Empire: Total War -- Part 1

Hey Kids! This is the first in a fifteen thousand part series on the turn-based, real-time strategy game Empire: Total War (I knew you always wanted this! And it's here!! :) I've been playing Empire: Total War as the last of my addictive, 'vacation'-only games, with the purpose being to write a review. And one of the things I've noticed about the game, and I want to point out right now, is: I have no idea how any game critic managed to play this game and write a video review and write a written review, in only a week. Although I suppose they could play it constantly, minus food and sleep (and maybe poo poo and pee pee). And I suppose they could just play a short, 100-turn campaign (1700-1750). Unlike me, who's doing the 200-turn "long campaign" (1700-1799) on Hard Campaign and Medium Battle difficulty.

Now that I've established that I'm special, I should actually talk about what you're going to read. I'm going to review the game in parts. I just want to see what it's like to review a long game this way. And the last part will be a verdict.

Now that you understand what's going on, let's begin, with a description of what the game is:

Empire: Total War is a turn-based, risk-like strategy game with real-time battles, on land and at sea, that can involve thousands of men manning it out in beautiful 3D! It is set in the 18th century, and you can play a fifty or hundred-"year" campaign as any of the major players of the century, like Germany or Antartica (just kidding, Germany didn't exist back then). You essentially play as the god of the nation you lead, and you can end up fighting in the plains of Texas to the tundras of India.

Right now I am playing as the Ottomans in a "long campaign" (i.e. 200 turn, 100 year campaign). The winning conditions: to own 30 provinces, including eleven particular ones, before the 18th century. Loss of all provinces equals death.

The first thing I noticed upon starting was that I began with a lot more provinces than most. I had Baghdad to Egypt to Bulgaria, and what today is Turkey and Greece. And in the next few "years," (again, each turn you take by clicking the next-turn button equals half a year) and perhaps due to the skills I had developed in previous Total War titles, I managed to lose a third of my provinces. But just so you remember that I'm amazing, the Internet people told me that this would happen on anything harder than medium difficulty. One guy wrote something like, "Just give your provinces, that are too Christian, to the Austrians; this way you'll get a few more turns before they attack you." I didn't do this and the game made me feel like a loser. Later on, to prove to myself that I had learned this diplomacy thing, I gave a province, via the diplomacy menu, to the French! -- just to see what it was like -- so that they would like me more. Then they declared war on me. The Internet people say that, on hard campaign difficulty, the AI, for the most part, hates you and also builds stuff and trains troops faster, AKA cheats.

Another thing the Internet people said was that, upon beginning an Ottoman campaign, I had to fire my government. Not the entire government, of course (the game doesn't give you the ability to fire your entire government :(

No, fire the secretaries. So I went to see who my secretary of the treasury and whatnot were, and yep, their personal descriptions included things like "everyone hates him" and "sucks" and "Please! Fire me!" So I fired everyone! Except the sultan. You can't fire sultans for some reason. Anyways, the fired men disappeared forever, and they were replaced by younger, less corrupt men, half of whom I fired.

The Internet people also advised that Ottoman players should immediately inspect their army and realize that, until late in the game, the European troops are going to be better. So I inspected my army, and I noticed two things:

1) I didn't really have an army.

2) One of the few units looked like a bunch of peasants with pitchforks.

3) It turns out they were.

4) Their unit description said something very similar to: "Why?!"

5) The turn after I inspected my clown army, Austria invaded me (my empire, that is).