Here are some articles I have written throughout the years. Most of them are quite old going back to high school.

Empire Earth II MadDoc Interview

, Exclusives, David Bond

Presented by: THE SPARTAN CLAN

Ian Davis here (The Mad Doctor), CEO of Mad Doc® Software & Creative Director on Mad Doc’s Empire Earth® 2, quite happy to be checking in with The Spartan Clan!

1- Q- We’ve heard a lot about the advanced AI that Empire Earth® 2 will boast. Our question is will this AI learn how you play as a game goes along, and will it store that information for later games?

A- Designed to be the pinnacle of AI in games, the AI in Empire Earth® 2 is going to make for some pretty interesting gameplay. In fact, it’s our hope that players won’t know whether they’re playing against a human opponent, or whether they’re playing against the AI in any given game. Within the context of the game currently being played (the AI doesn’t store info re specific players for future games, that would give it an unfair advantage!), the AI in Empire Earth 2 is playing fair and square. This cutting-edge AI doesn’t cheat, and by that I mean that the AI plays the game by the same rules you play by.

There’s a real nuance to what the AI is doing in the game. For example, it will watch play unfolding, and it will adapt to a player’s individual strategic play, avoiding dangerous areas on the map, steering clear of trouble, etc. It will take a look at the strategic choices a player may make in the game, and adapt accordingly (I see your forces, I sneak around, etc.). It essentially evaluates play and makes decisions just as the player might. And here’s the good news: all the strategies you use against players, you can use against the AI – and it will use against you. So fans better be ready, because this will be the best AI opponent you’ve ever experienced in gaming!

R- Wow, this really is exciting, if the AI is as good as you say that alone will make the game sell.

2- Q- One thing we’ve been wondering about is what type, if any, of a recorded game system will you have? Could you just explain it a little to us?

A- It’s actually quite complicated, but just to give you some idea of what’s going on here…think of it as a recording of all the input commands. This allows the game to play itself over, exactly as it played itself through the first time. It does other cool things as well: it allows you to view the game from other people’s perspectives, and it allows you to just “jump in” at any point (so, if you just played and were thinking, “I wonder what would’ve happened if I had done X…” – you can go back to that exact point and try a different tactic).

3- Q- Your game boasts 10,000 years of civilization, and presumably many ages as well. Our question is how will this play in with the game? During the course of a game will one advance through every age or will it play more like Empires DoMW in which you tend to stay in a few ages?

A- It’s not like Empire DoMW at all, the game plays as Empire Earth did. It spans 15 epochs, and the player is not tied down or restrained. You can choose from a variety of pacing options, some of which will allow you to go through all of time, and some of which will let you focus on a smaller range of epochs.

4- Q- Ok, just a quick question this time. How good is the pathing for units in the game so far?

A- It’s quite good. It does exactly what we want optimal pathing to do: it works really well, and it doesn’t get in your way. Like a great bass player in a band, it does a great job, but you don’t notice it’s there. It’s just what you want.

5- Q- One of the first things which I notice when I play an RTS game is the GUI and how intuitive it is. We’ve seen it in the screenshots, and it seems fairly good, but from your experiences playing the game how intuitive is it? Do you think it is one of the game’s strong points? Explain it a little.

A- We’ve put a great deal of innovative features in place in Empire Earth II which make the user interface extremely accessible. Given these well-implemented, fresh features (the full screen map, War Planner, Citizen Manager, etc.), we certainly feel it strengthens the game experience, and I’m certain fans will love it. Simply put, the user interface in Empire Earth II is extremely accessible. In addition, we’ve implemented features which make it even more accessible to the user than most; we’ve given more tools, more tips, and we’ve added a diverse array of micromanagement tools that make the gameplay a great deal easier in general.

6- Q- The War Planner. We’ve heard you guys say that it’s been in extensive use among your testers, however, let’s take a look at it from an upper level player’s point of view. Do you think that, assuming the player is good enough, the benefits that he will attain from the War Planner could be surpassed by just someone who has very good macro-management skills, and will using the War Planner hinder ones micro-management skills?

A- To me, the War Planning feature is one of those ones where, once we made it, we kinda went: “Why hasn’t this been in every other game before?” It’s such an obviously good tool to use that now that I’m used to it, it’s another that I can’t play the game without. As you know, it works like a paint program wherein I draw Xs and such on the map as color-coded direction for my team. It’s our playbook, and it’s key. I send out my plans to all my teammates, where we’ll do what, etc., and we’re set. And once we’ve set our strategy in place, we’re constantly messaging online as well, another key to success! So, do I think a player who happens to be good would overtake me and my team of brilliantly planning, strategizing, online messaging fanatics – NO WAY! In every instance where I’ve played the game and used the War Planning feature, my team has won the battle in question. No doubt. It can be absolutely brilliant, and it makes for some extremely fun multiplayer matches, it gives a real sense of team play. I don’t believe that hardcore gamers well versed in handling multiple tasks will have any difficulty with the War Planner hindering their micro-management skills at all – it’s likely a War Planning player would use the Citizen Manager to his/her advantage as well! Of course, you don’t have to use these features; they’re just available if you want to make more interesting strategies and decisions… ;)

R- Hmmm, I am still skeptical on this one, I don’t know how much I will use it, but I will probably be proved wrong if it works how you say.

7- Q- The three basic strategies in RTS games are the rush, turtle, and boom. How do these work together and are any used dramatically more with the playtesters than others?

A- As we’re testing a game, we’re obviously looking at it from a different perspective than the general player: we’re playing with a focus toward ensuring that things are balanced well. So, we’ll of course employ all strategies as a general practice to see all aspects of the game. When it comes to basic gameplay however, things are different. In any given game, and with any group of players, each person brings their own personal preferences to the table when it comes to playing the game. So, it makes sense that as we’re testing the game generally, certain folks will go for the rush, others the turtle, and still others the boom. Because let’s face it, some folks love taking the time to build their forces, their cities, etc., while others enjoy rushing in for quick, spirited games of ruthless battle, etc.

The game is well balanced, so strategies tend to work together well. Let’s say I’ve taken my time, built up a great force in my city, and you rush in haphazardly. You can guess who’s going to win that one. But don’t be mislead here: we’ve balanced the game to ensure that in some circumstances one strategy will work, while in others, it won’t. We’ve done this across the board to keep things in line and allow for player preferences.

Additionally, each strategy plays different roles at different times in different setups. For example, in maps with low pop-cap per territory and Quick Start, booming out to take a lot of territories can be good. But in fast-paced games, smaller map games, expanding too quickly could leave you exposed. Turtling works well with high-pop caps and small maps. Rushing is good for fast paced games where you can replace troops quickly.

8- Q- Another feature your game boasts in the Territory System. Now in terms of importance and effect on the game, do these act more like Rise of Nations Territory System or Age of Mythologies Settlements?

A- It’s sort of a mix between the two. The Territories are discrete like in AoM, but you can place your City Centers anywhere in them, and there are far more bonuses associated with them than in AoM. It’s different from RoN because it’s less of a historical note, and more of a goal. You get more for capturing Territories, and the discrete count of how many you have is a yardstick for how well you’re doing (and you know who to take out!).

9- Q- What games did Mad Doc’s design team look towards for inspiration when designing Empire Earth 2, and how did they influence the game?

A- There’s no one game in particular that we looked to, yet I think anyone with their hands in the pot, stirring up a cool new game, looks to the games they’ve loved over the years for some sort of inspiration. As you might have guessed, I’ve always been a huge fan of RTS games. It really makes sense to me that people are still playing games like Age of Kings, it’s still really fun. I’ve obviously been playing all the recent RTS games, as well as some games outside of the genre like Spider-Man 2™ and a variety of console sports titles – hey, it’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.

When it comes down to it, I’d have to say we were inspired by the sum of the games we’ve played, by our experiences as fans of the genre, but not one game in particular. We thought long and hard about what we loved in general and what we hated as fans, and we were keen to note this as we moved along the development cycle. What we’ve come up with is a game that has some pretty smart innovations, you know them by now (Non-Cheating AI, Diplomacy System, Crown Systems, Tech Tree, Leaders, Wonders, Territories, Citizen Manager, Warplans, Picture-In-Picture Window, etc.) – the kind of things that have an enormous impact on gameplay. We set out to make the game more elegant – we did this, and the bonus is that the game rides the line nicely by being more fun for the casual gamer, yet more challenging than ever for our hardcore fans.

As some of you may know, I’m a pretty hardcore AI strategist and path-planning guy (graduate studies in AI and autonomous navigation). I’ve definitely been a huge RTS fan forever, so playing and making games with rich RTS experiences is in my blood. I suppose that’s why I’m hellbent on doing more with Mad Doc’s Empire Earth 2, to push the RTS genre forward, to give fans an exceptional gameplay experience. And in the end, I think we’ve accomplished our goal. This is definitely the next step in the evolution of the franchise – and the RTS genre.

10- Q-Could you just quickly describe how you are going about the hard task of balancing the game, and how you plan to patch it?

A- As always, we’ve balanced the game with lots of good old fashioned play and testing (we play, test, and then tweak the AI and unit balancing). We then go back to the drawing board, and we do it all again. When we’re talking about balancing, we’re looking at the issue from many sides. For instance, it’s important to note that whether we’re looking at solo or multiplayer experiences, in Empire Earth 2 we’re focused on implementing consistent and open play, as opposed to restricting players with arbitrary restrictions and rules. Let’s take a look at Empire Earth – it was a great game, yet it clearly had some arbitrary rules for play which changed from mission to mission. This fluctuation, these floating rules, can be quite frustrating to players, and we really wanted to address the issue. It’s just a simple example of how we’re clearly focused on creating a robust game that allows the gameplay to flow fairly throughout.

With an eye toward making the rock/paper/scissors weighting more stable (the benefits less extreme, and beginners aren’t wiped out by more experienced players too quickly) – Empire Earth 2 has the kind of fine-tuning to its balancing that we think players will really appreciate. We’ve worked hard at streamlining the balancing so that all the systems are balanced and fair. Players can expect 30-45 hours of gameplay from the single player missions, plus infinite hours from skirmishes against the first good, non-cheating AI in an RTS game, in addition to the many hours they’ll get from multiplayer. We’re confident that for both single and multiplayer fans, players can look forward to exciting challenges for countless hours of gameplay.

11- Q-The most enjoyable fact about Age of Mythology was the depth to which one could truly analyze the data around the game. I remember working away, maybe even during my math class, to find out different formulas or to calculate if perhaps sending villagers to the farther away mine might be to inefficient. How much of a depth of analysis will one be able to go into in Empire Earth 2?

A- All right, you’ll have a field day with this one. I mean really, in this game - of such epic size, scope and depth - the number of things you might want to analyze is phenomenal. There is really a great deal of depth here, and a lot of math, and in some cases, because of the way we’ve set things up. Think about this, if you keep in mind that we have limitations on the number of buildings in a territory, that sort of thing, you can see how you’ll start to strategize right away. You could go crazy, if you love analyzing and calculating moves. For example, let’s take a look at the markets: the farther away you place two markets from each other, the more gold you’ll get. But, the farther apart your markets are, the longer it will take for you to get your gold. You could spend some serious time trying to analyze which is the optimal choice here. If you choose to, you could have some real fun here with loads of analysis.

Our debriefing screens at the end of the game are the most comprehensive ever and will give you LOTS of data to look at (including an analysis of every battle: what troops were there, what groups they were grouped into, what units were killed, who won the battle!).

R- Ah, sounds good.

12- Q- Ok, time for a loaded one. Now it’s my opinion that games such as Rise of Nations have taken the RTS genre in the wrong direction. They have broken away from the odd economic systems of games like the Age of series, Warcraft, and Starcraft to go into these odd systems that tend to do a lot of the work for you. These games with the new economic systems tend to sell in high quantities since the newbies like them, but then quickly lose their communities, and then die since the experts and hardcore RTS gamers are not there to keep them alive. Therefore in the end, the game companies sell less because they don’t get the “Starcraft effect” where the game continues to sell for years and years. So the question is: do you feel the Citizen Manager will make your game another in which economy will just be run by the computer, therefore driving away the experts and hardcore RTS fans? Or do you feel that the way it is designed it will be a nice way to macro-manage your economy, especially in late game, but that it will still require a lot of skill and micro-management to get a good economy?

A- When we started really thinking about the game, we realized early on that we wanted to make it really elegant. And we have - we’ve added lots of innovations in Empire Earth 2 that, quite honestly, make for a rich playing experience. We’ve designed the game to appeal to and assist casual gamers in their gameplay, while offering advanced players more depth and strategy to keep them engrossed in the game. So, when you look at something like the Citizen Manager, you know, an easy tool set designed to make sure your citizens are working in the right place at the right time, you’re looking at a choice. This is the beauty of the Citizen Manager which should not be overlooked: like many of the improvements and streamlining we’ve made to the economic side of Empire Earth 2 – the Citizen Manager is optional. You don’t HAVE to use the Citizen Manager; you can still go “old school” if you’d like. Go ahead, rope your citizens on the main screen, have them mine this particular pile of gold, etc., the choice is yours. So, there’s certainly no danger of the computer running your economy. If you don’t want assistance here, just play it old school. It’s a nice way to manage your economy.

Because it lets you manage bigger empires more easily, it’s one of my favorite features. It lets you keep using strategy in your economy, even when your empire is HUGE. And because it makes managing big numbers of citizens easy, it lets you focus on the strategy of your economy and battles. So, I’d have to say, it lets you manage your strategy, without micromanaging.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: for me, the Citizen Manager is one of those things that as we developed the game – once it came online, I HAD TO USE IT WHEN I PLAYED. It saves time, it’s easy to use; it takes the tedium out of managing lots of citizens in a big empire, and leaves all the strategy in place. I personally don’t want to be micromanaging 200 citizens an hour into a MP game, but if you’d like, you can do it if you want to. We’ve basically opened the game up so the hardcore gamer can now choose to play deeper, more strategic games.

Think of it like this: things like the Citizen Manager and Warplans allow you to more easily manage your empire and strategies. In skirmish and multiplayer, you can choose from a number of Game Pace settings that affect things such as build speed, build cost, damage dealt, unit speed, etc., all of which can create very different play experiences. This lets you have any experience you want - from low-unit count tactical games - to high-unit count strategic games. I think fans will agree, it’s just a wonderful set of options that make for seriously fun play.

The end result is much, much more strategy because you don’t have to abandon strategic thinking when the empires get big. All the strategy, none of the micromanagement.

R- I see where you are coming from; however, I would like just to say that just because I do not have to use it that does not satisfy me. I like playing at a high level of game play, and at that level, I like to know that my enemy is as skilled as, or better than, myself, not just a person who uses the Economic manager. Let me quote a person from Ensemble Studios on their upcoming game, “Players who make smart decisions can beat players with much better economies. Can you make economic decisions to automate your economy? Yes. Is that the only way, or even the most efficient way to play? No.” That is exactly how a game should be done, notice how the innovate yet the keep the guts of the game. It may work out that way, since it might not be efficient to use it until late game, but if it does truly give an unskilled advantage over another player that does not use it than I feel it shouldn’t be in rated play and in unrated it should be an option. Options always work out, since with them you can please everyone.

13-Q-What is there in Empire Earth 2 that should give fans a real sense of what the development team at Mad Doc is about, what has Mad Doc done with this game that will win the hearts of fans?

A- Let me tell you a little bit about The Mad Doc Team, our team. At Mad Doc, we’ve had our eyes on the prize on this one for some time. And to us, the prize has always revolved around this key statement: “What are we doing with Mad Doc’s Empire Earth 2 to make fans happy?” The answer, quite simply, is this: we’ve done our best, through countless hours of the development cycle, through late night pizzas and subs, through fries and burgers, to always, always, keep the players best interests at heart - to keep the fans final entertainment experience close at hand - to deliver an amazing gameplay experience. This is what Mad Doc is all about, and I think our results speak to our loyalty to the fans in volumes.

In so many ways, we’ve created one hell of a game here for fans to enjoy. Just a peek into the sheer sum and depth of what we’ve done is inspiring; we’ve added innovative features, smart, core streamlining features that really do make the gameplay experience quite exceptional. We’ve pushed the envelope with the game delivering non-cheating, cutting-edge AI, we’ve rewritten every single line of code, and those features – the Diplomacy System, the Crown System, Territories, the Citizen Manager, the Picture-In-Picture, the War Planner – I can’t wait to see the impact they have on the players.

We kept going as well, and when you really get your hands around the Crown System, Tech Tree, Leaders, and Wonders, when players start customizing the types of bonuses they receive throughout the course of the game, that’s when the fun will really start. When these great pieces all come together for the fans, when they see the sheer numbers of art involved, the graphic scope of the game, the weather and what it means in the game, the gorgeous musical score – all those things that really do immerse them in this world, this empire -- and they get to watch them unfold in this most enjoyable game, Mad Doc’s Empire Earth 2, I think they’re going to be pretty damn happy. And in the end, that’s what it’s all about to the Mad Doc Team.

14-Q-We have seen in several RTS games that multiplayer support has not been prevalent in the mind of the developer and has helped to lead to the demise of those particular games. What kind of multiplayer support is planned for Empire Earth 2? Do you plan to be highly involved in support for an extended time, such as Warcraft, or do you see maybe just 1-2 patches such as Empires: Dawn of the Modern World?

A- We hope to work closely with Vivendi Universal Games to support this game for years to come. It’s a big game with more options, units, and strategies than any other RTS ever, so we’d like to keep working with the users to make it great year after year!

I’d like to end here by thanking you and The Spartan Clan for your amazing, continued support and enthusiasm. As we’re pushing hard on the game, it keeps us fresh. So tell the Clan to keep it going, ‘cause soon we’ll be bringing Vivendi Universal and Mad Doc’s Empire Earth 2 your way!

I have to thank you once again for this interview, makes us very excited and I hope it works out to be one of the best real time strategies. Also we have to thank all the visitors that I read this and I ask that you support the clan by visiting one of our sponsors. Also, if you are a dedicated player who is looking for a clan For EE II than drop by our recruitment forums, we have people of all skill levels and will try to our utmost to help novice players.

Thanx, Mokon, and the Spartan Clan