Empire Earth 2 Gold Edition

Empire Earth II is an interesting game. On a surface level, it offers layers upon layers of complexity: 15 epochs, different seasons, changing weather that influences sightlines, territories like in Rise of Nations, the ability to draw war plans for allied nations, extensive diplomacy options, troop formations, and so on and on. Ultimately, however, EE2 is a very simple game in practice. Resources never run out, so after assigning enough citizens on all resources to pump out a certain number of units indefinitely, you're basically set. If that number is greater than what the enemy is able to field, then you win. Of course, rock-paper-scissors mechanics exist, but when armies clash at each other, assigning individual targets isn't really possible, and units are largely fodder anyway. EE2 is a war of attrition, and the depth of AoE 2, for instance, is nowhere to be found. That said, this doesn't mean that the game isn't fun. The campaign provides a good level of challenge throughout, especially those missions that shake things up by limiting the player in some way, by making a certain resource inaccessible, restricting unit types or technology, and so on. Going through epochs isn't really a thing in the campaign, which is why one of the more interesting mechanics doesn't really come into play: similarly to Rise of Nations, you need to research certain global technologies before being able to advance to the next epoch, but the technologies you choose not to research are lost forever. In addition, researching all technologies of a category give one additional bonuses as well. As you can see, such little things are what make EE2 unique, and all the basics of an RTS are realized well. While the game runs fine out of the box, using the unofficial patch may be preferable for the QoL and bug fixes provided by it. In any case, even for those who disliked the first Empire Earth, EE2 is at the very least worth a look.

First off, while I like the first, I love how moddable the second one is. I've made to many "real" mods with this and it's been made better, the AI aren't near as retarded as the first one(in the first one they all inevitable gang up on you) unless you play with allies on and locked teams, at least in this game DIplomacy is at least an option.

Hey guys I bought this game a little while back, and it's amazing. I love the new graphics, and the use of ammo instead of flight time on planes, along with many other things of course. For all you guys complaining about the multiplayer, the servers that support it are no longer up, and haven't been for years in fact. LAN games still work though, and there are ways to host your own servers. Overall, love the game and no matter what others think, I still say it's on par with, if not better than the first. -Cheers!

some minor unit response issues once in a while, other than that it runs very well. super nostalgic and exactly as i remembered it as a kid. in my thirities now

-all the epocs. from caveman to cyborg. -awesome 3D modles and enviorment -after you download the game, download the unoffical patch for it. makes it that much better! -Stay away from EEIII. EEII is where the cool ppl are.