Empire: Total War is a simulation-based video game where you start as an empire or country and basically simulates your country’s progression over the course of time. In other words, this is basically a Civilization VI video game but except building your civilization and taking every part of running a civilization, this mostly focuses on the military aspect of one’s country. The countries you can select are the French, British, Spanish, Prussia, etc. I played as the French for my own gameplay and in class I played as the British for an experiment we did.
My group were originally going to do the Dutch but we mis clicked and got stuck with the French. Now my gameplay on my own was really bad and my own view of the game is that it is really hard to understand the controls sometimes. As I was playing there were many times where I spent five to ten minutes to figure out what I am supposed to do because I didn’t know if my game crashed, or I had to click on something to start simulating actions. I did not finish the game I believe I probably got only to 1715 I want to say as the French. Now I did not get into many battles, but I did get into one rather large one against the British and somehow demolished them.
During the beginning of the semester, we read an article that asked us the question is Civilization history. Now this is not about Civilization but I’m going to imply that question except for Empire: Total War. Now when people want this in a yes or no question, they will never get that answer directly. The two points we always ask when playing these video games are how historically accurate is the game and can you use these games as a teaching tool. Now is the game historically accurate the answer is that it is always mixed. The reason for Empire: Total War is that the game map and the concept of war is relatively accurate but, it was up to you to decide on what actions you should do in game. Now as a teaching tool this can be used only to show how some planning for battles work and consequences to your actions type of lessons but overall, it would probably have to be taught at a high school level because when students hit that age in high school they tend to see things differently and learn from that and I think it would be perfect for that age group.
In class, we decided to pick a country and to do a little experiment and declare war on the countries that they declared war on during the year 1702 and see what would happen. My group decided to do the British and the countries they were at war with were I believe Spain and France. Overall, the results of that experiment were a bit surprising because when we started the game, they were basically enemies, and the game starts in 1700. So, it was not really that damaging to the morale of the relationships in the game.
Even though I did not finish the game, I did learn many things that I will use in my life in the future. To compare many games, I have stated in previous blogs, I always say how strategy in these blogs is basically very important to the career path I want to go through. It is true though without having a strategy in sports management, you cannot succeed in your career. You cannot make money, win games, or basically anything without a strategy. Now for war it is very different because you are planning to obliterate your opponent and win for your country. In other words, your motive for war is to fight for your country while your motive in Sports Management is to win and make money.
Empire: Total War in my opinion is a decent game but it could have used some improvements. The overall concept of the game is good, but the controls could be better. If the controls of the game were easier to understand I would say that this game would be better than Civilization VI and because it was the map of the world that I know of unlike in Civilization VI where the map isn’t something I am familiar with.