So what’s new? Let me start with the major stuff. First off, since most of the events in the game take place far away from your home country, you get what’s called a home city. The home city is basically a repository for playing cards. Part of the game now involves building up a “deck” of cards for your city, and then playing the cards during scenarios and multiplayer games. Cards can do things like give you free troops or crates of supplies, and they can even give bonuses to your units. Each home city can only contain at most 20 cards, and there are requirements for each card, so you can’t just pick the best of the best. You have to pick cards that lead up to good cards.

Speaking of resources, they’re a little different now. Obviously, stone doesn’t play much of a role in the time period covered by the game, and so it has been removed. Meanwhile, gold is gone, too, but only sort of, since it’s been replaced by coin. Gathering resources works basically the same as before, as you have to direct settlers to resource sites, but there are some new wrinkles as well. Settlers no longer have to carry resources at a depot; just having them at a resource site will earn you a stream of that resource. Also, farms, which have changed a little in each Age game, are now completely gone. Instead, you can build mills and then assign up to ten settlers to farm at the mill. There are also plantations, where you can assign settlers to earn you gold, but there isn’t a fixed site for wood. You’ll still have to send your settlers out into the wild to get that.