If you’ve seen war, or if you’re a student of it, perhaps this will merely strike you as a well edited sequence of cutscenes from Empire: Total War. Others might find it strangely gripping, especially because of the music.

Guess first-person combat in the 18th century didn’t include a firing-from-cover mechanism.

The Perfect War – Empire: Total War Machinima [YouTube]

Just because Creative Assembly are working on a new Total War game doesn’t mean they’ve given up on the last one—Empire—as a new expansion for the game is due next month.

It’s called “Warpath”, and is focused on North America, and the conflict between Native Americans and European powers. It includes an all-new campaign, five new factions (Iroquois, Huron, Plains, Pueblo and Cherokee) and some new tech as well.

In addition to the expansion, a patch for the game will be released later today, which not only fixes a few bugs but also adds two new historical battles, Rossbach and Fontenoy.

In one “collectible box set” (pictured) the Anthology includes the gold editions of Total Wars:
* Shogun
* Medieval
* Medieval II
* Rome
* Empire (Note: this one is the Special Forces edition, not the Gold edition)

As for that bonus content for Napoleon? SEGA says it “offers exclusive Napoleon: Total War collectable artifacts including a letter from Napoleon to his generals, a map of the battle of Waterloo and six character cards.” Napoleon: Total War is due out February 2010.

The best bit about all this? The price: $99.95.

The Total War Anthology goes on sale October 1, only in Australia and New Zealand.

There’s a wide variety of minor fixes being made to the game in late September, most of them to do with improving the enemy AI. Two in particular stand out as being key, namely one fixing your troop’s use of cannons while defending a fort, and the other improving AI when moving inside a fort and using ropes.

They’re the two main things that made viable siege warfare nearly unplayable in the original release of the game, so hopefully in a few weeks time we won’t ever have to complain about them again.

Empire: Total War Update 1.4 Gets Smart [Shacknews]

These units are, unlike the 14 visual tweaks contained in the update, brand new units. And they’re premium units too, the cream of the crop, introducing guys like Britain’s Horse Guards and the earliest iteration of the US Marine Corps.

As far as the update goes, I haven’t had the chance to test out the supposedly improved campaign turn times. Anyone?

For those interested, the 14 units making up the “Elite Units of the West” DLC are:

Hungarian Grenadiers (Austria) – Hungarian Grenadiers fought in the Austrian army of the 18th century and were deliberately selected for their physical size and stature. They had to have a good throwing arm, being able to propel a grenade far enough that it wouldn’t kill them! Single player campaign requirements: Military Governor’s Barracks in Hungary

Horse Guards (Britain) – The elite British horse guards are a heavy cavalry shock troop used by the British army. Used as a battering ram to brutally smash enemy infantry lines and drive holes in enemy ranks, these were prized troops of the British army. Single player campaign requirements: Army Staff College in London

Swiss Guards (France) – The Swiss Guards fought for the French nation and were the prized palace guard of Louis XVI. Wearing resplendent bright red uniforms and carrying smooth bore muskets they were a better calibre of heavy infantry than most of their opponents. Single player campaign requirements: Palais Bourbon in Paris

Blue Guards (United Provinces) – The Blue Guards are a strong infantry unit of the United Provinces, and have been personal bodyguards to kings since the 1600s. These are a high status regiment with a long tradition of fighting and winning key battles. Single player campaign requirements: Army Staff College in Amsterdam

Gardes du Corps (United Provinces) – The Gardes du Corps were the strongest, and often, the last line of defence for many monarchs in the United Provinces. Dressed in splendid uniforms and riding heavy horse these royal bodyguard soldiers specialised in almost unstoppable charges and benefit any army with a high morale and solid combat discipline. Single player campaign requirements: Army Staff College in Amsterdam

Guard Grenadiers (Poland-Lithuania) – The Polish Guard Grenadiers are a highly trained and well disciplined grenadier unit unique to the Polish army. These troops spent years being properly trained in the correct stances for priming and throwing explosives and were constantly assessed on their appearance and discipline as well as their technique. Single player campaign requirements: Army Staff College in Warsaw

2nd Hussars (Prussia) – These light cavalry units were specially drawn for their shorter stature and low weight making them quick and nimble on the battlefield. Ideal for hit and run attacks and ambushing enemy formations on the move, these fast and mobile hussars specialised in running down survivors and ambushing scout parties. Single player campaign requirements: Brandenburg Gate in Berlin

Bosniaks (Prussia) – Prussian Bosniaks are an irregular mounted soldier on light horse capable of a devastating charge. These riders are historically mercenary in nature hailing from the Balkans as their name suggests. They fight with a passion and zeal as they were often paid in plunder! Single player campaign requirements: Army Board in Prussian home regions

Frei-Korps (Prussia) – These irregular light infantry forces are a much needed counter-weight to the disciplined and organised ranks of the Prussian army. Professional scoundrels, they are particularly effective against soldiers that organised Prussian infantry find difficult to counter. Single player campaign requirements: Army Board or Military Governor’s Barracks in any province

Gardes à cheval (Russia) – An aristocratic heavy horse unit drawn from the nobility, exclusively to protect the Tsars. These rich notables were selected not for their soldiering ability but more for their relative attractiveness to Catherine the Great. Single player campaign requirements: Winter Palace in Moscow

Siemenovski Foot Guards (Russia) – These elite line infantry were far better equipped than their standard brothers and a touch more arrogant too. With splendid uniforms and far better trained they made excellent garrison soldiers, punishing popular decent harshly. Single player campaign requirements: Winter Palace in Moscow

Walloon Guards (Spain) – These superior infantry were drawn from a region of the Spanish Empire that produced excellent soldiers. Their distinctive uniforms and colours marked them out on the battlefield as the bodyguard of kings and queens, and as effective soldiers in their own right. Single player campaign requirements: Palacio Real de Madrid in Madrid

Legion of the United States (United States) – The United States first official organised army unit. A well drilled and trained unit of soldiers taught to fight in both the traditional European line of battle style, and a looser more irregular pattern better for confronting the native tribes of the Americas. Single player campaign requirements: Army Board or Military Governor’s Barracks in any province

US Marines (United States) – These are some of the toughest and bravest soldiers the United States can boast. Either on land or at sea this unit is a fighting force above all else. The marines’ greatest strength alongside their flexibility and speed in combat is their resolve. They will rarely if ever run from a fight once committed, often preferring to fight to the death than hand an inch of ground to the enemy. Single player campaign requirements: Naval College in any province

As we’ve covered, the “new” units are really just one new unit (Russian grenadiers) along with a range of individualised redesigns. As for the fixes, most important of those seems to be one that says “various optimisations have been made to AI and path systems to reduce the campaign map turn times”.

Let’s hope that really means “game actually lets you play past 1760 without the AI taking 20 minutes to take its turn”.

The full list of unit refreshes (sadly, none for my preferred British) and fixes/tweaks are below:

UNITS

Prussian Grenadiers

Wearing a distinctive brass fronted mitre cap, the Prussian Grenadiers are an explosive force to be reckoned with on the battlefield.

Spanish Guardias de infateria

These elite guard infantry are charged with protecting the monarch and are a potent force on the battlefield.

Swedish lifeguard horse

This cavalry regiment forms part of the monarchs’ household guard. Superbly drilled, they act as a shock force on the battlefield.

Holland Horse Guard

Armed with heavy cavalry sabres, these disciplined cavalrymen represent the elite of the army.

Prussian Garde Du Corp

The Prussian Garde Du Corp are a replacement for the Prussian standard Household cavalry. These heavy horse shock troops are best used to break enemy lines and overrun enemy positions. With a strong charge and fearsome attack, these riders make short work of those who would oppose a Prussian monarch.

Prussian Life guard

The Prussian life guards are equipped similarly to line infantrymen. However their uniforms are altogether more splendid, marking them out as a superior force, in arrogance if nothing else. They do a good job as garrison troops and are dedicated to the crown.

Russian Grenadiers

This new Russian unit is great for assaults and their grenades pack a mighty punch!

Spanish Guardias De Corp

The Spanish Guardias De Corp replace household cavalry for Spain. With almost unbreakable morale, on the charge they are almost unstoppable.

Spanish Grenadiers

These are a replacement for the standard Spanish Grenadiers with a distinctive bearskin hat to mark them out as exemplary on the battlefield.

Swedish ‘Lifeguards of foot’

These are a highly trained replacement for the standard Swedish guard. They are often used as a force in a system that defends a monarchy and can be relied upon for utter loyalty and deadly accuracy in the field. Their professionalism is reflected in their fearsome battle reputation.

Holland Guard

The Holland Guards from the United Provinces are superior line infantry units. Carrying smoothbore muskets, they were traditionally chosen to protect the royal family and have an incredibly high morale, often making them the last troops to break in a fight.

Scots

The Scots are a Highland ex-patriate infantry used by the United Provinces, renowned for their deadly charge.

Swiss Infantry

Very disciplined infantry of the United Provinces with quick reload and excellent marksmanship.

Mamelukes

Mamelukes are fearless light horsemen, deadly when deployed against a broken or unsupported enemy.

Additionally the Spanish nation has had a new uniform design to better reflect its historical look.

FIXES

Audio:

Sound loading has been made asynchronous, so heavy disc access is reduced to a minimum. This makes loading times faster and reduces any instances of ’stuttering’. Unit group sounds have also been improved, for more realistic group movement. The primary sound library (Miles DLL) has been updated to stop occasional clicking. And we’ve added more sound variation for unit deaths and musket fire.

Campaign:

- Several crash bug fixes in saves, movement, agents and logic.

- Various optimisations have been made to AI and path systems to reduce the campaign map turn times.

- When the pirates are destroyed and re-emerge they now maintain a status of at war with all and are unable to enter into diplomatic negotiations.

- Added small ships on domestic trade routes from the trade nodes to home regions moving in the correct direction, i.e. with the flow of trade.

- The AI should now no longer repeatedly sign a diplomatic agreement and then break it the next turn. Treaties are more valuable and adhered to.

- We’ve fixed some border trade agreements allowing greater numbers of bordering factions to properly trade with one another.

- Movement arrows now reflect the range of the selected units, not the whole army/navy.

- AI will no longer counter-offer and ask for more money than the player has available.

- Fixed commerce raiding taking money from blockaded trade routes.

- Fixed navies getting stuck when forced to retreat from ports (tactial retreat).

- Fixed rare inability to attack certain ports.

- Fixed middle mouse button camera drag stopping working occasionally.

- Made emergent factions be at war with the faction they emerged against if that faction is human.

- Fixed various movement extent crashes.

- Changed background income for minor factions.

- Fixed diplomatic relations with emergent factions.

- Tactical withdrawal will now always leave armies on the landmass containing the settlement of a region.

- Changed war score system to make the AI more likely to accept peace.

- Fixed crash when embarking and disembarking armies at ports.

- Fixed trade ships not being correctly registered in trade nodes after splitting forces.

- Fixed government change diplomatic effect.

- Improved commerce raiding display on trade screen.

- Faction specific text is now used in diplomacy.

- Prevent players cancelling the movement of fleeing agents.

Balance changes

Units

- Charge bonus generally increased across the board for all units and melee defence reduced.

- Greater diversification of stats between different unit types designed to emphasise differences and improve balance.

- Redone costs for all units for multiplayer to improve game balance which better reflects the actual battlefield worth of each unit.

- Mob formation added in for Native American, irregular and some skirmisher units.

- Spot distance for light infantry, skirmishers, irregulars, light cavalry and missile cavalry increased allowing them to spot hidden units at longer distances.

- Russian line infantry stats have been boosted to allow them to compete more with other faction’s line infantry.

- Movement speed of all unit types reduced by 10%.

- Ammo for light infantry increased to 20, line to 15.

Land battle morale

- Charge morale bonus reduced from 10 to 4.

- Recent casualties, extended casualties and total casualties morale penalties increased slightly for higher percentages.

- Rear and flank exposed morale penalties increased.

Fatigue

- Fatigue penalty for melee reduced from 18 per tick to 10.

- Running fatigue penalty for heavy and light cavalry reduced from -3/-2 to -2/-1.

Artillery Changes

- Calibration area for cannons and howitzers reduced. Accuracy of non-round shot shot types reduced to compensate.

- Muzzle velocity of round shot for cannons increased to make them fire lower and bounce more, accuracy also increased.

- Lethality of shrapnel pieces reduced to match canister shot, range also reduced to 350.

- Load time for special shot types for howitzers increased slightly, and range reduced to 350.

- Calibration area for mortars increased, accuracy of round shot increased to compensate. Reload time increased slightly.

- Accuracy of 18 lbr horse guard artillery restored to 65.

Hit points of gun trains increased to 50, all guns and caissons to 25.

Some of these units are lying in the game code but weren’t, for whatever reason, unlocked for the release of the game. Others, that are currently available to only some armies, will be made available for more armies. And to top it all off there will be eleven brand new units.

These new guys are being introduced in an attempt to break up the look of the game (those line infantry get boring after a while), as well as to bring a little more variety to playing the various factions.

Empire: Total War Expanding With Free Units [VE3D]

While this isn’t the first update the brilliant yet technically “eccentric” game has received, it’s certainly the biggest (with “over 70 bug fixes”) and most wide-ranging.

A number of crash glitches have been “solved”, along with audio, save game and assassination fixes. The AI has been improved in naval combat, and, best of all, the AI can now attempt naval invasions of your territory. Apparently Creative Assembly are finding this very hard to balance, so they won’t do it often, but they’ll do it occasionally, which is better than never doing it at all.

God willing, this update will be out in the “early part of next week”. Shame it doesn’t address the game’s two biggest problems – hanging on ports and an overall slowdown in the later decades of a grand campaign – but hopefully they’ll be addressed next time.

[Creative Assembly Forums]

Human history is the greatest story ever told. It’s also, courtesy of the attached social, political and religious significance, the most dangerous. So what happens when games try and tell it?

All kinds of things.

See, games do history a little differently. Other mediums, such as film, books and even comics, are re-telling a story. They add drama and embellish the facts to varying degree (see: Braveheart), yes, but in essence, they’re historical, as they’re re-counting actual events.

Games, though, are interactive. You’re not being told a story. You’re the one telling it, acting it out. Every man you kill, every city you conquer and every nation you destroy isn’t a case of retreading history. It’s rewriting it.

Which, in many ways, is exciting! It’s a blast seeing Babylon become an atomic power in Civilization, or to see Sweden become a global superpower in a game of Total War. But in many ways, it’s also a challenge for developers. How do they balance the need for some degree of historical accuracy with the need to create an entertaining video game?

Some don’t. There are developers – and these can often be found creating games in which action is the primary focus – who use historical events as a bullet point on the back of the box. The glut of Second World War games over the past decade are probably the best example, using the 20th century’s most brutal conflict as nothing more than window dressing for a fast-twitch action experience.

Which is disappointing. Like any other medium telling a historical tale, there is always a danger that the audience, presented with a product that is claiming to be “historical”, takes the action at face value, which can colour and distort their impressions of a particular period or sequence of events.

“There is potentially great hazard in attempting to reduce the nature of conflict to a simple matter of button-bashing” says Dr Cliff Williamson. Cliff is the senior lecturer in Modern British and American history at Bath Spa University, nestled in (and named after the key attraction of) the ancient Roman city.

Cliff is also, handily, a keen gamer.

“The most serious issue for me is the separation of the protagonists from the nature of the regime they represent”, he says. In reducing history’s protagonists to characters and factions, Nazis are reduced to targets, crusaders to a selectable faction. You don’t, for example, perform missions in Company of Heroes rounding up a town’s Jewish population. You just do the “fun” stuff.

But while some games do a poor job, there are many others that do not. And the ones that get it “right”, in Dr. Williamson’s opinion, may surprise you. Because while open-ended games like Civilization – which let you completely rewrite the history books – may seem the least historically responsible, in many ways, they can be not only incredibly historical, but educational as well.

How? It’s all in their structure. Their building blocks. Civilization, for example, may sound ridiculous by allowing you to convert Britain to Islam and build a fleet of Zulu fighter bombers, but scratch the surface and the game design that got you to that stage in the first place has been teaching you some very important lessons about history.

“I think that the games like Civilisation and Total War series are less of a problem to historians”, Dr. Williamson believes, “as they do offer an insight into the forces that shape history via technology trees and an appreciation of the subtleties of diplomacy”.

So while you may not be learning the true history of Britain’s religions over the millennia, you’re learning something potentially even more valuable: an understanding of the dynamics of history; of the forces that have shaped, and will continue to shape, human society.

While Dr. Williamson mentions Civilization and Total War, other similar games that instruct you in the “dynamics of change” are Pirates!, Colonization (yes, there’s a Sid Meier theme here), Paradox Interactive’s strategy titles (Hearts of Iron, Europa Universalis & Victoria) the Age of Empires series and Railroad Tycoon.

That’s a historian’s take on matters, then, but how do the developers of probably the year’s biggest “historical” game feel about portraying history in their games? And how do they reconcile the need for accuracy with the need to make a game fun?

“Whilst we pride ourselves on historical accuracy in our games, we only take it as far as it’s entertaining.” Says Kieran Brigden, from Total War developers The Creative Assembly. “We could, for instance, represent the coffee or spice trade more fully in Empire, but we chose to keep it included but not as a full market system. “

Why? “Because although it would have been more accurate, it wouldn’t have been as fun for the majority of players.”

This challenge of balancing history with fun when developing a historical game is hard enough. But then, developers making history games are often faced with an even tougher challenge: balancing their own take on history.

The field isn’t science. Outside of simple facts – there’s no disputing the Battle of Hastings took place in 1066, for example – much of history is subjective. How it’s told depends on who is telling it.

“History is always contentious, one man’s hero is another’s villain”, Brigden says. “Everything down to national flags can be disputed.” So include one nation in a game and you could insult another. Make one nation stronger than a rival and you’ll upset customers.

The Creative Assembly face this challenge the same way they do the accuracy vs fun debate: fun has to come first. “We try and treat these issues with respect, but always with an eye to entertainment as our ultimate goal”, says Brigden.

Which explains why, for example, Empire: Total War only depicts a handful of the 18th century states that made up what we now know as Germany, while Dr. Williamson says that, if it were accurate, there should have been around 300. Including all of them may have been more accurate, sure, but Empire: Total War just couldn’t handle that many “postage stamp principalities” clogging up the map.

So The Creative Assembly struck a balance. And that balance goes back to what Dr. Williamson says about the “dynamics of change”. Yes, the final game shipped about 296 Germanic states short of 300, but in playing the game you still get a sense that Germany as we now know it was, in the time period, fragmented and surrounded by hostile states.

So as far as this “balance” goes, in the end, we’re split. For every shoddy shooter set in the Second World War or Vietnam, which outside of uniforms and gun effects has done little to really deal with the people or events underpinning the game, there has been a game like Civilization, Colonization, Total War or Railroad Tycoon (a personal favourite of Dr. Williamson’s) able to show us how history actually works.

But as we move forward, and games grow not only more realistic-looking but are pitched at larger and more “accessible audiences”, the challenges facing developers in treating history with respect will only grow sterner. Something that, in a surprise for an industry that in many other ways is often labelled as juvenile, Dr. Williamson reckons it might just be able to handle.

“There is the pote
ntial for games to mess it up as badly as the film industry has at times, because for every Das Boot made there is a U-571 just around the corner”, he says. “The tension is always there”.

“But I feel that the gaming industry – with young, involved and devoted developers – is still very respectful to the need to be faithful to the past.”

Despite the fact that Empire: Total War still needs technical fixes (late-game slowdown is still a pain), the team at Creative Assembly feel now’s the time to start introducing some gameplay changes as well.

While more technical updates are on the way, CA are also working on a raft of tweaks and fixes to both single and multiplayer gameplay, including changes to unit prices, upkeep costs, AI tactics and, most important of all, the introduction of AI naval invasions. There goes my “Fortress Britain” fallback.

Also in line for alteration is unit balancing, a change to the game’s economy to prevent late-game stockpiling of huge amounts of cash and the ability to delete those save games that have been building up as your grand campaigns progress.

All that and more will be included in the game’s next patch, due soon, while future gameplay upgrades will address more unit balance issues, AI upgrades and “some nice free stuff”.

Empire: Total War Patch Update [VE3D]