A team of players (the red and the purple ones), playing in Amazonia, activated the timer by controlling five out of eight Trading Post sites.
Achieving a Trade Monopoly is a victory condition introduced in Age of Empires III: The WarChiefs.
The ability to activate it is disabled if a game starts using "Classic" rules, or with a Treaty enabled, no matter its length.
Overview[]
Players or teams can activate a Trade Monopoly if they control more than half of the Trading Post sites on a map, including Trade Routes and native settlements. Provided that a controlling player is in the Industrial Age, the "Trade Monopoly" technology can be researched by one of team's players at a Trading Post for 500 food, 500 wood, and 500 coin.
A countdown begins, and enemy players have five minutes to stop the victory condition by destroying enough Trading Post sites to leave the defending player or team with less than half under their control. The Trade Monopoly timer can be attempted multiple times and every activated countdown starts at five minutes.
Trivia[]
- A version of Trade Monopoly called "Four of a Kind" was planned to be released in the original Age of Empires III, but was cut late in development. It required reaching the Industrial Age and upgrading Trade Routes to Trains, after which if the player owned four Trading Posts, theyhad the option to pay 1,000 coin to activate a victory countdown. Losing any Trading Post would cancel the timer. The victory theme's name for a Trade Monopoly, Some of a Kind, is most likely intended as a reference to it.
