Age of Empires III is mostly set in the New World during the colonial era, between circa 1492 and 1850.In the style of previous games of the series, the game requires the player to develop a European, Asian , North American or south America nation's colony from a basic settlement to an empire, progressing through "Ages"—stages of technological development—and destroying the enemy's colony. There are two main branches to gameplay: the economy, characterized by the collection of resources, and production of civilian units—which usually gather resources; and the military which involves the production of military units, and the conflicts between armies of rival teams or factions A match consists of a conflict between two teams or free for all that race to develop a powerful settlement by creating and upgrading units and buildings, with one eventually defeating the other through combat or resignation; the game ends when there is only one player or team left standing on the map. Along with these typical real-time strategy features, a new addition is the ability of the player to ship troops, buildings, resources and improvements—such as military or economic bonuses—to aid them.
