Running Age of Empires III & Common Gameplay FAQ
·
Steam
/ Impulse and Age of Empires III are asking for administrator access, is this
normal?
Age
of Empires III was created prior to UAC and the vista / windows 7 security
model. Steam and Impulse will require administrative access to install Age of
Empires III, and the game will require administrative access to run properly.
·
Why
does Age of Empires III changes the Windows Color scheme to Basic when running?
On
newer operating systems, Age of Empires III needs to run in Compatibility mode
for XP SP3. Because of this, it will disable the Aero visual style while
running.
·
Where
is my CD key for Age of Empires III?
o
Steam - Your CD key is visible prior to
launching the game on, as well as in a popup-overlay when launching the game.
You can manually see it by right clicking on the game in your Steam library and
selecting “View Game CD Key”.
o
Impulse – Your CD key it is available from the
client. Select “Product Code” when AOE3 is highlighted in your game
library. (You must be connected and
logged into the service)
·
Can I
activate a retail copy of Age of Empires III on Steam or Impulse?
Unfortunately Retail
copies cannot be activated at this time.
·
Where
are saved games and campaigns stored for Age of Empires III: Complete
Collection?
o
Saved games are located in your documents or “My
Documents” folder, by default (depending on OS) C:\Users\%YOU_USERNAME%\Documents\My
Games\Age of Empires 3
o
Saved games will not automatically transfer in
the cloud between systems.
·
I’m
running Age of Empires III on a different computer user account than it was
installed, but am having issues. Will it work?
To play AOEIII on a user account
other than the one it was installed on, you may need to launch directly from
the steamapps folder as administrator to get access to all features. Navigate
to the install directory, right click “age3.exe”, “age3x.exe”, or “age3y.exe”
and select “Run as Administrator”.
·
Can I
use my retail ESO account to log in to Age of Empires III on Steam or Impulse?
Age of Empires III on steam provides you with a unique key to create a
new ESO account, however if you already have an ESO account you'd prefer to use
- you may log into ESO with that account.
·
How do
I chat to all players in a multiplayer game?
Start your chat
message with a * and your message will be sent to all players.
·
How do
I repair my buildings?
Select the building and click on the repair button in the bottom right of
the interface. Note this button may not be active if you do not have enough
resources to repair, or if the building is under attack.
·
How do
card bonuses stack?
o
We apply all the percentages to the base rate
not the modified rate.
o
If your gathering rate is 0.5 and you get a 15%
bonus, it becomes 0.575. Easy enough.
o
However, if you get an additional 15% bonus, it
does not affect 0.575, but it is calculated based on 0.5 and then added to the
existing bonus. So getting three different 15% bonuses would increase gathering
from 0.5 to 0.725 (0.075 added three times) rather than 0.760 (which is what
you get if you keep multiplying the product by 15%).
o
The reasons we do this are a little arcane, but
they allow you to apply both addition and multiplications to rates without
worrying about the order of operations.
·
Can
two teammates send the same Team card?
Two teammates using the same Civ should are not able to send the same
team card. But you can send both the team and non-team versions of a card, see
above for how they stack.
·
Can we
play with three teams in a game?
No, at this time
you can only play 2 team or Free for all games.
·
How
did you chose which civs make it into the game?
There is no simple
formula to how we choose to include a civ. It's a mixture of:
1.
Historical relevance
2.
Uniqueness
3.
Fan expectations
4.
Global prominence
5.
Designer bias
6.
Art time
We wanted to have the civs players
expected, like the Spanish, but also to throw in some curve balls. The Ottomans
and Germans were quite powerful during the time period and easily could have
come to the New World with different leadership (as could a dozen other
nations).
Some additional (legacy) FAQ questions and answers can be
found on the Agecommunity
FAQ page