Sega announces Empire: Total War

[MarcVenice]

I don't see a thread anywhere and I know some people love the series around here. Here's the press release from Sega.

The return of one of PC Gaming's all time great franchises challenges gamers to become General, Admiral and King in Empire: Total WarTM.

LONDON & SAN FRANCISCO (August 22nd, 2008) ? SEGA® Europe Ltd. and SEGA® of America, Inc. today announced Empire: Total War?, the revolutionary new instalment of The Creative Assembly?s wildly successful, multi award winning Total War? RTS franchise. Empire: Total War? will maintain the series genre leading 3D battles, grand turn based campaign map and rich historical flavour while for the first time introducing 3D naval combat into the series.

Empire: Total War? is set in the 18th century, a turbulent era that is the most requested by Total War?s? loyal fan base and a period alive with global conflict, revolutionary fervour and technological advances. With themes such as the Industrial Revolution, America?s struggle for independence, the race to control Eastern trade routes and the globalisation of war on land and sea, Empire: Total War? promises to be amongst the richest and most dynamic PC RTS games of all time.

Empire: Total War? will see the debut of 3D naval combat within the Total War? franchise. PC Gamers will be able to intuitively command vast fleets or single ships upon seascapes rich with extraordinary water and weather effects that play a huge role in your eventual glorious success or ignominious defeat. After pummelling your enemy with cannon fire, close in to grapple their ship and prepare to board taking control your men as they fight hand to hand on the decks.

Along with the revolutionary introduction of Naval Combat, Empire: Total War? will see further enhancements to the Total War? series signature 3D battles and turn based campaign map. Real time battles will pose new challenges with the addition of cannon and musket, challenging players to master new formations and tactics as a result of the increasing role of gunpowder within warfare. And the Campaign Map ? for many the heart of Total War? ? will see new improved systems for Trade, Diplomacy and Espionage with agents, a refined and streamlined UI, improved Advisors and extended scope taking in the riches of India, the turbulence of Europe and the untapped potential of North America.

?Empire: Total War? is a huge revolutionary step for the series. We?re delighted to introduce true 3D naval combat, something that adds a totally new dimension to Total War? games.? commented Mike Simpson, Studio Director at The Creative Assembly and the father of the Total War? franchise. ?We?re genuinely excited about what we?re achieving with the naval battles and also by the scale of the improvements being made to the core of the game ? the land battles and the campaign. This will undoubtedly be the biggest and best Total War? game we?ve ever made.?

Empire: Total War? has already been secretly in development at The Creative Assembly?s Horsham studio for over a year and is priming its forces for a release in 2008. For more information please visit www.totalwar.com or www.sega-europe.com. For assets and press registration please visit www.sega-press.com

Discuss

 

[MarcVenice]

Two screenshots were released, well, 3 were released, but 2 of them are identical. http://www.pcgamespecial.nl/cg...Total%20War&img=0&tn=0

Navey battles sound good, so do improved trading, diplomatic and espionage systems, which are/were rather simplistic right now. The first thing that came to mind, even before this was announced, is how the battles will be fought now. We've all seen the movies were 2 armies line up, and start shooting each other, and presumably the army that runs out of men, bullets, or guts first, loses. I know there was some strategy to it, but never thought of it on the same level as earlier warfare. It was to much constricted by morals and ethics or whatever. So I wonder how they are going to work this out in Empire: Total War. I kind of hope you get to train troops in a less simplistic way then gaining experience which was very hard to do in the previous games. The same for adding/armor or extra weapon damage.

Also curious to see how the map is going to look and what kind of factions are going to be playable, and wether the campaign starts in 1700 or later on. To bad it's like 50 years after the Golden Century in Holland, woulda been sweet to play with the Dutch as a supernation. They should still have considerable influence though.

 

[Skacer]

3D naval battle

 

[Inspector Jihad]

hawt!

 

[imported_Imp]

Boo ya! Just saw the announcement now, and am very very happy. This was exactly what I wanted after being teased by first-generation powder infantry and cannons in Medieval 2. And naval combat... check and mate.

 

[Genx87]

I have Rome and liked it. I didnt pick up the last one and will probably skip this one. Hopefully they will eventually get to a WWII era version.

 

[imported_Imp]

Originally posted by: Genx87
I have Rome and liked it. I didnt pick up the last one and will probably skip this one. Hopefully they will eventually get to a WWII era version.

I don't think that's possible. It may go as far as WWI, but that's even stretching it. WWII is too focused o individual units and small teams. There are practically no "large" formations used except by "cav" and infantry while marching (no action).

And now that I've settled down from the excitement...

Definately curious about how things will work. Hopefully they'll make it so that you can build railways in addition to roads so you can transport troops even quicker. The map is going to be Hueg with the Americas and India in scope.

Since artillery will play a big role (it better), I hope they go with more than 2 guns per unit this time around. Infantry formations will probably be pretty new and restrictive; can't do much with rows beyong 3 men deep. Oh, and they better fix the muskets so they can't fire lasers from 200m out like in Medieval 2. Oh well, can't wait.

 

[Regs]

Cool. Total War was the only recent game I could play for more than 1 week without getting bored.

 

[TehMac]

OMG OMG!

 

[Bateluer]

Cool, naval battles.

Wish though would remake Rome after Empire though and incorporate everything they've done since and add features. I like the ancient time period so much more than the post gunpowder eras.

 

[lupi]

Rather interesting, but wondering about size of the map. If it's gonna be just about the entire world, you will need to have a lot of units under your control to administer that much territory.

 

[CPA]

Originally posted by: lupi
Rather interesting, but wondering about size of the map. If it's gonna be just about the entire world, you will need to have a lot of units under your control to administer that much territory.

That and you're going to have to do a lot of ferrying troops to the Americas or Europe. Usually, games that require transporting troops kill the enjoyment of it because they limit too much how many troops can board.

But, all in all, I'm excited about this news.

 

[jandrews]

I hope the AI gets a boost and if so that would be great

 

[CubicZirconia]

That and you're going to have to do a lot of ferrying troops to the Americas or Europe. Usually, games that require transporting troops kill the enjoyment of it because they limit too much how many troops can board.

There was already troop transporting in the other games, wasn't there? I don't remember it being a problem.

 

[TehMac]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
Cool, naval battles.

Wish though would remake Rome after Empire though and incorporate everything they've done since and add features. I like the ancient time period so much more than the post gunpowder eras.

Yeah def, they need a Rome 2, and a Medieval 3--and they also need China: Total War, set in the warring states period!

 

[MarcVenice]

Remake of shogun: total war would be cool too. They've really got 1 hell of a franchise going here, and I'm sure they'll milk it to their hearts content, and hopefully milk it right and give us good games

 

[ayabe]

Looks awesome, definitely going to pick this up.

 

[SPARTAN VI]

Originally posted by: Imp

Originally posted by: Genx87
I have Rome and liked it. I didnt pick up the last one and will probably skip this one. Hopefully they will eventually get to a WWII era version.

I don't think that's possible. It may go as far as WWI, but that's even stretching it. WWII is too focused o individual units and small teams. There are practically no "large" formations used except by "cav" and infantry while marching (no action).

And now that I've settled down from the excitement...

Definately curious about how things will work. Hopefully they'll make it so that you can build railways in addition to roads so you can transport troops even quicker. The map is going to be Hueg with the Americas and India in scope.

Since artillery will play a big role (it better), I hope they go with more than 2 guns per unit this time around. Infantry formations will probably be pretty new and restrictive; can't do much with rows beyong 3 men deep. Oh, and they better fix the muskets so they can't fire lasers from 200m out like in Medieval 2. Oh well, can't wait.

As far as artillery goes, this is easily modified in both R:TW and M2:TW (perhaps even earlier TW games as well, but I've only played these last two). I don't remember the file name, but it's like "descrunit_export.txt" or "export_descrunit.txt" something along those lines.

I modified my R:TW game to have 4 artillery batteries per unit. Anything less is almost useless in battle except for taking out a wooden palisade (scorpions and ballista at least).

 

[GundamSonicZeroX]

I don't why, but it's weird to see Sega's logo on a PC game, let alone an RTS game.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: Imp
Oh, and they better fix the muskets so they can't fire lasers from 200m out like in Medieval 2. Oh well, can't wait.

You do know that longbows can fire an arrow more than 200 meters, right?

Text

"The range of the medieval weapon is unknown, with estimates from 165 to 228 m (180 to 249 yds). Modern longbows have a useful range up to 180 m (200 yd). A 667N(150 lbf) Mary Rose replica longbow was able to shoot a 53.6 g (1.9 oz) arrow 328.0 m (360 yd) and a 95.9 g (3.3 oz) a distance of 249.9 m (272 yd)"

Granted, there isn't much accuracy at those longer rangers, but if you have a thousand archers firing 10 arrows a minute, who cares about accuracy?

 

[lupi]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: Imp
Oh, and they better fix the muskets so they can't fire lasers from 200m out like in Medieval 2. Oh well, can't wait.

You do know that longbows can fire an arrow more than 200 meters, right?

Text

"The range of the medieval weapon is unknown, with estimates from 165 to 228 m (180 to 249 yds). Modern longbows have a useful range up to 180 m (200 yd). A 667N(150 lbf) Mary Rose replica longbow was able to shoot a 53.6 g (1.9 oz) arrow 328.0 m (360 yd) and a 95.9 g (3.3 oz) a distance of 249.9 m (272 yd)"

Granted, there isn't much accuracy at those longer rangers, but if you have a thousand archers firing 10 arrows a minute, who cares about accuracy?

He's talking about the muskets, which I believe where all still smoothbores at that time. Anything outside of 50 yards, much less over 100, and you'd really need to be a sharpshooter to have any successful hit rate.

 

[tuteja1986]

I hope 3rd combat gets a better user interface because i want my army to movie in a scripted way that i choice : )

So the enemy army force is totally screwed:! i don't want to deal with a regiment going too left or right that they end up breaking the line and giving the enemy army a chance to break through the line so they can surround you ;(

 

[TehMac]

I don't know to be really excited, because the campaign sort of eases the player into the game instead of letting him take off on his own.

I really want to see more footage of the land battles in action, I was never to hot on this whole naval combat thing, noobs wanted it, why? No idea.

Gunpowder...where's the fun in that? I don't know, the graphics and presentation better be GRIPPING for me to think of this game. I mean wtf, there are so many other possibilities where naval combat could be included--why this period?

It just sounds plain boring, tbh. --__--

 

[imported_Imp]

Originally posted by: lupi

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: Imp
Oh, and they better fix the muskets so they can't fire lasers from 200m out like in Medieval 2. Oh well, can't wait.

You do know that longbows can fire an arrow more than 200 meters, right?

Text

"The range of the medieval weapon is unknown, with estimates from 165 to 228 m (180 to 249 yds). Modern longbows have a useful range up to 180 m (200 yd). A 667N(150 lbf) Mary Rose replica longbow was able to shoot a 53.6 g (1.9 oz) arrow 328.0 m (360 yd) and a 95.9 g (3.3 oz) a distance of 249.9 m (272 yd)"

Granted, there isn't much accuracy at those longer rangers, but if you have a thousand archers firing 10 arrows a minute, who cares about accuracy?

He's talking about the muskets, which I believe where all still smoothbores at that time. Anything outside of 50 yards, much less over 100, and you'd really need to be a sharpshooter to have any successful hit rate.

Thanks. Yes, I'm talking about muskets; don't know where you read longbow. I know they had some rifles that were actually accurate to a couple hundred yards (e.g. baker) around the 8th/19th century, but the arquebes (sp?) sure wasn't one of them. Try them out in Medieval 2, the balls go in straight lines to their extreme range ~200/300m.

 

[TehMac]

I'm still not impressed, it seems a lot of empire building might be involved, but the ship's scale is lackluster, and I mean, will this game support DX10? Games for Windows logo? What sort of technical sh1t can we expect from this game? So far, I've just seen naval combat shots, which I don't care about, and nothing involving the campaign map--how about something else besides adding a new 3D feature?

I like the idea of creating an "Empire or Republic" but it doesn't seem to be all that really innovative.

"The game will include 10 playable factions including Britain, Prussia, France, Spain, America and the massive Ottoman Empire. "

That's it? 10?
10 factions...and chances are, they won't be unique, or as unique as they should be.