The launch of Medieval Total War back in 2002, for me, marked the beginning of a series that came the closest to what I thought was strategy game perfection. Being a hardcore medieval battles fan with appreciation for the finer points of placing your archers high up the hill and pikemen in front of them while waiting for your enemies to come, I immediately fell in love with the game, and spent the most part of the coming year playing the campaign with different factions over different difficulty levels. After that, me and my friend who was a history buff, used to describe our recent conquests and strategies, heroic victories and the like.
It's been 7 years since then, and I've played for almost the same amount of time both, Medieval II Total war and Rome Total War. Now with the launch of Empire Total War, my last wish was answered and naval battles are now included.
So I'll just jump over the story directly. The game lets you start at 1700 with a few of the major nations of the time. You can choose through the campaign way, short, prestige or global domination which basically changes your objectives and nothing much more aside from how long you're allowed to play. There is also the option of playing the American Revolution (I think) but I haven't tried that yet.
Gameplay wise the game has some new elements combined with the old ones which gave flavor to the Total War series. Most noticeable is the appearance of 2 new theaters, America and India, as well as trade locations such as Africa, Brazil. The second noticeable difference between the games that prefaced Empire, is the way buildings are constructed. No longer are buildings built only in the region capital. The regions which have been merged to leave a few less provinces to capture during the game have been given a region capital, which holds all major government buildings, which in effect dictates who holds the region as well as a few towns that grow in size as time progresses, which the player then can upgrade to do different things. Examples include blacksmiths, weavers, pleasure gardens, schools, churches, farms, trade ports, shipyards and fisheries. Also, the number of capital buildings has been somewhat reduced, but considering the adjacent towns and their building options, the difference is not that worrying.
A new addition to gameplay is the tech tree. The other Total War games did not include research, so this, came a bit as a surprise to me, and took a bit of getting used to. The tech tree is large and varied enough, even though I worry if I will finish researching it way before the end of the campaign. Philosophic research influences the population which has been divided into lower, middle and nobility classes, and they are also influenced by the traits of your governing cabinet, which I am quite unsure as how they get them. Agents like spies, gentlemen (researchers) and missionaries are no longer recruited but spawned depending on the buildings in your regions. Diplomats are no longer used.
Taking advantage of the new theaters as well as naval mechanics, new options of trade (like the merchants in Medieval 2) are now available by using Indiamen ships to trade with the different ports in the trade theaters, although the inability to trade with the same port another country is trading with (which you are not at war with) seems a bit odd. Also the revenue from the trade agreements is more noticeable.
Land combat is fairly unchanged aside from the annoying fences which seem to be more of a challenge to cavalry and infantry than it would seem. Houses can now be garrisoned and cannons have really really bad accuracy at long distance. But at least they don't blow up as they did in medieval. Also the fact that most units now have muskets needs to have long time players of the Total War series, rethink their strategies. Times have changed, so have the weapons. It's time for a strategy change as well.
Naval combat, which seems to be this game's main selling point is really really well done, in my honest opinion. The ship names and diagrams have been used in modeling the ships and behaviors (as the game lets us know at the starting screen) which gives this "small" game even more of a historical touch, which is golden for a history lover like myself.
The graphics are at the expected level, although the sounds are a bit missing. Aside from the music, I would have loved to hear cannon fire and musket fire, but maybe I have missed some settings.
All in all, a great game, worth a great wait. I cannot wait to actually get used to the new options in order to make the best of all the new and interesting tools that the games place at the feet of all would be emperors.
Buy it.
((Writer's note. Feedback, of any sort is appreciated))
EDIT : Due to numerous observations I added "for me" in the first sentence to carefully say what I meant. I didn't mean the series started then, I meant that Medieval was the game that started the series for me, as we all know reviews are subjective articles and all that is said is said through the prism of the author.
It's been 7 years since then, and I've played for almost the same amount of time both, Medieval II Total war and Rome Total War. Now with the launch of Empire Total War, my last wish was answered and naval battles are now included.
So I'll just jump over the story directly. The game lets you start at 1700 with a few of the major nations of the time. You can choose through the campaign way, short, prestige or global domination which basically changes your objectives and nothing much more aside from how long you're allowed to play. There is also the option of playing the American Revolution (I think) but I haven't tried that yet.
Gameplay wise the game has some new elements combined with the old ones which gave flavor to the Total War series. Most noticeable is the appearance of 2 new theaters, America and India, as well as trade locations such as Africa, Brazil. The second noticeable difference between the games that prefaced Empire, is the way buildings are constructed. No longer are buildings built only in the region capital. The regions which have been merged to leave a few less provinces to capture during the game have been given a region capital, which holds all major government buildings, which in effect dictates who holds the region as well as a few towns that grow in size as time progresses, which the player then can upgrade to do different things. Examples include blacksmiths, weavers, pleasure gardens, schools, churches, farms, trade ports, shipyards and fisheries. Also, the number of capital buildings has been somewhat reduced, but considering the adjacent towns and their building options, the difference is not that worrying.
A new addition to gameplay is the tech tree. The other Total War games did not include research, so this, came a bit as a surprise to me, and took a bit of getting used to. The tech tree is large and varied enough, even though I worry if I will finish researching it way before the end of the campaign. Philosophic research influences the population which has been divided into lower, middle and nobility classes, and they are also influenced by the traits of your governing cabinet, which I am quite unsure as how they get them. Agents like spies, gentlemen (researchers) and missionaries are no longer recruited but spawned depending on the buildings in your regions. Diplomats are no longer used.
Taking advantage of the new theaters as well as naval mechanics, new options of trade (like the merchants in Medieval 2) are now available by using Indiamen ships to trade with the different ports in the trade theaters, although the inability to trade with the same port another country is trading with (which you are not at war with) seems a bit odd. Also the revenue from the trade agreements is more noticeable.
Land combat is fairly unchanged aside from the annoying fences which seem to be more of a challenge to cavalry and infantry than it would seem. Houses can now be garrisoned and cannons have really really bad accuracy at long distance. But at least they don't blow up as they did in medieval. Also the fact that most units now have muskets needs to have long time players of the Total War series, rethink their strategies. Times have changed, so have the weapons. It's time for a strategy change as well.
Naval combat, which seems to be this game's main selling point is really really well done, in my honest opinion. The ship names and diagrams have been used in modeling the ships and behaviors (as the game lets us know at the starting screen) which gives this "small" game even more of a historical touch, which is golden for a history lover like myself.
The graphics are at the expected level, although the sounds are a bit missing. Aside from the music, I would have loved to hear cannon fire and musket fire, but maybe I have missed some settings.
All in all, a great game, worth a great wait. I cannot wait to actually get used to the new options in order to make the best of all the new and interesting tools that the games place at the feet of all would be emperors.
Buy it.
((Writer's note. Feedback, of any sort is appreciated))
EDIT : Due to numerous observations I added "for me" in the first sentence to carefully say what I meant. I didn't mean the series started then, I meant that Medieval was the game that started the series for me, as we all know reviews are subjective articles and all that is said is said through the prism of the author.
