A Worthy successor in the total war series, although the TW gameplay formula is really getting old.
Empire Total War is a worthy sequel to Shogun, Medieval, Rome, and Medieval 2, but it breaks relatively little new ground in comparison to a game like Rome. That being said, it is incredibly fun to play, addictive, immersive, and atmospheric.
Empire uses the traditional total war formula of an abstracted turn-based campaign map combined with real time battles on a tactical level. It has updated some features of the game from previous iterations of the series, through rakes, gentlemen, and real time diplomacy. One of my biggest complaints about previous titles was having to send a diplomat to negotiate with foreign powers in a turn based fashion and the diverse and sometimes confusing array of non-combatant characters on your campaign map. Empire Removes this, making diplomacy real time and making rakes the subterfuge, sabotage and assassination unit and gentlemen for dueling, research, and stealing technology. There are of course, still missionaries, and religion is still an integral part of the series.
In many ways, Empire's core gameplay is the best that the total war formula can be. The deepest, the most streamlined, and the most sensible. However, the gameplay is still based off of the total war formula, which is really beginning to show it's age.
Despite numerous patches to the AI and improvements, it is still infuriatingly unreasonable at the bargaining table, and most foreign powers feel like they've been designed to offer as much resistance as possible instead of behaving in a relatively reasonable or realistic manner. Forget about using territory at the bargaining table with the AI; even if you're conquered over half their nation they still wont be willing to make peace unless you give it all back accompanied by astronomical sums of money. Even powers who are on a balanced level of power with you will demand money before engaging in simple trade, a mutually beneficial arrangement.
While this series has never been about realism and historical accuracy, the series has always been set in key periods in history, and the behavior of the AI needs to reflect that.
Overall, I will praise the improved menus and easier diplomacy, along with the town system and the tech tree, all of which bring a great deal to the total war gameplay formula. I have no complaints about the unit variety or tactical function in battle, which is usually a strong suit for total war games, and the battles themselves play quite well, with less annoying missile cavalry to deal with to boot! ( I hate going eastward in previous games for this reason). I can say that the number of historical battles is laughable, but who plays those anyway? Also, the number of maps for multilayer battles was quite low in comparison to previous titles.
Graphics and sound are both superb, although the depth of field blur is really overused, but naval and land battles look excellent on full settings and the campaign map is really Rome 1.5 visually speaking, which isn't really a bad thing.
For future iterations I would like to see continued attention to detail, grandeur and splendor in battles, with perhaps an added depth in the campaign map that we haven't seen before. Much better AI is a must, perhaps the most important goal, and a better feeling of historical relationships between powers would be nice. Innovation is needed for Total War to thrive, but this entry is certainly not disappointing (after patches, that is).