Empire: Total War hands-on preview

The Campaign Map

The biggest change to the campaign map is the idea of towns within regions. As the population of a region grows, towns will appear around the main city, and these towns can be developed to create more resources or provide certain upgrades or troops. This is instead of these upgrades being built behind the walls of the capital, and adds a enjoyably nasty element to how you play Empire.

At a glance, you can now tell how prosperous a region is and what type of resources it governs. And then you can march an army in and destroy all that piece by piece.

There’s no more faffing around with merchants to control resources in Empire; armies are more than capable of burning the fields of outlying farms, of razing mines and other important structures. In this way, you can apply a stranglehold to a region and force an army from the protective walls of its city to meet you on the field. You do still need to capture this city to control the region though, and siege warfare is still a major part of Empire.


Raising armies is also a lot easier in Empire than in previous Total War games. Now you can queue the units for an army from a general, requesting the right balance or infantry, cavalry and artillery from a single screen. The units will be formed at the nearest cities and will muster automatically under that general - this is a massive improvement, eliminating the need to build and combine tens or hundreds of small armies as with the previous Total War games.

The last major upgrade that Empire has over its predecessors is its changing system of government. All factions will start off with an historically accurate system of government – either a Monarchy, a Constitutional Monarchy or a Republic – but what happens from there is up to you.


The main reason for governmental change comes via tax, and you can now tax your poor and your rich citizens separately. Hammer the poor for the cash to fund your wars and you could find yourself with a revolution on your hands. In this case you have the choice of siding with the uprising proletariat or leaving them to eat cheesecake and backing the royal guard.

The choice is yours though, so if you play as France and treat your peasants with dignity, the French Revolution will never happen. Equally, if you mismanage the fledgling American Republic, you could find yourself with a mob demanding a Monarchy. The point CA makes is that the system of government is fluid, it’s not like Civ where you just upgrade to Democracy.

Empire gives you pretty comprehensive control over how your empire is run, right down to when elections are called and which ministers you can hire and fire. However, you can have all those decisions auto-managed if you just want to concentrate on the war. The three theatres – North America, Europe and India – are treated as separate when it comes to government too. You have to appoint governors for your other two theatres, and can set local tax levels through them.


With four technology trees to research, CA claims it’s nigh-on impossible to max out all the branches in a single game, so again it’s your choice as to whether you want crack land troops but a weak navy, or you want to rule the seas. Finally, Empire has but two types of agent – the Gentleman and the Rake. Think of the former as an ambassador and the later and a spy-assassin that can follow armies around the world or challenge characters to duels.

As an incentive to pre-order or pre-load Empire: Total War, you’ll get a free copy of Rome: Total War and access to six exclusive elite units. All of which leaves one question – just where does The Creative Assembly go from here? Empire: Total War has the whole world as its setting, anything less will seem like a backwards step. That problem won’t arise for a while though, as Empire is due for release on 6th February 2009. We’re finding it hard to wait that long, so please give us some tips in the forums.