A worthy game that will captivate you for days, weeks, years. (I’ve been playing since it came out) The reasons for this are the well-thought-out plot of the campaign, where what the screenwriters conceived is intertwined with history (fiction, it’s not worth teaching on it), and the special atmosphere created by the soundtrack.
Regarding the method of play, it is not too difficult to master and at the same time does not force you to only choose the tactics “develop quickly and crush the enemy” - one game, even with AI, can be stretched out for two to three hours, meticulously developing your colony. Otherwise, everything is according to the classics - we extract resources and develop the colony. There are land and sea battles in small flotillas. It’s hard to describe everything, it’s better to play it.
Each faction has its own special units and development bonuses. An extensive system of such “trump cards” - cards of supplies from the metropolis. These can be units, accelerated resource extraction, improvements, special buildings, .... There is, in addition to a campaign and a battle, both for one player against AI, and for a group of players.
The graphics and sound are very good for that time, although not the most outstanding. A special combination of a plot imbued with the spirit of the era, graphics and music draws you into the game headlong. I am glad that sometimes there are those on the Internet who play it, but mostly the English-speaking community.
Now the cons.
The main one is outdated graphics. It's special to the game, but will be a "bit of a shock" for fans of Total War Napoleon onwards.
Sometimes stupid AI. If you start playing on the island from an early era, then it takes a minute to start, which introduces an imbalance in your favor.
AI tactics are sometimes beyond comprehension. He can save up 200 - 300 thousand in gold and food, and will send pikemen with the price of wood, of which he has only enough. After playing for about 2 hours (you can torture the AI, which is very important after a hard day!) the computer will collect all the resources from the map and a time of stagnation comes, it may stupidly not resist. But this happens rarely and only on island maps, and there are few of them. On ordinary ones, you will have to strain.
There are few Russian players in multiplayer, perhaps I was just looking in the wrong place. The last time was in the first half of last year. Maybe it will be different soon.
Localization into Russian has errors, but the voice acting is very pleasing.
Small armies (limit 100-200 units). But sometimes this is even better.
P.S. For me, this was one of the first strategies with Empire Earth II, Warcraft III and Heroes 3. Of these, Age of Empires III is an example of how to make interesting strategies. Fans of Warcraft III and Heroes III, please do not throw tomatoes.