In the interests of full disclosure, I have to say that I've never played a Total War game before. My duties over the past few years at GameSpy have primarily focused on the console side of gaming, so my contact with the extreme edge of hardcore RTSes or 4X games has been limited to the likes of Command & Conquer 3 and Halo Wars (notice that I didn't even mention Civilization Revolution... I may not be super-conversant, but I'm not stupid either). So when Miguel asked me to sit in on a demo of Empire: Total War, my first reaction was, "Me? Really?"
Of course, I remember seeing Empire at E3 2008 and thinking that it looked amazing, if also incredibly daunting what with its vast global imperial management, minutiae-packed real-time strategy land battles, and even more detail-oriented naval incursions. After actually sitting down with Empire for about three hours, however, I found that the richness of the content (with detailed graphics and even more complex AI driving nigh-extravagant emergent gameplay) was the thing that really grabbed me. To my surprise, I had no difficulty grasping the basic mechanics, even though, by the end of my three hours, I still felt that I had a lot to learn about possible strategies and workable tactics. Indeed, the interface was very intuitive and felt more like a tool meant for assisting me in my conquests rather than a challenging array of arcane commands, which had been my n00bish fear going in.
Nautical Nincompoop
My demo began with a round of three-on-three naval combat (meaning three ships per side) led by Kieran Brigden, Studio Communications Manager at developer The Creative Assembly. Each battle, whether on land or sea, starts off with a deployment phase that affords you time to place your units within designated areas of the field.
To ease me into the combat, Kieran took a moment to explain how ships are controlled, leaving his fleet desperately unprepared for the coming onslaught I was planning. Commanding your vessels is a snap and works much like in any other RTS: Left-click to select a ship, drag to select multiple ships, right-click on a spot of ocean to give move orders, and right-click on an enemy to give attack orders. You can get your micro-management on by turning off auto-fire, which enables you to issue orders to fire and reload cannons from either side of the ship at your leisure. You can also load different types of shot into your cannons by selecting grape shot (anti-personnel flechettes) or bolo-style chain shot for taking out masts and sails, leaving enemy ships immobile.
Even with Kieran taking it decidedly easy on me, I still succumbed to rookie mistakes like presenting too broad a target at precisely the wrong times (like when I was reloading) or tacking into the wind, sacrificing mobility for cannonballs through my hull. Despite my poor performance (or perhaps even because of it), Empire's detailed ship-to-ship combat model and even more detailed graphics were readily apparent. Each cannon blast sends splinters flying off the deck in more or less accurate, persistent hull damage while sails flap and flutter with the impact. At one point, one of my ships caught fire and my crew, unable to subdue the blaze, began abandoning ship with little animated buccaneers jumping from the deck, arms waving and splashing as they hit the frigid sea. A moment later, the fire had spread to the powder room and the ship erupted in a plume of smoke, cinders, and deadly wooden splinters.
So although I didn't fare very well on my first seaborne skirmish, I did feel like I was getting the hang of it by the end of the session (as one of Kiernan's ships sunk to Davey Jones' locker, masts floating ineffectually alongside the rapidly submerging hull). While I didn't win, it certainly wasn't Empire's fault.
