Imperial Glory

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Imperial Glory

Developer(s)	Pyro Studios
Publisher(s)	Eidos Interactive
Release date(s)	May 17, 2005
Genre(s)	Real-time tactics
Mode(s)	Single player, Multiplayer
Rating(s)	ESRB: Teen
Platform(s)	PC
Media	DVD
System requirements	Processor: 1 GHz Minimum Operating System: Windows 2000/XP RAM: 256MB Minimum Video Card: GeForce 3 / Radeon 8500 or above (Laptops and integrated graphics cards are not supported) Hard Drive Space: 2.5GB Maxiumum

Imperial Glory is a Napoleonic Era real-time tactics (RTT) game developed by Pyro Studios and published by Eidos that was released to the public in May 2005.

Battle in the desert

The game is set between 1789 and 1830 and allows the player to choose between the great empires of the age - Great Britain, Prussia, Russia, Austria-Hungary and France to go conquer Europe and North Africa. The game has 3D land and naval battles and has a strategic campaign similar to the one of Rome: Total War, but however takes place on a parchment map similar to Medieval: Total War or games such as Risk.

Players can select the same basic units for all sides. Infantry consist of militia, line infantry, light infantry, grenadiers, riflemen, and royal guard (or Black Watch, or other elite units depending on the country you're playing). Although some names may differ for different countries, all the units have the same stats. Cavalry consist of dragoons, hussars, lancers, and guard cavalry. The player can choose from the following artillery: 6 pound cannons, Congreve rockets (Great Britain only), howitzers, 12 pound cannons, horse howitzers, and horse artillery.

Recently, mod tools have been developed to allow players to change the statistics of the units. With these mod tools, which can be obtained from the fan site http://www.commandos.nl.nu, a modder can make artillery fire to greater distances and change unit sizes and such.

[edit] Reception and criticism

Imperial Glory was generally received as a fair though not great game with great potential but rough edges. Gamespy reported that the "system's biggest problem is that it doesn't model morale. This means that your men basically turn into mindless automatons, and not very smart ones, either" and rounded off the review with that Imperial Glory "shows a lot of untapped promise and potential, but it also possesses raw edges and missed opportunities. This is still an enjoyable game, though, so long as you're willing to overlook the flaws." [1] Jon Wilcox of Totalvidegames.com gave the game nine out of ten and sums it up in "with its many touches of depth and sophistication along with a handful of innovative features, Imperial Glory comes across as a unique experience even amongst the likes of Rome: Total War." Eurogamer were less enthusiastic and noted that "it's a disjointed and ill-paced game. On the strategy map ... there's relatively little you can do in a single turn, except fiddle and press "next turn". ... More critically, on the actual tactical real-time maps [the game leaves] you unable to either speed up time when nothing is happening or pause to issue orders when things get too hectic."[2] Most reviewers also commented on difficulties when managing sea battles.