Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties Updated Q&A - Details on the Japanese
Famed designer and Big Huge Games creative director Brian Reynolds breaks down the new Japanese nation in this upcoming expansion pack.
When it comes to real-time strategy, few franchises are larger than the Age of Empires series. Famed for blending history with RTS gameplay, Age of Empires games have allowed you to take civilizations or nations from the past and then guide them through the struggle to survive and thrive. The game centers on the concept of building a city, an economy, and then an army, which can be used to defend your borders or to expand them.
2005's Age of Empires III focused on the age of colonization in the New World. As such, it featured mainly European civilizations. Native American civilizations were added in The WarChiefs expansion, released last year. Now Big Huge Games, the developer of Rise of Nations and Rise of Legends, is currently working on The Asian Dynasties, the second expansion for the game. This will shift the focus more to the Far East and introduce a number of key Asian civilizations. To get the very first details on the new Japanese faction, we turned to Brian Reynolds, CEO and creative director of Big Huge Games. The expansion will ship later this year.
GameSpot: Give us an update on the expansion's development. What aspects of the game is the team working on at the moment?
Brian Reynolds: We've just reached content freeze, meaning that all of the art, units, maps, scenarios, and other types of content are complete. We're now mostly working on final balancing of the new units and civs for multiplayer and polishing the game for release.
GS: Give us an overview of the Japanese faction. What are the faction's major strengths and weaknesses? What unique features or abilities does it bring to the table?
BR: Japan's major strengths include its extremely powerful military units (such as samurai), but these units are also expensive, so you'll need a good economy. One interesting Japanese power is that most home-city cards can be sent twice. An even more dramatic difference from other nations is that in reflection of restrictions on hunting and eating meat other than fish--restrictions which remained in place for hundreds of years in Japan--the Japanese are not allowed to acquire food from hunting or herding.
GS: Could you explain how the team used real-world history to inform the design of the Japanese faction? How in-depth will history figure into their design? What major historical events will be reflected in the faction's design?
BR: Japanese history figured strongly in our design of the civilization, from military units to technologies to home-city cards, and especially of course, the single-player campaign. A particularly good example is the Japanese ban on hunting and eating meat other than fish, which was a result of the influence of Buddhism and had been in place for centuries as of the period of this game. At the same time, there are shrines in Japan where tame deer roam free, so we allowed shrines in the game to attract nearby animals to provide a gather bonus.
GS: Give us a rundown of the Japanese army. What are the most unique units at the Japanese faction's disposal? How do they help determine the faction's best strategies in battle?
BR: Japanese units, individually, tend to be expensive but powerful. The backbone of the Japanese army is the samurai warrior, whose powerful melee attack deals area damage to nearby units. The special hatamoto samurai, available from the consulate, is even more powerful than ronin mercenaries.
The most strategically powerful unit in the Japanese force is the daimyo, a special commander unit available from home-city shipments and one of the wonders. The best thing about a daimyo is that he's a mobile unit who can receive home-city shipments. So if you're careful not to get him killed, he can bring reinforcements right into the middle of the battle! The daimyo can also train units and provides a bonus to units fighting nearby. And the most powerful daimyo of all is the shogun whom you get late in the game.
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