Empire: Total War - Is almost total perfection (Empire: Total War (PC))

Member Name: Swi1ch

Product:	Empire: Total War (PC)
Date:	30/05/09 (54 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Intuitive with incredible depth

Disadvantages: Current bugs

Empire: Total War is a strategy game involving turn based management and real time strategy/tactics combat.

As of writing this review, I have never experienced a previous Total War Game enough to form an opinion on the series, so this review reflects a newcomer to the franchise. I have also rarely played turn based or management games so that aspect is also new to me. I am however highly interested in combat and politics of the 18th and 19th Centuries, so this will feature in my opinion.

Overview:

The game has several modes of play. You can choose to play the Grand Campaign, which is the main game mode in which you select a nation to command and strive to achieve certain goals within a set time frame. There is also a story driven campaign depicting the American Revolution that serves as a tutorial and it is possible to play stand alone battles.

Outside the tutorial, there is no narrative or story; the idea is you control your chosen nation and achieve your aims in the way you wish.

Gameplay:

The Grand Campaign is split in three main areas; turn based management, real time ground warfare and real time naval warfare.

The management section is where you control the general goings on. You can request troop recruitment, order currently available troops to move, construct buildings, request trade agreements or alliances with other nations and manage your politicians. The map has three main theatres; Europe, The Americas and India. There is also three smaller 'trade theatres'.

Each main theatre is split into 'provinces', usually by Country but in the case of bigger Countries like the Americas and India, these are divided into smaller provinces. Each province has a town of varying size and a selection of other build areas. Towns, depending on their size can have anything from a simple governor's mansion to a full array of barracks and armouries. The smaller build areas in a plot can have an assortment of buildings such as farms to supply the province with food, a church or other religious temple to sway the populace to your religion or workshops which produce exportable goods. There is also ports, which are key to establishing a navy in order to invade other nations, or to allow trade; a key element of Empire and where the majority of your resources will come from.

The management section of the game is too in-depth to really go into much more detail, but the elements I have highlighted all go together to manage your income in order to construct new buildings, train new troops or pay your current armies and conduct research. It is also necessary to keep the populace under control or they may rebel and you can lose whole provinces or armies! It really is very in-depth with a lot going on, but the interface is intuitive and after a short period of time; second nature.

The ground based combat has the potential to be a great game in it's own right. Armies amass on the battlefield and it is up to you to command your troops and use authentic 18th and 19th Century tactics to emerge victorious. Armies are constructed with up to twenty 'units'. A unit is defined in the same way smaller scale strategy combat games define 'squads'. For example, 160 Red-Coats armed with muskets constitutes one unit, and will fight as a single entity on the battlefield. Other examples are units of Cavalry, Cannon and Skirmishers.

All units have stats and traits which can affect how they should be effectively utilised on the battlefield. Red-Coat musketeers may have average reload times and accuracy, but they have a trait which allows them to withstand 'morale shocks'. Riflemen may be highly accurate ranged soldiers, but will be crushed by a direct charge. The game isn't a case of rock-paper-scissors however, as morale plays a high role. A unit with high morale will be less likely to 'break' and run away when taking sudden casualties or receiving a charge, and this idea governs most of the combat. If you outnumber your enemy, but they're more confident and less willing to run away, the tide of battle can turn drastically.

The ground combat interface is intuitive and simple to get the hang of, if the execution of strategy requires deeper thought.

Naval combat works in a similar way to the ground combat; you can have navies of up to twenty units (A unit in this case being a single ship), and these are commanded in much the same way. However, being naval warfare, the speed of your ships will be restricted by the wind, and a smaller, less heavily armoured navy can out manoeuvre a vastly superior one.

It is in naval combat that you will experience the most micromanaging, as precise timing is needed when ships fire their cannons. Overall, I find the naval combat to be unintuitive, frustrating and not worth the hype.

Graphics:

The graphics are spectacular; if you have the machine to run it. I have a high-end gaming machine (500fps Half Life 2 maxed out, 100fps Far Cry 2 maxed out, 50fps Crysis maxed out) and I still uncounted frame drops during intense combat, although this has been attributed to buggy programming.

It really is a spectacle and you can zoom and pan around the field with almost no restrictions. Ground combat is particularly satisfying, as watching men get snatched out of files by a well aimed cannon shot or seeing a unit of cavalry slam into the rear of a line of soldiers is very visceral and well worth it.

Audio:

The audio, when it works, is fantastic. There are currently some bugs that mean audio is unsynchronised or doesn't play at all, but when it does it's awesome. The thundering of a cavalry charge is brilliant, and you can zoom right in to hear the relentless volleys of your troops.

Accuracy:

For the most part, the game does an astounding job of replicating 18th and 19th Century combat, if a little less on the politics side. For the combat, the attention to detail is tight and accurate and the majority of the time the performance and utilisation of units is historically accurate.

Final word and roundup:

Empire: Total War is a good game. It should be a great game, but there are a number of game breaking bugs that ruin the experience. The biggest and most wretched is that the AI controlled nations cannot board ships. This effectively gives you free reign of the World, as a nation can never threaten any of your controlled territory unless they're within walking distance. In combat, many of the abilities of units that you rely on have a tendency to fail at the most inopportune moments, often resulting in a mad scramble to pull back a victory.

Outside these problems, the game is a masterpiece, with insane depth on every level and almost infinite replayability, as every nation has a different goal and different units. For the most part it's intuitive, easy to learn but hard to master and an absolute spectacle. A must have for any fan of strategy gaming.

Gameplay: 9/10
Graphics: 9/10
Audio: 9/10

Summary: Strategy gamers should not pass this up