Battle Bookseries

Battle Book Series

TACTICS GUIDE BY MARK WALKER

ACG's Battle Book mpire Earth is a long and storied provinces to attack, and what to do with franchise. Starting with the origi- them after they are conquered. Of course arms gamers nal Empire Earth, which was conquering the world isn’t an easy process. with the real-time released in November 2001, and You’ll not only need to fight opposing civi- continuing through Empire Earth lizations but native tribes, too. Although tactics that win on E II, the franchise received critical the tribes that are native to a region are Empire Earth III's acclaim and significant sales. If there was usually not quite as formidable as an one complaint, however, it was that the advanced civilization, they do require you battlefields. franchise was a bit too detailed—presented to zoom into the province and get your a few too many options. Some gamers hands dirty defeating them on the tactical were thrilled at the depth of the design, Empire Earth III but some others were is a beautiful slightly intimidated. game. Sierra has listened to the legion of fans and have answered their call for a simpler, more streamlined version of their popu- lar game. Empire Earth III is that answer. Gone are the semi-confusing multi- tudes of civilizations. Instead, Empire Earth III allows gamers to map. These intricacies, coupled with pick from three: the West, Middle East, and numerous epochs and hundreds of units Far East. Although the reduction in civiliza- make Empire Earth III a game that is not tions certainly makes the game simpler, easily mastered. And that, my friend, is Mad Doc software has added some addi- where this battle book may come in handy. BASED ON A GAME tional strategic flavor in the form of the Although not the definitive guide to all RATED BY THE turn-based, strategic game over the tacti- things Empire Earth III, it will help you hit www.empireearth.com/splash/ cal, real-time strategy engine. Here gamers the ground running. So, follow along as we can determine exactly how they want to go take a look at the game and provide tips TEEN BLOOD AND GORE about dominating the world. They can that will help you on your way to Empire LANGUAGE MILD SUGGESTIVE THEMES choose which provinces to defend, which Earth III mastery. T VIOLENCE ESRB CONTENT RATING www.esrb.org T BASED ON A GAME TEEN C OPYRIGHT 2 008, ARMCHAIR GENERAL® MAGAZINE, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 1 RATED BY THE BLOOD AND GORE www.armchairgeneral.com LANGUAGE MILD SUGGESTIVE THEMES VIOLENCE ESRB CONTENT RATING www.esrb.org Battle Book Series

TACTICS GUIDE

Tickle Those Keys empire that is ready to kick serious Empire Earth III tail. p.2 Are these guys working as hard CTRL+NUMBER A Game of Economics as they should? Pressing this combination does p.5 what it has done since the folks Stategic Thinking at Westwood came up with it way back in the days of p.6 Command and Conquer. It places the currently selected Commerce and units into a group. This is useful Technology for about a quarter million things, but I’ll only mention a p.7 couple. The Final Strategy TICKLE THOSE KEYS Thing One: This allows you to form a group of units that provide mutual There’s nothing to real-time strategy, p.7 protection, for example, infantry, tanks, and right? You lasso some units here, click over mobile artillery pieces. The artillery pieces there, build a building there, collect some bombard opposing infantry and take out resources, and you win. There’s nothing to buildings. The tanks protect the mobile real-time strategy right? Wrong. artillery, and the infantry protect the tanks There’s quite a bit to it, and part of that bit from other infantry. Another good example begins with the interface. If you want to be is placing pikemen with archers. Pikemen good at Empire Earth III, you have to go beyond lassoing and clicking. You have to learn the shortcuts. Shortcuts both on the keyboard and with the mouse. Here are some of my favorites, and the actions that they perform.

CTRL+COMMA This selects all idle builders. Why Nothing like an is that good? It helps you ensure organized army. that all your people are gainfully These guys are employed. A gainfully employed the dreaded empire is a prosperous empire, Army 1. and a prosperous empire is an www.empireearth.com/splash/

TACTICS GUIDE

Tickle Those Keys will protect the archers from cavalry, while move to keep the enemy units in range. the archers attrite any units attacking the This is a great stance to use when assign- p.2 pikemen. ing units to watch over an important loca- A Game of Economics Thing Two: Keeping organized. Placing tion, such as a market. your units in groups allows you to better The final stance, Guard, is like Hold on p.5 organize your attacks. For example, you steroids, or off steroids, depending on how Stategic Thinking can place your onagers in one group and you look at it. Units in the Guard stance will your pikemen and archers in another. only attack when attacked. p.6 The second group can clear the enemy There are three other useful combat- infantry units around the enemy buildings type commands, Charge, Skirmish, and the Commerce and and protect the onagers while they Technology rapidly (much more rapidly than the archers can) demolish the enemy p.7 buildings. The Final Strategy COMBAT KEYS p.7 I like to call these combat keys because they affect how your unit fights. Learning them might spell the difference between victory and defeat, which is about seven letters Each culture has by my calculations. a specific combat action. Unit stances are basic yet important combat keys. Your units can enter one of three stances: Standard, area-specific command that is specialized Hold, or Guard. for each group. Charge (short cut key “C”) Standard is just that, the standard is best used for melee specialty units, espe- stance, the mode in which your units will cially for big groups of them. Invoking this most often reside. In Standard mode they command gives the attacking units a bonus will attack any approaching enemy units, when they first enter combat. As you can and even chase them for a small distance— imagine, it’s best used to shatter enemy but they won’t go nuts chasing the units forces in one fell swoop. The ideal recipients back to their base (or wherever). This is of a charge attack are units that are strong important, as you’ll see when we get to the at range combat and weak at the hand-to- combat tips. hand stuff. Archers are a good example. In the Hold stance, units will engage Think of Skirmish as the opposite of units that come within range, but won’t Charge. Units given the Skirmish order will www.empireearth.com/splash/

TACTICS GUIDE

Tickle Those Keys attempt to engage enemies at maximum After you have chosen the position, dig range. It almost goes without saying, but I’ll in with all but a few units. This will increase p.2 say it anyway, that this order is best given the defensive bonus of those defending A Game of Economics to units that are strong with ranged units. Of course, they won’t be able to weaponry. For example, to continue in the move until you choose to leave the fortifi- p.5 Ancient epoch, archers. cations, but that’s okay. Now take the Stategic Thinking Each of the three cultures also has a handful of your remaining mobile units and specific skill. Westerners can recuperate, Far attack your objective. The goal is not to p.6 Easterners can dig in, and Mid-Easterners capture the objective, but rather trick the can spring an ambush. Use each intelligent- defenders into counterattacking. After you Commerce and ly. The Westerners’ ability to heal themselves engage the enemy, retreat to your fortifica- Technology is a significant skill, but it requires that the tions. With luck, the enemy will follow and healing (or repairing) units do nothing else. dash themselves against your dug-in p.7 So, when in contact with the enemy, you defenders. Repeat as necessary until the The Final Strategy need at least two formations to take advan- enemy has been sufficiently weakened. tage of the skill: While one fights, the other Then release your troops from the fortifica- p.7 can heal. After the resting formation is tions, attack, and take your objective. healed, it can once again be thrown against The Mid-Easterner’s ambush is per- the bad guys, allowing the formerly engaged haps the most interesting of the three unit to retreat to the rear and recuperate unique combat actions. It works like this. themselves. Lasso a bunch of units, direct them to a The Far Easterners can use their dig-in location, and order them to spring an skill on both offense and defense. On ambush. When enemies approach the posi- defense the skill can enhance the defenses tion, your ambushers will attack them from of vital locations; it’s a straightforward the trees, bushes, building, or whatever, application of the skill. On offense the and assault them, receiving a bonus with employment is more subtle, but no less their initial attack. effective. Here’s how you do it. Find a good The best way to employ this combat defensive position near an enemy building technique is similar to what we did with the or city center that you wish to take. This dug in Far Easterners. Set the ambush, wait position must be close to your objective, for the units to go stealthy, attack the but not so close that it immediately incites enemy with a small number of decoy units, a counter attack. and then lead them back to the ambush.

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TACTICS GUIDE

Tickle Those Keys A GAME OF ECONOMICS kets close to your city centers either. Like most other real-time strategy games, NOTE: The Western and Far Eastern civ- p.2 Empire Earth III is actually a game of eco- ilizations use builders. The Far Eastern’s sol- A Game of Economics nomics. Yes, you need to build armies, and diers also double as builders, which is pret- yes, you need to be able to effectively fight ty neat. The point is, if one builder is good, p.5 with armies, but you need to be able to two builders are better. You can assign a finance those armies (and so does your second builder to a construction site by Stategic Thinking opponent) to win. clicking the builder and then right clicking p.6 This leads to some obvious, and some the construction site. Doing so hastens the not-so-obvious decisions, on the tactical building’s completion. Commerce and map. On the obvious side of things is the As soon as the buildings are completed, Technology be sure to send out scouts (always in pairs) to explore the p.7 surrounding area. Keep in mind that the only thing better than one The Final Strategy warehouse is two, and the same p.7 goes for markets. Remember, however, you can only place one Harassing an opponent's market in each area. Finally, sta- production. tion a handful of units at remote or semi-remote warehouses and markets to protect them from enemy raids. And that brings us to the flip side of the coin. If warehouses and markets construction of economy-growing build- are good for you, they are good for your ings. These consist of warehouses and opponent too. Conversely, destroying his markets (bazaars, or what have you) and warehouses—or at least the workers man- their derivatives. ning them—is good for you. Scout the map, These are the first buildings you want to find your opponent’s warehouses (and place. The city center produces small markets), and attack them. The easiest amounts of resources and money, but not way to do this, especially early in the game, enough to sustain a winning war effort. To do is to attack remote warehouses. Attack that, you have to place warehouses and mar- them with fast units, such as cavalry or kets. Furthermore, you have to ensure that machine-gun-toting motorcycles. Even if both are fully staffed; this maximizes their you can’t destroy the warehouse you can production. It doesn’t hurt to place your mar- eliminate its workers, marginalizing its www.empireearth.com/splash/

TACTICS GUIDE

Tickle Those Keys effectiveness. cal maps, and satisfies the megalomaniac in A final note on production: Get your us all. Let’s take a look at some techniques p.2 newly produced units to the front quickly. for maximizing your global effectiveness. A Game of Economics You can do so in one of two ways. The first is to use really fast mouse maneuvers: Flick WORLD EVENTS p.5 back to your base, select a newly minted World events may seem like a distraction, but they are often anything but. These Stategic Thinking events offer unique opportunities to fight, p.6 Them expand, or conquer. Take advantage of markets are these opportunities. The awards for suc- Commerce and important." cessfully completing a world event are Technology often unique to the event and unavailable in any other way. p.7 The Final Strategy FIGHTING As you probably know by now, armies don’t p.7 fight per se on the world map. Most battles are resolved on the battle map (of all unit, and then flick back to the battle and places!) in a manner similar to a skirmish. click where you want it to go. The mini-map That doesn’t mean, however, that the speeds this process, but is nevertheless makeup of the army isn’t critical or that time-consuming and distracting when you what you do on the world map doesn’t have a battle to manage. The second affect the battle on the battle map. It does. method is much better. Click on the factory, It’s important to have a good balance barracks, or whatever, select the units that of military provinces. Each can hold two you want built and then right click on the armies, and that is what you need to safely location to which you want them to march, clank, roll, float, or fly after construction. Doing so supplies a continuous stream of The world as units to the front, ready for your orders. Empire Earth knows it. STRATEGIC THINKING One of the most interesting things about Empire Earth III is the strategic overlay in World Domination mode. This turn-based global strategyscape (sic) gives greater meaning to the battles fought on the tacti- www.empireearth.com/splash/

TACTICS GUIDE

Tickle Those Keys attack many provinces, especially those COMMERCE AND TECHNOLOGY held by more than native tribes. As on the battle map, commerce and tech- p.2 Although armies can be customized, nology is very important on the strategic A Game of Economics the default load (attack, defense, or naval) map. It’s tempting to concentrate on mili- works just fine for most instances. Armies tary provinces, hoping to build a massive p.5 only move one territory per turn, some- army capable of dominating the world. Stategic Thinking times making it difficult to coordinate Resist that temptation. Capture provinces attacks on distant provinces. For that rea- that have strong research and trade and p.6 son, I recommend immediately researching then utilize them to the max. Commerce and Roads and Infrastructure whenever avail- Trade provides the income to run your able. Keep in mind that any province with empire. Technology provides the means to Technology Roads and Infrastructure grants a free move to an army moving through it, in p.7 essence allowing the army to move two Armies on The Final Strategy provinces. the move. Armies are valuable, and you should p.7 treat them accordingly. If an army loses a battle, it’s eliminated. Hence, don’t throw armies into battles in which you don’t feel confident. Be very careful using the game’s auto-resolve feature. Yes, it can be tedious building a base and fighting each battle, but it can be even more tedious constantly dominate your opponents. It is much easier rebuilding armies. Simply put, if you don’t to fight with a small number of high-tech- have at least two to one (two armies against nology units than it is a horde of low tech- the opponent’s one army) odds and equal ers (sic). technology, don’t attack. You can fudge that a little bit when combating native tribes. THE FINAL STRATEGY Frequently, you can win these battles with Empire Earth is a rich game, full of options little more than one to one odds. and opportunities. There is no perfect strat- Two words on militias … build them. egy, no sure-fire way to win the game. I They aren’t very powerful, and they are hope, however, that reading this battle book immobile, but they are better than nothing. not only primes your interest but makes you a better player, a master of the globe.

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