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Early Praise For Empire: Total War
CVG had a chance to preview Empire: Total War, the latest in Creative Assembly's popular strategy series. This installment focuses on a time period which includes the Industrial Revolution and the struggle for US independence. CVG praises the intuitive interface and the improved AI, as well as the level of detail shown in large-scale battles. Quoting:
"With a single mouse click I changed my troops' attack orders to melee and sent a sea of blue uniforms sweeping down the hill at the enemy. Zooming into the action revealed a previously unmatched level of battlefield realism and detail, with each motion captured soldier actively seeking out an opponent before engaging in a mortal shoving and stabbing match. Men toppled into the mud, squirming with terror before receiving a deft bayonet jab to the windpipe. After a titanic, 20-minute struggle the tide turned my way with the enemy hightailing it thanks in no small part to a bullet to the British general's head that broke his men's morale."
I hope they finally improved empire management. That's the thing that was most lacking in the whole series, and it only deteriorated with each succession.
For example: Rome Total War became unplayable to me once I realized I have to stage rebellions in my own cities, then conquer them in order to remain profitable.
...are they making an effort to be historically accurate?
I've always liked the Total War series (since Shogun) but must admit to having been caught referring to some of the "history" I learned from the games. Rome:TW is particularly bad in this regard. Granted that the player can drastically alter the outcome of history, for instance by having a massive Portuguese empire take over all of Europe by 1250 A.D., but it would still be nice to be playing with actual historically significant events and persons.
And I have a lot of hope for this one, since a good chunk of it will deal with American history which many of the developers probably know a bit more about than Roman, Japanese, or medieval European history.
Also, I wonder whether we can now start looking forward to, say, Normandy: Total Way, which would be terrifyingly awesome. As the technology has gotten better, the series has tended to move forwards in time, with the exception of Medieval 2 which revisited a time period that had already been covered.
Trust me, kids; don't drink and post.
It is quite possible to make a certain battle or a small campaign historically accurate, but you can't just make something like the rise and fall of the roman empire accurate. Else you'd win. Simply and plainly. You would already have won before the whole thing starts.
First of all, you know the geography of Europe. If you don't, there's accurate maps available, something that the Romans would have sold their firstborn and a few more things for. You wouldn't just go and waste a sizable amount of your resources by trying to "bring peace" to the Germania because you think the world ends where Poland is today. You wouldn't go and listen to some augur telling you you're gonna fall off the world by sailing through the street of Gibraltar.
Another important aspect of Rome's success was that most of the empires they conquered were anything but organized. Rome had a pretty strong bureaucracy behind it that could support vast armies of professional soldiers, something no other empire of the time could. Most of their enemies were smaller, badly organized tribes and empires that didn't really have the same centralized structure of the Roman Empire.
And this goes on throughout all the ages and games you could make out of them. People, great people, all made great mistakes in the way they waged war and led their countries. Spain wasted insane amounts of money trying to find a way to the far east, as did Portugal (one trying to find a way towards the west, the other trying to sail around Africa), and both just realized that it's unprofitable to do that. You know that, and you would most likely not waste your gold on such endeavours. Instead you'll invest in gunpowder and research the weapons behind it because you know that's where the future of warfare is. You would probably not search for the philosopher's stone, though, or try to turn shit into gold.
And so on.
You cannot create an accurate game of this scope and be true to history. You have to sacrifice at least part of it to make the game balanced and playable.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.