We return to Total War...
Creative Assembly did just that with Empire Total War, and it brought mixed results.
The biggest fuss around this game was the all-new sea battles system, that promised, for once, to actually make combat sea warfare both realistic and exciting. It did that... and it didn't. Confused at that last sentence? It can be used a lot in the game.
While wind and cannon mechanics work great, ship movements are "clunky" and confusing, and more often than not you'll find your 'groups' of ships locked in a single place, the result of a complex maneuver, while your enemy wilts away from you, turning faster and more efficiently, leaving you struggling for cohesion when they're already preparing for a second pass through your formation. My guess at what went wrong? Developers were reluctant to: a)portrait acurately how unmaneuverable these ships were; and b) leave too little control in the hands of the player. We're talking about massive wooden man-o-wars being moved by the force of the wind. It'd take almost two minutes for ships to pass by each other's side. Battles were basically 90% maneuvering, and 10% combat. And aboard each of those vessels was an experienced Captain, capable of handling the situations that arrived before his eyes. On ETW, everything is in your hands. You'll feel somewhat overwhelmed at how many different commands you're supposed to give just to get in range of enemy vessels.
The battles themselves, though, are beautiful to watch. Each ship is bustling with activity (though too little, in my opinion), and the chaos is fully despicted. The only problem is that if you've played a single sea battle, you've played them all. They're repetitive, and the most fun thing you can do, boarding a ship, is hardly ever done. Enough said that after over twenty hours of gameplay, I haven't been able to do it once. After a while, in sea-battles Auto-resolve will be the norm.
On land battles, though, the game really shines. It takes a while to research the technology that'll make you gleam with satisfaction at each battle, but seeing your line coordinately firing salvo after salvo of gunfire at helpless indians (both american and Indian), leading a cavalry charge right into the heart of a French line, climbing up walls in order to take over a fort... I hadn't felt as pleased with a game since I saw gauls bleed into the shields of my legions back in Rome Total War.
By simple interface changes, CA has made land battles more intuitive, and formations more decisive than in previous games. On Rome, if you had a deep enough square in your formation you'd probably carry the day. With gunpowder infantry, though, you need wide ranks, to unleash as many bullets as possible in a single strike. Closed up formations and encirclements will often be the most "pleasing" victories, as you decimate your enemies from afar (if they choose to be afar, as they've all got a tendency to run straight at your lines), and to achieve those you'll get a new set of buttons to try out on your battle pannel. For starters, at last we have a 'move forward' button, accompanied by a 'move back'. "Turn" button will do just that, adjusting your soldiers to a new line of fire, represented on the acual battle map - a welcome change to 'wait until the arrow is green'. With two buttons, you can either make your formation wider or deeper, very useful when you're fighting on urban or forest scenarios. With another, you'll group units together to act as a single force.
These features, combined, make the actual "fighting" the highlight of the game. The "battles" though, in terms of scenario and graphs, have been stripped bare. It should be enough to say that while the new 'cover' system works nice enough (though it's surprisingly hard to actually move your troops into cover) the scenarios on Rome Total War, a game, what?, six years old, are vastly superior to those of Empire. CA was right when they said that sieges were no longer the highlight of the game, since cities are now unordely groups of buildings that look both awful, and awfully similar. "Fighting in the streets"? Ha! I'd say: Find me a street... The only difference between Paris and colonial Boston is the number of buildings grouped together. I can understand the logistical difficulties of having a system based on building-cover, and hundreds, if not thousands, of hollow buildings within every siege scenario, but hey, what they sold us was definately no better. Every city looks the same. The only difference between the cities in India and America are the town halls. And the armies! You know the difference between Prussian troops and Russian troops? None. Sweden and Spanish? None. French and British? None. I know line infantries all wore colored coats (though militia troops did not all wear the same plaid clothes), but it'd be nice to see rank and insignia differences between German and Spanish horsemen. (So, get to work you modding fanatics!) Elite and unique troops are concentrated between the two powers of the time: England and France (France, actually, being a single province in the map, easily conquered by my Prussian armies); and the rest appear followers of the trends. Like Prussia and Austria didn't have concerns of their own (one another, actually). Like Spain and Portugal, main colonial powers a century earlier, now were nothing more than 'peaceful' traders and colonists, happy with leaving the other European nations in charge of battling out for control of Europe.
Damn... I've just spent close to half an hour typing this up, and still I give it a 9.0? Yes, actually. As I said on the review deck: This is a Total War game, and Total War games come with a certified 8.0 mark, with every grade above varying between games of the series. The trademark combat and addictive political games are still there. It's fun to weave up alliances with strategically smaller countries, to make sure that your enemies know that if they attack this smaller country they're attacking you. And if they do it anyway, go out there and take that little country for yourself, making peace immedieately after, while keeping your enemies at bay and at the same time providing your troops with a solid starting position for future campaigns. It's a blast the feel of worry once you see that Great Brittain has disputed your right to the throne after your first monarch die, and the desperate, exhilarating power struggle that follows can, for a fact, change the face of Europe.
Who cares about its major let-downs (including Steam downloads)?
It's grand-scale. It's Total War. It's just not fullly what everyone expected. But it's still addictive, and it's still certain to declare war on my social life for the following weeks.
Time to go back to Prussia...