Released nearly a year after the original Empire Earth II hit retailers, Empire Earth II: The Art of Supremacy is the first expansion pack for the historical RTS sequel from Mad Doc. As with the original title, The Art of Supremacy features a number of single and multiplayer modes, most of which line up in the "more of the same" category.

Three new campaigns and two turning point missions are available in the single-player mode, which takes players from Ancient Egypt through the epochs to a mid-21st century battle against encroaching multinationals on the African Massai tribe. The third campaign, featuring the Russians in the 19th century struggle against the French perhaps is the most unoriginal of the three, but certainly one that Empire Earth fans will no doubt enjoy. For the most part, there's very little new to the game; mission objectives, technology trees, and moving through the epochs all return as key dynamics to the experience. Empire Earth continues to feel like a strange amalgamation of a traditional resource micro-managing RTS and Sid Meier's Civilisation, and Art of Supremacy continues in the same vein.

What is new is the addition of native tribes including Nubians; much like Ensemble's Age of Empires III, these neutral peoples can be allied with a player's civilisation providing certain bonuses including resource development. Obviously enemy civilisations can also use the neutrals for their own advantage too, so players can be drawn into various strategies on how to deal with them. They're a nice enough idea, and one that does add an extra layer of depth to the game, although for the most part players may just find that racing towards achieving an objective is more lucrative than negotiating an alliance.

Two new Turning Point missions are also included in the game; the Battle of Kursk between the Germans and Russians in the 1940s, and the epic Battle of Rourke's Drift between the British and the Zulu Nation. As with the original EE2, players can experience the battle from both sides, and whilst not quite as fulfilling as the main campaigns, they still remain quite a challenge. Playing the British at Rourke's Drift in particular is quite daunting with the exceptionally limited force at the player's disposal, and the seemingly endless waves of Zulu warriors bearing down on you. The fifteen-minute time limit that players have to survive for can be excruciating, especially when the redcoats are down to a small handful of soldiers - it's the next best thing to the movie.

Elsewhere, Mad Doc has implemented two new gametypes for the Skirmish modes, one of which (Tug of War) opens up the prospect for some lengthy battles that Empire Earth II fans will love. Territory Hotspot, in a similar vein to the original game's Hotspot mode, features a set number of territories in the game world. However, unlike the original gametype, players are shown the positions of these territories at the start of the campaign. The aim of this is to bring sides crashing together in a series of battles as they vie for control of these important areas, much like a modern armed unit will try to wrestle strategic positions and resources, to help turn the tide of the battle in their favour. It's a fairly tenuous addition to the gametype list though, that fails to step out from the shadow of the already established Hotspot type.

As we've said, the more worthy addition to the gametype list is the Tug of War mode, which sees players battle through a number of territories in a series of battles. Epic in every sense of the word, and definitely lengthy, if players choose to stage the maximum nineteen battles, the mode will certainly engross Empire Earth II gamers and will be the scene of many stalemates in the coming months.

Such stalemate situations may cause a certain amount of tension amongst the players, which may be the reason behind the game's addition of a 'Profanity Filter' in the settings window. Not that we're suggesting anything but the RTS genre is perhaps the least likely genre of game to need a swear filter...

As you'd expect the game isn't about graphics, but what there is, is enough to provide gamers will a solid enough perspective on how their empires are developing. The weather conditions add an atmosphere that can easily be found lacking in RTS titles, and extra visual details including bloodstains and other residual marks from battles continue to improve immersion for the player.

In terms of audio, The Art of Supremacy isn't perhaps the most exciting to listen to. The music does a fair job on representing the cultures in the game, but to be honest there's a certain "Music from the Savannah volume 1" to it that gets all too samey. Speaking of repetitive sound, the units themselves have a small range of vocabulary that easily gets annoying; how many times do we have to put with listening to the same short one-liners again and again?

Far from really expanding upon what was laid down in Empire Earth II, The Art of Supremacy is more of a content expanding pack than an instalment that evolves the original game. Fans of the series will do doubt lap up the new Campaigns and Turning Point missions, but it won't draw newcomers into the Empire Earth II experience.