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Empire Earth

The Specs

Empire Earth will cover the same kind of epic time span that Civilization covers, starting with the Paleolithic Age and continuing on through 12 epochs that end with the futuristic Nano Age. Unlike Civlilization's slow, measured gameplay, Empire Earth will be a real-time strategy game. In that regard it will more closely resemble Ensemble's Age of Empires series, and for good reason — Stainless Steel Studio is led Rick Goodman, one of the lead designers of Age of Empires who decided to found his own company.

Empire Earth will include land, air, and sea units, including submarines, thermonuclear missiles, and futuristic mechanized bots. You can enlist heroes like Caesar or Patton to aid your cause. Military units can be customized by 10 adjustable attributes, like armor, hit points, and more. You'll construct buildings, research, build Wonders of the World, create natural disasters and direct them at your enemies, and customize your civilization as it grows. There are non-militaristic paths to victory as well, including diplomatic options. This fully 3D game will support random maps and multiplayer games. Stainless Steel says it will also include a robust and easy-to-use scenario editor and even a campaign builder that allows players to make cutscenes from the game engine.

The Speculation

Mark's Comments: The RTS genre needs a kick in the ass, and this game's wearing steel-toed boots. It's not that I expect it to be incredibly innovative, but I do expect it to be...well, just stuffed full of stuff. It should have tons of units, lots of maps, and of course the scope is huge. Goodman has a good pedigree with Age of Empires under his belt, and Stainless Steel has been hiring veteran RTS gamers to help with testing, unit balance, and level design. I think they'll deliver a tough, eminently playable game that will hold up well to the kind of pounding that a popular RTS game tends to get. My only doubts are about how all the 12 epochs will be folded into the gameplay — will you be able to start in the Paleoithic and progress all the way to the Nano Age in the course of a single multiplayer scenario? I kind of doubt that. Multiplayer games may have to start with players choosing a starting epoch or a range of epochs. This should be one of the year's biggest games.

Tom's Comments: Before its release, if you had described to me all the gameplay mechanics Bruce Shelley was able to fold into Age of Empires, I would have figured it would be unplayable in real time. I have a similar concern that Empire Earth has too many elements for real time gameplay. But if anyone can bring them together, it's a veteran of Age of Empires. The catch is that the RTS genre is healthy and thriving and brutally competitive. Among commercial juggernauts like Age of Empires and Red Alert 2, sleepers like Warlords: Battlecry and Earth 2150, and innovators like Majesty and Sacrifice, how much room is there for Empire Earth's era-straddling gimmick? Hopefully enough to finally answer the questions Sid Meier dropped into our collective laps a decade ago: can a phalanx really sink a battleship?

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