There haven't been that many history-spanning global strategy games released lately. The most significant release in recent memory was Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots, the expansion to the award-winning Rise of Nations. There are a couple titles on the horizon, including the highly-anticipated Age of Empires III and the fantasy-themed Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends, which puts Empire Earth II in the unique position of falling straight into the lull period for history-spanning real-time strategy games. The developers, Mad Doc Software, take full advantage of this and have created a strong product that can stand on its own among the likes of Rise of Nations.

The first Empire Earth was developed by Stainless Steel Studios, and later, Mad Doc was responsible for programming its expansion. Very little has changed as far as gameplay is concerned now that Mad Doc has taken over as the main developer of the title. Players still have the opportunity to select a civilization (each with different bonuses) and develop it through 15 epochs of history, from the Stone Age to the future of nanotechnology and robotics. The player will develop technology across three different areas (Military, Economics and Imperialism) and balance moving across the different time periods with expansion and generating an army. The basic mechanics have remained relatively unchanged from the predecessor, which isn't a bad thing, considering how enjoyable the first game was. Mad Doc instead decided to focus their efforts on redesigning the interface, making it more streamlined and effective.

One of the first things to strike players will most likely be the newly implemented weather system. The reason this, among all the other new features, will be the first to be noticed is because it can literally take up the whole screen. Snow storms, sand storms and torrential rain all play critical roles in strategy. Bad weather limits unit movement and visibility. However, with EE2 it also limits the player's ability to see too. There were times when snow storms became so severe that we could barely see anything on the screen, much less direct troop movements. For players who are smart enough to plan for bad weather, this represents the best time for troop movements, since no one will be able to see anything. Then, when the weather clears, launch a strike. While the good intentions are obvious, many computers may suffer a severe slowdown from these weather effects, sometimes to the point where the game becomes unplayable unless the graphics are turned down.

Perhaps some of the most useful tools to come out of EE2's interface design is the citizen manager and the war planner. The problem with any game of this scale, spanning the whole of human civilization from the Stone Age, is that empires eventually become too big and difficult to manage. It's a tool that you might perhaps expect from a turn-based strategy game, and it's implemented very nicely. With the citizen manager, the player sees a flat map of their territories and has a count of idle citizens. These citizens can quickly and easily be assigned to tasks around the empire, whether it be gathering resources in general or helping to gather from a specific location. This works well to maintain a very efficient empire. Players can also connect their empire with a road system that can sometimes be more trouble than it's worth. The first reason is that enemy units also benefit from the speed boost that roads represent, and the second is that the unit pathfinding is usually so off that they neglect to use roads anyway. So, in the end, troops still get there when they get there.

The war planner takes players to a similar map, except that the player is given drawing tools like arrows and circles to create battle plans that can be shared with allies, making planned coordination much easier than ever before. Even computer controlled allies will respond to these battle plans, reinforcing the idea that making key alliances are important. The strategies opened by the war planner are tremendous, as devious players can send different plans to specific allies, setting them up for your eventual betrayal. There is a multiplayer game mode called Sole Survivor, where the game takes on a "There can be only One" attitude. When there are only two factions left in the game, all alliances are instantly broken and the two sides (now the most powerful in the world) are instantly set against each other. So, now players not only have to think about taking out the weaker opponents, but plan for an eventual attack from a nation that might be of equal power.

Another new feature is the Picture-in-Picture, which serves as a small screen where players can monitor key points of the map in real-time. Mad Doc took this concept a step further by making it possible to command units directly through the small screen, making it possible to multitask and respond to situations like never before. However, keeping track of the PiP can be a lot of work and takes some getting used to. Those people who happen to be very good at multitasking will have a significant edge when this feature is concerned.