Game: Age of Empires III: Gold Edition 

Condition: Pre-Owned 

Included: 4 Game Discs, 2 Product Keys, 1 Manual (War Chiefs) & Case 

License: 2 Product License Keys Included 

Year: 2005 

Age of Empires III is a real-time strategy video game developed by Microsoft Corporation's Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The Mac version was ported over and developed and published by Destineer's MacSoft. The PC version was released on October 18, 2005 in North America and November 4, 2005 in Europe, while the Mac version was released on November 21, 2006 in North America and September 29, 2006 in Europe. An N-Gage version of the game developed by Glu Mobile was released on April 28, 2009. It is the third game of the Age of Empires series and the sequel to Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings. Its successor, Age of Empires IV is under development, as is a remaster titled Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition, set to release in 2020.

The game portrays the European colonization of the Americas, between approximately 1492 and 1876 AD. There are fourteen civilizations to play within the game. Age of Empires III has made several innovations in the series, in particular with the addition of the "Home City", which combines real-time strategy and role-playing features. Two expansion packs have been released: the first, Age of Empires III: The WarChiefs, was released on October 17, 2006, and introduced three Native American civilizations; the second, Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties, was released on October 23, 2007, and included three Asian civilizations.

Age of Empires III has sold over 2 million copies as of May 2008. As well as receiving favorable reviews, it has garnered awards, including GameSpy's "Best RTS game of 2005", and was one of the best-selling games of 2005. In 2007, Age of Empires III was the seventh best-selling computer game, with over 313,000 copies sold that year.

Gameplay

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Players begin with a constructed town center or a wagon that will build into such, an armed explorer, and a modest number of villagers. Players explore the map and begin gathering resources used to build additional units and buildings and to research upgrades or technologies. Actions such as training units, constructing buildings, killing enemy units etc., earn the player experience points. At certain experience point thresholds, players earn shipments that may be turned in for cards from the player's Home City, which can include units, upgrades, or resources. The game progresses similar to most real-time strategy games until one side resigns.

A player-designed Imperial Age town, sitting safely behind several defensive walls (see miniature map, lower left corner). Includes a factory (center).

In Age of Empires III, the player advances through technological "Ages", representing historical time periods; these provide access to greater improvements, units, and buildings. They include the Discovery Age, which represents the discovery and exploration of the Americas by Europeans and allows the player to explore and develop their economy; the Colonial Age, which represents the European Expansion into the "New World" and unlocks early military units; the Fortress Age, which represents the fortification of the European colonies, unlocks forts, and allows the player to have a more complete military; the Industrial Age, which triggers a strong economy, due in part to factories—advanced buildings that automatically produce resources or artillery—and unlocks all units and shipments; and the Imperial Age, which unlocks all buildings and upgrades, and allows you to send unit and resource shipments a second time. All Ages cost food and coin to advance to, except the Colonial Age, which only costs food (800). The price of age advancement is incremental, but does not vary between civilizations.

Similar to the "minor gods" system in Age of Mythology, Age of Empires III uses a "Politician System" to grant bonuses on a successful advancement to another age. When the player chooses to advance to the next age, who is given the choice of two or more "Politicians" that provide them with a different bonus on choosing them. The Politician is given a generalized title from the period that usually reflects the bonus that it gives: for example, "The Naturalist" gives the player four cows, while "The General" gives twelve musketeers and one piece of heavy artillery. As the player's Home City increases in level, more Politicians are unlocked—at a rate of one for every ten Home City levels—up to level 60.

Civilizations

Age of Empires III allows the player to play as eight different civilizations: Spanish, British, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, German, and Ottomans. Each of the eight civilizations has its own strengths and weaknesses and unique units available only to that civilization. Specific units for each civilization are designated Royal Guard units, receiving greater bonuses on the Guard upgrade in the Industrial Age, but at an increased price. The player can change the name of their Home City, the Explorer name, and is given a pre-named leader from part of the period (for example, Napoleon Bonaparte for the French Colonial Empire, Suleiman the Magnificent for Ottoman Empire, and Ivan the Terrible for the Russian Empire). Each civilization has unique shipments to aid its cultural, economy and military (for example, the Ottomans are able to order a shipment of gold for both them and their teammates).

There are other civilizations playable via the campaign, which include The Knights of St. John, John Black's Mercenaries, and the United States of America, which are played as the Spanish, German and British civilizations, respectively, with slight modifications. Non-playable campaign civilizations include the Pirates, Circle of Ossus and Native Americans, although these civilizations are playable using the Scenario Editor.

Twelve different tribes of Native Americans are in the game as well, but these are not in themselves playable factions. However, players can gain access to unique units and improvements by forming an alliance with the tribes by building a trading post at their camps. The native tribes featured are the Aztec, Carib, Cherokee, Comanche, Cree, Inca, Iroquois, Lakota, Maya, Nootka, Seminole, and Tupi. Three of these tribes were made playable in the expansion pack Age of Empires III: The WarChiefs: the Iroquois, Lakota (under the name Sioux) and Aztecs. These civilizations were removed as the smaller, alliance based tribes and were replaced by the Huron, Cheyenne, and Zapotec, respectively. In The Asian Dynasties another three civilizations were added, along with several new native tribes. The civilizations are the Indian, the Japanese, and the Chinese.

Home Cities

Age of Empires III is the first game in the series to introduce the "Home City" concept. The Home City functions as a second city, a powerhouse that is separated from the active game. It cannot be attacked or destroyed, although an Imperial Age upgrade called "Blockade" stops the player's opponents from receiving Home City shipments. Similar to a role-playing game character, the Home City is persistent between games, meaning that upgrades gained through separate games can be applied and stay applied for as long as that particular city exists. Multiple Home Cities can be created and maintained, although each supports only one civilization.

The Home City is composed of five main buildings from which the player chooses their new shipment cards and customizations: The New World Trading Company, the Military Academy, the Cathedral, the Manufacturing Plant and the Harbor. Players can also access the Home City during a match by clicking on the "Home City" button represented on the HUD as the nation's flag. The Home City functions differently inside a game. Instead of customizing a Home City or choosing cards, a player can ship cards chosen before the game (and added to a deck).

During the course of a game, players gain XP (experience) by completing actions such as constructing buildings, training units, killing enemies and collecting treasures. Whenever a certain amount of experience points are gained, the player can make use of a shipment from their respective Home City. Shipments slow as the game goes on, since more XP is required with every consecutive shipment. This XP is also added directly to the home city and is collected over multiple games, allowing it to level up over time. Players can gear their cards into three different combinations: "Boom" (economic combinations), "Rush" (military combinations), or "Turtle" (defensive combinations). The first few cards chosen are automatically added to the player's portfolio, where it can be copied onto a deck for use in a game. Later in the game, cards have to be manually chosen because of the limit of cards in one deck. Most cards are available to all civilizations, but some are unique to one. If the Home City being played has more than one deck, the player must select which to use when the first shipment is sent. During a game, players keep this initial deck; this feature encourages players to build decks that are customized for the map being played on, or that counter other civilizations. The decks support twenty cards. As the Home City improves by level, you may gain an extra card slot for the decks for every 10 levels.

Units

The units of Age of Empires III are based, as in previous iterations of the game, around military classes of the historic time period. The player controls a variety of civilian and military units, and uses them to expand and develop their civilization, as well as wage war against opponents. The base unit of a game is the settler, responsible for gathering resources and constructing buildings, in order to improve the economy of the civilization. The number of units a player can control in a scenario is limited by a "population limit", a common real-time strategy game mechanic. Houses and town centers raise the starting limit, to a maximum of 200, while each unit that is produced increases the population count. Basic units such as settlers and infantry count as 1, but others, including most cavalry and mercenary infantry count as 2. More powerful units, especially artillery or mercenary cavalry, can count for a population as high as 7. Native warriors, explorers, tamed and grazing animals, hot air balloons and warships do not count towards the population limit, but generally have a build limit, allowing the player to deploy only a certain number of those specific units at a time.

A small troop of cavalry, infantry, and cannon departing, headed out to battle.

Military units are used for combat against other players. Infantry are the cheapest unit type and all are land based, using weapons ranging from crossbows to early muskets to more advanced rifles. The heavier artillery classes also make use of ranged weapons, primarily cannon and mortars; however, there is also artillery armed with grenades. Mounted troops are also present, and are armed with either hand weapons, such as swords, or ranged weapons, such as pistols. These units also have significant features, such as skirmishers which do bonus damage against infantry, and ranged cavalry does bonus damage against other cavalry. A new unit introduced in Age of Empires III is the explorer, which is chiefly responsible for scouting and gathering treasure but is also capable of building Trading Posts and has a special attack, used at the player's command. This unit cannot be killed, but can be rendered unconscious, to be revived when friendly units are in range; also, a ransom can be paid to have it reappear at the player's town center. This ransom is credited to the player that disabled him, when applicable. Some shipment cards increase the explorer's effectiveness in gameplay; for example, providing it with "war dogs" can aid scouting and combat. In Age of Empires III, ships are available on most maps. Military ships makes use of cannon or flaming arrows, while some ships can collect resources or transport land units.

Mercenaries may aid the player in their campaigns in the New World. Mercenaries are not trained like standard units; instead they can be shipped from the Home City or hired from saloons for much coin, so that only economically powerful players can employ them. Most are powerful, but hiring them does not provide experience points, so mercenaries cannot effectively replace the player's standard army, and can negatively affect a player's economy if used excessively. Incidentally, along with hero/explorer units, Mercenaries were vulnerable to assassin units such as spies, agents and ninjas. In most cases, a selection of Native American tribes populate game maps, and support their own brand of military units that can be trained once an alliance has been formed. Some Native American military units use mêlée weapons, a few use indigenous ranged weapons, such as bows and arrows or atl-atls, while still others adopt ranged European gunpowder weapons. These units usually pertain to the infantry or cavalry classes, but, on maps with water, canoes are also available to the player through the dock.

Buildings

Buildings play a big role in gameplay, as they are used for training civilian and military units, researching improvements, supporting population, providing structural defense or as resource providers. The buildings portrayed in Age of Empires III resemble the architectural design of that era. All of the games in the series share several buildings, including the Town Center and Docks. The appearance and attributes of a building change as the player advances through the Ages, and some civilizations have their own unique buildings. The appearance of these buildings depends on the civilization. Some buildings can only be built at certain times like the defensive towers.

There are certain architectural styles present in the game; architectural styles determine the appearance of in-game buildings. Each civilization is automatically assigned its architectural style. These three architectural styles are the Western European, which consists of classical styled wooden buildings and is shared by the British, French and Dutch; the Eastern European, which consists of wooden and straw structures and is shared by the Germans and Russians, and the Mediterranean, which consists of buildings made of stucco cement and dry brick, which is shared by the Spanish, Portuguese and Ottomans.

Plot

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The story-based campaign mode consists of related scenarios with preset objectives, such as destroying a given building. In Age of Empires III, the campaign follows the fictional Black family in a series of three "Acts", which divide the story arc into three generations. All three acts are narrated by Amelia Black (Tasia Valenza).

Instead of playing as one of the standard civilizations, the player takes command of a special civilization that is linked to the character or period that each Act portrays. Most units of the player civilizations speak in English language, with the exception of unique units such as Spanish Rodeleros, Spanish Lancers, German Ulhans and German War Wagons.

Act I: Blood

During Act I, the player assumes command of the Knights of St. John, which resembles the Spanish civilization.

In the late 16th century, Morgan Black—a Scottish-born mid-level commander of the Knights of Saint John—is defending their last stronghold on Malta from the forces of Sahin "The Falcon" of the Ottoman Empire (in a telling of the Great Siege of Malta). When the Ottomans send in their great bombards, Morgan then lights a signal fire to call in supporting cavalry led by his superior, Alain Magnan, who drive the Turks back and capture a bombard.

Morgan and Alain drive the Ottomans from Malta and detonate Ottoman weapon caches in the nearby caves. Inside, they discover that the Ottomans were actually interested in a hidden stone library telling the story of the Lake of the Moon; the Fountain of Youth, a fabled Native American relic whose water is rumored to grant eternal life; and a secret society called the Circle of Ossus, who seek the Fountain for their own gain. Alain orders Morgan to sail to the New World to search for the Lake, but Morgan is attacked by the pirate Elisabet "Lizzie" Ramsey and is forced to land in the Caribbean islands. After re-engaging and defeating Lizzie, Morgan's men find some navigation charts which guide them safely to New Spain.

In Yucatan, Morgan's forces destroy an Ottoman base. However, Spanish conquistador Francisco Juan Delgado de Leon captures Sahin and some other Ottoman soldiers. Morgan then defends his new Aztec allies from the Spanish. Afterwards, he realizes that Delgado was looking for the map to the Lake of the Moon disguised as the mosaic in the Aztecs' town square, which shows the Lake of the Moon being in Florida.

Morgan sets sail for Florida, but his fleet is damaged by a hurricane, forcing him to dock in Havana, Cuba. There, he earns Lizzie's respect and promises her the gold from the Spanish treasure fleet if she takes him to Florida.

In Florida, Alain orders Morgan and Lizzie to capture the Spanish treasure ships while he claims the Lake. Together, Morgan and Lizzie capture the fleet, killing Delgado in the process, and capture Sahin. Sahin tells Morgan that the Circle believes the Lake is home to the Fountain of Youth and that he only wanted to keep the Circle from claiming it.

Alain returns from the Lake and orders Morgan to execute his native allies and Sahin as heathens, but Sahin and Lizzie convince Morgan that Alain is actually the leader of the Circle of Ossus. At the Lake of the Moon, the group captures an enormous stationary cannon called a "Fixed Gun" from one of the Circle's bases. Using the Fixed Gun, Lizzie's fleet of fire ships and Morgan's ground forces hold off the Circle's elite Boneguard soldiers, then destroy the Fountain. Alain personally leads a Boneguard force in a counterattack but is killed during the fighting.

After the battle, Sahin returns to Turkey, and Lizzie, with her Spanish gold sunk to the bottom of the Lake, leaves for the Caribbean, although it is hinted that she and Morgan will eventually reunite. Morgan silently wonders whether the fountain really was the Fountain of Youth, then refills his empty canteen with water from the lake.

Act II: Ice

During Act II, the player plays as John Black's Mercenaries, which is modeled after the German civilization with some elements of the French civilization.

In the mid-eighteenth century, Morgan's grandson, John Black, and his Mohawk friend Kanyenke are on their way through the Carolinas to Brunswick with their band of mercenaries after the colony's governor and John's uncle, Stuart Black, summons them. After defending the colony against Cherokee raiders, John and Kanyenke attack the Cherokee war camps, forcing the Cherokee to arrange a truce. While John, Kanyenke, and most of the colony's garrison are away at the following negotiations, both they and Brunswick are attacked by a British army led by General Warwick, who captures the town. Warwick captures Stuart and begins questioning him about the location of the Lake of the Moon.

John and Kanyenke return and drive Warwick's forces from Brunswick, but Warwick and Stuart are gone. John concludes that the Circle of Ossus has returned. Kanyenke believes that his sister, Nonahkee, could be in danger, and the pair leaves for New England. They find Warwick attacking Nonahkee's village, hoping to extract John's location from her. After the ensuing battle, John Black and Nonahkee fall in love.

John and Kanyenke take their mercenaries to fight Warwick's fleeing army, and ally with the French in the Seven Years' War against Warwick. When Colonel George Washington tells them that Warwick is a renegade and has been hunted by the British as well, John agrees to track him down for the British. John's mercenaries and Washington's forces destroy Warwick's base in the Great Lakes region. In the ruins of Warwick's base, John finds Stuart's decapitated body. John then continues to pursue Warwick, who has again escaped and fled to the Rocky Mountains.

John and Kanyenke intercept Warwick's supply train and destroy a fortified Circle base in the mountains. They soon discover that Warwick and his soldiers have fled even farther west to Colorado, where they have allied with the Russians. They discover that the Circle plans to capture British and French colonies and towns while their soldiers are at war with one another, and that Warwick wants the Circle of Ossus to take over the world.

While John pursues Warwick, Kanyenke and some miners bring down large rock bridges to stop the Russians' large cannons from getting through. He and the mercenaries return east as John plants explosives to cause an avalanche and bury the Russians. Warwick ambushes John, but he successfully detonates the explosives, killing himself and Warwick. The resulting avalanche buries the Russians and the Circle's troops, ending their current plans. In the spring, Kanyenke returns to his village and learns that his sister has given birth to John's son Nathaniel, whom he begins to help raise.

Act III: Steel

During Act III, the player plays as the U.S. civilization (only available in the campaign), which resembles the British civilization.

In 1817 (five years after Nathaniel's death in 1812), the narrative shifts to Amelia Black, the granddaughter of John Black and Nathaniel's daughter, and heiress owner of The Falcon Company, a railroad company. Her sights are set on expanding new railroad operations in the United States after the compensation given by the British and Americans for John Black's sacrifice was exhausted by Nathaniel.

After defeating a rival railroad company and laying track to supply the US Cavalry near the Mexican border, Amelia meets French prospector Pierre Beaumont, who helps her and US Cavalry commander Major Ryan Cooper defeat a Mexican army attacking a fort. Beaumont leads Amelia to a mine in Colorado, where she meets an aged Kanyenke, who has brought Cooper and the cavalry with him. Kanyenke reveals Beaumont as the leader of Circle of Ossus. Amelia, Kanyenke, and Cooper chase Beaumont through the mines, where they find a map to the Lake of the Moon.

The three travel to Florida, where they find that the Lake is now a swamp, and destroy a Circle base. Cooper is later killed by one of Beaumont's wolves. Amelia, now wanting to avenge Cooper, learns from the local Seminoles that there is an Inca city in Pacamayo Valley where several barrels of the Fountain's water have been stored.

Amelia and Kanyenke sail to South America, where they help Simón Bolívar defeat the Spanish. Bolívar offers them guides, and, with the Circle's army close behind them, they make a dangerous passage through the Andes. After the passage, they discover the Inca city in Pacamayo Valley. After helping to defend the city from the Circle, Amelia finds that Beaumont has once again escaped, this time with the barrels of the Fountain's water.

Amelia and Kanyenke next fight the Circle at their last stronghold in Cuba. With help from the Spanish colony of Havana, they destroy the Ossuary. Near the battle's end, Beaumont ambushes Amelia and Kanyenke while they are passing under an archway, but is shot and killed by Amelia. Amelia uses the Circle's stored treasure to revive the Falcon Company and builds railroads to the future west coast of the United States. Back in the US, an elderly man congratulates Amelia and surprises her by stating that she broke the Circle in one lifetime, hinting that he is Morgan Black and that he greatly extended his life using water from the Fountain of Youth.

Age of Empires III: The WarChiefs is the first expansion pack for the real-time strategy game Age of Empires III. It was released on October 17, 2006 in the United States. The expansion pack was bundled with the full game of Age of Empires III, called Age of Empires III Gold Edition on October 23, 2007. The Mac version was ported over, developed and published by Destineer's MacSoft. The full game for Mac was released on June 12, 2007 in the United States. It was followed by a second expansion pack to the original game called Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties.

Gameplay changes

There are no major changes to the mechanics to Age of Empires III - players are still expected to gather resources, build armies and send them to attack opponents. Instead, there are a number of new concepts introduced, whilst existing concepts have been expanded.

While the Aztecs have a home city, the Iroquois and Sioux have five members of the Tribal Council: the Chief, the War Leader, the Shaman, the Wise Woman, and the Messenger. They all offer different units, supports, and improvements. The tribal council is present in the game when a native civilization advances in age (replacing the politician system of the European civilizations); the player can select to promote a candidate to the Tribal Council and this confers a bonus on the player. The candidates offer higher bonuses at later ages. Typically the type of bonus remains the same (extra units, bonus resources) and new candidates become available at higher home city levels.

Other additions to the game include new minor native tribes: the expansion increases the original game's 12 tribes to 16. The Huron replaced the Iroquois, the Cheyenne replaced the Lakota (Sioux) and the Zapotec replaced the Aztec. Other new tribes include the Klamath, the Apache, the Navajo and the Mapuche.

A Fire Pit is available to all Native civilizations. By tasking villagers dance at the Pit, a range of up to ten dances per civilization are available. The dances can be learned through Home City shipments are The Town Dance which improves building HP and attack, and the Water Dance which improves naval combat.

The Iroquois have the unique Founder Dance, which spawns new Travois, and the Earth Mother Dance, which increases maximum population. The Sioux have the Fire Dance, which increases unit damage to buildings and ships to mitigate their lack of siege weapons, and the War Song Dance, which produces free Dog Soldier cavalry. The Aztecs have the Healing Dance (all idle units automatically regenerate health) to compensate for the limit on Warrior Priests, and the Garland War Dance to spawn the free Skull Knights.

Additionally, each Native Civilization has its share of unique technologies. There is one unique technology per building except for the Sioux teepee, and the technologies' effects range from delivering shipments of resources or units to upgrading unit capabilities.

Revolutions

A sample revolution screen where the player (German civilization) decides whether to pick Simón Bolívar (Peru) or José de San Martín (Argentina), and their respective bonuses.

European colonies have a new option open to them in the Industrial age; instead of advancing to the Imperial age, they can revolt from the home nation and found their own country. The initial cost of revolting is cheaper than advancing to the Imperial age, but the nation's economy will stagnate because all settlers will turn into militia and no new ones can be built (except Coureur des Bois from a Cree Village). Resources can continue to be delivered from pre-constructed ships, tributed resources, trading posts, factories and for the Dutch, banks. A new nation may not upgrade units to the Imperial Age.

Stealth

Another new feature is the use of stealth. This enables certain units to remain undetected by most enemy units and buildings. All native civilizations have a unit that can use stealth (this cannot be activated when enemy units are nearby). For the Europeans, there are spies that can be sent from the home city or recruited from the church. Spies are particularly effective against explorers and war chiefs due to their bonus attack. They all share the stealth ability, as do other miscellaneous units (ninja, native scouts, etc.). When certain enemy soldiers are near the invisible unit, the unit will be revealed and vulnerable to attack. Stealth units also become visible when they attack.

Plot

The campaign, which is 15 missions long, includes the Black family in a more historical setting. The first act, Fire, follows Nathaniel Black (John Black's son and Amelia Black's father) as he spends the family's entire fortune supporting the American Revolution. The second act, Shadow, follows Amelia Black's son, Chayton Black, and his actions in the Black Hills during Red Cloud's War and Great Sioux War. The home city for both acts is the Black Family Estate.

Act 1: Fire

Nathaniel Black (loosely based on Joseph Louis Cook) is the half-Iroquois son of the late John Black from Act 2 in the previous game, raised by his mother Nonahkee and his uncle Kanyenke. The campaign opens as Nathaniel and Kanyenke are trying to discourage the Mohawk and the Seneca from fighting in the American Revolutionary War. However, they are ambushed by a group of Mohawks and head to an Oneida village nearby. From there they counter-attack and destroy an enemy Town Center, thus causing their enemies to flee. When Nathaniel and Kanyenke return to their village, they find that the Mohawk and a group of Hessian mercenaries led by Colonel Sven Kuechler, have raided the village and captured Nonahkee. They rescue Nonahkee, but Kuechler and his main army escape, leaving the Iroquois Confederacy to dissolve. Nathaniel's village supports the colonists, and Nathaniel heads to Boston where his men help defend a redoubt on Breed's Hill from the British. After George Washington takes command, a series of defeats drives the colonials back across the Delaware, where they are joined by Nathaniel. Here, Washington leads a small force, including Nathaniel, across the Delaware where they attack a Hessian encampment at Trenton and defeat the rearguard of the army at Princeton. This is followed by another victory at the Battles of Saratoga. However, the army is once again defeated at Brandywine and Germantown and is forced to camp for the winter at Valley Forge, where they suffer greatly from the cold. This leads Nathaniel to use most of his family's fortune to supply the army throughout the winter. The next scenario is the fictional battle of Morristown, where Nathaniel has his chance for revenge on Kuechler, who leads an attempt to destroy the capitol building of Morristown. Using artillery shipments he receives from Washington, Nathaniel sneaks around the Hessian flank and relieves Morristown. Refusing to accept defeat, Kuechler joins the fight with Nathaniel and is killed. After Kuechler's death, Nathaniel is said to have fought at Charleston, Camden, and King's Mountain. As the tide begins to turn, the French join the war and help the revolutionaries gain a victory at Yorktown, where Nathaniel is instrumental in capturing several redoubts. With the Revolution won, Nathaniel returns home a poor man having spent his family fortune on outfitting his volunteers and supplying the troops at Valley Forge. During the epilogue video of the campaign (where Nathaniel is at Yorktown), the "Old Coot" (secretly Morgan Black) from Acts 1 and 3 in the previous game can be seen watching his great-grandson's victory.

Act 2: Shadow

In 1866, Chayton Black, Amelia Black's half-Lakota son whose father died when he was too young to remember, is expanding the Falcon Railroad Company westward along the Bozeman Trail but winds up in the middle of Red Cloud's War. He helps defend the wood trail from the Sioux and becomes friends with Fort Laramie's quartermaster, William "Billy" Holme, an aged Civil War veteran. Ten years later, in 1876, Chayton returns to the west and again meets up with Holme, now a sheriff, who informs him of a huge amount of gold in the Black Hills of Dakota. After defending many mining camps from Sioux attacks, Chayton goes to see the Sioux chief Crazy Horse and establish a peace treaty. However, Holme and some of the miners ambush the Sioux before Chayton can begin negotiations, wrecking any chance of peace. Despite the sheriff's warmongering, Chayton still sides with Holme and defends his workers as they gather wood for a new fort. However, once the fort is complete, Holme orders Chayton to destroy a Sioux village without provocation. Chayton refuses and, turning against Holme, allies with the Sioux to destroy the fort, forcing Holme to flee into the hills. Chayton then convinces the newly arrived General Custer to give him one day to find Holme, who is the real cause of the unrest. Chayton puts on Sioux clothing and blood-red war paint and, joining with Crazy Horse, chases down Holme and confronts him in a mine. Chayton hopes to resolve the situation peacefully, but Holme pulls a gun on Chayton. However, Chayton draws his gun more quickly and shoots Holme, who falls down a mineshaft to his explosive death. Chayton then tries to convince General Custer not to attack the Sioux, but Custer refuses and demands that Chayton choose sides: the United States or the Natives, saying that he can no longer sit on the fence. Chayton agrees, bidding Custer goodbye and siding with the Sioux. He helps gather the Sioux and Cheyenne nations and fights with them at the Little Bighorn. After the battle, Amelia Black narrates that she never saw her son again, but she has heard that Chayton was either killed at Wounded Knee in 1890, taking a dozen cavalrymen with him, or lived out his days in the Black Hills with his wife and children.