The extremely spiffy looking Age of Empires III (2005) marked a major departure from the regular Age of Empires style, even though it picked up from where Age of Empires 2 left off. It's set during the European conquest of the New World and you can only play one of several competing European powers. The local natives get a look in, but only as bit players that you annex and control like another resource and can extract some extra techs and units from. One of the things that did make the early AoE games distinctive was their no-nonsense, uncluttered historical styling. AoE3 has gone completely the other way, well on its way to becoming Yet Another Warcraft 3 Clone. Its packed to the gunnels with shader effects, beautifully modeled environments and almost claustrophobic detailing. Surprising