The two primary forces behind the successful Age
of Empires games were Rick Goodman and Bruce Shelley. While Bruce
Shelley continues to work on the Age of Empires' series latest game, Age
of Mythology, Rick Goodman went on to start Stainless Steel Studios.
Now his new development studio has released its first game, Empire Earth, and
it's, in a word, expansive. Empire Earth is a real-time strategy game in
the Age of Empires mold, but while that game focused on ancient empires, Empire
Earth covers the entire span of human history from the dawn of time through the
not too distant future of the 22nd century.
Empire Earth's ancestry is evident - players familiar with the Age of Empires
games will have no trouble just sitting down and beginning play. The
controls are nearly identical and the game basics are very similar.
However, they'd be well-advised to at least spend a little time with the
tutorials as there are plenty of differences between the games.
Empire Earth can be played in single player mode as a campaign or random map
game, or as a multiplayer game over a LAN or the internet. The game comes
with four campaigns - Greek, English, German, and Russian - that each take place
during the major epochs represented by the game. Each are a series of
scripted scenarios which loosely follow major periods in each of the four
civilization's histories (or, in the case of the Russian campaign,
future). Players who prefer more of a free-form game will enjoy the random
map games, which allow players to choose a starting and ending age, the number
of computer opponents, and the victory conditions, to name just a few of the
parameters.
Building a healthy economy is vital to success in Empire Earth. Players
recruit citizens from a town center or capitol, and use them to gather resources
or construct buildings. Buildings allow the player to produce additional
unit types at the cost of some resources or provide some other type of benefit
to the player. Citizens can also be used to help boost the production of
some buildings such as settlements. Populate a settlement with enough
citizens and it will eventually grow to be a capital, providing a large boost to
the productivity of the gatherers.
Resources may also be spent to advance a civilization in a several
ways. The first is through research which can give a civilization an added
advantage such as increased citizen or building efficiency. Resources are
also required in order to advance to the next age, which range from the
prehistoric to nano ages and number 14 in all, giving the civilization access to
more advanced units and technologies. Finally, resources can be sent to
upgrade units in several ways, from improving their armor and defenses to
increasing the effectiveness and range of their attacks. Unlike a lot of
strategy games, research centers are not required to upgrade units. Each
unit type created by the player can be upgraded by selecting any of the units of
a given type and choosing the desired upgrade. Players will need to choose
carefully, though, as the number of total upgrades that can be applied to a unit
is limited.
Empire Earth's large scope in covering 500,000 years of history allows
players to command a large array of units. From club-wielding cavemen to
giant robotic warriors, Empire Earth boasts over two hundred different types of
combat units. These include both ground and naval units, and in the later ages, air units as well. Players can also recruit heroes to lead their
armies. These heroes come in two types, warriors and strategists.
Warriors are extra strong units that also provide a boost in morale to nearby
troops. Units with high morale become tougher and more difficult to
kill. Strategists provide a healing effect to nearby troops, and can use a
special 'battle cry' to demoralize enemy units and make them easier to kill.
Empire Earth uses a circular hierarchy, or paper-scissors-rock method, when
resolving combat between units. In the early ages, for example,
sword-bearing troops will defeat archers, archers will defeat spearmen, and
spearmen in turn will defeat swordsmen. Even when the opposing forces are
roughly the same size, a troop of archers will make quick work of attacking
spearmen while taking little damage themselves. While this forces the
player to take a combined arms approach to combat, the penalty for showing up
with arrows to a sword fight is somewhat severe. These types of battle
relationships between unit types carries through to the more modern ages as
well, but is complicated somewhat by the addition of additional unit types such
as armor and artillery. In spite of these hierarchies, some anomalies do
crop up. For example, a small group of mortar troops can usually take out
a battleship without too much trouble.
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