Empire Earth: The Art of Conquest Preview

Some of the most exciting battles ever fought took place centuries ago, between the Roman Empire and the barbarian tribes of Gaul. Others were fought more recently, between the Axis and the Allies in World War II. Designer Rick Goodman of Stainless Steel Studios envisioned a game that would give players a chance to take command of all those battles in a single game, but with complete freedom to fight them using contemporary weapons and tactics, without having to worry about remaining true to the constraints of history. The game was Empire Earth, the 2001 real-time strategy game that earned a loyal fan following, thanks to its intriguing gameplay spread across multiple time periods, including the prehistoric age, the medieval era, and the futuristic nano age. Stainless Steel has created the design for an expansion pack to last year's ambitious strategy game, and developer Mad Doc Software, creator of Star Trek: Armada II, has been hard at work seeing the project through. From what we've seen, The Art of Conquest is well on its way to giving Empire Earth fans more of what they want: more interesting units, more epochs to play through, and a set of editing tools that will let players take the game even further.

If you're not familiar with Empire Earth, you might not know that the original game let you start out in the prehistoric era, build up your civilization by capturing resources, researching technology, and defeating your enemies, and eventually advance through the different ages of the world to the 21st century and beyond. But as the developers predicted, many players ended up preferring to play through certain epochs using those eras' contemporary weapons and technology, especially in multiplayer games--the medieval, atomic, and nano ages are currently among the most popular. As such, the Art of Conquest team checked with Empire Earth's loyal fans and asked which new settings they'd most like to see in an expansion. The answer was threefold: the Pacific Rim conflict in World War II, the rise of the Roman Empire, and an even more technologically advanced final age, the space epoch. These three settings will be the basis for the expansion's three new campaign games, each of which will feature six new missions (for a total of 18 new missions). We were fortunate enough to get an up-close look at each of these settings, as well as the new units that will be available for each.

We started our tour with the space age, which looks very different from the original game's ages. Maps in the space epoch will actually consist of landmasses separated by empty reaches of space that only certain types of units may pass through--in fact, some of the missions will take place on Mars. As you might expect, some of the basic mechanics of the game will change to reflect the new environment. Players will be able to build high-tech hydroponic farms to grow food (rather than building and tending to a farm, as in the original game), and they'll even be able to build space-age wonders of the world, like a huge orbital space station to increase their followers' morale. The space epoch will also introduce lots of new spacecraft units, including corvettes, capital ships, and transport ships that will let you carry infantry units into enemy territory.

To help balance the power of these units, most of these larger ships can only travel through space and may not travel across land. However, many important buildings and structures may only be built on the edge of your land settlements, so you can definitely expect to see your spaceships exchanging fire with enemy spacecraft and also going on bombing runs in your opponents' territory. In addition, fighter ships can both traverse space and travel over land, which will make them useful all-purpose fighters that can be used as a basis for offense or defense. The space battles themselves will be characterized by squadrons of ships exchanging laser fire and bursting into rings of fire when destroyed. Capital ships will even have a devastating weapon that recalls the "wave motion gun" from the cult-classic anime series Star Blazers. On land, players will be able to build the new "cyber ninja" unit, a swift infantry soldier who can sneak into enemy bases and use logic bombs to disable production. As in the original Empire Earth, players will be able to research upgrades for their units. For instance, players can research a cloaking device for their cyber ninjas to make them even harder to detect. Players will also be able to produce antimissile batteries by building a truck factory--these powerful artillery vehicles will be able to counter ICBM missile strikes.

World War II and Beyond

Next, we watched the Pacific Rim campaign in action. According to the developers, the campaign should follow the conflict all the way to the battle of Iwo Jima, and players will actually be able to construct the famous Marine Corps War Memorial--in which a group of Marines is depicted raising the American flag on Iwo Jima--as a wonder of the world. As you might expect from a campaign set in the Pacific theater of WWII, you'll be able to play land, air, and sea missions using fighter planes, battleships, cruisers, and submarines. You'll also be able to take some new infantry units out into the field. The Art of Conquest will include several new infantry units, including the SAS demolitions expert, an amphibious infantry unit with the ability to set successive charges on enemy buildings to blow them up. More-sadistic players will want to make use of flamethrower troops, which tend to make short, messy work of opposing infantry. You'll also be able to drop paratroopers behind enemy lines to wreak havoc on an enemy's production queues, but you'll need a radioman to call in those air strikes, and you'll need to keep him alive long enough to make the call.

Interestingly, several of the Pacific Rim campaign scenarios will focus less on resource gathering and more on tactical combat--you'll need to defend key units, like your radio man and your commanding officer, scout the jungles in search of ambushes and snipers, and work with what you've got. Fortunately, the campaign will let you play around with some heavy hardware, like LST landing ships for your fighter planes and the new Catalina bomber, a somewhat slow-flying unit that's decent for reconnaissance and devastating against enemy submarines.

Finally, we had a chance to step into the Roman campaign, a setting that won't have any aircraft carriers or cyber ninjas, but will have historically authentic units to command from the Gallic War period, in which the peaceful Roman Republic adopted its aggressive campaign for expansion to later become the Roman Empire. You'll be able to recruit siege engines, for instance, like the new scorpion catapult, which resembles the siege weapon used in the opening scene of Gladiator. You'll also be able to recruit legionnaires--footmen with heavy shields who can go toe-to-toe with enemy infantry or provide ranged fire by throwing spears. You'll also be able to recruit war generals, like Julius Caesar, who will have special abilities, like conscription, which is the ability to instantly transform a meek, resource-gathering peasant into a legionnaire.

Even though the new campaigns should be enough to keep Empire Earth fans busy, at least for a little while, the Art of Conquest expansion will also ship with new a multiplayer lobby, as well as a set of new editing tools. The Art of Conquest's new multiplayer mode will support online matchmaking, and it will let players sort multiplayer games by their epochs, the number of players, and various rule settings. It will also let you set these and other specific rules if you decide to host a server. Better still are The Art of Conquest's new tools, including the scenario editor, which will be the same one used by Stainless Steel and Mad Doc. The scenario editor will let you make your own scenario maps, script key events, and even string scenarios together into your own custom campaign. The expansion will also have a free-form civilization editor that will let you piece together your own playable faction from the game's huge pool of available units and specific abilities.

The Art of Conquest is already shaping up to be a very solid expansion pack that will make some very interesting additions to Empire Earth. We'll find out for sure when it's released this fall.