This real-time strategy sequel has some clever mechanics, but bad implementation of everything from the combat to the AI drags the experience down.
The Empire Earth franchise was once one of the big guns in strategy gaming. The original was named
Unfortunately, Empire Earth III has little to offer strategy fans of any disposition. Some of the hallmarks of the series have been stripped away in an effort to simplify the game. And while there are a couple of clever design elements here, they're buried under extremely poor implementation. The clumsy AI and muddled combat really drag down what might have been an enjoyable title, and feels like an unpolished product pushed out the door. You can salvage some good times out of the online skirmishes, but Empire Earth III doesn't really compete with the likes of Age of Empires III or other modern RTS titles.
Bringing Terror to Your Era
Empire Earth III boasts a timeline that encompasses human history from the ancient era to the inevitable giant-robot future. There are five distinct time periods with unique units and buildings for each. Previous games in the franchise had as many as 15 eras, which used to be one of the unique elements of the game. When you had 15 eras, it was impractical to make a beeline for the last one. This gave the game a constant tension: attack now or develop just once more? With only five eras, and only 20-25 minutes total to reach the final one, there's no reason not to rush for the finish line as players do with every other RTS on the market. "Should I attack with longbowmen or spend the next couple of minutes gaining air strikes and tactical nukes?" doesn't require Sun Tzu's military savvy to figure out, and in the process, the series loses a little of what made it unique.
Players can choose three distinct factions: Western, Middle Eastern and Far Eastern. Each has its own units, buildings, and rules governing things like population caps. The three factions are relatively balanced, although the Middle Eastern faction is difficult to play since you have to make do without walls. Western vs. Far Eastern conflicts are interesting since the former focuses on a limited number of tough but expensive units while the latter fills the battlefield with inexpensive, disposable fighters.
One good design decision is to simplify the resource model. All you need to worry about are "raw materials" and "wealth." Any resource point on the map will generate raw materials, and trade carts crisscross the map to generate wealth. The further you send your trade carts, the more money they'll generate, but the more vulnerable they are to attack. The economic model is simple but fun.
It's unfortunate that the game's elegant economics aren't matched by an equally compelling combat model. Supposedly Empire Earth uses a "rock-paper-scissor" scheme, which is intuitive when it comes to "pikemen vs. cavalry vs. infantry" but has you scratching your head when you try to figure out "robot vs. flame tank." It's worth it to field a mixed force, but thanks to the chaotic individual unit AI 90% of fights end up as inscrutable blobs of units. Since your troops often don't respond immediately to orders to attack individual units, tactics aren't really a factor.
More importantly, battles just don't resolve themselves properly. Let's take the scythe chariots from the ancient era for example. Historically, scythe chariots were absolutely terrifying. They'd charge into groups of infantry with three-foot long blades attached to the wheels, literally hacking legs off at the kneecaps. Intuitively, what do you think would happen if a huge group of scythe chariots charged at a group of unarmored slingers? By all means, it should be a slaughter.
But here's what happens in Empire Earth III: the group of scythe chariots mingles about, confused, crashing into each other and rotating in place. For whatever reason they break off into groups of ones and twos and... very... slowly... amble toward the slingers. The slingers are firing rocks at semi-automatic speeds, each volley decimating my chariots one at a time. Not a single slinger is killed; the chariots are wiped off the map. Go ahead and try to plan a sensible strategy from that!
Global Domination
In lieu of your standard single-player RTS campaign experience, Empire Earth III features a turn-based global domination mode. This is a nifty idea (similar to the campaign modes of Rise of Nations or the lesser-known Emperor: Battle for Dune), and at the global level it works well. The Earth is divided up into provinces that will earn you resources every turn. You can build up individual armies and then send them into territories to conquer (or woo) the natives or do battle against other would-be conquerors. Along the way you can research special global-level technologies, our favorite of which is "shock and awe" (when you enter a region, planes will soar overhead and bomb the enemy base just as the map begins).
When you try to conquer a region, the action zooms in and you fight a skirmish battle against the AI on terrain that matches that part of the globe. Periodically "special missions" will pop up, and some sort of scenario will play out on the skirmish map (such as rescuing and escorting a princess or defending against a sudden barbarian horde invasion). The idea is really solid, and when it works it works great.
Unfortunately, like most of Empire Earth III, the implementation isn't always right. The game doesn't always generate skirmishes that make sense. One time it placed our substantial starting army right next to our opponent's unescorted city center cart, used to build a Middle-Eastern starting city. Of course we pounced on it and demolished it, and the game told us we had won the province. It took less than five seconds; we won the map in less time than it took to load. World Domination mode is an excellent premise that falls short in execution, and doesn't do a good job of replacing standard RTS campaigns with scripted well-designed set-piece battles and storylines.
Bringing Errors to Your Era, Too
In addition to the problems described above, there are almost too many issues with Empire Earth III to list. The game AI sometimes gets itself stuck in a territory and simply stops expanding. Artillery doesn't always respond when you give it a target. Artillery range is farther than your line of sight, so you're constantly bombarding targets but can't see if you're hitting them. Even the manual is buggy, showing screenshots of a completely different game interface and pointing out features (like a tech tree screen) that don't exist.
Fortunately the game fares a little better in multiplayer mode, where there's no buggy opponent AI or mission generator to contend with. An in-game browser tracks buddies and optionally reports to a ladder for ranked matches. There are very few players online at the time of this writing, but the gameplay experience isn't bad if you get a game going.
Empire Earth III had some solid ideas behind it. The system of territory control, the balance of the economic model, and the world domination map all represent some great game mechanics. But PC strategy gamers have a lot to choose from on store shelves these days, and bugs, muddled combat, or weak AI aren't things that strategy fans have to live with. It pains us to admit it as fans of the franchise, but this Empire is definitely in decline.
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