Empire: Total War - The learnings of a Digital Dictator

Feature from Starks - Friday, 16 October 2009 @ 10:17am

I’ve been playing an almost unhealthy amount of Empire: Total War over the last few months. Indeed, I woke up one morning and automatically walked to the computer and looked at it, before realising it was 5:30am in the morning and I was meant to be getting ready to get to work. Let’s just say it took a whole lot of effort to drag my eyes away and chow down some Weet-Bix that morning.

Anyway, I’ve found that there’s a quite a lot involved in the game. In particular, I’ve discovered that, given the penchant for developers to not include a manual thicker than two ply toilet paper, a lot of questions go unanswered by the gamer who isn’t quite familiar with the game yet. As such, I’ve decided that it’s my solemn duty to help people out with some tips on what to do when building your empire and how to make sure you’re bigger than Ben Hur come 1799.

There’s several key elements to the game, in my opinion, and I’ll address them all as specific subheadings.

Economy , Commerce and Trade

Commerce is a game of skill which everyone cannot play and few can play well.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

The initial growth of your region collection can sometimes be difficult to understand and organise. My first few games of Empire were, without a doubt, ones of frustration. I didn’t really understand how to generate additional trade, and I wasn’t sure why my regions weren’t growing properly. To put it bluntly, I felt like a n00b and was playing the game as one.

For a start, when learning how to manipulate and grow your economy, pick a nation that gives you a leg up. Sweden, for example, are a goldmine; Established economy, large regions with plenty of industry and the ability to expand into naval trade relatively easily. The only main issue is Finland, which has a lack of farms on it.

The basic premise of the economy for each region is usually based on the size of the region. The more area you have, the more towns, farms and mines that can spring up. When fully developed, Muscovy, for example, is a juggernaut ; lots of mines, a fair few farms, several towns and your main city.

No nation was ever ruined by trade

– Benjamin Franklin

My advice to this is to ensure you have the following:

• Ensure you have enough farms. The serfs minions citizens of your nation tend to get grumpy when they can’t feed themselves. Ensuring this is taken care of initially and upgraded as a priority should always be on of your major checks. Eventually, your farms become more productive and firm up as a stronger backbone to your region than you would suspect. Given they also form the grounds for more cities within a region, ensuring they are producing at their maximum means more moulah for you in the future.

• Fur trading, timber yards and mines are your primary industries that draw in the money. In particular, your mines draw in a huge amount of wealth, even at their early stages. Owning a region like Sweden, which is rich in resource, Muscovy, which is the largest land mass in Europe with the highest amount of resources, is a huge jolt to your economy from an input point of view. Given you can continue to research and improve the efficiency and output of these specific resources through a school, I heartily recommend setting one school to research that specific tree in its entirety as soon as possible to ensure you can maximize the profits your regions can make.

• Despite what the real world teaches us, war is not good business. The costs of army and naval upkeep progressively get steeper as your units get more advanced. The more audacious your plans, the more you have to pay to achieve them. I’m currently fighting a war on three fronts (Another point I’ll discuss later) and the cost is enormous. In army upkeep alone I’m spending about 11,000 gold a turn. 11k!! That’s fricken huge! And frankly, I just don’t have the men to win it, which means I need more units and then need to spend more money. When fighting your wars, make sure you understand the scope of what you’re doing, plan for it before hand (Especially since recruiting more and repopulating your ranks as your troops are killed are hidden upkeep costs not reflected in your Profit and Loss sheet) and hit them hard enough that you won’t get drawn in to a war of attrition. Like the Japanese discovered in WWII, you don’t want to get drawn into a protracted war as it leaves you exposed and allows your enemy to recover from his earlier losses and presents you as a weakened target to other nations who might see a region of yours as an opportunity. Calling a peace treaty if things goes pear shaped can often save you thousands and allow you to plan your attack differently.

Gonna make me some money Enron style...

War

Competition in armament, both land and naval, is not only a terrible burden upon the people, but I believe it to be one of the greatest menaces to the peace of the world.

– Frank B. Kellogg

The system of war in Empire is in many ways consistent with the previous titles. There are a few things you should be aware of though. The role of the Navy now plays a much broader and more complicated element in the game than previously. It’s bigger from the point of view that, fairly early on, you need to work out if you are going to move toward naval or land dominance. Given the implications to your trade routes, this is something you need to work out fairly quickly. We’ll take a look at our seafaring folk first.

Navy

Without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious.

– President George Washington

With the navy, the advent of the Indiamen means that trade has taken on a new importance. With the four specific theatres available to you – The Brazilian Strait, the Ivory Coast, the Strait of Madagascar and the East Indies – there are literally a good few thousand dollars worth of trade up for the taking if you have a major stake in occupying them. This in itself makes the prevalence of a strong navy a very important feature should you wish develop that theatre for yourself. Add to this the fact that nations without colonies in the New World need to cross the dangerous Atlantic in order to expand their nation to the America’s means controlling the seas is an important aspect of the game for some specific nations. In particular, the United Provinces, British Empire, France and Spain should be aiming to have a strong presence in the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Caribbean .

In terms of the battles themselves, it really is a case of attention to detail and understanding how the computer commands your ships. When deploying your naval force, look for where the wind is blowing. It’s such a simple thing yet people seem to overlook it so quickly. If you plot a course towards the enemy, the computer will send the ship in a direct straight line to the enemy despite the manner in which the winds are ablowin’.

Also, remember that the nuances to guiding a ship are very much different. The plethora of options for naval combat mean that a certain level of micromanagement is needed to ensure your victory on the seas. Paying close attention to your ships is a requirement in some cases, not a 'might get round to it'. This may seem stupid, but watching where your ships get hit and what is happening to them is an important element to this aspect of the game.

• If one of your vessels looks to be sailing sweetly, then suddenly slows down and starts to sink, yet has no major damage apparent, it’s probably because it suffered a low hull hit allowing it to take on water and begin to impersonate the Titanic.

• When you are looking to go Blackbeard on your enemies ass and ram the bow of your ship to board, check what you’re going to board. Tall ships, like First Rates, slamming into little Sloops, will end up seeing your crew jumping to their death. Why? Because the crew are programmed to jump from wherever they are – whether it is the mast, rigging or crow’s nest – onto the deck of the enemy ship. Believe it or not, the crew will die if they fall from too high a distance.

• When your pride-and-joy is on fire, anchor the ship immediately. This allows more crew to be diverted from the sailing of the ship to putting out the fire. Which means less crew die, the ship takes less damage and possibly prevents it from burning to a point where the Captain takes a swig of his whiskey flask and calls out ‘Abandon ship ye scurvy fleabags!’

Cue 'In the Navy' by the Village People

Army

The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on.

– Ulysses S. Grant

I still believe that, for the player of Empire, mastering the art of war with a land army is where the majority of your emphasis should be. As much as naval superiority and trade will make your life a lot easier, it all means nothing if you can’t defend your cities. Or, for that matter, take other peoples.

There are really three specific types of land forces; Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery. Your best focus is to stock up on your Infantry. Despite the charge bonus Cavalry get, ensuring you have a straight line of carbines decimating the enemies ranks, you’ll never really need Cavalry to be more than a turning tide.

When amassing your Infantry, I give you three warnings: Do not, under any circumstances, use Pikemen. I shouldn’t need to explain who the victor will be if you pit a man with a pointy stick against a man with a carbine in a duel at 30 paces. Secondly, don’t bother with militia at all. Thirdly, ensure you research the technology Fire by Rank technology as soon as you can possibly get it. The second point is a general warning. I’ve never had any real success with Militia, despite their supposed similar stats with Line Infantry. They lose morale too easily (Something you cannot ever afford on the battlefield), they seem to have taken aiming lessons from the Storm Troopers in the original three Star Wars and they do not benefit from the Fire by Rank technology.

The third point is a follow on and supports the second point. Fire by Rank is exactly what it says; The first rank takes fire, then dips down. The second fires, then dips down. The third fires, then the first gets back up and rinse repeat. Once you get this ability with your Line Infantry, the fear of Cavalry begins to recede quite a lot. Your Infantry take on a new dimension, and the game becomes about positioning your three lines in a manner to allow your troops to fire off all three volleys and then send in the Cavalry to mop up from the side. Since Militia do not benefit from this, persisting with them is really an unwise suggestion as you will end up fielding squads that will get chewed up in no time and end up routing, thereby dropping the morale for other squads around them.

Another point you should look at is making sure you understand the purpose of Dragoons. These really are just mobile Line Infantry. I have personally tried utilizing them on numerous occasions and I find that it’s fricken hard to get them into a position where they can be beneficial. The reality is their charge bonus is not significant enough to make them shock troops, so utilizing them in the same manner as other Cavalry is not a great idea. Mopping up the enemy is a good use, but the reality is they’re really a more mobile Infantry; If you can get them into a constructive position, they can utilize Fire by Rank and pepper the edges of an enemy, potentially turning the tide of battle.

Cavalry are probably a slightly misused unit within the game; they are not designed to be front on, charge in and kill everything units. They don’t have the armour or the lances like in TW:M2, and so their initial shock value is much different. Their purpose in Empire is to turn the tide of specific battles.

The reality is Cavalry should flank your Line Infantry, and from the onset look to neutralize Artillery. From there, they need to then get in behind the enemy and charge from the rear or flank, making the impact as great as possible and maximizing the morale-destroying charge into the enemy. Once the enemy begins to flee, pull them back, let your Line Infantry have one last shot at them to thin the ranks, then throw your Cavalry right back in – benefiting from the charge bonus again and ensuring your casualties are minimised.

Finally, your Artillery is something you will need to work on. Frankly, the beginning Artillery options you receive are frustrating and in points useless. Fixed Demi-Canons and Sakers limit their usage by their inability to move anywhere, and affect your siege tactics. Are they necessary evils? Yes. I would always carry two or three depending on the size of your army, and utilize them as morale breakers.

If you are up against significant sized armies with immovable Artillery themselves, place your units at the back of your deployment area and outside of the oppositions range and wait for the enemy to advance. Knock out as many of the incoming troops as you can and take on a reduced foe; The effect Artillery have on morale is decent enough that it is worth being patient for.

My major suggestion when you get the chance to research it, get Mortars. They’re more useful, in my opinion, against Infantry, and in the end stages this is where the majority of your problems will be faced; Rifleman who Fire by Rank. Thin out the enemy with a few mortar shots, and all of a sudden the battle begins to swing in your favour.

I told you to use gunpowder, not flour!

Patience and understanding

Firstly, I can’t stress enough the need to be patient in this game. You have 200 turns to achieve your goals – Utilise that! The game doesn’t care if you take that last region in 1728 or 1798 as long as you do it. It also doesn’t care if you take your time developing your economy; An integral element to you winning the game. So slow down, plan your game and make sure you give yourself realistic time frames to complete particular goals.

Secondly, understand not only the game but the factions within the game. Ottomans don’t like Russians, so allying yourself with them will work out better for you in the long run, even if it costs you up front with a few state gifts. The rewards of having the Russians fighting a war on two fronts means you will only ever have to deal with HALF the problems.

Thirdly, don’t bite off more than you can chew. I’m currently fighting a war on not two but three fronts – As the Swedes, I’m facing off against the Danes, the Polish-Lithuanians and the Russians. In case you’re wondering: BAD MISTAKE! It’s not going well and it’s because I’ve got to divert and dilute my resources by three. If I was just attacking Denmark, or Russia, I have no doubt that I’d have mopped them up by now. But, like countless other Generals in the past, I got greedy and thought ‘I can do it, it won’t be THAT hard!’

Guess what – IT IS! So don’t do it. It’s just not worth it.

Finally, enjoy yourself and play different factions. There’s a mod going around that allows you to play the minor factions like Venice and the Knights of St John. When you finish conquering the world as the British Empire, try doing it from the Knights of St John’s point of view; I can assure you that Malta is a pretty small land mass and if you can take over some of the Barbary Nations it’s a mean effort! What it will teach you, though, is that the tactics you employ on the battlefield and in the diplomacy channel are never a ‘one size fits all’. The more you think outside the square, the more you’ll benefit from it.

Great Britain? Indifferent? Bloody grumpy bum Poms...