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Empire Earth

Gameplay (continued)

The buildings that these peons create are an empire's means of advancement. These structures produce the various units that constitute a civilization. In addition to this they can be used to research upgrades that make citizens exploit resources more efficiently and make soldiers hardier in combat. Houses also increase troops' morale when they are within the area of effect of a town center (thereby making soldiers last longer in battle), and hospitals can heal wounded personnel that are nearby.

Once structures have been erected players can assemble an army. In Empire Earth, units range from men wielding clubs through to the Hades Ultra-Cyber, a warrior that has the ability to open a wormhole through space-time. Horse archers, biplanes, and aircraft carriers all make appearances during their respective epochs. There are also hero units (generally based on historical people such as William the Conqueror) that come in two flavors: Warrior Heroes, who have high hit points and increase the morale of soldiers around them, and Strategist Heroes, who can heal nearby units and demoralize foes. Empire Earth also features prophets, who are able to invoke their gods and thus cause plagues and natural disasters to afflict the enemies of their civilization.

Empire Earth does not model historical fighting very well, but then it seems to be characteristic of real-time strategy games that they do not simulate actual combat realistically. The game especially falls down when one plays during the First World War era; battles are much more fluid than they were during the Western Front. Then again, the relative lack of World War I games probably indicates that it is not very fun to play a game in which captured territory is measured in inches. Another problem is that players will find that their actions largely revolve around their capital. As such, even in the 22nd Century it often feels as though one is running a powerful city-state, rather than an expansive empire. At any rate, in the game's early epochs, wars are decided through a rock-paper-scissors approach: Spearmen beat swordsmen, who beat archers, who beat spearmen. However, in the later epochs of the game these unit relationships become considerably more complex, allowing for more strategic play. 

AI

I found the AI in Empire Earth to be quite good. It played aggressively in both the campaigns and random map games (although noticeably less aggressively during the scenarios) and quite often gave me a run for my money.

Editors and Replay Value

Empire Earth is one game with a lot of replay value. First of all, there are four single-player campaigns in which gamers can, witness the rise of Greek civilization, aid the English in attaining an empire, guide the Germans through both World Wars, and meddle in the fate of a future Russian state. In addition to this, there are lots of maps on which to play, and should these areas get all played out, there is even an option to generate a random map on which to skirmish.

Furthermore, the game comes with excellent editing tools. The scenario editor and campaign builder allow gamers to create campaigns for the other 17 civilizations which not prominently featured in the game. The second tool is a movie maker which allows players to create simple movies using Empire Earth's units. Third, a civilization builder, which lets gamers make their own unique civilizations. My one complaint about these tools is that they did not seem to allow for the creation of branching campaigns. Hopefully this problem will be remedied in a future patch.

A grand melee.

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