The developer, Creative Assembly, promises that the Grand Campaign victory conditions for Empire will be tighter and more relevant to the faction you’re playing. And while bayonets may have been standard issue for most soldiers, committing troops to melee combat isn’t a decision to take lightly as it’ll bog troops down. Fields of fire need to be considered, cover should be hid behind, and buildings can even be garrisoned and fired from. In Empire, the power of gunpowder means that almost every effective unit is a ranged one. In the ancient world ranged units rarely won you a battle – notable exceptions to this include the English longbowmen of Agincourt who slaughtered most of the suicidally arrogant French nobility, or the infamous unit of archers in the Shogun: Total War tutorial. As gunpowder is the weapon of choice, land battles play very differently to the mostly melee combat of previous Total War games.
