Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties is the second expansion pack for the real-time strategy video game Age of Empires III developed through a collaboration between Ensemble Studios and Big Huge Games, and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The Mac version was ported over, developed and published by Destineer's MacSoft. The game is the second expansion pack following The WarChiefs. The game introduces three new civilizations; China, Japan, and India. It also introduced minor people, campaigns, maps, and game modes.
Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties for PC was released in North America on October 23, 2007. The Mac version was released on August 5, 2008. The game was generally received well by critics, mostly praising graphics, and sometimes criticizing predictable aspects of the game. It earned a 79% score on GameRankings and an 81% on Metacritic.
A mobile game of the same name was released in 2010 for J2ME. It is a sequel to the 2007 mobile game Age of Empires III.
Gameplay The gameplay of The Asian Dynasties followed a similar format to the original game, Age of Empires III. Rather than introduce new methods of gameplay, most changes were focused on introducing new content to the game.
One new addition is "export." Export is a special resource, only available to the three Asian civilizations, and is used to hire foreign troops and research technologies from the consulate, where the player can choose a foreign ally or, for the Japanese, isolationism. Export is generated automatically when the villagers are gathering, but its gather rate is much slower than other resources, making it challenging to afford a large foreign army. Export Rate / Experience points are also generated by other means (like sacred cows for Indians) and are specific to each civilization.
Civilizations Three new civilizations were added in The Asian Dynasties. Each Asian civilization has monks, instead of explorers as in previous games. These monks have the ability of 'Stun' instead of 'Sharpshooter Attack' (as for European powers) or 'Nature Friendship' (as in the War Chiefs).
There are six new native civilizations available for hire in The Asian Dynasties. They are the Sufis, the Shaolin, the Zen, the Udasi, the Bhakti, and the Jesuits.
India – This civilization has no villager cards at the Home City, but they receive one villager with almost every shipment. All villagers that are not shipped from the Home City cost wood instead of food (although this can be reversed with an unlockable Home City card). Villagers are also not allowed to harvest livestock for food, but instead can build a structure called a Sacred Field which generates experience points whenever livestock are tasked to it. Sepoys (Musketeers), Gurkha (Skirmishers) and Rajputs (much like Rodeleros) are the primary infantry units, and India has several types of camel cavalry and war elephants. Both of India's Brahmin monks ride atop elephants and can heal other units from the start of the game. Their Home City is Delhi and their leader is Akbar the Great. China – The Chinese get only one explorer (a Shaolin monk) along with a weak disciple at the start of the game. Chinese monks and disciples have the ability to occasionally land critical hits, doing extra damage. The Chinese monk is the only Asian hero who can train military units (disciples) during the Discovery Age and has the largest number of attack points compared to any other monk or explorer. The Chinese monk also has the unique ability to convert enemy units defeated by him into disciples, although the chances are low. The Chinese have a higher population limit than all the other civilizations; up to 220 population points, rather than the usual 200. However, to reach this cap, several upgrades must be made. Additionally, their military units are trained in blocks, much like the Russians, except that each block is made up by several types of troops, meaning when the player creates a "block" they receive a technically combat-ready force. The Chinese build villages rather than houses or shrines. Villages can garrison villagers and livestock given to them tasked to fatten more quickly. These villages also supply 20 population. Their Home City is Beijing and their leader is the Kangxi Emperor. Japan – This civilization has the Daimyō and Shogun units, who can train troops like a military building. Japanese villagers cannot gather food via herding or hunting, but can build shrines near huntable and herdable animals to gain a slow trickle of food, wood, or coin (or experience once a certain shipment is sent from the Home City). The shrines also act as houses, supporting 10 population units. They have the unique ability to ship most cards twice. Their starting explorers are two Ikkō-ikki archer monks that can be improved with extra attributes (via shipment cards or upgrades at the Monastery). The monks start off with an ability called "Divine Strike" which can be used to finish off guardians or enemy units with less health. Japanese monks also have the ability to build shrines, which allows villagers to focus on gathering resources and building other structures. Their Home City is Edo and their leader is Tokugawa Ieyasu.
Campaigns There are three new campaigns, one for each new civilization. Furthermore, these campaigns return to the historical, civilization-based single-player campaigns, which are different from the past campaigns in the Age of Empires III series. Each campaign consists of five new scenarios. They are the first campaigns in the Age of Empires III series to not revolve around the fictional Black family.
Japanese campaign – The Japanese campaign focuses on the unification of Japan (the beginning of which was also a scenario in Age of Empires II: The Conquerors), the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate, which players control, and a young general named Sakuma Kichiro. When Kichiro was a baby, Tokugawa Ieyasu rescued him from the ruins of his conquered village and raised him as his adopted son. The campaign begins when Kichiro meets up with Daimyō Torii Mototada, at the siege of Osaka (transported from 1615 to 1600) to capture the 5-year-old heir of Hideyoshi. Kichiro and Mototada ally with the local villagers and storm the castle. Next, they move to the north-east of Honshu to destroy any villages that might support Tokugawa's enemy, Uesugi Kagekatsu and defeat Uesugi's army. After a victory despite heavy losses, Mototada learns that Tokugawa's main enemy, Ishida Mitsunari, is threatening Mototada's estate at Fushimi, forcing Mototada to return there. Meanwhile, Kichiro marches his exhausted army west again to take control of the Tokaido Road trade route. In the aftermath of the battle there, a defeated samurai of the Oda clan tells Kichiro that Tokugawa has lied to him since his childhood. Angered, Kichiro kills the samurai but is shaken by his words. He returns to Mototada at Fushimi, and asks him the truth of his origins. Mototada replies that while Tokugawa destroyed his village when he was a baby and sentenced his parents to death, he presses Kichiro on obeying the samurai code, telling how Tokugawa admired Kichiro's skills since he was a boy and has great faith in him to help him in unifying Japan. Kichiro remains loyal to Tokugawa and helps Mototada at ensuing battle at Fushimi. After Kichiro escorts the non-combatants to safety, he is forced to leave Mototada to fight alone. As the enemy breaches the final defenses, Mototada commits seppuku. Kichiro joins Tokugawa at Sekigahara. After the Battle of Sekigahara ends in victory for them, Tokugawa tells how it was a great achievement for him to become the Shogun and further asks Kichiro, what did he, as a general, gain from it. Kichiro says "the truth" and makes no mention of what he had learnt about his past. The story concludes by showing Kichiro riding his horse alone with a voiceover from Mototada on the importance of loyalty to one's master. Chinese campaign – The Chinese campaign focuses loosely on the 1421 hypothesis and is about a Chinese treasure ship discovering the New World before Christopher Columbus. The protagonist is Jian Huang, a Ming captain who has long dreamed of seeing the outside world, and his partner and new friend, Lao Chen, a crude and brawny but kind sailor, who are given orders to help expand the Ming Empire. In the initial release of the game, the player's emblems and unit models are representative of the Qing Empire, despite being set in the Ming period. In the beginning, the treasure fleet is attacked by Wokou pirates while still under construction. On orders of the spoiled and selfish Admiral Jinhai, nephew of the unnamed emperor, Huang and Chen save the fleet and eliminate the pirates. The fleet then embarks westward and lands in a port on the coast of India. Many of the crew, including Huang and Chen, are attacked by soldiers of the Indian Zamorin and flee with part of the fleet to a nearby island, where they set up a new base and mount a rescue mission to save Jinhai and the remaining crew, who have been captured by the Zamorin's troops and some Chinese defectors. The fleet continues west at Jinhai's insistence, although many ships turn back, and eventually are cast ashore in the Yucatán by a storm. Chen and Huang go to rescue the other ships' crews from hostile Aztec soldiers. When they return, they find that Jinhai has disappeared. Huang suspects that he was captured along with many of the fleet's crews and sets out to rescue them. Huang and Chen cut through the jungle and rescue many of their comrades, but Jinhai is not among them. Huang's small army of sailors then enters a nearby Aztec city, where they learn that Jinhai has set himself up as an emperor or perhaps a god among the Aztecs and had previously plotted with the Zamorin in India. Huang and Chen escape an ambush by Jinhai's soldiers and flee back to the coast through a series of caves, rescuing more of their crew along the way. Once back at the coast, they set up a base and counterattack, defeating and killing Jinhai. After the battle, Huang, Chen, and the surviving crew members scour the beaches for all evidence of their presence and sail home to China, hoping that no one will ever know they were there.