Earth 2150

Earth 2150
Developer(s)	TopWare Interactive
Publisher(s)	1C Company
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, Mac OS
Release date(s)	May 22, 2000
Genre(s)	Strategy
Mode(s)	Single player
Rating(s)	ESRB: T (Teen) USK: 12+ OFLC: G8+
Media	2 CD-ROMs
System requirements	Windows: 200 MHz CPU, 32 MB RAM, 8 MB video card RAM, 8X CD-ROM drive, DirectX 6.1, 451 MB available hard disk space, Windows 95 Mac OS: 233 MHz CPU, 32 MB RAM
Input methods	Keyboard, mouse

Earth 2150 is a real-time strategy game, originally published in 2000 by SSI and the Polish developer Reality Pump and a sequel to the largely unknown Earth 2140. It was one of the first commercial full-3D games of its kind, although Pumpkin Studios' Warzone 2100 was released in the American market prior to Earth 2150. A sequel to Earth 2150, Earth 2160, was published in August 2005. The game also has two stand-alone expansion packs: Earth 2150: The Moon Project, and Earth 2150: Lost Souls.

Story

It is the 22nd century, after years of war and famine of unfathomable level, the world is returning to normal. 12 states of the previous United States have joined to form the United Civilized States (UCS). While in Asia, a new empire was being created under the Iron Fist of the Khans, these Mongol descendants gave themselves a name meant to conjure up an association with a glorious former age: the Eurasian Dynasty (ED). The UCS now relied upon robots for all their needs, even their military is controlled by machines. GOLAN, the leader of the UCS military forces had recently been altered by order of the current President, leading to a number of glitches throughout the system. One of these caused it to underestimate the Eurasian Dynasty's defensive capacities, causing it initiate the movement of a large force to occupy the British Isles. This mistake resulted in another violent war, lasting almost a decade. However, GOLAN managed to gain the upper hand against the battle-hardened Khans and so the ED resorted to the usage of advanced atomic weaponry. The ED attacked an encampment of UCS forces at the North Pole with a massive strike involving newly developed and untested atomic weaponry in an attempt to put a decisive end to the hostilities. The catastrophic resulting explosions pushed the Earth out of regular orbit and towards the sun. Aware that the Earth's orbit has become unstable, a third faction living peacefully on the moon known as the Lunar Corporation (LC) joins the war in an attempt to defeat or reconcile both sides for the common wealth. The objective of the game is to collect enough resources to build an Evacuation Ship, allowing the player's people to journey to Mars and escape the looming apocalypse - foreshadowing Earth 2160. Despite coincidental similarities in name, genre, game play, and plotline, Earth 2150 is in no way affiliated with Warzone 2100.

The Factions

Earth 2150 consists of 3 unique factions.

United Civilized States: This faction is a demarchy that controls North and South America. The name implies that the United States of America gradually expanded its borders to include the entire continent. The United Civilized States (UCS) is a highly technologically based Faction and have come to use robots to replace people in as many positions as possible. The UCS scientists created, under the supervision of President Jonathan Swamp, NEO and GOLAN; a huge step in technological advances, GOLAN was essentially leader of the UCS military, while NEO was interested in politics. It was a machine capable of matching and potentially far surpassing any organic general. It controlled the entire UCS army including all the military robots. These bipedal robots, or mecha, are just as effective as a human-piloted vehicle. The UCS has a robotic theme to its structures and vehicles. They have exclusive access to powerful weapons such as grenade launchers, shadow generators, and plasma cannons. Other technologies include reverse-engineered anti-gravity propulsion systems from a crashed UFO, and modified 105 and 120mm cannons stolen from the ED. UCS vehicles include Tiger, Panther, Jaguar and Spider Mechs, Gargoyle, Bat and Dragon aircraft.

Eurasian Dynasty: Essentially a new Mongol Empire based in Russia, the Eurasian Dynasty (ED) use primitive (by 22nd Century standards) technology such as tanks and helicopters. As such, the ED has the most basic methods of power generation and needlessly complicated resource-gathering. Basic ED units are armed with machine guns, 105 mm cannons, and rocket launchers, while more advanced vehicles can be equipped with laser & ion cannons (developed in response to the UCS' habit of AIs) as well as nuclear missiles. The ED has an industrial, Soviet-reminiscent theme to the design of its structures and vehicles. Some vehicles are the Pamir (reverse-engineered M1A2 Abrams tanks with a one-man crew), Kruszchev and Volga tanks, Ural "defense tanks" (actually, large, dual-hardpoint tanks), Cossack, Grozny, Thor and Khan helicopters, as well as the most powerful navy.

Lunar Corporation: The Lunar Corporation (LC) is a matriarchy faction of space colonists who colonized the Moon and cut themselves off from Earth soon after the 3rd World War. Normally a pacifist Faction, the matriarchal LC are forced to head to Earth in order to secure minerals to build their Evacuation Ship (due to the Moon's general lack of accessible resources, in real life as well as in the game). The Lunar Corporation is by far the most advanced of the three factions, utilizing solar power as well as antigravity vehicles (explained, in the game, as a result of researching extraterrestrial technologies). Because of this, they do not build trenches or dig underground tunnels like the UCS and ED. Also, instead of constructing buildings like the other two factions, the Lunar Corporation is able to transport them from orbit to the battlefield. In combat, they use exotic weapons such as electro-cannons and sonic weapons (originally a mining equipment). LC units generally have slightly less armor and firepower than that of the other two factions, but are equipped with anti-energy weapon shields that have twice the strength of the other sides. In the single-player campaign, the forces of the LC are further bolstered by the solitary alien craft known as the Fang, a gift from the UCS in exchange for an alliance. Although losing this one-of-a-kind unit means instant failure, the Fang's weapon is capable of easily decimating any opponent it comes across—that is, until its ammo runs out.

Gameplay

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Play is simple, yet complex: where as you gather resources and build an army during the game as normal, you must complete the game by sending enough resources for the Evacuation Ship within a time limit. The terrain starts off as Arctic, but soon changes to spring, then summer terrain. Next, the water evaporates, turning the Earth into a desert, and by the game's end the name “Hell” may be a better word for the planet; volcanic terrain and rivers of lava show that the planet is in dire straits, not only giving the player different visuals of different terrains, but also an incentive to complete the game (though there is an inaccuracy: the late-game mission selection globe depicts both poles turned into ocean, even though Antarctica is a real continent, not an ice shelf). Tardy or unskilled players are greeted with a failure screen showing the Earth exploding, meaning that your faction, and possibly the entire human race, becomes extinct. However, you cannot stockpile and build the Evacuation Ship alone - the player must engage the enemy in order to secure new stockpiles of minerals to haul away. The player's minerals are taken to their main base (which never changes and is available for use during the missions). You can move between your main base and the mission in real time (a bit like playing two different maps at once).

The game also uses modular units whereby the player constructs his or her own units from a template design on a special screen using his or her chosen race's technology. Also of note is that while there are many tanks, planes, and hovercrafts, there are no infantry in the game - as well as being tricky to animate, infantry were not included because the game was originally released for the German market and the heavy censorship of games there, and that infantry would not be able to survive in the more extreme environments of the game anyway; though in the UCS campaign, a reference to a "Terminator PC 8088 mechanized infantry unit" exists.

Ballistic weapons such as machine guns and rocket launchers have limited ammunition and must be aerially resupplied, for instance. Units also gain experience as they defeat enemies, and thus become more powerful in future battles. Tactics are very important, as the ED's Ural mobile defense platform equipped with dual Nuclear Ballistic Missile Launchers are capable of huge destruction, yet they are vulnerable without offensive weaponry. Thus, they must be covered with standard cannon-armed tanks, which can be taken out without air support. Due to these, many players favor the UCS' Plasma Cannons because of their high damage.

In the game, players have to research new weapons and equipment as the game advances. This is a must to create better units. New research options are unlocked as the player advances though the game, or are unlocked automatically in certain instances during single and multiplayer.

The game also features day and night, plus different types of weather that effect the game play. For example, if, at night, units turn off their lights, they become harder to see. But, their movement is also reduced. The weather likewise affects the way the game plays, for example, heavy raining slows units. The LC can also modify weather to their advantage as a makeshift superweapon, unleashing deadly lightning storms or (when the planet dries up) massive meteor showers.

The game was both praised and criticized because of its AI. Although the ability to fine-tune unit behavior (such as when to fire and who to engage first) is present, the units sometimes behave in completely unintelligent ways:

• Firing from the most difficult position and sometimes they may harm friendly units
• AI-controlled units often fire at player-controlled units from outside of their visual range, even though they should be able to see each other clearly
• If the player fires onto an enemy building using a cloaked unit while enemy units are on the way to his/her base, the enemy often turns back and hunts down the offending unit, even though they cannot detect cloaked unit
• The AI reacts predictably to the player's mining activity. If its own resources are running low, they try to take over the player's, ignoring others. When they do that, they continually try to mine that field regardless if the player still has defenses nearby or not, resulting in, for example, a constant stream of UCS Harvesters from their base until they run out of resources altogether
• If there are mines nearby, units always roll on them, even if the shortest path would take the unit just near them
• Aircraft that slightly outranges its target is bound to stray into AA defense range before firing. This also happens with land units
• Although ED and UCS construction units are able to deform the terrain (digging trenches/tunnels, building pontoon bridges and flattening terrain), working on uneven terrain comes with a high risk of the unit becoming stuck and unable to move at all unless another constructor helps it out
• Armed units always go for other units first and ignoring building during battle
• If its intended target is killed, it takes several seconds for a unit to select a new target on its own (but if the player is using the pause game-give order-unpause game trick, he/she can easily beat the computer's reflexes or make a building essentially invulnerable to energy weapon fire by constantly buying new shields for it)

External links

• Official site
• Earth 2150 at MobyGames
• Earth 2150 fan site
• Earth 2150 review at IGN