Alright, so I've gotten a solid week of Empire: Total War under my belt, with a long campaign finished and a world domination one underway, both as the Dutch. Shall we?
First impressions: the game is beautiful. Anyone with a machine capable of running it on the highest quality will notice that this game is major eye-candy, especially the naval battles. Grass moves in the wind, the sun reflects flawlessly off of the water, and sailors race and work all over the deck. Lots of detail has been put into how this game looks and sounds, which says a lot considering the fact that it's meant to be played from a zoomed-out perspective and a commanding overmind. It is often that I find myself enjoying battles again and again in replay, appreciating the various fronts and skirmishes from up close and personal in ways that I've never afforded to do whilst actually playing.
The game itself (the grand campaign) is immense. Content has long been the driving force of the Total War series, and Empire ups the ante. Managing your taxes, governing cabinet, trade routes, and army movements are only part of the gestalt gameplay. With the options available, players will often find themselves fighting their enemies on military, economical and diplomatic fronts. It is important to be aware of your target's allies, for example, as they might join them against you. It is equally important to hamper your enemy's economy by blockading/sabotaging their ports or pirating their trade routes as it is to defeat their forces on land and water. Before attacking, you might consider assassinating a commanding general or sending a missionary to convert their populace to your faith, creating religious unrest and paving the way for your sovereignty.
There is so much in the game that the content alone inherently produces a fault: daunt. Someone who's never played a Total War game may find themselves overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of Empire: Total War. This problem is exasperated by the lack of any real, official documentation for the game. Even as a seasoned Total War player I find myself asking questions which may seem basic, but that have not been adequately answered. There is an advisor mechanic in the game which helps acquaint the player with the various aspects and machinations of E:TW, as well as the semi-tutorial Road To Independence campaign. These can help the patient, but not players like me, who like to jump head first and try the grand campaign. Moreover, I find the advisors to be annoying, and to cause a bug where SFX is silenced after they talk. The RTI tutorial campaign is, well, an entire bloody campaign, and for me was dull and boring until about half-way, when I actually got to command some decent armies.
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While in the world-map view, gameplay is often direct, but sometimes flawed. Ships may sometimes sail without the army you thought you told to board them. Trading spots may leave some ships docile and immovable, neither able to do anything nor producing any wealth. I had to scuttle three Indiamen in my second campaign already because of this. Diplomacy is well-done, as it doesn't just feel like a mechanical AI behind the curtains, saying yes here or no there. Besides the status of allied and hostile, there is a whole gray area dominated by religious, governmental compatibilities, as well as the fear of expansionism. For example, as the Dutch, a protestant republic, one would start off at odds with Catholic monarchies such as Spain, France or Poland-Lithuania. The more one conquers in a few turns, the more everyone in the world starts to fear one's appetite, and relations may get strained. This makes for a very interesting and enjoyable experience when dealing with the other world powers. I'll attest to this with my latest diplomatic achievement: after blockading Spain's main trading port for about ten turns, I watched my enemy's wealth grow smaller and smaller. Thinking that they'd become desperate, I opened negotiations with them and offered them peace for some of their regions. Lo! I now control Florida, Cuba and Hispaniola without having shed a single drop of blood to gain them. Spain lost three of their colonies, but they got me off of their backs. This just shows how much you can do and how far you can push the system.
The only criticism I give to the diplomatic gameplay is that, for some reason, technology is valued over everything, and can be bartered only with other technology or the sale of whole regions. This may seem fair, but I always found myself having to pay way over what I actually value to get technology from anyone. To give an example: the only thing England accepted for one technology of theirs, besides giving them one of my colonies, was five technologies of mine. I think that is unfair, and completely unbalanced.
The game also features a central element of trade. Other than taxes, a nation's other main source of income is through trades, which is facilitated by developing and benefiting from natural resources and plantations. There are sub-theatres where trade ships can be sent to obtain resources for trade, and much can be said about the importance of a monopoly on a certain good. If everyone buys from you, you will roll in money. Economical gravity also lends weight to diplomatic relations. Knowing who to trade with based on their consumption and situations is key. For example, knowing that the Mughal empire is busy at war with their arch-nemeses, the Marathas, I stopped trading with either of them as they will often blockade each other, losing me money. Since I wanted no war in India at that moment, I simply offered my goods to the Ottomans and the Prussians, who turned out to be my two biggest buyers, and incidentally my border-pals, as I now own all of Italy. Since I've been trading with both of them for a while, a mutual friendship exists between my nation and both of these.
---
The battle games are the tactical part of E:TW, whereas the world map is the strategy. The battles themselves are a spectacle to behold, and a joy to play. Things generally work as they should: outflank your enemy and you'll generally win. Cavalry beats infantry in melee, and longer front-lines are better at firefights while thicker, shorter ones are best for taking a charge. Land battles are often smooth and simple. Only when environmental obstacles exist do you see stalling or some unimportant pathfinding problems. Other than that, I also found that the AI is suicidally insistent on garrisoning structures that my cannons will just shoot down. It is when I got to fort and naval battles that I began to see severe problems.
When defending a fort, it is presumably best to keep your troops on the walls and hold the enemy off there. I've encountered difficulties when doing so. Ordering my troops off of the wall and into the interior of the fort prompted them to use enemy ropes to climb down to the outside of the walls and march in through the front gates, rather than use the bloody stairs that lead them directly to my ordered destination from the walls. The front gates, by the way, will always open to enemy units automatically if they march near it. Your fort is less a defensive perimeter and more a funnel for enemy troops to pass through and get to the center.
Naval battles are also typically fine. Pathfinding problems arise whenever ships are very close to each other. Understandably, they have little space to turn and maneuver, but they also have problems obeying orders even if it looks like they have space. Ships will sometimes act out of formation, or your group formation will include a sinking/surrendered ship, stalling the rest of them. Barring these, I observed nothing wrong with naval encounters. I was pleased to see that exploding ships will light nearby vessels on fire, and that boarding enemy ships is possible and effective. The only thing I'd miss is ramming, but I might be asking too much, or being historically inaccurate.
---
As far as replay value goes, this game is a winner, like most Total War games. Each nation starts the grand campaign in different circumstances, and would have different goals, allies, and challenges. No two battles ever play the same again, and multiplayer is great over Steam. Also, being on Steam grants E:TW quick patching, and hopefully many of the problems discussed will be ironed out soon.
Also, having never written an actual review, I don't expect this to be professional or well-constructed. I'm simply in love with this game and wanted to put my thoughts down and see what you guys think.
First impressions: the game is beautiful. Anyone with a machine capable of running it on the highest quality will notice that this game is major eye-candy, especially the naval battles. Grass moves in the wind, the sun reflects flawlessly off of the water, and sailors race and work all over the deck. Lots of detail has been put into how this game looks and sounds, which says a lot considering the fact that it's meant to be played from a zoomed-out perspective and a commanding overmind. It is often that I find myself enjoying battles again and again in replay, appreciating the various fronts and skirmishes from up close and personal in ways that I've never afforded to do whilst actually playing.
The game itself (the grand campaign) is immense. Content has long been the driving force of the Total War series, and Empire ups the ante. Managing your taxes, governing cabinet, trade routes, and army movements are only part of the gestalt gameplay. With the options available, players will often find themselves fighting their enemies on military, economical and diplomatic fronts. It is important to be aware of your target's allies, for example, as they might join them against you. It is equally important to hamper your enemy's economy by blockading/sabotaging their ports or pirating their trade routes as it is to defeat their forces on land and water. Before attacking, you might consider assassinating a commanding general or sending a missionary to convert their populace to your faith, creating religious unrest and paving the way for your sovereignty.
There is so much in the game that the content alone inherently produces a fault: daunt. Someone who's never played a Total War game may find themselves overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of Empire: Total War. This problem is exasperated by the lack of any real, official documentation for the game. Even as a seasoned Total War player I find myself asking questions which may seem basic, but that have not been adequately answered. There is an advisor mechanic in the game which helps acquaint the player with the various aspects and machinations of E:TW, as well as the semi-tutorial Road To Independence campaign. These can help the patient, but not players like me, who like to jump head first and try the grand campaign. Moreover, I find the advisors to be annoying, and to cause a bug where SFX is silenced after they talk. The RTI tutorial campaign is, well, an entire bloody campaign, and for me was dull and boring until about half-way, when I actually got to command some decent armies.
---
While in the world-map view, gameplay is often direct, but sometimes flawed. Ships may sometimes sail without the army you thought you told to board them. Trading spots may leave some ships docile and immovable, neither able to do anything nor producing any wealth. I had to scuttle three Indiamen in my second campaign already because of this. Diplomacy is well-done, as it doesn't just feel like a mechanical AI behind the curtains, saying yes here or no there. Besides the status of allied and hostile, there is a whole gray area dominated by religious, governmental compatibilities, as well as the fear of expansionism. For example, as the Dutch, a protestant republic, one would start off at odds with Catholic monarchies such as Spain, France or Poland-Lithuania. The more one conquers in a few turns, the more everyone in the world starts to fear one's appetite, and relations may get strained. This makes for a very interesting and enjoyable experience when dealing with the other world powers. I'll attest to this with my latest diplomatic achievement: after blockading Spain's main trading port for about ten turns, I watched my enemy's wealth grow smaller and smaller. Thinking that they'd become desperate, I opened negotiations with them and offered them peace for some of their regions. Lo! I now control Florida, Cuba and Hispaniola without having shed a single drop of blood to gain them. Spain lost three of their colonies, but they got me off of their backs. This just shows how much you can do and how far you can push the system.
The only criticism I give to the diplomatic gameplay is that, for some reason, technology is valued over everything, and can be bartered only with other technology or the sale of whole regions. This may seem fair, but I always found myself having to pay way over what I actually value to get technology from anyone. To give an example: the only thing England accepted for one technology of theirs, besides giving them one of my colonies, was five technologies of mine. I think that is unfair, and completely unbalanced.
The game also features a central element of trade. Other than taxes, a nation's other main source of income is through trades, which is facilitated by developing and benefiting from natural resources and plantations. There are sub-theatres where trade ships can be sent to obtain resources for trade, and much can be said about the importance of a monopoly on a certain good. If everyone buys from you, you will roll in money. Economical gravity also lends weight to diplomatic relations. Knowing who to trade with based on their consumption and situations is key. For example, knowing that the Mughal empire is busy at war with their arch-nemeses, the Marathas, I stopped trading with either of them as they will often blockade each other, losing me money. Since I wanted no war in India at that moment, I simply offered my goods to the Ottomans and the Prussians, who turned out to be my two biggest buyers, and incidentally my border-pals, as I now own all of Italy. Since I've been trading with both of them for a while, a mutual friendship exists between my nation and both of these.
---
The battle games are the tactical part of E:TW, whereas the world map is the strategy. The battles themselves are a spectacle to behold, and a joy to play. Things generally work as they should: outflank your enemy and you'll generally win. Cavalry beats infantry in melee, and longer front-lines are better at firefights while thicker, shorter ones are best for taking a charge. Land battles are often smooth and simple. Only when environmental obstacles exist do you see stalling or some unimportant pathfinding problems. Other than that, I also found that the AI is suicidally insistent on garrisoning structures that my cannons will just shoot down. It is when I got to fort and naval battles that I began to see severe problems.
When defending a fort, it is presumably best to keep your troops on the walls and hold the enemy off there. I've encountered difficulties when doing so. Ordering my troops off of the wall and into the interior of the fort prompted them to use enemy ropes to climb down to the outside of the walls and march in through the front gates, rather than use the bloody stairs that lead them directly to my ordered destination from the walls. The front gates, by the way, will always open to enemy units automatically if they march near it. Your fort is less a defensive perimeter and more a funnel for enemy troops to pass through and get to the center.
Naval battles are also typically fine. Pathfinding problems arise whenever ships are very close to each other. Understandably, they have little space to turn and maneuver, but they also have problems obeying orders even if it looks like they have space. Ships will sometimes act out of formation, or your group formation will include a sinking/surrendered ship, stalling the rest of them. Barring these, I observed nothing wrong with naval encounters. I was pleased to see that exploding ships will light nearby vessels on fire, and that boarding enemy ships is possible and effective. The only thing I'd miss is ramming, but I might be asking too much, or being historically inaccurate.
---
As far as replay value goes, this game is a winner, like most Total War games. Each nation starts the grand campaign in different circumstances, and would have different goals, allies, and challenges. No two battles ever play the same again, and multiplayer is great over Steam. Also, being on Steam grants E:TW quick patching, and hopefully many of the problems discussed will be ironed out soon.
Also, having never written an actual review, I don't expect this to be professional or well-constructed. I'm simply in love with this game and wanted to put my thoughts down and see what you guys think.
