Empire Total War - 2017-02-12

I've have been rather quiet on the ETW over the past weeks due to the Chinese New Year and various other family commitments.  I have moved on to 1824 on my game calendar and the conquest of Poland-Lithuania and the Maratha Confederacy is in full steam.  The Marathas should capitulate in a few more turns and one of its regions(Punjab) has already rebelled against its rule.  However I have lost a region, Wurtenburg, to a rebellion but I shall get that back in due course.  Once Poland-Lithuania has fallen I am considering a campaign against Russia.

Empire Total War 2016-12-14

My Grand Campaign has now reached year 1782, it is still a challenge and I still enjoy the game despite work and home priorities have often kept me away from playing it.  Conquering more regions does not translate into greater tax revenue.  In fact it brings in more costs such as construction projects, replenishment of armies, and also the cost of putting done rebellions that always occur early on.  The trick is find the right balance without over-stretching resources, on that note the Total War franchise has mapped historical realities very well.  The only immediate gain from capturing regions is that you can have a quick technological advance by capturing universities.

Empire Total War 2016-11-17

Since the French faction has delcared war on me I have repaid the favour by besieging Paris.  In order to prevent the Maratha Confederacy from invading my Portugal region I sold it to the Huron-Wyandot native American faction. This means that Portugal is now occupied by native Americans whilst Spain is occupied by the Maratha Confederacy who successfully took it from me over the weekend.  ETW does come up with some strange scenarios.

Empire total war 2016-11-11

I have been playing ETW now since July 2016 and I am still on my grand campaign as the British.  It is still a very addictive game, to an event that I have been neglecting my Sony PSP.  My British empire as it currently stands consists of :-

Europe

• Great Britain and Ireland
• Spain
• Portugal
• Alsace-Lorraine
• Bavaria
• Wurtemburg
• Norway

the Americas 

• New York
• New France(Quebec)
• Maine
• Virginia
• Carolina
• Florida
• Louisana

I did have Flanders(Belgium) but somehow the Maratha Confederacy(India) managed to take it off me by sailing all the way from India.  The Maratha also took Jamaica and Bahamas off me as well. I don't recall learning that from history but it makes things more challenging.

My favourite weapon is the carcass shot mortar, it is a shell that bursts mid air and spreads lime or other burning substances over the enemy, as demonstrated below.  

Empire total war 2016-09-15

Last night I finally won the American revolutionary war and managed to repeat history.  It was a surprise how it happened because I had to put down a local rebellion in Maine and then both the Spanish and French decided to declare war on me.  So it would have been me against an allied coalition of Britain, the Netherlands, Spain and France.  The later three had powerful navies to deal with.  But before I had a chance to tackle the challenge the game announced that I had achieved my objectives and the USA was born.  Very strange ending.

Empire Total War - update 2016-09-12

After the my debacle last week and the fact that I failed to save the game on a regular basis, I went back to American revolutionary war campaign after having to defeat the French in the seven years war again.  This time, the Spanish did not declare war on me and in fact they offered me a military alliance which was accepted.  It was the Dutch (then called the United Provinces) that declared war on my and after dealing with their raids, I got my revenge by successfully invading their colony on Curacao.

I've managed to all but defeat the British forces on the American mainland but I am leaving their last region, Quebec to remain British for now because I want to see if I can take Jamaica off the British and Suriname off the Dutch.  Well I do have a powerful navy after all.   One thing I noticed about the AI on the realtime battles is that the CPU's forces do not co-ordinate well with each other especially when it is on the attack.

Empire Total War - defeat

After a month on the campaign, my US colonials faction was beaten by the British last night.  So therefore American independence and the real historical timeline have to wait.  Unfortunately since I did not make any recent implicit game saves, I have to go all the way back to my last save which was during the Anglo-French wars in America (which was the setting of the book/film 'Last of the mohicans'). I have to say that the British army definitely fight better than the French.

Empire Total War

In the past few weeks I have been playing the Empire Total War strategy game on my PC.  It is not the latest output on the franchise but it is definitely a step up from Rome Total War 2 and Medieval Total War 2.  There are now advanced real time naval battles that uses the available naval warfare techniques at the time and when you play in campaign mode, there is more than the upkeep of your armed forces to monitor.  I am playing the "Road to Independence" campaign which is about the creation of the USA from being a small group of settlers fighting and trading with the native Americans. Then it moves to the Anglo-French American war and then onto the American War of independence which is the stage I am at right now.  Basically you are trying to emulate George Washington.  My only complaint is the quality of the enemy forces during the real time battles, they seem to lack co-ordination or co-operation, meaning that the battles I have fought so far have been easily won unless I am vastly outnumbered.

Warhammer 40,000 Squad Command

This week I started playing Warhammer 40,000: Squad Command on the Sony PSP.  It is turn based strategy from Games Workshop's Warhammer 40k series.  This was my first time at playing Warhammer 40k in any guise since I was not into the legendary 1980's strategy game which this is based on.  I find it extremely challenging and took me many attempts to get past the first level. In essence, you control a unit of super soldiers and you must achieve a certain goal to pass that level. This could be killing all the enemy units, killing a certain enemy, taking over a place or building, etc.

What is different about this game is that your characters each have a limited number of action points and this limits how far your character can move and how many shots it can fire. The further it moves, the less it can fire and vice versa.  This makes it different from the other PSP strategy game, Field Commander.

An interesting part is that units from both sides can shoot even though it is not its respective term, so your units can be killed when it is your turn.

I need to get pass a few more levels before I can give a clear rating on this game, but here is a sample from Youtube.

Commander: Europe at War, again

A few days ago I restarted another campaign game on Commander:Europe at War, again playing as the allies and starting from 1939. As the Allied units were being pushed back in France, I decided to do a Dunkirk evacuation and move the UK and French forces to the safety of Britain, leaving a single rearguard unit. However, after France had officially surrendered in the game, the evacuated French forces disappeared from the the UK map, even though they had safely arrived there.  Meaning that my evacuation had been ignored.  This is either a bug or something the game's designer's had ignored when they were doing the background research.

Getting a PS Vita

I've been mulling about buying a PS Vita for a while but I am not sure if it is worth getting just for a handful of games that I am interested in, namely Minecraft and Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution. 

Commander: Europe at war - lost campaign

I've been playing Commander: Europe at war on the Sony PSP since the weekend, and unfortunately it looks likely the PSP player, playing as the Axis, has won world war 2.  This is partly due to bad strategy on my part, like failing to evacuate the UK and French forces from France after the fall of France and also better than expected performance from the Italians, especially on the Eastern Front.  For some reason the US has not entered the war which is a big problem in the western front.

Alternative history on the PSP

I have given Daxter a rest and gone back to playing the turn based strategy game, Commander - Europe at War, on the PSP.  This time I am playing as the allies from 1939 at the invasion of Poland.  Poland surrenders no matter what you do at the start of the game, then it becomes a case of stopping Germany from conquering France, using the the forces of the French and the British.  I'm not sure if this is deliberate or whether the PSP player has stronger AI but the French forces offer very little resistance.  Now I wonder where I heard this before?  So now I am at the stage where the allies are off the continent and I am waiting for the USSR and the USA to join the war.  One thing I was able to do that the Churchill wasn't able to was recall the Royal Navy from the Mediterrean and use them for coastal bombardment on the channel coast, thereby limiting the effectiveness of the German armour.

Command: Europe at war, follow up review

As you may know, I am currently playing Commander: Europe at War strategy game on the PSP.  It is a turn based game and you play at being a staff commander rather than a field commander.  Unlike other strategy games like Total War and Age of Empires, there are no real time battles.  So it is more like a chess game and aimed at the strategy purists.

Just like real millitary campaigns, there is a finite amount of men, hardware and money to play around with.  Moreover, you 'invest' the resources in creating more hardware and training more men.  In keeping with the technical advances that both sides made during the war, you have a research module whereby you can develop new technologies like rockets and jet air craft.

So far in my round I have successfully conquered Poland, but dealing with France is a little more difficult.

Commander: Europe at War

I have just received my latest batch of PSP games to try out today, the first will be a turn based strategy game called Commander: Europe at War. This is set in WW2 and you could either play as the Axis or the Allies.  So it is possible to re-write history.  This is quiet a difficult game to get hold of and has very little written about it.  Luckily I have the instructions for it, so I will give this a bash and let you know.