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.

The Roman Empire, by popular demand.

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.

The 15th epoch--the final frontier.

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.