My review of Empire: Total War has just gone live over at Eurogamer. I have to run to catch a train, so a quick link is all you’re getting for now. Expect RPS’ Wot I Think from Mr Stone early next week
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Eurokerthunked: Empire: Total War Review
Posted by Kieron Gillen on February 27th, 2009 at 9:10 am.
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Ok, i give upon using the tags. that was not a quote.
@Unlucky Irish – no, Scotland is not playable. It starts as English territory but will be prone to uprisings and may form its own country if it rebels successfully.
Modders will unlock most of the non-playable factions within 15 minutes of the game’s release, so people should relax about which faction is or isn’t playable. And then later modders will create better polished versions of the game with more varied and historically accurate faction choices.
Hmm interesting, thanks for replying. I’m really looking forward to the mods that will eventually spring up; particularly (with the addition of ship-to-ship action) a Viking or Dark Age themed total conversion.
Oh or steam-punk. Everyone loves steam-punk.
Pah, just because your country is less important than ours… :D
Always loved stomping over Sweden in the first 3 turns of a MTW game. ;)
@jalf: It’s not Okami’s comment alone, it’s the constant stream of comments like that whenever the 13C’s/US are brought up in relation to ETW. I could go to twcenter.org, make a thread called “I like that the U.S. is featured in the game” and probably get 2 pages in 30 minutes. I would say it’s not me being sensitive but this Angry Internet Men gang who cries out whenever they’re mentioned. This trend is 100% fact from my perspective, I’m not paranoid and I’m not imagining it. I’m also not assuming anything about the reasons for it, but it is true.
And I knew all that already. What I was wishing was for the 13C’s/US to be playable in the main Grand Campaign. They’re already there, which is why I can’t comprehend this venom every time I suggest it’d be cool for them to be a full featured GC faction.
“For some reason, Americans tend to be *extremely* sensitive, if not downright paranoid about their country. For some reason, it Must Not Be Joked About. If you want to know why your question gets the responses it does, look at how you react to them. With fear that your country is being insulted, with anger that your country is not being given the attention it deserves. You’re *convinced* that whatever response you got was an attack on your country.”
Sorry but this is one hell of a reach, my friend. I just want the deepest and richest strategic experience possible in a Total War game, this has nothing to do with percieved slights to the U.S. or prejudices. More full featured factions = Good. More strategic and tactical posibilites = Good. MORE CONTENT = GOOD.
NOW Is when I’m getting a little offended, BY YOU, for somehow believing you know everything I think and feel about this situation simply because I’m from the U.S. Talk about prejudice, my god! I just want a more full featured game, and you automatically assume that the only reason I want this change (and several other changes by the way, including playable New Spain with possible Mexico emergence) is because I’m some super patriotic American who’s got his panties in a bunch.
“It’s just that to the rest of us, the world doesn’t revolve around the USA. It’s no better, worse, more or less unique, than any other country in the world. The only way in which it stands out is in how seriously its inhabitants take it.”
So then you imply that I think the world DOES revolve around the U.S. and that I think it’s the greatest country on Earth and better than everyone else. Again, this is an extreme asumption based on a stereotype of Americans. Give me a fucking break, honestly. It wasn’t like that before but honestly your post is so full of presumptuous asumptions about my state of mind, based on bullshit stereotypes, that now I’m annoyed.
Scotland isn’t “English territory” it’s part of Great Britain. Also United Provinces (Holland) is a playable faction.
From what i understand the major factions (shown here: http://uk.pc.ign.com/dor/objects/958390/empire-total-war/images/empire-total-war-20090224035320557.html?page=mediaFull ) have advanced AI compared to the minor factions.
Scotland isn’t “English territory” it’s part of Great Britain.
Shrug. The effect is the same in game.
I’d love to see Canada featured in a game, well, ever.
In this case, the furor I see reminds me of the hilarity that was playing as ‘the US’ in a certain Civilization style strategy game. Remember when the US had spearmen, and horse archers? Good old history.
I repeat my belief that the English are extremely sensitive to any mention of the new centers of the world, or of people in those areas being concerned with their country’s effect in the media or the world. This seems to me to be a byproduct of England’s fall as a great power following World War Two. England used to be where it was at. If you couldn’t find it in London, you couldn’t find it. These days England is a pale husk of its former glory. We will probably suffer their fate some day.
Shrug. The effect is the same in game.
If the faction was called England it would be…
I have bought every single TW game up until now. Isn’t anyone else pissed that you have to pay $80 to get the full game and that the extra $30 only nets you 4 new troops?!?!
I don’t mind collector editions with cool maps and stuff but when you start going all microsoft vista on me I get pissed.
As for the defensive country crap its universal I hate to tell ya and its not like your going to hear from the ones who have a more empathetic view of nationality.
I do however rail against all the compos you English/Europeans get that us Americans are locked out of for some bizarre as of yet unexplained reason. I would bet dollars to donuts that Americans count for a large part of the revenue this site brings in and yet we are consitently left in the cold for all the giveaways.
@Horrorshow
Why would you want to play a gimped GB? At the end of he day the US was a bunch of dieseased immigrants who the British decided (wrongly it seems) werent worth bothering about so left them to there own devices to consentrate on India …
That’s enough nation-ranting, chaps. Delete-o-tron will ride again if this thread continues to be less than civil.
Buch has a point. The Continental Army was ragtag to the extreme; diseased; prone to mass desertions once enlistments expired; paid in worthless currency; stiffed by greedy businessmen who would rather profiteer than help the colonies. The Continental Congress was more of an enemy than a friend; George Washington spent years trying to cajole them into doing something meaningful for the cause. Independence was won by a comparatively small group of leaders and soldiers.
So in order to make the Continentals fun to play, they’re modeled as another shiny army with nice uniforms, even though officers would go into battle wearing nothing more than bedsheets, or the soldiers would march without shoes.
It’s probably better to include the Americans as part of a scripted quasi-tutorial campaign, given the historical circumstances of the Revolution. Playing a typical TW game with the campaign map and stuff would absolutely suck as an American. The Constitution wasn’t even ratified until 1789! The navy would consist of a few privateers and maybe some crazy badass John Paul Jones characters.
Anyway, the Revolution was about diplomacy, long retreats, and desperate maneuvers, something probably left to another game.
Sincerely,
A Yank
It’s not even that, Rich. If the campaign started in 1770 it might be feasible to include them as a playable faction but since it starts in 1700 they didn’t even possess the meagre credentials you give them.
Jeez, cheer up. You did say you were “seriously curious” about why you got the reactions you did. Don’t shoot the messenger when you get a reply. ;)
Let’s just get it out of the way to begin with: I don’t have a problem with you, your country, or the US being playable in ETW. I’m not trying to say that you Americans are all alike or anything else.
I don’t doubt that it’s true you get a lot of responses to that thread, but the conclusions you draw from them are your own subjective judgments. Once again, let me point out that other countries have been left out of this and previous TW games as well. And they too have ranted and complained, and got dozens of pages of responses about how “it doesn’t matter”. Try browsing the TW forums archives from when MTW2 came out. The threads complaining that Sweden wasn’t playable easily grew to tens of pages too. Other countries have been left out, and people have gotten a lot of varied responses when pointing that out too, so your situation is not as unique as you might believe.
It was my impression that they *are* playable there. Once you unlock them, that is. It would seem strange to bundle the preorder version with a USA-exclusive unit and then not make them playable in the campaign. Or is there something I’m missing? Do they have their own separate campaign, after the Road To Independence tutorial thing?
Once again, there *is* no venom. Just a bunch of people saying “eh, it’s no big deal”, “my favorite country is there, so I don’t care either way”, or “other countries got left out too”. Don’t assume the worst. The most venomous I’ve seen here was your comment that Okami should “drop the snarky attitude”.
No, you missed my point. I was talking about your reaction to Okami’s post, and other similar cases. It generally does not take much to make an American go in defensive mode, for whatever reason. Take it easy, don’t assume the worst. As I read Okami’s post, there was nothing hostile or offensive in it. Just a cheap attempt to lighten the mood a bit. But you assumed that it must mean that Okami and others like him were actively opposed to the US being playable. I don’t think that was the case. Why assume the worst? Why get upset over such a small essentially irrelevant comment? That was the point I was trying to make. Getting steamed up over innocent remarks to the effect of “eh, doesn’t matter, does it?” is only going to reinforce the prejudice that Americans can’t handle criticism, and think their country deserves a special place of honor, in TW and everywhere else. Even if that’s obviously not true in the general case. And if that stereotype exists, then that’s what you’ll be faced with when you ask about the US being playable.
Sorry if I offended. You did say you honestly wanted to know why these questions about getting the US included got you the responses it did. I tried to answer. To be clear, I’m not talking about you specifically, or calling Americans Bad People or anything like that. But when an American asks why the USA is not playable, that is what people on the forum in question see: Just another American. They don’t see you as a unique person, but an American wanting more love for America. I’m not generalizing about your motivations for wanting to play the US. I’m generalizing about the motivations others perceive when reading your post.
Again, sorry if it offended you, but try reading your own post and tell me you didn’t get defensive. ;)
But no, I made no such assumption. I’ve always had a preference for playing my own country as well.
And I agree, the more countries are playable, the better.
No, I imply that it’s an easy assumption to make when answering your question. ;)
I wasn’t out to get you, bash your country or insult Americans. Cheer up, and don’t take it all so personally. Then you might see that the answers you get to requesting the US being playable aren’t as evil and hostile as you’d thought. :)
@Buch: Why not play a gimped GB? A large part of the fun of the TW games is that you can take the smallest, most gimped and unremarkable country through to world domination. I can see the appeal in playing the US.
Once again, ease down on the paranoia. Have you any idea how many compos Europeans get locked out of too? The problem is usually different legislation in different countries making it ridiculously hard to allow people to enter a competition regardless of which country they’re from. Even within Europe, it’s relatively rare to see one that’s open to every country in the continent. A UK-only compo doesn’t do me much good.
Every country misses out on heaps of competitions organized in other countries. Unfortunately, it’s not an easy issue to solve. (For some reason, I doubt you’ll see much legislation being passed on the basis of “I want RPS compos to be available to people from every country”. :)
No one’s actively keeping your country out in the cold. But on UK-based websites, organizing competitions where Americans are eligible is a pain. Just like allowing European entrants in American competitions is rare too.
Now can we all please be happy?
My copy of ETW is currently being packaged, so yay \o/
That doesn’t have to be a problem, though. In a sense, the US existed back then. As in, there were a lot of people there, and while they were fairly reliant on the UK, they didn’t really feel part of it. ETW could easily portray them as a kind of “proto-USA” in the early years, and then have the necessary scripted events making it official when the time comes.
Consider how the MTW nations were treated. Denmark wasn’t really a country as such back when MTW started. But it’s there anyway because it had a role to play later on. Germany was a constant flux of states and empires, but MTW had to settle on one, even if it messes up the history a bit. There’s no reason why the US couldn’t be playable from the year 1700. It might be poor and fairly powerless, but so are a lot of the European countries in the early game. Perhaps the US would be more so, but on the other hand, it also has a more sheltered location.
I don’t see why it couldn’t work.
It could work, just as playing as the Americans in 3000 BC works in Civ IV :D If ETW was concerned with historical accuracy, the Continental Army wouldn’t look near as respectable. But I want fun, not pure history dammit! In any event, playing as the Americans could be a fun exercise in counterfactual history, but I don’t care either way.
Also: the Constitution was ratified in 1788; Washington’s first term as president began in 1789. The new edit function makes me sad.
Okay, this is just silly. There’s a far simpler explanation for most of the complaining that can be easily perceived as anti-americanism whenever america is prominently featured in a game: America or Americans feature in some form in the vast majority of games that Europeans play. Because most of them are made by or with input from Americans, and America is an enormous market that’s easier to cater to than Europe (simply because of the lack of language barrier issues).
It’s not because it’s America – it’s because it’s the same country as in many other games, and that can be kind of wearisome.
Anyway, it makes sense to have a modern power of some kind in north america, if only just because it’d make the game more interesting. Balls to the historical accuracy, frankly. Throw the Americans in, and the Aztecs. Hell, throw Pakistan in if it makes things more interesting.
Steampunk mods would definitely be welcome. Just imagine a Difference Engine mod, playing as the Manhattan Commune or some such.
@jalf
The tension you had to defuse by stating the obvious goes a long way in proving your point.
I wish we had the Doctor of War here to resolve this dispute.
For what it’s worth, I believe there was a turn-based WWII game in which you could play as any country on the map, neutrals included. You could play as the Republic of Ireland and CONQUER SPAIN.
Or something. I haven’t played the full version, but I imagine playing a minor country means you’re just a bloodthirsty sideshow to the main event. Stuff like Brazil taking over South America (Guyana’s no big deal because hey, the Germans are gonna take France any second) in an irrelevant brush war against Argentina.
@Spanish: Are you thinking of Hearts of Iron? That feature is what got me to try the demo, but my brain isn’t big enough to handle that game. One of my favorite things to do in 4X games is play as a minor or neutral power. Sometimes it’s more fun to watch than play as a hegemonic power!
No, it was some iteration of Making History.
I agree with you: it’s way more fun to crawl up the Southern Cone and seize Mexico (and–dare I say it–the United States?) with only your gumption and a shabby gang of conscripts than to try and win the Battle of Britain with state-of-the-art guns .
Note: Conquering the USA is pretty much impossible playing as a South American power, as the USA has hellishly advanced units that it has to keep making to keep up the good fight in Europe and the Pacific (I guess; as I said, I never played the full game). Meanwhile, Argentina has only gauchos and dreams of a higher GDP.
*Waits for Napoleon Expansion. And hopes for eventual non-European, non-USA-ican playable factions somewhere, out there.*
Though if I get tired of waiting and hoping I might just pick it up anyway.
Too bad they still didn’t fix the pathfinding in cities thing. Actually, (in the old games) it wasn’t really the pathfinding that was flawed but the annoying habit of soldiers to first walk to their spot in the formation (which might be covered by a building), before the group as a whole started moving. Nasty, when you are trying to retreat but your pikemen run TOWARDS the enemy archers. It’s like the individual soldiers had no AI, only the groups did.
Sinister: \pakistan’s only existed for about 60 years.
Now, I’d like to see a Pashtun faction…
Is the cited gameness of E:TW meant as honest enjoyment that makes you realize that “simulations are unnededly meticulous”, or is this accessible as in shallow at the expense of pure healthy depth of gameplay?
I don’t know what people actually mean with “this is a game not a simulation”… what are both?
Im all for accessibility and glamour… but not if it’s dumbed down, I still want complex gameplay.
Most of the reviewers sound overwhelmed when discussing the campaign map, so “dumbed down” probably doesn’t apply.
Devil’s advocate: it might be overwhelming but still dumb. On the other hand, the other Empire games have been really smart (AI notwithstanding) so probably not. Honestly, the Rome map was overwhelming for me, so this new one really isn’t my game.
Can someone tell me why the back rows of my army won’t shoot even if they’re within 20 yards of the enemy? It’s VERY frustrating.
Sinister: \pakistan’s only existed for about 60 years.
Now, I’d like to see a Pashtun faction…
Wow, it’s almost as if you’ve stumbled across the whole point of my post!
I’ve never played a Total War game, any suggestions on which one to give a go?
I believe you need to research the ability to have all rows of your musketeers fire in turn…
A-Scale……..Historical Accuracy!! Its a tech tree thang…..in real life the amount of smoke and the noise etc makes it v. difficult for rear ranks to fire literally over their comrades shoulders. You end up with lots of deaf soldiers. It took lots n lots of drilling…..and all went to pot in the heat of battle. The better drilled would usually win! Accuracy counted for little. 50yrds max..it was sheer volume and speed of firing that counted.
how can you unlock other countries like knights of st. john?