I've heard a lot of people talking about this game lately and it's sparked my interest. After looking into it a bit seems it will unfortunately never make its way to GOG...

... so...

... is Age of Empires III worth playing?

I'm sure a few here have played it and have thoughts (hopefully).

Many thanks in advance.

Yes. I'd get a retail copy through eBay - they're not too hard to get hold of.

It's different from AOE I and II; more story focussed. A lot of people didn't like the change in style (plus, graphically everything is pretty zoomed in), but I found the game itself to be good fun - as long as you don't expect a straight sequel to the first two AOE games.

The setting (the Colonisation of America) is also good fun, touching on the Age of Piracy, Colonisation and I think post revolution as well. Slightly less historical than its forebears (unless you consider the fountain of youth to be a real thing!) I'm not sure about the expansion packs - still need to play through those, but one adds in Indians and the other an Asian campaign, so they're probably worth a look too.

I'd say yes. Had fun with it, including the 2 expansion packs. Just don't expect realistic stories as in the previous games. The highlight is definitely the naval battles. Massive ships shooting each other apart with cannons, masts falling, wood splinters flying everywhere. Truly a spectacle to behold.

If possible, try to find the Age of Empires III Complete Edition box. That is the closest you will get to DRM-free.

Yeah I think so, if you like the genre. But I didn't think it was anything special, not compared to AoE2. The Frontier America levels on the other hand I thought were a lot of fun, where you play with units like minutemen.

Yeah, it’s fun enough. Not really historical. But fun nonetheless.

I'd say its great if you're interested in the time period and want to play standard game / skirmish a lot. The campaigns are meh to me (I think I only played the Asian ones) but the skirmish mode is where it shines. The absolutely unique mechanic AoE3 has is shipment cards that you send from your home city to your base. In the 2007 version, you have to unlock them by playing against the AI or online.

If you're getting the recent Definitive Edition, all cards are unlocked by default. The DE also comes with two extra free civs the 2007 version didn't have: Incas and Swedes and you can buy the USA as a DLC (there was an event where you could unlock it for free by doing in-game missions but I don't know if its still active). Two African civs are also coming via DLC (they won't have campaigns).

The MP community shifted from the 2007 Asian Dynasties+ESOC patch to the DE so get the DE if you want to play 1v1 MP. Naval balance is good I think (didn't play it and USA has new OP looking ship).

Economy is streamlined, but there are shipments to manage so it doesn't feel too easy. Buildings are much easier to destroy and the pace of the game is faster than Aoe2. Free resources are easier to come by. No using monks to chee...... I mean convert!

Starting out, don't play with Chinese and Ottomans (and maybe Russians) since their eco is slow burning and military options are limited in the early ages. I don't know about the new civs but IIRC French was recommended to newer players. I think the Sioux were considered overpowered. But obviously play what you feel like the most.

The main draw for me is / was unlocking the cards and building the perfect deck for every map, enjoying the unit variety since every civ is drastically different economically and militarily as compared to AoE2 and enjoying the satisfying gunpowder unit sounds.

It had its fans but personally I didn't think the "card" system that was added to it compensated for the removal of randomized maps (for non campaign skirmishes, there's only a few pre-designed maps and they are of static design, ie exactly the same every time). I definitely enjoyed the "different game every time" maps of AoE 1-2 far better.

I do not played at definitive edition, only original version. And this game was worst then 1 and 2, except story missions.

^ This. AoE3 had some innovations but I didn't like the UI much (took up too much % of the screen, and the main screen felt far too zoomed in especially on larger monitors). Removing randomly generated maps though was a big step back. Every other MS published strategy game (Age of Empires 1-2, Age of Mythology, Rise of Nations, etc) all had them and had 1,000x more replayability because of them. I probably have 100hrs max in AoE3 after getting bored with repeating the same maps. I definitely have over +500 for AoE1 and well over +1,000 each for AoE2, AoM & RoN. Enough said.

yes

The Steam version works perfectly without the Steam client running. It's only the first run that applies the serial key to the registry.

The retail version is entirely DRM-free-except-for-keys with the latest patches.

Definitely different than the pervious games, but I really liked it. The first campaign was a lot of fun and the deck building aspect is really unique.

I don't know much about the MP scene, but my brothers and I played the crap out of skirmish mode. The only issue we had is that after a while the AI would just "quit" and stop trying. I don't know if that was fixed in a later patch.

I loved the first two (and Age of Mythology), but was underwhelmed by AOE3 to the point that I'd say I found it ...dull.

I think I played it circa 2015, so well after it came out because I waited forever for the price to drop. I had played the demo and was pretty sure I didn't want to pay $30-40 for it, but even waiting years for deep sale I'm not sure I got my money's worth.

Don't get me wrong, I like the concepts and it sounds really appeailing. I just felt like the actual delivery was meh other than the art style. At least on normal difficulty most of the scenarios, while story-focused, were really pretty easy, and the few that were more difficult the issue was mostly just the rock-paper-scissors nature of most of the units and me not having planned well for what I actually ran into.

Tweaking my strategy for the second attempt it was again really easy. Maybe it would have been better in multiplayer, or on harder difficulty but I had no desire to try it vs. just playing AOM or AOE2 or Rise of Nations or a range of other RTS games I liked more.

Of course my negative review (while I thought detailed and careful) was wildly downrated on steam because the franchise has passionate fans.

+1 for Age of Mythology if you've become bored with the first 2. Age of Empires III was never something I enjoyed, but that may be because it was shadowed by other (better) games released at the same time, such as Rise of Nations.