Since you are dealing with the early industrial age, how does technological research fit into the gameplay?

For the first time in a Total War title we have a research and technology tree. The different branches reflect military, industrial, socio-political, land, naval and artillery advancements. You are able to build universities and academic institutions which give you research points to spend on these technologies.

The tree unlocks different things for every faction—special formations, different artillery munitions, sizes and classes of ships etc. The impact of technology is far and wide and you must choose what kind of a balance you wish to strike for your Empire.

It's also worth noting that as upgrades are researched they are automatically rolled out to your armies and navies in the field (No more returning miles for better weapons etc.)

I ask a lot of people this question: What books, movies or games would you point to as an inspiration or asset in the development of the game?

In a game the size of Empire, this is a tough one to answer. Our writers, designers and artists take their inspiration from a massive amount of source material. Everything from films and TV series such as Master & Commander, and the Sharpe series (A British TV show) to dusty old military manuals. We use source books for military formations and uniforms, tactics and maps. We also sourced all our ship designs for the actual blueprints held at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England. Essentially we took these plans and sculpted in polygons what the 18th century engineers did in wood, beam for beam.

Our designers also turn up on wet Monday evenings to live battle reproduction events held by historical societies and fan clubs. Add that to letters and documents from the period, museum exhibits and our own imagination and you can see the massive amount of work the designers and writers put in right from the start! It's funny really, you start out not knowing a huge amount about these 18th century technologies and by the end of the project you can rig and sail a third rate ship of the line. The things we do...

We'd like to thank Kieran for taking the time to chat with us. You can check out Empire: Total War's development at the game's website . The game is slated to hit stores on February 3rd.

Questions or comments? We'd love to hear from you .