The response from the developers was indecision as to whether they should fix the bug or start adding space colonies to the game. One glitch in the physics engine, meanwhile, caused debris to start orbiting the globe like an asteroid belt. Irritating vocal responses to basic commands are the bane of RTS games, but hearing a US marine say, "It's time to roll out the red carpet. Games of EE3 could range from a 'quick' few hours to an ongoing war taking weeks.įor all the effort spent on tech trees, balance and physics engines, it's good to see Mad Doc are putting in a sense of humour. It's similar in theory to the Pitboss server for Civ IV, or playing chess by mail with someone in Greece. Then they organise when to play the RTS battles that follow in their own time. New game modes will include World Domination, in which one player will act as the server, where up to eight players can make their moves on the world map individually. "We're really chasing the guys on that one. "We're dealing with that," Nordhaus and Klaisner tell me. Mention the other problems with the previous games to the Mad Doc boys -for example, the inability of units to choose sensible paths to their destination - and their reaction is open and reassuring. Another way they've smoothed out the freshly-laundered gameplay is by simplifying the resource management - there are no longer five resources and units who rely on a number of them there's just cash and goods. The 15 epochs have now been replaced with a less dogmatic tech tree, and no player will be able to research the whole thing over the course of a game - specialising will be essential. What's left on the map at the end of the battle stays there - waiting for next time that terrain becomes a battleground. Foregone conclusions can be skipped with a time-saving auto-resolve feature, so you won't have to mobilise your fleet of space-tanks against a peasant and a tree. Once you've moved your armies around the globe and played your secret special powers, any conflicts on the map are resolved with the game's RTS mode. It's all about wowing the newcomers Empire Earth has a loyal fanbase across Europe with many thousands of devotees, but a more welcoming and pretty game is the way to rope in us shallow idiots in the UK. But way, way cooler than the previous games. The cloud system gently circling the globe is subtle and pleasing, and in the RTS element, the old functional graphics have been vastly improved, to the point where a physics engine determines how exploded lumps of btiildinq will interact with the terrain. The graphics have undergone a change too, joining ns in the modern day. You'll have to discover and use it to be any good, of course, but it's designed to feel like a discovery rather than a tutorial mission chore. Much of the complexity of the previous games is there, but it's not forced down your throat. From these panels, you can access the deep underground vaults of options and settings. There's vital information at the top and a handful of buttons at the bottom, each opening up a modular set of menus. The overview map, from which the turn-based element of the game is conducted, is much like Google Earth. "The tendency is for the interface to grow and grow, but we wanted to make the screen a lot cleaner with EE3," admits Klaisner. So what have they done to improve the third Empire Earth? For every respectful doff to the strategy, there'd be a whimper alxxit information overload and micromanagement They were rewarding (james, but the reward was locked in a combination safe. For every compliment about the gameplay balance, there'd be a lament about the dated and samey graphics. While developing EE3, Mad Doc are bearing in mind the fact that previous acclaim has always been qualified and reserved. The first game (the only Empire Earth th.it wasn't developed by Mad Doc) divided human into 15 epochs, from scrap-happy cavemen to futuristic mech combat, and featured huge conflicts and fivepronged resource management that kept your attention split between pretty much everywhere. Everyone also agrees that they're not for part-timers or the tactically faint-hearted. The Empire Earth games, everyone agrees, are solid, epic strategy. They might be working on a game so ambitious in scope as to be daunting, but this is their fourth Empire-based release and they seem pretty confident. That's the overwhelming impression you get from meeting Mad Doc's lead designer Matthew Nordhaus and producer Maximilien X Klaisner.
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