f you’re a diehard PC RTS fan, you’ve probably had more than enough fodder to keep you busy these past few months.  Heck, sometimes it seems like the only titles coming out on the PC are RTS games.  But, despite the plethora of games being released, few do much to really vault the genre in any new directions. VU Games and Mad Doc Software are hoping to change that with their upcoming sequel Empire Earth II.  While it features a number of elements from the first game, there are plenty of new additions to keep your world domination interesting.

First and foremost, you’ve probably played other RTS titles on the PC that are quite similar to Empire Earth II.  The main objective in most modes is to start a civilization, carry them through technological and societal upgrades, and then use your military and diplomatic might to quash your opponents.  From a gameplay standpoint, it’s a tried and true system.

When you fire up the game you’ll be taking a civilization through a sizable chunk of history, from the year 10,000 BC to 2230 AD.  From the Stone Age to the technologically advanced future, you’ll have a mind-boggling array of units and skills at your disposal.  While you do start at some pretty humble beginnings, with little more than axe carrying combat units, playing through the expansive campaign will get your acquainted with modern tools of warfare such a tanks and planes, all the way up to things like gigantic robots and other futuristic units.  But, each of the 15 playable civilizations isn’t just palette-swapped wastes of time.  In fact, each civilization features their own unique units as well as abilities.  And, to make the game a bit more visually and aurally different, each civilization features their own unique architecture and background music.

When you choose a civilization to play as, you’re given a few different options on how you want to proceed through the game.  The straight up campaign mode is incredibly lengthy and gives you the chance to take a society through its most humble beginnings to its more technologically fantastic future.  The campaign is broken down into 15 distinct epochs, with certain technology, buildings, and units only able to be built during a particular epoch.  For example, you can’t just start producing airplanes if you’re in the Stone Age; instead you’ll have to play through the campaign and build up your society and its knowledge until you get to the point where you possess the technology to build machines.  If a drawn out campaign that literally will take you hours upon hours to complete isn’t your cup of tea, the game also features a number of shorter campaigns that focus on certain cultures and how they evolved throughout history.  The Koreans, for example, are a people who have constantly staved off invasion and enemy forces to emerge as a very unique Asian culture.  By playing through their short campaign, you’ll get a hint of what sort of conflicts occurred during ancient times and how they affected the entire region of Asia. 

Your society starts from humble beginnings

If you prefer the modern tools of warfare and just can’t wait to dabble with them, you’ll also be able to play through special “turning point” battles that chronicle key conflicts in history that had the potential to change the course of the world.  One such campaign is the Allied strike on German-occupied France at the end of World War II.  Not only do these “turning point” battles give you the quick opportunity to start playing with units and tools not available until much later in the regular campaign, they also give you a nice hint at the sort of strategic goings on that were part of the historic conflicts.  If you didn’t pay attention in history class, you’re about to get a refresher course.

If you’ve played any RTS on the PC, the basic gameplay mechanics of Empire Earth II probably won’t give you much trouble.  If you choose to start off by playing the lengthy campaign mode, you’ll begin the game with a few peasants and then be tasked with using them to essentially build your society from the ground up.  You’ll build elements like city centers, barracks, universities, temples, and special wonder structures that are both massive and give you special bonuses while on the battlefield.  All construction is bound by how much of a particular resource you may have, such as wood, stone, gold, tin, copper, and food.  You also need to make sure that you have enough dwelling structures built so you can continue to pump out new units to either gather resources or fight enemies.  Overall the system is pretty standard for the genre.

Weather can adversely affect unit movement and sight

Where Empire Earth II tries to mix things up is in its management features.  After all, creating and guiding a society through the epochs of time isn’t exactly an easy task.  The two main management tools that you’ll probably find most important are the citizen management and territory management systems.  Some missions in the campaign require you to take on multiple societies or extend the reaches of your kingdom through diplomatic means.  To make it easier to keep track of what territory is held by whom, the in-game map will actually color certain areas of its body depending on which society is holding it.  This is made even more helpful in the War Planner, a map-like interface that aids in planning combat strikes.  When you pull up the War Planner, the entire map is displayed and broken down into different colors designating territories and which group holds it.  To make invasion easier, you can simply click on your combat units from the War Planner menu and then drag a line to the destination that you want to attack towards.  After doing so, your units will simply be on their way and attack anything that may cross their path along the way.  While it’s a pretty hands-off way to do things, it’s invaluable during the later missions that have you juggling a mind-boggling number of tasks at once.

With so much action going on with your combat units, it’s sometimes hard to remember the little folks working behind the scenes that make all of that possible.  The Citizen Manager allows a much more user-friendly means of distributing workloads amongst your lowly serfs.  When you bring up the Citizen Management menu, you’ll be presented with a map that highlights all of the resource deposits for the entire area.  With that information, all you have to do is click a deposit to send a unit to harvest those resources.  Say you have 15 lazy workers just sitting around doing nothing.  If you want to them to get on harvesting food, all you need to do is click a food icon on the map 15 times and those available workers will automatically head there to do their work.  For a game that so heavily relies on having working units out and about in every direction, the Citizen Manager makes the potentially headache-inducing process a breeze.  And while it doesn’t really come into play until you start amazing and creating a sizable society, it’s still helpful nonetheless.

Modern technology has plenty of formidable weapons of war

Interesting enough, despite the impressive array of weapons of war you can gain access to, Empire Earth II also features a darn impressive diplomacy system to make friends of your neighbors, instead of enemies.  If you choose to extend diplomatic relations to a neighboring society, you’ll be given a number of different options to keep the lines between friend and enemy as established as you want.  Peace treaties can be set up so that they only last a certain amount of time, or expire after a certain event has occurred, such as a declaration of war.  Given the fact that any ally can move their military troops through your territory whenever they want, it’s important to not get too paranoid about the whole process.  When allied with another society, you gain the benefit of a shared line of sight amongst your two civilizations.  Depending on how many allies you have, you can potentially have a large portion of the map exposed to you, which makes combating those you haven’t allied with much easier since it will usually give you more notice when they go on the move to attack you.

Visually and aurally, Empire Earth II doesn’t necessarily take the RTS genre in any spectacular new directions, but that’s not to say that the game doesn’t look good.  Actually, it’s quite the contrary.  Maps are filled with lots of impressive foliage and water, not to mention some well created particle effects when it comes to things like fire and explosions.  Units themselves are pretty diverse in appearance and while they don’t look all that great when you zoom the camera in tightly, they do differ in looks from each other well enough to give them some personality.  Each unit also come with their own unique sound effects and voice over clips, which are humorous, although they tend to get old pretty fast.

Empire Earth II offers up just enough variety to really take it in some enjoyable directions.  While the actual gameplay is pretty standard for an RTS, the management options and interesting historical slant makes that shortcoming all but moot.  For history buffs and those looking to etch out their own place in history, it’s an engaging affair.  And for those just looking for some good old fashioned RTS strategy fun, it will certainly fit the bill.