Empire Earth (video game)

The first campaign in Empire Earth is the Learning campaign. This campaign is where players are taught how to play Empire Earth. This campaign is available in both the original game and The Art of Conquest. This campaign is not required to be played in order and is divided into two parts. The first part is about the rise of Phoenicia. The second part is about the rise of the Byzantine Empire.

The first real campaign focuses on Ancient Greece. The opening five scenarios (of eight scenarios total) focus on the rise of Greece. The story tells of the early Helladic people from Anatoly, the Trojan War, the rise of Athens by unifying Attica, and the first years of the Peloponnesian War. There are some fictional elements as well (such as the Trojan horse being given to the Ithacans by the gods). The sixth scenario of the campaign is about the life of Alexander the Great. This part is about Alexander's ascension to the Macedonian throne and the establishment of the League of Corinth by crushing the revolt of Thebes, Athens and Sparta. The following scenario is about the Battle of the Granicus, Battle of Issus, and the siege of Tyre. The final scenario is the Battle of Gaugamela, the capture of Babylon and the battle for the Persian Gates, a mountain pass beyond which lies Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire. The campaign ends when Alexander and his army enters Persepolis and Alexander manages to escape an assassination attempt while visiting the tomb of Xerxes I of Persia.

The English campaign is about the struggles between England and France for superiority in Europe. The first three scenarios (of eight total) are about William I of England, his victory against the rebellion from the barons with the help of Henry I of France in 1047, and the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The next three scenarios take place during the Hundred Years' War between England and France; Edward, the Black Prince and his raids in France are featured in the fourth and fifth scenarios. The sixth scenario is about Henry V of England's story, some parts based on William Shakespeare's play. The first part is the internal unrest of Lollards while the second part sees the occupation of Harfleur and the Battle of Agincourt. The final two scenarios are led by Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, who meets Napoleon I of France in battles at Roliça, Talavera and Waterloo.

In the German campaign, the first four scenarios—out of seven total—take place during World War I and feature the Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron. The player follows Richthofen through his early days of flight and the development of his "Flying Circus." The first mission involves directing Richthofen and his pilot, Count Holck, to safety after their aircraft is shot down over Poland in 1915, but in subsequent missions, Richthofen is a minor character. In the next three missions, the player protects shipments of war materials into Germany, directs German forces at the Battle of Verdun, and directs the Kaiserschlacht at the Battle of the Somme.

The second part, consisting of three scenarios, deals with Nazi Germany and the first years of World War II in Europe. The first scene introduces the Blitzkrieg, in which the player has to conquer Poland, Scandinavia, and France before an American-Soviet alliance makes it impossible. The next mission deals with the German U-boat and naval blockade of Great Britain and the Battle of Britain, which features the Kriegsmarine surface fleet led by the battleship Bismarck facing off against the British Home Fleet. In the final scenario—the never-attempted Operation Sealion—the player leads German forces in an invasion of Great Britain under the famous Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, ultimately annexing the United Kingdom to the Greater German Reich and thwarting a surprise attack by the U.S. 5th Fleet (led by the carrier USS Enterprise) in the process.

In the Russian campaign, the player leads Novaya Russia, a reconstruction of the Russian Federation. The game begins in 2018, with the Russian political dissident Grigor Stoyanovich heading up a full-sized civil war from Volgograd, followed by a seizure of power in the Kremlin in Moscow. The second scenario is about Europe's unsuccessful attempt to free Novaya Russia's oppressed population and Russia's conquest of the continent. In the third scenario the now-old Grigor appoints his robotic bodyguard as his successor, crushes a coup in Moscow with help from loyalist forces, and finally succumbs to heart problems. Under Grigor II, Novaya Russia continues its conquest of the world by invading and subjugating China. China had been building a time machine, but the Russian forces destroy it, narrowly averting a time paradox. By this time, Novaya Russia has control over much of Eurasia.

In the penultimate scenario, during an attempted invasion of the United States in 2098, General Sergei Molotov finally realizes that Grigor II became mad with power, and deserts instead of following orders to wipe out the entire population of Cuba. Cooperating with U.S. agent Molly Ryan, he re-enacts the Chinese plan, building a time machine and returning to 2018 in order to set things right. They arrived just a few minutes late, as Grigor already left Voronezh. In addition, Grigor II realized their plans and took the time machine, fortifying Volgograd with a sizeable detachment of cybernetic forces. A massive battle ensued, ending in the technologically horribly outmatched Molotov and Ryan destroying Grigor II and assassinating Grigor (who proved to be unreasonable due to the knowledge of Novaya Russia's military might).

Empire Earth sold over 1 million units globally by 2002.[14] In the United States, it sold 390,000 copies and earned $16.7 million by August 2006. It was the country's 41st best-selling computer game between January 2000 and August 2006. In the United States, combined sales of all Empire Earth games released between January 2000 and August 2006 had reached 870,000 units.[15] Empire Earth received a "Silver" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA),[16] indicating sales of at least 100,000 copies in the United Kingdom.[17] In Spain, the Asociación Española de Distribuidores y Editores de Software de Entretenimiento offered it a "Gold" prize,[18] for 40,000 sales in the country during its first year.[19] In France, the game sold 110,000 units by March 2005.[20]

Empire Earth averaged an 82% according to GameRankings,[21] and earned GameSpy's 2001 "PC Game of the Year" award.[22] It was rated 8.5/10 by IGN, who commented "Anyone who's familiar with Age of Empires is going to hit the ground running in Empire Earth. With a few additions and some small changes the economic model and interface is pretty much exactly like that in AoE2."[23] GameSpot was not as impressed, giving it 7.9/10, saying "Empire Earth is best reserved for hard-core real-time strategy players who won't mind the game's less-than-stellar graphics and sound but will instead relish the ability to relive 14 different epochs of human warfare.".[6] Game Informer was disappointed and gave it a 6.25/10, saying "Empire Earth couldn't walk the walk like it talked the talk. Although no one patch can fix either of the aforementioned items, the latter will certainly see some type of quick adjustment in the near future."[24]

In the early 2000s the game quickly attracted a community of fans, the majority of which were on forums such as Heaven Games.[28]

Over time the community reduced in size as the game became less popular and its technology became more outdated.[6] Various issues such as backward compatibility of the game have also contributed to preventing new players from discovering the game over time.[24] The community has been maintained in part by sharing custom scenarios and various creations such as textures and 3D models, but mostly by projects that have helped the game evolve over time.[29]

Empire Earth was developed using DirectX 7 for Windows 95 and 98, most modern drivers do not support this version of DirectX.[30]

On November 3 Nov 2008, the game's WON multiplayer servers were closed.[27]

In response to this rapid collapse the save-ee community reacted by creating a client in 2009 that uses a VPN connection to play online.[31]

In 2013 a new server was created, NeoEE is a project that recovers 100% of the features of the original lobby.[32]

In 2017 a member of the community published dreXmod dll[33] This is a patch that allows the game camera to be changed to fit modern screen sizes. Version 2.0[34] was released on February 28, 2018.

In 2019 a project began: the Reborn project which aims to create a complete modpack for Empire Earth to offer a new experience. This project has been very popular, and its community is now the largest and most active of the game with a Discord specific to the project.

On February 16, 2022, the Reborn team released the Empire Earth Community Setup,[35] an easy setup to install the game with compatibility fixes and additional content. This setup is available in two versions, one to install the original game and the other to install NeoEE, this setup is also considered the successor to the official NeoEE installer (and has become the official one on March 13, 2022). Moreover the setup adds automatic downloading of the game in 11 languages (some of which were considered almost lost), includes dreXmod 2 and remastered content. On the same day the Empire Earth Community site was made public along with a pre-release of the Reborn dll[36] which is an open source partial re-implementation of dreXmod 2.

On the evening of December 24-25, the December 2022 update[37] was released for Christmas. This update includes major changes such as an update of dreXmod[38] from dreXmod 2.01 to dreXmod 3: this includes the addition of a ranking system in the NeoEE multiplayer lobby, a visual improvement of the lobby and a better support of the game resolution for modern screen. This update also includes ARM/ARM64 support for the Community Setup[39] and deliver Empire Earth Stats[40] dll that allows to make statistics on the use and performance of the game, and finally it includes a new help page for NeoEE to facilitate the integration of new players. The entire content of this update is available with version 1.0.4.0[41] of the community setup. This update is quite important for the community as it delivers new content and is the result of a collaboration of different members of the community who have long worked separately (NeoEE, dreXmod and Reborn devs). This update was also an opportunity to highlight the Empire Earth Community identity created at the time of the release of the site and the first version of the community setup. Allowing to continue the will of the community to unite and assemble their efforts[42] to try to increase the number of players rather than trying to keep the existing ones.