A great, old sailing ship of yesteryear comes into view as the camera tracks across the relatively calm ocean waters. Sailors are seen milling about on the main deck while an admiral observes from the rear of the ship. As the frigate prepares to engage an enemy, the individuals are all seen moving to take position at their appropriate battle stations.
All of those little details for just one ship, one cog in the great war machine which drove colonial expansion and fights for independence during the 18th century. Now for some perspective: UK-based developer The Creative Assembly plans for the final release of Sega's Empire: Total War to support up to 10,000 individual units on the screen at any time. Quantity is nothing new for fans of the long-running Total War series, but a demo of the game at last week's Sega preview event in New York City confirmed that The Creative Assembly have outdone themselves once again.
The PC-exclusive Empire: Total War is cut from the same real-time/turn-based strategy hybrid mold which characterizes all previous entries in the series. There are some new twists of course, along with a greater degree of depth and a brand-new historically accurate setting, but the basics of juggling socio-political empire management with straight-out warfare remain.
For the open-ended campaign mode, players will select one of 12 playable factions to guide to victory. This can be achieved in a variety of ways, from earning enough prestige to set your empire apart from the competitors to flat-out world domination. History means nothing here; you can follow the script laid out in your high school textbooks if you like, but wouldn't it be more fun to conquer Canada?
Empire also offers a scripted, historically accurate campaign called Road to Independence. Players will start out as British colonists, sent out to establish a colony in the recently discovered New World, across the ocean. The campaign then runs through the French and Indian War and Revolutionary War before unlocking American forces as a playable faction in the more open-ended campaign.
The level of detail from top to bottom is pretty astounding. Players will guide the course of their chosen faction's development utilizing a massive tech tree which spans the full spectrum of military, social and political upgrades. In addition to the robust city management AI which marks previous Total War games, each ranking military officer will also possess a hard-coded personality which dictates their behavior in battle.
The tiled maps of previous games are gone in Empire, replaced with a landscape in which territorial ownership is dictated more by strategic locations and established towns, villages and cities. There are no "city maps," "hills maps" or the like here; every one of Empire: Total War's military engagements unfolds on a zoomed-in, topographically accurate portion of the main map.
There really wasn't much in the way of new information to glean during last week's preview. With an early March release date looming, the main components are all there, they are simply in the process of being tuned to The Creative Assembly's demanding standards. Armchair generals should start getting comfortable now however. For all of the rehashed bullet points from last week's all-too-brief preview, Empire: Total War is shaping up to be one of 2009's most intricately designed strategy games.
