Welcome to Age of Empires III, the 2005 PC real-time strategy game from Ensemble Studios. You’ll command European powers during the colonial era, building up your home city, training armies, and exploring the New World. It’s a game of economic management, tactical combat, and strategic expansion, perfect for anyone who enjoys deep historical strategy.
This guide is here to help you master the game, whether you're just starting out or looking to perfect your play. We'll cover navigating all the missions, optimizing your early game build orders, and specific strategies for conquering with the British. Get ready to build your empire and dominate the battlefield!
Part 1
Navigate the early stages of Age of Empires III with Part 1 of our comprehensive walkthrough. Learn objectives, strategies, and tips for Act I: Blood.
This guide covers the campaign walkthrough for Age of Empires III, specifically focusing on Act I: Blood. It was written by The Protagonist and is based on game version 1.0, completed in January 2024. The guide was originally completed in 2017 and may not reflect updates or patches made since then.
Age of Empires III differs significantly from previous titles in the series, incorporating elements similar to Settlers 5: Heritage Of Kings, Warcraft 3, and Command and Conquer: Generals. Playing earlier Age of Empires games is not necessary to understand this one.
The walkthrough is based on the Moderate difficulty setting. Each level presents Primary Objectives (PO) that must be completed to finish the mission, and optional Secondary Objectives (SO) that offer bonus experience points. Sub-objectives are detailed as they appear, along with their triggers and completion requirements.
The game rewards players with experience points (XP) for various actions, including destroying units and buildings, exploring the map, and completing objectives. However, certain bugs can prevent level completion if objectives are met in unexpected ways, such as destroying an entire enemy base before a critical structure. This guide prioritizes level completion, which may result in less XP compared to alternative playstyles.
For optimal viewing, use a text viewer with a fixed-width font. The Table of Contents at the beginning of the guide can be used with the Find command (CTRL + F) to quickly navigate to specific sections.
The author will no longer be responding to feedback as the guide is considered complete and will not be updated.
General Information:
This section provides notes on game aspects that may differ from previous Age of Empires titles or can significantly ease gameplay. Key points include:
- Town Bell: Use the town bell when your town is under attack to rally villagers to your Town Center, often saving your base.
- Forts: Unlike Age of Empires 2, there are no castles or stone walls. The primary defensive structure is the Fort, which cannot be replaced once destroyed. This simplifies base assaults compared to previous games.
- Industrial Age Buildings: Upon advancing to the Industrial Age, players can choose between a Fort or a Factory. Combined with Home City cards, you can have up to three of these buildings (e.g., two Forts and one Factory, or vice versa). The choice depends on whether you need more defensive capabilities or resource-gathering support.
Part 2
Unlock the secrets of Age of Empires III Part 2! Discover efficient building strategies, unit tactics, hero usage, and Home City advancements to dominate your enemies.
Part 2 of the Age of Empires III guide focuses on advanced strategies and mechanics that can significantly ease your gameplay and lead to victory.
Fantastic buildings, such as factories, are a great way to generate free resources quickly. If you have two factories, you can amass wealth rapidly, making the game much easier. They can also be set to continuously produce free artillery units, though you must monitor your population limit.
In Act III, you'll notice that building a house grants an extra peasant. While initially seeming like an annoyance, this is a more cost-effective way to produce peasants. Houses cost 150 wood (compared to the usual 100 for a peasant), but the included peasant means you spend only 50 wood per new peasant, rather than 100 food. This also saves you from wasting food on building settlers from the town center.
Building repairs have been streamlined. Instead of assigning peasants, you simply wait until a building is not under attack and no enemies are nearby, then click the Repair icon. The cost to complete the repair is displayed, which is an improvement over the old system of keeping idle peasants on standby.
Walls repair similarly. To build gates, click on a section of built wall and select the Gate icon. Enemy units cannot pass through your gates, even when open.
Trading posts are a valuable addition. Those built in Native American villages allow you to train Native units and acquire unique upgrades. Posts built on trading routes generate food, wood, gold, or experience when a vehicle reaches the station. Trading posts are permanent but can be captured by you or your enemy.
Set unit production building rally points near your town center or outpost towers. If a barracks is under attack, newly produced units can act as decoys, drawing enemies towards defensive structures.
Utilize your defense buildings effectively, especially when attacking. Instead of engaging in open fields, lure the enemy to your fortified base where you have a significant advantage, saving units and resources.
Units:
It's generally best to specialize in a few unit types rather than building a massive, diverse army. Musketeers, grenadiers, and dragoons, supported by falconets and mortars, are a strong combination. Upgrading every unit type is costly and often unnecessary. Two mortars and two falconets can often destroy a base on their own.
Falconets are considered the best units in the game, excelling at destroying both enemy units and buildings when fully upgraded. Grenadiers and falconets together can overwhelm opponents. Heavy cannons are also effective due to their range outside of defensive structures, but they are less common than falconets.
Units, including artillery, are repaired by priests. Ships are repaired by sending them to a dock and keeping them stationary until their health is restored.
Some ships can build and store units, eliminating the need for ferries and protecting new units from immediate danger.
Enable Advanced Formations and Enable Easy Drag Military in the Options menu. Advanced Formations allow units to adopt combat stances, while Easy Drag simplifies selecting combat units and Heroes when using a large group selection.
Heroes:
Heroes cannot die but can be disabled if their health is depleted. They remain incapacitated until a friendly unit approaches them. Heroes can act as decoys, drawing enemy fire while your main army attacks without casualties.
Heroes possess unique attacks and abilities that can turn the tide of battle, especially in escort missions.
Home City:
Cards can be chosen from five areas in your Home City via tabs in the upper left of the lower window. The more experience you gain, the faster your Home City advances and the more cards become available. Completing secondary objectives, exploring maps, and collecting treasure items increase experience. Destroying more enemy buildings and units than required also boosts your score.
While the game emphasizes choosing cards that suit your playstyle and civilization, many cards are self-explanatory and beneficial regardless of specific choices.
Part 3
Unlock the full potential of Age of Empires III's Imperial Age. Learn about its upgrades, strategic advantages in multiplayer, and when it's truly necessary.
- 1Advancing to the Imperial Age: Unlike previous ages, the Imperial Age primarily grants access to more upgrades for existing units (e.g., hitpoints, armor) rather than unlocking entirely new unit types.
- 2Necessity in Campaign: For most single-player campaign missions, reaching the Imperial Age is not necessary and can be an expensive waste of resources. The game can often be won with less advanced units and tactics.
- 3Multiplayer Advantages: In multiplayer matches, the Imperial Age becomes much more valuable.
- 4Blockade Upgrade: From the Capitol building, this upgrade cuts off enemy Home City shipments, severely hindering their economy and reinforcement capabilities.
- 5Spy Ability: This allows you to see all enemy movements and structures, providing crucial intelligence for planning attacks and defending against surprises. It also helps in identifying enemy supply lines and gather points.
- 6Naval Upgrades: For maps with significant water combat, the Imperial Age offers important upgrades for your ships.
- 7Debate on Value:
- 8Some players argue that the cost of reaching the Imperial Age is outweighed by the benefits of enhanced unit stats (health and damage), leading to more efficient combat and fewer losses.
- 9Others maintain that in single-player, especially against the CPU, the benefits are not significant enough to justify the resource expenditure, as enemy attacks are predictable and often manageable with earlier-age units.
- 10The effectiveness of the Spy ability is debated; while useful for uncovering the map and identifying vulnerabilities, its value diminishes on familiar campaign maps where enemy movements and attack points are already known.
- 11Skirmish Settings: If you are unable to advance to the Imperial Age in a skirmish game, ensure that the maximum attainable Age has been set to Imperial in the game's settings, as it defaults to Industrial.
- 12Editor Note: Instructions for using the map editor are not provided.
- Prioritize cards that grant free units, as they directly contribute to your military strength.
- Cards like Fort and Factory are also highly valuable for base defense and production.
- In multiplayer, consider the Imperial Age for its strategic economic and intelligence-gathering capabilities, especially if your opponent is likely to utilize it.
- For campaign play, focus on efficient unit production and upgrades available in earlier ages unless a specific mission objective requires Imperial Age advancements.
Part 4
Learn how to counter CPU units and effectively defend your base in Age of Empires III. Strategies for attacking enemy bases and using walls.
- 1Build towers and falconets quickly, along with a fort or two, to establish defense.
- 2Counter-attack the enemy base when they have no military units, which is typically right after your own defenses have eliminated their latest attack wave.
- 3Enemy bases are generally weak, often with only three or four towers and a fort. Once the towers and town center are destroyed, the base cannot withstand a decent-sized army.
- 4Use walls to channel enemies into kill zones where you can focus concentrated attacks. Instead of spreading towers thinly, group four towers in one location and wall off other areas.
- 5Position a couple of falconets behind your towers for total safety.
- Do not be intimidated by the appearance of many red dots on the (minimap (the small circular map in the bottom-left corner of your screen)) (a small map showing the game world); these often represent buildings rather than troops.
- The computer only targets your walls if there is no other path.
- 1Drag your men inside the walls and close the gate.
- 2Split your units into two groups: crossbowmen (ensure the barracks upgrade is purchased) and all other units.
- 3With abundant resources, set a rally point for all barracks and continuously build mostly crossbowmen and a few pikemen.
- 4Your walls, gate, and two fort towers provide strong defense against enemy attacks.
- 5Consider upgrading the lone tower to the south, though it will eventually fall.
- 6Bring a peasant from the north to build four more outpost towers inside the gates for easier defense.
- 7Assign peasants to gather resources, prioritizing gold.
- 8To complete the secondary objective of collecting all treasures (worth 300 XP), select a peasant and target them on one of the marked treasures, repeating for each treasure.
- 9Maintain at least twenty crossbowmen and twenty pikemen until the first bombard appears.
- 10Replace any lost units, but do not bother with rodeleros.
- 11When cavalry attacks, send your pikemen out to engage them, then pull them back inside and use crossbowmen until more cavalry arrive.
- 12When the bombard appears, a new objective will be given: use settlers to gather wood on the hill to light the signal fire.
- 13Hold out until you receive the objective message to light the signal fire; it is timed from the start of the level and independent of the cannon's appearance.
- 14Concentrate on repairing fortifications and building more crossbowmen. Pikemen are primarily for dealing with infrequent bombard attacks.
- 15Ensure peasants are gathering resources that support crossbowmen production. If you have an excess of an unused resource, reassign those peasants.
- Do not be discouraged by the number of enemy units; your walls and gate are very durable.
- The objective to light the signal fire does not necessarily appear immediately after the cannon is destroyed.
- If you have too much of a specific resource, reassign peasants to gather a different one.
Similar guides you might like
100% Human-Written. AI Fact-Checked. Community Verified. Learn how AntMag verifies content