Empire also introduces naval battles for the first time. Watching your deckhands prep their ships for battle is awesome, but as the frigates and sloops move in for the kill they often engage in an awkward tango of shifting sails over which players have minimal control. Since every real-time battle is an opt-in affair, not even these battle deficiencies can take away from the fantastic Empire experience. This is one of the most sophisticated, entertaining, and historically accurate strategy games ever made.
Empire: Total War
Creative Assembly · Mar 3, 2009
About
Command the seas, control the land, forge a new nation, and conquer the globe. Empire: Total War takes the Total War series to the eighteenth century Age of Enlightenment — a time of political upheaval, military advancements, and radical thought, captured in stunning detail and at your complete control. Empire: Total War introduces a host of revolutionary new features, including true 3D naval combat. For the first time in the Total War series, intuitively command single ships or vast fleets upon seascapes rich with extraordinary water and weather effects that play a huge role in your eventual glorious success or ignominious defeat.
Trailers & screenshots
Scores by platform
8.5
Critic reviews
- The new features and time period are definitely welcome, but it's disappointing that Empire: Total War has so many minor glitches and oversights that mar an otherwise excellent experience. It's likely that these issues will be addressed in a patch, and The Creative Assemble has indicated as much. But for now, what we've got is a marvelous game with some significant stumbles and a stilted multiplayer mode.
- 9.0Empire is without doubt or reservation the best Total War yet and is a game of unmatched scope and ambition, with its uniquely compulsive blend of turn-based strategy and real-time tactics. It would have been easy for Creative Assembly to stick to the already successful template used in the Total War series so far, but in taking the risk in adding an extra dimension to the game and tackling a more modern era, Empire sets the new standard for strategic wargaming on the PC.
- 8.0In the end, Empire's only blemish is its unresponsive units and pathing. For a game whose greatest thrills result from the specific gambles you make with your troop movements, it's a shame you're sometimes punished when that movement seems out of your control. Even with its flaws, though, the newest Total War is so breathtaking and immersive that it's hard not to recommend to avid strategy fans.
- 8.5It's impossible to condense an experience as broad and as rich as Empire: Total War to a few thousand words. Its complex amalgam of turn-based empire building and real-time skirmishing is exciting and involving, and it's both fuller and more streamlined than its predecessors. But like those predecessors, it inspires that compulsion to accomplish just one last turn, even when your eyes are bleary and your body longs for sleep.
- 9.5Empire: Total War is a masterful combination of all the things that I love about strategy games -- a great setting, a first-rate presentation, tactics that reward maneuver, and a strategic layer that requires flexibility in your plans. The 18th century is a perfect setting for the game design, and the new naval battles, while a tad clunky, finally deliver the series' one missing component. The new strategic options are nicely balanced by increased convenience and legibility across the map.
Related games
Rate this game
Drag or use arrow keys to rate
to rate this game.