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I had a chance to see the pre-alpha of the newest game in the Total War series. Having played many a game of Shogun, and tinkered a goodly bit with all of the subsequent titles, I was interested to see what was coming with this iteration. The game is set in the 18th century, when empire-building was all the rage, and the lifeblood of commerce and military was naval trade/warfare. As such, a wholly new naval component is being added with Empires, in addition to some big changes in the land engine. Let's start, however, with the brand new "if by sea" news!

First off, the ships look very good. The crew is very detailed, and you'll see sailors going about their business on board until they're called upon to spring into action. Wind angles, cannon sightings, and ship momentum are all indicated using some simple lines that don't get in the way of your view or your interface. The actual ships themselves mimic wood-frame constructs via wire-frame modeling, which allows them to flex (and fall/blow apart!) like actual wooden ships.

Regarding naval combat and its peculiarities, many of them are included, even in this early stage. Formation management is obvious (and much streamlined), and Admiral units will allow your units to execute special tactics and intelligent behaviors. Ship capturing is in full effect with a complete set of ship-to-ship combat options. Much of the between ship "swashbuckling" is actually motion-capture, this time around, and also looks pretty darn good. Sadly, sailors are not the only thing that can jump ships, and Empires has realistic fire-spreading. In fact, I witnessed a dev order all of his sailors to attack another ship before he noticed a fire on his own. When the fire spread, unchecked, and also set the victim ship ablaze, his forces were in a wee bit of trouble! Other included particulars of naval combat include mast and sail attacks, magazine hits (and ignition!), rocket attacks (old "rocket" attacks were more like aggressive fireworks launched onto another deck), and steam ships higher in the tech trees. Speaking of tech trees, ship-storming and theft is a great way to "steal" naval technology from your opponents.

The land based engine's most significant changes mimic some of the naval features. Formation control is very much streamlined, and involves less micromanagement of individual units to keep them positioned as you wish. The biggest shift is in attack resolution, where there is now complete musket ball modeling. This means that each shot creates an actual bullet, which is followed to an eventual target whether that's the enemy being fired on, a wall some distance away, or ANOTHER unit that may not have been the intended target. This is big news! Previously, attacks from one unit to another were resolved as successes or failures and then just "happened." The chaos that we now have is far more complete, and is ALSO included as "cannonball" modeling on the naval side. Just as people can miss and hit unintended targets, so too can ships. In Empires, towns will have to be taken, and there are a complete set of garrisoning options that you can use to force ugly building-to-building, street-to-street battles. Lastly, musket smoke and weather effects are all included, and can have significant effects on battle outcomes. Technically superior armies hate it when a driving rain wets down all the gunpowder, and it's back to hand-to-hand lockups...

The campaign mode includes the traditional grand campaign, and features 50 potential factions for play. It also includes an ambitious campaign called the "Road to Freedom" which attempts to let a player fight out the Revolutionary War and its most famous battles while not "forcing" the outcome of American victory. One question I had was that of naval supply, in terms of ship ranges and little details like carrying fresh water. The game includes an effect called "range to friendly port" that can affect crew morale when moving about in enemy territories, and in circumstances where the vital stuff of life may not be readily available. As the campaign segment was the least complete, we got to see little of it - but it sounds very much like a classic Total War scenario.

All of these things add up to a lot of promise. Obviously, at this early a stage in development, it's hard to say how spot-on everything will be. The plans and promises are grand, though, and if they pan out this game could be tremendous fun for fans of the Total War series of action/campaign wargames.