It's Official: Empire: Total War. (NAVAL COMBAT!)

[Darth Tanner]

Feast your eyes on these beauties.

Is that map of the entire world merely something the magazine put in for laughs! Please tell me we are going to get an entire world to fight over (7 years war would be a bit boring otherwise) The main site says only 3 continents.

Also as an aside I'd imagine that the existing Total war ai would perform much better with Napoleonic tech, as the form line and march forwards approach will work better with musket than it did with swords.

Will Russia and Sweden still be using pikes though?

[Vympel]

Will Russia and Sweden still be using pikes though?

I'm sure they'd be remiss in not modelling the armies accurately considering the historical record at their disposal. It's going to be really interesting following the evolution of armies from 1700 to the early 1800s.

The musket being the main infantry weapon needs to be really accurately modelled - elite troops shouldn't be determined by how much punishment they can take before breaking, but also their rate of fire with their weapons. What was the best of the Napoleonic wars - 3 shots a minute?

Another great thing about having such a short time frame is that they can use the standard Total War number of turns for a much more realistic timescale - instead of the absurdity of two year turns as standard, it's going to be at least 1 turn = 6 months. Depending on how many turns they decide the game is going to be, of course.

[Dartzap]

As long as I get to kick arse with the Royal Marines, I'll be happy. It'll be interesting to see if they include the first Rifles as well (depends when the game finishes, I suppose)

It'd be awesome if one of the historical battles was Trafalgar

[Vympel]

According to the IGN preview, naval battles will be limited to 20 ships per side, so Trafalgar is a bit out of it's league (60 ships, only counting ships-of-the-line).

Also from the IGN preview, CA is committed to only using an engine twice. I hadn't thought about this, but it works - Shogun's engine was used on Medieval, Rome's engine was used for Medieval II, and now Empire's engine will be used for Rome II (mark my words)

It'll be interesting to see if they include the first Rifles as well (depends when the game finishes, I suppose)

Not counting the Ferguson Rifle, the Baker Rifle entered production in 1800. I'd say it's guaranteed.

[Vympel]

Gamespot preview

In their opinion, it "doesn't sound like" Empire will cover the Napoleonic Wars, whatever that means. Even so, it could be easily included in an expansion.

In any event, I really don't understand how the USA can be a playable faction in the game - for the vast majority of the game they're a colony.

[Darth Tanner]

I really don't understand how the USA can be a playable faction in the game

I assume we'll get an option to set the starting era of the campaign like with the original medieval so that you can start near 1776 with the Americans while the other factions are all historically accurate to that time.

naval battles will be limited to 20 ships per side

20 ships still isn't bad, 40 or 60 ships on the sea at once, even more if you can let the computer control a second allied fleet. If I remember correctly in Imperial Glory you could only have 6 ships with a hard limit of only 2 fleets.

[Fire Fly]

Some scans from the GameStar magazine.

Just click the links in the link above.

Seeing soldiers shooting from a building makes me wonder how city assaults will now take place. There weren't be city walls anymore, no ladders and towers etc. Regarding the units, even if two countries have the same unit, I hope they have different looks.

[Dartzap]

Why is it that German gaming mags always get the exclusives?! Bloody UK gaming mags, always dropping the ball! *waves fists*

Bloody amazing pics, mind.

Edit: Garrisoning troops! Sweet merciful Zeus, this is going to be great!

[Zor]

I wonder if they will included sharpshooters (soldiers armed with Kentucky Rifles and acted as snipers)? Also, is it possible that an expansion pack that could cover the US Civil War?

Fondly invisions blowing the grey coated forces of the south to bits

Zor

[Vympel]

Seeing soldiers shooting from a building makes me wonder how city assaults will now take place. There weren't be city walls anymore, no ladders and towers etc.

There won't be towers, but there'll still be ladders and walls - they'll just be much lower and thicker, to deal with cannon.

Regarding the units, even if two countries have the same unit, I hope they have different looks.

That'd be a pre-requisite if they don't want to be torn apart by angry mobs

[Darth Tanner]

There won't be towers, but there'll still be ladders and walls - they'll just be much lower and thicker, to deal with cannon.

I hope that the way walls are worked out is upgraded as well, having cannon spread along the walls themselves would be excellent.

Also I hope that walls no longer just disappear when destroyed by artillery, I'd love a system where the debris simply forms a ramp that although allowing access for infantry still slows enemy troops down considerably and blocks cavalry regardless.

I want to recreate the likes of Badajoz.

[Lord Woodlouse]

Gamespot preview

In their opinion, it "doesn't sound like" Empire will cover the Napoleonic Wars, whatever that means. Even so, it could be easily included in an expansion.

In any event, I really don't understand how the USA can be a playable faction in the game - for the vast majority of the game they're a colony.

If they keep the Napoleonic Wars out of the game that will officially make them cheap bastards, that's pretty much the main point of that era as far as I see it.

[Vympel]

CVG preview

Enjoy!

As well as taking part in the all-new offshore encounters, you will of course be commanding your armies over land, in a campaign that spans Europe, North America, the Caribbean and India, and features revamped trade, diplomacy, mission and espionage systems ...

The campaign itself includes historical figures such as French dictator and pint-sized comedy staple Napoleon, and ten playable factions vying for economic and political supremacy, including Great Britain, America, France and Prussia.

Looks like I was right about the Napoleonic Wars period being the end of the game, like I thought.

The Creative Assembly promise plenty of variety in the different factions and their units, with abilities and tech trees evolving throughout the period - so playing as a naval power such as Britain will be very different to playing as an emerging continental power such as Prussia, for example.

[Raesene]

Has a (preliminary) release date been announced already ?

[Darth Tanner]

You can also opt to grapple and board enemy ships for exciting fights on-deck with muskets and sabres, any captured ships becoming part of your fleet, and thus available for use in subsequent battles.

Excellent news, I hope the system of having a set number of crew on a ship is dropped in favor of just having the ship, with a magically regenerating crew compliment. There was nothing more irritating than having your fleet bled dry by large numbers of single ship fleets in the previous games.

New tactics have evolved on the battlefield, so you'll be able to destroy buildings and walls and use them as cover, deploy defences and employ a variety of new unit firing drills and formations - such as the classic hollow square that's effective against a single target but very vulnerable to cannon fire.

This could be the most exciting thing I've heard yet. It certainly implies that destroyed walls aren't just going to vanish.

As long as they produce some reasonable ai this is going to be the greatest game ever in the history of games.

ten playable factions

With so much land in game I assume there will be dozens of nations that can be switched from non playable. How they choose to represent India will be interesting.

[NRS Guardian]

Has a (preliminary) release date been announced already ?

No release date has been given other than that it will come out some time in 2008. So its probably like a year away.

When I heard that a new Total War game was to be announced I hoped it would be Napoleonic-based, so I got my wish and it sounds like they're going to do it justice.

[RogueIce]

You can also opt to grapple and board enemy ships for exciting fights on-deck with muskets and sabres, any captured ships becoming part of your fleet, and thus available for use in subsequent battles.

Excellent news, I hope the system of having a set number of crew on a ship is dropped in favor of just having the ship, with a magically regenerating crew compliment. There was nothing more irritating than having your fleet bled dry by large numbers of single ship fleets in the previous games.

Why not? They take damage and lose crew, thus becoming less effective after attacks. It's realistic. I mean, I'm sure if you had a full stack, well developed army and your enemy sent say, three full stacks of peasents against you, you would still win, but you'd also be bound to (probably) take some losses, thus making your army somewhat less effective. Obviously peasents vs real soldiers wouldn't be so bad, but picture a ton of low tier troops against your single army. Yes you'll win but you'll also take losses and be just that slightly less effective.

The downside to your enemy is that it'd be very expensive to do what amounts to only a minor annoyance to you. But if they want to waste time and money on it...well it'll work, to a point. I personally would prefer that (having to take the damaged units/ships back to base to be fully operational) than the conventional RTS thing of units still being just as combat effective with one hitpoint as with twenty. It's crap.

As to the quote, anyone more up oin the history know if "prize crews" or whatever they were called were expected to fight the ship expertly, or just get it back to a friendly port? I wonder if they'll model it by forcing you to lose some crew from your fleet to go aboard the new ship so you can do whatever with it.

One thing I'd like to see, with ships as well as armies, is maybe an option to mix varying numbers of troops to different formations. So instead of simply dragging and filling up the formations totally, you can choose to send say, fifteen troops from one into a depleted unit so they're more or less equal, rather than the one unit losing thirty to fill up the other one completely and being left with, say, five (which makes them basically useless). I imagine that would probably be more useful for ships than ground armies, but you never know.

[Vympel]

Merging units within battles is something that should've been implemented already, IMO - it's annoying having multiple units of one type and some have been so depleted during a long fight that they're virtually useless, but would do great if they could just be absorbed into another unit.

Of course, this doesn't apply on the main map, where you don't want to absorb your depleted units into the full strength ones - you want to move about your men so that just one unit of each type needs retraining - and that unit is usually multiple chevron after you've transferred as many men of it as possible to others of the same type within the stack. Then you retrain it, and wham, instant full strength elite unit.

[RogueIce]

Merging units within battles is something that should've been implemented already, IMO - it's annoying having multiple units of one type and some have been so depleted during a long fight that they're virtually useless, but would do great if they could just be absorbed into another unit.

Of course, this doesn't apply on the main map, where you don't want to absorb your depleted units into the full strength ones - you want to move about your men so that just one unit of each type needs retraining - and that unit is usually multiple chevron after you've transferred as many men of it as possible to others of the same type within the stack. Then you retrain it, and wham, instant full strength elite unit.

I'm talking more about spreading them out so instead of losing one or two low-strength units when you merge, you can keep the same number of units but are able to shift the forces around so that they're not as useless. While I can certainly appreciate the value of merging them all when you're ready to retrain, I think it might prove useful if you're out campaigning quite a ways away from any base, and you would still want the multiple formations rather than worrying about whether they're all full strength or not (though I imagine this might have more use for naval units than land units, which can tend to get pretty far afield and can't just invade a town on their own).

Of course maybe my experience is colored by RTW playing as the Julii where it was a pain having my number of Hastati or Principes formations get smaller and smaller as I merged them, with no way to get new ones short of marching them all from Italy since the lousy Barbarian towns couldn't give me replacement units. Thus my battle line got smaller and smaller as I went on...