1C Company and Lesta Studio announce Empire: Time of Troubles, a historical turn-based strategy game planned for release in the third quarter of this year. A Product section for the game is online with some info and screenshots, and here's the announcement:

MOSCOW - May 12, 2009 - Leading Eastern and Central European publisher 1C Company and Lesta Studio today announced the development of Empire: Time of Troubles. Empire is a turn-based, historical strategy game which covers the events of 1350-1650 taking place in Russia, Poland and the Great Lithuanian Princedom. Players will find themselves in a large-scale campaign commanding one of 26 warring factions. By controlling a hero character, and improving their skills in battle, the player can win wars and rule their state any way they wish.

Empire: Time of Troubles allows players to have a well thought-out and historically accurate system of building and assigning labor forces in cities, a large selection of scenario based and random missions, an expansive and realistic technology tree, more than 150 types of military units and beautiful graphics and animations which bring the war to life.

Empire: Time of Troubles is scheduled for release on PC in 2009. Please find more information about the game at http://www.1cpublishing.eu/game/empire-time-of-troubles

Features:

- Large-scale military campaign where the player can turn a small principality into a large and powerful empire
- 3D strategy map of Eastern Europe from 1350-1650 with authentic landscape and military units
- 26 factions to control: Russian, Polish and Lithuanian princedoms, lands of the Knight Orders and Eastern European monarchies
- Political, economic and role playing systems showing the intricacies of diplomacy and wars in medieval Europe
- Dozens of famous historical personalities and hundreds of game characters, each with their own unique specialties including rulers, commanders, priests, alchemists and spies