Empire Earth
Description official descriptions
Age of Empires is set in the past, Command & Conquer explores the future, but up to now there was no real-time strategy game that covered the whole breadth of human history. Empire Earth fills this gap and lets you wage war with everything from prehistoric stone thrower up to futuristic battle-mechs.
Empire Earth’s mastermind Rick Goodman was lead designer of the original Age of Empires. Similarities are thus hardly surprising; in fact, his new game can be considered a 3D version of its predecessor. Despite the graphical leap, the game’s look and feel are very familiar - AoE fans will feel perfectly at home. The perspective is fixed in an isometric view, camera management is not required. In your quest to crush the opposition, you build settlements, collect five resource types, recruit troops (land, sea, air) and, well, fight battles. Unit improvements are no longer researched in buildings, but can be bought at once for each unit type. For example, you can increase your tanks’ hit points, attack value, armor, speed and range separately -- for a price. It's your choice whether to spend your income on a huge army, or on an advanced one. Throughout the campaign, you also earn civilization points for heroic deeds; you can spend these on general unit improvements, e.g. reducing your archers building time by 30%, or making your citizens 20% faster.
The game’s four campaigns span the entire history of warfare: conquer the Mediterranean as the Greeks, lead the English from the middle ages to the battle at Waterloo, change history by making the Germans victors of the First and Second World War, and finally create a Russian empire in 2025. The campaign missions are heavily scripted and contain quite a few adventure elements; for example, you must lead William Duke of Normandy safely through enemy ambushes. As the scenarios focus on a set time frame, you don’t advance through the 14 epochs (from the Prehistoric Era to the Nano Age). In skirmish mode and in multiplayer battles, however, you may lead your people from caves into skyscrapers.
Spellings
- 地球帝国 - Simplified Chinese spelling
Groups +
- BestSeller Series (Cendant / Havas / Vivendi Universal) releases
- Covermount: Fullgames
- Empire Earth series
- Games that include map/level editor
- Green Pepper releases
- Historical Conflict: Hundred Years War
- Historical conflict: Napoleonic Wars
- Middleware: Bink Video
- Setting: 2010s
- Setting: Classical Greece
- Setting: Future now past
- Setting: Medieval Europe
- Setting: Totality of history
- Sound engine: AIL/Miles Sound System
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Credits (Windows version)
167 People (164 developers, 3 thanks) · View all
Game Design | |
Lead Single Player Game Design | |
Single Player Game Design | |
Lead Multiplayer Game Designer | |
Multiplayer Game Designer | |
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Programmers | |
[ full credits ] |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 83% (based on 32 ratings)
Players
Average score: 3.4 out of 5 (based on 66 ratings with 9 reviews)
The Good
So nice real time strategy game
The Bad
One game is too long and can be more than 30 hours
The Bottom Line
Often the same way to win against IA is to build towers evrywhere
Windows · by adamo · 2023
Age of Empires III. About as good as it predecessors.
The Good
Make no mistake about it; Empire Earth IS a copy of Age of Empires. It looks, plays, and sounds the same. The graphics are the same, the interface is the same, the game is the same, right down to the resources and what they look like. The ONLY difference is that this game tacks on more technological development, right up to modern times and the "nano age."
This is a shameless ripoff in every way, but to its credit, it does it well. Age of Empires IS a good game, and so is Empire Earth. The graphics are crisp and easy on the eye, the interface is smooth, the sound is great and the gameplay is just as good as when Microsoft published it as Age of Empires. And it IS an upgrade; there are some nice rules changes, and far more units.
The Bad
The game has two major flaws. the first is the AI - which, incidentally, doesn't play fair. The computer doesn't follow the same rules the player does, as a result of which computer players are absurdly strong. Even at the lowest difficulty level, giving the player every possible advantage, the computer seems to get free resources and buildings Winning is very difficult, and will only happen with some luck.
The second is that in an effort to expand the game to modern times, the game zips by the technology progression way too fast. Whereas Age of Empires had four or five "Eras," this game has 15. The differences between Classical and Byzantine techs don't seem really apparent when you're buzzing through them at a rate of one era every fifteen minutes. The game's "epic" Civilization-style scope of the entirety of human history seems very contrived against a standard Age of Empires map.
The Bottom Line
Not the epic masterpiece it's being described as, and not a necessary purchase if you still enjoy your Age of Empires II set.
Windows · by Rick Jones (96) · 2001
The Good
The campaigns were very good in this game. The objectives were easy to understand, and I had never come across anything like them in any other game. I had fun playing around with the camera which was eay to control and adjust. Last the units, I enjoy building up big armies, and so far Empire Earth lets me build the biggest [1200 units.] This means huge battles, and I don't know about you but thats the whole reason I buy these games
The Bad
The standard game mode can become boring, becuase the game's AI thinks the same each time. This leads to a lame game if you know whats basicly going to happen to you in the end. Last the game is just plain slow. It takes a while to produce a unit which is bothering when trying to build up a large army. My advice to solve this tiny problem is to make two or even three of each military building.
The Bottom Line
So basicly Empire Earth has good gameplay, but can become boring after a while if all you play is the standard game mode. I 'd say its worth the money if you want a game that not only lets you fight in modern times but also in the past. For me the goods outwayed the bad. Buy it for gameplay and graphics not for a game you think is new and different from all others, becuase it's not.
Windows · by Xiao 91 (3) · 2003
Trivia
Epochs
The 14 Empire Earth epochs are:
- Prehistoric Era (500,000 BC)
- Stone Age (10,000 BC)
- Copper Age (5000 BC)
- Bronze Age (2000 BC)
- Dark Ages (0 AD)
- Middle Ages (900 AD)
- Renaissance (1300 AD)
- Imperial Age (1500 AD)
- Industrialization (1700 AD)
- World War I (1900 AD)
- World War II (1930 AD)
- Modern Era (1950 AD)
- Digital Era (2000 AD)
- Nano Age (2100 AD)
Server shutdown
The official online servers were shut down on 1 November 2008.
Awards
- GameSpy
- 2001 – PC Game of the Year
Information also contributed by Sciere
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by -Chris.
Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, jean-louis, Patrick Bregger, Plok.
Game added November 19, 2001. Last modified April 13, 2024.