The image of musket-wielding soldiers gives Empire most of its oomph. The invention of gunpowder has changed the gameplay: a previously viable desperate melee charge will be, quite literally, shot down by a well-positioned line of gunmen. Artillery is also more important than ever, and a hefty cannon barrage alongside having your cavalry successfully catch an opponent from behind produces genuine euphoria. So much work goes into fashioning your army that the sight of them succeeding is a delight, while watching them get torn to shreds is traumatic. The path-finding has been notably improved; its only downside is that sieges are fiddly and too difficult to manage.

Naval combat has been, understandably for the period, added to the mix, but difficulty in positioning and accurately firing across endless briny seas doesn’t particularly make for engrossing gameplay. The fluidity of the sea-based fighting makes it slightly unwieldy, too. It doesn’t detract from the game, but it’s the kind of addition that you’ll play a few times and then consign to the ‘auto-resolve’ button.

Rounding out the game is the map-based strategy sections, where you’ll build up your armies, move them about and deal with research, recruitment, politics and society. It provides a nice contrast from the battles, letting you operate at a slower pace and meticulously craft every aspect of your burgeoning society. Diplomacy is a viable option here too, and perhaps the most fundamental part of the map view is establishing, and subsequently maintaining, a profitable economy. The eighteenth century featured the institutionalisation of capitalism as much as it did vast empires, after all.

It’s just so easy to get lost in it all.

So much of the strategy genre is concentrated. These compressed titles are no bad thing, offering you a refined sense of distilled gameplay. Empire operates on a different scale, and with its enormity comes a roughness. It’s simply too big to have the polish of a six-hour title: its liberating sensation of player control comes at the cost of occasional AI bugs, long loading screens and the occasional bit of fiddly clicking. The trade-off is entirely worth it. Empire is distinct, challenging and immensely gratifying. Easily the finest example of the genre.

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