Age of Empires III

With a rare free Sunday, the boys and I took the dive into boardgaming again and played Age of Empires III. KC and I did a joint order at Funagain recently and I finally met up with him for lunch on Friday to pick up my games. This was one of them, along with Caylus Magna Carta and To Court the King.

This game ranks pretty low on the complexity scale (compared to other big box games) and pretty high on the fun scale, though it did feel quite a bit like Caylus, Pillars of the Earth, and other games in this genre. The boys are inexperienced enough that they just enjoyed the game. We played this learning game in just over 2 hours, and I won by a healthy margin. The boys will learn to pay more attention to the scoring rounds and getting colonists on the board next time!

Now it will be interesting to try Caylus Magna Carta to see if one scratches the itch better than the other. I love Caylus but it plays too long for most sessions. AoE seems to fit in the 2 hour category just fine, and Magna Carta should as well.