Empire: Total War to be released March 4, 2009 (March 2, 2009 for Steam orders)

[nate895]

Luckily, it all comes out tomorrow finally. I have heard that Walmart is carrying it everywhere, however, so if you don't have a preorder, head there.

 

[ClayTrainor]

i forgot about this !!!

I don't have enough time to waste on epic games like this right now, god dammit

 

[Kludge]

Finally released. Been downloading for a couple minutes at ~800 kb/s and am almost to 1% done.....

Oh wait -- there it goes! 1%! Woohoo!

I'm glad to have stuff to do today, or I'd literally sit here watching it for hours.

 

[Kludge]

After playing it for too long... A list of praises and grievances -

Good:

• Beautiful game visually. It doesn't take much work to see the incredible amount of time which went into constructing the models, ships especially.
• Gameplay is intricate and the player is given far more control than in previous TW games.
• That said, campaign gameplay is simplified where it ought to have been in MTW II. There are no longer any families to manage, and your progress doesn't rely on one or two family members.
• Commanders (and, to a lesser extent, other important people) have their traits determined by the actions you choose.
• I don't recall a slow-motion feature in the demo, but it was great for large battles. The graphics were still very fluid, but gave enough think time to manage four or five different fronts in a battle without pausing.
• The AI in combat is very reactive to your moves. It requires tactics and trickery to outmanuever the AI. Researched abilities and unique unit abilities keep combat fresh.
• Bugs can be patched. :o

Bad:

• Pirates are a tiny nation within the game, which I eliminated within a few turns playing as France. "Piracy" essentially ends once the pirate nation is destroyed.
• Campaign A.I. is even more passive than in MTW II. Unless the nation is right next to your own nation, it's unlikely you'll notice you're even at war unless they intercept ships on a trade route. The AI apparently isn't aware that they are able to transport land units across seas.
• Intricate gameplay is occaisionally overwhelming, with the fate of your nation being determined by your ability to remember all intentions of your previous actions.
• Trade theaters need more work. The mechanics are overly-simplistic and create monopolies which can't be broken unless war is declared.
• The environment should have been more "usable" in combat.

Ugly:

• Many bugs, especially in combat. I was defending a fort, and my units decided to chase the enemy down ropes (when climbing up, the units climb far to the side of the rope, essentially "climbing air") and all fell to their death, apparently missing the rope and thinking they could float to the ground.
• Units must love protocols and discipline. Whenever a couple units dies, the entire regiment feels compelled to reorganize and wastes more lives trying to form a symmetrical shape, leading to frustrating cycles of failure.
• To satisfy radicals' desire for a new system of government, you cannot simply restructure government, but need to piss off your population into rebellion, pick a side in class warfare, and try to survive. Idunno, I figured in an absolute monarchy, it wouldn't be too difficult to just draft a constitution and switch to a constitutional monarchy.

 

[PatriotLegion]

After playing it for too long... A list of praises and grievances -

Good:

• Beautiful game visually. It doesn't take much work to see the incredible amount of time which went into constructing the models, ships especially.
• Gameplay is intricate and the player is given far more control than in previous TW games.
• That said, campaign gameplay is simplified where it ought to have been in MTW II. There are no longer any families to manage, and your progress doesn't rely on one or two family members.
• Commanders (and, to a lesser extent, other important people) have their traits determined by the actions you choose.
• I don't recall a slow-motion feature in the demo, but it was great for large battles. The graphics were still very fluid, but gave enough think time to manage four or five different fronts in a battle without pausing.
• The AI in combat is very reactive to your moves. It requires tactics and trickery to outmanuever the AI. Researched abilities and unique unit abilities keep combat fresh.
• Bugs can be patched. :o

Bad:

• Pirates are a tiny nation within the game, which I eliminated within a few turns playing as France. "Piracy" essentially ends once the pirate nation is destroyed.
• Campaign A.I. is even more passive than in MTW II. Unless the nation is right next to your own nation, it's unlikely you'll notice you're even at war unless they intercept ships on a trade route. The AI apparently isn't aware that they are able to transport land units across seas.
• Intricate gameplay is occaisionally overwhelming, with the fate of your nation being determined by your ability to remember all intentions of your previous actions.
• Trade theaters need more work. The mechanics are overly-simplistic and create monopolies which can't be broken unless war is declared.
• The environment should have been more "usable" in combat.

Ugly:

• Many bugs, especially in combat. I was defending a fort, and my units decided to chase the enemy down ropes (when climbing up, the units climb far to the side of the rope, essentially "climbing air") and all fell to their death, apparently missing the rope and thinking they could float to the ground.
• Units must love protocols and discipline. Whenever a couple units dies, the entire regiment feels compelled to reorganize and wastes more lives trying to form a symmetrical shape, leading to frustrating cycles of failure.
• To satisfy radicals' desire for a new system of government, you cannot simply restructure government, but need to piss off your population into rebellion, pick a side in class warfare, and try to survive. Idunno, I figured in an absolute monarchy, it wouldn't be too difficult to just draft a constitution and switch to a constitutional monarchy.

The bugs still seem the same with the TW series games with your units keeping the shape of the unit. And if thats all thats bad with the game in your list I will enjoy this one. I got it yesterday from UPS but sits not installed and unplayed as work has been keeping me late.

I want to play it!!!

 

[NEPA_Revolution]

After playing it for too long... A list of praises and grievances -

Good:

• Beautiful game visually. It doesn't take much work to see the incredible amount of time which went into constructing the models, ships especially.
• Gameplay is intricate and the player is given far more control than in previous TW games.
• That said, campaign gameplay is simplified where it ought to have been in MTW II. There are no longer any families to manage, and your progress doesn't rely on one or two family members.
• Commanders (and, to a lesser extent, other important people) have their traits determined by the actions you choose.
• I don't recall a slow-motion feature in the demo, but it was great for large battles. The graphics were still very fluid, but gave enough think time to manage four or five different fronts in a battle without pausing.
• The AI in combat is very reactive to your moves. It requires tactics and trickery to outmanuever the AI. Researched abilities and unique unit abilities keep combat fresh.
• Bugs can be patched. :o

Bad:

• Pirates are a tiny nation within the game, which I eliminated within a few turns playing as France. "Piracy" essentially ends once the pirate nation is destroyed.
• Campaign A.I. is even more passive than in MTW II. Unless the nation is right next to your own nation, it's unlikely you'll notice you're even at war unless they intercept ships on a trade route. The AI apparently isn't aware that they are able to transport land units across seas.
• Intricate gameplay is occaisionally overwhelming, with the fate of your nation being determined by your ability to remember all intentions of your previous actions.
• Trade theaters need more work. The mechanics are overly-simplistic and create monopolies which can't be broken unless war is declared.
• The environment should have been more "usable" in combat.

Ugly:

• Many bugs, especially in combat. I was defending a fort, and my units decided to chase the enemy down ropes (when climbing up, the units climb far to the side of the rope, essentially "climbing air") and all fell to their death, apparently missing the rope and thinking they could float to the ground.
• Units must love protocols and discipline. Whenever a couple units dies, the entire regiment feels compelled to reorganize and wastes more lives trying to form a symmetrical shape, leading to frustrating cycles of failure.
• To satisfy radicals' desire for a new system of government, you cannot simply restructure government, but need to piss off your population into rebellion, pick a side in class warfare, and try to survive. Idunno, I figured in an absolute monarchy, it wouldn't be too difficult to just draft a constitution and switch to a constitutional monarchy.

I agree and I am a GB player. Wanna play online?

 

[ClayTrainor]

thanks for the review kludge... how is the multiplayer?

 

[ClayTrainor]

I just bought this... been playing it all day long...

Haven't tried the multi-player yet, but if anyoen wants to duel.. hit me up

 

[PatriotLegion]

Had some time to play it.

I have enjoyed it much I been playing on the Road to Independence and its been fun so far. One thing I must note is the reuse of a battle map of some towns. Its not a big deal but the strategy is the same. I am on the last episode where you need to secure all the 13 colonies.

The 4th episode is great so far and the Naval combat is a great addition! The battle system remains the same as M2:TW with stupid AI and unresponsive troops but the use of muskets and powerful cannons has always been my wish! Like said in another post bugs can be fixed and the modding community to do there magic.

My hope down the road the modding community to make a Civil War conversion! The track work is there!

Or CA can make an add-on with US Civil War units/weapons and maps!

 

[Kludge]

I've been off it for a few days, but I never crashed after ~20 hours of play prior to today. Today, I've crashed three times in a couple hours playing as Great Britain.

 

[PatriotLegion]

I've been off it for a few days, but I never crashed after ~20 hours of play prior to today. Today, I've crashed three times in a couple hours playing as Great Britain.

I only had one crash and it said my PC ran out of video memory. Kind of weird error being I have 2 Geforce 260's in SLI and a GF 9500 as a physx card and 8GB of system memory.

No worries after a restart of the game I was back in business again and I save a lot.

 

[torchbearer]

I only had one crash and it said my PC ran out of video memory. Kind of weird error being I have 2 Geforce 260's in SLI and a GF 9500 as a physx card and 8GB of system memory.

No worries after a restart of the game I was back in business again and I save a lot.

Are you using XP?
Also, 32 bit systems may not be able to see that much memory.

Windows 98 won't run at all with too much video memory.

 

[PatriotLegion]

Are you using XP?
Also, 32 bit systems may not be able to see that much memory.

Windows 98 won't run at all with too much video memory.

Nah I'm using Vista Home Premium-64 bit. I was just a strange error to see. Maybe cause I was playing the game for a bit to long. Game is probably a memory hog!

 

[Kludge]

I don't get an error message at all. Sometimes during AI turns on the campaign map, the screen will flash white followed by a CTD. Doesn't appear to be a memory leak or problem with gfx memory, and cpu/gfx temperatures are alright. I've only had the problem playing GB. Maybe it will be fixed in the to-be-released-this-week patch.

 

[dr. hfn]

Kludge, you should send your review to CA and recommend some fixes!

 

[hypnagogue]

I try to like these games at every new version but I still can't get over how hard it is to look across the battlefield and to position your troops. I have the demo... I'll give it another try.

 

[Kludge]

Patch was released today fixing most of the critical crash problems.

EA seems committed to releasing a patch every week, with another coming out early next week, though I expect that huge Total Conversion mods (is modding even possible with how Steam collects and encrypts files?) will be needed to fix the AI and pathfinding.

 

[Kludge]

Nifty. Picked this up on the Steam forums.

If you click on a unit group and press the Insert ("Ins") key, you get a type of shoulder-cam view and you are able to watch the bullet of the unit fly through the air when they fire. You can shift the selected unit with the mouse wheel.

 

[nate895]

Patch was released today fixing most of the critical crash problems.

EA seems committed to releasing a patch every week, with another coming out early next week, though I expect that huge Total Conversion mods (is modding even possible with how Steam collects and encrypts files?) will be needed to fix the AI and pathfinding.

There are already a couple of released mods, and CA has stated that they are going to develop an SDK for modders.

 

[Kludge]

There are already a couple of released mods, and CA has stated that they are going to develop an SDK for modders.

Awesome! I was a bit pissed that no one was able to mod Bioshock.