Empire Earth: Art of Conquest Expansion

Empire Earth is the complete real-time strategy game, so offering up an expansion can be problematic from the get go. How do you add to a game that already covers from prehistoric time to the 22nd century? Unfortunately the answer is to sell a handful of interesting additions and one poorly carried-out epoch and sell it for way, way too much.

Art of Conquest offers hardcore EE players the chance to battle in a Space Age Epoch which occurs from 2200 to 2300 A.D. This latest age offers up a measly five new units in the new class of unit, the space ship. All of these space ships are pretty similar to seagoing vessels. The age also includes a space dock, space turret, spy satellites and robotic farms.

Space combat is also quite disappointing, behaving almost exactly like sea combat. The planets look more like islands with streams and oceans of black, star-filled space around them, which the units seem to float along.

The expansion comes with an extra unique special power for each of the 21 pre-designed civilizations, including Babylon's priest towers, which can automatically convert enemy units within range and Byzantine Rome's insurance, which refunds a portion of the cost of creating a unit when it dies or is destroyed.

The game's sound is mostly unchanged in this new epoch and graphics for the entire game have been upgraded to include more terrains, better lighting and water animation and best yet battlefield scarring.

The second biggest addition to EE are three new single player campaigns which lead you through Roman intrigue, World War II battles in the South Pacific, and space-age combat on Mars.

Finally, Conquest comes with a potpourri of minor add-ons like two new civilizations, two more heroes, a new wonder, catastrophe and a few new units.

While the additions are welcome, they don't add up to a full-bodied expansion and certainly not one for a nickel shy of $30. I'd hold off on buying this one till it hits the bargain shelves.