14 DAY TRIAL // When Empire: Total War was initially announced by Creative Assembly, die hard fans of the series were glad and threads on fan sites like Total War Center asked two things from the developer: better Artificial Intelligence in the battles and better diplomacy. In fact, since Shogun, the game has been affected by various issues in these two departments. And the developer promised in the materials released before the game got out that those areas were getting special attention. Legions of fans dared to hope.
Well, I cannot judge the tactical A.I. issues so early in my playtime, but I can surely say quite a few things about the diplomacy aspect of Empire: Total War. I played as Prussia and thought that I should wait before going to war with anyone. I was trying to get some trades going and a few alliances. I pondered whether to go against Austria and the various Germanic minors with which it was allied or whether to get some alliances to secure my back and try to take on Poland-Lithuania and Russia. For the meantime, I have built up my two provinces and developed some military technologies to make the coming fights easier to handle.
I decided to take the Eastern approach and declared war on Poland. After a few big field battles, I took over the Gdansk corridor, linking my two territories. The region is rather desolated and the war devastated it further. I decide that my conquest, along with taking over the Courland region, is enough for now and I submit a peace offer that is accepted.
After no more than two turns, Poland-Lithuania decides that our recent war means that it can place its trust in me and submits an offer. It really wants to get Gdansk back from me and, surprise, surprise, it decides that it wants to give me Warsaw, which is better developed, unaffected by war and well defended, from what my “rake” (XVII term for “spy”) is saying. There's an unquestionable level of stupidity in the offer and the Artificial Intelligence should not have made it, no matter the circumstances. I decided to turn it down. Now, my question is: could this have been, as the titles says, a reverse bait and switch meant to isolate my armies and a territory that was easily accessible to Poland-Lithuania and destroy them or was it just the idiotic A.I. on the part of Creative Assembly?