AI

In strategy mode the enemy AI is weak, it’s not very good at making decisions and it seems just as confused as the player at times. You’re never really going to be attacked by naval armadas either, because again, as mentioned before it’s stupid when it comes to moving troops between theatres of war.

In tactical mode the AI fares much better apart from the DURRR pathfinding. It can get stuck a lot near buildings and gates. The good news is that apart from this, the AI does a good job. It can flank and rush you; it can leap fences and take shortcuts, climbing walls and so on. Ranged units are good, they’ll use cover, they’ll use higher ground and they’ll try to get an advantage. You’ll need to manage your troops too since they’ll get tired, perhaps even break their morale. Keep an eye on unit formation and facing, since they won’t adjust those for you.

Artillery is good, unless you’re in a keep or fort and then it’s bloody hard to set them up. Path finding problems and dumb firing solutions keep it from being the supportive option it should be.

The ship to ship AI fares a lot better and the ship battles are great fun, watching the mighty galleons collide in a volley of cannon fire never gets old for me. Keeping track of multiple ships could have been made easier by a better GUI but it’s not bad.

Graphics

Empire: Total War wins high on the graphics front; it’s a good looking game with a nice level of detail both on the strategic map, tactical land battles and the naval engagements. It has nice texturing, good lighting and looks great with the special effects and various elements like smoke from the rifle muzzles.

Animations

I love the level of animation in the game; it’s deep and cinematic quality. The combat is incredibly visceral and great fun to watch, zoom right in and see cavalry charge down a line of infantry or a cannon ball decimate a group of cavalry as they try to ride down your riflemen.

Sound

Excellent sounds, the cries of battle, the crack of a rifle and the thunder of hooves as you charge are all recreated to a good quality here. I have no complaints.

Music

A superb soundtrack, sticking with the quality we’d expect from the series. The music amps up when you’re in battle and goes low key when you’re doing other things. It’s good quality and great to listen to.

Dialogue and Voice

The voice work isn’t bad at all, the script is decent enough and that’s all I can say about it.

Multiplayer

Tactical battles are the only thing on offer and it’s pretty generic, I didn’t really dive into it because I expected a better amount of depth. Hopefully a facelift can be applied in a patch and a few new mp modes added. It’s fun, but that’s about it.

Something here...

So there you have it, it’s one of the better Total War game. It has new features and a new time period. It also has some annoying elements and some bugs; I had a couple of freezes and CTDs that annoyed me. A lack of a deeper mp mode put me off a little but the sp game is fun and there’s a lot of potential here.