Empire: Total War review - experience thread

[Vympel]

Link

Game comes out soon, so I thought I'd put this up. EB will probably break the street date and sell me my copy tommorow.

The 200th turn (last turn) ends at 1799. Those bastards. Napoleon expansion, obviously.

Unsurprisingly, the diplomacy system appears to be the same old shit, but diplomats have been canned (Thank god):-

With the merchants removed from the game, the diplomats followed. Diplomacy is now controlled through a single interface that lets you negotiate with other nations any time you want. You no longer need to dispatch a diplomat in order to talk to another country. And with so many interactions going on at once and so much distance between the nations involved, it's a welcome change. Unfortunately, as convenient as the whole affair is, there are still some options that are missing and some strange balance issues. For one thing, it seems that your own success inspires other nations to hate you, and I've found that it's harder to make friends when I'm doing well than it is when I've got my back against the wall. Secondly, the AI never really comes back with a counterproposal when they reject an offer, so players aren't ever really going to be sure what they need to do to sweeten the pot.

[Darth Wong]

I hope the loading delays are shorter than they were in the demo. I don't really want to pay for major hardware upgrades just to play this latest game, especially since there is far less variety of infantry fighting tactics than M2TW now that everybody basically uses the same weapon and (lack of) armour, so that part of the software would seem to be simpler.

[Vympel]

I didn't even get to play the demo. I heard there was some unpacker you could get to reduce loading times.

[Darth Wong]

I played the demo long enough to realize that I have no business commanding a fleet of sailing ships

Hopefully I will improve.

[ray245]

I think this AAR published by CA does give us some insight concerning how the AI will perform in the campaign map.

http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic/44 ... eport.html

The British secretly backing and throwing money for a war in mainland Europe? A British conspiracy? Awesome!

[weemadando]

All the lead-up to this has made me more and more keen.

And Vympel - even if they break the street date, isn't it still a Steam activation req'd? And anyway - Steam has it at 9 hours away.

I really, really cannot wait for this. Finally the setting that I've been after. Now I just need 2 expansions - 1 to bring in the Napoleonic and the second to give me Sharpe.

Multiplayer campaign and by multi they mean 2. Pity. I guess that's the expansion again?

[atg]

The British secretly backing and throwing money for a war in mainland Europe? A British conspiracy? Awesome!

Fits with what happened in the Napoleonic Wars. Britain pretty much financed all of the anti-Napoleon/French alliances.

I played the demo long enough to realize that I have no business commanding a fleet of sailing ships

Hopefully I will improve.

1. Play as Britain.
2. Sing 'Rule Britannia'.
3. ????
4. Profit (or sink French Navy)

[ray245]

All the lead-up to this has made me more and more keen.

And Vympel - even if they break the street date, isn't it still a Steam activation req'd? And anyway - Steam has it at 9 hours away.

I really, really cannot wait for this. Finally the setting that I've been after. Now I just need 2 expansions - 1 to bring in the Napoleonic and the second to give me Sharpe.

Multiplayer campaign and by multi they mean 2. Pity. I guess that's the expansion again?

The 2 player Multiplayer campaign is only beta, to test their ideas can work or not. They will release the full multiplayer mode after the beta has ended.

[atg]

Does anyone know what happended to being able to pre-download the game on Steam? I had heard that we were going to be able to start the download 48hrs in advance, but my Steam client is saying I can't download for another 6 hours, or when its released anyway.

[ray245]

Does anyone know what happended to being able to pre-download the game on Steam? I had heard that we were going to be able to start the download 48hrs in advance, but my Steam client is saying I can't download for another 6 hours, or when its released anyway.

There are too many people who pre-ordered it, which makes steam nervous that its servers will crash.

[atg]

Does anyone know what happended to being able to pre-download the game on Steam? I had heard that we were going to be able to start the download 48hrs in advance, but my Steam client is saying I can't download for another 6 hours, or when its released anyway.

There are too many people who pre-ordered it, which makes steam nervous that its servers will crash.

If they're worried about server load then it would make more sense to allow early download - to ease demand when the game is actually released. Instead everyones going to be trying to hit it in about 6 hours

[Thanas]

For one thing, it seems that your own success inspires other nations to hate you, and I've found that it's harder to make friends when I'm doing well than it is when I've got my back against the wall. Secondly, the AI never really comes back with a counterproposal when they reject an offer, so players aren't ever really going to be sure what they need to do to sweeten the pot.

This sounds exactly like the main problems with the R:TW and M:TW AI. So much for revamping the shoddy Campaign AI.

[Vympel]

They always say they're going to revamp the AI, and it's always been a total lie. I dunno.

[Ubiquitous]

IGN have given the game a 9.5 rating, there is also a nice video review available which shows off the beautiful naval combat.

I am going to wait a week or two and read this thread before deciding whether to buy it.

[wautd]

I am going to wait a week or two and read this thread before deciding whether to buy it.

I'll buy it regardless of the scores or reviews it gets. It's a Total War game after all. It's not like there are many games of this type on the market, and the best alternatives are older Total War games. The only other somewhat recent non-TW alternative I can think of was Imperial Glory and that was mediocre at best.

Hell, even if it sucks you could still rely on its excellent modding community

[ray245]

I thought that people may be interested in this Q&A.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/empir ... ve-q-and-a

[Vympel]

EB Games just called me and told me it was out. Going to pick up my pre-order today.

[Thanas]

Despite CA announcing on their website that there will be a preload, turns out that there really was none and that everyone who bought the steam version got pretty much ripped off as they still have to wait for downloading while the guys who bought it in a store can already play it.

Clearly, steam is the way to go.

Man, am I glad I won't buy this game until it is no longer steam activated.

[Stark]

I'll buy it regardless of the scores or reviews it gets. It's a Total War game after all. It's not like there are many games of this type on the market, and the best alternatives are older Total War games. The only other somewhat recent non-TW alternative I can think of was Imperial Glory and that was mediocre at best.

Hell, even if it sucks you could still rely on its excellent modding community

You should go post this over on TWC. Quality? Pah!

I'm hoping this arvo Vympel will play through a campaign and be able to say 'is/is not hopeless ai' and 'is/is not significant bugs'.

[Thanas]

From what I have seen in the previews, the AI has not been improved very much. It still charges cavalry at squares, resulting in the reoccurence of the old "AI has fun watching its best troops getting impaled".

[Vympel]

I'm hoping this arvo Vympel will play through a campaign and be able to say 'is/is not hopeless ai' and 'is/is not significant bugs'.

I got my copy, but I won't be able to play through it until this evening, so I'll probably report tommorow morning before work starts in earnest (i.e. sipping my tea/ eating my scotch finger biccies)

[CmdrWilkens]

I think this AAR published by CA does give us some insight concerning how the AI will perform in the campaign map.

http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic/44 ... eport.html

The British secretly backing and throwing money for a war in mainland Europe? A British conspiracy? Awesome!

Reading that it does sound like the diplomacy model makes a bit more sense but I'm gonna wait a bit and see...mostly ebcause i just got my ass re-addicted to LOTRO.

[weemadando]

From that Q&A

Gremmi asks: As your advert appears to look like Sean Bean, can we look forward to any hero units 'inspired' by fiction? Say, a Lieutenant Sharpe and the 95th Rifles, or Captain Jack Aubrey aboard a capital ship?

Kieran Brigden: Haha! The Sean Bean figure! Yes, I think he's been given that nickname internally too, although that was never the intention during design. I don't want to spoil it but there are various historical, fictional and indeed 'Easter egg' figures who pop up at certain times, in certain regions and with certain factions.

SEAN BEAN! WOO!

But more concerning is the admission that there is no Africa on the campaign map.

How the fuck will this work? Can we not even have ports for trade there, or is it just the interior that's locked?

Fucking expansion baiting.

[Stark]

Reading that it does sound like the diplomacy model makes a bit more sense but I'm gonna wait a bit and see...mostly ebcause i just got my ass re-addicted to LOTRO.

It's just a less sophisticated version of the system used in GalCiv2, which is years old. Poor old CA.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Poking through the QA, this bit enraged me. No fucking wonder the wind was so goddamned irrelevant in the demo battle:

FornicatingBaboon asks: What sort of process is involved when deciding on issues of realism versus game balance?

Kieran Brigden: Good question. It's what works regarding gameplay. Some historical tactics might be fun (line formations and demasting for example) and others are difficult and annoying (tacking, which got dropped). It's about what's fun and realistic; if we can't make it functional and fun it doesnt make it.

What the fuck is so difficult and annoying about fucking tacking for fuck's sake? It's basic sailing. Yes, true, most people are not at all familiar with sailing concepts, but then most people are also not familiar with the infantry tactics upon which the TW series is based. Removing tacking is like removing horses from land battles and just making all units move uniformly at the speed of cavalry instead.

It's not as if it's a difficult concept to master: ZIG ZAG YOUR BOAT SO YOU'RE NOT GOING FACE-FIRST INTO THE WIND.

Gaaaah.

My money's on one week before a mod addresses this and re-implements it, at least.