Earth 2160

Earth 2160
Developer(s)	Reality Pump Studios
Publisher(s)	Zuxxez Entertainment (Europe), Midway Games (NA), TopWare Interactive (Poland)
Designer(s)	Reality Pump Studios
Engine	Earth-4 Engine
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Release	June 2005 (Germany, Poland, Russia), September 2005 (Europe), November 2005 (NA), April 10, 2006 (Steam)
Genre(s)	Real Time Strategy
Mode(s)	Single player, Multiplayer

Earth 2160 is a real time strategy (RTS) computer game, the third in the "Earth" series and developed by Reality Pump studios. It is a direct sequel to Earth 2150. The release of the game was staggered, originally published in Germany, Poland and Russia in June 2005, it was then released in the rest of Europe in September 2005 with North America receiving the latest release of the game November 2005. It was also released on Valve Software's Steam platform in April 2006. The game continues the dysotopian themes of the previous Earth games, and is set in numerous locales throughout the solar system.

Plotline

WARNING: Many players have reported that the download provided by Steam is extremely unreliable: the download will prompt for you to "insert the disc" which of course you do not have. Steam is quick to take players money for this download, and Steam has known about the defect for many months, yet they still continue to rip people off instead of fixing the problem. DO NOT, under any circumstances, download this game from Steam.

Earth 2160 follows the progress of the factions, who, after escaping the doomed Earth headed for Mars. After a time of relative peace and recovery, the factions once again come to blows, with a fourth faction of extraterrestrial nature coming into play. Just a few thousand humans were specifically chosen for the evacuation of Earth, and as such manpower and resources are limited. Upon reaching Mars, the factions set about completing the difficult and lengthy task of terraforming the planet independently of one another. As the game begins the process appears to be far from completion.

Factions

There are a total of four playable factions in Earth 2160. Each faction has a unique method of constructing bases, as will be explained below.

The United Civilized States (UCS) are the evolution of a former expansion of the United States across the Americas. The UCS was previously a huge makeup of hedonistic, advanced humans who used robots and machines to accomplish any unpleasant tasks and jobs. However, whilst the ED and LC evacuation ships arrive safely at Mars and begin colonisation, the UCS evacuation ship, the Phoenix, inexplicably goes missing during the journey. Theories concerning its disappearance range from destruction by a meteor swarm, to the human overlords making the mistake of allocating too much power to the machines and, during the journey to Mars, in a move much akin to HAL 9000's the few humans remaining were exterminated by the machines they created. Major Michael Falkner of the ED personally believes that the ship was sucked into a black hole "or something like that, anyway". (It is revealed during the UCS campaign that the Captain of the Phoenix, an AI, has kept the ship in orbit and the humans in stasis, waiting for the wars in the Solar System between the ED and LC to end). The UCS's backbone forces are its robot mechs and colossal airborne ships. During the campaign, human forces under the rogue LC commander Heldin Ariah stumble across the derelict UCS command ship and are able to command the robots in their fight against the Morphidian Aliens. The UCS structures initially serve almost no function at first but may be upgraded with a series of add-on structures that enhance unit production, armament, and resource collection.

File:Earth2160 ED campaign.JPG

Screen shot of the ED forces in the ED campaign

The Eurasian Dynasty (ED) represent the largest human faction in Earth 2160. Upon successfully completing the evacuation vessels, the leaders and officers of the faction were among the precious few human beings chosen to board the ships. As the most primitive of all the factions, the ED have previously relied on sheer strength and numbers to triumph over their enemies, using tanks and helicopters in battle. However, with only a few thousand humans remaining, and strictly limited materials, their future remains tentative. The ED seem modelled on the Soviet Union, and before Earth's demise were based primarily in Eurasia. Typical ED bases are huge complexes of production, resource, research, and defense structures connected together through tubes. Base defense can be enhanced with a series of turrets built atop mag-lev walls; these turrets can be moved along the wall sections to respond to threats in multiple directions.

The Lunar Corporation (LC) are by far the smallest of the factions. Unlike the other factions, they are relatively peaceful, and prior to the destruction of Earth lived unhindered on the Moon. However the fighting between the UCS and ED prompted them to utilize Earth's resources to construct an escape craft alongside the other two factions, and they too escape to Mars. The LC are the most advanced of all the factions, with anti-gravity vehicles and orbital construction technology. LC bases consist of a series of large towers with modules built on top of one another in order to save space while defense is supplied by a series of laser walls and defense towers.

The Morphidian Aliens are the most obscure of all the factions. Having been imprisoned beneath the Martian surface aeons ago they were awoken by landing UCS ships. Now, they are determined to escape their incarceration and establish themselves across the solar system. Unlike the other factions, the Morphidian Aliens' buildings and units are not manufactured, but are rather organic in nature. All ground-based buildings and units originate from the Manitan family of units, who have the capability of cloning themselves or morphing into another building or units after sating themselves with a nearby water source. The Aliens also rely on large starships called Replicatori, which can then replicate themselves much like the Maintains (after absorbing enough crystal) or morph into Morphoratori. These Morphoratori must then absorb enough metal before transforming into warships.

Graphics and features

Earth 2160's graphics were by far some of the most advanced yet seen in the RTS genre at the time of release, continuing the trend set by its predecessor Earth 2150. The game uses the Earth-4 engine, which boasts colossal amounts of detail, with a T&L rendering module which supports advanced pixel shading and bone calculation direct to ones graphics card. Bump mapping, lighting effects and detailed units are also present. Shading is also extensively used, and much emphasis has been put on creating realistic texturing and materials to create a highly realistic gaming environment.

The game is perhaps the first to use a workable self-learning AI system, this system uses linear back framing algorithms to learn from its mistakes and become more and more competent in battle as the game progresses. Movement routines and smooth, high FPS flying trajectories serve to enhance further the playing experience.

A new "agent" system has been devised, similar to a mercenary system, factions may choose to hire freelance persons each with their own specific abilities. Some assist your scientific research, others in reconnaissance, resource harvesting and so forth. Each recalls his previous contracts, this affects price. Further, they have an attitude towards their fellow agents, ranging from love to resentment.

Research plays a major part in Earth 2160, and factions can choose numerous technologies to research, often at the same time. Research centres are still prevalent, and the number you construct will have an effect on the speed of your research. Technology may also be found within alien artifacts, stolen from rivals, or purchased from an ally.

A much expanded on innovation for Earth 2160 is the modular construction. One may construct buildings and units from a wide assortment of basic parts, thus in theory every base and army shall look unique.

The game economy is based upon three material types: Water, Metal, and Crystals. An interesting feature is that there are a total of twelve different metals. What metal you happen to harvest determines your unit colour, hit points, and overall armour.

Multiplayer

A total of ten skirmish maps and four multiplayer modes exist. Players also have the option to save their multiplayer games to finish at a later date. The multiplayer servers are hosted from EarthNet, and a ladder and league is included. A maximum of eight players may join a game. Spectator mode and Replays are also included. There is also an option to join a running game, which many real time strategy games don't have.

Development of EarthNet 2

Development of EarthNet 2, which was meant to replace the old EarthNet after release, was stopped mid-2006. This caused enragement among the community as it was perceived that ZuxxeZ blamed the community for the failure of its development, as it was being developed with members of the community. In addition ZuxxeZ considered the multiplayer feature of Earth 2160 unimportant, as only 10% of all users of Earth 2160 ever went online with it.

Modding

Modding is another feature included with Earth 2160, the E2160 world editor is included as an external program, enabling players to create their own maps to battle on. Reality Pump has confirmed that Unicode is present in the modding system.

Community Rebalancing

Due to the retail version balancing problems making fair multiplayer impossible which continued to patch 1.3.7, the InsideEarth community started a mod balancing the game called InsideEarthOperations Rebalancing or simply "reba". It replaced the original balancing with a more balanced version and introduce some changes in gameplay. Most matches online are played with "reba" and it is the standard gametype for the upcoming ECL Earth 2160 Tournaments and Ladders.

It current version is 8.3v14 and will be included in the next patch, patch 1.3.8

See also

• Reality Pump
• Real Time Strategy

External links

• Official Earth 2160 website
• Main Earth Community website
• Earth 2160 at MobyGames
• Earth 2160 at Game Rankings
• Earth 2160 at GameSpot
• Earth 2160 at Gamezone
• Earth 2160 review at The G33ks
• About Earth 2160