xbox – Page 20 – My Game Reviews

Empire Earth: The War of the Walls

This is a gallery of a recent Empire Earth skirmish that I had with two medium level AIs.

I made a choice to have the era start in the Dark Age and only let it progress towards the Middle Ages. I wanted to see how the AI interacted in this match.

The AI at Medium Difficulty was still cheating in Empire Earth.

The AI is alot more competent at this difficulty level here. They use the unit upgrading system in Empire Earth unlike in the Easy mode where they do not use it. This means that the AI tends to be better at tactical movements of their units.

They are also better at using their naval power in this game. In this particular match with the AIs, the Carthage AI was sending ships to my port and harassing me. My ally helped me with this, allowing for my fishing ships to deliver food to my empire.

However, I generally go for Wonder Victories in Empire Earth.

The Wonder victory in Empire Earth was analogous to the Wonder victory in Age of Empires games. These wonders take time to build, so I recommend having many citizens to build it and do it when you have strong economy and military in place.

The AI, as soon as you build the wonder, immediately starts beelining for the wonder with huge armies, sending everything to the wonder to prevent you from winning.

Of course, the AI has full view of the map. There is no fog of war for a smart computer. The AI also has huge resources and can just send tons of troops and ships to the location.

When one looks at the AIs towns and cities, alot of the citizens are not farming or mining. Often times, I will see them moving in straight lines, getting harassed and taken down by soldiers.

The match was somewhat annoying but I bulit strong walls and chose Byzantine Rome as my civilization. This meant by walls were strong and I had no issue with winning this wonder victory. Carthage was getting really aggressive at the end but my team was victorious.

Empire Earth: The Rare Case of a Video Game showing the future of Naval Warfare

Empire Earth Nano Age Aircraft Carrier Nexus.

In Science-Fiction, space is the great frontier that every author focuses on. However, the waters are as important as the deep expanses of space. Empire Earth clearly shows that the battles in the oceans of Earth will be as important.

In one of my games that I started as a skirmish on a Mediterranean map. I was engaging a rival computer player with my computer ally. This was on Easy and yet the AIs were acting in their usual dumb ways. They would have moments of brilliance but then spend time attacking walls slowly instead of building their economies.

I took a leisurely pace with the game, not spending too much time worrying about the AI.

When I was ready, I began preparations to strike.

The Naval battles in the Nano Age are quite exciting and have some weight to them. The developers really put effort into this section of the game, giving the ships a distinctive look in comparison with what we know in our current age.

When you see the submarines in the Nano Age, they are sleeker and have more angular structures to them. Most science fiction has a tendency to ignore the submarines also.

The inclusion of blue water ships in science fiction is something we should see more of in video games. It helps to revitalize a genre that sometimes get too stuck with space.

Empire Earth and the Cheating AI

With ChatGPT being so popular, I made a trip back to one of my favorite games, Empire Earth.

When I used to play this game as I was younger, there was a sense of how annoying it was. The AI in random matches and campaigns was often cheating constantly. While I understand that Computers cannot really match the thinking of a human, it is really frustrating to see the AIs cheat their way through a game.

In the above screenshot, you can see an example of how the computer is limited in its thinking.

As soon as I bulit three wonders, the AI makes a beeline to attack it. It is very obvious and it is clear that the AI running on a script and its not very creative here.

I was playing on the settings Small, Mediterranean as it is my most favorite of the maps,

However, there was another sign of the AI cheating here. Wherever there is water, the AI sends its citizens to go build on the shore just to make sure it has a dock ready to pump out some ships to harass me.

The AI knows where to harass me, which is typical in these games of this era.

There is one thing that I do enjoy about it cheating, however. The AI is aggressive even on Easy. There is one thing to say about the AI on the Easy mode; it isn’t easy.

The AI is challenging for sure and that makes the game worth playing in this current age of handholding and mobile games.

This is why we should cherish older games.