Let me start with saying I am a huge fan of the earth series,

-Earth 2160 continues the story of its predecessors through 4 campaigns of around average length that will most likely keep you busy for a while.
-The game features 4 very unique races which vary greatly in terms of playstyle.
-Lets you modify your units as you see fit to execute their job perfectly.
-It comes with a skirmish mode and supports up to 8 players for lan and i-net multiplayer. Has a bunch of extra maps added to it, some of which I recall seeing in fan patches.
-The game natviely supports most modern resolutions up to 1920x1080.
-Despite its age the graphics are still very neat to look at and features like its day and night cycle make the game quite pretty.
-Note: You will have to register the game ingame via its product code allocated by steam to unlock its full content, which might scare some people off but I dont exactly see any harm in it. (not like most modern games dont require you to make accounts :p)

Gameplay:
Eurasian Dynasty (ED)
The ED originated from Russia and while they may not be the fastest, they certainly have some of the toughest units in the game featuring heavy tanks, artillery and bombers. They weaponry ranges from conventional weapons to heat rays.
Their basebuilding consists of placing a main 'core' at the center of your base from which you build pipes to connect a variety of structures and generators to power your network of buildings. They can also build walls and a variety of other defenses.
Their ressource gathering is done by mobile refineries which can hover from depot to depot and process all ressources gathered on the spot for a steady income.

Strength: Very tough units, able to turtle quite well using a ring of walls around the mainframe, simple ressource gathering
Weakness: Slow units, buildings are vulnerable to get disconnected from the frame and can get disabled due to lack of power, basebuilding takes up a lot of time and needs to be planned ahead a bit in order to make room for future buildings.


United Civilized States (UCS)
The UCS originated from the United states of america, they have a variety of mechs and jets at their disposal and use a lot of energy based weaponry as well as ballistic missiles.
Their basebuilding is probably the most 'normal' and executed by flying drones that place structures which then build themselves as they drain the ressources needed. Their bases have the unique feature to use add-ons to enhance buildings in a specific way, such as making generators create more power or making refineries generate more income.
Their ressource gathering is rather traditional and has flying harvesters land on top of the ressources, gathering them and returning back to the nearest refinery for dropoff.

Strength: Fairly easy to master, strong missiles backed up by laser weapons, simple basebuilding which doesnt need babysitting. Can place turrets and walls to some extend to provide decent defense. Can teleport freshly trained units.
Weakness: Their structures while efficient can get costy to replace with a bunch of add-ons added to them and expanding to get more ressources does require you to set up additional outposts. Their laser weaponry is prone to get tackled by shields early on which renders them inefficient.


Lunar Corporation (LC)
The LC created orbital colonies and initially settled down on the Moon. They were able to study alien technology and feature the most advanced weaponry out of all the races. Their vehicles are hovertanks, infantry has jetpacks and aircraft are speedy.
Basebuilding for the LC means placing a basic module on the ground and stacking other modules on top to create a tower which depending on modules you places can fill in a variety of roles from research and unit training to combat modules to turn them into tough fortresses. They can also place external turrets and laser walls and all structures can be placed anywhere as they are dropped in from the sky. (you can only call in a limited number of buildings at a time though)
Their ressource gathering is as simple as dropping a mining base next to a ressource field. They will harvest and process it automatically.

Strength: Some of the fastest units in the game, very strong weaponry that is specialized to usually fit a single purpose, probably have the ability to expand in terms of ressources easier than any other race, can build foward or hidden bases anytime, anywhere.
Weakness: Due to their 'stacking' mechanic of modules their structural integrity is often at risk and they are prone to have their buildings get sniped which are even more expensive to replace than fully modded ucs building, their early game units while fast are fairly weak in terms of hp.


Aliens
The aliens are a new addition in Earth 2160 and feature the most unique playstyle using cloning and evolution to create their units and having no ressource gathering in the traditional way.
They can morph strong defensive structures which are able to provide heavy cover for units while they clone and evolve or block off ressource points from your enemies.
Instead of ressource gathering their units absorb a small amount of ressources to evolve into different species, starting with a basic unit that has no way of attacking and a basic mothership you have to clone them to create more and evolve those into different strands to create the perfect army.

Note: It is advised that you keep at the very least one basic unit to replicate as you might be unable to reproduce if you dont!

Strength: Strong structures, heaviest aircraft in the game, fast and lethal units, can easily poke at hostile bases and harass them.
Weakness: Beyond static turrets no way to defend yourself, take great amounts of planning and macro management to keep track of your units and their evolutions, easy to get harassed and crippled if cloning units are exposed.


Virtual Agents:
Virtual Agents are 'Hero units' which will offer their services for the highest bidder. As Aliens have no means to store ressources they are unable to obtain any.
Agents pop up every now and then , initially after a few minutes three random ones will pop up and ask if the player wants to hire them. You have to be quick and go for whichever suits you best or simply bid on them all if you feel generous with your ressources. Your enemies also have the chance to obtain them and can make them a better offer. In the end they will join whichever side is willing to spend the most money on them.
Once hired you can spawn the VA anywhere you like and they will remain in your service for a limited amount of time till their contract expires, after which you have to pay them again. If they get killed their contract is also terminated.
Those Virtual agents offer a variety of bonuses for certain playstyles, such as reducing the cost of flying units by 25% or having your ground units start as veterans. The VA's also come in a variety of shapes and often are a powerful unit on their own that if used right can pack quite a punch.
You can have up to 3 agents at a time which will most likely start to chat with one another at some point. This usually leads to quite some hilarious conversations which might entertain you if you like bad puns and sarcastic comments.

Note: Virtual Agents can be disabled during game setup if you dont want to have them around.



Thats about all I can tell ya, if youd like to know more you should just take the game for a spin, especially since its currently on offer for a laughable price. The rts genre usually doesnt bring forth as many games as other genres do currently which is why many of us still play 'older' games to pass the time.
This one is a little gem, sure has its flaws but it can be a bunch of fun, especially if you're looking to get it to play with some friends of yours who are also willing to spend a single dollar or euro to get it.

To all those who complain about the supposed need to give out personal info: LEARN TO READ.
You do not need to register to play the full game, just UNCHECK the box for registration and press the internet activation button and you are done. Honestly, if you tell the game to register, then of course you have to give your name, birthdate and co., but you only have to ACTIVATE.

All those thumbs down to a generally decent game, just because they cant read properly. Steam should delete such invalid reviews and never give refunds for this game if such a reason is given.

I admit, I at first didnt read properly myself, but then i just used the back button and read properly, noticing the checkbox for the registration with no problem at all.

Edit six years later: Man, I must have felt quite frustrated when writing this review. Just imagine the text with less outrage and a smaller stick up the... behind, if you prefer it that way. I will still leave the original text though, for posterity's sake :P

This is one of the best RTS game released in 2005 but graphics and design still very impressive even in today's standard the gameplay is deep with technology research ,units customizing and unique base building techniques for each faction. Earth series very powerful brand in strategy games. if you didn't play earth series game before (earth 2140,earth 2150) I recommend you to read this wiki page to understand the story behind each faction in earth 2160 (Eurasian Dynasty, United Civilized States, Lunar Corporation, Aliens) . http://earthseries.wikia.com/wiki/Earth_Wiki

Earth 2160... Where do I start? This game is buggy, central multiplayer server is dead (altrough direct connect still works and will most likely work forever), lots of mechanics are annoying, DRM activation works but demands your personal data...

...And despite of that, this is one of the most enjoyable, complex strategies you will ever see! I am writing this review over 10 years since the game release and it is still unbeatable when it comes to many aspects.

Let's start with factions: there are few of them and all of them are completely different - not just when it comes to most obvious things like visuals or different "game finisher" end-game units, but also the way they build the base (and not even single faction reminds typical strategy, with most familar one being UCS), recruit their units, research technologies and how their army fights. In addition (major spoiler alert) one of factions don't even have buildings except turrets at all, but their units can duplicate and evolve to the more advanced forms. The biggest differences are in base building:
UCS base building look most similar to other RTS games, but all their buildings are semi-modular, meaning you can extend them with additional parts (for example, refinery can be extended with parts giving additional extractors or with storage facilities raising your population cap). Their energy network is rather crude, with power plants as separate buildings and need to build energy relays to extend the network.
ED bases are basically huge, modular buildings - complexes with multiple power generators, barracks, storage facilities, turrets etc. connected together. The only constructions that can be built disconnected from complexes are walls and turrets that can move on these walls like on rails. Energy pool of this faction is bound to single complex (but you can have more than just one).
LC philosophy is "build up, not wide": their bases tend to be relatively small compared to all other factions, you can stack most buildings on each other as long as tower is kept at sane height (if you have big towers close to each other, destruction of one will start domino effect). Their walls are made from energy walls connected with turrets, in addition attempt to fly over them will result with turret insta-killing the enemy air units with energy ray. It is the only faction with global energy pool.

Micromanagement which is very common in this game might be seen as pro or con - this is matter of preference, altrough in case of one of factions amount of micromanagement grows exponentially with game duration and quickly reaches stage in which it is very difficult to take care of everything needed.

From technical side, game have some serious flaws when it comes to pathfinding: land units have big troubles finding a path to the target, it is almost impossible to get them out of complex base, armies with different move targets will often block each other. AI don't really "know" how to play using ED faction, but can be challenging especially when playing against Morphidians, but don't really expect any surprises from it. Graphics are still relatively good for over 10 year old game, with nice looking physics and big attention to details like visual representation of damage. Music is nice, but don't expect hearing too much of it - something is wrong with music system, so it plays very rarely. Sounds are acceptable.

If you look for very good, complex RTS with base building + careful resource management and bugs/other annoyances don't scare you - then this is the game for you, especially if you have few friends to play with. If you look for something similar, but more modern and polished - trying Grey Goo might be good idea (that game takes most of its gameplay elements from Earth 2160, but simplifies them and removes most of micromanagement).

Degree of DRM registration info demanded downright disturbing. Uninstalled.

Game welcomes you with a registration form you better fill out if you don't want to be limited to "demo mode".
That form includes mandatory fields like: Real name, full address including postal code and country, gender, birthday.

interesting game mechanics deeply buried underneath eyerollingly trashy presentation and unacceptable registration requirement.

(I played this game properly when it originally came out)

SUPERCON:
will not activate if you don't submit real name, real address, birth date, gender, hardware data, email address etc.
(yes you can write whatever you want, but still unacceptable , for a game that isn't even supported anymore).

PRO:
- interesting mechanics like guns on rails on walls, that need to be repositioned, connected buildings etc.

CONS:
- where's the real time 3D terraforming from earth2150?
- music is 90ies eastern europe techno trash (and not the "cool kind", whatever that is).
- CGI and all asset/design styles are also from the dark age of people who don't know how to design scifi.
- voice over is cringy to the max.
- limited landscape variety. (very repetitive).
- extremely limited resources kinda make the whole level and develop your units system irrelevant cos you are forced to rush.

All in all: could have been awesome, if they would have replaced their art director, and taken out the registration system after dumping this game on steam.

I have only played the game's campaign missions, thus my review will not cover skirmish or multiplayer content.

Pros:
+All factions have unique base building mechanics. The ED construct their buildings like a puzzle, connecting each building to the others; the LC construct their buildings by stacking modules like towers, the UCS use droids (the former two drop their buildings from spaceships) to build their buildings and then construct add-ons onto them, while the Alien race construct their units by cloning and mutating their units themselves, instead of constructing buildings to produce the units (though they can create defensive buildings).
+The majority of the factions can customise their units - you research different weapons, armour etc. and can then design the units from those parts. Thus, the same unit can be fitted for different situations, such as anti-air support, siege, anti-armour role etc..
+The graphics of the game itself aren't half bad, considering how old the game is.
+Units don't have infinite ammo - conventional weapons need to resupply ammo, while energy weapons overheat and become less effective after repetitive use.

Cons:
-The story doesn't have a proper conclusion. It just ends on a cliffhanger.
-Unexplored areas on the map are covered in static, instead of just being blacked out. Not really a pleasant effect. Also, there's no proper fog of war - it's unclear how far it stretches, so units can suddenly appear like out of nowhere, because that area was actually covered by a fog that you can't see.
-Cutscene graffics have aged poorly.
-Some campaign dialogue between the characters locks down control of your units and builidings.... yet time doesn't stop, so your units will end up doing whatever they please until the dialogue ends... or you skip them to stop your units from getting themselves killed.
-The alien race is the only faction without customisable units, limiting strategic options with the faction. Also, the faction's mechanics aren't so well done. Units need to be close to a water source to absorb a certain amount of water before they can be cloned or morph to a different unit and, since all ground units use the same resouce, the area around a water source gets very clunky. Especially since there's no option to select where the cloning/morphing should take place - the unit just does it on the spot it was standing at when you give the order. When more than one unit is being cloned/morphed, any other units blocking the way are moved away and can even end up on innaccessible terrain.
-Most air units in the game are pretty useless. Bombers cannot be moved anywhere unless they're given a target... and then they need to fly to it all the way from your base.... and they're not all too fast, so they're unpractical for anything more than base defence. Other air units can usually be shot down in one or two shots even by anti-air troops, not to mention base defences, before they can really do anything, so their usefulness is limited.
-On the other hand, ground units move relatively slowly and most of the campaign maps are large, maze-like, and with narrow passages, so the units have to move in single file. Not the best way to launch an attack when the majority of your units are stuck in traffic.
-Lack of a decent manual or something of the sort on how things work, so quite a few things have to be figured out through trial and error. Such as, how to give a series of commands to your units, what weapons are effective against what and how ammo reloading works. Also, some campaign mission objectives are vague (e.g., in one level, it tells you that you need to free character X, but it doesn't specify that you need to bring your hero character there to do so).

All in all, at the time of writing this, the game costs 5 Euros and I got it on sale for just 1 Euro, so it's a sufficiently decent game for its price in my opinion.

Earth 2160 is a very good real-time strategy game with four unique factions, a remarkable grade of unit customization and broad spectrum of tactical opportunities. The most interesting aspect of the game lies within the customization of the loadouts of individual units upon construction.

Compared with the predecessors the differences and specific characteristics of the factions were further developed, e.g. unique base building and unit types. In addition, the micromanagement of units and buildings has been simplified.

On the other hand the clarity of the user interface still remains an issue, which would have needed more attention.

Achievements:

The game has no Steam achievements.

The product key is provided with purchase, but some 'internal server error' prevents the activation from completing, so the game is stuck in Demo Mode. I was only able to play the lame intro campaign, and cannot play skirmish modes.
Thank you for selling me 1/6 of a game.