โ | Your team occupies one mountain range and your opponents the other. The victors will be the ones that can control the central valley and the choke points. Forests and Treasures are more heavily concentrated in the center of the map. The Cheyenne and Comanche have ventured up into the mountains, and may prove to be useful allies. | โ |
—In-game description |
Rockies is a map in Age of Empires III.
Overview[]
Rockies is an enclosed map; players start in the mountain range, which does not cover the northwest side of the map. The mountain range has small clusters of trees, Bighorn Sheep and either two Lakota or Comanche villages (in The WarChiefs, the Cheyenne replace the Lakota).
The middle of the map contains a large, lush green valley containing many Treasures, large clusters of trees, mines, and herds of Pronghorns.
Two Trade Routes, with two sites each, cut through this valley.
History[]
โ | The Rockies stretch 3,000 miles from Alaska and Canada to the southern border of the western United States. The tallest peak is Mount Elbert in Colorado, at 14,433 feet. Mountain goats, elk, grizzlies, coyotes, and porcupines are just a few of the animals that live in the Rocky Mountains. Trees vary widely across the entire range and include junipers, oaks, willows, firs, spruces, and pines. Early European explorers to the area included Coronado in his search for the Seven Cities of Gold and Lewis and Clark with their Corps of Discovery. Settlers crossed the forbidding range at a number of places. The South Pass in southwestern Wyoming was used by many settlers headed to California, Oregon, and Utah following the Oregon and Mormon trails. Kicking Horse in Canada has a number of passes. The Santa Fe Trail uses a pass on the southern trailing edge of the Rockies that became a very popular western route during the gold rush of the mid-nineteenth century. | โ |