Gameplay Hints and Tips

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Some hints from our great friend Jack Lusted:

A few hints and tips for those playing the demo.

Groups

Grouping ships or units is very useful in Empire, and groups work different in naval and land battles.

Naval battles - at sea when you group units they will try to maintain relative positions an also follow the lead ship around. So if you group your ships in a line they will then move in a line around the map enabling you to more easily control large number of ships. Also using alt + giving attack orders will have your ships in a group prioritise firing on the target ship and not break out of the group formation like a normal attack order.

Land battles - when you group units the group remembers the relative position of each unit so when you give a move order to a group they will end up in the same relative positions as when you grouped them. This, in combination with the new rotate/move buttons on the HUD allow you to quickly and easily move groups around, and even to break off parts of a formation into a new group.

Timing Volleys

You can time when your infantry fires in land battles. Simply turn fire at will off, units will reload even with it off as long as enemies are not too close, and then click fire at will back on and your unit will fire at any enemies in front of them.

Camera Changes

I've seen several people asking what happened to double right click zoom-to camera functionality, this has now moved to double mouse wheel click.

I hope these tips help with your enjoyment of the demo.

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[Ishmael]

Ah, the grouped infantry remembering their relative positions explains all the hassle I had with them-I kept trying to form my 'line infantry' group into a line, and I ended up having to do it manually. The naval grouping sounds good too, a bit less micromanaging.

[Strategy]

What I found useful was to select a group, set the formation using the formation button (single line, double line or whatever suits your plan), and then redeploy them using right click and stretching where I want them to march. That works perfectly and makes it very easy to maneuver the units.

[Obadiah]

I had problems using the naval grouping. Sometimes the lead ship would go off, and the rest keep going in straight line, or the group would change their orientation (ie, still in a line, but all facing 45 degrees off of the axis of the line), etc, etc. Maybe I just need more practice, but basic question- after grouping, do you have the entire group selected to issue directional commands, or only lead ship?

[Jack Lusted]

Do it with group selected for best results.

[Haxorsist]

The only problem I had with moving my line of ships, was that one the the third rates would catch up with the second rate and those two wouldn't be able to turn very well. When I then issued an order for the group it messed up the whole line. The line that shows where your ships are going started at the side of the lead ship not in front of it. The lead ship would then turn around to try to get the direction correct and suddenly all my ships were curled up in a ball getting whooped by the French.

[Vlad Tzepes]

Some hints from our great friend Jack Lusted:

I've seen several people asking what happened to double right click zoom-to camera functionality, this has now moved to double mouse wheel click.

Copied this from TWcenter

Aha, thanks for that, it answers one of my bitter questions.

Naval battles - at sea when you group units they will try to maintain relative positions an also follow the lead ship around. So if you group your ships in a line they will then move in a line around the map enabling you to more easily control large number of ships.

Well... I still have to exercise this - grouping ships and moving around doesn't really do what I expect, they seem to have very strong personalities

[Ituralde]

I found the alt + rightclick move to be very useful. I had wondered how to do this before. That way I can have my ships focus fire on enemy ships without completely messing up my line, which is, as others have mentioned, already hard enough to maintain.

Interesting results happen to me, when I just start the battle, select all my ships and hit the line formation button a few times. They will align at 90 degrees to the axis, they will turn around completely and have a new head of the line. Good way to completely confuse your formation before the french hit you!