Empire: Total War - The Creative Assembly Gets All Imperial

Lurking just outside Brighton is one of the rare jewels in the PC gaming crown: The Creative Assembly. For all the continual gloom and nay-saying surrounding PC games development, CA has resolutely stuck to its jezails and focused on what it does best: making the most immersive and broad-ranging period war games, and making them on the PC.

It's comforting listening to Studio Director Mike Simpson talk of its dedication to cater to different PC specs after hearing about so many homogenous console ports. ‘All the designers have crap machines anyway...’ comments Lead Artist, Kevin McDowell.

Cool Stuff

The latest in the Total War series covers a far tighter time period than before; where Medieval II stretched over around five hundred years. Empire covers only the eighteenth century, but is no less ambitious for this. ‘Some of our previous games have been so long and broad that the detail sometimes got lost,’ says Designer Jamie Ferguson.’By concentrating that same level of experience in to a shorter time span, the likelihood of exposure to all the cool stuff is increased and the flavor and richness of the game is improved.’

And there's a lot of cool stuff in there, the most obvious, and the part that CA is clearly very proud of, is the new naval combat system. ‘The eighteenth century was a very colorful time, with lots of new tactics in warfare - it was clearly the natural point to include naval battles into the game’ explains Lead Designer, James Russell. ‘It's been on the 'would-like-to-do' list for some time'.

The scope of the campaign game itself demanded a far more involved seascape. ‘We're opening up the campaign map across multiple continents from the Americas right over to India. Because your empire's spanning the seas it's an ideal time to enhance the strategic gameplay on the campaign map’. With your trade lanes criss-crossing the high seas naval superiority is a must, particularly as there are now specific 'trade theatres' mapped out in the waters that generate increased income should you control the region.

Wet War

Naval combat was the first thing CA started work on with Empire almost three years ago, and it shows. Your ships bob about on the beautifully rendered ocean, and zooming in you can see the crew scuttling about the decks, guns and rigging. Cannons roar, wood splinters and sails catch alight, it truly is an awesome spectacle. ‘Just watching a fleet of enemy ships breaking through the fog under a stormy sky, the flash of cannon in the distance providing that early warning of incoming fire, is an awe-inspiring sight and that arrives before the ships are fully engaged with masts collapsing, hulls splintering and men thrown from the decks to watery deaths;’ says Associate Producer, Mark Sutherns waxing lyrical.

The range of ships in Empire makes them far more complicated units than their land-locked compatriots. ‘Ships have hulls that can be damaged, crews running around, different kinds of shot, sails... And you've got to pay attention to wind direction too.’ explains Russell. The different cannon loadouts are shown in stark fashion as one of our ships in the demo is loaded up with chain shot, crippling an enemy ship, snapping its masts with a ripple of close range cannon fire. Boarding the enemy is a way to quickly dent the navy's morale, capture an enemy admiral and even steal valuable new technology. Occupied ships can then be press-ganged into your navy: a good way to get hold of tech you can't yet create by yourself, such as late-bloomers like the rocket ship (I kid you not) and steam-powered vessels.

The boarding procedure in the demo didn't quite go to plan though. As our ship was positioning itself, with the boarding party lined up along the deck ready to cast grappling hooks, a direct hit from a forgotten enemy cannon struck ours and started a small fire amidships. Ordinarily, it was explained, the crew would take care of such a small inconvenience, but were now otherwise engaged having now stormed the other craft. As we watched the matched animations of fifty different duals on the deck of the enemy frigate the flames leapt up into our sails. In no time at all, the fire had spread between the ships and both crews were flinging themselves into the Oggin.

Guerillas in their Midst

It's not all about the sea though: things on land are different both militarily and civically with the rise of gunpowder and the nation-state respectively. ‘The mass use of gunpowder had a huge effect on tactics at the time' Russell opines. This is most evident in the urban skirmishes as troops defend on the outskirts before dropping back to garrison houses, fighting attackers in street-to-street guerrilla warfare. Buildings on the battlefield have far more strategic importance now too, and troops now automatically seek cover against things that provide them with any sort of deflection against enemy fire.

While there are more things to think of in the battles it's no less engaging on the grander scale. ‘What we've tried to do is simultaneously deepen the gameplay and at the same time streamline it, reduce the amount of time you have to repeat your choices,’ Russell explains. The diplomatic, economic and civic options are centralized making it easier to access without myriad agents ranging the globe, while still offering more decisions about how to govern your empire.

From historically accurate mercenary fighting units like Rogers' Rangers and semi-fictionalized ones like the Wild Geese, to the accurately modeled buoyancy models of the ships allowing them to list and sink realistically, the depth and dedication with which Creative Assembly imbues this project is evident everywhere you look. It's going to be brutal, it's going to be epic and it's going to make you proud to be a PC gamer.