The game plays out on a huge map of Europe, stretching from Russia to Britain and from Tripoli to Sweden. Each of the five playable empires -- Great Britain, France, Russia, Prussia and Austria -- owns a few territories at the start of the game; the rest are distributed among a variety of non-playable states (Egypt, Spain, etc.). Each territory you own produces the resources you'll need to manage your empire -- gold, food, raw materials, and population. These resources can be spent to improve your empire's infrastructure, raise new troops or negotiate trades and treaties with your neighbors. The campaign map is remarkably easy on the eyes, conveying a wide variety of information in a very attractive form. It scores high from a standpoint of usefulness as well, with lots of clear, accessible options right at your fingertips.
Though war is the name of the game, there are plenty of considerations you'll need to make before (and sometimes instead of) engaging in combat. The diplomacy model of the game is relatively complex and the first thing you'll really want to wrap your head around are the various alliances and treaties in effect at the start of the game. Nearly everyone is tied by mutual protection pacts to at least a few other states so the second you go to war with someone, you're likely to set off a powder keg that brings two or three other nations into the conflict on either side. Knowing just when and how to set off the spark is a key strategy in this game.
The campaign has its own technology tree that allows you to research a variety of advances that can improve your ability not only to influence rivals but also to wage war and make money. There are different branches on the tree here -- one for economic development, another for military, for instance -- but the illusion of choice is pretty much just an illusion. You'll need each and every advance as you move on to later eras so that empires merely differ in terms of the extent they've progressed, not in terms of the direction. You're given a few governmental options as you move from age to age but the differences between those really only become apparent much later in the game.One interesting component of technological research is the introduction of new "quests." Quests in Imperial Glory are one-time accomplishments that set your empire apart and confer a significant bonus. If you can satisfy the pre-requisites for a given quest, say reaching a certain population level or maintaining a set number of naval trade routes, you'll be rewarded with the prestige of completing the quest and a not inconsiderable practical bonus as well. Keeping a number of ships and troops stationed in and around Alexandria, for instance, fulfills the Rosetta Stone quest and grants your empire double research points for a full year. These quests are a really great idea because they give the player smaller, non-combat objectives to shoot for during the course of the campaign.
To be perfectly frank, this campaign is not for impatient players as it starts off at a truly ponderous pace. None of the starting empires have anything approaching an army or infrastructure at the beginning of the game so you'll basically be starting from scratch. This means that it'll take quite a few years of development before your empire is capable of waging an effective war against even the weakest of neighbors. It works from a standpoint of game balance but it's totally undercuts the game's promises of massive, colorful battles. I don't necessarily expect the Grand Armee on turn 1 but it would be nice if the opening years of the game allowed for a little more action, militarily speaking.
If the commitment of the campaign game seems a bit daunting, you can try your hand at a small number of historical battles (like Waterloo) or set up your own custom engagements in any of 80 land and sea territories. The maps for each territory are fairly static but there's such a variety of them that you won't ever grow bored. I was never able to find an option to limit the points you could use to buy your armies in this mode, so you'll either have to buy fewer troops on your own or simply tolerate the massive armies that are selected by default.
When you finally do field a sizable army, you'll really start to appreciate what the game has to offer. The pageantry of Napoleonic war really shines through here, from the brightly colored cavalry uniforms to the smoke clouds of a well-coordinated infantry volley to the dirt kicked up by your cannon shot. All of it comes through beautifully here, both from a standpoint of gameplay and basic appearance. In terms of the gameplay, all of the major troop types of the era are represented here so you'll get the chance to appreciate the fine distinction between fusiliers and grenadiers. Since each nation gets a unique army list, you'll have to adapt to each new enemy you fight.
The tactics seem pretty solid in the game. Column, line and square formations all have their respective uses and each troop type is designed to be used in a fairly particular way. Fortunately this never seems to go much further than "this one is good at shooting, this one has high defense, this one can break infantry squares" so you should be able to get a handle on how to best utilize your units. Given the pace of the game, it's a shame that there are no time controls in the game and no way to issue orders while the game is paused. Once you've got a big enough army, trying to manage anything more complicated than a straight advance in this case is sure route to disaster.
Much has been made of the game's real-time naval battles. Though it's one of the key gameplay additions that distinguish the title from Creative Assembly's strategy games, it's so poorly implemented that it's more of a frustration than anything. The main problem seems to be that you have to control each ship individually. Though you can only take six ships into battle at a time, managing them all in real time is a real pain in the ass. To begin with, your ships those of your enemy are virtually indistinguishable. Even assuming you can tell the difference between them, moving them around is a bit of a disaster. The game includes a "follow" command that you can use to have your ships maneuver in a line, but the AI is so wickedly incompetent here that the "follow" command might as well be termed the "crash into each other" command.
On the other hand, the naval battles certainly look impressive. In fact, the whole game is simply stunning. While realistic water rendering isn't enough to turn many heads these days, the fact that there are a few variations in the overall character of the sea zones is pretty spectacular. Battles in the waters of the North Atlantic will take place under overcast skies and the water itself will be ominous and dark. Move to the Mediterranean and things will clear up quite a bit. If you engage in battles at the far eastern or western edges of the map, you'll see a neat sunrise or sunset effect. The ships are very well modeled and while the cannon shot and damage modeling isn't quite as impressive as the environments themselves, they're more than sufficient to draw you into the action and give you a sense of the excitement of it all.
Better still are the land battles. Each territory on the strategic map has its own battlefield, complete with appropriate weather, buildings and terrain -- snow-covered bridges in Kiev, broad plains in Andalusia, rolling hills in Scotland, all serve as great visual reminders of the battle's location. I think my favorite touch of all is the sight of the pyramids in the background of the Egyptian battles. The dust stirred up by units marching through the desert is an added treat.The environments are much more tactically significant than those in Rome: Total War. Imperial Glory allows units to garrison all sorts of structures, from ruined temples to stone forts to dense forests. Many maps even include entire castles. Units in these structures can attack passing enemies pretty freely so it makes sense to try to grab as many of these structures as you can early on. Unfortunately, the AI also seems to know how important this is and there will usually be a race to get to those in the middle. One ridiculous aspect of these structures is that only one enemy unit can invade them at a time. If you send a unit to attack a garrisoned building, you'll have to wait until every single soldier in that unit is killed before you can send in a new unit. This can lead to some truly idiotic scenarios where you have one or two soldiers fighting off dozens of enemies, while your reinforcement simply wait outside until your last soldiers have been killed.
The units themselves leave a little to be desired when viewed in extreme close-up but at the medium and long ranges that you'll use to actually play the game, they more than suffice to give an impression of color and life. Though the actual animations aren't quite as lively as those in Rome: Total War, you get a real sense of the actions of the individual soldiers within a unit. There's none of that robotic synchronization of animations on the move or in the fight that tends to be so distracting in other games.
The camera is usually pretty good at showing off the action but it doesn't quite get down to the troop's-eye view that made Rome: Total War so thrilling. The camera also has a nasty habit of getting hung up on the environment. While I appreciate the added details on the maps, having the camera bump around as you scroll over the battlefield is distracting and an occasional tactical inconvenience.
Moving from visuals to sound, Imperial Glory has a great score. The way it highlights the action of battle really gets the blood pumping. Sounds of battle are almost as good. The thundering hooves of a cavalry formation in a charge leaves a little to be desired but the overall effect is still enjoyable.
Finally, in terms of performance, Imperial Glory leaves a bit to be desired. Though I'm playing on a machine that's well above even the recommended specs for the game, the battles tend to chug just a bit, particularly if there are a lot of units on screen. For some strange reason, the game's menus run ever worse. The opening scroll with the main game options stutters like crazy. Hopefully these issues can be cleared up with a patch in the near future.
Verdict
It's hard not to compare this game to those in the Total War series. Fortunately, the comparison is pretty favorable. Though the battles themselves aren't quite as easy to manage, the added strategic elements and highly detailed environments should definitely have Creative Assembly sitting up and taking notice. As I said before, though the game offers up many pleasures, it's not for the faint of heart. The campaign's tedious start is a significant obstacle to gamers who want to "get to the good stuff" without going through the motions of developing a massive resource base and drafting an army from scratch.