Q: What will I need to play Empires?
A: You'll need a copy of Half-Life 2 and the Empires client once it is released.

Q: Who are the two opposing sides in Empires?
A: You have the choice of either playing as the Northern Faction or the Brenodian Empire. The Northern Faction is a rebel group consisting of remnants of the Jekotian Empire which was swallowed by the Brenodian Empire in a previous war. They are very resourceful and capable for a group low in resources and man power, and only recently have they come back from the brink of annihilation thanks to a new discovery which remains unknown to the Brenodi. The Brenodian Empire has a very large and well trained army and is backed up by a large reserve of resources to dedicate to the war effort. Their technology is slightly more advanced and elegant than the Northern Faction's, and they are solely dedicated to eliminating the remaining malicious elements of the fallen Jekotian Empire before completely integrating the Jekotians into their empire and wiping history of their existance.

Q: What's the reason behind their conflict?
A: The general theme behind the conflict is that each side has embarked on the research and development of artificial methods for the evolution of their race. This created a new military race to engineer the ultimate soldier. The Northern Faction/Jekotian Empire focused on genetic manipulation through the use of viruses and bacteria, essentially organic methods. The Brenodian Empire chose their own method of furthering human enhancement via the use of implants and nanomechanical devices. The two methods are incompatible, and this has led to continued fighting even though the Brenodian Empire had essentially gained control of the Jekotian Empire at the end of the previous war. To go back even farther, there are elements of sibling rivalry which erupted after the fall of their ancestors' great empire and grew from the Faction Wars which lasted many years and produced the two empires currently fighting.

Q: How does each team gain money for purchasing better equipment and vehicles?
A: Like all typical real-time strategy games, there will be resource nodes on the map in the form of a geothermal vent which will supply the team with income and minerals once a refinery is built on them.

Q: Who gets to choose what gets purchased?
A: The commander can lock his team's factories for either specific players or everyone so that only players specifically designated may build vehicles and aircraft, or he can leave them unlocked so that players can walk into the factory and purchase a unit.

Q: When will Empires for Half-Life 2 be available for download?
A: No exact date is scheduled, but we will hold closed testing until we have a playable alpha version ready to be downloaded by the public. Then we will begin making releases available to the public.

Q: Can I be a tester?
A: When we get closer to offical closed testing, we will look into accepting more testers. Contact the IRC channel for more information.

Q: Can I join the development team?
A: Visit the Join Us section and see if you have skills that match any of the open positions. Then, submit samples of your work to the team.

Q: How long has work been ongoing for Empires?
A: We officially started work in February of 2003 for the Battlefield 1942 engine. Work ended for the Battlefield 1942 engine in April of 2004, and all work thereafter has been aimed at a new engine, the Source Engine.

Q: Why did you stop developing for Battlefield 1942 and why not continue with Battlefield: Vietnam?
A: Battlefield 1942's coding capabilities are very limited. We attempted to stretch its scripts beyond what they were designed for. As a result, the game became very unstable which was impossible to fix without greater access to the code. Moving to Battlefield: Vietnam would have kept us in the same situation of being unable to create a stable mod.

Q: Will you be utilizing the normal mapping capabilities of the Source engine?
A: Yes, all of our models will feature normal maps.

Q: How is the commander for each team chosen?
A: At the start of the mission before any action begins, players are given the option of nominating a player and voting for them. The player with the most votes wins the role of commander. To aid in the selection of the commander, players will have indications of their past performances as both commander and as a regular player.

Q: Is there an official IRC channel for Empires where I can discuss the mod in depth with other fans?
A: Yes, it's located on the IRC.US.GameSurge.Net server and channel #empiresmod. If you have no idea what IRC is, download the mIRC client and read the FAQ located at its site.