FYI - GamesRadar.com hands on preview

[Intrepid Sidekick]

http://www.gamesradar.com/pc/empire-...22164625990074

Games Radar article.

[pevergreen]

Hands on? I wish I had one. grrrr.

edit: From the playtime the reviewer got, it seems like just more confirmed goodness. Auto-attack, and timed etc. Realistic boarding is something I hadn't thought of. Will love to do that in Multiplayer, throw some hooks up and attempt to board a better ship.

@CA Staff: Is there a feature to upgrade ships towards a certain thing, such as boarding/firing/moving etc?

[Matt_Lane]

Something interesting I noticed in the review was that one of the pictures had a sail assisted paddle steamer. I didn't think that these were available as warships in the time period and if so this is the first evidence I've seen of CA's commitment to allow the player to twist history a little and develop technology early than it appeared in reality. It makes me wonder what other inventions we are likely to see sooner than their historical context.

[Mailman653]

Something interesting I noticed in the review was that one of the pictures had a sail assisted paddle steamer. I didn't think that these were available as warships in the time period and if so this is the first evidence I've seen of CA's commitment to allow the player to twist history a little and develop technology early than it appeared in reality. It makes me wonder what other inventions we are likely to see sooner than their historical context.

The steamer is not totally new, it's been mentioned in other threads and I believe it's been stated that if you invest heavily in technology you can develop things way ahead of their time.

Nice article.

[Martok]

Thanks for the heads-up, Intrepid Sidekick. Much appreciated.



Wow, there's a lot of quotable goodness in this article! Among the things that interested me:

In an improvement to the grouping systems of previous games, ships can be set not only to group, but to maintain a formation in group.

Cool. I suspect we'll need those functions.

It brings to mind Sid Meier’s Pirates! as a strategy game, but with much more realism: the primary goal is to line up as many of your cannons as possible to fire at the right moment. While automatic firing and circling options allow you simply to set a target and step back as your ships engage, you can choose to get more hands-on, such as turning off autofire to unleash a storm of cannonballs at the perfect moment.

Am very glad to see this! As a newbie admiral, it'll be nice to be able to automate at least basic functions.

This time around, three coders focus on AI full-time, with others contributing. “We can always say that we’re working really hard on the AI - which we are - and that we think it’s going to be better than before - which we do - but the objective fact is that compared with Rome, we have a lot more staff on it,” says James Russell.

If defeat is immaterial, they’ll maximize casualties against the opposition, then retreat. If they simply must triumph in this battle in order to win the war, expect a to-the-last-man encounter.

“One of the first things Richard [Bull, lead battle AI programmer] did was to look at some of the exploit tactics people used in our previous games and say, ‘I’m going to make sure none of them work anymore,’” says Mark Sutherns. The period itself already minimizes some of this - camping a corner is less effective when it makes you a perfect target for cannon fire.

Outstanding! While I'm still somewhat skeptical, it does give me hope that maybe, just maybe, Empire will have the best AI since Shogun (and perhaps even better? oh to dream!).

I'll be especially impressed if the AI is improved to the point that it's no longer easy to draw it away from strong defensive positions -- I've fought too many bridge battles where I was able to trick my opponent into attacking me.

Similar innovations in government include democracies that swap their cabinet members with a shadow cabinet as their popularity wanes. These ministers replace the governors of individual regions - though there are still theater-wide-governors - and give bonuses in different areas. Since the shadow government has different strengths from the elected officials, you’ll find yourself in the novel situation of deliberately getting your government booted in order to seat people in power who are more suitable for your current predicament.

These sorts of political power games strongly tie into revolutions. They can be prompted for all sorts of reasons, and doing so gives you the option of choosing to fight for the status quo or for the would-be status quo - if you want to run a Republic, you may need to play to alienate your people to begin with. Or, you can play more considerately, spending your research resources on the sorts of enlightened strides in thinking that characterized the age. Of course, this will give the lower classes funny ideas about “rights." In Empire, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing to the established order. Creative Assembly promises a true research tech-tree for the first time in a Total War game, along with upper and lower social classes that are clearly modeled separately.

Ah, all sorts of juicy political stuff here. I can't wait to see what happens the first time I have a revolution on my hands (regardless of whether I deliberately triggered it or not).

It’s telling that this, rather than the simple conquest method of winning an empire, is the basis for Empire’s concept of “prestige,” and whoever has the most - gained via research, economic power, and military victories in the year 1800 is declared the winner.

I know this has been mentioned before, but I still can't reiterate enough how awesome it is. Being able to win the game without necessarily having to conquer huge swaths of territory should be a massive improvement!

Quick question, though: Is the year 1800 a typo? I thought the game didn't end until 1820.



A couple things which I admit I found to of concern and/or confusing:

Another area where total realism took a hit: tacking (i.e., zig-zagging your ship) to move into the wind, which isn’t as simple as just sailing at an angle. “It sounds like a good idea,” Ferguson says, “but what it means is that if you click somewhere, the ship goes off in a completely different direction." After attempting to make the mechanic mandatory, the team eventually chose to make things simpler: Wind greatly affects a battle in terms of the ships’ speed and direction - a “North Sea in winter” battle will be fought at least as much against the elements as against your opponents - but tacking won’t ever be necessary. Instead, those who choose to give it a whirl will be rewarded with a speed bonus.

A bit of a bummer that tacking didn't make it into the game. I understand the reasons, but it it's still a little disappointing.

What I don't quite get, though, is the afore-mentioned speed bonus: Is there any reason *not* to tack into the wind then? Or is there some sort of drawback (or at least potential drawback) to doing so?

Then there are the trade theaters - such as the Caribbean, East Africa, and the East Indies - to which you’re unable to send land forces, and so must dominate by naval power alone.

So does this mean we can't station troops on the islands in the Caribbean and East Indies? That seems a little odd to me. (And here I was looking forward to being able to garrison Port Royal with British soldiers and fight off the Black Pearl French & Spanish raiders! )



Still, all in all, a most excellent preview. Now if we can only find out what kind of copy protection ETW will have....

[Jack Lusted]

What I don't quite get, though, is the afore-mentioned speed bonus: Is there any reason *not* to tack into the wind then? Or is there some sort of drawback (or at least potential drawback) to doing so?

The speed bonus is really what you get from donig tacking, if you move your ships in a tacking way up wind you'll see them move faster than just sailing upwind. However we've not made tacking necessary.

So does this mean we can't station troops on the islands in the Caribbean and East Indies?

You can in the Caribbean, the article has that wrong. There is instead a different trade theatre in that part of the map.