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Age of Empires is one of my favorite types of games: third-person perspective real-time strategy in a quasi-historical setting. The game was produced by Big Huge Games, Ensemble Studios and MGS. The Asian Dynasties game is an expansion of the original Age of Empires III and will not play without the original game.

Bruce C. Shelley of Ensemble Games and Brian Reynolds of Big Huge Games, former employees of Microprose and Firaxis Games, designed Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties. The experience of working on Civilization and Colonization, and later on Firaxis titles working closely with Sid Meier has helped shape the game design talents of these two men. Shelley also worked with "Wild Bill" Stealey early in his career with Microprose, working on titles like F-19 Stealth Fighter.

Big Huge Games employees, specifically Reynolds, asked Ensemble if they could participate in the production of a future expansion or release of the game. Ensemble was busy with another game at the time, so they made the agreement with Big Huge Games. Ensemble employees Greg Street and Sandy Peterson did much of the design work on Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties while working closely with Big Huge Games.

The 15-mission scenario is played out in three different Asian Dynasties of India, China and Japan. Each Asian civilization is given five different battles, which are driven by 10 scripted and voice-acted animated cut scene sequences. Unfortunately, the player campaigns are deceptively brief when compared to the original game's single-player campaign, which had 24 missions or battles to support it.

The reduction of single content by more than one-third causes the game to be less robust in the single-player arena. Single-player skirmish mode is continued in the title. The supremacy and deathmatch modes from earlier games are retained in the expansion. The multiplayer game is increased in content with multiplayer skirmish, king of the hill, regicide (where you win by killing the king), and a 10-, 20-, 30- or 40-minute treaty with and without blockade multiplayer modes.

The single-player scenario plot is not an expansion on the Black family history, which was introduced with Age of Empires III. In Age of Empires III, Morgan Black, a knight of Saint John, finds himself on an epic journey to save the Fountain of Youth from the evil minions of the Circle of Ossus. This plot is continued later in The War Chiefs Expansion, which has three acts and 15 missions.

The three campaigns have nothing to do with the original plot. I was very disappointed to find that the new plot had nothing to do with the earlier epic bridge plotline. Unfortunately, the Black family does not venture to India, China or Japan.

The five Japanese missions and 10 animated cut scenes center around the unification of Japan, which revisits part of the plot seen in Age of Empires II: The Conquerors. The Tokugowa Shogunate Gen. Sakuma Kichiro leads some of the forces of Tokugowa Ieyasu. Even though the young general finds that the shogun murdered his parents, he continues to serve him as his adopted son. The plot is faintly reminiscent of the James Clavell novel and made-for-TV miniseries "Shogun," starring Richard Chamberlain. Perhaps that was why I found the plot predictable but still entertainingly nostalgic.

The Chinese five-mission campaign is about a Chinese treasure ship discovering the New World in 1491, just before Christopher Columbus. There is good evidence that the Vikings came to the New World centuries before Columbus, but the plotline is still interesting, even though the Black family is not involved. Capt. Jian Huang, a Ming captain, and his friend sailor Lao Chen are ordered by a renegade of the royal family named Adm. Wang Jinhai. Jinhai plots the takeover of China, and in lieu of that road to emperor, he desires to be the emperor of the Americas. In the true tradition of the "Star Trek" noninterference directive, Jian hopes that no one will ever suspect he was ever in North America and does his best to clean up the Ming dynasty contamination of the unspoiled primitive civilizations living there.

In the Indian campaign, the Sepoy or Indian Rebellion of 1857 is the back drop to the five missions and 10 cut scenes. The Sepoy rebellion started just 100 years after the British East India Company won the Battle of Plassey in 1757 and started the British rule in India. The expansion into India continued until the 1854 annexation of Berar and the 1856 annexation of Oudh.

We get to play Lt. Nanib Sahir, who may have been based upon Nana Sahib born in 1824 and a major Indian leader in the rebellion of 1857. The real Nana Sahib and the fictional Nanib have similar but not identical stories. Nanib initially is a lieutenant in the BEIC native Indian army who eventually sees the British occupation as a rape and disregard of the native Indian populations.

The eventual conversion of Nanib to a revolutionary occurs surrounding the contamination of Enfield cartridges with pork fat. In order to use the cartridges, the soldiers had to bite off the end of the cartridge. The native Sepoy's Hindu and Moslem religions forbade the consumption of pigs and cattle and were offended by the BEIC requirement to bite off the end of the cartridge. Nanib joins the revolution, kills his commander Col. George Edwardson and gets the BEIC out of India.

I enjoyed all three plots, but I was disappointed that the three single-player scenarios had so few missions to play. Unfortunately, both expansions, The War Chiefs and The Asian Dynasties, had only 15 missions to play.

Six new civilizations were introduced in this expansion: Sufis, Shaolin, Zen, Udasi, Bhakti and Jesuits. There are four essential building blocks of men and structures, gold (coin), wood, food and export. The building blocks are gathered by the peasants. I enjoy the building of a more powerful civilization more than any other aspect of the game. The advancement of technology or the tech trees and the advancement of the powers of the men I command are the most interesting part. This advancement gives the real-time strategy game a role-playing adventure game aspect to the gameplay.

Wonders must be built by each civilization to advance to the next age. The peasants build the wonders. Previously, upgrading the town center to the new age was sufficient to advance to the next age.

There are 15 new wonders, five for each of the new civilizations of Japan, China and India. Experience gained in conquering the enemy and exploring territory. Export, the fourth resource, is gained from the peasants gathering resources.

I especially enjoyed the consulates, which allowed you to align with one of four foreign empires at a time. These empires could be used to sell specific types of units and structures to help with your battles and expansion.

Animations and graphics are better than previous games. The music and voice acting was done well. Sound effects do the job. I enjoyed the voice acting and feel that sometimes predictable and bad voice acting adds a comic nature to the game. Without a sense of humor, I find video games and computer games rather dull.

Though I might have enjoyed a longer single player element and miss the Black dynasty, I really can't find too much fault with Asian Dynasties. By continuing the story from AOE II the continuity flows, there are plenty of new civilizations and wonders and the multiplayer is robust. If you enjoy this series then this is a great addition.