Total War: Empire

The long-running strategy series strikes back

-  Ian Evenden

Feral Interactive has been porting The Creative Assembly's historical strategy titles to iOS for some time now, and has finally arrived at 2009's Empire, the most up to date of the games in terms of its setting. The empire in question is an 18th century European or Asian one, rather than Galactic, Cylon or Idiran, and it's a game of massed musket barrages, cannons, naval battles, and the very real possibility of cavalry charging with war elephants.

By now, we should be used to Feral's Total War ports. On Mac they were great games, and they lose nothing in their transition to touchscreen devices. In fact, they gain a great deal, with Empire gaining a new interface that's very easy to work with, even when you're managing a lot of troops, though the larger screen of an iPad (we used a 12.9in iPad Pro) will make things much easier than trying to play it on an iPhone.

The way it works is that you choose a faction from the 11 available at the beginning of the game, and attempt to stick your imperial flag into the soil of as many other nations as possible. That is, unless you choose the Road to Independence campaign, which unlocks the American colonies as playable factions.