Empire: Total War

06 Mar 2009 at 10:30:35 by Tim McDonald
Systems used to review this title: (PC)

Much as I adore the Total War games, there has always been one issue I've had with them. It's not the notoriously buggy AI, nor is it the lack of naval combat: no, it's just that I'm crap at them. I understand how they work, and I thoroughly enjoy every single Total War game that I play. I'm just inexplicably awful at the series. This time around, Creative Assembly has outdone itself and seems to have fixed all three of these issues (including my ineptitude) with varying levels of success.

The first port of call on firing up the game is the Road to Independence tutorial campaign. This focuses on a small, colonial settlement in the Americas, and the world map gradually expands, as do your responsibilities. You start small, with just a few options for construction and recruitment, before it starts granting you diplomacy options, ports, and everything else. It's well done, and probably the best tutorial the series has had, despite the irritating simpering of your advisor.

The real meat, though, is in the Grand Campaign. With a choice of 12 nations, I naturally took control of the United Kingdom, circa 1700. Could I lead the country to glory? Could I establish dominance over the Americas, gain a foothold in India, establish lucrative trade routes around the globe, and keep Blighty secure?

I've had difficulty with the beginning of campaigns in the Total War games. It takes me a little while to get the hang of where my settlements are, what they're doing, how sizeable my armies are, how much money I can afford to spend, which direction I should be expanding in, and so on. Rome: Total War fixed this, to a certain extent, by starting you off small and letting you expand from there, with missions from the Senate giving you gentle nudges in the right direction. Empire has your advisor give you an overview of the state of your nation, and describe some likely strategies you might want to employ in the early years. I ignored it completely, though: I had my own plan in mind. See if you can guess.

The first thing was to secure some backing. With a little wheedling, a few gifts, and a couple of death threats, I secured military alliances with some of the smaller European nations dotted around. The diplomacy aspect of Empire is more reminiscent of Civilization than anything, with gifts to be offered, technology to be traded, alliances and trading pacts to form, military access to be granted, and the like. Counter offers are in place – you might want military access, but they might want to charge you for the privilege. As implied, you also have the option to threaten another nation, with the expected results.

My navy was sizeable, but my army left a bit to be desired, so that was next. A few turns later and I had a force that truly could've walked into Mordor. Now, technology, and this shows off another aspect of Empire: the regions themselves. Each region only has only one major city in it. England, for instance, has London, while France has Paris. As the region prospers, smaller towns are added, which can be upgraded along various lines. Cambridge, naturally, was a college town, improving research. I installed Isaac Newton there to speed things up – Newton is a Gentleman, a type of agent that can either boost your own research or visit other colleges and steal research. Oxford was a religious school, Bristol was a trading port. All agents can be installed in hostile towns – Rakes (the spy Agent) can sabotage them, or assassinate other agents. Placing the military in a hostile town prevents the nation that owns it from getting the benefits of it, and when your army leaves, the town will have suffered a lot of damage from the occupation. All of these towns have an impact on how your nation grows, and for now, my nation was focused on the military.

This reflected itself on my cabinet and agents quickly. Newton gained experience working on new bayonets for my soldiers, and military research sped up further. The military expenditure gave members of my cabinet new traits, making managing large armies easier. There was one thing left to do, and that was to limit the power of my soon-to-be-opponents. My lone Rake sailed across the channel, sauntered into Paris, and – through sheer blind luck – assassinated the best general in the French army.

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