A look at the Empire Earth II demo

In Anticipation

The imminent release of Empire Earth 2 may not be earth shattering news, but in my little circle of LAN party buddies, this is the kind of thing we live for. There haven't been much in the way of RTS releases lately, and we've all been looking forward to new ways to nuke each other. We're hoping that EE2 will be everything that EE was and more. I really want to review the real game, but I can't seem to talk anyone into sending me a copy until release day, so I'll just have to settle for the demo. I'll update it when the real game comes out.

Normally, downloading of a demo isn't usually worth mentioning in a review, but the 200+ MB size is something worth mentioning. Luckily, I had plenty of web surfing to do while I waited for the load. If you still using a dialup connection, you really shouldn't bother. My 768K DSL line was painful enough. Installation was painless... just the normal express install (whatever, just hurry up) and the obligatory agree to something you can't read (C'mon, c'mon. get to the game) and thats about it (finally).

First Look

Start the game up from the desktop icon, and you'll notice that the splash screen isn't exactly what you would call high resolution. That's OK... that's very likely to change for the final version. You can expect to see a really nice cinematic at the beginning of the release version. No, I don't have inside knowledge, I'm just expecting it. You'll end up at a genuine imitation brass-plaque-looking menu that's reasonably attractive. The first thing you'll notice is that the demo has both skirmish and multiplayer enabled.

Game settings are extremely limited as you would expect in a demo. You can only play from epoch 7 to epoch 9. That means a stimulating cannon and musketeer battle, but cuts down on the replay value of the demo. In addition to the settings for the skill level of the AI, each player can set his own skill level. There are settings for game type, environment, game speed, etc. This is about when you think about the similarities to Rise Of Nations.

The first thing you notice in the game is the beautiful graphics. You are likely to spend the first few minutes just zooming in and out to check out what your citizens look like when they are working, when they are walking, etc. As with the first EE, zooming in looks nice, but you probably won't find much use for closeups. In fact, it won't be long before you are willing to sacrifice the all of the graphics details for better performance and higher resolution.

I didn't have a chance to find a guinea pig for multiplayer, so I decided to take on the AI. The really easy AI. After rolling over the easiest possible opponent without a decent fight, I traded up to an average AI and set my skill level to average. That one took a while to finish. There are quite a few levels of opponent to play against. I originally thought that having an easy, easier, and easiest in the same group was just a way to make us feel inadequate, but they were pretty honest about the labeling. If I can beat an opponent on my first day of play, it better not be listed as "good".

Graphics Setup

I played the demo on a home-brewed Athlon-64 3200+ with a 9600 pro on a 1600x1200 LCD, so my first attempted tweak was to push the screen up to match the native monitor resolution. That'll teach me. I felt like I was running an old 386. The cursor lag made the game completely unplayable. My rig isn't exactly state of the art, but this is the first time it felt inadequate. There is good news though. I dropped all of the graphics detail settings down to their lowest level, and I was able to get the resolution up where I wanted it. The detail settings certainly make the game look nicer, but they don't improve the gameplay at all. I found the combination of high resolution and low detail to be very attractive, and I never regretted the compromise.

Visual

Of course, the graphics are great. This is expected, given how beautiful the original was. EE2 builds on all of the graphics elements from before, but with very little that is genuinely new. The characters are more complex, the build sequences are more realistic, and the effects are more stunning. Stands of trees look much more realistic with the wind blowing the leaves in various directions.

The seasonal effects such as rain and snowstorms are visually appealing, but they end up being more of a distraction than a feature. There is greater use of the "glowing ground" effect that is so prevalent in games released since Warcraft III. Buildings and units under attack have a little patch of red under them, while units and buildings being protected or healed have little blue patches under them. All of the new effects combine to make a very pleasant looking game, but all of them have been done before in other games. The lack of something genuinely new is disappointing, but luckily, it doesn't take much away from the gameplay. Unfortuately, despite all of the work done on aesthetics, most gamers won't notice them much beyond the first few minutes of the first game.

Game Play

Game play has changed just enough to make things interesting, but not enough to make it unrecognizable. Most of the additions are familiar, and are straight out of Rise of Nations. EE2 takes on the concept of territories and limiting the number of certain buildings in them. The concept of leaders that protect those within their view has been handed down since Warcraft III, and has been added to EE2. Garrisoning units inside of buildings adds a percentage boost to the primary purpose of the building. Citizens in a university add additional scientific advancement, citizens in town centers increase the resources brought in.

One new feature worth mentioning is the concept of crowns. There are three crowns, one each of: Military, Economic, and Imperial. Each of these corresponds to one of the advancement fields researched by players. Each field has four advancements that you can research when your universities accumulate enough research points (sound familiar? think RoN). If you are the most advanced in a field, you are awarded the crown, which gives you a special ability for about five minutes. After that, the players are re-evaluated, and the new winner (or old winner) gets the crown.

The crowns are interesting, especially when you have them. Unfortunately, I didn't research what they were all about, so I felt as though I had to choose the "special power" that they bring every 5 minutes. That got really old really fast. The sound and text reminders for the crowns were annoying, but they didn't come close to the irritating taunts. Some people may like them, but I find that they detract from a game whether they come from a human or an AI.

One gameplay feature that wasn't stolen from RoN was the strict limit on expansion. You can expand as quickly as you want (or at least it's like that in epochs 7 thru 9) without having to research something to add another city. There are restrictions on how close you can put town centers together and how many of certain buildings can be in the same territory, but that's much less restrictive than limiting the number of cities.

Interestingly enough, the vast number of unit and building upgrades that gave the original a reputation for micro-management nightmares have gone. In their place is the system of research groups and crowns that puts all of the science in one nice neat little package. I can't say that this is especially great because it will take some getting used to, but it does free up some of a player's attention. Units just magically upgrade if you level up and select a new 'thing' to research when the little beaker symbol starts flashing. Much simpler, but better is not as certain.

Resource gathering hasn't been changed much, except that there are a few new resource types available. Some of the resources can only be gathered in specific epochs, and some are only labeled "pile of rocks", with a description that indicates a resource that won't be identified unti some time in the future. Spending resources has been made easier as well, with the addition of a "queue looping" botton. Clicking this button sets the building to continuously manufacture the selected unit as long as resources are available. This is convenient, but watch out for it. I got hung up with a big battle and came back to a city to find about 30 citizens standing in a group.

Overall

As a state-of-the art RTS game, EE2 certainly fills the bill. I was a little disappointed that there wasn't anything revolutionary in the game, but the end product doesn't have any close competition. Unfortunately, though I enjoyed playing the game, It is probably going to have less replay value than the original. That's because this game could easily have been named Rise of Nations II instead of Empire Earth II. It's fun, but it's evolution, not revolution

What needs to be fixed

I didn't see too many things that screamed "Fix Me". However, I do have a small list of gripes:

Do something about the efficiency of the graphics. Beautiful is good, but responsive is better. Remember that some of us have LCD monitors tha we want to run at native resolutions.
Fix the crowns thing a little. Make the selection of the "special power" stick until the player loses the crown, and do away with all of the noise concerning the awarding of crowns.
For pete's sake... kill the taunts. Nobody wants to have to listen to the spew from some pimply-faced twerp when playing against humans. They certainly don't want to hear it from some AI... especially if it repeats itself.

Conclusion

If you are a fan of Real Time Strategy, then this is a "must" for you. It ends up being a merger of the original EE and RoN, both great games in their time. I know I'll be picking up a copy on release day or as soon as possible afterward. If you are interested in trying your first RTS, then this is a good one to start with. It has wide range of AI skill levels that you can use to train yourself in preparation for that first LAN party. Also, it is the latest edition, containing the best of all of the recent hit games. If you never liked RTS games before, then this one isn't going to change your mind any. It's really just a combination of all of the games that didn't convince you before. In fact, why did you bother to read this whole article if you don't like RTS?