Over the last year, Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition received an immense amount of new content geared towards creating even more ways to have fun with your friends, whether you want to play with them; or against them! Enter the Co-Op Historical Battles. These give you and a friend specific objectives to complete during a historically significant moment on a specially crafted map.
With all these amazing additions, we wanted to highlight some of the fantastic options you have to mix up your regular Age of Empires with something a little more unique and special, particularly this time of year when you and your friends or family may have a little bit more time to get together and relive your original Age of Empires III experience.
Co-Op Historical Battles
Recently, each of the single player Historical Battles were converted into a co-operative experience, each with their own unique setting and objectives for you and a friend to complete together. Many of these historical battles have branching paths and secrets to uncover, creating huge amount of replay-ability for you and a buddy! Below, you’ll find a few of our favorites!
Some Historical Battles will only be available to those who own the United States Civilization DLC, The African Royals DLC, Mexico Civilization DLC, or Knights of the Mediterranean DLC.
Mexico Civilization Only
Liberate the towns and cities of Mexico on your side of the river from Spanish rule. Then join forces to capture the river crossing and take the fight to the Spanish Forts!
Work with your friend and capture Fort Duquesne from the British. Then more importantly, hold it when the nearby armies attempt to reclaim it!
Knights of the Mediterranean Only
Knights of the Mediterranean added 7 new Historical Maps, each designed to put a different spin on the standard Skirmish gameplay Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition is known for, giving you unique objectives and situations on each map. As a new variation of Random Maps, they are randomly generated for endless replayability, with unique objectives for each map based on some of the most memorable conflicts on the European continent.
Here’s a look at 3 of them!
The Eighty Years’ War
Defend your fortress against multiple opponents and stretch your strategy to its limits on the Eighty Years War Historical Map! Prove your skills and defend your Command Post against a team of three opponents, who are battling not only you, but an in-game timer. Do whatever it takes to defend your Fortress, stall out your opponents with your incredible defenses or take the battle to them – whatever strategy keeps the Command Post standing. This is the ultimate wave defense experience.
The Italian Wars
Break up the regular Skirmish match with a strategic capture and hold objective on the Italian Wars Historical Map! Battle for control over four City States, and find a way to hold each of them against your opponents. Each City State provides you with their own unique upgrades, units and resources. Put your strategy to the ultimate test and see how many locations you can hold. The player who holds the most City States when the timer runs out is declared the victor.
The Russo-Turkish Wars
Embrace your inner tycoon, hunt for resource and profit on the fast-paced Russo-Turkish Wars Historical Map! Capture Fixed Guns and Factories spread across the map to aid you in the ultimate goal of achieving a Trade Monopoly against multiple opponents. With the extra trickle of resources, civilizations advance quickly and with multiple valuable targets on the map, the chaos begins almost immediately.
Tycoon Mode – Knights of the Mediterranean Only
Speaking of Tycoon, challenge your friends to the new Tycoon Mode in an economic-focused match and prove the not only are you the most dangerous leader on the battlefield, but the most adept at expanding your economy and city.
Tycoon is a new Game Mode to accompany Supremacy, Deathmatch and Empire Wars. Designed to focus on the economy-building side of Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition, this new Game Mode provides a setting where players concentrate on creating the strongest economies and cities for their empires, without having to bolstering armies or defend against full-scale sieges.
Where to Find Co-Op
Co-Op is easily accessible from two different places within the UI.
From the Historical Battles screen.
- From the Main Menu, click on Historical Battles.
- Select your mission.
- Click on the Host Co-Op button.
- You can choose to make it public or password protected, and like any multiplayer game, invite your friends.
From the Multiplayer screen.
- From the Main Menu, click on Multiplayer.
- Choose Host a Casual Game.
- From the Host Game dialog pop-up, under Game Mode, you can choose Co-Op Battle from drop down list.
- After selecting Co-Op Battle, simply choose which battle you want to play from the Co-Op Scenario drop down list.
We hope we’ve given you a few exciting ideas to create a lobby and enjoy all the new additions to Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition with your friends and family over this holiday period.