14 DAY TRIAL // I've played the Total War series ever since Shogun introduced gamers to the mix of real time tactical combat and turn based strategic decisions. I'm one of those who complained about the shift to a 3D strategic map in Rome, thinking that it would complicate the game needlessly and take something out of the capacity the computer has to challenge the human, and have since grown to love it.
But Empire, the fifth game in the series not counting expansions, and the one that brings Total War into the era when gunpowder and bayonet ruled the battlefield has managed to disappoint not because of the changes it made to the formula but because of the lack of attention, which developer The Creative Assembly paid to actually offering a challenge to strategy minded gamers.
Simply put, the computer opponent was incapable of holding its won on the tactical field of battle or on the strategic level. Its armies, even after a couple of patches, are miss-matched and lack the flexibility to secure a definitive victory. Often, it takes the longest and weirdest route to a city it needs to get to.
Several times, armies are just standing around. And making an amphibious landing was all but impossible for it in the initial release. Empire: Total War looked great, the attention to detail was impressive, the feel of the Napoleonic era was well transmitted to the player but the game lacked a convincing challenge.
The fact that the tactical battles were less engaging than in Rome or Medieval 2 didn’t help either. The clash of steel and the joy of flanking were replaced by the long range dueling of battle lines interrupted by the fire of cannon batteries. It lacked the physicality and contact of other strategy titles like the recent King Arthur – The Role Playing Wargame or the somewhat older Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II.
Sure, The Creative Assembly is working on releasing more patches and promising a better challenge in Napoleon, which is coming in early 2010. But that cannot erase the bad impression Empire had on me.