Empires: Dawn of the Modern World

Additional Screenshots

Is choice a good thing? I was watching this show about holiday shopping, and how having too many choices makes Americans go crazy. Then I thought to myself, if you have too many games to choose from, is it a bad thing? Think about it: there are tons of RTS games available. Well hey, that's a great thing! There are so many different games to choose from, so at least one has got to be good… right? But then you think, “wait… that's a lot of stuff to choose from. Sure Age of Mythology has mythical units, but Once Upon a Knight has cows!” And what about old school Age of Empires? It sure is a lot of fun, but the graphics are getting way too old… Then you come across Empires: Dawn of the Modern World. True, crummy title, but through all of my testing with this game, I have found it to be so addicting I can't stop playing it.

EDMW is Addicting

That, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the reasons it has taken me so long to write this review. Whenever I think of the game, I want to play it. Really, that's how addicting it is. Maybe that's a good thing…. But for me, that's pretty bad, since it has probably lost me about 50 hours worth of useful time I could've spent writing more reviews. Well I'm sorry readers, but for once, I want to play Empires!!!

How the Game Works

I will try and write this as quickly as I can so I can get back to my total domination. Empires: Dawn of the Modern World allows you to play as nine different civilizations, (China, Japan, Korea, Germany, England, the United Kingdom, France, the Franks, and the US) through five different ages. Your civilization will start out as a puny camp in the medieval ages, but soon advance to tanks, airplanes, and even nuclear weapons in the later part of World War 2. If you choose to start out as a medieval civilization (China, the Franks, Japan, Korea, and England) you will have to select a new civilization to ‘ally' with. When you get to this point, you will only be able to produce those civilization's units. For instance, I started in the medieval ages as China, but when I advanced to World War One, I decided to side with Russia. Now if you are playing against a computer think of this: you can be in World War 2 while the computer is still in the Imperial Age. That's right… tanks versus cavalry. Unfair yes, but it all depends on how you play the game.

Civilization Specific Advantages

There are so many different units to choose from, and once you really start to play the game, you will learn the advantages to each civilization. The UK has food warehouses, which automatically generate food, the French have free farms, but the Germans have a graph that shows you the economic and military status of both your allies and your enemies as compared to you. Through all of my playing, I have found that Germany dominates in World War 2 games, because of the sheer power of their MG teams and King Tiger Tanks.

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For World War One starting games, it is good to be France or Russia, because you can mass produce units from the start and have a good rush to wipe out your opponent. Korea is very good in the medieval ages, but the Franks have free farms so can easily get a head start. As you can see, there is a huge amount of strategy involved in Empires. You will be fighting huge sea battles, air fights, and ground rushes. You will need to build both air and tanks defenses in order to protect your base. Some units are invisible, like the SAS operatives. You will need to build units that can detect stealthy units, like the German FW190 plane or towers. The US have a very cool ship unit, the USS Arkansas, You can build planes that are stored on the ships deck, and can launch the planes into an enemy's base, and then they will return to the ship for landing. The first time you play it, everything may seem a bit overwhelming. All I can suggest is to keep playing! Practice against the computer in a single player game, or try the campaigns.