It looks like this whole illness thing isn't going away any time soon, so again sorry for the wonky schedule - but I did have a couple of better days this week so I managed to dust this script off and put something together to tide you all over.
There's just something so funky about the Empire Earth nuclear explosion animation. So white. So clean. So uniformly moving. It looked less like a mushroom cloud and more like a mushroom fart.
I've not played that one before, but I see it's the same studio, same lead designer but a couple of years down the line. I'm interested to see that direction they took.
@@kaluventhebritish Dawn of the Modern World was the original Empire Earth 2, but released under a different name. Stainless Steel implemented into it all of the experiences & feedback they got out of Empire Earth, and DotMW would be the last game fully developed by Stainless Steel before closure.
@@Argacyan There's also Rise and Fall : civilization at war that is the last game Stainless steel made. It was "finished" by midway games after the editor refused to give them extra funding to finish the game with all the features they envisioned originally but it's still from them. Originally after DotMW which covers middle ages to WW2, they wanted to do a game in ancient times (Rise & Fall) and a futuristic game which was never materialized since Stainless steel went bankrupt at the end of Rise and Fall development
@@vincentdegheyndt3609 yeah, I still own a physical copy of Rise & Fall. Sadly my physical copy of Dawn of the Modern World got damaged right around when Cd's started getting phased out largely.
@@Argacyan Oh sad for your DotMW. I still own mine. Rise & fall is available in abandonware via a free to play version originally sponsored by the US air force. You need fixes to get it to work but can still be played
I think the main problem of EE is just that the AI sucks a lot. It only pretends to harvest resources, while not needing any to build anything, and very importantly for the topic of this video, AI opponents always tech up very close to when you do! Obviously tech levels aren't gonna feel impactful if there's so many of them so no single one of them can be super influential, but also, when playing against AI, that impact is deflated about as much as it can be, making you and only you pay with resources that otherwise could have gone into more military, for what is basically a reskin applied to both you and the AI.
I had no idea the AI worked like that, this explains so much! I'm used to the AI getting resource bonuses in a lot of early RTS games to balance out many of the shortfalls with early bot scripting, but now I'm reading up on it I've not seen one that is so detached from the actual game rules.
@@kaluventhebritish yeah, it's beyond silly. I even tested it once, before I could check on the internet, by playing a low-population game on a Planets map from the expansion (where no one can reach one another before space age), starting all the way in classical age. then I built quite a few temples of zeus (which steal max population from them and give it to me), compared to the 0 that the AIs built in aggregate, went full eco, exploited every single resource on my planet, and one of them still teched up to space age a minute or so before me, with like 1/5 or 1/8 of my economy. I remember feeling kinda insulted at the time.
While I remember long nights of going through the epochs in a multiplayer game of EE1 with friends I think I prefer Rise of Nations more when it comes to Age of Empires but longer.
Back in my child days i've played this game SO MUCH! It was long before Steam took note about how much time you spend in a single game, but, i think, i had spent something like 1000 hours only on EE... And yes, nonenthless, i must agree with you. It was maybe too much for a single title. I mean, even the almost perfect AOE2 somethimes struggle to manage all those stuff only in medieval era. But, maybe for me, this... being full of all those stuff was the very single distinction point of EE back in the days. Why? Becaus Empire Earth let you do anything you want. Anything. You could erase a bunch of tribesman whit a single mech, you could drive a Panzer in the against the horses of Genghis Khan... Or you could do the reverse. Whit the Editor, I had built up myself a scenario in which an alliance of tribeseman need to defeat the A.I. lead armada of Conquistadores... It was an hard challenge, an unfair and almost impossilbe one to beat. But i enjoied it. A lot. Even if it was broken, the A.I. cheated, and in the futuristic eras i don't undestood almost anything about laster protection and similar stuff.
You'll probably have a good time with EE2, which largely ran on simplifying and streamlining EE1 into something a bit more compact and where it's a bit more reasonable to experience all the epochs in one game. It also toned down the AI *a lot.* EE3 is...just barely this side of racist in its attempt at stereotype humor, threw the interesting complexity out to import the treasures from AOE3/WC3, compressed the epochs down to 5 to try to match Rise of Nations but didn't deliver on differentiating them properly, and was so bad as an organic whole it significantly tanked the RTS genre. I look forward to those reviews!
This game was too fucking hard. On a random map on the easiest difficulty starting in the prehistoric age, I couldn't so much as create enough villagers to harvest each type of resource before a horde of A.I. clubmen was already in my village killing them off as soon as they'd been created. I later learnt that, in fact, the A.I. cheats, possessing effectively unlimited resources. Don't even get me started on some of the campaign missions.
I think instead of "Empire Earth" they should've just focused on the Futuristic periods since that's the most interesting part of the game in my opinion, even if it is the most simplest and shallowest design wise, infantry are too simple in the Nano Age, they should have had machine guns being replaced by Terminator-esque Minigunners like EE2, and the scenario-only Missile Troopers being reworked into being a combo of the Bazooka + Stinger units as a cheap dual-purpose anti-air and anti-vehicle, instead of being just a different looking stinger unit that appears in campaigns, and the bazooka-line just ending in Modern, and a Railgunner replacing the Sniper in digital as an anti-infantry stealth goon that can pierce multiple units in a formation. "Nano Earth" would've been interesting as though there were Sci-Fi RTS games, they were almost exclusively focused on Space, the closest comparison that could be made is Command & Conquer; though that was at the time mostly either WW2-alt history spinoffs or contemporary day post-gulf war inspired conflicts (though with magical radioactive space gems instead of oil) Having the game focus on futuristic conflicts would've especially been interesting with what could be done with the setting, and state of the earth at the time - states with advanced technology fighting over the last remaining resources, the struggle of nations to get into space whilst fighting battles around rocket launch centers, in a shitshow of an Earth ravaged by climate change and nuclear war; to justify why people have to rebuild city states and empires from scratch like it's the stone age (after all Einstein did say "World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.")
Oh boy, something from my childhood😅 And I agree it did drag on a bit, but I did like all the epochs, it meant you could pit futuristic units against Spearman.
There's a similar problem with Rise of Nations, though to a lesser extent, as it has only eight ages. At a high level, even a non-rush, "boom" player will end the game at the Enlightenment Age at the very latest, before the new units and resources of the Industrial Age even show up. I think limiting it to, perhaps, five ages (Ancient - Classical - Medieval - Gunpowder - Modern) would have allowed the full scope of the game's design to be explored more frequently.
Me and most people would play in imperial age since you had there perfect counter triangle and it was fun to manage unlike nano age with too many robot units to learn which does what. 😋👍
I agree. I enjoyed EE a lot for the first two campaigns, but on the latter epochs the amount of samey units is staggering. Having citizens gathering pumpkins together with robots it's funny but also completely break the immersion. That being said, I find it very curious that you chastise EE for having a bloated complexity (rightly so), while at the same time you celebrate total annihilation and its successors. I was always turned off by the sheer amount of units present in TA, which all looked very similar to me (the blocky graphics and lack of any info in the UI didn't help either). If that were not enough, the whole constructor1->factory 1-> constrctor2 -> factory 2 sequence is overwhelming and confusing. With four army branches we are talking about 8 different tech levels, each one with its own new set of units. Pure madness. By the way, who needs 2 whole tech levels of boats when you already have a fracton of planes? Sure you can add a transport ship and maybe a couple of gunboats, but that should be it. Granted, I haven't played much of TA, but it always felt just.."too much of...everything" and it always managed to push me away. I do appreciate it for being one of the few games that successfully capture the scale of an actual conflict. Still, having so many units and so many tech levels feels wrong in my book. I realize I'm barking at the wrong tree, but I thought you could find this comment interesting.
Thanks for your comment, I do find these things interesting. It's hard for me to make general statements about both TA and all of the successors as they vary so much, but I think the reason I don't find it so much of a problem is that most of the units in those games have vastly different characteristics and production costs. As a comparison in the Empire Earth archery line you have Rock Throwers, Slingers, Javelin Throwers, Pilum Throwers, Bowmen, Composite Bowmen and Longbow men which are all essentially the same unit with the same production cost but with progressively better stats. I think some of the reason why a lot of the TA-derived games feel so bloated is the decision to include amphibious warfare. If it stuck to air/land/sea you would just have 3 basic factories and 3 advanced versions of those - but the decision to include submergible tanks and bots, alongside hovercraft, seaplanes and supporting structures doubles the amount of factories, units and buildings the game has and can make it look a little overwhelming.
@@kaluventhebritish Thanks for the kind answer. It's nice to see that I didn't come out completely unreasonable! Holy crap I didn't even know about amphibious warfare! Nonetheless vehicle and bots are still different production line so it would be 4 branches -8 factories (sorry for nitpicking). Just to add a little bit to the discussion, I think what makes things more confusing/overwhelming in TA/successors: 1) all the units are robots/mechanical in nature and are basically "machines that shoot". The blocky and simple design (referring to TA, new games have probably improved this) blur the lines between the different units (I'm generalizing, but that's the impression) 2) lack of any unit information on the UI. If you compare it with starcraft, you have a clear feel for the unit you have selected. It helps that all the units are vastly different, but you also immediately have a feedback on how a unit attack, the name, the portrait, the health bar, armor, skills...etc. Of course more "massive games" do not have specific UI for units, but they have different ways to "solve" this problem: in C&C for example, a)units are aesthetically very different and b) they resemble real/realistic military units, so they are immediately recognizable. That being said, I enjoyed a lot your videos on BAR and they made me want to give it a try. Maybe once I get more the feel of the game I won't feel overwhelmed as much.
@@blackest3314 Interestingly, I had a similar experience with TA, but not Supreme Commander. I've been intimidated to try BAR or Zero-K as a result, but maybe I should give it a go.
RTSs with ages should really focus on a specific timeframe, the early it is the bigger the frame it can get away with. I also think rts games should understand that the first ages will always be speedrushed, and unless you are attempting a rush most of the gameplay will happen in the last age, so you should make the ages so that the last one truly encapsulates the period you are aiming for. Age of Empires 2 for example fails here imo. For a game that is supposed to be set in the Medieval Period, it never truly encapsulates the period. The first age, "Dark Age" is more comparable to the stone age, people live in wood and leather huts and there is only a clubman unit, not only it doesn't represent the dark ages at all, it's an age where you are only supposed to build your economy and age-up as fast as possible. And just like that, Age of Empires completely skipped the first half of the Medieval period (475bc-1000bc) The second age, Feudal Age is alright, (although more comparable to the actual Dark Ages) The Castle age already gets into late medieval territory, with half the civs getting access to gunpowder weapons. And the final age is clearly in the early modern period, and ironically even later than Age of Empires 3's first age (A particular example of this is how Portugal's leader in Age of Empires 3 literally died before the hero from Age of Empires 2 was born)
I agree with your thoughts, although I think if a game was cleverly and carefully designed someone might be able to make a better go at it. Perhaps choices made and development undertaken during an earlier age could have impact on future ages, so rushing though them gives you a short term gain but going at a steadier pace could have long-term benefits. As you mentioned heroes, I always found Rommel to be an uncomfortable choice in EE. An ambiguous character for sure, but hardly as a clean as his myth made him out to be, and certainly one that spent many years absolutely devoted to Hitler.
I am thinking of giving Empire Earth 2 a go, it looks quite interesting and the reviews aren't bad either. I didn't catch there was an Expansion for EE. I got the gold edition from GOG and it looks it it's all rolled into one game if you get it that way.
@@kaluventhebritish all it does, iirc, is add space terrain in a different map mode, like Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds compared to AOE2. You ain't missing much.
@@kaluventhebritish The expansion for EE is art of conquest and even with GOG edition, it's a separate exe file But honnestly it wasn't great so you didn't miss much
I fully agree with the problems, but I don't think it is only a matter of the scale, because Empire Earth II was, at least for me, a lot more fun than 1, and still had the scale ambition. I do think that in general it is a game in which campaings are far more interesting than skirmishes,
I hated EE at the time. It was a stinker compared to it's contemporaries. I don't understand the rabid fan base it has online (e.g. in these comments). I suspect it was the only game they owned at the time. I can't see how any one buying this game in 2001 would prefer it to: AOE2, C&C3, Homeworld, TA:K, C&CRA2, Majesty, Sacrifice, Battlecry, Battle Realms, Cossacks, Dune 2000 or Battle of Dune, Kohan all of which came out before it. The closest historical RTS is AOE2 and EE is a farce in comparison. Shortly after it came out we had Age Of Mythology too. The game was bland, controlled badly, had terrible AI, had a terrible UI (nothing is a better player experience than playing the intro Alexander campaign, opening up research and being able to put percentage points in rocket research) and looked really ugly, even for early 3d. I played the game a year or so after it first available and was astounded by how poor the game was, and went back to playing better RTS games instead. They should have abandoned the series in 2003 when Rise of Nations, the best base-building RTS ever was released. That showed the world how you _actually_ do a 4x-scale RTS game.
I get the impression that the people who were very fond of Empire Earth didn't love it for the standard gameplay, but rather as a sandbox for playing out ideas that they found cool or interesting. Nearly everyone that has great memories of it always mentions the custom scenario editor first and foremost, so I think this is a case of people using the tools the game provided to create their own fun.
@@kaluventhebritish defo. It's something very missing in today's game, except for block busters like Minecraft and Roblox. People like making their own stuff for games, but very few games let you do that easily now.
