So, all of this must be because the combat system is so revolutionary, and all-encompassing that you simply don't have time to micromanage your flock, I hear you say? Well, in short, no. Initially, you get your barracks, stable and war machine factory, and all seems well with the world. You'll start to pump out a few basic military units, such as bowmen and phalanx units, depending on what faction you play. You might even experiment and run up a decent cavalry, until you realise how many resource points you've just spent. In any case, the initial stages of the game play out just like any other RTS in regards to setting up buildings to produce armies.
Then it all sort of.. tapers out. Units can be upgraded, and one or two new units are available with each epoch advance, but with so few epochs there's hardly any variability. It takes virtually no time to figure out exactly what all the units do, and even with the addition of some cool abilities such as conducting bombing runs from airports, there's just too much missing. All you really need to do to beat anyone is simply spam out units, arrange them in rank and file, and point them at the enemy. If you happen to have less "raw materials", you lose. And that's pretty much the game.
If the lack of effort shown by the developers doesn't drive you crazy, the unit speech will. It's not unique to the Empire Earth series, lots of other games include pointless soundbites when you order a unit to move several pixels to the left, but perhaps none quite as pointless as "the bottom of my right foot itches", or "just don't tap me on the shoulder". This is assuming you actually manage to get the unit to go where you want; I wouldn't have thought it possible, but the unit tracking is actually worse than EE II. When marching, units form trails like demented conga lines, sailing off into the distance, with the faster units leaving the slower ones behind. This is sure to guarantee that an army you've spent the last ten minutes building will be slaughtered one unit at a time when it arrives at the enemies gate. If indeed they arrive at all, considering units get stuck, or in some cases actually go in the opposite direction you ask them to.
One positive is that they've retained the dynamic and highly detailed weather effects. Of course, they've ruined it by making them have absolutely no effect on gameplay whatsoever.
Moving on from skirmish mode, you now have a choice of "world domination". This is a top-down Earth simulation, in that you occupy a territory, move your units to seize another territory, and get certain bonuses based on what that territory provides to you. You can set the new territory to produce imperial or commerce points, which allow you to do things like build transport between them, or you can just leave them as military territories, which allows you to expand your armies. There are a large number of "world technologies" that can be researched and applied with the right amount of these points. You can even get to the point where you carpet-bomb a neighbour before invading, which is something we could all look forward to.
When capturing a territory that isn't occupied by a native tribe, you actually have to play a full skirmish-style game against either the AI, or another player, in order to win, which is a nice touch and one that means an average world domination map can take literally dozens of hours to complete. Especially considering they throw random "world events" at you, which are sort of mini-missions to be completed in order to unlock new missions, or just increase your domination of the map. Really, if you'd never played Risk or StarCraft you'd think it was pretty original. Indeed, the "world domination" mode is pretty much the only thing that keeps Empire Earth III afloat, because you will tire of the skirmish mode in quick order.
Inexplicably, Mad Doc have taken most of what made the previous two editions of the Empire Earth series epic and either removed them, or dumbed them down. It's just not up to the standard expected - nay, demanded by PC RTS fans in 2008. With the imminent release of StarCraft II and the invariable conversion a lot of history buffs will make over to the science fiction realm, Mad Doc have got to go back to grassroots and get real with Empire Earth IV, or they may as well not bother.
Newsflash guys - if I wanted a simple RTS I'd have browsed the lineup at Vodafone Vlive.
