Learn to Win in Age of Empires 3 - Home City Guide

Introduction

Age of Empires is a game which gives the satisfaction of being an emperor to the player. It not only entertains but also keeps you busy in various different tasks you need to do at the same time. The game starts with exploring the land, and collecting resources. This gives you points in different categories like food, wood, coin which you need to spend later. As the game goes further you also need to build different type of buildings like the town center, and keep on upgrading your available resources. The points which you have collected earlier get used here - and the Home City is definitely an important way to do that.

Home Cities

Age of Empires III is the first game to introduce the Home City concept. When you start your first game (deathmatch, multiplayer, campaign) with any nation (there are 8 civilizations available in the game, each having unique strengths, weakness and unique units – as described in our AOE III Nations Overview) you are required to create a home city for that nation. Your Home City, when customized, changes the visual aspects of the game without affecting the actual game play. You can design a Home City according to your likings. The player can also add characters, change colors, add decorations or objects in the game. There are default names and settings – but you can change them as you like for every nation. You can, in fact, have several Home Cities for the same civilization – but you can only choose one when you start a game. And this choice can be decisive – especially when your home cities are improved throughout your games/campaign.

Home City Role

The Home City is like your second city – providing valuable resources for your colony. It is a sort of powerhouse separated from the active game. The uniqueness of the Home City is that cannot be destroyed. In fact, it cannot be attacked at all as it is not present on the map. Once In a while you will have a “shipment” ready for your colony in the Home City. Each Home City is assigned to only one civilization and initially contains five main buildings: The New World Trading Company, the Military Academy, the Cathedral, the Manufacturing Plant and the Harbor. Each of these buildings can produce “playing cards” which can be used by a player.

Playing Cards

Those playing cards are the possible shipments to your colony. Some can be sent only once (military units, buildings), some can be sent unlimited times (for instance, crates of food, and resources). You can send the shipment as soon as it is ready – or wait for a crucial moment in the game to send multiple shipments at once. As the game continues, new types of cards become available, making the building of a “card deck” very important. You should have several decks – picking one according to the strategy you are going to employ.

Experience

Player can get experience points by completing actions such as different types of building constructions, collecting resources, upgrading, training units, collecting treasures, killing enemies etc. These points help the player to use the shipment from his home city. As the game continues more and more experience points are needed for every shipment. But this is not a problem, as your units are more powerful and you should gain experience points quickly.