Empire: Total War - Press Releases, Articles and Reviews

[Epic28]

Might of had them confused with the Marathas.

[Napoleon Reincarnate]

FratyInside sorry man that sucks. A Tasmanian and a mother from NSW Nah i'm just messing with you. But Vic is the best state!

[MehemtAli_Pasha]

I don't think the Mughals are playable. In the 4th paragraph of the article you can see the name of the factions you can choose to play as and the Mughals are not listed. Seems like only 11 factions are available.

I think the list of major factions just depends on how much territory a faction holds and its economy. So basically over time major factions can become minor and vice versa. But we wont know until we get the game.

http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/958390...page=mediaFull

I bet this proves that the Mughals are playable and there is 12 playable factions and not 11.

[Dublin Dilettante]

Can everyone shut the up about rep? No-one gives a toss who wins at the internet.

[Lord of the Drunk Penguin]

Yey, the Mughals are in !

Also , I've noticed that in the first Screenshot, the leader is named Tarabal I, ( The First).
Finally, we can keep number of our suverains !
Vive CA !

[Reiver]

So I take it the grey bar represents the militia in the settlement. Paris looks like they've almost got a full stack so any worries about quickly storming a capital are out the window. Should be quite a few turns before mustering an army capable of beating that. Doesn't look like you'll be able to supplement the defenders with other units much though so I hope the quality of troops in the militia is good. Unless, of course, you can put more than 20 units in a city at once...

[Son of Mao]

The thing that suprised me the most is the missionaries which were not originally mentioned to be an agent.

[DarkArk]

Indeed. There is a lot to be gained from these pics.

First off, the economic model looks like it had been streamlined, with simple trade income, tax income, and "other." Probably mines and the like. Expenditure is equally simple: Army and navy upkeep, as well as militia. Looks like your military is your only real source of debt, which will make economics more interesting.

It also looks like we can set national policies, I wonder what those will be?

From the pictures it looks like France will have direct control over all its colonies except Louisiana, and Spain gets direct control over all islands and Florida, and the mainland American colonies are the protectorate. In other words, Britain still gets the shaft by this system but at least Jamaica and Nassau are under direct control. France profits the most from this arrangement.

There are also some interesting, shall we call them bridges? over by Nassau.

North America is there in all its glory, and it does look well modeled.

The militia system looks interesting. My only question raised by it is if my city is attacked when it has full militia, will I be able to use my regular army?

Europe has also been modelled brilliantly. It looks like there will be quite a large number of cities in Spain and France, so not to worry about them being weak provinces. I count 8 in France already developed, and 5 in Spain from what we can see.

Diplomatic relations screen is interesting. Looks like the vast majority of the major nations will start as absolute monarchies, with just Poland and Britain as constitutional monarchies, and the Dutch the sole republic. I wonder if a nation is beaten down far enough will cease to be on the major nations list? Or if a minor nation becomes large enough it will ascend to major nation status?

Looks like Spain doesn't have many friends. Just the right situation for the Dutch to take many of their key colonies

[Korvus77]

Indeed. There is a lot to be gained from these pics.

First off, the economic model looks like it had been streamlined, with simple trade income, tax income, and "other." Probably mines and the like. Expenditure is equally simple: Army and navy upkeep, as well as militia. Looks like your military is your only real source of debt, which will make economics more interesting.

It also looks like we can set national policies, I wonder what those will be?

From the pictures it looks like France will have direct control over all its colonies except Louisiana, and Spain gets direct control over all islands and Florida, and the mainland American colonies are the protectorate. In other words, Britain still gets the shaft by this system but at least Jamaica and Nassau are under direct control. France profits the most from this arrangement.

There are also some interesting, shall we call them bridges? over by Nassau.

North America is there in all its glory, and it does look well modeled.

The militia system looks interesting. My only question raised by it is if my city is attacked when it has full militia, will I be able to use my regular army?

Europe has also been modelled brilliantly. It looks like there will be quite a large number of cities in Spain and France, so not to worry about them being weak provinces. I count 8 in France already developed, and 5 in Spain from what we can see.

Diplomatic relations screen is interesting. Looks like the vast majority of the major nations will start as absolute monarchies, with just Poland and Britain as constitutional monarchies, and the Dutch the sole republic. I wonder if a nation is beaten down far enough will cease to be on the major nations list? Or if a minor nation becomes large enough it will ascend to major nation status?

Looks like Spain doesn't have many friends. Just the right situation for the Dutch to take many of their key colonies

I would rather see trade grow more complex. Kick the game play up a notch.

[Fratyinside]

This game just simply looks "teh sex".

1 week and 17 hours!

[Bernsy]

This game just simply looks "teh sex".

1 week and 17 hours!

I agree more and more each day.

I will be on spring break next week as well. My gf has already noticed a decline in interest from me

I told her its only the demo out right now, wait til the WHOLE game comes out. She didn't like that too much

But yea those new screens look amazing, seriously I cant wait for this game!

[Quadratus]

WOW, look at the water at Image 4.

http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/958390...page=mediaFull

[Timefool]

WOW, look at the water at Image 4.

http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/958390...page=mediaFull

Wow. The water is better in the campaign map than in the battlefield of previous TW games.

How did Spain get all the way up there, because that is not tactically sound.

That screenshot brought a question to my mind, will hills affect movement points in any way, or is elevation, except mountains, not a factor in the campaign map?

[DarkArk]

How did Spain get all the way up there, because that is not tactically sound.

That land is called Belgium. I'm kinda surprised it isn't call that on the map. It was rather important when the Spanish Armada attacked.

[CtrlAltDe1337]

Wow. The water is better in the campaign map than in the battlefield of previous TW games.

How did Spain get all the way up there, because that is not tactically sound.

That screenshot brought a question to my mind, will hills affect movement points in any way, or is elevation, except mountains, not a factor in the campaign map?

Spain still owned Belgium in 1700 afaik. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

[Korvus77]

Spain still owned Belgium in 1700 afaik. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Yes Spain had control for about the first 15 years of the campaign time period iirc, after that the Austrians had until the French came in towards the end of the century. Forgive me for any factual errors going off memory.

[Quadratus]

I wonder if you have the same camera angels as in game...

[ZaPPPa]

Dammit, How am I supposed to play Holland properly when Indonesia is not mapped? The VOC was still very powerful in this time period, but nearly all colonies were in the non-mapped part of the world.

[Korvus77]

Dammit, How am I supposed to play Holland properly when Indonesia is not mapped? The VOC was still very powerful in this time period, but nearly all colonies were in the non-mapped part of the world.

Expansion? *hides*

[Napoleon Reincarnate]

You know what would be great? If they did expand the game to include Indonesia and Australia!! Two reasons:
1 It would be awesome to see Australia in a decent video game if any
2 I could actually colonise Australia and thus rewrite history by making victoria also NSW and leaving Tasmania completely deserted so that after 200 years the country doesn't have to worry about a state of inbred monsters.
After all as they say "how do you curcumsise a Tasmanian? Punch his sister in the jaw"
"How does a Tasmanian know when his mum is having her period? There's blood on her daughters mouth" (thats a three person joke think about it)