The game leans away from the idea of painting the entire map in your colours (which is inherently unrealistic, even though you can do it with difficulty) in favour of giving your empire historically-inspired, more limited objectives.
Minor powers such as the United Provinces face a steeper struggle to conquer enemies but can make judicious use of alliances and colonies to fund a military machine. The game does have an interesting variety in factions, with nations such as Prussia, Sweden, Russia and Austria favouring continental armies and forging land empires whilst England and Spain focus more on massive fleets and establishing colonies dotted around the globe. Although they look amazing, the naval battles soon get repetitive and you'll soon be auto-resolving all but the most critical naval battles. Naval battles are unfortunately a slight let-down, with generally the bigger fleet of better ships winning. The campaign map AI is fortunately much stronger, with the computer using diplomacy, feints and tactical withdrawals far more intelligently than on earlier games (although they are still reluctant to engage in naval landings and invasions). It's also very easy to set up kill zones and letting enemy armies eagerly rush into them. Some battles will feature stunning enemy tactics such as cavalry riding parallel to your infantry, with the AI happily letting its horses get mown down my your infantry rather than engaging. The battlefield AI is not great, even on the harder difficulty levels. In other areas, the game is more problematic. On all of these fronts, Empire delivers the goods. The core gameplay mechanic of building armies, fending off attacks, seizing territory, pacifying it and moving on is very moreish and it's not uncommon to get that "just one more turn" feeling that ends with you switching the computer off at 3am.
Once you get used to the secondary settlements and switching between the different theatres, the game settles into that sweet spot between complexity and simplicity that the best Total War games occupy. The music is excellent and the game can be very atmospheric.
Both the strategy map and the in-game battles are fantastically detailed and well-presented, and of course even a moderately capable modern gaming PC will blast out the game with everything switched up to max with no problem at all. Graphically, the game has aged very well. You can also research new technology, which unlocks new buildings, new units and new weapons. It does add more micro-management to the strategic layer, with lots of clicking on towns to find out which ones need to be upgraded, but it does give more Civilization-style options to the gameplay. This is a good idea as it drastically reduces the number of sieges, the most repetitive part of any Total War game, and results in far more interesting field battles. One of the game's biggest changes is moving most of the buildings out of the cities and into the surrounding countryside, as well as the establishing of towns, secondary settlements lacking heavy defences which warring factions can raid or capture to cut off money. But back home in Europe much larger armies featuring state-of-the-art equipment are more the rule. The colonies in the New World are much less-developed and armies will be more primitive, mostly consisting of native American allies and colonial militia. This results in different types of military campaigns in the different theatres: a European nation invading India will be constantly outnumbered and will have to secure and hold territory in the face of unrelenting attacks (allying with one of the two native powers and pitting them against one another whilst you carve up the subcontinent is a viable tactic). Europe and India are (slightly awkwardly) linked together on the map, but for most powers the only practical way of moving between the theatres is by ship. Empire has three distinct theatres: North America, Europe and India. Earlier games mostly focused on the European continent, the Middle East and the north coast of Africa, whilst Medieval II introduced the coast of North America. You can also use artillery to soften up the enemy before closing to battle.Įmpire has the widest scope of the entire series. These battles favour real-life tactics, such as forming strong lines to pepper enemy lines with fire whilst manoeuvring cavalry to conduct flanking attacks. When two armies meet, the game switches to a real-time battle map.
There is a turn-based grand strategic map, on which armies can be formed and assembled, cities can be fortified, towns and factories upgraded and diplomacy and economic agreements formed.
For newcomers, Empire: Total War is a strategy game which is divided into two modes.