Empire: Total War - The Best Worst Best Total War Game Of All Time 

And mispronouncing Dutch words. Don't forget the mispronouncing Dutch words.

@@ManyATrueNerd We wouldn't have it any other way, captain!

@@ManyATrueNerd I loved your pronounciation of Paramaribo! Keep ‘em coming!

@@ManyATrueNerd As a Belgian, i can't wait for that!

Aye Aye kapitein! spreek weg!

France could definitely have benefited from a southern province for a bit of extra security - capital of Lyons, perhaps.

I concur.

I saw a theory that the reason France is a single province was a reference to the fact that France was going through a period of MASSIVE centralization at this time.

I agree, though I thought France had two, Paris and Alsace Lorraine? There was an exploit you could do as Britain, putting two armies outside Dublin and Paris, swapping Dublin for Alsace and then immediately sieging both. You could take out France in one turn that way. Would love to see an Empire 2!

They probably did it as a hardware concession to the fact that the world map is so large.

He has an instinctual desire to create an empire.

@@twilitlloyd7167 and to wage war on the French.

As an Englishman playing this game I simply do what we did irl but slightly better, make a giant fleet including trade, absorb France or Spain depending who starts first, then make a rush on India starting on the lost powerful of the two, if the colonies ever try and rebel they don't stand a chance by then 😁

We're Englishmen, it's just how we are.

So he will finally use it in the last episode then

Also the white bar is sail health not morale. Just in case people are wondering

Not it's not. Group formations never work outside of simple things. You're better off doing it yourself.

@@JonatasAdoM Quite simply not true for naval battles! For land battles I fully agree though.

god, Jon doing naval battles is painful to watch

I love playing the Dutch, not just because I am one but you can influence so much. First time I played I focused on Europe itself, next time on India and the time after on the Americas.. So much difference in outcomes; I am very interested in how Jon will take the world :)

the united provinces are very much a ˝˝campaign˝ map faction , getting all those resources and removing pirates while mostly ignoring any land war against other powers for as long as possible , i genuinely enjoy the trading in this game

Yes, it's the same as the walk/run mechanic with land units. Single click to sail slow, double to sail fast.

@@Lucifer_26 and i never knew this!!!

Yep and selecting the "Keep to line of sail" keeps them in a line formation despite differing speeds and locations. Very useful especially in larger battles.

yep, also that white line above the ships flags, that's not morale that's another health bar, that's the sails health bar, that's why that bar value plumits when you distroy the mast, it's the sails/mast health bar, now ofc the crew likes there sails and mast above the water, because otherwhise they are no longer on a ship but on a massive coffin so that's why they are routeing so fast when it's mast is destroyed, however just wanted to make sure people do not mistake that bar as the morale bar

@@skie6282 I've learned how intricate naval was in Napoleon doing online. ~ (or whattever that key would be in an American keyboard) sets the ship to move in a straight line in whatever speed you're at. The keys around also control speed, so you don't need to constantly press them on the Hud. They're all around Enter, not hard to find.

The maneuver is called "crossing the T" when it comes to formation maneuvering, but the concept of firing on a bow or stern is a "rake". Such as raking the bow. Higher chances of casualties when the cannonball travels through the longer length of the ship. Also more likely to damage critical gear such as the rudder when raking the stern.

@@NefariousKoel ah so crossing the T is the maneuver part and raking the fire part, gotcha

@@LazerWolf21 - Yeah. It even sounds cool. "Rake the stern!" Like you're doing some gardening, but for kills.

@@NefariousKoel Combine it with a grapeshot broadside, and raking the stern can kill everybody sticking their head out from above deck. Chainshot meanwhile tends to rip into the full sail spread.

The fluyt is also called a "flute" in English, derived from the French translation of "fluyt"

Also, Jon mentioned the ship being 'skinny'. That was by design. The Danish issued a tax for ships moving through the Sont (the strip of sea between Denmark and Norway), and ships that wanted to reach the Baltic Sea needed to pay up. The Dutch needed a lot of timber and grain from the region, and therefore needed to pay up a lot. That payment was calculated using the width of the deck to get more money from bigger ships. In response, the Dutch thought: 'Well, we need to pay for deck width, but who says the deck needs to be as big as the keel?' The Fluyt was a direct result from that. The Dutch made the deck as small as possible, while simultaneously expanding the keel width and depth, creating a lovely pear-shape. It meant they got as many goods as possible in their trade ship while paying almost no taxes.

@@the_tactician9858 I can almost see that captain's shit eating grin as he passed through the Sont.

I see you, Magneto meme!

@@onchristieroad What?

The map and number of regions etc. is small compared to the mortal empires campaign of Warhammer 1 & 2 and 3 will probably be added to it. I really hope that they are going to build another historical game and that it will be Empire 2, with everything they have learned and can craft now I believe they have the tools to make an Empire 2 truely amazing.

Yeah, I've long since been an advocate of an Empire 2. Properly representing the whole world would be fantastic. And Warhammer's scale shows it can be done.

I understand that this is mostly bias on my part(I've played very little Total War overall; but a decent amount of CK2 and, recently, 3); but the lack of a fairly punishing attrition mechanic felt very noticeable. I realize that the start date is ~800 years later, so in CK terms the province development level of all but the most godforsaken corners of Europe is probably 20+; but after my own recent attempt to take Norway, where I lost ~10 times as many soldiers to attrition as Jon sent to do the entire job, it felt pretty weird to see someone just raise a flag over Christiana and call Norway good.

One of the problems with early total war games was the limited number of territories, a function of the capabilities of AI and hardware at the time. Some total war youtuber (I think Melkor) made a break down of how you could do an empire 2 that included the entire world (Asia, Australia, Africa, etc included) and based on the number of territories in recent total war games you could have a region density in Europe equivalent to or greater than Napoleon total war. For context I believe France is 7-8 provinces in that one

@@Lucifer_26 have you ever seen gunpowder units in warhammer? its gonna be real bad if they look and play like that in a new empire

I feel the same way. This was the only one I was really excited about. I know a lot of people were vocal about not wanting it, but I'm really happy it won.

I admit, when Jon said that taking down the sails really makes morale drop, I wondered if the white bar on the top might actually be the health of the white things on top of the ship.

@@paulclarke8505 It definitely does a lot of morale damage just that the bar is definitely a sail health bar haha

If we can't get a sequel, I'd be happy for a remastered version that is fully moddable.

@Gary Baldi That's an interesting claim, just curious who in particular left or if you have a source going into detail? I know the founder left after SEGA bought them, but that was well before Empire.

I disagree *BUT* if a sequel fixes the issues of this game all for it. Have it be a reverse Rome 2

@Gary Baldi Warhammer/Attila have quite a few games between them and Empire :P Just seems like conjecture without further proof. Sure, devs may have changed, and I do think the new games are a bit frustrating with some features like unlocked troop movement they haven't maintained, but making an assertion that 'all the ambitious ones left' is something that begs a credible source beyond that.

@Gary Baldi I'm just saying you keep saying these things, but I can't take you on just your word about it and it's all circumstantial in the end. You've gotta be able to demonstrate a definite cause and effect. Especially as after ETW they continued to make games well-loved by pretty much all fans (Shogun II especially) and it wasn't until Rome II that things turned extremely bumpy. Heck, you haven't even said what they've gone on to make, so it's like... sorry, but I'm not able to see the full picture if it's not being painted??? lol

DARTH MOD is mine

Have you tried Imperial Destroyer...very good. I've enjoyed Darth, Rights of Man, Empire realism, and Imperial Splendour amongst others, but Imperial Destroyer is the one I usually have installed.

@@martynhulland6252 No, its been a wile. im try it now thx.

@@martynhulland6252 yeah but had to tweak so much in there to make it fun for me and it slowed the campaign down way too much imo.

I love the Maratha campaign. What I like is how the campaign begins with a mostly symmetrical peer war against one single enemy as opposed to the mess of alliances and wars that Europe immediately becomes.

I voted for this and i support community drama

Wait what?

@@Mankorra_Gomorrah When voting was done, Jon threw in a surprise vote at the end that hadn't been well received. It was X-Com 2 v. ETW. I assume that's the 'drama alluded to

@@monsieurlaguillotine3481 he'll do both.

"To the XCOM 2 lovers, sorry for giving you hope and then stamping on your hearts, but you have my word that XCOM 2 will be back later this year - just not before the actual winners of Democracy Week."

Thats why i love the pause button, take as long as you want to look over the map and plan

I also just dreadful in them, specially Total War games, but Crusader Kings have been impressively smooth thus far, far smoother than Total War or even Civilization (the one have the most experience with). Maybe you just need the find the right type of grand strategy game.

Empire is a bit easier (in my opinion) than other Total War games and grand strategy games.

you can always play them on easy

@@alexalbuquerquerodriguesal108 that is funny I have the reverse, every time I am on a winning streak in Crusader kings everybody suddenly rebels and tears my land apart.

What do you mean by Carolean? Small armies with minimal losses?

In the battle of Antitem one of the bloodiest in American History Canister definantly killed a lot of men.

Lime shot sounds horrifying as well, plus you had incendiary and shrapnel. Bring back variable ammo types.

@@Nomisdoowtsae Lime shot is the bomb, one good volley can kill 100+ troops from one battery

Yea you are 100% correct! I do hope he reads your comment and considers this going forward. Also chain-ball damage is effective only if the sails are deployed in the target ship… maybe we will gat an “let’s talk about the thing Jon got wrong” opening

I think one of the green bar below is for hull health and the other is for moral

@@delfinenteddyson9865 I think they're both hull health, one for each side. I don't think there is a morale bar, you just have to watch the circle for when it blinks.

They could resurrect Man o war fully in a total war game!!

Naval warfare was pretty fun in Fall of the Samurai, the Shogun 2 expansion. But it's kind of sucked in every game since.

@@SRosenberg203 jank aside I think ETW did naval battles far better; the shorter range on guns together with the wind mechanics means movement and positioning are far more important; ships also last far longer under fire in ETW (in FotS smaller ships especially are exploding left and right with some of the ammo types) which means any player can just grab a couple 5th rates, demast all the enemies from outside their max range and then just eliminate the now immobile capital ships at their leasure; that and the way ships had 0 ability to pathfind around each other and would instead choose to just stop moving if a ship was in front of them (which sure did not work out well in combination with the AI using lines of battle) beyond that I only ever played Shogun 2 naval battles (FotS and vanilla) and I found both to be enjoyable; Vanilla probably moreso than FotS; FotS is fun for show but I think the effective engagement ranges are just far too long, which makes the actual gameplay really boring; you just kite the AI, picking off weaker ships then overwhelm the big ships; Vanilla naval combat is fun; just a shame Bow Kobaya got fire arrows and not the big ships. (I used a mod that gives all bow-armed ships access to fire arows and that does a lot to balance everything; now big bow ships are viable and not completely outclassed by kobayas and siege tower bunes)

@@captainnyet9855 Oh I agree, Empire is by far the best. I just meant that FotS and vanilla Shogun 2 are fun if not as great, especially compared to the naval combat in pretty much ever other TW game that's featured it. It was such a joke in Rome II, and I remember they seemed like they were so proud of it in the promo materials lol

Good luck!

It’s annoying yeah but it is accurate

The sick man of europe

I found playing as Spain was the easiest, when I chose them I did a Risk strategy which was to start out in a corner. This keeps you from being assaulted on multiple fronts. You can just push all the way through Europe in one direction. Playing as Prussia for example was much harder since its centrally located. I wanted to try and unify all the Germanic states but you'll soon be in a War with half the continent (or so it feels) and soon be overwhelmed. When I played as Spain it was the first time I played extensively as one country and controlled probably 2/3 Europe but my computer crashed and had to be reset to factory default RIP.

@@aerialmacaroon6312 The game is set roughly two decades away from the absolute height of ottoman power. They wouldn't be "the sick man of Europe" for two centuries

@@SeraSmiles fair

It will be, it’s the new Tuesday Friday series

It is! It was one of the community voted series in Democracy Week!

@@Redassassin53 YES THANK YOU

Glad to see someone else also gets good help from watching Jon, helps to not feel alone lol. Hope things are looking brighter now!

Yes, you are right. Although I can see how Jon would think that it's morale, since losing a mast inflicts such a massive morale penalty and also depletes the white bar.

It was! The story is legendary here in the Netherlands and all young children learn about it. It's still one if the most humiliating defeats the British navy ever suffered. Our small nation has ever since that time stood toe to toe with the big boys of Europe and it's what the Dutch most times refer to when feeling patriotic.

It was the invention of the marines. A small group of sailors sailing right into enemy territory, burning the English ships and making off with the coat of arms of the English flagship, under the command of Admiral Michiel de Ruyter, one of the greatest naval commanders to ever live

With everything they learned and are able to do now since Empire and seeing how huge the mortal empires campaign is, I believe they could make Empire 2 with a real world map and make it a masterpiece of a game. If...

Agreed, I never thought of this tactic. I think it's a good one though. That said I would probably do some things differently, but I will definitely install the game again now and see what to do with the inspiration.

I thought tying onions to your belt was the style at the time?

I want you to know the effort you put into writing that was appreciated. I hope you do it got future naval battles. Thank you.

Man you still alive and kicking? How's Space Rome doin?

@@Lo-tf6qt Eternal, as Rome ever was.

Sounds like fun though

@@Lucifer_26 very

Norway is a good province though