Bad Habits - Geeked - June 29 2005

When I first heard that Pyro Studios was developing a Total War clone set in the age of Napoleon, I have to admit, I was pretty excited. I’m a sucker for strategy titles and a big fan of Napoleonic history, so, naturally, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this game. Reports on early builds were solid and the fact that Eidos signed on for distribution was another positive sign. Imagine my disappointment when, after a few brief hours of gameplay, I realized that Imperial Glory is not the masterpiece I’d hoped it would be.

It’s not that the game’s bad. In fact, it’s easily as good as the original Total War - even better in some ways. But when you’re going to make a clone of a successful franchise, you need to make sure your title is comparable to the latest game in the series, not the first. And while the team at Pyro added some welcome new ingredients to Creative Assembly’s award-winning formula, they seem to have forgotten just as many.

For starters, when you pause the action on a battle map, you’re unable to select your units or give them any new orders, which makes effectively coordinating your armies extremely frustrating. Exacerbating this problem is that Pyro opted not to include a sliding time bar, meaning that things happen much too quickly in the thick of battle, while during the initial maneuvers, lots of real time is wasted watching your army slowly march across the map.

Other problems on the battlefield run from the inability to order units into skirmish mode (meaning that light infantry will stand fast in the face of charging grenadiers unless you specifically order them to retreat) to a lack of a morale system (decimate an infantry battalion of raw recruits with murderous cannon). Fire and they’ll keep advancing until every last man is dead.

Battles at sea are equally problematic. While Pyro should definitely be commended for doing what geeks have been begging Creative Assembly to do for years - allow tactical naval battles - perhaps they should have put a bit more thought into how these battles would actually play out. While one-on-one battles are, admittedly, pretty damn fun, trying to control more than one ship is a nightmare. While you’re getting one ship into position to hammer the enemy, your other ships are wandering about aimlessly, either sailing away from the fight or directly into an enemy broadside. It would be nice if you could simply concentrate on your flagship while AI commanders carried out your orders on the other ships.

Perhaps what is most disappointing about Imperial Glory, though, is what is most interesting about the game: its diplomatic system. Not only can you sign defensive alliances and trade agreements with other nations, but you can enter into military coalitions with them, negotiate rights of passage, send them military aid and even loan them armies. The problem is, you can only negotiate with (and gain information on) countries within your immediate sphere of influence. Since that only extends to countries that border your empire, it means that England, for example, initially has no ability to negotiate with Austria, Prussia and Russia, three of the period’s five major powers.

Sure, there’s still a lot that is fun, but when you realize that Great Britain, whose empire at the time stretched across the globe, can’t communicate with, say, Egypt, you begin to think that maybe you should just wait for Imperial Glory 2.

geeked@creativeloafing.com

WHAT’S COOL: Great subject matter, solid graphics, fully controllable naval battles and a complex diplomatic system.

WHAT’S UNCOOL: In combat, orders can’t be issued while the game is paused and the diplomatic system, though rich, is oddly limited.??