This is a press release put on the official Total War website. It announces, and advertises, the upcoming Empire Total War game. The Sega team hit it big with Shogun Total War, Rome Total War and Medieval Total War. They reached the stratosphere with Medieval II Total War and hope to replicate that success with Empire. For anyone who has ever loved the Age of Sail you can expect Empire to target you.

Below is the press release, complete with eye candy, for your pleasure.

Empire: Total War will be the greatest and most awe-inspiring Total War experience ever. This is a total revolution of the Total War series, featuring a brand new graphics engine and technology. The new, advanced graphics engine will include staggering real-time seascapes, new advanced landscape and flora systems, dynamic weather and new battle choreography and occupy-able and destructible battlefield buildings.

Empire: Total War will not only be the most visually stunning Total War game, it will also feature a huge array of new features and gameplay. These add rich new layers of grand strategy to the formula and yet, despite this, E: TW will be the most accessible Total War game in the series.

The game is set in the years 1700 to the early 1800’s, a turbulent age of gunpowder, revolution, discovery and Empire Building. This period has all the ingredients for a great Total War title: fascinating changes in warfare and its technology, a large number of competing factions hungry for power, and gloriously exciting and colourful battles. This is a time when an old world is being swept away at a tremendous rate by the juggernaut of the industrial age. Revolutionary ideas are in the air, and at least one monarch meets a bloody end!

Against a backdrop of key historical themes such as the French Revolution and the American War Of Independence, the player’s aim is to create the greatest Republic or Empire the world has known, spanning not just a continent but the world! Can you hold on to lands in the New World, or establish a rich trading empire in the Indies?
Empire: Total War contains a revolutionised Total War campaign spanning 3 continents and featuring new, enhanced systems for Trade, Diplomacy, Missions and Espionage. There will be an all-new fully animated campaign map with all buildings and upgrades visible. The campaign will also feature a huge cast of historical figures including Peter The Great, Malborough and Charles XII of Sweden. The game will include 10 playable factions including Britain, Prussia, France, Spain, America and the massive Ottoman Empire.

New Real-Time 3D Naval Warfare takes Total War’s unparalleled battle action to the high seas with players commanding single ships or vast fleets. These will be the most exciting and realistic sea battles ever seen in a PC game. They will feature a realistic sailing model, cannon and musket fire, boarding actions, fully destructible sails, rigging and hulls and a full range of weather effects to influence battles. These will play out on stunning, ultra-realistic seascapes, as cannons and muskets blaze away, cutting through the smoke and fog to splinter, pierce and shatter hulls, sails and masts, laying waste to crew members and sending them to Davy Jones’ Locker.
Empire: Total War’s revolutionised graphics engine will be put to work on land battles that will feature heavy artillery in the form of cannons, mortar and early rocket launchers, with bouncing cannonballs slicing through drifting gunsmoke to tear up lines of infantry. Bagpipes, drummers, flautists and trumpeters will fill the air with play out over the crack of musket fire, the boom of artillery and the thunderous charge of cavalry. Generals will bark out orders to their regiments as the player orchestrates the battle utilizing formations, unit abilities and drills. Weapons will jam and misfire, cannons will seize up and explode as the field of conflict becomes strewn with the bodies of wounded and dying men, lacerated and dismembered by pike, bayonet and shot.

Empire: Total War will be the most accessible Total War game ever. Enhanced auto management, revolutionized UI, improved advice system and tutorials all combine to introduce new players to the concepts of Total War, quickly and easily.

Empire: Total War will boast a full re-write of the AI with a wider range of strategies and tactics, providing a formidable opponent on land, sea and on the campaign map.

A brand new multiplayer component will include player rankings, leagues and ladders and completely new gameplay modes.