Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties

The expansion adds three new campaigns, one for each new civilization, returning to the historical, civilization-based format and breaking from the series' earlier focus on the fictional Black family. Each runs five scenarios. The Japanese campaign covers the unification of Japan and the rise of the Tokugawa Shogunate, which the player controls, through the eyes of a young general named Sakuma Kichiro — rescued as a baby from his conquered village by Tokugawa Ieyasu and raised as his adopted son. Kichiro and Daimyō Torii Mototada storm Osaka Castle, crush forces loyal to Uesugi Kagekatsu, and secure the Tokaido Road, but along the way a defeated Oda samurai reveals that Tokugawa destroyed Kichiro's village and executed his parents. Shaken, Kichiro confronts Mototada, who confirms the truth yet urges him to honor the samurai code and Tokugawa's faith in him. Kichiro stays loyal, fighting at Fushimi — where Mototada commits seppuku as the castle falls — and then joins Tokugawa's victory at Sekigahara, telling his lord only that he gained "the truth." The Chinese campaign loosely follows the 1421 hypothesis, in which a Chinese treasure fleet reaches the New World before Columbus. Ming captain Jian Huang and his crude, powerful friend Lao Chen sail westward under the spoiled Admiral Jinhai, surviving Wokou pirates, hostile forces in India, and a storm that casts them ashore in the Yucatán. There they battle Aztec soldiers and discover that the vanished Jinhai has set himself up as an emperor — or god — among the Aztecs, and was the one who plotted against them in India all along. Huang and Chen defeat and kill Jinhai, then scrub the beaches of all trace of their presence and sail home, hoping no one ever learns they were there. The Indian campaign dramatizes the Indian Rebellion of 1857 through Subedar Nanib Sahir, a sepoy of the British East India Company who grows disillusioned with its cruelty. After witnessing his superior, Colonel George Edwardson, massacre arsonists who had agreed to surrender, and after being ordered to use Enfield Rifle cartridges greased with beef and pork fat — taboo to Hindu and Muslim soldiers — Nanib turns against the Company, firing a near miss at Edwardson. He and fellow sepoy Pravar Patel lead a revolt, rally citizens and soldiers, rescue Bahadur Shah II from British captivity, and finally assault Edwardson's fort, mortally wounding the Colonel. As Edwardson dies cursing the Indians and boasting of the Company's might, Nanib answers that no military force can kill a people's passion for their country, then leaves with Pravar to prepare for a long and costly war.