A few innovations, a few missteps
Found the colours to be very vivid and eye-catching. However, the detail is somewhat lacking, especially in the zoom in. The water graphics have been much improved though, even with sprites for wave effects. Also, the way that the ships move are also very smooth. One thing to note is the failure to make a very successful 3-D environment, resulting in disorienting gameplay, but increasing in the realism.
Sound: 9/10
Worst part about the sound is the monotony of the unit selection confirmation effects. There isn't a lot of variety in them. However, against the AI, they do occasionally talk to you, so that adds a "human" element to the single-player game, where you could sometimes feel you're playing a human player.
Gameplay: 8/10
The gameplay follows in the footsteps of the first 2 AOE titles, especially in the economy of it. Therefore, the gameplay couldn't drop that much. As well, there is one HUGE new concept to AOE 3. This is the idea of the home city, where you could actually level up your home city, get new "bonuses" unique to your own city, and also customize the look of your home city. Also, you get to name your home city whatever name you want with a unique name for your own explorer. So in essense, AOE 3 combines real-time strategy with role playing concept, which gives a new feel to this all-new AOE. However, all these new features seem to come at a price, and this is the variety of units, buildings, and technologies available in the game. Whereas in AOE 1 and 2, there are more variety of units available than possible to use, in AOE 3, there are only around 30 techs and 15 buildings available. Thus, the 8/10 score.
Good: Major innovations, rpg factor, graphics improvement, smarter AI.
Bad: Variety, slow gameplay.