Empire: Total War

Empire: Total War's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. The strategy behind Empire: Total War's trademark epic battles is ultra-realistic, and early on in learning the game you get a feeling of power unmatched by all other games. You have the ability to try out strategies and tactics others wouldn't dream of, you can attempt attacks most wouldn't dare and you can become the ultimate armchair general.

And just when you feel like you cannot be beaten, you'll send your artillery to the top of a mountain to provide awe-inspiring long ranged support only to have the unit AI take a path directly through enemy combatants - routed seconds into the battle for making a manoeuvre not even the craftiest (or mentally unbalanced) general would attempt. After taking so much care in creating a realistic environment for you to command your armies, the need to micromanage your armies with specific waypoint style directions is mind-boggling.

Of course, when you're talking about a title as grand as Empire: Total War, a small thing like occasionally in the heat of battle needing to micro-manage your army is only a blip on the radar. We're looking at a game which is part Turn-Based Strategy part Real Time Tactics - you've got unit and resource management on a mountainous scale and you've got tactical battle management with the same grandeur.

As you might expect from a title which combines TBS with RTT, Empire: Total War isn't easy. The tutorials in the game adequately walk you through the basics of movement and attacking - and the turn-based part of the game is explained quite well. If you aren't a modern day Hannibal of Carthage however, the advanced military tactics the AI uses from the outset will probably come as a rude shock for you. Newcomers to the series will probably have issues winning battles even when the odds are stacked in their favour as the AI outflanks and outmanoeuvres them. Arguably, you might call this a trait of the Total War series - it would be interesting to see whether players of the previous games would like or dislike an emphasis on learning tactics.

This takes me back to Rome: Total War. One of my friends not known for strategic thinking (or most kinds of thinking) would play the game religiously, developing and proving the might of the HRE again and again. I was interested to see how he was winning battles - I soon found out he'd let the AI resolve every single skirmish except when he was poised for certain victory. By playing only battles he was certain to win over and over he eventually learned the game's ins and outs until he was confident enough to fight battles most would probably lose. Empire: Total War can of course be played the same way, so it's by no means a write-off for newcomers.



The introduction of sea battles is a welcome one - the player now has the ability to control and command a fleet, whereas previously sea battles were immediately resolved by AI. Given the game's 18th century setting and the influences a powerful navy had at the time to both military and economic affairs, it's a logical step for the series. Unfortunately the approach the game takes is slow and tedious - much like a real life ocean based skirmish - which breaks the pace of the game. Further, when compared to the hectic and massive battles taking place on land, sea battle seem tiny and inconsequential by comparison. They're quite easy to win on your own but you'll find them barely worth the time. What's worse is - I can't imagine any other way for the Total War series to do sea battles.

About the 18th century setting - I'm not a fan. To me it's not a great enough period of history to warrant a game like this - the single player story campaign based around the American Revolution isn't as great a struggle to me as say the rise and fall of the Roman Empire or the Crusades. The larger scale campaign involving the typical world wide domination objective dashes the emphasis on the beginning of the American nation and allows you to play as whoever you want once more - if you don't care for the birth of the USA, jump straight into the campaigns.

All in all, Empire: Total War is an epic achievement. It's not the gaming perfection I imagined it would be - the sea battles seem simplistic compared to the grand battles on land, and the AI pathing leads to some instances of micro-management which rob the game of the immersion it creates with its graphics and realism. Still - those graphics and that realism are something to behold. E:TW transcends minor issues, lets you forget them and uses sheer numbers and size to bludgeon you into liking it.

At the end of the day I find myself in the peculiar predicament of hating the pathing, disliking the setting and being underwhelmed by the sea battles... and yet still consistently attempting to conquer the world. The series has always traditionally been the kind of game which is too difficult for your average gamer, and Empire: Total War isn't here to pander to the Everyman. It takes a hard-line approach at strategy gaming and despite a few hiccups it conquers all those in its path. If it comes to a vote though, I say we go back to Rome and we fix that iffy AI.