Age of Empires III demo

The demo for Age of Empires III has been released. It's a 365 megabyte download and reportedly offers two single player scenarios, two random maps and two civilizations. Here's the best screenshot I could get of the trial version:

Surprise, surprise – Microsoft wants me to install Windows XP. I don't suppose you could have told me that before I downloaded it? I guess I'll be able to run AoE3 in Win2k3 on my new computer, but now I'm not so sure I want to.

There's no technical reason for dropping Windows 2000 support in a DirectX 9 game, so this limitation is either due to sloppy design or about forcing users to upgrade. Windows XP is 20-25% slower than Windows 2000 on this computer and has a less user-friendly UI, but the API difference is negligible.

Update: The system requirements are now shown on the web site next to the demo download link, presumably after getting complaints. Also, I'm told that the trial version can be installed on Windows 2000 by running aoe3trial.exe /a to perform a "network install". I haven't yet had the opportunity to try that.

8 September, 2005