Empires: Dawn of the Modern World

 PC
User Score
8.3

Generally favorable reviews- based on 82 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 65 out of 82
  2. Mixed: 9 out of 82
  3. Negative: 8 out of 82
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  1. DB
    Nov 3, 2003
    0
    Wondering where all this 10 ratings coming from??? This game is bad, rarely been so disappointed of a game. I just played 2 campaign scenarios and a random map. Depth is like one third of RON, lot of design flaws. Going to uninstall it. I rather play RON or Empire Earth again.
  2. NickH.
    Aug 28, 2005
    6
    Such a horribly average game. Nothing special whatsoever. It's not bad, but it's not good. The thing that I hate (maybe too strong of a word) most of all is that it plays like a rip off of it's creators game "Empire Earth." Basically E:DotMW has taken Age of Empires, Age of Empires 2, and Empire Earth... rolled them up in better than average engine and then stripped itself Such a horribly average game. Nothing special whatsoever. It's not bad, but it's not good. The thing that I hate (maybe too strong of a word) most of all is that it plays like a rip off of it's creators game "Empire Earth." Basically E:DotMW has taken Age of Empires, Age of Empires 2, and Empire Earth... rolled them up in better than average engine and then stripped itself of everything neat and innovative. You've played it before. You'll play it again. If you do buy it, turn the sound off (horrid effects and acting) and crank the diffuculty up to something above normal (AI is average, at best). Wait until this game lands in the bargin bin - which won't be long... it's 18 bucks at Best Buy. (liked the English campaign though... think it was English... all ran together)… Expand
  3. MichaelP.
    Oct 25, 2003
    0
    3 computers and the game will not load on any of them.It freezes up on all 3 of my computers on install.
  4. RodgerE.
    Apr 13, 2004
    3
    In this game, some of the possible military outcomes are very strange. To take but two examples, medieval cavalry can defeat tanks and sailing ships can sink 20th Century battleships. I acknowledge that reality sometimes needs bending in order to give a good game, but hey, this product makes claims of "realism", and I think that the liberties taken here are plain daft. Oh, and the AI is In this game, some of the possible military outcomes are very strange. To take but two examples, medieval cavalry can defeat tanks and sailing ships can sink 20th Century battleships. I acknowledge that reality sometimes needs bending in order to give a good game, but hey, this product makes claims of "realism", and I think that the liberties taken here are plain daft. Oh, and the AI is very poor.....… Expand
  5. llamayarmybar
    Mar 20, 2014
    7
    Empire Earth drew its influence from many different games in the RTS genre and sought to expand the ideas and concepts of pseudo-micro-historical periods, which games like Age of Empires focused primarily on. However, where Age of Empires inspired Empire Earth, "Empires" seems to be inspired by the latter to a fatalistic degree. Instead of the amazing epochs that extended into aEmpire Earth drew its influence from many different games in the RTS genre and sought to expand the ideas and concepts of pseudo-micro-historical periods, which games like Age of Empires focused primarily on. However, where Age of Empires inspired Empire Earth, "Empires" seems to be inspired by the latter to a fatalistic degree. Instead of the amazing epochs that extended into a futuristic setting, we see the middle ages evolve to post world war 2 era technologies and themes. A grave mistake perhaps when compared to the ambitious Empire Earth. Empires: Dawn of the Modern World, is focused primarily on making the same sort of mistakes and even restoring the tedium that plagued Empire Earth. Overall being less engaging, less interesting and more bogged down by a resource system that was intolerably slow to begin with. So in other words, its a near direct take on what Empire Earth could've been without the experimentation and many technological ages that made Empire Earth unique and actually fun. The races have been stripped down to a mere three major ones with several different "possible" civilization changes as you begrudgingly move to the more modern ages. You have a choice at one point to become the Americans, the British, the Germans etc.. Its actually quite jarring for any faction to suddenly transform into a completely different Country and culture, but perhaps this was featured in the game for pseudo-historical reasons. As for the units, they are quite vast, but never particularly useful, and military skirmishes break out into weird scattered skirmishes- making it quite impossible to keep track of everything or what those units may be doing. The ability to build all over the map leads to the strangest patterns of AI players scattering their buildings in every direction, meaning you could have destroyed everything, aside from the one last standing hovel somewhere and you still haven't defeated the computer player. I often call this manner of AI building: "Total Annihilation Syndrome" and it is not only hilarious, but immensely distracting when an AI opponent has built things essentially right on the outskirts of your base simply to gather a resource near your starting position. Which brings me to the resource gathering- the gold mining is one of the absolute worst things I've ever seen in a game since the original Empire Earth. Its painfully slow to gather this one resource outside all others, it is one particular resource you will constantly spend and it is necessary for basically every upgrade you need or want. Meanwhile food, wood and stone gathering rates are at least decent and benefit from upgrades. Most matches you'll be moving from one gold pile to the next in an attempt to keep gold constantly streaming in. Its literally the achilles heel of the game and it is wholly not surprising that later games like Rise of Nations found better ways to deal with resource gathering in general- particularly with "gold." The combat is quite boring, it usually involves building as much as you can and sending wave after wave of units to wherever your opponent may be. The units are soulless and utter silly dialogue as you send them here and there and for some reason never seem to get upset at the rate at which they fall over and die. This is often, since the AI builds guard towers everywhere, guard towers that kill any unit very quickly. It is in fact one of "those" buildings, much like the original towers in Age of Empires, that brings me severe emotional grief upon remembering them and one wonders why they have to be built everywhere, near every resource, or wherever the AI is doing something. The game speed can be "adjusted" though. So you "Empire" mode and "Skirmish" mode which alters how many villagers can gather at one resource and makes the gathering rate much, much, much faster for everything. However, this gimps the game too, as in units have now even LESS health and die even faster in skirmish mode. Whereas in Empire mode, buildings have more hitpoints and so do most units. Where is the middle ground? Age of Empires got it right, Warcraft 2 got it right and Rise of Nations got it right. You'd think after several games Steel Studios would learn from their mistakes and figure out why Empires is devastatingly boring to play. Its not only boring, but its clearly not fun either. Rise and Fall was a better game and barely altered the formula, it just made resource gathering less of its focus. Not even 2 year later, Dawn of War came out and removed most of the resource management, allowing more of a concentration on military units and battles. Homeworld 2 came out the same YEAR and featured a better resource system with more of a focus on fleet formations and space battles. The point I'm trying to make is: "Their games are average and boring." Its no surprise at all why Steel Studios fell apart, their best game aped Age of Empires, but was swiftly knocked out by Age of Empires 2.… Expand
  6. Vaclav
    Jan 16, 2004
    8
    Great game- beats empire earth which had about as much depth and feel as a muddy puddle. One thing that I find strange is the super units like the "taoist" that can cast volcano's. What the hell was Goodman thinking?! I guess he must of been high at the time. Apart from that its a great game.
  7. [Anonymous]
    Mar 2, 2004
    9
    How do you zoom-in like on this screenshots? http://www.empiresrts.com/civilizations/screenshots/china_4.jpg
  8. AnonymousMC
    Aug 1, 2008
    10
    To be honest i must agree that the single played random map mode is not the best, on the other hand the multiplayer games are really fun as there are limitless ways to win and new strategies to adopt. The fact that the game has a editor also means that you can make your own maps/scns to play to :D. Basically i think the online play is fun fun fun.
  9. BrunoR.
    Nov 2, 2003
    10
    v v v good:) 1 of the best i bought.
  10. MaxHeadroom
    Dec 25, 2003
    9
    While a smaller timeframe, this game has more depth than EE or RoN as each civ has fully unique art and units (not just 1 or 2) and each unit has extra abilities which make the combat more fun since you have something to do rather than just send them in and watch. Also the camera control is great: you can zoom all the way in to the ground for a breathtaking action view or rotate the While a smaller timeframe, this game has more depth than EE or RoN as each civ has fully unique art and units (not just 1 or 2) and each unit has extra abilities which make the combat more fun since you have something to do rather than just send them in and watch. Also the camera control is great: you can zoom all the way in to the ground for a breathtaking action view or rotate the camera around with both mouse buttons to see the action from any angle. They just released a patch (Dec 03) with a new map, balance tweaks, bug fixes, and a whole mess of new multiplayer options.… Expand
  11. JonS.
    Oct 22, 2003
    0
    Wow am I truly disappointed! What a total piece of crap.
  12. LocutusOfBorg
    Feb 9, 2004
    10
    This game is amazing. It seriously beats any RTS i've played before. So what, graphics aren't brilliant but the amount of fun it gives is great.
  13. MannyB.
    May 3, 2005
    8
    To me this is one of the best RTS games I have ever played, the only bad thing about it is the lack of variety of Countries to play and troops.
  14. Nan-Tasarion
    Jul 28, 2008
    10
    Massive fan of this game, I have been a player for 5 years and still find it to be one of the best RTS games there is. Multiplayer is definantly the best aspect of this game, though the number of players has decreased over the years. Still interesting and a good community keeping it alive. LONG LIVE EDMW!
  15. EdoardoDellaV.
    Nov 20, 2003
    5
    The creators of EMPIRE EARTH made the small version oftheir great game. And it's small indeed, besides the improved graphic (irrelevant in this type of games) the strategic and tactic options are far fewer than those in EMPIRE EARTH (no personalized civilizations). perhaps they wanted something to counter Microsoft last RTS, but they didn't saw that it was a poor copy of EMPIRE EARTH!
  16. D.Fili
    Nov 30, 2003
    10
    This game is perfect!! i don't know how you could posibly give it a mark smaller than 9!
  17. JerryS.
    Oct 22, 2003
    10
    Awesome baby! kicks AOE II butt.
  18. BobJ.
    Oct 23, 2003
    10
    It kicks some wicked ass, i couldnt help from drooling, in fact i have a pond now.
  19. VinceC.
    Oct 23, 2003
    10
    2 thumbs up! Incredible graphics and gameplay.
  20. BryonM.
    Oct 27, 2003
    9
    I think this game is good but its not as good as rise of nations.
  21. ClaudioOlivastri
    Oct 28, 2003
    10
    probably the best RTS i've ever played, graphics, gamplay and everything are at the top level.
  22. SimonTheSorcerer
    Oct 30, 2003
    8
    Goooood stuff...
  23. Rob
    Oct 30, 2003
    10
    AWESOME.
  24. AlessandroT.
    Nov 29, 2004
    8
    I really like this game. The nations really differentiate themselves during the game and the graphics are very beautiful. You can also implement massive cities and armies and the game is still fluent. Very good game, an improvement from Empire Earth. The campaing are also long and interesting (Richard Lionheart, General Patton, Admiral Yi).
  25. TravisF.
    Feb 25, 2004
    9
    Empires has awesome graphics with sweet camera views. Loved how you could have such a high population limit. The only bad thing was the lack of Civs to use.
  26. A.A.
    Oct 22, 2003
    10
    This game will definitly be my entertainment for the next couple of months!
  27. YeaY.
    Oct 23, 2003
    10
    Good stuff.
  28. §?.Ang?®M??A???©A
    Oct 23, 2003
    10
    Hey jon S. its because you have a crappy PC you say its a piece of crap. and i say its Amazing so i give it a 10.
  29. RichH.
    Oct 26, 2003
    10
    3 computers and it doesn't work? Try buying the real thing instead of pirating it, you cheap #*!$ This game is really great, at least as enjoyable as Rise of Nations, IMO.
  30. Dan
    Oct 27, 2003
    10
    Great game - a lot of depth and detail in all civs.
  31. AlexC.
    Oct 28, 2003
    7
    Nice game, but camera control is very poor. You cannot rotate the camera which is very frustrating.
  32. DomG
    Feb 24, 2007
    10
    Let me just start out to say that this is a game that I personally love. This game features many different environments and civilizations. Very high quality game and I recommend it.
  33. MattK.
    Dec 25, 2003
    9
    Ok yes we know the game isnt realistic, with the insane sorceros and plagues and exploding oxen, but this game is for people who want FUN over realism. ya thats right, F-U-N. it isnt deep, its simple, but the graphics rule its immersive and just fun!
  34. HEIMDAL13
    Jan 6, 2014
    10
    It's an amazing game! The best classical RTS ever created. It's very balanced, whit a lot of nations, lot of units, and they are very different each other. The graphics were amazing at the time.
    Includes an editor, good skirmish mode, campaign, multiplayer, and it's very interesting to start from old ages to the ww2. Also the planes manage very well compared to other similar games (they    It's an amazing game! The best classical RTS ever created. It's very balanced, whit a lot of nations, lot of units, and they are very different each other. The graphics were amazing at the time.
    Includes an editor, good skirmish mode, campaign, multiplayer, and it's very interesting to start from old ages to the ww2. Also the planes manage very well compared to other similar games (they are not static)    … Expand
  35. DavixAries
    Apr 29, 2023
    8
    A very addictive game, like any good RTS game, a lot of factions that differ from each other, the theme of developing technology from the Middle Ages to World War 2, fighting on land, sea and air, there is everything here. I recommend trying.

Awards & Rankings

43
#43 Best PC Game of 2003
31
#31 Most Discussed PC Game of 2003
83
#83 Most Shared PC Game of 2003

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
81

Generally favorable reviews - based on 22 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 22
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 22
  3. Negative: 0 out of 22
  1. Computer Gaming World
    80
    A solid entry that makes some great, if initially unapparent, changes to the standard formula. [Feb 2004, p.66]
  2. IGN
    88
    I simply can't think of an RTS this good that lets you get this close to your units. When dropped down the ground, the camera reveals lots of fantastic detail on each of the units.
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  3. PC Gameworld
    85
    A great Real Time Strategy from the company behind "Empire Earth," this game will keep you coming back for more.
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