NEW EMPIRE DLC – Total War Empire A New World Review
They said it could not be done, or at least they surely thought so, but Fairly Interactive managed to create a new best version of the already best version of Empire Total War, now of course known as Total War Empire with the A New World expansion. I mean, I can honestly hardly believe it myself that Empire has received DLC after all these years, but it’s actually really good and frankly spectacular. And let me tell you why. Back in the day, if you can remember, Empire received a few special unit DLCs, but the most important one was the one and only War Path DLC, which added new native factions and missions to the basically already existing America’s map. But that was basically it. Now, literally 16 years later, almost to the date, Farewell releases a new world. A DLC that not only includes the aforementioned America’s DLC, not just everything that Empire already included in terms of units and whatnot, but actually feels like a whole new world. And get this, adds a staggering 44 new factions to play. And it gets better because this number is split between existing and emergent factions. That means that you can not only suddenly begin a campaign as Portugal, Venice, Georgia, the 13 colonies, Louisiana, New Spain, the Mugal Empire or Persia, but even emerging factions that may or may not show up in your typical game like Scotland, Quebec, Punjab, Mexico, Grand Colombia, the Mumluks, and even my oh so beloved Norway. Now, if that blew your mind, let me go one further. Empire does now not only feature its regular campaign with all of these new factions and the war path campaign you might know and perhaps even love, but ladies and gentlemen, we now have an actual late era campaign. That’s right, we can now without mods and from the vanilla menu choose to begin in the year of our lord 1783 and just like before play as any current or possible emergent factions. In one sense of the word, you now have several dozen new campaigns to play, courtesy of the new factions and a whole new setting to play them in thanks to the late campaign. But you want to hear one of the best parts? This is not a simple unlock. No, every faction in the game has been given unique contextual flavor, including new and well-written faction introduction texts and explanations, entirely unique victory conditions. You can find wholly new factions spanning traits which make even the smaller immersion factions feel special. And non-playable factions that earlier fielded a very limited roster have been given either more or completely new faction appropriate units to play around with like the Afghanian cavalry. France is able to recruit the volunteer revolutionary infantry in the campaign which is a superior conscript unit. Norway’s mountain troops can now be recruited from the capital only minor government building and so many more changes. All of that comes on top of a host of balancing and fixing. 14 new naval units moved into Empire from Napoleon, making sure that however you play, the game is at its best. All of that is fantastic, but it doesn’t even cover everything that the devs at Fairly Interactive have either added or unlocked. And I want to talk to you about something very special. In the original Empire, the only way you could play as the United States was through the Road to Independence campaign, which was good, but you had to go through a missionbased playthrough to get there, and it left little time to play on the full map compared to the rest of the factions. Now, Frell has enabled one feature, which is a truly rare sight in Total War, namely a faction transition. You see, not only can you play the United States in the late campaign from its beginning now, not only can you play as the 13 colonies, but by completing the entirely new national transformation objective, which includes growing a town in New England and building a school there, you will become the United States, essentially a completely new faction. This has never been done before in Empire Total War. And frankly, even in the later historical games, and unless I’m mistaken, the only historical Total War game that allows for a similar change in both faction name, traits, and an emblem and map color change is Total War Pharaoh and dynasties. In other words, Frell has worked a miracle here, even though I realize to the unfamiliar air that this might sound like a minor change, but it is in fact a massive one. And that’s not even all. In becoming the United States, you gain access to new and completely unique American units like the famous Minutemen, the beautiful First Delaware, and awesome unique naval units like the Continental Navy version of the six trait and so on. In addition, we have a completely new feature that is just so close to my heart, the unique national trait. Not every faction in the game has these, but many do, especially many of the new factions that are available both in the New World and in regions like India. The number of national traits also vary among the nations that have them. The 13 colonies, for example, begins with a massive four national traits, including New England colonies, which provides a minus 10% to construction costs in Maine and New England specifically. Southern Colonies, which allows you to build large tobacco and cotton plantations no matter your technology level. Middle colonies, which improves population growth and wealth from subsistence agriculture in New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, and taxation without representation, which removes two points of happiness for every class, and also lowers your tax income by 2%. In other words, you may use these unique traits to your advantage, giving the 13 colonies its very own feeling and flavor. turn into the United States though and all of these national traits are gone, replaced by a single new national trait, the federal system, which lowers your tax rate somewhat like one of the previous traits, which keeps that national heritage lineage in a way, but also lowers your overall administration costs in the entire American theater by a massive 25%. Like I said, the colonies and the US aren’t the only factions with this amazing new system. The Mughal Empire in India, now a playable faction, offers the Zamindari system, significantly decreasing your upkeep cost of archers, lowers your taxation rate somewhat, and makes the Zamandari unit into a unique auxiliary one. Play as any faction in the Italian region, and you get the Italian unification trait, which provides insane bonuses when you’ve managed to unite all of Italy under your banner. Naples and Sicily is the only faction on the boot with an additional unique trait, namely Europe’s sulfur mine, which provides plus 1,000 wealth for mining in the Naples region. Play as Mexico and you get a slew of traits that even simulates the country in both the early and late game, including Silver Slump, which severely hampers your early era mining income, but rewards your late game income when you’ve attained better technology to simulate the falls and rises of Mexico’s mining history. Second is the underdeveloped infrastructure which again gives you massive penalties in the early game which simulates the Spanish extraction colonization instead of their development but provides major bonuses in the late game to simulate the advent of the first Mexican railroads. Then we have the Agav crops which imitates the fertile grounds of Mexico giving major prosperity bonuses to farms and vineyards. And lastly, the hosienda system. Meaning that much like the southern 13 colonies, Mexico has no technology requirement for farm buildings, large plantations, or wineries. As such, you can imagine that choosing to play Mexico in the early versus the late game will offer a completely different experience simply because you’ll have access to different technologies affected by your national situation. It’s a fun element that playing New Spain then, an actual Spanish colony, differs vastly even from Mexico. New Spain gets Spanish mercantalism, which might as well just make it the worst off of the colonies despite its size thanks to the insane extraction malice of existing under Spain, including lower happiness, lower town wealth bonuses, lower wealth from vineyards, ports, industrial buildings, and roads. Or what about the French colony Louisiana? Their substantial native communities makes them differ vastly from the 13 colonies, for example, as this simulates Louisiana’s lack of French manpower, instead providing them with a special auxiliary bonus when using Native American units while also providing it with much more wealth and some growth increase from peasant farms. In other words, and this is an awesome thing to say, is that depending on the nation you now choose, you have to actively relearn parts of the game thanks to these sometimes game-changing systems. Because focusing on the wrong part of your economy or failing to take advantage of a particular military strength or figuring out how to work around a weakness can spell victory or doom. And that in a Total War game like Empire where most factions played more or less the same is nothing short of fantastic. There is so much more to say about Total War Empire: A New World, but this is the gist of it. And not that it matters for this review, but I feel like it has to be mentioned because price of games has become a big topic over the years. Do you want to guess how much this baby costs? Everything I’ve mentioned here, all of these new gameplay opportunities that make Empire feel new and fresh and so much more is available for $7 or your local equivalent. $7 for an expansion that feels like one of Total War’s largest ever. Honestly, I have nothing negative to say about this expansion. I would only say that it would have been awesome if the late game campaign offered readjusted public order situations, for example, to seem more historical, showing how close France might be to the revolution, for example, or making sure that when the 13 colonies become the United States and gain independence, that they’re actually at war with Great Britain instead of the current neutralization of active diplomatic relations. I only have dreams now. Dreams that will have more national traits for everyone. More nations that can transform into other nations. Like for example, transforming Naples into Italy proper, Norway into the Kalmar Union, and Prussia into Germany. Of course, with accompanying national traits, special units, and so on. Oh, and for the love of all that is holy, while Empire: A New World is amazing as it is on mobile, get this baby on PC now. Feral Interactive shows with the new world that they not only know how to bring fun new features that transform perhaps the originally least flavorful of the Total War games, but that they too love this game and want it to be the best it can be. A New World is not just a re-release mobile version of the old War Path campaign. It is indeed a whole new world for Empire Total War. Let me know what you think of these changes, if you’ll be playing the game, and if you enjoyed the video. Make sure to leave a like and subscribe to the channel. It truly means a lot. Thank you so much for watching and I’ll see you next time. Cheers. [Music]
Total War Empire A New World is here, and if don’t know what this is, it is in fact an entirely new DLC and expansion for Empire for mobile, iOS and Android. Just saying that is crazy. The DLC includes everything from a host of new playable factions, playable emergent factions, to new units, all new national traits, and so much more. This truly is an incredible expansion for Total War Empire, and I could not be happier with it. Let me know what you think of Total War Empire A New World in the comments, and make sure to leave a like and subscribe to the channel!
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