Facts on Empire: Total War:
Title: Empire: Total War.
Developer: The Creative Assembly.
Location: Horsham Studios.
Publiser: Sega.
Release date: 2008
Studio Director: Mike Simpson
From Mike Simpson:
We're delighted to introduce true 3D naval combat, something that adds a totally new dimension to Total War™ games." commented Mike Simpson, Studio Director at The Creative Assembly and the father of the Total War™ franchise. "We're genuinely excited about what we're achieving with the naval battles and also by the scale of the improvements being made to the core of the game - the land battles and the campaign. This will undoubtedly be the biggest and best Total War™ game we've ever made." Lead Designer: James Russell.
Designer: Jan van der Crabben (Thamis).
Designer/ Head Writer: Mike Brunton (MikeB).
QA: Jack Lusted.
Marketing & PR: Mark O'Connell (SenseiTW)
Time Period: The game is set in the years 1700 to the early 1800's, a turbulent age of gunpowder, revolution, discovery and Empire Building.
Victory conditions: the player's aim is to create the greatest Republic or Empire the world has known, spanning not just a continent but the world! Can you hold on to lands in the New World, or establish a rich trading empire in the Indies?
AI:
- Empire: Total War will boast a full re-write of the AI with a wider range of strategies and tactics, providing a formidable opponent on land, sea and on the campaign map.
- One of the quirks of the old engine was that the diplomacy and military AI were two separate routines, developed separately by two different programmers. Those systems fought each other. The military side would say 'we need to invade' while the diplomatic side will say 'well, I just made a treaty with them.' Getting them to work together was difficult. It meant the behaviour wasn't always consistent.' Throwing out those systems should fix the quirks, while allowing for new game mechanics.
Campaign map:
- An all-new fully animated campaign map with all buildings and upgrades visible, upgrades are done by clicking on them on the Strategic Map.
- New improved systems for Trade, Diplomacy, Missions and Espionage in that Diplomats, Spies and Assassins will no longer be represented on the map.
- A refined and streamlined UI.
- Improved Advisors and tutorials.
- Queens are portrayed: According to Mike Brunton "But given that there's Queen Anne and Catherine the Great and Empress Marie-Therese, we'd be a bit remiss not to include proper queen-type queens, now wouldn't we?"
- New agents and diplomacy traits functions are also planned, but no details are known about that yet.
- Revolutions can happen, leading to the separation of countries. (As an example, a rebellion of the Scotts was given).
- Enhanced auto management.
- The big change for the fans is the reinvention of army movement. "It's fair to say that the campaign map in Rome and Medieval was divided into army-sized tiles, "Each tile could hold one army. In Empire, there's no tiling system. The player will never see any type of tiling artefact - it's entirely freeform. It's like taking the squares off the chessboard."
- Slavery appears, but it's not something you can actively get involved in.
- You will be able to build colonies. It will make a difference, whether you settle in the wilderness of the Americas, or whether you can use preexisting infrastructure in India.
- Each nation will still have a capital.
- You can change the form of government between: absolute monarchy, constitutional monarchy, and Republic. This will directly influence how you can deal with revolts and how fast you develop new technologies. Other factions will treat you according to your form of government.
- Taxes can be set seperately for Nobles, Burghers???, and Peasants.
- The event movies will be in also, as there are already some screenshots from them too.
Continents:
- North America
Spanish settlements in the Caribbean.
British Colonists/Americans in the west.
Native Americans.
- South America
- Europe
- North Africa
French colonies in North Africa.
Native Africans.
- Central Asia
English trading posts in India.
Mughals in India.
Indonesia.
Historical figures:
- Peter The Great
- Malborough
- Charles XII of Sweden.
- According to Mike Simpson, there's even a possibility to have Napoleon himself in your own ranks when around the end of the century you recruit an artillery unit in Corsica.
Nations:
Playable: 10. (temporarily list according to Cn Iulius Flamininus).
- Britain
- Prussia
- France
- Spain
- America
- Russia
- Ottoman Empire.
Non-playable: approximatly 40.
Undetermined (playable or non-playable):
- Poland-Lithuania.
Land Battles:
- Real time battles will pose new challenges with the addition of cannon and musket, challenging players to master new formations and tactics as a result of the increasing role of gunpowder within warfare.
- Capturing and occupying key buildings around the map. They will automatically take up defensive positions and fire out of windows/doors. You'll need to be careful however, because artillery can destroy buildings.
- Using cover, such as behind walls.
- Earth walls can be constructed, units entrenched and the battlefield is fully destructible.
- One can only besiege star shaped forts...
Artillery:
- Heavy artillery in the form of cannons, mortar and early rocket launchers, with bouncing cannonballs who bounce differently depending on the surface they hit slicing through drifting gunsmoke to tear up lines of infantry.
- Cannons will seize up and explode.
- Well-organized batteries of cannon.
Infantry:
- Bagpipes, drummers, flautists and trumpeters will fill the air with play out over the crack of musket fire, the boom of artillery and the thunderous charge of cavalry.
- Generals will bark out orders to their regiments as the player orchestrates the battle utilizing formations, unit abilities and drills.
- Formations: Line to mass their fire, Square to defend against cavalry charges or spread out in loose formation to minimize damage from cannon fire are all excellent tactics that the player will have to keep in mind.
- There will be a fire button. It's a sort of override tool so you can time your shot when you want to. And timing is critical. Let off muskets too early, and you won't do enough damage. Let off your muskets too late in the face of a cavalry charge, and you've got every chance of being crushed by a flying dead horse."
- There's more of an emphasis on fire in Empire, but that doesn't mean that shock isn't also a vital component of battle. (Most of your fire units will have a shock attack as well.)
Cavalry:
General:
- Weapons will jam and misfire.
- The field of conflict will become strewn with the bodies of wounded and dying men, lacerated and dismembered by pike, bayonet and shot.
- Draw armies out of the cities, removing the dominance of sieges. That's being done by making region improvements - structures such as barracks, mines and palaces - exist outside of the city, vulnerable to attack. Generals can no longer afford to hide behind their city walls in the event of an invasion. They must sally forth and chase the aggressor away.
Sea Battles:
- 3D naval combat
- Intuitively command vast fleets or single ships
- After pummelling your enemy with cannon fire, close in to grapple their ship and prepare to board taking control of your men as they fight hand to hand on the decks.
- Realistic sailing model. (Different wind conditions, different light conditions, different weather conditions).
Example: A gust of wind is caused by a whirlpool of wind moving vertically; they actually move quite slowly and cover quite large areas - you see it because it makes the surface of the water rough, and the rest shiny. It means you can build gameplay into entering and chasing gusts of wind, and using them to overtake an enemy fleet."
- Cannon and musket fire.
- Boarding actions.
- A full and very detailed damage model . The cannonballs can knock down masts, damage the sails , riggings and hulls and they'll kill individual men. That obviously affects the manouvrability of your ships.
- Full range of weather effects to influence battles. These will play out on stunning, ultra-realistic seascapes, as cannons and muskets blaze away, cutting through the smoke and fog to splinter, pierce and shatter hulls, sails and masts, laying waste to crew members and sending them to Davy Jones' Locker.
- Ship-specific formations and admiral traits.
- Each ship takes up a single unit space.
- Players can field fleets of up to 20 ships with each of about 100 men on board who will make sure there is utter chaos and explosions on board.
- Pirates are included.
- You'll have a variety of choices to make when engaging in naval combat. Your cannons can be directed to aim for the hull to sink an enemy, for the decks to clear the way for boarding action by your marines, or for the masts to reduce the enemy's speed and maneuverability.
- There will be various classes of vessel, which will essentially vary by maneuverability, speed, and firepower.
- Command your ships whether you want to aim at the sails or at the hull, or at the men on the decks. You can choose what ammunition to load (Three types).
- You'll see and feel it all: the wind in the sails, the choking atmosphere of the gun-deck as the crew frantically reload the cannons, the fights on deck... the man at the steering wheel, driving the boat. (we definatly need to read up on those nautical terms ).
- Seablockades can be performed to cripple the economy of other nations
Graphical:
- Brand new graphics engine and technology which will include:
- Seascapes rich with extraordinary water and weather effects that play a huge role in your eventual glorious success or ignominious defeat.
- New advanced landscape and flora systems, dynamic weather and new battle choreography and occupy-able and destructible battlefield buildings.
- New ballistics and physics model.
Gameplay:
- The game won't start full tilt with access to every single feature. Players will have the chance to wade around in the shallow end of the pool for a while before having to contend with all the options the game has to offer.
- Even when the other options start opening up, the team has reduced many of the management hassles that are present in the series. Recruiting big armies in Medieval II or in Rome require you to issue individual production orders in a number of different provinces. Empire will allow you to build large armies simply by recruiting units at your general. He'll then translate that request into production orders in nearby provinces.
- Similarly, players of previous Total War games have had to balance each of their provinces individually to maximize tax output and minimize unrest. Now, the game makes use of a more comprehensive tool to manage things across your entire empire.
- Given the time period, managing unrest is going to be a relatively important concern. As your society advances, your citizens will demand more and more freedom, which can definitely put a crimp in your own policies. You can choose to liberate them and become a modern enlightened state, or you could hold on to your power a little longer by crushing your people under an oppressive regime. Where previous games saw peoples aligned by religious affiliation, Empire will tend to focus more on this concept of political freedom as a component of happiness.
Multiplayer:
- A brand new multiplayer component will include player rankings, leagues and ladders and completely new gameplay modes.
