When playing as Great Britain, you start off with the following regions : England, Scotland and Wales in Europe and Rupert's Land, the Bahamas and Jamaica. These are good starting regions because you have a good influence in the Americas and a safe haven in Europe.

To complete the short campaign, you will need to control 25 regions which include certain victory regions. These regions are England, Georgia (US state, not country), Ireland, Hindustan, Gibraltar, Florida, New France, Scotland and the Leeward Islands.

The first thing you will want to do is get as many trade agreements as possible, preferably with the major powers as they will produce the most money. You should also try and get a peace settlement with the Barbary States as this will remove the hassel of your weaker ships being attacked, however it is not necessary. You should then send your gentleman, Sir Isaac Newton to your college at Oxford so that he can begin researching technology. Personally I will start with the infantry based technology so that you can upgrade your barracks but the choice is up to you. If you want to research more than 1 technology at a time then you can demolish the church school in Cambridge and build a normal school, as religion does play as big a part in Empire as it did in Medieval. If you have enough money left over after all of this, recruit 3 units of either line infantry or militia in London

Now that you have gotten all of that out of the way, it's time to boost your income through both trade and conquest. While trade agreements can bring in good money, you can make even more by sending Indiamen ships to the 4 different trade theatre. The theatres are Brazil where you can trade for sugar, the Ivory Coast and Madagascar where you can trade for ivory and the East Indies where you can trade for spice. The most profitable ones are ivory and spice however if too many ships are there trading the price may go down to the price of sugar. The ships themselves are quite cheap, costing usually 500-600 gold to build and 50 gold per turn in upkeep

Your first military goal should be the Leeward Islands and Trinidad and Tobago. Taking these islands will remove pirates from the game which will greatly reduce risk to your trade routes and ships. To take these islands use the army lead by John Churchill and the units currently garrisoning London. This will be more than enough to take both islands.

By now you will probably been given a mission to take the regions of New France, Georgia and the Cherokee Territories. By taking these regions the 13 Colonies will join your nation giving you a boost in your economy, a foothold on the American mainland and several more victory regions.

Now it's the time to made a large addition to your fledgeling empire by incorporating the 13 colonies into your territory. To do this you will have to take Georgia, the Cherokee Territory and New France. The first two will not be very difficult and you can either recruit an army in Jamaica or in England, depending on your preference. Once you are ready, send your forces to Georgia and take it. As it is native american you will have to demolish the native buildings and replace them with european ones. While this happens you should retrain your army before setting off for the Cherokee Territory.

Do the same thing to take the Cherokee territory and then their final region, KaintuckTerritory. You now have a good grasp of mainland America and 2/3 of the regions needed to take the 13 Colonies.

Another way to gain land in the Americas is by taking Spanish colonial possesions. Because you start off as an ally of Portugal, you may already be at war with the Spanish if you decided to help them out. In Europe, they are not much of a threat as the only thing they usually do is raid the occasional trade route which is good as you can still focus your attention on the Americas. Make full use of this and take as many Spanish possessions as you wish as they are often under defended making them rich pickings. By this time New Spain has been incorporated into the Spanish Empire which means even more, better regions to take such as Mexico and New Andulasia.

This is ideal as you will end up going to war with Spain anyway in order to get Gibraltar, and since the regions often have several plantations and/or mines, it can make you quite rich. Once you have a good number of land and money, build up another army either in England or one of your main cities in America so that you can go out and conquer New France. While taking the actual region itself probably wont be too diffuclt, back home in Europe the French are much more active. They will often blockade ports, attack ships and may even try and land troops on the British shores, so make you are ready in both theatres of conflict before declaring war.

When going for New France itself, make sure that if you are using your navy to transport your troops that it is of a decent size and the French often keep some ships there. Once you have taken the city of Quebec, you can carry on taken more French territory in the area or try and make peace.

Congratulations! You now have control of the 13 Colonies and a good stranglehold of America, however your journey is not over yet.

It is now time to invade the sub-continent of India. Hopefully you will have the rest of victory regions so that once you finally take Hindustan, the game will be over you will be victorious. There are two ways to take get to Hindustan, either by conquering the majority of India or by simply going through Bengal will neighbours Hindustan. Note that by now the Maratha Confederacy will probably be qutie strong and if they hold Hindustan they will most likely put up a fight.

If you do not need any more regions or if you have 24/25 then I would advise that you simply take Bengal and then march on Hindustan as this will only take several turns once you reach the Indian theatre. For this I would suggest around 15-20 units to take both Bengal and Hindustan as the area is prone to rebellions.

Once you have taken Hindustan hopefully you will be greeted by a message informing you of your victory and campaign completion.

Remember, trade ships are your friends! make sure you have plenty of them in each theatre as it will provide a massive boost to your economy and may prove to be vital. They are both cheap to build and cheap to upkeep making them a key part of anyone's empire

Diplomacy is important, much more so than in any of the previous games. Always keep an eye out for any other possible trade agreements as every little helps!

Do not let public disorder get too high in your capital city as it may cause a rebellion. While this can happen in all regions, if it happens in your capital then it will become a revolution which could threaten your way of government, so be on the look out.

This is my second guide and I would appreciate it if you would inform me of anything that may be wrong and need correcting. If people think that this guide is good then I shall do more for both empire and other games in the Total War series

More images will be added over time as I am currently do the campaign myself in order to get them.

Feel free to favourite, comment and share this guide!

http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=150925993 - Getting started as Portugal (M2TW)

http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=149633604#-1 - Getting started as Milan (M2TW)

http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=160123988 - Getting started : Untied Provinces

http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=165848480 - Getting started : Sweden


If you would like me to do a another guide then simply leave a comment or message me, I will do guides for ETW, MTW2, RTW and perhaps Shogun 2 or Napoleon. I will also probably make guides for RTW2 when it comes out.

So, after making 4 guides, soon to be 5, I was thinking about setting up a Steam group for general Total War discussion and where people could suggest ideas for new guides and give feedback from those that are already out. I'd like to know your thoughts on this so leave a comment telling me what you think!