I'm sure we have all discovered the special buildings for Empire: Total War. But maybe you are new to the game, or haven't gotten far enough in a campaign to see them. So, let’s review:

In ETW, each major faction gets two special building upgrades to the building chains in its capital. These upgrades can only be built by their facton, and must be built in their original capital. I’ve heard a rumor that only the building faction can actually realize the advantages from these upgrades, but I don't know whether or not that’s true. What I do know is one solution to the problem of the AI being too dumb to build their faction-specific buildings. It's quite simple, really, if time consuming.

It is, after all, EMPIRE Total War, isn't it? So why shouldn't you want to conquer the world, destroy your enemies, and take their special building for your own? The only problem with this is that the AI either won't have "enough money" (psh, right) to build their special buildings, or will follow the wrong building track for their cultural building.

All you must do is simply take the country's capital province. You know that, doing this, you can expect a loyalist rebelion in a matter of years. To prevent your enemies from utilizing the great resources usually found in capital provinces, destroy all of the buildings in the capital province except for the base buildings for the faction's special buildings. If the AI has followed the wrong track for their special cultural building (which they will always do), destory their science building and build a museum its place. Once the AI sees that it's cultural building is past the building split for "science vs cultural", it will not destroy and rebuild the building, only upgrade it. Then either vacate your military from the province and earn some taxes from the rebelious populace, or return the province to the enemy faction in exchange for peace (as if that's worth much).

Having destroyed all of the buildings except for the base buildings for the faction's special building should buy you at least a few years of peice with that nation, if not a few decades (yes, even on a hard campaign). This will give you time to rebuild your military and, if necesary, deal with other threats, or simply enjoy a few years of peace and economic expansion in a game in which the AI loves to recklessly declare endless war on you. In the mean time, the AI will rebuild it's capital province, and hopefully build it's special faction buildings, after which time it will again declare war on you, or you can invade it at your leisure.

This is the only way to allow an AI faction to make their special buildings as you cannot make them yourself and you can't make a major nation a protectorate.

The following is a list of the factions and the building chain under which their special buildings fall. I have starred the cultural chain buildings, as they are the reason why I wrote this, and probably the reason why you read it.

I hope this helped you!

Austria: Government, *Museum*

France: Government, Army

Marathra: Government, Army

Ottoman: Navy, *Museum*

Poland: Army, *Museum*

Prussia: Army, *Science*

Russia: Government, *Museum*

Spain: Government, *Science*

Sweden: Government, *Museum*

United Kingdom: Government, *Museum*

United Provinces: Navy, *Museum*

United States: Government, *Museum*

Coming soon.