Grand Campaign (ETW)

The campaign in Empire: Total War has received a massive upgrade in size and scope with the biggest Total War campaign map yet, and a whole host of brand new features in government, alliances and revolutions. In addition to the main campaign, E:TW also features a secondary, introductory single player campaign called Road to Independence, which allows the player to play through the United States' War of Independence.

Overview

Empire: Total War covers an era of tumultuous social change and upheaval, and therefore major changes have been made in public works, trade, diplomacy, missions and espionage to reflect the time period accurately. Included in these changes is the heavily-anticipated revolution feature, leading to the separation of countries and the forming of new distinct ones. Akin to princesses, queens are represented (given that there's Queen Anne and Catherine the Great and Empress Marie-Therese, wouldn't it be remiss to not include queens?) as well as other new agents and characters. Empire: Total War also includes an all-new fully animated campaign map. In this campaign map, the player can liberate the United States from the clutches of the dastardly British, battle for world supremacy in classical Europe, trade and barter for exotic spices and herbs in India and the Dutch East Indies or scramble for every isolated oasis in the Middle East and North Africa. To reflect this wondrous era even further, E:TW lets the player decide on their form of government between these three ideologies: absolute monarchy, constitutional monarchy, and republic. Every form of government influences your relations with other countries, how the players deals with revolts and how speedy the player will be able to develop new groundbreaking technologies in a variety of ways. Slavery, which unfortunately plagued this era in history, does get representation in E:TW, however there are limits to the amount of involvement the player can commit towards it. Religion and the Pope maintain a presence, but a degraded one. With all these features, the player will be set to become a crafty statesman forever known as a founding father of their respective nation or a mighty and powerful general who lead their country to glory and true worldwide conquest.

Features

The Campaign Map

The Empire: Total War campaign map covers Europe, the Middle East, India, North America, and the Caribbean. There are also sea-only trade regions off the coasts of Brazil, Africa, and the East Indies (the Dutch

A screenshot of the campaign map, showing a major city, towns, farmland, a general and some agents

Spice Islands). Since the campaign map is stretched across the globe, the different locations are divided into theatres. In order to transverse from one theatre to another by naval means, Empire: Total War introduces 'transition zones'. The player must sail their ships or transports into one of these transition zones and sometime later the player's ship will arrive in the next theatre. Thamis, CA developer, stated "to sail from Europe to India, for example, you would sail to the Canary Islands, transition of the Ivory Coast, transition of the Straits of Madagascar, and then transition to India." In addition, the player may select another theatre as a destination point and their ship will happily oblige, but may get intercepted by pirates or other disruptions along the way.

Taxes

Rather than managing each region individually and specifically, like in Medieval 2: Total War and Rome: Total War, Empire: Total War introduces "governorships", which, according to Thamis, "are treated as one tax region". This governorship can consist of many regions and is managed by one governor alone. The player can let the government auto-manage taxes, or the player can take the economic role into their own hands and control the set tax amounts for the nobles, burghers and lower class, which is a new feature to the Total War series. In addition, when the populace is feeling rebellious, the player may cut taxes out completely for a given time to ease the tensions and increase happiness.

Army Movement

In Rome: Total War and Medieval 2: Total War, the campaign map was divided into army-sized tiles, meaning each tile could hold exactly one army. However, in Empire: Total War there will be absolutely no tile-system. The whole campaign will be freeform, the player can transverse anywhere on the map (to a certain extent) without being held up and without having your enemy enclose you next to lofty mountains and marshy rivers. "It's like taking the squares off the chessboard."

Technology Tree

In a new addition to the Total War series, Empire: Total War introduces a technology system that enables the player to research new innovative technologies while constructing and upgrading new buildings and advancements. The campaign will provide a host of technologies that the player can pursue and focus on, and each technology is equipped with beneficial and disadvantageous traits. For example, one technology may give your units a wider selection of special abilities on the battlefield; another technology might improve the type of ordnance your artillery carries; a third technology can enable new building infrastructure to facilitate the flow of your economy, and so on.