⚔️ The Epochs: 14 (!!) distinct ages of man. Going from a club to a laser rifle in a single 6-hour LAN match was a rite of passage. 🌍 The Cheats: "Lets go that way" (instant super-fast planes) and "photon man" (laser-beam-shooting marine) are permanently burned into our brains. 🏗️ The Wonders: Building the Space Elevator actually felt like winning the future.
While Age of Kings covered a thousand years, Goodman wanted a game that covered half a million years. The result was a RTS that featured (later 15 in the expansion). The journey begins with the Prehistoric age (sticks and stones) and ends in the Nano age (robots and energy shields). Empire Earth
However, the depth went deeper than unit counters. The introduction of aircraft added a verticality to the map. You had to manage anti-air flak cannons while maneuvering your fighters to dogfight enemies and your bombers to strike behind enemy lines. It was a logistical puzzle that rewarded the player who could manage dozens of production queues simultaneously. ⚔️ The Epochs: 14 (
For all its brilliance, Empire Earth had flaws that prevented it from achieving mainstream immortality. 🏗️ The Wonders: Building the Space Elevator actually
The single-player campaign in Empire Earth is infamous for its difficulty. The game follows the German family lineage in "The Von Churchill Story." You start as a German knight in the Middle Ages, then play as his descendant fighting the Spanish Armada, then another descendant fighting in WWII as an American pilot.
You might ask: With modern games like Age of Empires IV and Stormgate, why install a 24-year-old game?