IGN has some non-scanned screenshots of Age of Empires 3. I can’t post them here because they’ve got the IGN logo on them, but click through to their site because they are INCREDIBLE. The water and textures look as good as Total annihilation did when it came out.

There’s also a Q&A session on the ign site. The first 2 AoE games spanned a to medieval timeline, this installment focuses solely on the expansionist Colonial times. Engine improvements include pixel shaders, a total revamped economic model (which scares me a bit because they’re one of the games that got it right the first time), and ragdoll physics.. yes ragdoll. Cannons will blow soldiers into the air and smack them against rocks and trees.

“Age of Empires III has more programmers working just on graphics than worked on all of Age of Kings. While gameplay still reigns supreme, it would be accurate to say that the bulk of our programming time has been spent on graphics. Everything from low-level shader architecture to higher level, applied things such as unit movement and combat have been taken to the next level. Simply put, we set out to create the best looking PC game of all time with Age of Empires III.”

Mmm. And thankfully there will be a random map generator again.

-DDB