EE multiplayer games in NORMAL SPEED?

[EaglePrince]

Hi! I've been looking for some EE forums and this one seems to be active...

I like playing Empire Earth, it was one of my first strategies, and still about seven years later I am still interested in it.

Besides there are EE2 and EE3 now, I am still loyal to the first Empire Earth... Recently I have tried playing Empire Earth online, and sadly I am pretty disappointed. The game itself is still great - I have no complains about that, but it is about the style people play it online - they almost all set game speed to maximum.

So I came here to ask you, are there any people that play, or would like to play, Empire Earth online in normal speed? I am aware of that speed is important in strategy games, and it is always good when someone can work fast, but this is not about that - I just don't enjoy playing a game when my people and army move so fast like thunders - it is not natural after all... I understand that some people get bored when they need to wait a long time to get resources to raise an army, but isn't then your goal to get more resources and to fight for those resources in order to be stronger, and to enlarge the possibility for you to win? I think that would be more interesting than this blitzkrieg I saw on Game ranger.

Is there anyone who shares my opinion here?

[[-Ts-] Tricky]

since their is alot of new people on lobby now im sure if you ask someone to host with normal speed they will. Most of us old ee players like res fast other wise game takes to long but im sure their will be some new people in lobby now who host it.

[lightnessking.]

As you get better in the game and want to play competetive with all players then you'll have to play on very fast. Imo.

[EaglePrince]

While I was registering I saw some stuff about that lobby, but still I don't know what that is..? Is that some game platform like GameSpy or GameRanger?

It is true that those games can last really long, but in the other hand when thing are happening that fast you can not act as you would in normal speed. I saw how people have no actual tactics: they use almost all the time one single units types to attack in any age. To cut the long story short, they have no military tactics, they only use that high speed to get resources fast and to raise army quickly, and when they are ready, they just attack!

In single player I was building armies consisted of several army types, so my army would have less weaknesses, and also to have advantage over my enemy! This whey I was defeating way larger armies. This way people wouldn't only have to think how to get resources, they would have to think how to attack and how to defeat the opponent army with minimum losses...

Anyway, I will never play EE in the fastest speed for these reasons, if I were playing EE this way, all the reasons why I like EE would be gone...


I also have one more important question for you, guys... In several games I was playing with some guys, I just got the feeling that those opponents were cheating. I know about those cheat codes, and I want to ask you, do people use it online? And how often do they use it, and is there a way for me to recognize my opponent using those cheats? This question maybe requires a bit more typing maybe - I'm sorry, but it would really mean to me a lot, if you told me something about that.

[[-Ts-] Tricky]

Na no one cheats you was prob in games with people who are pro`s or been playing a long time for new people like yourself fast speed prob hard for your cus your new but people do mix i think you would like AoC mod TL and mid sh on their that is alot of mixing in the mod and need very good tactics.

We different to game ranger because we support just EE and AoC and we will just try and advertise for that. Game ranger is for loads of different games and has no chat lobby for ee and aoc players.

[EaglePrince]

Yeah, that is possible. Maybe they just settled all available mines, and they had more resources for army this way. But don't some people think that starting games with more resources (but not deathmatch) could make similar effect? All would start faster, all would start building armies earlier, and battles would be more interesting.

Anyway, I will surely install Lobby and try to find some people who like it more to play in standard speed.

[Ghost]

When it comes to any game, it's the skilled players that are online the most and set trends and standards for games. Skilled players know the game much better and can make their decisions and their moves much faster in the game than very casual players and that's why the game speed is set to very fast. Surprisingly, newer RTS games have much slower speeds. If you take Age of Empires 3 for example, I think the downfall of that game (especially for me) was that it was simply too slow, even on fast and they forced you to play ranked games on "normal" speed. Not to mention they had to keep patching it because they were never able to balance the game properly, but that was something you can deal with. Players left for faster paced games.

I'm sure if you find some players similar to yourself you will get some games on normal speed, but the majority will be against it. If you start playing a lot, you may eventually find yourself making decisions and moves faster, and then spend more time waiting for the game to execute them than you do giving the orders. It all depends on what you find comfortable.

When this game came out, normal speed games were pretty common and the good players played on fast. Since then, it evolved to fast and very fast, and for years now it's always been set to very fast.

[EaglePrince]

"When it comes to any game, it's the skilled players that are online the most and set trends and standards for games."
completely right, and whenever a new player come, he is mostly forced to play after their rules - he sees no other way.
But still, it doesn't mean that players who play in faster speed are better! Very often those players are just a band of players who don't know how to play, and they don't know how to spend their time while playing. Instead of thinking about that, they just speed the game up, and time is passing faster. While playing some other games, I was also playing in normal speed, and I was also facing some "fast" players, and I was slaughtering them by any game speed! In normal speed they were bored because they didn't know how to use that time given by normal speed and they were staying weak. I faster games they were dieing too!

And now when you mentioned AoE, I don't think it's a bad game - it's a good one, and maybe it wasn't balanced, but still very good - normal speed is not a flaw!

As about EE, I gave up of playing it in online, I may come to play it online only with some my friends maybe.

Maybe you are an "expert" player, and maybe you are able to do all those thing in fastest speed, but still many other players are not! I am talking about those players I was playing against... High speed does nothing but simplifies the game, and all those tactics. I was hoping to see here people playing EE in a smart way, and I see it's not gonna happen.

Also, it is so sad how many people do not play with creativity... They don't want to thing with their own heads how to make their great civilizations - they are going to some other people and asking for "recipes"... As a result, those players who will later say how they are "experts" are not even close to an "expert", they are only guys who heard some tricks and tips from more experienced players.

Pure kids, if they were not listening to those other players, they would have way more fun!

[lightnessking.]

When I just started to play Empire Earth, I've used civs from other people. Now I'm using my own civs, (or standard civs like i.e liga games.)

[EaglePrince]

When I just started to play Empire Earth, I've used civs from other people. Now I'm using my own civs, (or standard civs like i.e liga games.)

Unfortunately, that kind of thinking ruins the fun. If you are thinking this way, you should program an AI, so he could fight instead of you... There would be no difference!

[lightnessking.]

When I just started to play Empire Earth, I've used civs from other people. Now I'm using my own civs, (or standard civs like i.e liga games.)

Unfortunately, that kind of thinking ruins the fun. If you are thinking this way, you should program an AI, so he could fight instead of you... There would be no difference!

.. what exactly are you trying to say. It's not fun because people don't make their own civs. I said I've used civs from other people, but now i'm using my own "creations". I don't get you.

And will you think EE is fun if you pick a horrible civ and die every match? I doubt it if that will be fun.

[EaglePrince]

I was in a hurry while writing that previous answer... Sorry about that, I wasn't meaning how your thinking is ruining the fun. Generally I am not a kind of person who simplifies a problem... The problem is that, there are large number of players who are not so good, but they want to become good. Then they follow those players who are really good, they beg those good players to teach them, and they listen their advices like sheep. This teaching includes everything: the game it self, lots of tricks, and in Empire Earth there are also civilizations! As a result of that, they become "better" than players who were not desiring only "power" - to be better than others. Now those players who were not greedy for that "power" are starting losing, and they are having a different motives to "get better". They are not desiring to be the best, but still they don't want to be the worst - they don't want to lose, which is natural! It is not a problem if you lose 50% of games, or 25%, but if you lose almost every game, it is a whole different story. This way almost the whole "society" follows that one way, because they are forced to... If the others were not using civilizations from other players for example (again: it is not about you, it is a global situation), and many other things, it would all look so much different.

This is the way how a lot of people thing, but I would rather say: Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

[White Fang]

Maybe you should play with nino he has a pretty open starting strategy, if he uses it right it counters everything.

[lightnessking.]

Yah, it's not about losing a game or winning it, it's about having fun in a game. If you're good at a game and play with other good peoples, weirdest things happens even if you think team 1 will win, somehow the game flips over and team 2 looks like they going to win.

You can always start playing games with other new people. I mean, if a new person plays a 1v1 game versus another new person, it's practically the same as playing as a good person vs a good person. Just the good person plays faster and stronger.

[EaglePrince]

Yeah, for me it's never about winning! Also a lot of them are saying "when I'm winning, I'm having fun", and we can not escape that. I have always played for fun, while I was seeing how people were coming online having fun in beginning... As they meet those "experts" they become better, and then their games become too mechanical, and they get bored and they leave the whole thing. In these cases people assume how they started playing something different from the game they like, and they leave not to become slaves of that new to them kind of playing.

It is true that I can start playing with new people, but I don't want to bother looking for persons who would like playing in a way similar to mine... I tried it, but I don't mean to spend too much time on that.

@ white fang
I'm glad to hear of someone creative!