By Jim Rossignol on September 29th, 2008 at 11:52 am.
Oh boy, this is the big one for strategy types. The land battles trailer for Empire: Total War shows those 18th century musketeers in action, with the ultra-detailed new battle maps that allow proper use of terrain, and of buildings. The game is coming up in February 2009 and I’m already writing off most of the month’s potential productivity… We should have more detailed info on the game for you soon.
That campaign map is beautiful.
29/09/2008 at 11:55 Jigglybean says:
I really hope that the AI isnt as bad as M2:TW was. That was a dreadful game
29/09/2008 at 11:58 Dante says:
A plea to creative assembly.
Please, please, please put Rourkes Drift in the historical battles. I want a game version of Zulu damnit!
29/09/2008 at 12:03 It's a Union Jack! says:
I’ll just leave this here…
29/09/2008 at 12:09 drunkymonkey says:
Well… I’ve seen enough of those Medieval 2 videos to approach this with caution. An excellent video does not mean a great game will follow, but man, I both hope and predict that it will!
The detail in those units – like the drumming – was mindblowing, considering there can be about 1,000 units doing the same thing at the same time.
I think that, finally, I might have a strategy game I love more than Rome!
29/09/2008 at 12:10 Kieron Gillen says:
Dante: Wrong period. This is 1700-1800.
KG
29/09/2008 at 12:18 Dante says:
Bugger.
The date ranges for Total War games are getting smaller as they get further into the future, eventually they’ll be doing ‘Last Week: Total War!’
29/09/2008 at 12:27 Man Raised By Puffins says:
I’m currently playing Medieval 2: Kingdoms (as the rampaging Welsh juggernaut) and the prospect of fewer sieges and more open battles is rather appealing at the moment, particularly given that the AI copes a lot better with the latter. Garrisoning could be interesting too, so long as it isn’t as twitchy as getting troops on or off walls in Medieval.
29/09/2008 at 12:32 rocketman71 says:
Well, Dante, last week was really bloody! (ask Sarah Palin)
29/09/2008 at 12:34 Real Horrorshow says:
Total War games have been crack since day one of Shogun. I will be sleeping outside Best Buy for this one.
Jigglybean: You may be relieved to know that Medieval 2 was developed by their CA’s Canada studio. This is being developed by CA’s British studio, they’re the Shogun, Medieval 1, Rome guys.
29/09/2008 at 12:46 MeestaNob! says:
I actually stopped watching at the first glimpse of the campaign map cause I wanted it to be a surprise when I play it.
UBER WANT.
29/09/2008 at 12:46 Duke Goosington IV says:
the AI in Medieval 2 was absolutely abysmal, verging on non existent. Even on Very Hard mode, the only thing that made it vaguely challenging was the fact I got my money sapped and they got lots of it for free. Half the units were made totally obsolete simply by being 3 different shades of absolutely useless (archers taking out about 4 men from a unit before they engaged when those units are militia is ‘not a good cost/benefit equation’ or whatever, and the knights that rarely got a showing because most of the battles were sieges and they were pretty poor then). I understand that it was deliberate to show that most archers in the period (with the exception of longbowmen…. who still sucked anyway once you scaled the walls, which you would in about 2 minutes) weren’t of the highest quality, but there wasn’t much point in having them, from a players perspective.
And despite ALL of that, it was still a game I spent weeks playing because it was great fun. So if they fix that, pleasepleaseplease, this will be a truly defining RTS.
29/09/2008 at 12:52 reiver says:
In a post on the TWC fan forums one of the devs said there’s be no historical battles in this version.
I’m not too bothered about the short period of time it covers as there’s as there’s so much technical progress and upheaval in it. It also allows them to return to a two turns per year format rather than the ambiguous “turns” which represented about 2.345 years in medieval. I do wish they were making the game longer than 200 turns though.
29/09/2008 at 12:55 Bhazor says:
It looks like epic scale Company of Heroes but with elephants instead of tanks.
That’s enough for me to get a preorder.
29/09/2008 at 13:11 Jigglybean says:
@ Real Horror,
Thanks for the info. I was aware of that and I am pleased that the UK guys are working on this – fingers crossed still.
29/09/2008 at 13:13 Theoban says:
I’m going to give it a miss, I’m waiting for Wars of the Roses: Total War. Finally show those Lancastrians what for.
29/09/2008 at 13:25 cliffski says:
this was around 80% FMV. Whats the point? If I want to see epic Napoleonic warfare, I’ll watch the Russian war and peace movie.
The actual gameplay footage didn’t look anything like as good as company of heroes. They still have huge stupid oversized flags, which makes it look a bit ridiculous.
I’d love this game to be awesome, but nothing in the video makes me think it’s a must buy tbh.
29/09/2008 at 13:41 caesarbear says:
Without large flags the interface would be horrible.
29/09/2008 at 13:53 Bobsy says:
God, yes.
18th century tailors certainly knew how to make a sexy military uniform.
29/09/2008 at 14:06 Maximum Fish says:
I just hope they’re not all siege battles, like in the last two Total War outings. That was the worst part of the newified campaign map, seconded by the overly complex movement system whose nuances were cool but totally irrelevant, especially when you could buy the entire armed forces of the Roman Empire from them.
29/09/2008 at 14:08 schmunkel98 says:
Any chance of their being a multiplayer campaign mode? This would put it over the top for me.
29/09/2008 at 14:13 Biggles says:
I thought Medieval 2 was developed by the Australian studio?
29/09/2008 at 14:20 reiver says:
It was.
29/09/2008 at 14:35 Dreamhacker says:
Are there any HD versions of this video? Or atleast higher res?
29/09/2008 at 14:39 dartt says:
I hope I’m not out of line in linking to another games site but you can view it in somewhat better quality on eurogamer.tv.
@Maximum Fish
One of the things they’ve done with the new campaign map is to move a lot of city upgrades outside of the city; if you want to defend that fancy new engineering workshop you built you are going to have to march out and meet the enemy army on the field.
29/09/2008 at 14:59 Hogni Thor says:
The AI designer for Empires, or one of them I read, is Luster, developer of the superlative Lands To Conquer mod for M2:TW. The mod made the AI in M2:TW far more believable, both in strategic and tactical modes (VH / VH). There were still some quirks to be sure, but far more enjoyable none the less.
Luster’s farewell post on the TWCenter forum.
29/09/2008 at 15:08 cliffski says:
“Without large flags the interface would be horrible.”
somehow Company Of heroes muddles though.
29/09/2008 at 15:17 Mark-P says:
That’s good to hear about Lusted. Firaxis produced impressive improvements for Beyond the Sword’s AI when they hired on a Civ 4 modder.
The AI and overall difficulty level for Medieval 2 was woeful, and Empire will not be a compelling purchase for me unless they make a successful attempt to rectify those shortcomings.
29/09/2008 at 15:56 The Hammer says:
No. It wasn’t. The opening twenty seconds were, and then it was all using the in game engine, whether there was an overlaying interface or not.
29/09/2008 at 16:06 Jim Rossignol says:
@Cliffski: the opening bit with the cannon balls and ships is FMV, then from where it says “Actual Gameplay Footage” onwards is in-game. The little men really are animated like that. Sure, they’ve ramped it up with camera wobble and removed the UI, but it’s still their engine.
29/09/2008 at 16:06 Someone says:
I hope reviewers comment on whether the issues of Medieval TW2 were fixed. Seemed like all the reviews on MTW2 glossed over it’s rough edges. Sure it seems like a great game, until you actually try and play it.
Don’t get me wrong, it was fun, but I remember Rome TW being better.
29/09/2008 at 16:12 Kieron Gillen says:
Re: AI. I interviewed Creative recently. In hard numbers, they’ve just got many more people working on AI this time around. The last game this team made – Rome – had one, and he wasn’t a pure AI guy and did other stuff. I think – without checking my article – there’s 3 this time around, plus another two part timers.
KG
29/09/2008 at 16:15 schmunkel98 says:
Let’s hope after this release they re-do Rome. It is still my favorite era for these scale of battles. I catch myself re-installing it and playing every so often.
29/09/2008 at 16:20 Jim Rossignol says:
Rome was the best one so far, easily.
29/09/2008 at 16:30 The Hammer says:
/award medal for services to great game ideas
29/09/2008 at 16:38 Alec Meer says:
You could kill more Popes in Med2 though.
29/09/2008 at 16:43 El_MUERkO says:
i’m really looking forward too it, while M2:TW wasn’t perfectly balanced and the AI was at times sub par or prone to cheating it was none the less excellent and mods like Stainless Steal kept me occupied for months :)
29/09/2008 at 17:20 Gap Gen says:
If the skirmishing is that good it’ll make a nice change from the to-me-to-you semi-turn-based attacking in Medieval 2 & Rome.
29/09/2008 at 17:27 Fumarole says:
GOTY ’09 for me for sure. For those who don’t like the unit flags (which are mostly appropriate for this time period) there’s always a (rather small) mod released that removes them. This has been the case for the previous games in the series.
29/09/2008 at 17:59 EyeMessiah says:
But what if I don’t want the way I need to think to be changed? I need to think that way!
29/09/2008 at 18:41 SanguineLobster says:
I personally hope they remove a lot of the changes they tried in M:TW2 such as attempting to balance each of the big nations at the beginning of the game. The distinct imbalance made the older games much more interesting for me.
29/09/2008 at 18:53 Plopsworth says:
Like Dante, I wish the timescale were a bit larger. There’s just that crucial period between the end of Medieval Total War (2) and Empire where lots o’ the good stuff happens.
You’ve got your Thirty Years War (say it with me, DEFENESTRATION CUTSCENE!), The Golden Century of Spain (no, I’m not Spanish. I’m from Finland. Don’t blame jingoism, blame Arturo Perez-Reverte’s excellent Captain Alatriste novels), The rise of the Netherlands, Latvia and Poland (Winged Hussars!) fighting the newly formed Russians while Sweden running amok, Barbary Corsairs, The Medici and Italian Doge at each others’ throats, the Golden Age of Piracy etc.
Also, a few years into the other direction into the 19th century you get the Crimean War. Epic stuff.
Yes, late-Medieval has a bit of the pike, sword, and arquebus era, but I wish I could start a bit earlier in Empire and either lead or trounce Spanish tercios in Flemish fields. So yes, I can do that in Europa Universalis III, but I want to see the literal squares of pikemen and arquebusiers.
So yes, we get the Napoleonic era and the American War of Independence. So there’s the Anglos and French catered for. Maybe they’re saving something for the expansion packs, but still.
Still would’ve been nice with those Spanish tercios… Oh and alright *waves Finnish flag*, ravaging across the German states with Finnish Hakkapeliitta cavalry and also preventing Swedes from losing Finland to the tsars (or the opposite, taking Stockholm for Mother Russia) in 1808, or fighting the combined French and British expeditionary forces across the Baltic archipelago.
29/09/2008 at 19:09 Calabi says:
Its completely innacurate though, I heard that soldiers during this time hardly ever hit one another(it was to do with phsycology, physology or phrenology).
I like Rome but, what annoyed me about it, was it was too hard to control my army. To get them all to march towards the enemy you clicked, and then they’d all fall out of sinc. I’d end up more fighting my army trying to get it to do what I wanted it to do than I would the enemy.
29/09/2008 at 21:48 dartt says:
@Calabi
I believe green soldiers would often aim too high, some models of muskets in that period had an arcing trajectory (first upward and then downwards) so their shots would go over the heads of their intended targets. You’ll often read about NCOs shouting “aim low, men!”.
Aiming too low, however, could potentially result in the shot rolling out the end of the musket :D
30/09/2008 at 01:32 sinister agent says:
They should do a Cuba: Total War, where the first player to do anything in any turn loses.
30/09/2008 at 01:56 Scundoo says:
The troops aren’t in proper formation (shoulder to shoulder) since CA focused on “dancing duels” instead of making a suitable game engine.
Once again you only get to command up to 20 units with a cap at about 250 men in each.
Most units seemed to be identical, with only the facing colours changing with each nation.
Shogun total war was a landmark in RTS gaming. I don’t think anything else even came close to that, except maybe the Myth series(actually that comparison is far from perfect. But both were 3d-ish, and you had to make do with what you had at the start of the game, no mass producing units). Rome total war added 3d in place of the sprites. What’s new with this? naval battles….yeah, woohoo. A realistic scale should have been the goal, and an AI which isn’t dumber than dirt.
p.s. yes the graphics do look good, but after 5 minutes of that you just end up zooming out anyway in order to play the game.
p.p.s. And while I’m ranting and raving, I might as well mention CA’s support towards moders. As in the fact that it’s non-existent. Lots of people put in a ton of effort and time in mods for RTW, producing stuff which outshone RTW, and made expansions like Barbarian invasion (or, *snicker* alexander) laughable in comparison. Europa Barbarorum, Fourth age and Napoleonic are but a few of those.
Oh well, there is always HW les grognards and the mysterious LGS game.
30/09/2008 at 03:19 Binho says:
About the giant flags: Since Rome: Total War it’s been really easy to disable them. In the same folder as the .exe there is a file called preferences (for medieval 2 it’s medieval2.preferences.CFG). It opens in notepad, and all you do is scroll down to the line that says:
show_banners = 1
And change the 1 to a 0, save file and voila! You can also remove that ridiculously large HUD that Rome introduced, and use the slick and less imposing Shogun and Medieval HUD (full_battle_HUD = 0). Even those silly green unit selection arrows/circles can be removed from within that file. It’s literally a 5 second operation.
In fact, the preference file has a ton of customization options, and I don’t understand why CA don’t let you do all of that from the in game options menu.
I look forward to Empire, but only when Mod’s come out to remove those ridiculous hollywood-swordfight animations, or “dancing duels” as Scundoo aptly put it. I am curious about the naval battles though. I hope they don’t mess them up.
30/09/2008 at 08:00 caesarbear says:
In CoH you can never see anything more than a few hundred yards away. TW games allow you to control troops on the other side of the battle field from your viewpoint. Why are you even comparing TW to CoH? They are completely different scale RTS games.
30/09/2008 at 15:44 jack says:
Empire: Total Peace! How come that doesn’t exist?
11/10/2008 at 12:32 bilal says:
osmanlı empire emperyalist america-england-franca-napolia-rusia( but petro) the return otoman empire
11/10/2008 at 12:35 bilal says:
ottoman empire(turkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk)
11/10/2008 at 12:38 black man says:
no engilısh-no france-no america-no rusia
11/10/2008 at 12:41 black man says:
no france emparyalistttttttttttt
12/10/2008 at 08:27 Suspicious says:
want. but after reading the reviews and comments about M2 im not entirely sure i want to buy it. been playing Rome forever and never felt a need to switch until i heard Empire might be a multi-threaded game that can utilize more than one core of your processor. if thats the case they have a lot of power to work with and i can believe it might be a good investment as eventually mods will come out to simulate any time period/ fantasy realm you can think of just like Rome has currently.
and just for the record i dont think:
“p.p.s. And while I’m ranting and raving, I might as well mention CA’s support towards moders. As in the fact that it’s non-existent. Lots of people put in a ton of effort and time in mods for RTW, producing stuff which outshone RTW, and made expansions like Barbarian invasion (or, *snicker* alexander) laughable in comparison. Europa Barbarorum, Fourth age and Napoleonic are but a few of those.”
…is entirely true.
as far as i know Fourth Age requires Barbarian Invasion.
12/10/2008 at 13:42 black man says:
dağılın lan osmanlı geliyor heyttttttttttttt
12/10/2008 at 13:45 black man says:
no france no franceeeeeeeeee napolyon = manys
14/10/2008 at 06:45 BoltingTurtle02 says:
I would equate the open formations they show as being a compromise for the sake of collision detection. In any event, shoulder to shoulder did not always mean that in a literal sense. Until the French developed a good system for deploying swiftly into column the emphasis was entirely on firepower, which necessistated that troops have some degree of freedom for movement. Any game developer would take this leeway to cut down on the processor burden that results from huge formations colliding with eachother.
The only way around this that I can think of would be totally scripted drill movements (actually not a bad idea) that would have to be individual for each nation that used a different system. It is far easier to use a dirivative of A* that will set spacing and force the system to use a limited number of turns to approximate drill movement, but most players would have no appetite for the loss in freedom of anything remotely resembling an implementation of an 18th century drill manual. I fear that most will already be frustrated by the game’s demand that you micromanage volleys.
I can’t say how pleased I am at the superficial historical accuracy displayed so far. The cannons fire solid shot, and The uniforms passingly resemble some actually used. This is a step up for Total War, which has not had decent authenticity at any point in it’s existence, and has usually been abysmal and more influenced by what people expect than what actually happened. The only exception would be Shogun, but I exempt that because there wasn’t much chance for detail with bitmap soldiers.
14/10/2008 at 21:26 Paravin says:
Damn, I can’t wait.
I just hope they include some more larger, unoticed revolutions. For instance, if the Russian faction has made Riga and the Baltics a great place ( high civilization, very advanced etc. ) and a revolution happens in one of the cities, the whole Baltics could divide from the Russians, and try to get their independance.
Apcourse, If I was the Russian faction, I’d surrender to them, and allow them to make me their vassal.
24/10/2008 at 06:13 Kevimaster says:
Sop talking about Company of Heroes. Sorry if he did a while ago but I have no time to finish reading. COH may have gotten by without the big flags (and it is my favorite game currently) but the total war games need things like that for the massive scale. You get two nations fighting together on low graphics (mine is high but my friends is not) with similar units and it can be very hard to distinquish without using the flashing green and red thing. Which is annoying. Oh, and there are no where near as many seiges in this one! The others were in medieval times, many more seiges then. Can not wait to get this game. On my “things to do… URGENT” list! PS I thought Medieval was and is (just reinstalled after watching trailer) very fun. The game can be hard at certain points.
27/10/2008 at 23:28 Xander77 says:
Better AI and diplomacy that is more than “give me a moment to kill some other guys before your sudden and inevitable betrayal” would make this a perfect game.
05/11/2008 at 21:13 Sandafluffoid says:
And I thought the fight animations in med II were cool. Seriously, I will lose every battle because I’ll be too busy staring at the infantry fights.
04/02/2009 at 22:33 rrcc says:
this looks like an awesome game and i hoe they have improved on MTW2 AI tacttics with cavalary of sending them round behind the main army to attack your flank,this got exteremely boring and repetetive
04/02/2009 at 22:40 rrcc says:
About the FMV:after the bit wer it said “actual gameplay footage” it was in game however i suspect the HUD was slightly edited to make for better viewing
02/04/2009 at 04:41 messi says:
how many turns are there in the empire total war game?