![]() The best part about it is the sharing option. You start off with a select number of different clothing items, and you can unlock more with points you earn from the main game. This is where you can make custom officers and upload them so they appear randomly in other peoples’ games. If you want to take a break from the stress of ruling your own kingdom you can head to the entertaining officer edit mode. This familiar style is still fun and very cathartic, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. You have a number of different weapons, each with different light, heavy, and special attack combos. The hack n’ slash element remains relatively unchanged. At times this makes it overly difficult to take the last base without being annihilated by five or six officers that ignore everybody but you. The only strange thing about it is that enemy officers often re-spawn after retreating, and if you have all of the bases they spawn in the main camp. Again, bases don’t make a huge impact on lower difficulties, but you’re going to want them on hard and chaos mode, especially if you’re outnumbered. There are bases littered on the field and it’s up to you and your officers to take control of as many as possible before storming the enemy’s main camp and defeating the officer leading the attack. The battles themselves are set up in a territory control format. One stratagem summons a couple officers to get your back. ![]() These stratagems and the strategy stage of the game don’t have much impact on lower difficulties, but if you play on hard and even the later stages of normal, some of them can come quite in handy. An officer focusing on managing his troops will be able to call up a small strike team or cavalry unit, while an officer focused on money management will be able to alter standard bases into bases with better healing items or siege weapons. Depending on your choices you are given different stratagems to use during battle. The decisions you make outside of battle carry over to the battlefield. Don’t expect to fight every month because after a battle you’re going to need time to replace lost troops and possibly form alliances to face a more powerful foe. For example, you can use food to train your troops, or spend some gold to encourage commerce within your kingdom. Turns go by in months intervals, and each month you will make choices on how to spend your resources. Whichever road you choose you will have to manage three resources: food, info, and gold. I found the latter to be more fun because even though it does take more time, it feels good earning your position rather than just starting out on top. As a lower ranking officer you are given missions to complete in hopes of earning promotions. If you’re a ruler or a high ranking position, you will call the shots on who to invade and what to spend resources on to improve your kingdom. You can choose to start out as a ruler, or work your way up from a lowly vagabond wandering the country. There are many ways Empires can be played, and each way is quite different. Each game places officers randomly, as well as peppering in a few user created ones, so you’re never playing with the same setup twice. ![]() There are some specific scenarios to choose from, but ultimately the game revolves around unifying China under your banner, or the banner of your ruler. Instead of following the set story revolving around the Three Kingdoms, Empires lets players select an officer and do their part to unify China in a more free-form style focusing on some light strategy elements as well as the hack and slash gameplay this series is famous for.
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