My thoughts on Empire: Total War are still a bit jumbled. While I unjumble them (in readiness for a Wot I Think) I thought I’d share a short battle narrative with you. The following heavily illustrated After Action Report is a True and Accurate Account of the Bloody Battle of Bangalore,1714, the latest scrap from my current grand campaign. The glorious Maratha Confederacy (that’s me) has been distracted from its subjugation of the northern Mughals by an unprovoked attack by the cowardly Mysorians. A couple of territories were lost before I was able to assemble a scratch expeditionary force in Hyderabad and march out to meet the new foe. Just outside Bangalore my general-less rabble faced their first test…
On paper things don’t look too promising. Not only does the Mysorian force outnumber mine by around 500, it’s led by a man whose name would score 3784 in Scrabble. The only faintly encouraging thing about the line-up is Bandyopadhyay’s lack of cavalry. Apart from a few mounted archers, his army is completely devoid of hoofed components
The venue turns out to be short on woodland and hillocks and long on farmland and gentle slopes. Good cannon and cavalry country. I’m defending a hamlet located on rising ground on the western edge of the map. At its centre is a garrisonable pavilion. Using tactics honed in the foothills of the Himalayas, I deploy my musketmen in jagged lines, hoping the hovels in the village will help fragment any assault and funnel attackers into discrete killzones. My one cannon battery is positioned on the right flank atop a useful knoll. My one specialist melee unit – a squad of Hindu swordsmen – watches over them. Tucked away behind trees and buildings on the left flank is my secret weapon, three precious clusters of lancers.
Holy Brahmin Bull! There’s fouzands of ‘em! As the Mysorian hordes materialise in the hazy distance and begin advancing on our position, I can almost hear the gasps of disbelief and muttered prayers of my men. For the moment there is nothing they can do but watch, wait, and fill the gaps gouged in formations by the enemy’s cannonballs.
With the enemy line perhaps 500 metres from mine, my lancers move out. Trotting then galloping they charge down the left flank, and swing round behind the Mysorian line and run parallel to it. Concerned formations swivel to engage them. A few give chase. Chaos reigns. The attack is losing its shape. Splendid.
As the lancers continue to harry, never quite engaging, some undistracted sections of the Mysorian army reach the outskirts of the village and start exchanging musket volleys with the defenders. The battle proper has begun. Bodies crumple into the dry grass, smoke swirls and drifts. Thinned by vicious swarms of canister shot, the first enemy formation breaks and runs. Keep it up lads!
At the other end of the battlefield my weary cavalry, almost by accident, find themselves, a short distance from the Mysorian artillery positions. Lance tips are dipped and spurs are applied. The hapless gunners stand little chance.
Recovering somewhat from its earlier disarray, Bandyopadhyay’s forces have arrived in strength on my left. In an effort to reduce the growing pressure on the pavilion defences I rush three reserve units into a flanking position. The manoeuvre pays off. Several enemy formations are caught in vicious crossfire and fall back.
After silencing the guns, the lancers have trotted back up the left side looking for a chance to charge the knot of mounted archers that includes Bandyopadhyay himself. No opportunity presents itself so they make another spoiling ride across the front. Lines forming up for a second attack are once again thrown into confusion. An isolated band of bowmen on the right flank are swept into oblivion.
Two of my hastily committed reserve units are peasant militia – horny-handed farmhands with home-made matchlocks. The ferocity of the fighting around the pavilion is too much for one of them. My first rout of the battle. Hopefully the panic won’t spread.
Over on the right, for the first time, my canister-spitting cannons are seriously threatened. Two lines of enemy musketmen are a short dash away. I spot the danger in the nick of time and unleash my hitherto unused Hindu swordsmen. The turbaned maniacs charge down the slope, raised blades glinting in the sun. After a minute or two of stabbing and slashing they crumble the first line, and, as they seem to be enjoying themselves so much, I order them to charge the second.
Wherever you look now there are white Mysorian flags fluttering. Bandyopadhyay seems to be mustering what’s left of his force for a final assault on the pavilion. His own archers arc arrows onto the flat roof of the building. Bargirs fire back at them from behind sawtooth crenelations. Musketmen edge forward and are driven back by a hailstorm of lead. Perhaps sensing the last chance of victory has slipped away, the Mysorian leader charges his own horsey formation into the corpse-strewn pavilion yard. A musketball knocks him permanently from the saddle.
Related Stories:
“There are four notches on the battle difficulty slider and I’ve been playing on the third, so that would be ‘hard’ assuming the notches stand for easy/normal/hard/veryhard.”
Judging by the older games the difficulties will be more like “really easy/easy/easy/sweet jesus”
edit: @Wacky – After Action Report
Good idea with the RPS battles – how does it work, everyone writes his own AAR after a battle without seeing the other’s? That could make for some amusing reading.
Just received this email from Play.com: “Your order for Empire: Total War – Special Forces Edition (with Play.com Exclusive ‘USS Constitution’ Unlock Code) has been posted.”
Huzzah!
My PC couldn’t even change the resolution – I’d like this game, but I’ll upgrade the PC first. And that’ll be after I pay the council tax.
Entertaining article! Moar plz.
For sure, I adore your Bangalore Galore – An Empire: Total War AAR. More!
Finished DOW2 just in time. Can’t wait.
UncleLou: I suspect we’d have to work it out.
KG
Never played Total War series before and I’m afraid it looks like it is complicated enough to suck away all my time. Hmm
Are the procedurally constructed battle-speeches still in? They were great fun in Rome and Medieval II. Especially once you had a general with strange quirks affecting them:
“Remember, they may have the moon people on their side, but we have lovely hats! Those hats will shield us from their evil gaze!”
Addendum:
I’m not going to pick favourites among you RPS lot, but Tim should write more than once a week.
This was wonderful, short and sweet. Please write more of this sort of thing.
>”Are the procedurally constructed battle-speeches still in? They were great fun in Rome and Medieval II. Especially once you had a general with strange quirks affecting them:”<
CA guy said no when someone on the official forum asked him. Pity because, like you say, there were some classics.
Is it just me, or are the graphics very unimpressive???
Just you.
It’s just you. There are thousands of soldiers on-screen. Or over 1,000, anyway. And it all runs very smoothly on my system at least.
Yeah, I might hack this to add many thousands rather than just around 2000, assuming this doesn’t gimp my computer.
“Is it just me, or are the graphics very unimpressive???”
I’ve recently played Burnout: Paradise, and found the graphics rather unimpressive compared to the photo-realistic rendering of the inside of a small cardboard box I’ve seen.
I hadn’t been planning on getting this until this AAR.
More AAR’s from Tim!!! Awesome stuff, just awesome.
I’m thinking seriously of getting this game now and wasn’t before.
Really looking forward to this dropping on my doormat this week, but just one query, can you turn off the big-bloody-flags. They kind of ruin the realism for me; i don’t mind the glowing green selection thingys and all the other bumph but the flags just strike me as being intrusive and annoying.
Maybe it’s just the mood i’m in. Hoping that Empire will get me through giving up smoking is one of my more futile projects i am undertaking this year!
Fuck it, pre-ordered the bastard
The flags are easy to turn off. There’s a bit in the menu and it has three options: Always on, on when selected (or something) and always off.
yeah, they did a lot better at letting you tweak some aspects of the UI. You used to have to hunt through text files to change that stuff.
It’s stories like this that make me want to buy Empire. I just have to complete the Medieval II campaign first to justify the upgrade.
@ UncleLou
I’ve got 3gb of RAM on a still capable system (4600 x2, 1950xtx, blah blah). It could load 3 levels in Crysis in the time E:TW takes to get past the splash screen – literally.
I’ve read about the unpacking issue on the Steam forums, people have tried manually unpacking the files with no success. I’ve run the demo a few times now so it should all be done, but nothing has improved – I think the demo might just be shit. No reviews really mention this, so I’m thinking it’s a bug introduced creating the demo. That’s what I’m hoping it is at least…
I’m gonna wait until Real People get their copies, then we’ll see what’s happening.
There’s plenty of praise here all ready, but I’ll add mine anyway. This was a really fun read. It is nice to know that other people play strategy games like this.
Although I know that the computer AI is following a bunch of simple rules in combat and the world map, I still add in all kinds of motivation and story to what happens. In the end I often have a really satisfying epic history. I’ve enjoyed this so much in the past that I’ve written them out and made up maps.
I was quite relieved when I found out about AARs. It’s nice to know I’m not the only person who does this kind of thing.
MeestaNob: It seems the load time varied widely in the demo. Getting past the splash screen didn’t take long for me, but others complained of 4+ minute waits.
The load screen before a battle was more annoying for me, but still below 1 minute.
But if it varies that much, it could be sign of a bug that’s easily patchable. I’d be more worried if *everyone* reported the same insane load times.
And slightly on topic, I can’t be the only person hoping that Tom Chick will write an ETW game diary… :D
What’s more important, is that it once more underlines HOW WELL YOU BRITS WRITE!
All of you UK lads write far better then any american game-journalist – period! The guys of Eurogamer and RPS are just two (slightly interchangable) sources.
I’d really like to get a serious answer as to why this is? WHY do british game-journalists write better than americans?
I still demand to know why my units (in the demo) won’t fire even if they are within shooting range. Only my front line ever shoots, and even then only at a very slow pace.
I think you need to enable the “shoot your own guys in the back of the head” command.
Three possible reasons
1. Different focus- experiential versus descriptive articles
2. They’re better trained in history and the classical works of literature than us
3. They’re not, you just happen to read the really good ones.
In addition to myname’s question, I’d like to know how much of Your Sinclair’s fault that is.
2. They’re better trained in history and the classical works of literature than us
Bless your kind heart. I wish I were so optimistic about the UK.
2. They’re better trained in history and the classical works of literature than us
I was going to say something like this but felt it would be a bit bigheaded. I blame the people who employ the good journalists. How do we explain their good taste in people?
Most of what we read is comprised of Shakespeare, and then a lot of modern American literature. I don’t think we ever read Homer or any of the old OLD classics. Perhaps that was just my experience. Did you guys read the classics?
There are a few yanks who are excellent, but then not everyone will agree.
And most of my favourite Americans have actually left journalism. Heh, why do British games journalists write so well? Because no-one else wants them :P
Americans podcast better in general, the British are too apologetic.
Interestingly, I find the US PC Gamer podcast a bit too apologetic and dry, while the UK version is very entertaining.
My experience is that the education system hammers Shakespeare (as they bloody well should), but as for “the great books” that aren’t by The Poet himself, most X-Files fans know more just from watching the show than your average inhabitant of this Sceptered Isle. There is one difference I have noticed; most Brits are more likely to pick up the classics in later life. If Americans are going to read, they do it their whole life. Very seldom do they have a sudden urge to read the classics. For whatever reason, there is still more of an idea in the British mind that the classics are somthing that SHOULD be read.
Surely you jest. They could fire and then retreat to the back to reload, as many armies did. Or they could all fire in staggered ranks.
In any case, ALL of the enemies soldiers fire, but only the front row of mine. Strange, strange.
Werent firing drills one of the techs you need to research? Seems the demo guys only know the most basic one…
Get your boffins on that trick of fire, step back reload, step forward, fire thing!
I still demand to know why my units (in the demo) won’t fire even if they are within shooting range. Only my front line ever shoots, and even then only at a very slow pace.
I read in a review that you can research the “line-shuffling”, ie your first two lines shoot, then move behind to reload. I guess with units that can’t do that, you need to spread them wide for maximum effect.
I’m still iffy, mostly because the extra $20 they’re charging for a couple extra units on Steam.
I’m OK with special editions and all of that, but less comfortable when they include gameplay-altering content that really ought to be included in the core game. I mean, seeing the Ottomans without organ-gunners would just be like a day without organ-gunners.
Multi rank firing is a tech upgrade, yes its gameplay balance>realism and something I imagine will be modded out relatively quickly.
“I don’t think we ever read Homer or any of the old OLD classics. Perhaps that was just my experience. Did you guys read the classics?”
Well, that would explain the epic battles depicted in the review of The Longest Journey, or how the gods came down from Olympus to intervene in the feature on upgrading your graphics card.
Fantastic stuff but lets see a “Plan B” style diary for the joy of spotting the inevitable screw up days in advance.
I’m forcing myself not to buy this on release and instead wait for the second patch or gold edition.
The difference between Medieval 2 on release and Medieval 2 (v 1.2) was immense. Better balanced, better optimised, vastly improved ai and so on.
I think I’ll have to play through the four mini campaigns of Kingdoms before I get into this. I mean I want to, I don’t have to. There’s no ransoms or anything. I’m fairly certain my mum won’t die if I fail to convert Lithuania. Not 100% certain but fairly sure.
Better safe than sorry is what I’m saying here.
I have my copy here in my very hands.
And it won’t install, of course. Not even put the files on the hard drive, because Steam has its fingers in its ears and is going ‘la la la’.
Fantastic stuff but lets see a “Plan B” style diary for the joy of spotting the inevitable screw up days in advance.
I’m forcing myself not to buy this on release and instead wait for the second patch or gold edition.
I see where you’re coming from, but if everyone did that, it would never happen.
/follower of Kant ;-)
Gap Gen: “I’d like to know how much of Your Sinclair’s fault that is” The character of British game magazines has, I suspect, altered the approach of most British game writers. While the Americans, generally speaking, seem to have come from the tech side, British people were riffing off pop magazines. (YS was lifting directly from Smash Hits, for example).
While doesn’t make it better or worse, how the two developed in separate markets changes lots of fundamentals (in terms of what a writer is thinking when setting forth to right).
For me? In short, YS was permission to go mental.
KG
Assuming this is true, and not just a bias, my entirely speculative reasons would be:
1. A better, more competitive market for expensive, in depth magazines that can afford to spend lots on writers (by journalistic standards of course) – think Edge in particular, but there are a ton of mags covering PC gaming in the UK, and hardly any in the US (and the main surviving one is owned by a British publisher). This is largely a function of geography and media culture, which means that UK mags are much more dependent on sub revenue and much less on ads than US mags. Consequently editorial quality is more highly prized.
2. A distinct, non-console based British gaming culture going back to the Speccy/BBC Micro days, but now sadly disappearing. While the US had the NES and SNES, the UK had the C64 and the Amiga. This gives British writers a different perspective on games and the market. Even more tendentiously, the PC-centricity of the UK market until recently could mean that there were more games worth writing well about. This isn’t a diss on console games at all, it’s just that PC genres like RTSes lend themselves better to AARs than, say, Madden.
3. Point 1 means there is a lot of work available (again, by journalistic standards) for a relatively small community of freelance writers, who live and die by the quality (OK, and quantity) of their writing. There was a much closer connection between individual writers and the readers than in the US (in my experience, and only until podcasts came along and changed everything) , which again promoted quality writing. I remember chatting with the editor of ST Format on their BBS with my 2400 baud modem.
Set forth to right?
This is getting off topic so before the overlords condemn us I’d like to mention Games (TM) as the best of british games journalism. Focuses on the experiences whislt being surprisingly light on PR stuff. An obscure Japanese import will get the same respect as a fanboy fave and it’s detailed looks at old classics and interviewers with the last gen developers are really nicely done and dang well researched.
Fat Rab said it best
“Its marching down the street naked banging it’s ane plonker against it’s chest and shouting games, games, games games games!!!”