New interface. Empire Earth 1 with new take-ins and outs for better and worse.
The hype said that this game improved dramatically on graphics from number 1. If anything, I was dissapointed. Aside from the neat weather effects that you unfortunately barely notice, there seems to be no great improvement on graphics.
The battle system hasn't changed alot. However the resources and growth system has changed quite dramatically. Apart from there being 2 new resources for you to track down depending on the age you're in, there is the system of universities and churches of gaining knowledge points. Pretty much you have to use priests and units to study at universities and churches, who will slowly gain knowledge points, which you can use both for civilization improvements and advancements to new ages.
This is pretty much a necessity and encourages you to build more towns since there is also now a structure limit and a strict barrier on how far out you can build from town centers. I never really had any gripes with this since it did encourage oen of the main goals to the empire earth series, "dominate the map." Though alot of elements of strategy seemed to be lost using this system compared to number 1 since all civilizations would go mad on building as many universities and town centers as possible. While this isn't much different from number 1's resources system it does mean resources don't have to be found and protected, which was one of the funner parts to Empire Earth.
One of the major dissapointments is the loss of the civilization hero. Although this is arguably better since heroes could often wipe out an armed enemy town single-handedly, heroes can add that little bit of spice and individuality to players.
The sound is better, though the music now comes in at certain intervals suchy as when entering one of your towns, and some of the music is quite repeatative.
It really is not definitely better or worse than Empire Earth. It depends on what the user liked most about Empire Earth.