Age of Empires III: CaVG Interviews Lead Designer Greg Street

Computer and Video Games caught up with AoE III’s Lead Designer, Greg Street.

In a previous interview, you said that one of the reasons for choosing AoE III’s time period was that, despite military technical advancement, combat fundamentals of the period weren’t too dissimilar to those portrayed in Age of Kings. Is this then all about keeping things familiar for fans on the series, rather than say leaping forward to an era like World War II?

Greg Street: That’s a good way to put it. There are some big changes to military strategy in this time period (the 1500s-1800s), most notably the huge role that artillery came to play on the battlefield and the importance of marching and fighting in formation. But players still get to control familiar units like cavalry and even crossbows. If and when we ever do a game set in a more modern time period, we feel that we’d have to change the way combat works dramatically. It seems silly to have even 50 infantry take on a tank, battleship or bomber and be able to win. That crosses the line for a lot of people.

This game looks amazing. Check out the full interview at CaVG.