Age of Empires 3, a first view.

Hmm, after I've download the trial yesterday, I finally got to play the game today.

Not too bad. To be exact, I was very disappointed with Age of Empires II, because I felt that it was too messy, way more messy then the first Age of Empires game, which had fluid motions and stuff. There's simply too many units, and way too much HP for some stuff. I mean, even with Tretchbuckets, you are still trying to attack some 10k hp wall with some foot soldiers doing 5 damage or something. The fact that Tretchies take like a few years to shoot a single fireball does not help.

However, AoE III is much more clean then AoE II, with the number of units reduced considerably. Heck, you will find yourself heading towards the barracks a little too often, and I found myself building at least 2, if I want to survive against the "hard" difficulty. Building a fort is also critical, as it acts as a stronghold against an enemy, since it can defend itself, and also produce almost every unit (bar the cannons and the ships) in the game. Units can be "upgraded", the norm from the AoE I.

One major addition to this game is the ability to build trading posts. Trading posts are built on trading routes, as well as on Native American camps. On trade routes, it allows you to receive trade by NPCs, which comes once every 5 seconds or so. It depends on your level of trading, which can be upgraded at any trading posts on the route. The highest level is by using trains, which allows very quick gain of resources. Having command of the trade routes is critical, as it allows quick supply of resources.

Building a trading post on a native American camp site allows you to train native American warriors, which pretty much are like normal troops. However, they are a little over balanced, as they are rather strong. Other then the troops and the upgrades for the horses movement, there isn't anything much about them.

Another major addition is the card system of the game. The cards acts as shipments, which allows you to send "stuff" from home, be it upgrades, resources, or extra men. You are allowed to have 20 cards in your deck, and different decks will allow different strats to be used. Like early rushes? Go for the deck which gives plenty of reinforcements and resources. Like to grow your empire? Go for the upgrades which help with your economy. Prefer Naval Warfare? Go for the ship decks. The cards allow almost limitless combinations of strats. One important card which everyone must have, is definately the fort, which as mentioned before, allows you to build a fort which acts as your headquarters to harass your enemy.

Experience has also been added to this game. When you build something, kill an enemy, explore somewhere, you gain experience. Experience allows you unlock new cards (A huge incentive to play the missions...), and also allows shipments to be sent. It's like the usual Level up! thingy you find everywhere these days, as when you level up, you get new upgrades and stuff.

With Heros being first being fully used in Warcraft III, it seems like every other game has it. AoE III has this explorer dude which helps you to explore and pick up treasure, usually pityful amounts of resources. Other then the ability to build a trading post himself, he isn't exactly special. Except, he can't die. Hence, when you reduce his health to 1, he will lie on the ground, until he regains some health. The fun thing is, the ability to kidnap him. Simply place a whole platoon of Musketeers around him, and he won't be going anywhere. Better yet, surround him with a wall, and he WILL definately won't be going anywhere. To get him out, you have to send in a rescue squad to distract the enemy, so that he can sneak away easily, or simply pay 100 gold to the one that killed your explorer, and he will walk right out of your town center.

Perhaps the most important change of the game is the resource gathering system. The new systems allows resources to "teleport" back to your town centers, meaning that you have no need for any drop points, a main feature in almost every single RTS. So, your resource gathers can actually go off to some off shore island and farm for all they care. Heck, they can simply head into the enemy's base and join their peasants in gathering wood, and no one would probably notice.

So far, the trial looks rather promising, although I don't think I will buy it. This is because I'm rather unsure of the multiplayer system, which, as most microsoft games are, could be totally rubbish. All you need might be MSN, and you can play online with your friends.

Even so, October 24th is the release date, which I'm looking forward to. Perhaps I might buy the game if I find that it is nice, after I obtained it, using the letters beside V and R on the keyboard. =P
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Physics is screwed!

Especially after paper 1. I kinda gave up on it after question 20, as my eyelids became rather heavy.

At least Paper 2 was not...too bad. The last question which was on something out of Syllabus (Option of Phyics of Materials, actually), was probably my favourite question of all.

Oh well.

To maths!