Empire: Total War

[titanvoyager]

The campaign map spans the globe, with the Americas and India thrown in. Are these continents just new regions to conquer or do they have a different relationship with the main European theatre?

These are fully fleshed out theatres of war. Their own unique factions inhabit them; they have their own terrain and weather systems along with their own inhabitants and nations vying for power. The people and the land have their own micro-social and economic issues meaning wandering in and imposing European will might not be as easy as you intend. Finally of course the peoples of these lands have their own military tactics and units, an all new challenge.

The This time out, province improvements will be on the map. How does this change strategy and tactics?

The primary design driver here was accessibility initially but it has some interesting side-effects. By putting the ports, agriculture and factories on the map, you can see at a glance the wealth and development of a region. This means you can see quickly which of your enemies regions are worth taking and how much damage each would do to them economically. It also means that a marauding army must be met on the field or it can move around the region with impunity destroying outlying developments. This means you can't sit and wait behind your cities walls for an enemy to come to you.

A common complaint about the Total War games is the micromanaging of all those agents: Diplomats, spies, assassins. Are you doing anything to streamline this in Empire?

Firstly we've reduced the number of actual agents this time around. The diplomat for example no longer exists, nations now knew of one another’s presence and had established lines of communication. This is handled through the new diplomacy menu, no more moving, clicking and talking etc.

We've combined the dark arts of assassination, spying and subterfuge within one unit, the Rake. These nasty, but polite chaps are able to do your dirty work on the campaign map.

Essentially lots have been done on the campaign side to minimise the amount of clicking and\micromanagement needed to run your Empire.

What can you say about the role of the Cabinet?

Depending on your governmental system your cabinet are either the elected representatives of the people or appointees of the royalty or head of state.

These individuals take up key posts, influencing bonuses and modifiers applied to your trade, armed forces, diplomacy and overall leadership. You're able to shuffle your ministers, call early elections, hire and fire individuals etc. This is something that those who want to squeeze the extra 5% from their game will take an interest in. For those not so keen, it can be auto-managed without you needing to tend to it.

Both Rome and Medieval 2 used Missions to structure the campaign and reward the player. Will these be back in Empire and who assigns these missions?

Missions are indeed available; in the case of Empire they take two forms. The episodic campaign, the Road to Independence, features a mission structure based on the story you're playing through: the foundation and eventual independence of America. The missions in the game’s chapters feature the goals for your embryonic nation and give the player a clear focus to their game.

The missions in the grand campaign work slightly differently. Here, as with Rome, you can choose to ignore missions issued by your parliament and people, but you do so to your detriment. These are much more reward inspired targets than narrative drivers.

Since you are dealing with the early industrial age, how does technological research fit into the gameplay?

For the first time in a Total War title we have a research and technology tree. The different branches reflect military, industrial, socio-political, land, naval and artillery advancements. You are able to build universities and academic institutions which give you research points to spend on these technologies.

The tree unlocks different things for every faction—special formations, different artillery munitions, sizes and classes of ships etc. The impact of technology is far and wide and you must choose what kind of a balance you wish to strike for your Empire.

It's also worth noting that as upgrades are researched they are automatically rolled out to your armies and navies in the field (No more returning miles for better weapons etc.)

I ask a lot of people this question: What books, movies or games would you point to as an inspiration or asset in the development of the game?

In a game the size of Empire, this is a tough one to answer. Our writers, designers and artists take their inspiration from a massive amount of source material. Everything from films and TV series such as Master & Commander, and the Sharpe series (A British TV show) to dusty old military manuals. We use source books for military formations and uniforms, tactics and maps. We also sourced all our ship designs for the actual blueprints held at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England. Essentially we took these plans and sculpted in polygons what the 18th century engineers did in wood, beam for beam.

Our designers also turn up on wet Monday evenings to live battle reproduction events held by historical societies and fan clubs. Add that to letters and documents from the period, museum exhibits and our own imagination and you can see the massive amount of work the designers and writers put in right from the start! It's funny really, you start out not knowing a huge amount about these 18th century technologies and by the end of the project you can rig and sail a third rate ship of the line. The things we do...

We'd like to thank Kieran for taking the time to chat with us. You can check out Empire: Total War's development at the game's website . The game is slated to hit stores on February 3rd.