Mike Bantick
Wednesday, 08 April 2009 04:57
Entertainment
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In a very small and only barely representative nutshell, Empire, at its core, consists of two fundamental but linked gaming systems. The Campaign Map view is where you build and move armies and fleets, manage diplomacy and develop cities, towns and technology. Then, when a battle ensues, the view changes to the battlefield, where you will direct individual units of men, machines, ships or beasts towards [hopefully] victory.
There are two forms of campaign in Empire; The Road to Independence is a story driven campaign focusing on the rise of the United States as a nation, following the path of George Washington. Whilst a Grand Campaign allows you to select from a myriad of 18th century nations, to forge your own destiny.
The Campaign map allows a leader to construct town buildings, maintain trade routes, form diplomatic relations with other nations, raise and move armies or fleets and – in a very Civilisation lite way- develop technologies to aid your nations rise up the power ladder.
Total War veterans will recognise the subtle changes, structures such as mines are scattered around the countryside and many agents (such as assassins or the clergy) no longer ‘recruited’ instead they appear randomly depending on the mix of structures your nation has. Scholars are important to help develop technologies, but some of us lament the loss of Princesses, which were a big help to diplomatic endeavours in games past – sometimes I wonder what sort of leader I would have been in medieval times.
The Technological tree is similar for all nations, and follows a logical progression down a path of war-fare, growth or diplomatic positioning. Like many things in this release, this sort of game slant can feel overwhelming at first, but once understood proves manageable.
In fact, manageability is a key improvement in this release, with all armies, agents, towns, cities, tech and diplomatic relations available with a few clicks.
Like Agents, Military leaders are no longer part of the nobility, born to their roles. Instead army leaders can be given field promotions by the player, and this is a powerful advantage. Generals can recruit units ‘in the field’ and build a fortress if defence is the key.
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