Age of Empires 3 is an okay game borderlining good. But there are some issues that prevent it from being better.

One of the biggest mistakes purposley yet unwittingly implemented into the game is the population limit. Alright, so this encourages users to be more tactical but it simply doe not and can not work with some of the civilisations available to play. For example, the Russians are infamous for massing cities of recruits in exchange for quality. However because of the population limit civilisations such as Dutch can build to the same number and have the quality to wipe out the reds! The concept is taken away! Also the Ottomans have the special 'ability' to pump out unstoppable hordes of free villagers. Where this is useful in building a strong economy, the poplation limit makes building a strong army too much an effort to class itself as entertaining. People don't want to spend time 'deleteing' villagers! Because of this factor, a game that could be limited only by the power of ones computer is limited by an overwhelmingly small population limit making a game that could be epic seem minute. This is by far the most disapointing aspect.

I also think that another problem is the limitation of units available to make. Each civilisation with some small exceptions has individual units available to make. The problem: theres not enough. My estimate is that there is roughly 10 land units and 5 or 6 boats per civilisation. Taking into account that some units are shared this is a pathetic number. However, given such a small population limit someone less concerned with quality and quantity this might be reasonable.

The game does have good features the gameplay is good and you can witness good battles. The economic side means users need to concentrate both on the home front and the vanguard adding a nice twist. the graphics are acceptable although they do look dated at times. There are some respectable sounds to the game as well although some sounds are recycles for use with other units.

This is an okay game. Some aspects are a step back while others are a step forward. Where there are promising aspects to the game, it will quickly be added to your 'been there, done that' library.