no it's like Risk .. you have this huge map divived into alot of sections like the Risk game .. each region has specific cards which give a bonus of some kind .. perhaps it's a card that gives you an extra army or one which allows you to start a battle with 250+ in every resource, or something complety different..
you "build up" your regions by spending "tribute" points, which each region also generates .. and the higher the value of the region (1-8 I think) the more developed .. so if you are attacked in a region where you have 8, you start with ALL the buildings available for that age (in a AoE battle), and if it's only 1, you start with the minimal etc.
and then you just conquer the world, some regions call for different battles .. some you need to develop trade, some you only get an army and must take the capitial .. and other you build up a city like AoE and must win by conquering all!
it's actually fun, even though it sounds extremely lame! there are campaigns who are very different .. you can also fight the "Cold War" or "Alexander's Campaign" or "Napoleon" or "colonization of the New World"! all with very different goals, different cultures and different style of play! (well essentially it's all about conquest! but the road there is a little different from campaign to campaign)
Cold war is like the first, but this time you can build Nuclear missilles and scare the other nations with you build-up of WMD! muhaha!! and the goal is to make sure that USA or Russia (depends on who you play) doesn't get to powerful .. and that you promote Capitalism or Socialism in the world ..
my only problem is that for every 3 turn in the World Campaign, you go up 1 "age" like from "ancient" to "feudal" .. and that is a little too fast .. so you race through the game to conquer the world before the time clock runs out, which means you pratically needs to take 1 provins every time .. and same goes for "Cold War" also way too fast!
- Rosbjerg