
qazitory(a)heavengames.com