Phase 3: World Trader, until the Sudden but Inevitable Betrayal! 1750-1760 (continued)
The Ottomans were foolish in thier timing, because as soon as I redirected newly built armies to the south, victories came quickly and soon I’d conquered from Egypt to the border with the Marathas on the far east of the European map. But as usual, just as I think I’ll get a breather…
Phase 4: I’ve seen the elephant (1760-present)
We were in the final stages of wrapping up the Ottomans when I get a note from the Persians that the Marathas have declared war on them. The Persians, despite our religious and political differences, have been a long time ally and were a big help to us early in the game in securing my southern flank. Plus the Marathas were pretty much running wild in asia, and Persia was just the first target in Europe. Speaking of Europe, my other Allies the Poles have done a good job carving out the center of Europe (bye bye snooty Prussians) and holding the French at bay. England, Spain, and France have basically split the Americas into 3rds,
Back to the Middle-east. I support my Persian alliance and declare on the Marathas. This requires me to very quickly refit and turn my armies to face the east. The Marathas thrust at the Persians faster than I can react with my large army, but the persians blunt this first thrust. I send a small, inexperienced relief column consisting of 4 line infanty and Generals unit. This leads to one of the most exciting, tense battles for the Persian capital as my little unit supports a large, but bloodied Persian force against the second Marathas thrust. The Persians did not have a wall, and they had a very cav-heavy army, so I decided my force would be best to solidify the center of the city defense. We doubletimed forward to secure the city against the Marathas infantry as a huge cav vs cav battle raged outside the city. This is where I got a shock…the Maratha units fight nearly to the last man, and they fight smarter than the Ottomans. Slowly I fought my way thru the city, and with the help of some of the Persian infanty we turned the Maratha’s right flank and pocketed a big part of thier army in a kill sack. But wow! In a subsequent, and what i thought as inconsequential clash I got another shock…Maratha General on elephants. My kill-loss ratio has plummetted and this war might turn to one of attrition, and they have a big economic edge on me. i am able to take one Maratha region, and then have to stop and rebuild my losses. I decide I’d better also hit them in the pocketbook. This requires refitting/updating my navy (after the battles with France). I sail over to nice juicy Maratha trade route and sit on it. So far they have not sailed out to challenge me, so I’m building a second fleet to capture a few of thier trade ports. Maybe I’ll be able to starve them a little bit.
Quik update on my AAR. I know other people have complained about Empire and specifically about the AI, but its giving me a good game so far. From above, i was fighting the Maratha, who owned Asia. They were tough. At sea, they jumped me in one of the trade areas when I least expected it (I’d spit one big stack into 2 1/2 stacks) and sunk 1/2 my fleet. On land, it was an Asian land war with hugh masses of armies pummeling each other. This battle of attrition was bleeding my treasury bad, but once I’d gotten a fleet on the Maratha trade routes I started seeing progress. Trade route raiding is something I’d like to see done better. As it stands, a fleet can stop 100% of a trade route. Seems like there should be a leakage factor based on several variables, such as amount of room the traders could spread out into and the composition of the raiding fleet.
Regardless, I was seeming the Maratha weaken when I had first the English, and then the Spanish declare war on me. This resulted in some interesting scrambling, and in the course of a few turns I:
-got peace from the Maratha by giving them too much money and tech, but did not return the provinces I’d taken
-landed a sneak force and took London. Was able to reinforce the inital landing and hold the region, then negotiated peace with England (again giving them money and tech but not London). The sneak worked because the Brits had landed a big force in some of my provinces bordering the Black sea and taken 2, but I’d been able to keep them bottled up long enough for one of the big, experienced armies from Asia had gotten back in theater.
-Started to battle the Spanish.
So right now I’ve taken Portugal and Gibralter from the Spanish, and fought some really big battles as they tried to throw me back off the mainland.
Empire has an interesting, and perhaps unintentional mechanic where trade starts to diminish and decline as the minor powers are gobbled up; in fact most of the time, you’re far better off leaving a smaller minor as a vassal and protect them from invasion, because of their use as a market for your overseas goods. Iceland always seems to end up being Denmark.
I had a very similar Empire run as Russia that is also unfinished. I’d like to, if only i had the time, try Empire again with a victory point goal. Recent patches have adjusted/changed victory provinces so that many or most European powers are required to capture parts of India. In my Russian one, though, the Maratha have completely overwhelmed every Islamic nation from Morocco to furthest India, and are probably the strongest power now, though they seem to lack the navy they need to push into Europe. All of the Ottoman dominions north of Syria became Russian, including all of the Balkans. My game stalled out as i was fighting Sweden and France through Austria, with a big fat Polish ally still faithful to the long standing alliance but starting to waver.
I wanted to bring back this thread because I am still enjoying the game, specifically because of the Darthmod. For those who have not stayed close to Empire, the Darthmod is a collection of mods built into a single package. It improves just about every aspect of the game
-Improved AI (battle and campaign)
-Focus on realism (gameplay changes were researched)
-Much better battle graphics and sound
Some specific examples I’ve noticed
-Ship battles now much more influenced by wind direction and handling characteristics of the shipa
-Very realistic looking smoke when a unit fires. Smoke can obscure the batlefield at times.
-Accurate animations when units fire by rank.
-AI will try to aggressively flank you, and attacks in good order (not piece-meal)
the list goes on-and-on
Playing a excellent campaign as the US with the latest Darthmod version. The British declared war on me on turn 2. I was able to grab a territory from them, but thier fleet blasted mine away and they started to strangle me. I had to sue for peace and give them the territory back. A few years later I had built a nice economy and allied with the French, and a continental war got me engaged with Spain and the Brits. I had a decent navy, and fought off a couple of British fleets (barely) and a Britich amphib landing. I was going to try to make peace with Spain, but they tried to blockade Boston. I made peace with the British, broke the Spanish blockade, and made a risky invasion of Cuba which paid off.
The game is now what I always wished Empire to be. I recommend giving it a try if you haven’t.
Dang, I’m going to have to try that out! Haven’t touched Empire since a week or so after release, when I got too fed up with it to keep playing. Maybe this mod will help me feel like the purchase was worth it. Thanks for the heads-up.
Cool Jason. I love this era, so really digging the game. The difficulty is maybe 1 step up with mod, with the Naval battles specifically very tough on H/VH levels.
On land keep good order, and use combined arms. I tend to be very Infantry heavy, but my armies always contain some of everything. The AI will go for open flanks, and for the arty. Some people micro the arty, but I do not. I protect them, and will change to grapeshot as needed, but do not micro. I do aggressively look for places on the line to flank and gain firepower advantage.
At sea expect to really need to pay attention to wind. Its harder to micro each ship to an advantage like in vanilla, so you are back to using the historical lines of battle, crossing T, etc.
All of this is all historically correct, so thats cool. Let me know if you have questions
I see that this is a Humble deal for $5 so I’m wondering after 7 years does it finally have the kinks worked out and is safe to pick up? I’m guessing it needs to have a total conversion mod installed to really make it good. What’s the recommendation?
I think that maybe Napoleon is seen as having better multiplayer. But I like the idea of fighting in different theatres around the world and I think it would be cool to reenact some of the Indian Wars battles. Napoleonic battles don’t appeal to me as much.
I’d say it’s worth $5 to check out. I think the only decent total conversion mod for it was DarthMod.
My steam page says I have 30 hours on this! So I guess it wasn’t too bad. I just remember playing Sweden and taking an advanced army to the USA and getting slaughtered by hordes of native troops.
So I picked up Empire and installed the Darthmod. I have to say that fighting off Algonquin warriors with the Last of the Mohicans battle music playing in the background is just BADASS. On the other hand, the AI seems pretty poor despite Darthmod being installed and load times are pretty slow on my laptop. I think I’m probably better off just playing Shogun 2 which also works fine and I think might even load more quickly.
This thread has prompted me to reinstall the quite excellent Khartum & Zulu mod for Napoleon which recreates the Anglo-Sudanese war of 1885 and the attempted relief of ‘Chinese’ Gordon and the siege of Khartoum by the Mahdi. The mod actually includes some video from the Charlton Heston film and British units will also have audio from the old Zulu movie with Michael Caine. It’s really a well put together little mod.
It can be downloaded from here - note you should download the ‘manual’ install, the installer version does not include everything.
CA recently released “definitive” editions of Napoleon and Empire. I’m curious if this means they updated them to actually work correctly with modern systems (Empire had essentially stopped working with Windows 10 and i never spent the time to get it running).
