Rather like that age-old wargame, chess, real-time strategy games abstract the nature of war, reducing the deadly action and the huge industrial investment into a contest that can be decided in a half-hour multiplayer match. But Empires: Dawn of the Modern World decidedly heads in the direction of historical specificity. The latest game from the designer of the original Age of Empires and Empire Earth isn't a reinvention of the traditional RTS formula, but it has the particular distinction of having nine civilizations that play in radically different ways, each with unique special powers, units, and economic traits. Focusing in on five war-torn periods from the time of medieval knights through World War II, Empires provides a look at how military tactics changed in the centuries leading up to the modern era, and the resulting action can pack a lot of units into fierce combined-arms battles. Simply put, there's a lot for RTS fans to like in Empires.

Wage war in five ages from medieval times to World War II.

Empires refines the millennia-spanning scope of Stainless Steel's Empire Earth down to its core. The studio's previous game featured a whopping 15 different time periods, from the cavemen to a sci-fi scenario, which, among other things, greatly extended the playing time for full multiplayer matches. The new game trades this massive scope for intricate depth and detail. Yet, it is rather similar in style. The verbose detail and dramatic flair of the campaign cinematics and documentation betray the fact that there was a history buff pulling the strings. Apart from fantastical powers that give a few early units extra punch and a distinctive cardlike system for national abilities, the game plays the historical setting pretty straight, which does help it stand out from Ensemble's Age of Mythology just as the great modern tank and plane combat separates it from Age of Empires II.

With this lineage and refined design approach, Empires takes it quite for granted that players have played real-time strategy games before and know the genre's conventions. The manual starts off saying as much, and there's no tutorial to walk you through the basics. The three single-player campaigns are also designed more to offer a real challenge of their own rather than presenting lessons in how to play skirmishes against the computer or online opponents. In fact, the campaigns seem to go out of their way to avoid the build-a-base-and-annihilate-all-enemies formula common to earlier generations of RTS games.

The three campaigns feature many unconventional missions, plus some big WWII battles.

Each of the three campaigns is available from the start and roughly equal in difficulty. Set during the game's medieval, gunpowder, and WWII periods, the campaigns cover moments in history--Richard the Lionheart's defense of England's crown and lands in France, Korea's resistance of a series of 16th-century Japanese invasions, and General Patton's push through North Africa and France--when battlefield leaders beat the odds and changed the path of nations. Things do start slowly, with rather long-winded in-engine cutscenes used to introduce eminent historical personages, but the missions do trace satisfying character-driven story arcs laced with subterfuge and setbacks. All three are carefully scripted and offer distinct mission styles that give a feel for the difficulties facing the military leaders, who usually take charge and jump into the fighting as hero units. Richard spends quite a bit of time riding around the maps to raise troops from scattered towns that remain loyal to him. The Korean missions (including a dramatic recreation of the naval battle that turned the tide) force you to retreat on occasion, but contain clues on puzzle-laden paths to payback. WWII offers the biggest and best battles of the three, most notably a D-Day scenario.

You might not get a good sense of Empires' four-resource economic model in the single-player missions. Many not only severely limit the types of units you can build to match the circumstances, but they even do away with resource gathering altogether, forcing you to rely on hero units, conscripted reinforcements, and/or defensive options, like booby traps and bomb units. There are chances to appreciate the nations' particular abilities, such as the Koreans' ability to gain citizens by raiding enemy camps and killing works and England's mining camps, which free up workers by producing gold or stone on their own (but not food or wood). But rest assured, all the conventions are, at the core, ready for skirmishes. Just as in Age of Empires, you'll gather wood by sending workers to harvest apple trees, hunt animals, farm, or fish. And all nations--except the Franks and the Germans--have to build houses to increase the population limit.