Poll: Empire: Total War

[starrman]

I dunno why it's getting so many good words here. I really don't think the AI is as good as Rome. The unit formation buttons are useless both as indicative icons and placement functions. If you group a number of units that aren't next to each other and then change the formation the distance remains intact, what use is that? There are several large bugs I've noticed already: orders ignored, river reflections show the reverse of the gameboard, the advisor gives you instructions for missions you've already carried out, and once when I was defending a fort from attack she told me how to attack a fort being defended by the enemy. Frequently the building options vanish and damaged buildings cannot be repaired. Also, I've had crashes with almost every sea battle and each time I get to the Boston hill battle the load screen stalls. When it eventually loads up the battle has been carrying on behind the scenes, is lost and I have to settle for their retreat rather than my victory.

Personal dislikes also include the indistinguishable units on the battlefield from anything more than 10 metres, you have to move into a city to move past it if there is no space to the side of it and if you just click beyond it you may end up having your army going backwards to circumvent the nearest mountain range in finding another route. Sea battles are dull and slow and really not worth the hassle. I'm sure there are more issues, but I haven't been playing it long enough to find them yet.

I really don't think it's a 96% game, or whatever metacritic gave it. So far I reckon 85% is a closer approximation.

 

[GenHellspawn]

Wait, what? What's another 18th century RTS?

Age of Empires 3, perhaps? As well as Cossacks and Sid Miers Gettysburg. I can understand where he's coming from. I mean, really, is it that much to ask to have an RTS in a creative setting?

 

[oliveira8]

Wait, what? What's another 18th century RTS?

Age of Empires 3, perhaps? As well as Cossacks and Sid Miers Gettysburg. I can understand where he's coming from. I mean, really, is it that much to ask to have an RTS in a creative setting?

Aint the 18th Century creative enough? Its not even done to death by the gaming industry.

You want another Space Marine versus Aliens RTS? Or another Medieval RTS? A WW2 RTS? Cause we have tons of those.

 

[gRiM_rEaPeRsco]

The AI is so bad, the game doesn't explain anything so i don't know half of whats going on like what has the population of a region have to be before the capitol levels up? why can i build higher level building in some capitols but not others? why is the ship ai so stupid? Is CA just going to fix bugs or will they overhaul the AI?

 

[pigmonkey]

i just started playing and i'm likeing it so far though the naval battles are really pissing me off. most of the time my ships end up crashing into each other while the enemie circles around them laughing (fucking smug AI). land battles are great fun though

 

[Rajin Cajun]

I have one question for everyone is it better then Medieval II? I never could get into Medieval II for some reason I loved Rome but I felt that Medieval II was a let down especially when my armored knights would get bitchslapped in melee by Crossbowmen.

 

[runtheplacered]

Wait, what? What's another 18th century RTS?

Age of Empires 3, perhaps? As well as Cossacks and Sid Miers Gettysburg. I can understand where he's coming from. I mean, really, is it that much to ask to have an RTS in a creative setting?

You named off 3 games (which was my point, that's very few). One from 1997 (Gettysburg), which does not take place during the same time period. The American Civil War was the middle of the 19th century, not the 18th.

Another (AOE3) having absolutely nothing in relation to Total War that I can tell.

And then you have Cossacks 2, which really wasn't a very good game. But, whether it was or not, I'd still hardly call it an overused setting.

So, I'm right back to square one, where I don't understand the guys point.

As somebody said, examples of an overused setting would be World War 2 or the Medieval era.

 

[GenHellspawn]

Aint the 18th Century creative enough?

Since when was a setting in recorded history creative by any stretch?

 

[Nivag the Owl]

I can't wait 'til I can be bothered to get off my ass and buy/play this game. It looks so awesome. What's the time period by the way?

 

[runtheplacered]

I can't wait 'til I can be bothered to get off my ass and buy/play this game. It looks so awesome. What's the time period by the way?

1700-1799

 

[runtheplacered]

Well, that sucks. I'm getting a crash to desktop no matter what I do once I reach a certain point in my campaign, whether I reload the autosave or the save before that one. As the British I've just about removed Cherokee and France from Americas, which has been quite an extensive work in progress, and now it's all gone. What a bummer.

 

[oliveira8]

Aint the 18th Century creative enough?

Since when was a setting in recorded history creative by any stretch?

You can say its creative cause its barely been done.

Well, that sucks. I'm getting a crash to desktop no matter what I do once I reach a certain point in my campaign, whether I reload the autosave or the save before that one. As the British I've just about removed Cherokee and France from Americas, which has been quite an extensive work in progress, and now it's all gone. What a bummer.

Hmm that sucks alot. Whats the year you getting the crashes?

Also kudos for kicking the french out of the Americas..I let them take from me Florida, cause I ran that place so badly, it was just a rebel hideout.

 

[Nivag the Owl]

I can't wait 'til I can be bothered to get off my ass and buy/play this game. It looks so awesome. What's the time period by the way?

1700-1799

Ah, cheers. Wasn't sure at all as a friend said it covered a much greater scale

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

I'm having a great time with this game. It's a big step forward for the series. I was worried about how gunpowder battles would work, but they work. Oh yes, they work. I am already stoked for the expansion (TW games traditionally have great expansions packed with content). If the American Civil War isn't included, I'm going to be livid.

 

[Jenkins]

I want to play it but iv heard you need a super computer from hell to run the game.

 

[SimuLord]

I want to play it but iv heard you need a super computer from hell to run the game.

Not true. I've got a 2006-issue Dell XPS 410 with a couple of upgrades and Empire runs like a dream at medium-high settings. I dialed down shadow quality, water reflections, and some of the other more aggressive framerate killers but the game still looks better than Medieval 2 did (and massively better than Rome), which is good enough for me.

My specs:
Core 2 Duo E6600 dual-core @ 2.4GHz
2GB DDR2 800MHz RAM
RAID 0 7200rpm hard drives
512MB 8800GT
Windows XP Service Pack 3

No noticeable framerate drops at the settings mentioned earlier---in fact, it runs smoother than Oblivion (a game that's 3 years older.)

 

[KiKiweaky]

It's good but the Ocean battles are too damn long and slow. I was at Danny Oceans house this week and it took us like 1/2 an hour to do the sea tutorial. (Granted I was using chain shot)

holy mother of god I'm not suprised ROFL do you know that chain shot is for targetting the sails hehe so you effectively ignored the rest of their ship haha.

 

[Asehujiko]

I'm having a bit of trouble deciding what to do in the campaign mode, though. I'm playing as Great Britain, and you don't start off with many armies or territories. I suppose I'll probably try to take over the Native American territories first, if only because I'm facing them with well-drilled infantry and cavalry, and they have bows and pointy sticks.

Just so you know, at this time in history, bows were better then muskets(and they arch so they make regular defenses useless) and their pointy sticks generaly outclass most of your bayonets by the vitue of being an actual melee weapon.

Oh, and due to some quirk with non playable factions, they also outnumber you 3:1.

 

[Elurindel]

Just checking here, but am I the only Total War player who feels completely alienated by this game?
It's like when you graduate to high school, and suddenly everybody's wearing different clothes, using different weaponry, and everything's built differently. None of it has that kind of familiarity of the previous games, and so far I've yet to win any battles. Am I starting too deep in by going with the Grand Campaign? Should I give The Road To Independence a shot first? How the hell do you build anything in this damn game?

PS. Yes, I will look at the instruction manual tonight, but right now, I'm in work.