**EMPIRE TOTAL WAR**

It is a mess of a game but still some bright moments that are what make TW games special. I do think CA have messed up releasing an unfinished game. I will give 1.4 a go and see what happens. Plus the MP lobby is so dodgey i wouldnt advice buying this game for a while to be honest.
 
I bought this game a few months back, am on my second grand campaign. While I've heard all the horror stories, I've experienced very few problems.

A couple of crashes that I cannot exclude PC components overheating/failing on

One instance of the bug where ships think sea is land that lasted one turn (or a reload, I can't remember which) but which is really irritating when they have that smug "That's land...sir..." and "this...is a ship, sir" which really winds me up anyway

I'm playing this campaign on hard/hard and the battle AI seems ok, some dodgy moments where you can force charging to units to stop in front of your muskets just by rearranging some of your forces etc but generally I have to fight quite hard in any battle that the meter gives as even or greater.

The campaign AI however is fairly shocking - the way you can leave Britain completely undefended because they'll never land on it, and other things, it just feels like there has been very little I in the AI for the campaign map, you can predict an army's next move with little bother, and they pillage the hell out of your towns and farms etc in ways that gain them absolutely nothing (that's fine if its native american tribes, but you'd think France or Spain might actually have plans behind their movements)

The diplomatic negotiation screen is generally pretty useless (at least as Britain).

The campaign interface is also fairly unhelpful unless I'm overlooking some features - when I have some spare cash there's no easy way to plan my building upgrades, I just have to scroll through the towns and see whats what (when there's 30+ that gets very tiresome). It is full of little niggles like 'you have not met the requirements for this tech' without actually telling you what they are etc

However, I am still enjoying it quite a lot,
 
Campaign and battle AI are woeful sorry but there is no challenge in either of them and most experienced strat players can win every battle in their sleep. Sieges oh my god how screwed up and boring are they completely useless and not worth bothering with and they could and should have been so much better.

Very little unit differential between factions mostly just reskins of the same model for all factions. Lack of naval invasion a much promised feature that is still awol amongst many other features that were advertised\hyped and promised that are no where to be seen. Now that they have announced napoleon i doubt very much that they will bother making empire even half the game it should have been.

This will be the last TW game i buy normally and from now on will wait till they are in the bargain bin as thats what they are worth these days they are so dumbed down and boring.

Paradox with east india company may well be moving in CA's area and if they can get a land battle engine going they could easily take CA's place in this genre. East india company already has better naval battles then ETW as it is and that is not as good an engine as they could have.

Naval aspect in ETW is another woeful area i mean how stupid is it to have a brig that can match a first rate in terms of range and a few brigs have been known to bring down a couple of first rates not good at all.

My message to anyone thinking of buying this game is definately wait for patch 1.4 read the feedback on that and if that patch is the same as past ones then you might well have to wait for 1.5 (if they bother anymore after 1.4) before this game is interesting and immersive enough to warrant more then £9.99.
 
Strongly recommend the books mate, the tv series is good but everything is on a tiny scale compared to the books, especially the battles :)
 
Yeah I'm looking into getting them now. The reviews on the show mention that the battles aren't nearly as good as they are described in the books.
Just looking on the rainforest for a box set of all the books (save the hassle of getting them all individually) but can't find one :(
Don't suppose you know of a box set of the books and where I could get it?
 
I am a big fan of the series but I can't help but feel that CA were a little too ambitious with this project and rushed it out of the door. I have to agree with Rizla that in its current state Empire is a bit of a let down - I like many of the changes and new features and the new engine certainly is great to look at but the poor battle and campaign ai, bugs, naval battles and terrible sieges let it down. I really hope they can patch some of these issues out and I would like to see the promised multiplayer campaign before the Napolean expansion is released.

At the moment I am playing the 'Third Age Total War' LOTR mod for MTW2 instead and loving it, fantastic mod :)
 
The mods.. The mods.. Guys, we know the AI is a bit pants in the vanilla Empires, but Darthmod Commander edition for example, is totally awesome. Massive battles, fantastic ranged artillery, blood and smoke. It's all there. I'm really enjoying my current French campaign using Darthmod 2.9.
 
RizlaKing said:
This will be the last TW game i buy normally and from now on will wait till they are in the bargain bin as thats what they are worth these days they are so dumbed down and boring.
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This, I got into it MTWII from a friend giving me a loan of Rome, so I backdated all the games. Was very anticipated and had some fun with Empires, but its boring. City seiges are rubbish, Indians overpowered and the map is so dumbed down its frankly ******* insulting.

MTWII + MODS ***.
 
philstanbridge said:
The mods.. The mods.. Guys, we know the AI is a bit pants in the vanilla Empires, but Darthmod Commander edition for example, is totally awesome. Massive battles, fantastic ranged artillery, blood and smoke. It's all there. I'm really enjoying my current French campaign using Darthmod 2.9.
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I've had this game since release but hung off and hung off starting, waiting for the bugs to be ironed out but I think I'll be starting with Darthmod for my first capaign as CA seem to be getting nowhere with the patches.

To be honest though none of them have captured my imagination as much as Rome. I just love that setting and the history surrounding it the most.
 
Seems like I have a lot of reading to do with regards to Mods and getting them installed etc.

I have finished the main campaign as Britain and wanted to go for total world domination but alas bugs prevented me from doing so. I cannot get the damn game to stop crashing to desktop when I try to take the last remaining state in India. It's a real shame as I have really enjoyed it.

Maybe 1.4 will fix it, but I doubt it....
 
Darthmod is highly recomended but sadly even that still is limited by the poor ai and if CA would stick to their promise which at the minute they show no sign of of releasing the full modding toolkit maybe modders like darth could improve a lot more of the game then they are able too at the minute. For me thats the biggest let down with ETW so much promised and so little delivered and now they have hit on this dlc i can't see them allowing the modders the tools they promised as that would take away sales of the dlc.
 
RizlaKing said:
Darthmod is highly recomended but sadly even that still is limited by the poor ai and if CA would stick to their promise which at the minute they show no sign of of releasing the full modding toolkit maybe modders like darth could improve a lot more of the game then they are able too at the minute. For me thats the biggest let down with ETW so much promised and so little delivered and now they have hit on this dlc i can't see them allowing the modders the tools they promised as that would take away sales of the dlc.
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Would be surprised if 'Improved Computer AI' is sold as DLC eventually with the retail game containing only stupid opponents.
 
Also guys, wtf has happened to unit sizes?

I used to get 100 men, now its less than that? Was that a patch update?

Cause if it was its made the game ******* ****.
 
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