faq 1.5 (2000-09-23)

Q: Will the buildings in Empire Earth have rally points?
A: Yes, our buildings will have rally points to direct where you want your units to emerge.
 

Q: What is the limit of a queue on building units in buildings?
A: You can order a Barracks to produce 20 or 50 clubmen if you want.
 

Q: How are you dealing with the damage and repair of ships?
A: The Dock and the Naval Yard will be buildings to heal your ships, just like the Hospital heals your land units.
 

Q: It seems that SSS is trying to keep EE as historically correct as possible, so the Dark Age should drop your technology #. What will be the adavantage to advancing to the dark age, while your Bronze Age counterparts will be technologically superior. Will you be able to choose whether to advance, or will it happen automatically?
A: There will be new units available in the Dark Age that are better than the Bronze Age equivalents- such as Cataphracts and Crossbows. Seeing as the term "Dark Ages" is a misnomer when applied to the world scene, we're still historically accurate.
 

Q: Will siege weapons such as artillery etc have long range but low line of sight?
A: This is basically exactly how we're doing it.
 

Q: How will farms work in EE?
A: You will still be assigning Citizens to work on farms, but once built a farm will not run out of food. The only time you should have to replant it is if the farm is destroyed in combat.
 

Q: On the farm screen i saw something is really interesting. Near the left farm one of your worker (i think it is worker) looks like jumping. Who will explain that?
A: I don't know what screenshot your looking at but I'd bet that the guy is jumping. One of the villager animations is a jump. Maybe the Farm just makes him happy.
 

Q: If a unit is damaged by 50% will he look any different or start dripping blood and will he act any different like move slower or have less attack?
A: All units will have full functionality regardless of damage. Special graphical effects for damaged units are still under development. Currently, we have things like blood splatters for soldiers that get shot and flames for damaged buildings.
 

Q: If you get a slave and then kill it do you still keep the pop count? Is it possable to slave a person to the point they can no longer build their civilization unlike in aok where if you are lucky one villager and 100 wood can build your entire civilization given enough time.
A: Although you will get a Citizen for capturing a slave, this unit is no different than the Citizens you produced yourself. Slavery is just a mechanism for transferring pop cap amongst players. There are no slave units. So, if you delete the Citizens you get from slavery it has no effect on the extra pop cap you earned. There is a limit to how much pop cap a player can lose, so it is not possible to eliminate a player solely by enslaving them.
 

Q: On the screenshots page, it looks like there is some type of path, or foundation that the buildings are built upon. Is this tile automatic, required for buildings, give some kind of bonus, or just for decoration in the scenarios?
A: The stuff you see in the screenshots was done to make it look nice. We are looking into having buildings change the underlying terrain.
 

Q: Right before WWI calvery becomes completely obsolete although you spent good money on them for about 9 epochs. turning them into vehicles would create pricing and balancing issue we can not even go into, like what would happen to the pike man etc. so what are you doing about it?
A: We're very concerned about this. We just had a meeting the other day where Rick was describing his WWI battle against the AI. He had trenches and Artillery with his biplanes buzzing over his head waiting for the AI's attack. Well it came at him with Lancers, Bronze Cannon & tanks! It looked so profoundly ridiculous he promptly called a meeting about it.
The problem is, as you state, some units, most notably Cavalry and Archers, just became outmoded. What we did to address some of this problem is to make sure that every unit we could has a cohesive upgrade i.e. the newer unit performs the same function in your army has the same bonuses and weaknesses as the one it replaces. But for Cavalry and Archer, I got to tell you, they just plain go obsolete. Oddly enough in playtest this hasn't been a problem. The Epoch in which they go obsolete occurs in the same epoch in which their replacement unit is introduced; Arquebussiers and Tanks respectively. There is a period of time during the transition when upgraded Archers or Cavalrymen are simply the better unit. This lasts until you're able to upgrade the newly buildable units. Think of it as sort of a training time. And it has never been the case when a player has said "I'm not going to build Cavalry because 3 epochs from now they're going to go obsolete." Well actually, there have been people who've said that - but they got handed their head in the game and they never did it again.
Believe me we keep a close eye on these transition epochs during playtesting. It was something I was really woried about but quite frankly it has turned into my favorite periods of the game.
 

Q: Will the game have a map editor or random map creator?
A: Oh yes. Oh yes. As to the Random map generator, I've been watching the lead programmer play with it all week. He keeps screaming from out of his office door for people to come in and "look, just look at THIS!" Then there is a small conference of people "OOOWWWing and AAWWWWing." I'd be embarrassed about admiting that if it weren't for the fact that the resultant maps look unbelieveably beuatiful and realistic. And most importantly to me, very playable, with lots of woooded chokepoints with overlooking cliffs... interesting coves and rivers...wildlife running around....wow.
 

Q: I got an old p2 350, with 96 ram, will the game function on it, without horrible lag? Or do i need to invest in a new computer, which i am willing to do for this game ;)
A: Good news, your computer will run the game just fine. We are targeting a 300 Mhz minimum platform, perhaps even lower for the single player game. You have plenty of RAM. The better your 3D graphics card the better performance you will get. The TNT2 Graphics card, or equivalent will do great job running the game speedilly. The faster to conquer your opponent..hehehe...
 

Q: In age of empires the enemies never really attacked you. If they did it was maybe about 3 units. My question is will the AI be more of a challange?
A: The AI came at me with land, air and sea all at the same time. I couldn't beat him off and it ruined a test I was running. I was halfway to his office to complain before I realized that this was a good thing. I've played way to many games when the AI just rolls over and shows it's belly while I get the unsatisfying reward of pummelling it.
 

Q: What happens when a plane gets shot down and crashes? I mean does it damage nearby units/buildings?
A: Right now, plane crashes don't do damage to units nearby. However, when planes crash, they stick up out of the ground, where they hit -- its pretty cool looking.
 

Q: How big will the maps be?
A: Big maps are supported. I like them too. And since resources don't deplete, you can play a good long game...!
 

Q: Wheres the third EE web movie?
A: The third Empire Earth AVI should be featured on EmpireEarth.com. right now.
 

Q: I'm just curious as to what type of defensive structures will be in the game?
A: Yes, EE will have walls and Towers. I won't get into allthe things that make them different from other RTS games but there will probably be a couple of kind of towers and the walls will have progressive upgrades over time. Plus, if you're familiar with how important Fortress construction and walled cities were in the past - you'll be pleased with the options you have in this game.
 

Q: Are the units going to be larger then the buildings and trees or are they going to have a realistic size compared to them?
A: We're not slaves to scale, we're devoted to playability. That said, it would be impossible for players to get immersed in a game that had men that were taller than trees. We've made certain concessions to building scale simply because it helps in pathing units and allows us to have more playable units on screen without scrolling. No one has even made mention of it, it just isn't noticeable without close inspection. Go ahead and check the screenshots - I don't think you'll find the look at all disoncerting.