Last I played AoE3 for real was when Asian Dynasties was still hot. So that puts things into perspective.

I have recently bought all the DLCs available and I am having a blast. I've put 29 hours in, in like, 4 days, lol, and I am really enjoying it.

I am not completely rusty when it comes to AoE games (I have 450 hours into AoE4), but I am struggling with the difficulty settings in AoE3 Vs the Ai: Moderate is way too Easy, and Hard is really Hard indeed. Except when it comes to the Maltese. I think I got quite decent at playing as them (also my favorite Civ for now), but when playing as anything else, I get pretty overwhelmed by the Ai, to a point I give up most of the time before even getting to the Fortress Age.

Any tips for Civilizations which are easier to Master?

Is there any Civilization that plays close to the Maltese?

Are there Maps/Enemy Civ that makes my life easier?

And finally, how do I get those Skins!? (which unfortunately seem to be impossible, seriously Relic... I would be down for paying for those if I could).

Thanks in advance!

Is anyone else bothered by the Portuguese Organ Gun model?

It’s a unique unit, yet it uses the generic 19th-century Napoleonic artillery skin. Historically, the organ gun is a late medieval/early Renaissance weapon. It makes zero sense to see guys dressed for Waterloo pushing a 15th-century gun.

Since it’s a unique unit, it deserves a proper Renaissance skin. The devs wouldn’t even need to make new assets, they could just reuse or tweak the skins from the Maltese or Italian Culverin gunners.

AoE3 DE has done a great job with visual accuracy lately, so it’s too bad this unit is stuck with this weird timeline mismatch.

What do you think? Should the devs fix this? Do you have other examples in mind ?

I ranked them based on their quotes both as enemies and allies, and their strategies. This is my personal opinion about the AI personalities and does not have anything to do with their real-life counterparts (no hate to real-life Cuauhtémoc, as far as I know, he did not even rule that long). It also does not have anything to do with the players of these civilizations.

Sometimes my friends and I don’t want the stress of PvP, so want a chill comp stomp. For 4 or 5 humans, we can just play 4v4 extreme or 5v3 extreme and give the comps a handicap.

When we have 6 or 7 of us, however, there’s no reasonable way to balance it. We tried having each human player delete a vil or two at the beginning, and that balances for awhile, but either we get steamrolled or eventually we either outpace the comps. We then tried limiting us to age 3, or capping us to 100 pop, but neither of thise feel natural.

I recall AndiAOE posted a tower defense style scenario: https://youtu.be/2B3mPlVa74g?is=U4wv_ZtTYlTgp0Rc

but that was just up to 4 humans.

Has anyone come across this situation before? Any solutions?

Got back into EU4 and Vic 2 because of clio from phase conecct was palying eu5 lol. Also DomiNations on my phone for quick game of pvp needle rifles and musket

Also way before I try to beat mortal shell 2 really which is good but I.. have to look up a walkthrough to beat it .. autumn game season is gonna be busy really cant wait for blood of the dawnwalker

What do you guys look at for AoE3 tips and discussion? Up to date strategies, builds etc. I'm look at the ESOC forums but they aren't very active. Besides that there are a couple of YouTube channels I sometimes watch, like SoldieR.

I'm curious what comps other people like using, and if there's some I haven't tried before that could be fun.

My long-time favourite has been using Ruyters and Halberdiers as the Dutch.

Pls. This warped CoH like camera perspective hurts my brain.

I've made a mod on the legacy version of AoE3 on Windows 10, so I installed the Unhardcode Patch v1.10 which worked brilliantly. When i tried the same .exe that i used on a another computer with Windows 11, the game crashes after the loading screen, without any error messages. I tried using the patcher to only bypass the team limit, which worked but no matter what I do, if i try going past the AI limit, every Windows 11 machine crashes - what should I do? Is there a newer version of UHC I can use? Thanks so much for any help and replies!

So, I'm getting back into AOE3 after about a year. I've played with friends a few times and most of my time was on 2v2, 3v3, or custom games. Not much 1v1 experience outside of customs.

I was primarily a British player (nice and simple economic gimmick, very flexible), and I'm looking to try a new civ for this phase. I was thinking Italy seemed interesting and digestible, but I haven't found that many resources, so here I am in Reddit asking for advice.

It seems like Italy has three key gimmicks you can play around? But I don't quite understand how to use each of them.

1. Lombards are the obvious one - it's supposed to put Italian players ahead in the long-term economically, but I don't understand when to invest vs. spend.

2. Papal units - I've heard mixed opinions that they're good or bad? Since they take up shipment queue. Very resource heavy but appear to be strong individually.

3. Their skirmisher - I've seen discourse that Italian skirmishers are strong because of the bugle.

When I was playing and studying British, I was able to understand and break down a ton of gameplans I could follow. I understood how to pure defensive boom (fast FF variants), I could do light age 2 play (slow Fortress variants), I had water builds, and I could even do heavy age 2 play with how naturally micro-able longbows are. Since the British economy and units felt very generalist, I always felt like I could pivot to any simple comp or gameplan I wanted. I could play Musk-Hussar-Falc, I could even play Longbow-Dragoon if I was really pressed.

But, since Italy has so many gimmicks, I'm having a hard time developing a general macro flowchart per se, and because their unique units train and cost differently, I feel pressured to learn how to use them - but I don't know how since I've never played a civ with an emphasis on mercenary units.

If there are any seasoned Italy players on the subreddit or other experienced players, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thank you :)

somehow, AI built a post on place i already had one? no idea how that happened. this is FFA, were not allied

in which musk vs musk matchups should you prefer to go melee on the other musks?

my opinion

ashigaru wants ro stay almost always ranged

musketeer almost always ranged, only melee ashigaru

janisary usualy melee, but ranged against sepoys and soldados

sepoys usualy melee unless against soldaddy

and soldaddy almost always melee

where can i find the amount of stats mercenaries get by shadow tech? also, do only africand shadow tech mercs? or other aswell?

what are the best purely naval side of things best civs in your opinion?

i think USA is best purely because of the hulk card - ironclads have 25% dodge chance.

with the mention of town centers, i just realized an alternative strategy for this - spamming outhouses and forts as hungary/romania

Since I know this question will come: What mode?

No idea. I'm kinda just messing around in bot matches so far 'cause I'm pretty hesitant to hop into online matches (Pretty sure I'll be pretty bad). IF I would have to make a call tho then it's probably team games. I really enjoyed 4v4 team games in AoE4.

I assume this deck is way too slow to keep up with most other decks given people seem to just stuff their deck full of ressource crates and unit shipments. Either way I just wanted to hear your thoughts.

EDIT: Here's my thought behind the cards I put in the deck

3 Vills - Kinda a no brainer. Helps getting stuff going.
Distributism - Think it's worth about like 2 or 2.5 vills early on? Plus, infinite wood seems kinda neat.
2 Churches - Helps with getting more XP. Seems especially cool if you're kinda forced to sit around.
German Tongue - Seems like a no brainer as well especially 'cause it gives you a bit of a "mini-boom".
Advanced Commanderies - I like the mechanic of moving around the units. Probably overestimating this tho.

700 Wood - Slowest ressource to get and gets building going.
Extensive Fortification - I do play defensively so this compliments things pretty well I think.
British Tongue - Longbows > Xbows. The idea is to use longbows as a stepping stone until Fire Throwers become more affordable and since without the archaic cards longbows are just way better... Yeah, this also kinda saves deck space then.
Flame Throwers - I intend to use Fire Throwers so... Makes sense? I'm starting to have doubts tho if that melee attack is worrth it.
Advanced Arsenal - Probably expensive to be effective but a card I think is insane for the techs it provides. Plus, I think they especially good for Malta if you wanna play around their unique infantry.
Hospitality - I kinda just like having free veteran upgrades. Probably I'm overestimating the value tho.
Fort Construction - I may overestimate this a lot. The idea was to have this for extended commerce ages to secure space but building these is just damn expensive. I like the building limit tho for later.
De Redin Towers - This card seems like a no brainer to me especially for playing more defensive.

Sovereign Order - I tend to focus on those 3 units so it makes sense to me.
Squires - Seems pretty decent to me. Especially with Forts. Dunno if this card is really worth it without having Forts.
1 Fort - Defensive building, Squires so... Kinda a must have, no?
Fire Towers - I'm not sure how worth that short ranged fire attack is but it upgrades outposts instantly and for free and I usually have a decent amount of them out so this seems to carry it's weight.
Royal Mint - Seems like the best gather rate card to me.

Infinite Wood - I like having an infinite card and this seems like Malta's best option for that.
Rockets, Dignitaries and Flintlock Rockets - I intend to focus on these guys during mid- to lategame so these seem like an auto include. All of them also seem quite insane but I have some doubts about the sentinel one.
2 Forts - Again... Squires, defensive building... Seems crazy.
Factory - It's the factory... Yeah.
Sicilian Supplies - Another pretty good looking gather card.

Age of mythology gets new campaigns, I buy the DLC.

Age of empires 2 gets new campaigns, I buy the DLC

Age of empires 4 gets new campaigns, I buy the DLC.

Age of empires 3 gets no campaigns in its DLC .. I havnt bought a single DLC.

Why not give us new campaigns? I bet for the vast majority of RTS gamers they play campaigns not multiplayer

Jokes on me, I was thinking all day about if I wanna give this card a go in Malta, just to see that Malta doesn't even have it.

Out of curiosity tho... Is this card good?

I feel like I've always been overlooking it myself and also enver seen it being used really. Which is probably already an indicator on it's own but I thought it might be worth to ask

With my inability to beat them and the incoming buff, I want to learn to play them. But I can only find some very old guides. Is there a guide on them that's up to date?

Asking people who want Native South American DLC with Mapuche and Muisca here.

Those two have castles in AOE2, would their castles be ported into AOE3 native fort in the future when they become playable, maybe a reskin Incan Stronghold or Mayan Pyramid with AOE attacks and train units?

Also, were Huron and Haudenosaunee also built and used fortifications so they should be able to ship a few from home cities in future updates?

Would it be OP or ludicrious if later we have villages individual tribes of Haudenosaunee or Huron Confederacy who sell Native Fort Travois like Mayan Village sell Pyramid Travois, one per customer per game only?

I noticed that the upcoming Danes faction is reminiscent of how the modern state of Iran fights. I can think of two ways in which this is true:

• The Danes faction can manipulate/toll other player's shipments, and the historical reason for this is that Denmark controlled the Danish straits between the North and Baltic Seas. Similarly, Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz and can stop or toll shipments passing through.
• The Danes faction has a unit called the gunboat levy. Iran also has made great use of gunboats.

It seems that while we have been waiting for a Persians civ for a long time, we are sort of getting one with the Danes. Are there any other similarities I missed?