This Empire Earth
Rick Goodman talks about his unofficial follow-up to the Age of Empires series
Rick Goodman is no stranger to epic historical strategy games, having acted as lead designer on the first of the popular "Age of Empires" game. Today he is heading up the team at Stainless Steel Studios which is working on "Empire Earth", which takes its inspiration from his previous project but aims to take its blend of real-time strategy and historical settings to the next level with an even broader scope.
"The original design of Age of Empires had been designed to cover not four but seven Ages", according to Rick. "Beyond the Iron Age, players could achieve three more Ages including the "Imperial" and "Republic" Age. These additional Ages were actually implemented and working in the game in April of 1996."
"[But] after seriously pondering the implications of a seven Age game it became clear to me that, as a designer, I was outreaching my capabilities. After all, I had never participated in the design of a game before. Up until that time, the most complicated thing I had ever designed was a small wooden coffee table during 7th grade shop class. That didn't come out too well. So, fortunately, we had the sense to drop the last three Ages of the game."
Now Empire Earth looks set to go beyond even that ambitious early design though, mirroring the ever-popular "Civilization" series by covering all of human history, from the discovery of fire to the present day and then on into the near future. If Rick Goodman and his team at Stainless Steel Studios can pull off this epic feat the game could well be as big a hit as the Age of Empires series. Fingers crossed.