I think that late units (age IV and V) using cannon powder such as musks or riflemen or even dragoons should have bolt action rifles (or pistols, in the case of dragoons)
It’s unbelievable that a german spiked helmet rifleman or an italian bersaglieri don’t have one whereas an ethiopian Neftenya has
Don’t you think ?
This would be great! There’s animations for (at least one) cavalry to load breachloaders and it looks really sweet, it would be a cool addition to have them for infantry also as long as its justified.
Edit: I didn’t realize the Neftenya had it. That might mean it’s easy to give it to other units like needle gunners who are already supposed to have breach loading rifles.
Age 4 is roughly 1780-1850, essentially the napoleonic wars and the earliest parts of industrialisation.
Imperial age is actually in a lot of ways overlapping with Industrial, its roughly 1800 to 1876.
While breech-loaders where slowly becoming a thing the game really isn’t geared towards depicting modern repeating rifles, the original goal for the games timespawn in fact only went to the 1850s.
The core timelime of the game ends around the US civil war where muzzle loading rifled muskets were the most prominent, except a few outliers that already use or should use breechloading animations:
Lakota rifle rider: they should get a new animation like the carbine cavalry
Neftenya: the concept emerges very late so they could have breech loading rifles
German skirmisher when upgraded to needle gunner.
US carbine cavalry: I think they should NOT have the breech loading animation by default, but gain it with the guard upgrade. The base/veteran model has a clear revolutionary look which is much earlier than Spencer repeating carbines.
Several outlaws: ironically they use the most advanced firearms when your civ is still at the exploration age, but they have no reloading animations at all.
Indeed, Neddle gunners should have…needle rifles! That is, bolt action animations.
In my opinion it is:
Age 1 (1420-1520):Exploration voyages throughout the world aka Chinese campaign and Portuguese factories
Age 2 (1520-1620):European conquest and colonization of the New World, rise of the Mughal Empire and Sengoku Japan
Age 3 (1620-1720):Religious wars in Europe and expansion of the colonies of the New World and Qinq China
Age 4 (1720-1820):Revolutions and Napoleonic Wars
Age 5 (1820-1920):Pax Britannica, Risorgimento, German Unification and New Imperialism in Asia and Africa
And then the US and Mexico appear 
Yes, although in their case it would be the Mayflower pilgrim card for the US and New Spain card for Mexico…
This is a stretch. Just because there are some timeless elements that forcefully stretch the timeline, it doesn’t mean that the game’s chronological plot changes. These things are the exception rather than the rule.
If it was 1920, we’d be seeing tanks and biplanes…
Age 3 specifically is named after the 7 years war in 1756-1763 where the British and French constructed a series of fortresses in north America in an effort to exert control over the area, hence “fortress age”.
Also the uniforms the units use are clearly of that era.
Most revolutions are in the 1820s, USA is basically the only exception.
Also it is literally called the industrial age, even pushing what that means the earliest point any historian would argue is 1750, and really it only truly happened around 1800-1850.
We don’t see machineguns, we don’t see cars, we don’t see planes, we quiet literally do not see the first world war or world war era uniforms or techs. 1820 and 1920 is a big enough span to fit an entire age of empires game into, technology of the 1920s would be completely alien to someone living in 1820.
In game the most modern tech we see is 1860s stuff like early repeating guns (literally 2-3 units in the entire game), ironclads and Gatling guns. none of this is close to WW1 tech.
I’ve never heard that reasoning before.
Yes, I put 1920 more for the theme of the Finnish revolution and the end of the classic British Empire (when it still controlled all of Ireland) and the Ottoman Empire in 1922… the last events that appear on cards are the Chinese Boxer Rebellion of 1901 and the Mexican Porfiriato, which ended in 1911, plus the whole concept of the western theme that ended in 1912…
Yes, I separated it by exactly 100 years but it may be that some ages last longer than others…
True, I put revolutions because of the Industrial Revolution that started in Great Britain in the 1750s-1770s, then the American (1776), French (1789), Haitian (1791) and Latin American (1810) Revolutions…
Good point…but remember that in Imperial Age we have Leonardo’s Tank, but yes, AoE 3 technologically ends in the 1870s…
Yes, it is a good argument, but mine seems more reasonable to me, even though it doesn’t fit very well with the dates… we only know that the 1st age starts in the 1420s and the 4th age in the 1770s… after that, the rest is pure supposition…
AoE3 timeline is such a embarasing mess.
At the start of development, it was supossed to be about euro empires going from medieval up the way to the napoleonic times, maybe even the crimea war.
But it was a game from the Bush era and everything had to be “'Murica, f*** yeah”, and then they shifted to “Colonial america ™”, introducing Wild West stuff, cutting down civs and much more.
Then, they remembered people would also like to play with aztecs and japanese and, here we are.
Of course, in the Bush era, Microsoft wanted to push AoE 3 as “America goes boom”… America Conquest did better in that sense, a Fight Back expansion focused on European expansion in America and then as The Warchiefs with Divided Nation, an expansion focused on the United States conflicts of the 19th century (War of 1812, War against Texas -Alamo- and Mexico and the Civil War -Gettysburg)… AoE 3 is missing its versions of Alamo (Unites States vs Mexico) and Gettysburg (Union vs Confederacy)…
Keep in mind that our settlement will always be lagging behind in terms of technologies, since it is basically a colony where shipments from the metropole take a long time to arrive and wealth is gained progressively. Thus, ages and era don’t really apply in the same way for the aoe3 base gameplay. We don’t play the metropole.
Sure, but what if we play in Europe?