Marking the fifth installment of the Total War series, Empire: Total War mixes old game play elements of the Total War series with new features and historical battles. But is Total War the "total" RTS package?
Gameplay
Puns aside, Empire: Total War follows a similar gameplay style to the past four in the series by allowing players to play in a turn based campaign while still enabling them to fight in epic battles in real time. Set somewhere in the 1700 - 1799 period, gamers choose factions such as Great Brittan and Russia to take over North America, Europe and the Indies. This time around players will see the addition of naval battles in real time creating an even more in depth gameplay experience than before.
All of the new features of Empire make for a large amount of content for gamers to chew on. For those of you not familiar with the Total War RTS style, the game may come off a bit over whelming especially when it comes to the newly introduced naval battles. However, veterans of the series and strategy minded older gamers like myself will find Empire: Total War hard to put down in the face of a busy work week or house chores.
While Empire: Total War does have a multi-player side (which I'll get to later) most 2o2p members will spend the majority of their time in the campaign. This isn't because the campaign is so much better than the multi-player aspect, only that choosing any one faction will take a player a fairly long period of time to complete. Even more so, gamers will need that time to really understand how the game works if they want to take their battles online against others. Luckily for noobies, players can choose the "Road to Independence" which teaches new comers the basics of diplomatic relations, battles, economics, and more. This tutorial goes a long way, as any one of these things can mean the difference between victory and defeat.
The Campaign
The campaign mode remains turn based, but allows player several new features that could help in turning the tides of war. Things like producing armies, relying on diplomacy, and economics are still there, but gamers can also utilize religion, espionage, and assassination to further their means. These areas have also been streamlined as the tedious tasks of sending emissaries, assassins, and scholars has been replaced with "Gentlemen" and "Rakes" that handle both the shady and not so shady aspects of your union.
Not unlike many other RTS, Empire: Total War has also chosen to also add a technology tree that gives players the option to research and discover upgrades to their infrastructure, military, agriculture, and politics. This additional feature gives the game an even greater depth as now players must choose which areas to focus on that will give them the best result. For instance a player may be stuck with the dilemma of boosting their economy or their might within the army in order to succeed. Any option could spell disaster if not planned ahead of time.
The Battles
This is why the Total War series is labeled as both a turn based strategy game, and real time strategy. Any battle in which the AI can decide the outcome, you also will have the choice in fighting for yourself in real-time. The main reason for doing this for most gamers will be the option of having total control over your armies fate. For others, simply seeing the fantastic graphics and rich detail of a massive army at war is more than reason enough.
As if the land battles were not enough, Empire: Total War now gives players the ability to also partake in naval battles that were once previously decided by the games AI. While this feature is breathtaking graphically (you'll need a beefy card to see it in all its spender) the interface or mildly retarded AI can take some getting used to.
Enemies seem to deploy themselves in a predictable manner and some battles only last a couple minutes to conclude. While this does help speed things along, the general ease of this side of the game simply cannot compare with its turn-based counterpart. My only current suggestion is to bump up the difficulty of battles for any real challenge. If not, choosing the battle over AI decisions is simply a means to creating certain victory over the computer.
Multiplayer
To be honest, the multiplayer aspect of the game is something I have spent very little time with. The shear amount of content in the campaign of the game can keep any player busy for weeks. The good news is that Creative Assembly postponed the release of Empire: Total War to ensure that gamers would have an even better online experience with the addition of online campaign play.
While players can engage in real-time battles against each other via reenacting historical battles, the addition of a full campaign multiplayer mode was announced for an upcoming patch. This patch also includes some fixes to the obvious first release bugs and install issues, but also allows gaming communities like ourselves to dive head first into an in-depth game with a bunch of our gaming buddies. I personally can't wait to take over some counties with a fellow 2o2p member.
The Short of It
If you enjoyed any of the previous games in the Total War series, Empire: Total War will more than likely become a favorite in a matter of minutes. New comers will enjoy an even more streamlined Total War, and multiplayer enthusiast like myself can experience the game like never before. Sure you will run into some buggy AI issues, but this is more then made up for by quality gameplay, graphics, and sound. See you on the battle field.
