Empire: Total War review - experience thread

[Lazarus]

And I do know there is an automanage feature, but since the auto manage feature has almost universally sucked in every TW game to date, be damned if i'm trying it just to get bit in the arse again.

Don't moan about it as if it's unavoidable then, I've just won as the BE with it on.

It's funny that anybody could consider fucking Prussia, France or Spain to be "whoever"

Actually my example was Poland, I was referring to the minor states, Sweden is another example, and this includes the small states. It's obviously not worth CA customising armies for fucking Hannover or Savoy or something. The only ones most people are going to be bothered about are Britain, France, Spain, Prussia and Russia.

They even customised the box art for each of the major countries, which hardly indicates no effort.

A few people here seem to have been expecting some sort of realistic 18th century simulation; look elsewhere. Oh wait, there isn't such a game, on account of the audience doesn't exist. If they DID make one you'd probably STILL moan that the Prussian Guards hats were the wrong shade of beige anyway.
At it's heart, the game is a mass-seller RTS. It has to be accessible and enjoyable, so shoving complex naval crap in it is counter-productive, and the proportion of the audience who give a shit about whether the Swedish Polar Bear Patrol is correctly represented isn't enough for CA to expend the resources in including them.

Another random bug, when I set mortars to fire standard shot, they tend to hit the ground then bounce straight back up into oblivion

[Thirdfain]

Not to be a douche, but in the time period covered by the game, Poland-Lithuania was considered a major continental power.

[PeZook]

Not to be a douche, but in the time period covered by the game, Poland-Lithuania was considered a major continental power.

I was going to say the exact same thing. Though it was beginning to decline, the same could be said about Spain.

That's besides the point, though. Nobody's saying all powers should have totally customized 100% historically accurate troop trees, but some, well...flavor would be nice. Why should Britain get five times the amount of unique units of Spain?

[Thanas]

The only ones most people are going to be bothered about are Britain, France, Spain, Prussia and Russia.

So please, please show me what major effort they made for those countries compared to the freaking brits who get triple the custom units?

They even customised the box art for each of the major countries, which hardly indicates no effort.

Bah. That is marketing, it says jack about the developers.

A few people here seem to have been expecting some sort of realistic 18th century simulation; look elsewhere. Oh wait, there isn't such a game, on account of the audience doesn't exist. If they DID make one you'd probably STILL moan that the Prussian Guards hats were the wrong shade of beige anyway.
At it's heart, the game is a mass-seller RTS. It has to be accessible and enjoyable, so shoving complex naval crap in it is counter-productive, and the proportion of the audience who give a shit about whether the Swedish Polar Bear Patrol is correctly represented isn't enough for CA to expend the resources in including them.

Frell you and your giant strawman. Get back and read what actually was said instead of trying to turn this into "oh no, obscure unit wasn't in". Frell you.

Not to be a douche, but in the time period covered by the game, Poland-Lithuania was considered a major continental power.

Yeah, but then Lazarus is not one of the guys who knows about history.

Not to be a douche, but in the time period covered by the game, Poland-Lithuania was considered a major continental power.

I was going to say the exact same thing. Though it was beginning to decline, the same could be said about Spain.

Seein how Spain reached its greatest extension only in 1784, I say they were still one of the big three - England, France and Spain.

That's besides the point, though. Nobody's saying all powers should have totally customized 100% historically accurate troop trees, but some, well...flavor would be nice. Why should Britain get five times the amount of unique units of Spain?

Exactly. And why should the British army be heralded at the end-all in the unit descriptions when it pretty much played second fiddle?

[Artemas]

There are some ups and downs with this game.

Ups: The revamped diplomacy is pretty decent, with some EUIII vibes there, too bad there isn't a "leader of alliance" mechanic, to stop my allies from continuing a war in which I've made peace (Mughal Empire STILL at war with Poland?).

The minor nation-states are awesome. The Knights, the Crimean Khanate, Dagestan, Hanover, et cetera (also, lol at the three full stacks of the Inuit).

There is in fact a decent roster for most of the major powers. France and Spain have nearly as many (if not equal) units as the British do. Plus all the colonial troops. East Indian Company Line Infantry, Colonial Line, Native Auxiliaries, etc.
(as an aside, you can mod the game to get the Special Forces units, Death's Head Hussars FTW!)

Field defences in battles are pretty cool.

Money and unit upkeep i think is well balanced. Even if you have a hefty warchest of 40,000, it go away right quick with the recruitment of a new army. Overall, it allows even poor nations to raise a full stack army relatively cheaply.

Interception is a good addition.

Sieges are now more interesting, and field battles more common.

The tax system is pretty cool. 2 sliders covers both nobles and peasants. Putting them too high has penalties other than angry people. Poor population and economic growth are some. (Economies actually growing is pretty cool)

Downs: Bugs ahoy? Numerous bugs with trade, and a retarded regression with some elements of battles.

If a fleet including trade ships enters a trade port, and then some of the ships leave, the trade ships won't make money trading. The resources just don't show up.

Reinforcement system has regressed to even pre-Shogun standards, IE they are totally retarded. On top of this, the battle maps are much smaller than M2TW, and the deployment area is so tiny, there is almost no point in it even being there.

Platoon firing has no toggle, and is less effective in some situations.

Star Forts are a great idea, but the execution is shitty due to poor pathfinding and over-complication. The lowest tier of forts are the best (for a small force).


A word on naval combat:
After I played the demo, I thought that they took the lazy mans approach and just dumbed down naval combat to appease kiddies, but I have since changed my mind for two reasons.

One, having the weather gauge is actually quite important in these battles, as it gives an extraordinary advantage in maneuver.
Two, playing with more than 10 ships already stretches the limits of micromanagement, and playing with over 15 just turns into a nightmare.

I am now very glad they did not include tacking, and realistic weather effects.

[ray245]

I hate the over-powered pirates. My entire Carribean navy was wiped out thanks to one small pirate fleet made up of galleons.

How on Earth did the Pirates get so many good ships in the first place? Sigh, now I'm deploying another armada from UK itself to resolve the piracy issue.

[wautd]

Rah, fucking steam doesn't let me play the game again.

[Artemas]

I should add that the game looks worse and plays worse than M2TW. It doesn't help that I'm not allowed to select any option higher than medium, but I like to tinker.

Also to clarify, France and Britian have the most unique units. But only by 1 or 2. It also depends on the AOR and whether (in custom battles) the period is early or late.

[Acidburns]

My British campaign has developed one of these fucking AI-turn crashes. Happens every time the Huron Confederacy declares war on me. I can't be arsed going back several turns to bribe them out of it. A lot of people seem to have similar bugs, I think I'll put the game on hold till they fix it.

[CmdrWilkens]

My British campaign has developed one of these fucking AI-turn crashes. Happens every time the Huron Confederacy declares war on me. I can't be arsed going back several turns to bribe them out of it. A lot of people seem to have similar bugs, I think I'll put the game on hold till they fix it.

Near as I can tell the Huron will declare war on the British no matter what and I've not yet been able to get them to agree to a peace (I offered them $10k, and some tech and they still didn't go for it AFTER I conquered their capital).

I'm starting to think there is an AI bug that just keeps nations at war even if you are offering generous terms as a way out. For instance I've been at war with Prussia, thanks to an ally call I didn't want to break, for most of 50 turns. I've got their only port blockaded and I've offered to pay for a ceasefire (and pay handsomely too) yet they still won't go for it.

[Ubiquitous]

I'm starting to think there is an AI bug that just keeps nations at war even if you are offering generous terms as a way out. For instance I've been at war with Prussia, thanks to an ally call I didn't want to break, for most of 50 turns. I've got their only port blockaded and I've offered to pay for a ceasefire (and pay handsomely too) yet they still won't go for it.

That brainbug is still in the game huh? That problem has been around since at least Rome where you will utterly crush an enemy and have them totally surrounded, but no matter how hard you try they won't sign a ceasefire.

[MKSheppard]

Oh wait, there isn't such a game, on account of the audience doesn't exist.

Oh look, you stupid hatfucker, several 18th century simulations do exist; ranging from grand scale (Crown of Glory Emperor's Edition) to tactical (Hist Wars: Les Grognards) though Histwars has been in development hell for YEARS, and I seriously doubt it'll ever be released.

Hist Wars; Les Grognards

If they DID make one you'd probably STILL moan that the Prussian Guards hats were the wrong shade of beige anyway.

Hey look, the tired old strawman, except updated for Napeolonics instead of the original: "ZOMG, THAT CUPOLA ON THAT TIGER IS ALL WRONG; THE GAME IZ RUINED!" for WW2 games.

I don't expect 100% accuracy; but I do expect at least a reasonable attempt at making things accurate.

[Artemas]

So, just played several battles with reinforcements. As far as I can tell, reinforcements ALWAYS show up behind the position of their enemy. Poor coding, or poorly designed "feature"?

As for the enemy not accepting surrender, I've not run across it yet. Even with large, major players like Russia or Poland-Lithuania, they've accepted after a brief engagement when I've sweetened the pot enough.

Courland seems to be universally regarded by players as hyper-aggressive. Lets pull a Georgia!

I wish basic Light Infantry and Guards were available from the start, just having major tech upgrades to improve performance

Apparently experience effects not only melee attack, defence and morale, but also accuracy and speed of reload.

There needs to be a much larger, more fleshed out tech tree. As it is, 80% of the tech are practically mandatory requisites for buildings or units or such. It would be nice if some were just non-related free standing bonus type things, like +5% accuracy, or what have you. That would allow a player to go the Prussian "accuracy? just shoot more!" approach, or the more down to earth "stab them, overrun their position, then stab them again" method.

As always, instead of coding in some method of native troops or whatnot to stage ambushes and raids, they just increased their morale and general stats. Because REAL natives never ran from gunpowder.

[GuppyShark]

Yeah, the same thing happened with the Aztecs in MTW2, though they later tuned them down after the fanbase got into an uproar.

I don't have a problem per se with the natives being a threat on the field, but I wish they'd done it by having huge numbers, not by dancing outside your rifle range shooting bows or having high stats.

A war with an Indian nation should be a very serious affair - half their population is soldiery after a fashion, and there's hundreds of thousands, if not millions of them. I can't help but think a lot of the complaints are from people expecting the wars with the natives to be like 'creeping' in WoW - free and easy territory and xp for your troops.

I kind of like that initially, you have a fragile, thin red line to hold them back with, and it often comes down to bayonets vs hatchets. Sort of like the wars against the Zulus. Wait a minute, shouldn't there be Zulus in this game?

(In this thread, GuppyShark reveals he has no idea about this period's history!).

[Artemas]

The Zulu Wars against the British were in the late 19th century, i believe 1870s-80s.

And I agree. I have no problem facing serious and determined opposition from the natives, but I wasn't expecting them to fight pitched battles. Ideally, they would have sent small stacks of 2-6 units to run around and raid things and then ambush the column sent to protect the new shcool or whatever. On the other hand, the battle system that Total War uses isn't really conducive to the style of warfare that the natives were adept at.

Yes, they would have had a much higher warrior to civilian ratio than European countries, but their social structure was so decentralized that the maximum number of warriors in a warband would have been in the very low thousand. Most battles that I've read about usually have no more than 600 native warriors, with the record topping out at 1500 on a couple of occasions.

[wautd]

I don't think it's been mentioned already, but it seems you can buy a full stack of generals of the bat (as long as you have the money). Is this is bug because it sure feels like cheating when you do it.

[GuppyShark]

I think it's working as intended. I hear it's a hilarious way to get around the unit restrictions the pirates have (they're not allowed more than six units of bucaneers or somesuch).

[ray245]

Great, I've just bankrupted the British Empire. Seems like I have to disband my army, as well as selling some of my colonies for Cash.

Although it is annoying to play as Russians, with all the Turks wrecking havoc your lands and etc.

[Artemas]

There are a bunch of things I would have liked to have seen in the game, but I'll only go over a few of them now.

Supply lines:
We have this new "replenish anywhere" mechanic, which is pretty handy, but I wish that it functioning was dependant on having a clear line of supply to a city. Sort of like trade routes (and looking just like them, but on land), it would follow the roads from the army to the nearest faction city. And like trade routes, if an enemy force "blockaded" them, then nothing would get through. These supply lines could also travel through fleets or ports, if a fleet is located on the shore, and the seaward lines aren't being privateered. You would need at least one base of operations in a theater though.

Raids:
Just having an option to launch a "raid" when an army moves close to an enemy force undetected. Sort of like a pro-active version of an ambush. It would be a night battle, with the defending force (if surprised) laid out in a large decentralized camp. The attacker would just need to inflict some casualties, then bug out. Obviously, withdrawing from this battle shouldn't count as a "defeat".

This would make fuller use out of the scout-type troops, as well as allow some pretty impressive guerilla campaigns.

For anyone else whose gone bankrupt, did you lose half your troops as well?

[PeZook]

And I agree. I have no problem facing serious and determined opposition from the natives, but I wasn't expecting them to fight pitched battles. Ideally, they would have sent small stacks of 2-6 units to run around and raid things and then ambush the column sent to protect the new shcool or whatever. On the other hand, the battle system that Total War uses isn't really conducive to the style of warfare that the natives were adept at.

The ambush mechanics were already in Rome and Medieval. Just have North America be heavily forested, and voila: fighting the Indians would mean mostly defending from ambushes and raids.

A good raid mechanic would be awesome, though. You could then have all sorts of scenarios with uprisings, rebellions and guerilla campaigns and such.

Yes, they would have had a much higher warrior to civilian ratio than European countries, but their social structure was so decentralized that the maximum number of warriors in a warband would have been in the very low thousand. Most battles that I've read about usually have no more than 600 native warriors, with the record topping out at 1500 on a couple of occasions.

Also, while there were a lot of Indians living in America, they were organized as tiny tribes scattered all over the place and unused to open warfare. All-out war against other tribes happened occasionally, but the small scale never led to the development of the same kind of military tradition and tactics the Europeans had developed after literally centuries of fighting large-scale conflicts.

[Lazarus]

Oh look, you stupid hatfucker, several 18th century simulations do exist; ranging from grand scale (Crown of Glory Emperor's Edition) to tactical (Hist Wars: Les Grognards) though Histwars has been in development hell for YEARS, and I seriously doubt it'll ever be released.

Right, so we've got some vapourware and a tile-based 2D indie game... Thanks for proving my point there, neither of these games have anything like the audience that CA is aiming at. This is exactly what I'm saying, the amount of people who care enough about these details to buy a game with them included can be measured by the amount of people who bought CG: Emperors. Which is very few.

Hey look, the tired old strawman, except updated for Napeolonics instead of the original: "ZOMG, THAT CUPOLA ON THAT TIGER IS ALL WRONG; THE GAME IZ RUINED!" for WW2 games.

I don't expect 100% accuracy; but I do expect at least a reasonable attempt at making things accurate.

You misunderstand my point. I'm saying that those moaning about the realism are not being reasonable. Your definition of 'a reasonable attempt' is flawed, since it's based on what a gamer who would actually play a game like CG:Emperors considers 'reasonable', which is far in excess of what the average purchaser of ETW requires.

So please, please show me what major effort they made for those countries compared to the freaking brits who get triple the custom units?

I just started as Russia, the vast majority of my starting units are russian-unique, every unit has blurb with some history, they all speak russian, they're all modelled accurately enough, what more do you want? Ok so maybe both the Black Watch AND the Coldstream Guards for the Brits is slightly unnecessary, but it's hardly discrimination. You don't get any unique units when you start as the Brits, just generic line infantry, militia etc.

Yeah, but then Lazarus is not one of the guys who knows about history.

Am I well-read on 18th century politics? No, I've just read half the hornblower series, seen the shows, read a couple textbooks etc, which is almost certainly average or above average for the game's audience. This isn't a historical simulator it's a mainstream RTS, one of the biggest this year, and CA do not, and should not, have to expend the resources required to meet your abnormally high standards or else be criticised for a half done job.

Exactly. And why should the British army be heralded at the end-all in the unit descriptions when it pretty much played second fiddle?

Because they have the media exposure, like I've already said. Maybe there is fiction in existence written from the perspective of a Swedish infantryman in the 18th century, but I bet the proportion of the game's audience who've read it is 0-1%.

[Thanas]

You misunderstand my point. I'm saying that those moaning about the realism are not being reasonable. Your definition of 'a reasonable attempt' is flawed, since it's based on what a gamer who would actually play a game like CG:Emperors considers 'reasonable', which is far in excess of what the average purchaser of ETW requires.

Funny. CA managed to keep to historical facts in M:TW and VI, but then I guess there wasn't an audience for those either and the efforts made there were unreasonable as well, right?

I just started as Russia, the vast majority of my starting units are russian-unique,

Please list them.

every unit has blurb with some history, they all speak russian, they're all modelled accurately enough,

That is a joke, right?

what more do you want? Ok so maybe both the Black Watch AND the Coldstream Guards for the Brits is slightly unnecessary, but it's hardly discrimination. You don't get any unique units when you start as the Brits, just generic line infantry, militia etc.

Newsflash - neither get the Spanish. Continue.

Yeah, but then Lazarus is not one of the guys who knows about history.

Am I well-read on 18th century politics? No, I've just read half the hornblower series, seen the shows, read a couple textbooks etc, which is almost certainly average or above average for the game's audience. This isn't a historical simulator it's a mainstream RTS, one of the biggest this year, and CA do not, and should not, have to expend the resources required to meet your abnormally high standards or else be criticised for a half done job.

It is a historical game that prides itself depicting historical events. And I find it funny that you, with your very limited knowledge based largely on fiction which is not even about the 17th century (alright, the very last years are included) try to declare yourself any kind of authority on the accuracy of the game. Meanwhile, Pezook, Shep, and myself have a vast knowledge about that time period. I, for example, have given academic presentations and lectures on the subject. And unlike you, I have actually read primary sources of that period in four languages. So what makes you qualified to tell me that this was a reasonable effort?

I tell you what. If a CA employee had ordered even the cheapes reference book on the subject (let's say, an Osprey book, which costs about 20 $) and looked at the drawings in it, they would have realized their models are wrong. Are you telling me that reading an 80-page book is too much of an effort?

How do you justify steamships, btw?

Exactly. And why should the British army be heralded at the end-all in the unit descriptions when it pretty much played second fiddle?

Because they have the media exposure, like I've already said.

So media exposure makes them the best? That is a very poor argument. The TW series has in the past modelled troops that had no media exposure at all. Like the Kataphraktoi of M:TW, which were the best early cavalry. Have you ever seen any series or media about these?

[PeZook]

I guess that from now on, any game about World War II should always claim the US Army was the be-all end-all of all armies in all theaters of the conflict, because hey, Americans always get 90% of the media exposure. Anybody criticizing that approach would obviously be unreasonable, right?

[Thanas]

I guess that from now on, any game about World War II should always claim the US Army was the be-all end-all of all armies in all theaters of the conflict, because hey, Americans always get 90% of the media exposure. Anybody criticizing that approach would obviously be unreasonable, right?

Yep. How dare you question Lazarus? He has seen TV shows on the subject.

[Artemas]

The ambush mechanics were already in Rome and Medieval. Just have North America be heavily forested, and voila: fighting the Indians would mean mostly defending from ambushes and raids.

And thats just what irks me most. They already HAD the mechanics for a partial guerilla war, but they just didn't code the AI to use them properly. Especially since they had finally put buildings and locations on the campaign map to launch raids against, and added an interception range for more likely ambushes. So now I'm repulsing large armies of Huron, or Inuit in field battles. And because of their stat-padding, they are actually doing more damage than a European army of equal size