Empire Total War

[SeniorBiscuit]

If you like strategy games, or games that make you think than I cant recommend ETW enough!

Been playing it last few days, campaign is mind numbingly deep, and I will tear deeper into it off and on for months too come, the AI is better on the custom battles, and the multiplayer is a huge improvement, both in steams service, and in gameplay. The old total war games were brilliant, but the flow of battle in ETW is so fluid and balanced its wonderful. Ive been tearing into players online the last couple days and its so utterly satisfying to see your careful battle lines and maneuvers come together and crush an enemy army.

If its a real tactic or strategy that would work in the horse and musket era chances are it will work here!

If youve got the money and the PC to run it (well your on a crysis mod site so I hope youve got a good pc) go out and buy ETW, or download it off steam! Im seniorbiscuit on steam too if anyone ever wants a game!

[DigitalStef]

I was going to download the demo off of steam, but when it said that it'd take a day and 5 hours I said F* that. Looks fun though and I look forward to naval combat.

[(TLL)KitLightning]

Give me me ship ´n bottle of Rum. Been waiting for too long to get it under me dirty nails. And some one still misses to return Medieval: TW2 *sigh* I miss it.

Empire Total War Trailer
Total War - Naval Battle Trailer (HD)
Empire: Total War Road to Independence Trailer (HD)

[Ghiest]

I suck at most of the total war games, I don't mind (and 'am good at the strategy part), but RTS just isn't my game

[PapaFade]

Been playing my copy the past few days too. I think the Naval Comabt inclusion is inspired. Yet to test my noobishness online, but that will come

[(TLL)KitLightning]

Is there any other way to get it than from Steam

[SeniorBiscuit]

Well a couple words of warning now I guess, Ive been having issues with online today and yesterday, its a little buggy but it just launched so Im not too worried.

I play 2v2s alot, and usually I deal with my enemy and go to help my ally pretty quickly (alot of players new to total war means fun times for vets  ) and It seems when a player drops sometimes it lags the game out, because when one player is effectivly defeated I often either get reverted back to lobby mid game, or receive a message that contact to server is lost. Its a real shame.

Also mortar batteries are the only thing in the game thats overpowered but they are game breakingly so! Ive been taking 5!! yes 5 batteries of em online and in a volley can literraly killupwards of a hundred men!!! The enemy also has to walk through about a dozen of said volleys to get to my lines....  To top it off they are like the 2nd cheapest unit available to most armies that can field them.  So when their scattered remains reach me my cav errupts from their concealed location and my line marches forward and crushes the survivors like ants!!

If im hosting I make it a rule no one can use em, hopefully they either become really expensive, more innacurate, or lose alot of their damage potential. Untill then... STOCK UP ON MORTARS!

[PapaFade]

Is there any other way to get it than from Steam

It is available in a Retail format. I bought mine online from Play.com, although I couldn't honestly say whether or not they sell internationally.

[(TLL)KitLightning]

Is there any other way to get it than from Steam

It is available in a Retail format. I bought mine online from Play.com, although I couldn't honestly say whether or not they sell internationally.

thx for the notification PapaFade. Play.com delivers to all European countries Yay!

[PapaFade]

Cool!

[Loonatic]

I've always been a fan of the Total War games, all the way from the outstanding Shogun, which is STILL fun as hell to play.   I skipped Rome, since I'm not really a fan of that era.  The same goes for Napoleonic era.  Loved both Medievals and Shogun tho.

I may change my mind about Napoleonic wars though.  It looks just too phenomenal to pass up.  Of course I also love the idea of ship combat.   I'll just have to save up and grab it I think.

I've never been a real fan of RTS myself either.  I played Dawn of War, but I paused often to issue commands.  I never played multi.  I also enjoyed Total War, MC/MC2, and Starcraft 1.  But on the whole, it's not really my favorite genre, unless a particular game happens to have some aspect that really works.  Total War and MC ditched the base building, which I hated.  Not sure why I liked Starcraft, but I did.  DoW had the lovely pause button, which made it basically into a turn-based game for me.

Thanks for the review and the tips on mortars.

[Zomby]

the Pathfinding AI is a little bit lacking for ship battle when ship are grouped in large group of different speed ships (ie: Big slow ships grouped with small fast ship). Especially when up close and personnal (always good to see those 18 pounder pass right through another ship at close range), and since you cannot issue multiple movement order (queuing move order so they go to point A, then point B then...)
this can be turn your perfectly ordered ship into a chaotic mass of mast and cannon, risking to get your big ship cornered and mercylessly shot at.

The best way to deal with that is to use SMALL group of ship (I dont put more than 3 ship, and they all got same speed) and issue them short term move order, dont go planning a move order that will take 2min to execute, anyway your opponent is on the move, trying to maximize the number off cannon he can shot at you while trying to evade yours, which you should be doing also.

So the best way to deal with the sometime Chaotic AI moving your ship in battle is to only use small group of ship (or no group at all) and constantly issue move order to ship (and like I said, you'll have to, since your opponent isnt always going where you want him to go). The Pause button is always nice to have on hand, also great to have a closer look at ship that just got their ammo storage blown up and going out in a nice firework (arrr... wont be able to salvage that one ship... to bad his admiral was on board...).

[SeniorBiscuit]

I prefer the land battles myself, the naval battles are fun but... they arent nearly as good as the good ol total war land battles!

The napoleonic wars are not in empire btw, the game goes 1700-1799 basically the expansion will probably add the napoleonic wars, as the armies changed drastically at that point and to tack on another 16 years creative assembly would have had to do twice as many unit models\textures.

Theres a demo on steam\elswhere Id suggest, though it only has 2 preset battles for you. 

[wonderboy2402]

I would stay away from this game for another month. It has recently experience I high volume of sudden CTDs across all types of computers with the most recent patch.

I was enjoying my Martha campaign, it was actually a very difficult challenge at the start, which I barely succeeded in winning... been playing up to 1733, when the new patch rolled out and now I CTD after every battle. =/

Ho hum.

[Zomby]

CTD ?
I quite get the idea it is crashing the game, but CTD in long words mean what ?
Thanks