Empire: Total War announced...

I have played DoWII in single player mode with no internet access - I just used Steam in Offline mode.

Remus said:

Empire: Total War just released. Received 9.5 rating at IGN PC and 9 on Eurogamer.

What's your impression and comment guys?

Click to expand...

It probably sucks then....


Seriously though, IGN is notorious for handing out 9\10+ ratings like Halloween candy. I'm sure they probably gave Oblivion a 10/10.


*Edit* Just checked- they gave Oblivion a 9.3 and FO3 a 9.6

Metacritic's review collection has lots of positive reviews of the game too.

Anyone still playing this one?

Actually the GoGamer deal is good - it is on Steam for $50. Might grab it.

txa1265 said:

I have played DoWII in single player mode with no internet access - I just used Steam in Offline mode.

Click to expand...

Forgive me, but could you please detail how one does that?
Please PM me if such a reply would be a hijack of the thread.

Thanks

The game has been out for long enough for the novelty value to wear off. Provided you buy hearsay the reports I get are sadly roughly as bad as I fear wrt the campaign AI:

- Naval invasions seem to be absent, as is naval transport.
- All artillery stacks are common among some factions (notably the Mughals)
- The AI splits its navies into multiple small stacks that are easy to handle piecemeal.
- The AI sends small stacks into enemy territory rather than larger stacks (fine for raiding and economic warfare, but not so good for full blown invasions).
- The AI wont garrison it's capitals or go for enemy capitals.
- Some minors are awfully belligerent and attack major neighbours they cant possibly beat.

On the plus side diplomacy and alliances seem fairly robust, but flawed patterns in that area takes longer to discover, so I'm not counting on this to hold.

Just started the game, finished the land and sea combat tutorial missions. Now in Road to Independence campaign. the control feels pretty similar to previous Total War games and the game overall very enjoyable.

The installation kinda slow and slightly a hassle through the steam service.

I received the european special force version; came with extra map and artbook but no History Channel Revolution DVD. Maybe it's in another different edition? How many editions it is there?

I just tried the demo out (trying to talk myself in to buying it while gogamer has for $36). edit: gogamer sale over now

I've never been a huge fan of the previous Total War games and I didn't really see anything spectacular (the game is currently having much praise HEAPED onto it). I did the land tutorial, meh. Tried to do the naval tutorial, but the game kept going to NOT RESPONDING on load ... uninstalled, $36 game funds remain intact.

Zaleukos said:

The game has been out for long enough for the novelty value to wear off. Provided you buy hearsay the reports I get are sadly roughly as bad as I fear wrt the campaign AI:

- Naval invasions seem to be absent, as is naval transport.
- All artillery stacks are common among some factions (notably the Mughals)
- The AI splits its navies into multiple small stacks that are easy to handle piecemeal.
- The AI sends small stacks into enemy territory rather than larger stacks (fine for raiding and economic warfare, but not so good for full blown invasions).
- The AI wont garrison it's capitals or go for enemy capitals.
- Some minors are awfully belligerent and attack major neighbours they cant possibly beat.

On the plus side diplomacy and alliances seem fairly robust, but flawed patterns in that area takes longer to discover, so I'm not counting on this to hold.

Click to expand...

I'm just finishing up my first foray as the Russians in the Grand Campaign and I can speak to your bullet items above.

Naval invasions indeed do not happen in the current version. To be honest, I think they removed that for balancing, as it would be very difficult to play many of the chosen factions if naval invasions were in. For example, most Euro-centric nations have enemies on all sides from very early in the campaign. Adding naval invasions would simply increase the enemy invasion routes exponentially. Do I agree with this on a historical/realism basis? No. But I can appreciate how play testing would've caused them to remove that feature, if in fact it was ever in there to begin with.

For artillery stacks being the same, I haven't played the Mughals but this wasn't the case with the Russians, as I distinctly remember having different forms of artillery in my army at a time.

The Navy AI does seem to favor lower-level naval ships over waiting on the upper-class ship-of-the-line ships, as I did. Hence I was able to easily decimate a large force of AI ships with only a couple mid-level frigates, as they simply couldn't stand up against my broadsides.

The AI does still send in small stacks in an attempt to wear down opponents economically, as it did with previous TW games.

I'm not sure I agree with the lack of garrisons in the enemy capital. I just attacked Warsaw and went up against a formidable garrison, complete with sandbags and other on-field fortifications. I won, but it was a bloody affair.

The minors can be easily placated by simply giving them technology. I think they made the minors active to force you into more diplomacy.

Overall, all of your points are valid. There are problems with the game. In fact, the battlefield AI is borderline stupid at times, especially when being harassed from afar by horse archers. However, even with all of those things (and several more) taken into account, I've experienced more sheer pleasure with this game than any of the previous outings. Some of the land battles have simply been "epic." In fact, I've experienced some battles in which the AI actually did the magical thing of being creative. For example, I nearly lost a battle when I lost track of a group of hidden enemy cavalry who circled round to my flanks while the battle was raging and wiped out my artillerymen. I've never experienced such creative flourishes from the AI in past TW games.

The campaign AI and gameplay is pretty much the same as before with diplomacy taking on a more central role. Blocking of trade lanes is far more important this go around as is the necessity to break through these trade barriers to keep from going bankrupt.

So, if you hated the AI in previous TW games, it is better but only slightly. However, if you can look past that and enjoy the game for what it is, there's a lot here to like.

I hate it when saving a game, the game didn't save last map position i'm looking at. So when i continue the campaign later on i have to remember and check where i left off previously.

The game surely a major time sucker; last night i planned for 1 hour session before jumping on online Left 4 Dead's session but because of "just few more rounds..." reasoning i end up spending 4 hours.

It does seem like the userbase has reach some sort of consensus by now. The battles are fine, the interface improved (I hated the micromanagement of agents in earlier TW games), but campaign AI is not good and there seem to be some stability issues.

Cabel Blacke said:

So, if you hated the AI in previous TW games, it is better but only slightly. However, if you can look past that and enjoy the game for what it is, there's a lot here to like.

Click to expand...

First thanks for your input, any input is interesting. I get conflicting reports on the belligerency of minors. Could there be some sort of global reputation meter similar to that in Medieval 2 (where this had ridiculous impact) that influences diplomacy?

I do hate the campaign AI in the previous games, but I still managed to sink enough enjoyable hours into them for me not to regret the purchases. I'll probably end up the same way with Empire, but this time I'll wait for the price to go down first The games that I play (Gothic and Europa Universalis are prime examples) tend to have release versions plagued with issues, and I've finally decided to put the foot down and try to not buy games on release from developers with a shady past

Zaleukos said:

First thanks for your input, any input is interesting. I get conflicting reports on the belligerency of minors. Could there be some sort of global reputation meter similar to that in Medieval 2 (where this had ridiculous impact) that influences diplomacy?

Click to expand...

The diplomacy section reminds me a lot of the Europa Universallis games, mouse over a country on the diplomatic screen and it'll give you a series of +/- for your relationship including things like historical greviances and 'expansion' all with numbers so you can see the exact effect - haven't quite worked out how (if?) it effects their propensity to war but it looks straight forward.

I've had a play with the campaign now and I like a lot of the changes to the strategic level. Managing a govrnment, trade and empire all feel more interesting that the previous build and move armies dynmanic. Battle AI is a (very) little better than previous gamesand the battles get a bit more interesting once you get new fire drills and tatics.

Overall its grown on me, however I've now had two campaigns stoped by crashes so its going back on the shelf till they release a few more patches - I'll be interested to see what the modders do with it too when they've had a chance.

Sounds good, the diplomatic engine (not so much the diplomatic AI) is one of the outstanding features of the Paradox games. The best feature of their system is that ownership of a province only is transferred when peace is made, but I guess CA didnt copy that particular feature?

V7 said:

I've now had two campaigns stoped by crashes so its going back on the shelf till they release a few more patches - I'll be interested to see what the modders do with it too when they've had a chance.

Click to expand...

Yep, this is definitely the primary reason to wait for a patch and perhaps a price-drop. The engine is fragile, with memory leaks, etc. and needs patching. I've also had two campaigns stopped from crashing and I have a very clean, capable, and generic system that is up-to-date on drivers, etc. and has little problem playing any other current games. Anyone who says the game is stable, is either lying (and works for CA and/or has an agenda to defend them--such as a forum moderator) or extremely lucky.

However, once tweaked/repaired this game will easily be one of the best turn-based strategy games I've ever played. The sheer scope of gameplay is vast and highly entertaining.

Zaleukos said:

Sounds good, the diplomatic engine (not so much the diplomatic AI) is one of the outstanding features of the Paradox games. The best feature of their system is that ownership of a province only is transferred when peace is made, but I guess CA didnt copy that particular feature?

Click to expand...

You still take the province when you capture the capital but armies have a zone of control that gives the opportunity to attack when an enemy crosses it (which prevents running in and laying seige in one move if they have an army ready) and the citty gets a mass of armed citizens (who are fairly weak but do provide enough of a force to require an army to defeat rather than a unit or two). Combined conquest felt (to me at least) like it required a bit more planning and effort. You can also build forts in strategic points to control movement - I didn't see much of this in the campaign but I suspect its something that could really slow down expansion if the AI was a little smarter - again looking forward to see what mods come out.

Oh, and I absolutly love being able to replenish unit strength in the field rather than having to cycle units back and forth all the time. But I'm disapointed that experience doesnt have an obvious effect on reload speed.

And as an aside I would have loved to see a more detailed officer system on the battle field - giving each unit a couple of officers and NCO's and reducing unit moral and effectivness as they get killed - an element that really comes out when you read about battles of the era. Not that I really expected it, but it wuuld have been nice.

How goes the patching process?