Age of Empires 3 Cheats and Hints

Pezeteros wrote in MFO forum

Since unfortunately I still cannot play the game due to the amount of respect MS showed to the European gamers *cough* I don't know how this can hold true or is doable.

People will like to be able to change civs and that's a given. A lvl 1 city is considerable weaker than a leveled up one, at least when coming to close matches netween competitive players. You don't need a lvl 100 city to take full advantage of a civ, but at least a lvl 35-40 would be nice to be able to get all the cards you want and be able to make a couple of decks.

So is it possible to set a game with a friend (I know this you can do), and keep the game going while just trying to get most XP by having full economies and sending units to death, or having all vils on plantation and go afk for some hours and then buy you XP off the capitol? This could stand unless there is a hard cap on how much XP you can get from one game.

[read the full post]

So, you just bought Age of Empires-3 and wanna be a part of the AOE3 community? You can join a lot of clans. MFO has listed all the available clans at the moment. Choose the one you like and you'll be cool. :)

lilWarner: I thought it would be a great idea and beneficial for the MrFixitOnline AOE III community to have a regularly updated and cared for list of clan links.

[view the Clans List]

Age of Empires III; Hotkeys

Alt-F4 - exits the game
Ctrl-F12 - takes a screenshot

HOTKEYS

SPACEBAR – Center View on Selected Unit
ALT – Display Details on Selected Unit
H – Toggle Home City Screen
/ – Cycle Explorers
' – Cycle Ships
. – Cycle Idle Villagers
, – Cycle Idle Military Units
; – Cycle Wagons (Covered Wagon, Fort Wagon, Outpost Wagon, Factory Wagon)

FIND

T – Town Center
CTRL+A – Artillery Foundry
CTRL+B – Barracks or Blockhouse
CTRL+C – Church
CTRL+D – Dock
CTRL+D – House or Manor House
CTRL+F – Fort
CTRL+I – Mill
CTRL+K – Bank
CTRL+L – Plantation
CTRL+M – Market
CTRL+O – Outpost
CTRL+P – Trading Post
CTRL+Q – Field Hospital
CTRL+R – Arsenal
CTRL+S – Stable
CTRL+V – Livestock Pen
CTRL+W – Wall
CTRL+Y – Factory
CTRL+Z – Capitol

VILLAGER BUILDS

A – Artillery Foundry
B – Barracks or Blockhouse
C – Church
D – Dock
E – Town Center (this is for the Explorer only)
E – House or Manor House
F – Fort
K – Bank
I – Mill
L – Plantation
M – Market
O – Outpost
P – Trading Post
Q – Field Hospital
R – Arsenal
S – Stable
W – Wall
V – Livestock Pen

CUSTOMIZE YOUR OWN HOTKEYS

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Age of Empires III Trial\Startup\hotkeys.con

Change the first letter with the key you want. Example:

Before
map (".", "game", "uiFindIdleType(\"ValidIdleVillager\")")

After
map ("tab", "game", "uiFindIdleType(\"ValidIdleVillager\")")

GameSpot's Game Guide to Age of Empires III is intended to give you an introduction to the game; included are tips on dealing with the major changes to the game, pointers on how to use the new Home City mechanic to your advantage

GameSpot Complete members have the privilege of downloading a searchable and printable version of our game guides. Our guides are in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format, and they're laid out so you can print them out and have them at your fingertips as you're playing.

[download AOE3 Game Guide]

X marks the spot	No fog of war
Medium Rare Please	Gives 10,000 food
Give me liberty or give me coin	Gives 10,000 coin
Nova & Orion	Gives 10,000 XP
A recent study indicated that 100% of herdables are obese	Fattens all animals on map
Speed always wins	Turns on 100x gather/build rates
Sooo Good	Turn on “Musketeer’ed!” when you get killed by Musketeers
Ya gotta make do with what ya got	Spawns the Mediocre Bombard at your Home City gather point
	Gives 10,000 wood
tuck tuck tuck	Gives you a big red monster truck that can run over anything.
this is too hard	Win in singleplayer

Go to My Documents\My Games\Age of Empires 3\Savegame open the sp_yourcityname_homecity.xml (make sure you back up this file) and find the line .The line should look something like this xx, where xx is the current number of card unlock ponts you have. Change xx to a high number such as 999, save the file, start Age of Empires 3 and go into a skirmish. Go to where you manage your decks and now you will have 999 unlock points to get more cards for your deck.

Open the sp_yourcityname_homecity.xml file located in \My Documents\My Games\Age of Empires 3\Savegame (dont forget to make a backup of this file) find this line .The line should look like this xx, where x is the number of skillpoints you currently have. Change the xx to a high number such as 999, save the file and start Age of Empires 3. Go into a skirmish game, go to manage your city and you will now have 999 unlock points to unlock various things for your city.

Open the sp_yourcityname_homecity.xml file in the My Documents\My Games\Age of Empires 3\Savegame (dont forget to make a back up first) folder, search for .
You will see something like this xx, put in 99 for the xx, save the file, go into the game and play a skirmish. Now you are level 99 !

This AOE3 cheat is great! It is still a secret? Ha ha. Get Unlimited Resources with this little secret.

Use a text editor to edit the "proto.xml" file in the "data" directory in the game folder. Note: You may first need to uncheck the "Read Only" attribute of that file's properties in Windows Explorer. Search for the text "CrateOf". You will find CrateofFood, CrateofCoin, CrateofWood, CrateofFoodLarge, CrafteofCoinLarge, and CrateofWoodLarge. For all these entries, find the tag "InitialResourceCount" and change the count to whatever desired. For example, the normal crates each have "100.000" of the resources. You can change the "100" to "99999.000", etc.

This patch Tweaked movement code to improve the responsiveness of units. Ensemble Studios released the first patch for Age of Empires 3, bringing their 3D real-time strategy sequel to v1.01. The update includes several bugfixes and gameplay changes (check full article for changelog). There's a demo too, so try it now, if you haven't played it yet.

[download Age of Empires 3 v1.01 Patch ]

Age of Empires III offers gamers the next level of realism, with advanced battle physics and unparalleled visual detail. The new game picks up where Age of Empires II: Age of Kings left off, placing gamers in the position of a European power determined to explore, colonize and conquer the New World.

Age of empires 3 system requirements are as follow;

-1.4ghz Processor
-256 RAM
-64 MB Video Card that supports HW T&L
-WinXP
-And for the demo, approximately 370MB of Hard Drive space.

The demo is 365.8 MB and can be downloaded here.


Publisher: MS Game Studios
Developer: Ensemble Studios
Genre: Historic Real-Time Strategy
Release Date: Oct 18, 2005 (more)
ESRB: TEEN
ESRB Descriptors: Blood, Violence

Game Information

Offline Modes: Competitive, Team Oriented
Online Modes: Competitive, Team Oriented
Number of Players: 1-8
Number of Online Players: 8 Online
Operating System: Windows XP

Minimum System Requirements

System: 1.4 GHz equivalent or higher processor or equivalent
RAM: 256 MB
Video Memory: 64 MB
Hard Drive Space: 2000 MB
Other: Sound card, speakers, or headphones required for audio; 56.6kbps or better modem for online play MB

Technical Support

Visit Microsoft Game Studios web site at: www.microsoft.com/games/

Age of Empires III "Demo FAQ/Walkthrough"
By Mykas0
Mykas0 [at] gmail.com
version 1.3
27-9-2005

BE SURE TO READ THIS FIRST PART! You can read this faq as long as you
don't change ANY part of it (including this small introduction). Also,
you can print it but only for use at your home, you may NEVER sell
this stuff or else you will make me really mad and maybe I won't work
anymore! Finally, if you want to use this faq on your site you have to
mail me and ask me for it, I will almost surely grant it to you! =)

0. Introduction
1. Main Features of this demo
2. Shortcut keys
3. Campaign Mode
4. Skirmish Mode
5. Bugs and glitches
6. Frequently Asked Questions
7. How can I surpass level 9 in the demo?
B_END. Special Thanks
END. Contacts

This FAQ is really great! Download it here!

FAQ/Walkthrough by exeuntsl
Scenario Editor Guide by andysss456
FAQ/Walkthrough by Mykas0
FAQ/Walkthrough by Yeasty

Ensemble Studios' Age of Empires III has gotten a great deal of attention recently. Much of that attention has focused on the way the team decided to make some radical changes to its tried-and-true gameplay. The most obvious new direction is a literal one -- crossing the Atlantic to focus on New World colonization and the Great Powers of the era who struggle with each other to claim the riches of this vast frontier. We've also gone into extensive detail regarding the game's innovative Home City system, the nations players can use and even profiled some of the game's military units.

Still, while all of those elements are important, Age of Empires III is, at heart, an RTS, which means that management of economic units is a key determiner of success or failure in colonizing the New World. According to Ensemble, one of the things the team wanted to do differently in Age of Empires III, was to make the eight civilizations more varied that in previous editions of the series. One of the major ways they did so was to vary the primary economic unit (the villager) among civilizations. Every civilization has some twist on how they manage villagers and two civilizations -- the Germans and Ottomans -- have a completely different villager unit. We're profiling these key economic units, along with a few others such as scouts and healers who don't pack much in firepower, but who can be just as important as any musketeer or Dragoon. [read full article]