[OT] Anyone with experience playing Empire Earth?

[CrazyMage]

Picked it up yesterday. I like Age of Empire I/II, Civ 3, so I thought I give this one a try. Looks good (animation is sweet) but I get more combat than I'd like and (this is the point for this post) I can't for the life of me figure out how the computer players can get more food, iron, stone, etc. than I with only half the people. I put my settlements right near the resources, and I have figured out (no thanks to manual) to have people populate them to have the workers go faster. But am I missing something else?

Thanks for any help.

 

[shadowlight]

My wife plays that game a LOT (and is really good at it! ) She says that the computer always seems to gather food faster no matter what she tries.

I'll see if I can talk her into posting some tips

 

[Warduke]

Try to select faster workers when selectiong traits for your civilization (the little crown icon on the top left corner), then put the maximum people on each resource (6). And just produce as many ppl as you can.

Also, for computer games questions www.gamefaqs.com should be your first stop.

 

[CrazyMage]

Warduke, thanks for the link.

Now I'm starting to get really annoyed with the game--the bloody computer HAS to be cheating to be advancing as fast as it does. This is starting to really limit my enjoyment of the game.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

This is one of the few computer games I seem to have a good handle on. Here are what I feel are some important tips: when I spend my civilization points, especially when playing a random map, I always boost my wood and stone gathering, and max out everything that has to do with walls, towers, and buildings. Then, I start building walls and towers as quickly as I can, and try to gain enough resources to get to the next epoch as quickly as possible. I usually ignore any military, besides building a barracks and whatnot, and let the walls and towers take the brunt of the attacks. Setting up a kill zone of towers is always a goal I have, because walls, while good, are passive, so they eventually get beaten down. Towers do too, but at least they take some of the attackers with them. After I get firmly established, which I can tell by how successfully my fortifications hold off attacks, then I start building a military. I find it's worthwhile to max out your units, because quality, to me, is better than quantity. Another good thing to do it to try to get a hero as soon as possible, and let him do much of the fighting at first.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Warduke, thanks for the link.

Now I'm starting to get really annoyed with the game--the bloody computer HAS to be cheating to be advancing as fast as it does. This is starting to really limit my enjoyment of the game.

I think what it does is spend everything on its military, and tries to take you out as soon as possible. Don't try to fight it toe-to-toe early on; use fortifications. Stone and wood is the most important stuff to gather at first, besides food. Don't waste much of your resources on warriors.

 

[Dinkeldog]

Ooh! A computer game!

That goes here...

 

[clark411]

From what I've read, the Empire Earth AI is so blindingly dull that it is set up to cheat like crazy. To see how this happens simply make one computer AI your teammate and watch what they do.

Even in a low resource game where you can afford at maximum, 1 tower (with 175 Stone or what have you), the computer will begin to encircle it's island/surroundings with no less than 10-15 towers. It will assign people to make multiple buildings with resources it simply does not have. It never devotes a significant % of its population to gathering resources, it just churns out armies for free, and upgrades them for free. When you advance as a civilization, it waits about 5-8 minutes and then also advances as a civilization. Pretty much all the numbers you read at the end of the game are fiction designed to cover up the fact that it does not need to do anything you do to win, and it cannot lose a game of attrition with you. It also cannot lose a game of tech/age superiority to you unless you mass your forces and dominate it in the 5-8 minute window you have.

Also, it definitely is a combat game, so yea there is a lot of combat- same can be said for most strategy civilization games. I'd love nothing more than to need a true reason for war, or some kind of plot going on to make the games more than they are, but ultimately this genre falls into the simple equation "Live in peace until you can win in war."


Your best bet for a fair fight is multiplayer, although you'll find the equation above to be even more true there.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

That all sounds accurate to me, but I've found you can beat the computer militarily after you are firmly established. It's just very, very hard, and very, very time-consuming, and involves a lot of luck. I've only been able to beat the computer militarily due to a strange glitch - occasionally the computer never develops air power or tanks. Other than that, the way I've won (and I've done it many times) is by building enough Wonders. But beware - after each wonder is built, the computer attacks in force. Only build Wonders when you're firmly established, or you'll be overrun and the Wonder destroyed.