GS: Tell us about the tech that's being used for the game's artificial intelligence in battle. Is the plan to realistically model the marching formations and tactics of soldiers of the day? Or morale in battle? Will soldiers be predisposed to act as they did in specific historical battles? How in-depth will the AI get?

DP: That's an interesting question. It's unlikely we'll get down to modeling morale; we like units that do what we tell them to do too much for that. But, we have spent a great deal of time on research and development for some very cool combat innovations. The combat system in Age III is all new. One of the big changes is that it's very group-based. People expect this time period to deliver musketeers standing in volley formation, cavalry charging into combat as a big group, and infantry forming their collective lines to defend the precious cannons as they shell the unlucky enemies. We set out to build a group combat system that gives players more-interesting tactical control than previous real-time strategy games. We wanted to fix the, "Hey, I'll screw up pathing by just micromanaging my units all around the combat"-type of thing. We did that pretty quickly, actually. The hard part has been taking that and making it feel like an Age game in terms of user control and flexibility. I think we've finally rounded that corner just recently. It's very, very cool to play right now.