On top of tactical considerations, there's a more strategic game as well. The player chooses not only the governors for his colony, but has to deal with the home city as well. Being a colony, it's expected to get help from the motherland and shipments do arrive. These are based off how well the player is doing. There's a fixed counter that slowly adds to the shipment timer, but this can be improved by beating up enemy armies for experience, or building your own. Each new unit or unit killed is worth a certain amount of points; Lancers, for example, are worth 20. Points are added to the shipment counter and when it fills, the shipment icon is pressed, the home city menu pops up and the player chooses. Certain shipments, typically those that concern military units or bonuses, are a one-time-per-map deal. Others, like resources, can be used infinitely. Experience points aren't limited to speeding up the shipment timer, they are also used to buy upgrades at the home city. Upgrades mean getting more or better units per shipment.

Home City upgrades were quite welcome and in fact the entire idea is an impressive addition to the singleplayer campaign. Past Ensemble games didn't quite stimulate the senses very well, with the first two Ages of Empires titles being rather bland, and Age of Mythology dragging on somewhat in some tedious scenario design. This was made all the more evident with the general repetitiveness of the RTS formula and lack of variation in it. From what we've seen so far, Age of Empires III spices the scenarios up and cuts them down to more manageable bites.