Empire: Total War is a turn-based strategy game that uses real-time gameplay for combat. It is similar to a game we talked about in one of my previous posts. Civilization is quite similar, but it is all turn-based where Empire: Total War takes advantage of real-time gameplay to make combat more interesting and engaging.
Empire: Total war is an interesting game to use when teaching history. I would say that it is harder to get into than Civilization, but it could have more benefits if you are able to do so. The game uses the real-world map and time periods to make it more of a realistic and accurate simulation of history. This is one of the major benefits of using Empire: Total War instead of using other similar simulation video games. Empire total war has you start in the 1700s and progress through time periods. Your goal is to expand your empire and defeat your enemies. There are ways the game lacks compared to other simulation games too. Civilization offers a lot more ways to win the game which I personally like.
Empire: Total War was hard to get into for me. The controls are not intuitive and take a while to learn. I have played a lot of Civilization and Age of Empires and they were both set up to make it easy to use. Empire: Total War was confusing to play which makes it harder to use in the classroom and not as much fun as the other games in the genre in my opinion. As I mentioned earlier it definitely has its benefits be played instead of its competitors. The game seems to be much more historically accurate because of it being set in a specific time periods instead of spanning from the stone age to modern-day. It allows for the facts to be right and more specific than other games like it. Other games lack in their ability to get facts right. Civilization has a bunch of empires fighting each other that would have never existed in the same time period. This can be confusing when using it as a teaching tool and confuse some people. Because the game is set up the way it is you can do fun and interesting things to use it as a teaching tool. Dr. Pitt of St. Bonaventure University in our History Through Gaming class had us play as different empires and in 1702 declare war on countries that our empire was actually at war within that year. I was playing as Spain and declaring war on that many people definitely made the game interesting. I had to manage all these wars while trying to increase my army. Ultimately it did not go well for me, but it was a cool way to play the game and showed how juggling a bunch of wars at the same time was so hard for these empires.
I would use Empire: Total War in the classroom. It would be hard to use in a normal history class because of the time it takes to learn how to play, but for a class like History Through Gaming, it works because you have that time to learn to play. McCall said in his book Gaming the Past that simulation games are the best for teaching history (McCall). I believe this is the best simulation game I have played so far for teaching. I am not as much of a fan of Empire: Total War when it comes to the gameplay. I think that it is clunky and hard to play as I mentioned before. The real-time combat is not that much fun and takes forever at times. I would much rather play Civilization or Age of Empires for entertainment, but when it comes to the educational side, I think this one wins out. The first time I had to battle another ship in a naval encounter it took me about 10 minutes to figure out how to move my ship and then another 10 to actually hit anything and I am an avid gamer.
Overall, this is a good game to use in the classroom if you have the time to do so. I would not recommend it as a gamer, but the education side of the game is a great upside. Despite my failed attempts at playing through an entire game I recommend, people give it a go. It may not be for me, but I know this series has a good following. Even if you do not like it you can have a good appreciation for the game like I have developed.
Sources:
McCall, Jeremiah B. Gaming the Past: Using Video Games to Teach Secondary History. Routledge, 2011.