Empire Earth Thread

Metaliturtle · April 20, 2003, 02:20

Ok, I got the gold edition for this for my b-day and I was all "Thaaanks" not really expecting to play it much, if at all, but then I got bored and set it up, and it was really good.

This is just going to be my review, but if anyone plays this a lot and/or knows good strategies that can't be found using google, I'd love to hear them.

|Graphics 80/100| |Sound 75/100| |Gameplay 95/100| |Fun and replay value 100/100|

Overview: Empire Earth is like Age of Empires II + Instead of four ages, there are 15 "epochs" spanning from prehistory to the space age. Many of the mouse and keyboard commands are the same, so the learning curve is not much if you're used to Age of Empires games. Anyway, in this game, you may be seeing robots zapping each other with lasers, or guys with rocks and clubs, depending on how well you are. To relate this the best though, it's Civ III, Age of Empires style, with coolness throughout.

Why this game is unique: This game is one of the few that show unit strengths and weaknesses vs different types, for example, spearmen are great against cavalry, which will destroy archers, who kill spearmen. This "rock paper scissors" coding forces the player to strategize and diversify or be crushed.

Shortcomings of this game: The big one is that you cannot cheat to win campaign scenarios that come with the game. This is fine if you're all hardcore and don't ever cheat, but for new players like my little brother, it makes this game, "the biggest piece of crap I've ever smelt." However, the campaigns force you to play the game extremely well, and I consistently beat my friends in LAN play because of the different campaigns I've played, all because of the no cheating policy. If you're a cheater, you WILL hate this game. If you're hardcore, you will love it.

Graphics: The graphics look like an earlier version of Warcraft 3, the biggest problem is that it makes adding units to the game virtually impossible, also, all the different civs' buildings and stuff look the same, regardless of Civilization.

Sound: Everything I've read and observed is that the "we're under attack!" voice gets too repetetive. It does, I usually turn the volume down before a battle to avoid it, but some gamers won't pause for anything, and this becomes irksome. Personally, I've found that if you just play some Metallica in the background, the voice blends in well and it's really cool... too bad the game didn't have Metallica do the music.

Gameplay: This would be perfect, except for all the hotkeys in the game. It comes with a "quick reference guide" but in reality, it's like a quick reference novel, making this game hard to get used to if you haven't played many rts games before.

Fun/replay value: The fact that nukes are in the game gives fun a 90, but because nuking your best friend's prehistoric city is so cool, fun is at 100. The game can be played at almost any time, 5 different types of maps and 8 sizes allows for a near-infinite number of game scenarios in random map mode, plus the multiplayer option improves this game tremendously.

Other info: A full game usually takes from 45 min- 4 hours, so get a soft chair. Games can be shortened using tournament rules, which make buildings cheaper and faster constructing, which will cut game time in half.

I will post strategy if there is enough players reading this.

Skanky Burns · April 20, 2003, 04:58

I'm in the middle of playing the campaigns of this game, specifically the German campaign. I have beaten the two earlier ones. 'Tis fun.

Solver · April 20, 2003, 10:39

It sounds very nice, but you'll get bored of it soon. Everyone I know did. I mean, the multiplayer isn't that good, and there are few players, while the AI is TERRIBLE. And I mean it. Yes, it will kick your butt, but it does worse than cheat. It cheats most visibly. If you start in Modern Age a normal game, comp will proceed to immediately build a Barracks and an Airport, despite the fact that you start with too few resources to build either. Or, it will ALWAYS advance to the next age shortly after you do. You can take a civ almost out, leave it with one Town Center and 5 villagers, it will advance.

Nukes are a joke. AA guns are super important. Some units are too useless...

Traianvs · April 20, 2003, 17:24

I got this game at the same time i got AoM, and Empire earth's graphics were not as good as AoM's graphics so I didn't really get much into EA... Also those ages, there were just too many of them, I mean to get to know all those units (although AoM also has this problem

) takes a long time!!!

Btw I saw some screenshots and an article on the sequal of this game, and damn it looks promising I swear!! It will only have bout 6 ages though, from the middle ages till WWII if I'm not mistaken

Metaliturtle · April 30, 2003, 12:34

well I still like it...

muxec · April 30, 2003, 13:04

Yo, people special version here, in Israel, costs 8$. Does it worth it?

Joseph · May 3, 2003, 00:35

I bought the game day one and still play it a lot.

Odin · May 11, 2003, 23:14

I love nuking my enemies. In modern times and the future I first bomb up thier airports and most of thier AA guns with conventional bombers (with escort fighters of course), then I send in Nuclear bombers and NUKE the sh!t out of them. Then I send in a blitzkrieg of Tanks, Cybers, and Artillery protected by infantry.

It is quite fun, the AI sucks at attaking, but to fairly good at defending, they build towers like crazy!

Az · May 12, 2003, 09:19

I liked it A LOT, until I saw the AI's weakness in construction.

sigh.

I can only hope that RoN gets it right. EE could be a fabulous game. I wonder if there are any modpacks that fix the AI. I am certain there ARE modpacks, but I doubt there are AI enhansing ones.