AOE III: The WarChiefs

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The WarChiefs' campaign takes you on a brief tour of early American history. In it, you'll continue the Black family saga by fighting in the War of Independence and zooming ahead to Red Cloud's War, a Sioux uprising, shortly after the American Civil War. The campaign missions offer a mix of challenges, from having to scavenge food and supplies during the harsh winter at Valley Forge to establishing trading outposts in the rugged Montana wilderness. The missions are stitched together by short cutscenes, though the voice-over work and dialogue seem cheesy, especially after you hear General George Washington deliver lines that seem better fit for a B-grade action movie. Aside from the lackluster voice acting, though, the rest of the presentation is impressive. The sumptuous graphics of Age of Empires III still look great a year later, though there aren't any noticeable visual improvements. However, it's still fun to see the many ways that cannon fire can tear buildings and structures apart. Meanwhile, the Native American tribes also look visually distinct, especially when compared to the traditional look of the Europeans--from the Aztec's pyramid architecture to the tepees of the Sioux.

The WarChiefs expansion adds a solid amount of new content to the existing game, and while many of the new features provide interesting new ways to play and win the game, it's fair to say that fans of the series will appreciate the changes. The WarChiefs does a lot to shake up the formula, but when you get down to it, the tried-and-true Age of Empires gameplay remains pretty much intact, and the expansion offers more depth and strategy to an already deep strategy experience.

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It isn't until one gets into a multiplayer match that the real beauty of what Ensemble has put together comes out. Each of the Native American civilizations is based around two strategic "tentpoles," the WarChief and the Fire Pit. The WarChief is the Native American version of the European Explorer unit. The difference is that while the Explorer unit eventually becomes useless, the WarChief is easily the Native American player's most critical unit. In the early game, the WarChief can use his "one-shot kill" and his special ability to convert treasure guardians to give a player an early leg up in resource acquisition. In later Ages, the WarChief imparts bonuses to any nearby units. The Fire Pit is a new building that can house up to 25 peasants doing a variety of worship dances. Depending on the dance they're doing, the Fire Pit imparts a global bonus ranging from sped up production to increased hit points to bonus damage against buildings.

[...]The game's biggest weakness isn't anything inherent to The WarChiefs, but is its old-school resource model. The game's economy is based on a classic free-roaming peasant model that's long since been surpassed by a variety of other schemes. If I send half my economy into combat one more time because I accidentally looped my peasants I'm going to scream. The WarChiefs makes this problem worse, though, because of the Fire Pit. The Fire Pit is so crucial to victory for Native American players that there really needs to be a way I can lock down the number of peasants dancing and not accidentally pull them off in a heated game.