Aztec warriors are ready for an ambush, eager to capture prisoners to sacrifice to their gods, while the powerful French cavalry is lined up, waiting to charge their foe. Ranks of Chinese spearmen are chasing nimble Mongol horse archers. General Belisarius rallies his kataphraktos while they are under heavy fire: a group of Arab naft throwers is unleashing hell on them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr6Pj6BJtDE
Empires Apart is all of this and more. It’s a fast-paced Real-Time Strategy game which has electrified old school players since it was first announced. The developers, DESTINYbit, followed a policy of Open development, frequently streaming as they worked, and involving the community as much as possible.
During its several months long beta Empires Apart has developed a large online community and fanbase, very active players willing to challenge each other in multiplayer. It is a very competitive game, and for this reason we prepared a Leaderboard so that you can check your position in Ranked anytime you want, as well as check who the best Empires Apart players are.
Just for launch we’ll have a 15% off discount, so take advantage of it while you can! The offer is valid for one week!
Furthermore tonight we have the honour of hosting one of the best RTS players in the world streaming the game live on Twitch: TheViper himself! Join us on our Twitch channel at 6 pm CEST / 4 pm GMT!
Let's end by saying that this is just the beginning: we have big plans for the future, including a constant stream of free content and updates that will keep improving the game. This is but the first step on our road, and we're looking forward to hearing what you think.
We are very proud of how Empires Apart is shaping up. Years of hard work were put into it and it truly is a creation of love and passion.
The soundtrack is something which was very important for the developers from DESTINYbit. They looked for great composers to write the music for the game, to make it memorable and give it a great atmosphere.
They chose Michael Gordon Shapiro (who also composed the music for the Empire Earth series) and Sean Beeson (who composed the main theme).
We asked Michael, who composed most of the soundtrack for Empires Apart, to tell us what it meant for him to write the music for the game.
Games are best musically approached as stories. The mechanics of gameplay — even mundane actions like upgrading troops or re-seeding farms — can be exciting if they’re part of a gripping narrative about specific places and people. Empires Apart gives us all the elements of a story: a central character (the player) with a strong goal (to build an enduring civilization from scratch) in the face of an obstacle (the accursed other civilizations, inconveniently nearby). There’s an easy-to-perceive narrative arc, from the relatively peaceful days of building first structures in the wilderness, to the bustle of a growing town, to the fear and triumph of locking horns with one’s hostile neighbors.
Our goal with the music was to emotionally support the player’s sense of being the main character in a historical epic. The civilization themes make playing as different nations feel like emotionally distinct experiences. The Aztec theme is tribal and visceral, whereas the music for the Byzantines is mournful and nostalgic. The music follows the arc of the narrative, from peaceful melodic ambiences during early gameplay to the blaring of drums and brass during heavy combat. And of course we musically reward the player’s triumphs, as well as express sympathy for the defeats. (There will be many of those.)
Project lead Gian Paolo Vernocchi is a fan of thematic scores that can stand on their own outside of their games. We hope you’ll enjoy Empires Apart's score both as accompaniment to your empire-building, as well as a pleasant listening experience on its own.
Michael Gordon Shapiro
We are happy to announce that the OST will be available on Steam as a separate DLC for the game. We think it is powerful and beautiful music, and we can't wait to hear what you think! And in case YOU can't wait, here's something for you to get a taste of it.
In our previous dev diaries we focused on the different available game modes, as well as the design behind the UI. Today we are going to cover a number of different subjects, but all have something in common: why we decided to make Empires Apart.
It’s no secret that we drew heavy inspiration from games that marked our childhood: Age of Empires, Empire Earth, and others. We wanted to bring back that feeling, the familiar atmosphere of games we loved, but also add our own touch, as well as modernize the formula, bring it to 2018’s standards. Empires Apart is, basically, the game we wanted to play.
Classic Gameplay with a Unique Twist
With Empires Apart we wanted to have fast, immediate and streamlined gameplay. It has always been our number one objective. When sitting down and starting Empires Apart for the first time everything should be familiar and immediate, easy to pick up, and every Empires Apart game should be a ride, an adrenaline rush, and it should always stay fresh and innovative.
We thought of how we could accomplish this.
Unique Civilizations
First off, we thought that each playable civilization should be completely unique.
Not only all of them have a completely different unit roster, architecture, technological tree, but they also get unique mechanics.
When modelling our playable civilizations we knew we wanted to be faithful to real history, the type of history that is sculpted in our collective imaginery, as if told around a campfire. What was important to us was to deliver the right mood. Each unit and building was named in their respective civilization’s medieval language. The same approach to history is shown in the unique mechanics.
For instance, the Mongols are one of the six playable civilizations in Empires Apart and they are completely nomadic. All their buildings are built by the Qara’utai Tergen, a special Settler unit that you can recruit in your Town Center. Depending on the size of the building, you might need one or more Settlers. At any point you can decide to unpack everything, dismantle the building, get your Settlers back and simply build something else, elsewhere, at no cost. This, alongside the fact that all Mongol units are on horseback gives the Mongols extreme mobility.
Or what to say of the Aztecs, whose units don’t evolve through technology, but rather through combat experience? They are also the only faction which can capture prisoners… and sacrifice them, in order to obtain bonuses and recruit Heroes.
The Mongols are fast and strike hard where you least expect it.
Heroes
Which brings us to Heroes. The introduction of Heroes with special skills (both active and passive) affects gameplay greatly. The clever use of a skill can really change the outcome of a battle. When modelling heroes we once again tried be faithful to the spirit of history.
For instance, Belisarius was known for his guile and his stratagems: he was a true master of deception on the battlefield. In the game this is translated to him having a special skill which will summon a number of Varangian soldiers that you can control. They don’t actually deal any damage, nor can be harmed. They will just disappear after a few seconds. But that might be enough to deceive your enemies and keep them busy fighting imaginary Varangian troops while your real army hits elsewhere.
Under the vigil eye of Zhuge Liang the Chinese Overseers double their efforts.
Day and Night
There is a Day and Night cycle in Empires Apart! At night, your visibility will be reduced, alongside your field of view. You can use this to your advantage by arranging deadly ambushes: when your enemies spot you, it’ll be too late for them.
The Day / Night cycle becomes doubly important in Survival mode, as mentioned in a previous Dev diary. By Day you will be building and preparing, and by Night you will be swarmed by enemies coming from unexpected directions. Can you survive until the next dawn?
Competitive Multiplayer
It’s no mystery that we wanted to make a game suitable for online play.
Being competitive players ourselves and having collected the feedback from hundreds of RTS competitive players we knew what we wanted to implement in Empires Apart. In order to have a modern online experience we needed Ranked matchmaking, functional lobbies, a Spectator mode, a Leaderboard and Seasons.
We have big plans to kickstart the competitive nature of Empires Apart, but we’ve written enough for today. Expect further news on this soon!
Furthermore, we're going to stream the Aztecs faction in an exclusive preview this Thursday at 8 pm GMT on our Twitch channel! Don't miss it!
We have something special coming next week: Resonance22, one of the biggest RTS experts in the world, will be streaming Empires Apart live on his channel.
Gian Paolo Vernocchi, head of DESTINYbit and developer of the game, will be in the stream with him to discuss Empires Apart with him and maybe even play against him.
Don't miss this great event: live on Resonance22's channel at 9 pm GMT on Tuesday March 13th!
Empires Apart - France Preview Stream
Another week, another preview live stream of Empires Apart!
We've already shown the Byzantines and the Chinese, so this time we'll move to mainland Europe, to a land of chivalry, castles, and maidens leading big armies. We're obviously talking of France.
Come see their mighty cavalry at work in our weekly Empires Apart stream. DESTINYbit will be streaming the game themselves on Thursday March 8th at 8 pm GMT on our Twitch channel.
Dev Diary - UI Design
During the development of Empires Apart, one area where we really focused on was the UI. It was really important for us to make a functional UI which would also be good looking and smooth. We put a lot of time and effort into it. We looked at many different games from past and present and their approach to UI, particularly of RTSs.
It turns out that not much has changed over the course of 20 years, with UIs still relying on the same old tropes.
We tried to shake that up a bit, asking ourselves at every corner “is this necessary? could this be done better?”.
Cleanliness, consistency and ease of use were our main focuses when developing the UI. We try, at all times, to display only the relevant informations to the player - hiding the rest. Everything that is “clickable” has a white stroke around it and all the buttons are circular. Everything that simply provides informations is squared and has a black border around it.
Animations are kept to a minimum and a great effort has been given to making the UI responsive and intuitive. It is a minimalistic style which doesn’t sacrifice gameplay on the altar of eye-candy!
The golden ratio is present throughout the UI and this provides a sense of elegance and cohesion to all the elements. We think the overall result is very sleek.
We are continuously improving and evolving the UI based on player feedback. Some changes are right around the corner, stay tuned to know more!
Last Thursday we showed the Byzantines and how they play in Empires Apart.
We'll continue with our preview streams this week, and with a special guest...
General Agrippa Maxentius returns to the battlefield. He will lead the Chinese civilization and show you their unique mechanics: expect lots of crossbowmen, snipers, explosives, flamethrowers and even Shaolin monks!
Don't miss the stream on Thursday March 1st at 8 pm GMT on our Twitch channel.
PC Gamer Weekender - After Action Report
Last weekend we were in London at the Olympia as part of the PC Gamer Weekender. It was great fun and we were really happy to see so many people show up and come play the two games that we were displaying: Empires Apart and Warhammer 40,000: Gladius – Relics of War.
We had such great feedback from you guys, and we apologize that not all of you could try the games. Unfortunately there was always someone wanting to play as long as they could, and there were often long queues of people waiting their turn!
It was a great time to meet other developers, and we had the honour to meet Julian Gollop, the original designer and creator of the X-Com series, who tried both of our games.
We also had a chance to meet with the press and released plenty of interviews, which you can find online. It was a great time for everyone involved and we would like to thank the organizers for giving us this opportunity and arranging such a great show.
We would also like to thank everyone who came by, talked with us and played our games. All the comments were pretty enthusiastic and we’re glad that people enjoy the games that we make.
Dev Diary - Game Modes
When we started developing Empires Apart, we knew we wanted to create the game that we have always wanted to play.
We took inspiration from our favourite games, and then we thought: “How can we build on these?”. We started to think on what other cool things we could add, what we could change and what we could improve.
One of our goals with Empires Apart was to add more variety in Game modes. Something we really wanted to do was to provide new ways to play the game. But first it was essential to create a really strong Skirmish mode.
Skirmish in Empires Apart offers huge replayability value.
Select your Civ, and then the Hero you want to use. Each Civ has Heroes, and each Hero has different strengths and abilities. Then, select the number of Opponents that you would like to face, up to 8. You can, of course, assign them to different Teams or set different Difficulty levels.
Then, you can select between eight different map types, as well as 4 different map sizes. You can set a Population cap (100, 200 or 300) and decide on Visibility settings: you can start with a completely explored map and you can even disable the fog of war.
What we truly love are the game modes we added for Skirmish.
Our main game mode is Conquest. In this mode the objective is to destroy all of your opponents’ Town Centers. If they’re not able to rebuild a Town Center within the time limit, you win the game. This was done to give you a clear objective even in “normal” games and shorten the length of games. No more pesky villagers hidden in the corners of the map!
The next mode you can play is Assassination. Every player starts with their chosen Hero, and the goal is to kill all the other enemy heroes. Use all the means at your disposal to eliminate them!
Then you can play Diplomacy. During the course of a game, you can send Alliance offers to other players. Should they accept, you will then be allied, your units won’t fight each other, and you can win the game together. But be careful, they might decide to break the alliance and betray you at any moment!
It gets even better in Assassination with Diplomacy. You need to kill enemy Heroes to win, and you can forge alliances with other factions. Expect lots of intrigue, ambushes and backstabbing.
We also added a completely different way to play the game. Survival. In Survival the goal is to survive as long as you can. By day you will be looking to boost your economy, expand with new buildings, recruit new units… because at night you will be attacked by an ever increasing number of enemies. These can be from any Civ and will attack from all directions. The longer you survive, the harder it gets.
There is also another mode that you can play in Empires Apart: Challenges. Every Civilization has a number of Challenges you can test yourself with. They are situations designed so that they require both problem solving and mechanical skill in order to be completed. They are a great way to learn and master the gameplay mechanics specific to every civilization.
