'Imagine the Grand Campaign as the story of Imperialism and Colonialism. You tend to find that ancient European history, like the Greeks and Romans, doesn't have much traction in the United States. 'People often think, 'Oh you chose the American period to open up to the American market,' and that's partly true.

We tried this out, but it became too fussy and we decided to drop it, even though it was a very well recognised and practised tactic of the period.' Road To Independence A good example is 'tacking' - this is when a sailed ship zig-zagged along with the wind to go faster. There were a lot of manoeuvres you could perform at sea which were historically accurate but not particularly fun to do in the game. 'When it comes to the actual strategies and tactics, there's a slight element of tweaking history. For example, Empire's time period runs from 1700 to 1800, but we probably go 15 to 20 years beyond that end point as far as technology and philosophical advances are concerned, so in that sense we bend the rules a little bit. 'Where there's a toss up between something being historically accurate versus being fun, fun wins. In Empire's case, the way we did it with that was the technology, obviously with the use of gunpowder and artillery advancing all the way through the game, so by the time you get to the end your single-shot flintlocks and cannons have been replaced by rapid-fire mechanisms and long-range mortar bombs.' Fixing History

It has to be a period in which the sort of battles you're fighting at the outset aren't the sort of battles you're fighting at the end.

'It also has to be a time of technological and military change. There had to be a time where there was a competition element between these people. Basically, you've got to have a competing set of nations, families or clans or, as in Empire's case, established nations that could've come and dominated at that time. 'There have to be a number of factions that could've come to power at any one time. 'When considering a setting for Total War, there are several features present in any area of history that you're thinking of using.

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