Empire: Total War

[Apathetic Lurker]

Meh, it just doesnt do anything for me.. Seems more like work...Every other game in this series sucked me in. this one? Not so much.....

I am losing sound every once in a while, getting garbled graphics in the summeries...most likely driver related, but they mention to not get the most recent drivers as they havent been to well tested..

[Young Drachma]

I don't usually play anything but sports games. But this one intrigued me. I'll follow along and see what you all think.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Apathetic Lurker

Meh, it just doesnt do anything for me.. Seems more like work...Every other game in this series sucked me in. this one? Not so much.....

I am losing sound every once in a while, getting garbled graphics in the summeries...most likely driver related, but they mention to not get the most recent drivers as they havent been to well tested..

Might it be the fact that it's guns instead of swords and bows n arrows and what-not?

[LionsFan10]

I picked up my pre-order this afternoon, I've been into Total War games since Shogun, so I've had my eye on this prize.

The game is a monster, at just over 15gb's to install, you definitely need the right rig to properly enjoy this game. I've got most settings on high with a few on Ultra-High (this is through the auto-detect feature ...) and I'm still running into some frame-rate drops here and there.

Having said that, this is by far the best Total War game yet, surpassing (in my opinion) Rome: Total War, which was my favorite TW game so far. The game looks fantastic, the sea battles are amazing, if not a little confusing at first. The larger the fleets get, the more difficult it becomes to control them all, but I'm just chalking that up to being new to the game, and something that will be overcome with time.

The land battles are about what you would expect, except now with muskets and cannons. The accuracy of these weapons are terrible, so battles tend to last longer than you'd expect when you're dealing with firearms. The AI, while not terribly brilliant is definitely a step-up, they're better at flanking at what-not, and they just generally tend to put up a better fight, I've lost some close battles, which never happened in Rome, or Medieval 2, something that I happen to like.

Some problems I'm having are a random loss in sound, like Apathetic Lurker reported. That issue seems pretty wide-spread though, so I'm assuming that's on their end, rather than mine. The campaign map is a little sluggish as well, but that's because there's a lot more going on now, and it's another common problem people seem to be having. The only other problem I'm having, and maybe somebody with the game can lend a hand here, I can't, for the life of me find the save games. I've looked everywhere, and I can't find a way to delete them in game, or find the folder they're stored in outside of it. I have a bunch of quick-save and auto-saves sitting around and I'd like to get rid of the ones I'm not going to use anymore.

Tried to jump right into a grand campaign after I installed, no dice. There's just too many new features, so I restarted with the Road to Independence, I'd definitely recommend this to anybody who's having a hard time wrapping their head around this beast. It introduces features slowly, and helps you to understand everything that's going on while you're looking at the new campaign map, and there's a lot to learn. I'm currently doing chapter 2 right now and I'm having quite a good time.

Overall I'd say this is an 8/10 after having spent the better part of the afternoon with it. There's definitely some hiccups but nothing that can't be fixed, either by SEGA/Creative Assembly, or by the modding community, which always pulls through with the Total War games. My biggest annoyance, as of right now is the random loss of sound, but the rest of the game is so good, I've been able to look past it for the time being.

[DaddyTorgo]

i just tried to change the display options in the demo and it locked up on me. i wanted to see if dropping the resolution and other things lower than the auto-detect helped with some of the slowness

[DaddyTorgo]

i wanted to check that out, but i don't have the patience to try again right now so it'll have to wait

[Radii]

After being so hyped up for this a couple weeks ago, I'm still totally hooked on my College Hoops 2k8 dynasty, and I just spent $320 on a PS3 and bought MLB09 The Show, so Empire: Total War is going to have to wait.

[Calis]

Yeah I was in the same boat, I'm having a blast with Street Fighter 4 and just bought The Show yesterday, but I still picked this up. I couldn't pass it up, seeing as how it's a period I was hoping they'd do.

I've only played for about an hour, and that just doing the little tutorial campaign which puts you in charge of John Smith and walks you through the basics of the game. Doubt I finish it, but I wanted to use it to get a feel for the game.

I'm really loving it so far. It loads quicker than I thought it would from hearing the complaints(exponentially faster than the demo for me), and it feels good so far. I haven't even tried the Naval combat yet which is what I'm really excited about.

I'm sure it has the usual warts and such that the Total War games always do, but I think this might be one I end up enjoying a lot more than the last few iterations, even moreso if someone mods it for the American Civil War.

[Apathetic Lurker]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

Might it be the fact that it's guns instead of swords and bows n arrows and what-not?

Nope..enjoyed the hell of Mtw2...that had guns

The saved games are somewhere within the labyrinth that is windows...I think..im going to delve into it tonight

Heh, I cant seem to find the game files either..seems Steam installed them wherever it does

[DaddyTorgo]

loads faster than the demo calis? woohoo

[Calis]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

loads faster than the demo calis? woohoo

I think so. I remember the demo taking an eternity to load and it didn't bother me when I ran the tutorial again on the retail.

Granted, the load times are still long but not enough to be a major issue to me.

[LionsFan10]

Originally Posted by Apathetic Lurker

Nope..enjoyed the hell of Mtw2...that had guns

The saved games are somewhere within the labyrinth that is windows...I think..im going to delve into it tonight

Heh, I cant seem to find the game files either..seems Steam installed them wherever it does

The Empire Files are in C:/Program Files/Steam/Steamapps/Common for me, that's where the actual game files are kept. To get to the save game files, you're going to have to turn on hidden files and folders, those are in

C:/Documents and Settings/User Name/Application Data/The Creative Assembly/Empire/Save_games

I'm on Windows XP, mind you but I think to path to the save games isn't much different from XP to Vista.

I have no idea why the save games are so hidden, it took quite a while for me to find them actually

[Calis]

Opened up the Grand Campaign for the first time.

Overwhelming to say the least. It definitely seems a lot more dense than the past games.

I actually miss the relative simplicity of Shogun. Not even sure where to begin with this one.

[Apathetic Lurker]

Originally Posted by LionsFan10

The Empire Files are in C:/Program Files/Steam/Steamapps/Common for me, that's where the actual game files are kept. To get to the save game files, you're going to have to turn on hidden files and folders, those are in

C:/Documents and Settings/User Name/Application Data/The Creative Assembly/Empire/Save_games

I'm on Windows XP, mind you but I think to path to the save games isn't much different from XP to Vista.

I have no idea why the save games are so hidden, it took quite a while for me to find them actually

I found them last night..My path was a tad bit different but did notice the saves lurking in a hidden folder..To me, that is inexcusable. I have NOT seen a delete button in the game.I can load a save but not delete one unless I go spelunking into my hidden folders? So, how many newbies are going to know how to do this? And why couldnt it allow me to install in my choice of drive?
I have a humongous dedicated game drive and a small c: drive. Yup it filled out that drive real fast. GOing to se if I can move the whole thing over without breaking it.

Another thing that gets my goat is unlocking the American faction.. I have been playing for over 5 hrs not finished yet. In Rome, at least the intro campaign was quick and painless. Here? Not so. Dissapointed in this game so far, even though it runs for me without any crashes.

[DaddyTorgo]

AL - I'm sure the mod-community is already hard at work on it. I tend to just use the early couple weeks/months to play the "vanilla" game and uncover cool little things while waiting for the guys over at the total war center forums to work their magic unlocking factions and fixing gameplay issues

[Calis]

The lack of an option to install to a different drive is a Steam thing, not an Empire thing.(Assuming you have Steam version)

It's an annoyance, but Steam installs everything to the drive it's located on. You might be able to install another instance of it on the other drive or do something to trick it, but that little feature is in all Steam games.

The unlocking of factions I hate. They should be available from the start. Usually there's an easy .ini fix to unlock them, but I haven't checked yet.

[gstelmack]

That's probably a bad choice for the save folders (AppData should be for configs, etc; there's actually a Saved Games dir under Vista for this, and probably should be using My Documents on XP), but the reason is to get them out of Program Files since that's been protected since the XP days (aside from Administrators having access rights, and everyone ran as Administrator to get around it...)

Not having a delete button on the UI is probably a stupid oversight that will get fixed in a patch would be my guess.

[Apathetic Lurker]

I have the retail box and it only allowed an install where it wanted.

Yeah, the game will be modded, but why the unlockable factions? Its a strategy/war game for petes sake, not railshooter or some such game

My opinion is save games should automatically go into the game directory..Half the time if you delete a game the saves hang around taking up space

[DaddyTorgo]

idk why the unlockable factions. it's lame, i agree

[Coffee Warlord]

They've been doing that unlockable faction crap since Rome:TW. It was lame then, and it's still lame.

Did they alter how overland travel works in this one?

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by Apathetic Lurker

My opinion is save games should automatically go into the game directory..Half the time if you delete a game the saves hang around taking up space

It's a big gaping security hole to allow writes to where the programs are. So the goal is to put programs in one place, and data in another (and most productivity software works this way). Definitely that data should be in an easily accessible location (which is the huge mistake here, they put it in AppData which is hidden), and Vista specifically created the "Saved Games" directory under the user folder to deal with this.

Not to mention that this allows for different settings / saved games lists for each user on a machine.

[Apathetic Lurker]

Well,I put this aside and have been trying out BM09 for 2 lousy bucks....Having more fun

[cartman]

Got the game and I played it a bit last night. I really like what I've seen so far. Even if the Indians far out number me, the superior firepower is the great equalizer. And I see surprise flanking maneuvers a lot more than I remember seeing in R:TW.

[SportsDino]

Broke down and got it.

Very intimidating to start, but it looks like it will be deep which is more important in the long run.

Battles are pretty complex, takes some getting used to, but it might be good, going to reserve judgment.

A lot of changes to strategic mode, there is so much going on I cannot tell whether it is dumbed down or not really, it might even be advanced.

Will give a more detailed review after I've played it a bit and got a feel for the mechanics in comparison to previous versions.

[Greyroofoo]

Started a game as Prussia last night. Getting used to the interface might be difficult but invading Poland certainly isn't.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Greyroofoo

Getting used to the interface might be difficult but invading Poland certainly isn't.

Has it ever been?

*rimshot*

[Calis]

For anyone feeling a bit overwhelmed with the campaign(I know I was), if you slog through the War of Independence Tutorial/Campaign by the time you get to Part 3 you get to have a massive historical Bunker Hill battle which is pretty fun and then it gives you a full fledged mini-campaign covering the American Revolutionary War. It's been a lot more manageable for me and I'm enjoying it quite a bit.

Getlemen are a pretty neat new addition to the series. They're a Spy type unit who function a little differently. You can have them duel other Gentlemen or even generals and I've had instances where I've forced the loser to retreat back several cities or outright killed them. You can also specialize them if you have enough universities(haven't tried this yet), and it sounds like they can also steal technologies from other universities. Fun little unit, and in that campaign Paul Revere is the Gentleman you start with and he is tearing through the British for me.

[cartman]

Originally Posted by Calis

For anyone feeling a bit overwhelmed with the campaign(I know I was), if you slog through the War of Independence Tutorial/Campaign by the time you get to Part 3 you get to have a massive historical Bunker Hill battle which is pretty fun and then it gives you a full fledged mini-campaign covering the American Revolutionary War. It's been a lot more manageable for me and I'm enjoying it quite a bit.

Getlemen are a pretty neat new addition to the series. They're a Spy type unit who function a little differently. You can have them duel other Gentlemen or even generals and I've had instances where I've forced the loser to retreat back several cities or outright killed them. You can also specialize them if you have enough universities(haven't tried this yet), and it sounds like they can also steal technologies from other universities. Fun little unit, and in that campaign Paul Revere is the Gentleman you start with and he is tearing through the British for me.

Yeah, I'm having a hell of a time trying to take Montreal and Quebec in Part 2. They have huge armies, and every time I try to build up my armies, I run into bankruptcy issues.

[Calis]

Originally Posted by cartman

Yeah, I'm having a hell of a time trying to take Montreal and Quebec in Part 2. They have huge armies, and every time I try to build up my armies, I run into bankruptcy issues.

Yeah that's a tough one because you don't have the ability to grow your economy much. I ended up really having to amass a large amount of gold then build an army and conquer, then disband a good portion of that army and repeat the process.

Ugly and a lot of taking advantage of the lack of a time limit but it worked.

[Edward64]

Anyone playing with regular GMA graphics?

[SportsDino]

I'm having a lot of trouble with crashes in the game, gonna try again turning down the graphics (my little beast of a machine defaults to high/ultra-high). It is really annoying to masterfully run a battle only to have it crash during the mopping up action (I easily spend 20-30 minutes on a battle). It is rare enough that I forget to save of course, but still it leaves a bad taste in my last two sessions.

I highly suggest the road to independence, gets you into the game at a slower pace so you can learn each new thing in detail. I'm probably going to skip ahead and do a defensive strategic campaign with Poland since I'm annoyed about crashing road to independence twice in a row without a save deep into an episode...

I suggest saving often until they patch it a couple times.

[gstelmack]

I absolutely love Steam and think it's a much better option that all the other copy protection schemes out there, plus I don't have to worry about boxes or CDs and the like, but it's sure hard to stay true when GoGamer has this for $39.99 regularly, on sale for $37 right now, so basically $13 cheaper than Steam...

All PC Games - Empire: Total War (I) for PC

[SportsDino]

No crashes since I turned down the graphics, will try bumping back up after they patch things.

Anyway, stuff I've noticed:

- Diplomacy seems a little bit better, and a little bit worst.
+ More options now that they have tech in the game.
+ Protectorates seem a bit easier to obtain and more beneficial (you can see the line item in your income statement called 'other' and see how much protectorate income can do).
+ If you really load up a deal, the AI actually accepts it, which is what it should do... not just randomly deny you when its completely stupid.
- However, sometimes you need to load up way too one-sided to make a deal that most of the time it is not worth it.
+ As Poland I just gave Prussia that little interconnecting territory and lived in peace for a decent amount of time (which was my intent). Trading land seems much improved.
- I miss the option to put out a request and have the AI suggest an initial offer. The counteroffer mechanism is really flaky without it... they give just a generic rejection message, but tweaking the offer slightly may be enough to have them give a counteroffer that is reasonably close to the one they outright deny! Wish someone would make a trade/barter AI for once that can handle simple haggling and deal creation, sheesh! (granted I specialize in economics based AIs, hehe I'm a little bitcher)
- It seems the AI knows when you have an army on its doorstep and will actually accept peace treaties (especially if you use the threat button). Vastly better than any previous iteration of the game, so far.

Overall, I'd rate the diplomacy as much better.

Need to bump up the battle difficulty, overall the basic mechanics seem pretty tight. With a few strategic uses of the pause button I can make it look like a real battle is taking place on my side (i.e. at least my army doesn't look like a random cloud of specs, can't say the same for the AI on Normal). Nothing is cooler than the little cloud of smoke that appears when I got my semicircle of doom made up of infantry to all slide into position at the same time and fire as one. I love making small enemy formations go from intact to completely routing in one volley!

Naval combat seems much tougher, probably just not used to the controls quite yet. Also not up on my naval strategies. Have had my best luck with various hit and run patterns, but the moments my ships start getting still I start having trouble winning a straight up fight (even with numerical superiority). I'm contemplating never actually targeting enemies at all and just constantly setting sail directions and relying on the fire at will mechanism. Certainly a great addition to the series.

Gonna try out Great Britain next and roleplay out a colonial power to see how the whole imperial thing works out.

[Edward64]

Amazon has 61 reviews, average 2 stars. Does it suck?
Amazon.com: Empire: Total War: Video Games

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Amazon has 61 reviews, average 2 stars. Does it suck?
Amazon.com: Empire: Total War: Video Games

I don't see how anyone could say this game is bad. May not be your cup of tea, but its far from bad. Without looking at the amazon ratings, just about everyone I've seen that's rated the game poorly complains because it uses steam for DRM.

FWIW, IGN gave it a 9.5 and Gamespot gave it an 8.5. I'd lean toward the Gamespot score because there are some issues that need to be addressed in a patch or two, but the game is a hell of a lot of fun.

[Apathetic Lurker]

Originally Posted by Atocep

I don't see how anyone could say this game is bad. May not be your cup of tea, but its far from bad. Without looking at the amazon ratings, just about everyone I've seen that's rated the game poorly complains because it uses steam for DRM.

FWIW, IGN gave it a 9.5 and Gamespot gave it an 8.5. I'd lean toward the Gamespot score because there are some issues that need to be addressed in a patch or two, but the game is a hell of a lot of fun.

But to them it is bad because it uses steam..To each his own.. I am lucky in that over 30 hours I only had one crash of the game itself but steam has been giving me a major headache. I wouldnt give it a great grade even though I do enjoy it because steam has sucked some of the enjoyment out. And as steam is a part of the whole, I have to take that into account when assessing my overrall enjoyment of the game.

[SportsDino]

Lot of technical issues, but I'm finding it pretty addicting.

I like most of the battle engine tweaks, although again the AI shows the weaknesses of modern games. Granted, it tends to improve at higher difficulty levels.

Naval battles are a pain to get used to, but I've finally had gone through some nice ones. It is very easy for things to just blow up into a mess (similar to land battle where it can just becomes one giant mosh pit at times), but if you micromanage your ships/troops you can pull off something vaguely resembling 18th century warfare. Unfortunately, that micromanagement is pretty touchy.

Game hates tech trading, but diplomacy is at least worth experimenting now. Particularly after beating up on a country. Of course, now you have the lame-o's on the internet whining about how it is easy to get the AI to agree to some things. In general the game seems a bit easier if you power game as well. To me that is pretty much a lose lose situation for game designers though, they can make the game bullet tight difficulty wise and still fail to the power games, but make half the functionality go unused by the AI (such as no naval invasions)... or they can make it play realistically and get chewed out for an AI that, oh my goodness, surrenders once you beat the heck out of it!

All in all, I'd give it a 7.0 score, with a 9.0 after they fix the bugs and tweak the AIs.

[gstelmack]

What exactly are the issues folks have with Steam? I've been using it off and on for a long time and never had a single issue that could be attributed to it. I LOVE it as a PC distribution model, avoiding the much more intrusive CD-based protection schemes.

[Apathetic Lurker]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

What exactly are the issues folks have with Steam? I've been using it off and on for a long time and never had a single issue that could be attributed to it. I LOVE it as a PC distribution model, avoiding the much more intrusive CD-based protection schemes.

Well for one, when I log off, steam refuses to do it automatically and so I have to sit there and babysit my computer and cancel steam manually. My second gripe is that so far steam has either(three times) a) attempted to download or b)has downloaded the full game while I was playing. Now if it was just the patch/update it wouldnt be a major pain but as it's the full game its attempting to DL it is a pain in the ass.Slows my whole system down a bit. Adding to the fact that I bought and installed the retail version and it should NOT try to dl the whole game it just adds to my damn frustration with steam....

[gstelmack]

For Empire, there is a FAQ on the support site about the "Steam tries to download the full version even though I bought the CD".

[Grammaticus]

So, even if you buy the retail CD, you still have to use Steam for DRM?

[Apathetic Lurker]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

For Empire, there is a FAQ on the support site about the "Steam tries to download the full version even though I bought the CD".

Yeah I know..I found that FAQ before..It still doesnt excuse what happened

Edit: last time I used steam was when half life 2 came out..So far this system is batting .000 in my book
Looks like that avg will never go up for me

[Apathetic Lurker]

Originally Posted by Grammaticus

So, even if you buy the retail CD, you still have to use Steam for DRM?

Yes..

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

What exactly are the issues folks have with Steam? I've been using it off and on for a long time and never had a single issue that could be attributed to it. I LOVE it as a PC distribution model, avoiding the much more intrusive CD-based protection schemes.

Same here, except I've been using it pretty consistently for a long time. I've bought at least 2 dozen games off it and have never had an issue with it. I love not needing CDs/DVDs in the drive to play the games and I can uninstall (delete) and reinstall (download) a game as many times as I want.

[Calis]

I'm too the point where I buy anything I can off Steam rather than retail, and I've even gone so far as to buy games I already own again when they pop-up on sale just so I have the Steam version.

Never had a problem with it. I can see people having issues with the concept, but I find it the least obtrusive DRM I've dealt with.

The game specifically I'm still on the fence about. I'd probably rank it a 7.0 or 7.5 at this point. I'm not sure my knocks against it are valid to most people though. I'm more or less aggravated with how complicated the games have begun. Everything seems to be a chore. I loved the old school boardgame feel of Shogun for the turn-based portion. I must be getting more impatient as gaming time lessens, but I find myself firing up the campaign and losing interest almost immediately. I'm sure whenever I can force myself to keep plowing through it I'll enjoy it, but that's tough to do now.

The battles themselves I am still having a lot of fun doing.

[SportsDino]

Capturing ships is a pain in the butt, but even worst, half the time it doesn't even give you the ships after the battle! Another very annoying bug (or game design decision).

Just spent 20 minutes carefully and cleanly capturing an entire small fleet with no casualties on my side (except my admiral, the ship was fine, but he must have got hit by a stray cannonball or something cause he was among the maybe few dozen crewers that died across my whole fleet, early too).

Captured 4 ships with my 7. How many do I see after the battle? 0! And this is the third time I've had captured ships not be counted, although I assumed other times I must have had too narrow a victory or some such to prevent capturing them.

Considering the there are all sorts of problems with boarding as it is anyway, often your ship chases the other one forever to perform the boarding maneuver, in the process taking damage, also the other ship gets to fire point blank into yours, causing your ship to get sunk as often as capture a ship with hardly any crew left. Seems like something that was implemented poorly at the last moment.

I'm probably going to shelf the game for a few weeks until it gathers up a bunch of patches.

[Apathetic Lurker]

Originally Posted by SportsDino

Capturing ships is a pain in the butt, but even worst, half the time it doesn't even give you the ships after the battle! Another very annoying bug (or game design decision).

Just spent 20 minutes carefully and cleanly capturing an entire small fleet with no casualties on my side (except my admiral, the ship was fine, but he must have got hit by a stray cannonball or something cause he was among the maybe few dozen crewers that died across my whole fleet, early too).

Captured 4 ships with my 7. How many do I see after the battle? 0! And this is the third time I've had captured ships not be counted, although I assumed other times I must have had too narrow a victory or some such to prevent capturing them.

Considering the there are all sorts of problems with boarding as it is anyway, often your ship chases the other one forever to perform the boarding maneuver, in the process taking damage, also the other ship gets to fire point blank into yours, causing your ship to get sunk as often as capture a ship with hardly any crew left. Seems like something that was implemented poorly at the last moment.

I'm probably going to shelf the game for a few weeks until it gathers up a bunch of patches.

Well you do end up with prize money even if you dont get any ships

[SportsDino]

Not if its completely bugged, 0 prize money and 0 ships after capturing 4, including a trade ship (and a fifth rate, which early on is worth its weight in gold). I would have taken anything I could get after my genius admiral had a cannonball shaped hole in his gut.

[Radii]

http://www.ebgames.com/Catalog/Produ...oduct_id=71070

On sale for $30 through EB Games. I have no idea how long this is good for, I noticed it was still $50 on steam and was just poking around elsewhere to see if there was a better price and this popped up.

[CleBrownsfan]

How is this game? I really wanted to get it when it first came out but really haven't had the interest to pick it up yet...