Empire Total War

[Dainas]

Anyone playing it? I sure am. Land Unit Ai is dumber than ever, and with creative assembly not helping at all (such as by adding additional unit orders to bypass the stupidity) has made real time battles pretty much a broken feature as far as i can tell. But I'm still trying to enjoy myself on the campaign map and looking forward to sea battles.

[TysonM]

Rome Total War and Medieval Total War I and II [drama]reduced me to crying tears[/drama] over the bug where I am trying to assault a well fortified city using men with ladders...

... and they always [GOD WHY, WHY!?] pool together at the base of only ONE of the ladders, making the effectiveness of any attempt at a coordinated assault ruined.

New patch? No, still there. New patch? Still there. New game? THERE?! New game? STILL THERE?!

So no, I haven't tried Empire yet... can you tell me what happens when you try to take the walls of a city with men with ladders? Do they seem to follow the orders at first, using all the ladders... but then suddenly... [starts ripping own hair out]

If that bug has finally been fixed in Empire however... maybe my right eye can finally stop twitching.

[Dainas]

I could not say as I've not taken a region yet that was properly guarded by a fort or wall. Defended from some but no one got near my walls alive.

The Ai is just dumb dumb dumb, suicidally pompous on the campaign map (as always with TW games) and stuck trying to reform formation on the battlefield. Just a major disappointment as its like Creative Assembly was trying to make this one worse. Only real winner with this one is sea combat.

[jasonelmore]

I downloaded the demo. I must say that it sucks badly. Its not like the other RTS games i'm used to like world in confict, Red Alert 3, Age of Empires III. The response time and unit control is very bulky. I can't seem to get units to do what I want them to do. Even after playing the toutorials.. i still hate it. Good thing i did'nt buy it and tried the demo first.

[MichelinGuy]

pool together at the base of only ONE of the ladders, making the effectiveness of any attempt at a coordinated assault ruined.

Never had that problem...

The Ai is just dumb dumb dumb, suicidally pompous on the campaign map

You should set the difficulty higher.

The response time and unit control is very bulky.

That's part of the reality they tried to put in it, the commander hears the general (you) then the commander instructs the units where to go or what to do. Therefore the delay.
Before you ask, there are different classes inside a batallion, there is always a guy standing next to the group of soldiers differently dressed.
C&C and AoE are more arcade.

So yeah I'm a TW fan Gonna buy Empire when the price drops.

[Dainas]

You should set the difficulty higher.

Dumbs as in -what in gods name is wrong with creative assembly-, not dumb as in too easy to beat. The stupidity of the unit ai is actually more of a problem for the player than the cpu. And I'm not talking the new slowness, which is to be expected with the nature of this warfare. I'm talking completely frozen in a reform cycle. Also the crazy demands and borked diplomacy gets worse when you set the difficulty higher, although it doesnt effect the actual difficulty at all since broken is broken.

[antiacid]

first naval battle: 2 of my own ships collided together after being sent on auto-attack.

second naval battle... same deal.

third reload on that battle: yay finally I sort of come out even but the big win is that my guys didn't suicide!

As for assaulting a fort, it is a pain in the ass but if you send several troops around the fort, you get more access point. Also, you can send a horse unit at the back of the fort (so the defenders all follow there) and assault the front while that crap happens. Realistic? not one bit. Funny? Yeah!

So far, I've played perhaps 8 hours and I've had some fun. The AI is dumber than a doorknob so you do have to send your units and prepare your moves ahead of time. I was expecting a learning curve, I got it!

Overall, it is worth the 50$ steam cost and I'll be playing it loads more until I finish at least a single grand-conquest game (I'm expecting this to be at least 30hours for a short game, so about 1-2 weeks on my current schedule).

[TysonM]

Never had that problem...

I pause and send many orders to all kinds of units... maybe somehow it affects the other units globally? I dunno...

There is supposed to be dynamic unit behavior in Total War, which is that if your General runs away from the attack the troops lose morale, sometimes they might ignore your orders, or they are such undisciplined troops they have the tendency to charge on their own.

SOUNDS AWESOME... I just wish it could be implemented better.

I WANT MORE CONTROL dammit!

[taowulf]

I play.

Right now I have two, maybe three useless fleets due to whatever bug it is that is causing the game to crash when I select them. Otherwise, it runs OK. I am disappointed that the rest of the nations just sit there waiting for you to invade. Honestly, I would like more of a fight than just slowly taking over Europe.

Also, the AI spams ships into trade lanes like it is going out of style.

[Aberration]

The only thing I have found annoying so far is when selecting multiple units and moving them, they always move to a line side by side instead of maintaining the form they had. Which then necessitates you moving units individually.

I also find the AI doesnt use their reserves effectively. You can see them hanging in the back of the field, but even when you start kicking their attacking units ass they just sit there until you destroy em. Doesnt seem effective to me.

[adamsleath]

mmm.. i like it and also think very buggy; i am getting many ctd's. the time i do play however is very good.
i like how technology research is put in...reminds me of civilisation games. i like ranked fire and cuirassiers
overall battle play is excellent....although always room for getting rid of bugs. im not overly interested in the naval battles; i think the land battles are excellent. i like new artillery, new rapid response of horse, and infantry generally.

i get ctd's sometimes when combining depleted groups; also invariably after playing for a little while, ctd's are inevitable.

hopefully patches will come.

but i like this gen of total war very much overall, good improvements all round, i hope there will be a next gen of total war

hopefully also a mods paradise. i love the very large and picturesque battlefields; a very commendable effort in comparison to the primitive m2tw battlefields thats for sure. the landscapes are quite beautiful and vast.

please can they fix the ctd's !!!!!!!!!

[Aryton Senna]

Does this game appear to use the same engines as Rome Total War and Medieval Total war II ?

Or did they truly upgrade engines like they did after the Original Medievel Total war/Shogun Total war?

[chunkylover77]

Does this game appear to use the same engines as Rome Total War and Medieval Total war II ?

Or did they truly upgrade engines like they did after the Original Medievel Total war/Shogun Total war?

Totally new engine as far as I know. I have started playing the Grand Campaign and I was having some fun. When I researched ranked fire and saw it in action was when this game turned great for me.

[GNU]

Empire is the worst game from CA. I'm very disappointed with this.

There is no fun, the battles are very boring (comic style, landscape is boring, not good controlable units, the gunner units and the canons have a very long reloading time like a masturbate time). The sieges are totally bull. For an example: Siege on a city with heavy fortress. You never see the battle in the city, you will fight on your little bull fortress and the enemy is in front of your city (from your position, the city is behind the enemy).
The strategic map with their cities are okay but not funny. No videos (marries, spyattacks, etc only gentleman duell videos).
The only thing which is funny, is the sea battle. I like it but the rest is more than bull!
I forgot. In the battle, there aren't any speeches (at the beginning and at the end) and I can't do with the conquered city/prisoneers what I want.

I will play M2TW with SS6.1 Mod again. I'm really disapointed

[GeorgeStorm]

You cant moan that the battles are long and boring
They are sticking tot he course material
Battles were like that in the 18th century, I really like it, means you need to think a bit more before you do anything, as mistiming a volley could mean the end of an entire sqaud...

[Dainas]

You cant moan that the battles are long and boring
They are sticking tot he course material
Battles were like that in the 18th century, I really like it, means you need to think a bit more before you do anything, as mistiming a volley could mean the end of an entire sqaud...

You can moan about allot of other stuff however. Ai behavior and unit function as close as i can tell broken. Also lots of crashes, slow as heck load times, masses of inaccuracies (Poles have heavy first rates but the ottomans don't? okay).. Only thing that works well and i always enjoy is naval combat, oddly enough.

[GeorgeStorm]

I never said it was perfect, although, I havent had problems with the demo with the AI, (maybe I just suck, :P)
Also havent had problems with chips crashing into each other etc..
Have the full game, but havent played it yet due to schoolwork

[GNU]

You cant moan that the battles are long and boring
They are sticking tot he course material
Battles were like that in the 18th century, I really like it, means you need to think a bit more before you do anything, as mistiming a volley could mean the end of an entire sqaud...

I know the difference but it is my opinion. The battles are boring by a boring landscape and idiotic A.I. In M2TW you have a better economic and battle system but in Empire it is shorten like a unfinished produced game.

[antiacid]

I know the difference but it is my opinion. The battles are boring by a boring landscape and idiotic A.I. In M2TW you have a better economic and battle system but in Empire it is shorten like a unfinished produced game.

Perhaps you could play a couple more hours before giving up? The economic system is quite fleshed out in this. Here's a hint: Indiaman. Use them, then use them some more and them abuse them. It's possible to rack-in 30k/turn if you know what you are doing

[Dainas]

Necroing this thread on purpose. Have to warn you all that even after all the patches this game is still a shoddy piece of garbage and still doesn't have the promised two player campaign. I will never ever ever buy another product from Creative Assembly and even if you somehow still think Empire was halfway decent, you need only look at Stormrise to see what kind of halfbaked trash peddlers these scumbags are.

[jagass]

Never tried it before...lol

[Jamesrt2004]

Necroing this thread on purpose. Have to warn you all that even after all the patches this game is still a shoddy piece of garbage and still doesn't have the promised two player campaign. I will never ever ever buy another product from Creative Assembly and even if you somehow still think Empire was halfway decent, you need only look at Stormrise to see what kind of halfbaked trash peddlers these scumbags are.

thats good then was going to buy it cheapy

[bluehaze]

I bought it last weekend, steam had it for 25 bucks so figured i'd give it a go. Seems like a pretty good game, definitely worth the 25 bucks. Haven't run into any problems yet but I haven't played it all that much. Overlord 2 is taking up all my free time that game is so much fun and unlike anything else i've ever played Looking forward to playing Empire once i'm finished with Overlord though!

[NaeKuh]

dude the game has loadup from hell.

And i mean hell.

Each fight scene takes litterally forever to load up, by the 4th one ur just too fed up with loadup scenes, u hit auto resolve.

[ettis]

And SLI still doesn't work on any drivers besides 181.22 which is from January... what a piece of crap , even after 6 updates and they've only recently made it utilize multicore somewhat.. lol.