you're right. it's not using the AoM engine but the newest havok
engine. guess i must have mis-read it somewhere.
quote from the gamespy
interview:
The Age of Empires III engine is a fully DX9-, Shader 3.0-compliant
engine with more technical bells and whistles than any other PC
game to date. As you can see from the screenshots, we have a world
that feels bright and sunny, but with a softness and depth that
hasn't been seen before. From things like self-shadowing to HDR
(high dynamic range) lighting to water that has proper Fresnel
reflectance properties, this is a very high-end graphics
engine.
