Imperial Glory Battles

Pyro Studios, responsible for Praetorians and the Commando franchise (see left) is understandably quite excited about its forthcoming strategy project Imperial Glory. Although Spain's premier developer is dismissive of any comparisons between Impenal Glory and The Creative Assembly's magnificent Rome: Total War, it clearly has plans to ambush the RTS superpower before it can gather its troops for an expansion pack. Imperial Glory presents a glorious technicolour Napoleon-era strategy romp with detailed troops going at each other with state-of-the-art (at this time in history) muskets and cannons.

Infantry in Imperial Glory are represented as militia, line infantry, grenadiers, riflemen and the player's country's elite force (e.g. British Black Watch ). Cavalry consists of dragoons, hussars and lancers, and it is possible to find such contemporary pieces of artillery as 6-pounder cannons and howitzers. Driven by new ideas of Enlightenment, the hearts of men and women across the continent are inflamed with dreams of freedom and glory. Antagonism between the Empires is at an all time high and war seems inevitable. Millions of men prepare for battle, while the finest strategists draw up their plans for the domination of Europe.

'To be honest,' says Pyro's communications manager Inigo Vinos, I don't think Imperial Glory will improve the (Total War) formula - it's a different composition. I think that Rome improves Medieval, and Medieval improves Shogun, but Imperial Glory is on a different line.

The line being referred to is of course a histoneal timeline, for Imperial Glory is set squarely during a period when established European empires were squabbling over new and old world alike. Although the game features a nowfamiliar blend of turn-based campaigning and real-time 3D, the major difference is that rather than sword and arrow, the currency of carnage here is lead shot and shrapnel, fired across both land and sea.

Unlike Rome, Imperial Glory's turn-based campaign will be set across strictly-bordered regions (a la Shogun/Medieval), which may seem a regressive step after sampling Rome's more tactical method of grand warfare. However, it appears Pyro is aiming to provide a faster-paced game, where tactical prowess and technical innovation are more important facets of leadership than managing a civilian population. 'Some people like Civilization more than Age Of Empires,' says Vinos, presumably meaning Total War can be likened to the former and Imperial Glory the latter.

Whatever the outcome of the forthcoming battle, Pyro is on target to release the game before the spring - and the team is currently tweaking the Al and balancing the units and strategies of the five playable nations. Hopefully, we'll have more play of the preview code in next issue - which should give you just enough time to sit down and conquer Rome a second time..

Imperial Glory Patch v1.1

This is the v1.1 Patch for Imperial Glory directly from Pyro Studios fixing timers, graphics, battles and much more! Read below for more details.

Imperial Glory by Pyro Studios - retail v1.1 patch

Patch 1.1

This patch is for ALL versions, however a small problem has been found with the

CZECH version (the tutorial text gets displayed incorrectly - does not affect

ANY other version and will be fixed for Czech shortly)

Fix list

- Battles: Users can now speed up/slow down battles with CTRL+/- and return to

default speed with CTRL and *

- Narrator: Users can disable narrator voice with CTRL V

- Naval Battles: Damage inflicted by ships has been increased

- Horse Artillery/Horse Howitzers: Movement speed increased

- Multiplayer post-battle screen: Game now states who played as who

- Salamanca Historical Battle: Timer adjusted to 25 minutes

- Salamanca Historical Battle: Fixed crash when fighting in forest

- Multiplayer Naval Battle: Fixed crash with options menu on-screen at end of

battle

- Castille map: Fixed issue of Troops turning invisible when entering forest

- Management Tutorial: Fixed problem with the Captain's name

- Land Battle Tutorial: Highlight now appears on Musketeers

- Cyrenaica map: Now not possible to position troops in an unrealistic place

- Izhora map: Units cannot now walk through part of building

- Research Tree: 'Tithe' text corrected to display 50% increase in production

- Russian version: Fixed crash during Management Game, following liberation of

an annexed country

- Intel Graphic chipsets will now work with the game