Age of Empires III Expands Again, With Asian ...

Age of Empires III Expands Again, With Asian Dynasties

Another freshly announced expansion will be dedicated to Ensemble Studios' third entry in their Age of Empires series. But unlike the previous productions, this new Age of Empires III expansion is actually being developed by another studio... Big Huge Games, if you can believe it! Indeed, the makers of Rise of Nations and last year's Rise of Legends have joined forces with "the enemy". This alliance starts to make sense when you think that both Ensemble's and Big Huge's titles are published by Microsoft, and so will this new one - called Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties.

Needless to say, The Asian Dynasties will switch the battle to the wild-wild East, where players will take command of new Oriental civilizations. In addition to this, the expansion will provide new content and several new gameplay elements that include new ways of winning and trading, random map styles that feature remixes of classic Age of Empires game styles, and 15 new Asian "Wonders".

Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties also touts itself as a Games for Windows title with "easier installation, improved reliability and support for key Windows Vista features, including the Games Explorer and Parental Controls". What every hardcore strategy fan has been wishing for, no doubt.

So far, Microsoft only issued a single screenshot from The Asian Dynasties, but they have all the time in the world to add plenty more until the autumn of 2007, when this second expansion is due for release. Until then, we can all ironically ponder the question: so is the next Rise of Nations game coming from Ensemble?

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