Napoleonic Era adds the Americans, Austrians, Italians, Polish, Prussians, Swedish Swiss, while also redesigning the existing French and Germans. The Swedish and Italian civilizations in Napoleonic Era are creations of the Napoleonic Era Core Team. Napoleonic Era adds a couple of new shared and unique buildings. Napoleonic Era 2.01, released in July 2009, has been the most successful mod version so far in terms of downloads. Napoleonic Era, that was originally started as a German project, gained early popularity already with its first version 0.1 being featured at the most popular German games magazines GameStar and PC Games. from Europe, America, Northern Africa, Western Asia, and even other places around the world, many of them consist completely new native allies like Bavarians, Finns, or Greeks. To fit the new theme of the wars occurring in Europe, Napoleonic Era includes many new random maps, e.g. Napoleonic Era adds new units of all types, including shared, mercenary and native units. All European civilizations in Napoleonic Era can build the University for 300 wood in Industrial Age, which grants access to powerful technologies and elite units, whose availability varies depending on civilization. Napoleonic Era features new gameplay elements, returning a few well-missed elements from Age of Empires II, like removing the limit of builders working on one building, improving the arsenal and new abilities for Explorers. To be installed successfully, it requires either a fully patched Age of Empires III plus the two expansions The WarChiefs and The Asian Dynasties or the Age of Empires III Complete Collection on Steam. Napoleonic Era 2.1.7b has automatic installers available for Windows and Mac OS X.

In addition to the 14 regular civilizations already offered by Age of Empires III and its two official expansion packs ( The WarChiefs and The Asian Dynasties ), the Napoleonic Era presents the players with an additional set of new playable civilizations that hold their own unique units, technologies, buildings, home cities and tactical abilities.

The Napoleonic Wars were chosen as the mod's theme because they were regarded as the most influential military events during the time period of Age of Empires III, which did not cover Europe, Africa, and Western Asia as historical spheres of interest.

Aoe 3 wars of liberty