Empire: Total War review - experience thread

[Psychic_Sandwich]

I imagine it was for time when you couldn't just line your troops up on a field and have at it. So, if you're moving around in a town as platoons rather than large, unwieldy battalions or something, or if you want something a bit more flexible in a field battle.

[ray245]

Sigh, it seems that I have problem with finding servers and games online. The online servers I can see is the ones created by my friends.

Moreover, there seems to be a bug in regards to installing ETW from the disc. If I install it from the disc, my computer will said my OS is not compatibility with ETW, even though I can play the demo and install the full game using steam.

[defanatic]

Okay, major improvement on the diplomatic model-starting a game as Poland-Lithuania, the Prussian AI proposed to me a deal on Turn 1 that would swap East and West Prussia, and, further, offered me incentives in the way of tech and florins. Maybe I just got lucky or something, but that would've never happened in any of the earlier TW games.

I get an offer from Spain fairly regularly that they would trade me three regions and a bunch of techs and some money for France. I always deny them, because it is France, and I'm Britain. I have standards!

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Well, I've been playing the hell out of it for awhile now...

...and now it crashes every time it gets to the Inuit turn. I was all the way to 1720, I had most of the Caribbean and Canada and was working on exterminating the Cherokee (good god do they have massive armies). I'm not even sure if it's worth it to revert to a much, much older save, especially since I don't know if it will just happen again.

[wautd]

Quick question. How can you speed up unit movements on the strategic map? I can't seem to find the option anymore.

[Samuel]

When ships surrender, you do in fact capture them. After the battle, out on the campaign map on the battle statistics screen, there is a field at the bottom which lists captured enemy ships (successfully boarded ships end up here too). You can either leave them in that field to claim prize money for them, or you can drag them into your navy to keep them.

http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic/46 ... tured.html

More forthcoming.

[atg]

Quick question. How can you speed up unit movements on the strategic map? I can't seem to find the option anymore.

I ended up just disabling the 'follow ai movement' option.

[PeZook]

That whole platoon firing fiasco sounds really, REALLY horrible. Game-breakingly horrible, in fact.

And...Inuit turns? Does this mean you can play as the Indians, push out the white invaders, tech up and invade europe?

Yeah, I know it sounds ridiculous. But awesome.

[weemadando]

Why can't I fire in ranks? This makes no sense to me.

And crashes. Why must it crash?

[wautd]

Napoleon expansion, obviously.

Actually, I'd love to see a prequel expansion in the form of a Spanish campaign during the Renaissance.

[ray245]

Why can't I fire in ranks? This makes no sense to me.

And crashes. Why must it crash?

You need to research rank fire, or else you can't use that tactic.

[wautd]

Quick question. How can you speed up unit movements on the strategic map? I can't seem to find the option anymore.

I ended up just disabling the 'follow ai movement' option.

Nope that wasn't it. Appearantly it's just pressing the spacebar now (instead of rightclicking in the previous games)

[Minischoles]

That whole platoon firing fiasco sounds really, REALLY horrible. Game-breakingly horrible, in fact.

And...Inuit turns? Does this mean you can play as the Indians, push out the white invaders, tech up and invade europe?

Yeah, I know it sounds ridiculous. But awesome.

Theres a godawful amount of tiny factions in the game. You'll click end turn and spend about 30-45 seconds just having the flags rotate at the top.

[Vympel]

It's really admirable - the Khanate of Crimea and Chechnya-Dagestan are their own factions.

[atg]

Quick question. How can you speed up unit movements on the strategic map? I can't seem to find the option anymore.

I ended up just disabling the 'follow ai movement' option.

Nope that wasn't it. Appearantly it's just pressing the spacebar now (instead of rightclicking in the previous games)

You could right click to do that in the previous games? I always just left clicked. It would appear that left-clicking still speeds them up in E:TW, but not by very much. Of course that could just be my imagination playing tricks on me.

[Ériu]

Why was Platoon Firing historically used? It sounds rather useless to be trained it. What was it supposed to be used for in the game?

From what I've gathered it was basically developed as a way of keeping up a constant stream of fire, traditionally both sides would line up and let rip with everything they have, but with platoon firing you have waves of constant fire because by the time the last platoon had fired its shot the first would have reloaded.

It must have had a devastating effect on morale when first employed, instead of relief at still being alive, then the gut wrenching terror as the enemy let off a volley, you would constantly hear the sound of near misses and see your fellow soldiers dropping one by one, it must have been hell trying to reload while it happened.

Of course since CA have a nasty habit of fucking up the pathfinding in their games it probably doesnt work as its meant too. (gunpowder units were useless in M2TW because of a retarded bug that would happen once a unit with firearms took some losses, they would stop firing and take forever to reform and half of the time only a few units would fire.)

Indeed it looks like elite units are pretty much useless now because the amount of men in a unit is all that matters due to the bugged special abilitys.

Of course despite all of the bugs and fuck ups I'm reading about, I still can't wait for the game to arrive.

[Lazarus]

You need to research rank fire, or else you can't use that tactic.

This is retarded. So it takes decades for people to figure out that having only the front line of a unit fire and the rest stand around until the guys in front die is probably not the most efficient way of fighting?
My line infantry are practically ineffective against the hordes of shitty-ass melee troops the indians keep sending at me, they get maybe one volley off then it's tomahawks-to-the-face. Even if they're in range my guys seem to have pacifist tendencies and just stand there sometimes, especially if the battles become confused.
And what the hell is with the plug bayonets? So you shove the knife in the barrel, fair enough, but you then can't take it out again? So what, you throw the musket away and get a new one?

[weemadando]

You need to research rank fire, or else you can't use that tactic.

This is retarded. So it takes decades for people to figure out that having only the front line of a unit fire and the rest stand around until the guys in front die is probably not the most efficient way of fighting?
My line infantry are practically ineffective against the hordes of shitty-ass melee troops the indians keep sending at me, they get maybe one volley off then it's tomahawks-to-the-face. Even if they're in range my guys seem to have pacifist tendencies and just stand there sometimes, especially if the battles become confused.
And what the hell is with the plug bayonets? So you shove the knife in the barrel, fair enough, but you then can't take it out again? So what, you throw the musket away and get a new one?

The rank fire thing comes from me playing battle-mode as late game British. And no rank fire then? Really? REALLY?

Who knows.

[Thanas]

This game really is freaking bugged.

Whenever I am attacked by a genoese and barbary pirates fleet, I get a blue screen of death 90% of the time.

The native american fractions are freaking overpowered. Playing as spain, I just got spammed to death by the pueblo and cherokee nations. St. Augustine was lost. Note - this is me recruiting two new line units for St Augustine every turn and still the cherokee overpowered me.

The pueblo nation has been beeten back and destroyed, but it took me 25 years to do it. Full stacks get killed way too easy by them, as they just spam hordes of melee troops that kill half your troops before they get slaughtered. The problem: They can take the losses and spam dozens of new units. You can't.

Re-Recruiting depleted units is also freaking unbalanced. Training new regiments takes one turn. Retraining depleted units takes two at least. Result - it is not worth having elite units.

[CaptHawkeye]

Just how the christ are the Indian nations so powerful? It's hilarious to watch them attack my musketeer lines with fucking long bows and win.

[Ford Prefect]

Maybe my friend and I are playing at a lower difficulty level than you lot are, but frankly I find the Cherokee a complete non-factor. We lost about three hundred men in battle with a large Cherokee army, and they lost a thousand, and have been pushing deep into their territory. Even with their own artillery it wasn't much of a problem for the red coats.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

The (American) Indian troops really are pretty ridiculous. "Bringing a knife to a gun fight" and all that. My guns only have time for one salvo of canister too before they just get swarmed in melee (unless I actually got decent terrain to work with so I can put my guns on a ridge behind my lines, but that's rare), even with dragoons ready to scramble to their defense.

Bowmen being effective against musket infantry is actually somewhat realistic, since the longbow wasn't technically obsolete until the widespread use of breech-loading rifles (a good bow and bowman can "reload" much, much faster than a muzzle-loading musket, is more accurate, and has just as much lethality). What fucking pisses me off about them is how they have longer range and always sit just out of range of your infantry, peppering you with arrows unless you specifically pay attention. Even then, trying to advance your troops into range is generally fruitless, since they are always set to skirmish and simply move out of range again before your men have formed up and are ready to fire. So I just rely on my guns and dragoons to deal with the stupid archers.

[Beowulf]

The advantage of muskets over bows is that it's significantly faster to train a musketeer than a bowman. Also, it's nearly impossible to armor against a musket.

[ray245]

The advantage of muskets over bows is that it's significantly faster to train a musketeer than a bowman. Also, it's nearly impossible to armor against a musket.

However, it seems that the native Americans have ridiculous training rate.

[Minischoles]

The Native americans really do seem to have been massively unbalanced by CA, you'll just be spammed and spammed and spammed. Facing them while trying to finish off a war in Europe is stupidly hard, you'll go bankrupt in a few turns trying to keep the massive army required.
Few other bad points

- Way too much management is needed. I had maybe 10-11 provinces, and there was just insane numbers of tiny cities and stuff i had to manage, I was up at around 30 minute turns already just managing everything
- Enemy battle AI is definitely still poor. In 5 sieges now, i've literally marched my men up to point blank range and peppered the enemy until I run out of ammo, and they've never moved an inch
- Cavalry seems very underpowered, I lose like half a unit taking on archers or taking on some low rank artillery
- Naval combat is barely worth the time investment it takes to micro a large number of ships to win. You end up just putting them into a line and letting the experience and numbers tell.
- Pathfinding on your units is stupid. You'll put them behind some cover to fire, and unless you leave them to fire at will, so click on an enemy to attack, they'll reposition and likely leave the damn cover and get slaughtered.
- This is already mentioned, but its damn annoying. Your elite units suck vs milita that can rank fire. Having the top unit in the game get absolutely slaughtered by some silly milita before they can even inflict any casualties is very very annoying.

About the only good thing i've seen so far is the diplomacy system is actually very nicely done. Your enemies actually seem halfway intelligent and factions will actually trade and make alliances properly.