Empire: Total War

[Maleg]

For those Civ 4 fans might wanna give Empire a try.  It's still a little buggy (no surprise there, every game seems to be a piece of crap on release at the moment) but is certainly the best in the Total War franchise.

The latest installment has a better tech tree than the predecessors giving it a little more depth.  The fights get a little repetative, but early on when you're outnumbered you can get some decent victorys when outnumbered.  All in all a decent game, better looking that Civ 4 but perhaps not as good for the pure strat fan.

[Saxif]

I played Rome: Total War almost to the end, I had about 42 of the needed 50 territories but couldn't bring myself to grind out the last few.  I like the games but don't think I can do it again, I reckon if I did I might be more likely to hit "Auto Fight", even though I liked paying special attention to the manouvering of my elite units to capitilise on their eliteness!

Sax.

[Cernos]

I enjoyed Shogun a lot. I enjoyed Medieval less. By the time it came to Rome I think I was bored with the genre and didn't complete it, in fact barely started it. Does Empire bring anything new to the table other than a different setting and perhaps a bit more polish?

[Lasiien]

I picked it up but not played it much yet, I have to stop buying stuff i just don't have the time to play right now !

It's not that much different to Rome Cern, they seem to have mostly expanded on the Civ-like elements (which for Rome was still fairly basic, seems now you have much more options and things to do on the world map screen). The battles are similar Total War stuff, the big change of course being you now have rifles and cannons etc, so ranged combat is much more at the forefront. There is also a totally new navel battle element, though i have only done the tutorial it seems ok.

[Maleg]

I enjoyed Shogun a lot. I enjoyed Medieval less. By the time it came to Rome I think I was bored with the genre and didn't complete it, in fact barely started it. Does Empire bring anything new to the table other than a different setting and perhaps a bit more polish?

It's pretty similar to Rome, has evolved a little but still a simplification of Civ IV in my mind - then again the game is structured a little different to Civ IV.  They've implemented a basic tech tree for research and you can't build every building in a single town - basically buildings are spread across a region (reduces the mononity a little).  There are several campaign options (short, long, prestige, world domination) unfortunatly you have to select the win criteria before starting the campaign so it doesn't actually provide any flexibility in how you win the game.

At the start of a campaign everything seems a little overwhelming to be honest, or at least both Kap and I felt that way - however the game soon pivots and once you have a strong economic base it's pretty easy to dominate (on normal difficulty).  I found I had to micro a lot of fights at the start to get the most out of what I had, but once you get a foothold in India and the Americas it gets a lot easier.

Technology is key, especially in naval battles.  It's near impossible to kill large ships with lots of smaller ones, even if technically you out gun them.  Land unit wise tech does unlock new units but the backbone of any army remains the same (line infantry) - as you research more tech they effectively get better tactics making them more effective (nice touch I though, means you're not constantly destroying units for their upgraded versions).