Total War: A retrospective

Empire: Total War

This year, the Creative Assembly delivered Empire: Total War, a game thematically detached from its predecessors in scope and gameplay. As we put it in our review, Empire: Total War concerned itself with something wholly different.

“The eighteenth century has been woefully ignored in game culture to the extent that most gamers have a scant appreciation of what a truly dynamic time it was. If Antiques Roadshow has taught us anything, it's that the eighteenth century largely consisted of widespread furniture making. Scratch below the surface of that Chippendale desk however, and you'll discover a tumultuous time of revolution. A time of glorious rebellion and patriotic fervour. A time when a man could step off a boat, shoot anything that moved and get a small hill named after him.”

 

And one where showing up to a gun fight with a knife was about as informed as Paul Holmes’ diversification into the music industry. Battles now largely revolved around masses on infantry lining up opposite one another at forty yards and exchanging lead balls until one side flinched. Only then would bayonets would be fixed to drive the point home.

Terrain features were also enhanced. Soldiers could now take cover behind a wall or commandeer a cottage. Rivers now had two crossings meaning that to choke both was to divide your army. The computer’s tactical AI was also greatly improved, investing more effort into exposing a player’s flaws, or teasing out an ill-considered charge. Cavalry, no longer the tanks of Medieval II, instead served as highly vulnerable impact troops and as tactical chips on a board, extending a flank or capturing exposed artillery.

 

But without a doubt the most touted addition to the game was large-scale naval warfare. Flotillas could wheel and manoeuvre on the high seas before unleashing a devastating broadside at the last moment for maximum impact.

While some players found the naval combat finicky and occasionally confusing – it required meticulous attention to detail, ships could rarely be left to their devices for long, each tack required a counter-tack – it was both a necessary and engaging addition.

The campaign map was also dramatically reconsidered. Now spanning three immense continents, Empire removed diplomatic units, replacing them with a menu. While priests and religion remained in play, they were in many ways counter-balanced by a new agent type, gentlemen. The eighteenth century was a time of rapid economic and social progress and to reflect this, gentlemen became research agents, unlocking technological and cultural developments.

 

On the 19th of August, SEGA and the Creative Assembly announced Napoleon: Total War, the first expansion to Empire. As ever with expansions to the series, Napoleon will zoom in on the campaigns of its namesake, and follow his wars with Italy and Russia, before culminating in his campaign against the Duke of Wellington and the famous battle of Waterloo. Due in February, Gameplanet will have a hands on preview of the expansion next week.

Should you choose to pull Total War’s components apart and compare them singly, you’d be right to say they’re not best in class. Grand strategy gamers may take the campaign map and, comparing it to something like Hearts of Iron, find it wanting. But what has set Total War apart is the sum of its parts and how these parts come together, each strengthening and contextualising the others. It offers a total package, and if there’s some aspects that feel under-realised, maybe it’s only because the experience is so lacquered that the odd scratch or chip is all the more apparent.