

Most cards are available to all civilizations, but some are unique to one. Later in the game, cards have to be manually chosen because of the limit of cards in one deck. The first few cards chosen are automatically added to the player's portfolio, where it can be copied onto a deck for use in a game. Players can gear their cards into three different combinations: 'Boom' (economic combinations), 'Rush' (military combinations), or 'Turtle' (defensive combinations). This XP is also added directly to the home city and is collected over multiple games, allowing it to level up over time.

Shipments slow as the game goes on, since more XP is required with every consecutive shipment. Whenever a certain amount of experience points are gained, the player can make use of a shipment from their respective Home City. The price of age advancement is incremental, but does not vary between civilizations.ĭuring the course of a game, players gain XP (experience) by completing actions such as constructing buildings, training units, killing enemies and collecting treasures.

All Ages cost food and coin to advance to, except the Colonial Age, which only costs food (800).

They include the Discovery Age, which represents the discovery and exploration of the Americas by Europeans and allows the player to explore and develop their economy the Colonial Age, which represents the European Expansion into the 'New World' and unlocks early military units the Fortress Age, which represents the fortification of the European colonies, unlocks forts, and allows the player to have a more complete military the Industrial Age, which triggers a strong economy, due in part to factories-advanced buildings that automatically produce resources or artillery-and unlocks all units and shipments and the Imperial Age, which unlocks all buildings and upgrades, and allows you to send unit and resource shipments a second time. In Age of Empires III, the player advances through technological 'Ages', representing historical time periods these provide access to greater improvements, units, and buildings.
