The actual Empire: Total War thread

[RepoMan]

Is what this is. Yo. Not previews, naw. Real deal here.

So anyway, the entire internet is spooging about it. 9s and 9.5s popping up like daisies. I'm getting excited enough to consider buying it right away even though I have yet to even launch the Civ IV Complete I bought during the recent Steam sale. I'm easily impressionable. Also I cashed in $100 worth of change recently.

Anyone played it yet? If so, what'd'ja think?

[copet]

Pre-ordered prior to seeing reviews. I just saw IGN give a 9.5, though I have trusted reviews less and less these days. Still, that puts hope in my heart that this will be a Total War game worth playing more than 1 campaign on. Shogun is still the best of any, I'd say, and I am hoping this will provide the same entertainment.

[McCrank]

Preordered also... Cannot wait. I played Medieval to death, but sadly never got into M2TW or Rome much... Looking to get back in about now.

-Chris

[Lunch of Kong]

I started playing a Byzantium M2TW:Crusades campaign last week in preparation for this. The Turks are almost gone, now I need to take the remaining Anatolian territory away from Antioch and Jerusalem.

[thinkingork]

Not giving in the hype ...for once:D

I will wait for Steam sales or something.

[Lux]

Gah! No steam preload anymore. How long does it take to download 15 gigs from a steam content server being hammered into crashing every few minutes? I'm excited for the game as well... I just don't expect to have it downloaded until the weekend at earliest given the steam's track record with non preloading major releases.

[RepoMan]

I just bought the bastard on Steam. Got carried away. Oh well :-D

[RepoMan]

Grr, people in the other thread are saying the game is too lethal (people die too fast or have to die too much before morale breaks, etc.), and the game "will have to be modded." Poop. How true is this? Everyone says Civ IV is finally decently balanced with Beyond the Sword... does it really take that long?

Put it this way: if I've NEVER played a game in this series (which I haven't -- I played the Medieval demo once and that's it), and if I'm not a major historical grognard, and if I don't get blocked on the interface and like the basic play style, will I likely get terribly offended by the lethality / balance issues in the game's initial release? In other words, should I just not even bother launching my new Steam purchase of the game for a couple of months, or will I probably not even notice the issues the grognardish ones complaineth of?

[Tim James]

I don't think you would be bothered by any of that during the course of a short campaign. I didn't have enough time to notice in the demo because I was having too much fun shooting mans.

[Cubit]

Yeah, if too many men die in battles, thats not gonna bother me that much. I don't look to Total War games to provide wargame level accuracy.

[schurem]

Total war games always have been about utter carnage. Try a battle over a bridge lol.
No preloading? well that's a bummer. Two days to go (for me)....

[Sarkus]

Grr, people in the other thread are saying the game is too lethal (people die too fast or have to die too much before morale breaks, etc.), and the game "will have to be modded." Poop. How true is this? Everyone says Civ IV is finally decently balanced with Beyond the Sword... does it really take that long?

Put it this way: if I've NEVER played a game in this series (which I haven't -- I played the Medieval demo once and that's it), and if I'm not a major historical grognard, and if I don't get blocked on the interface and like the basic play style, will I likely get terribly offended by the lethality / balance issues in the game's initial release? In other words, should I just not even bother launching my new Steam purchase of the game for a couple of months, or will I probably not even notice the issues the grognardish ones complaineth of?

People always find things wrong with strategy games, partially based on their own personal preferences and partially based on being easily worked up over minor historical details. The nice thing about the TW series is that the games are very moddable.

Personally I've always found the TW games very playable at release and expect the same here. You may later find some things that you would like to see changed, but I doubt you will be offended by the release product unless you are a huge fan of the historical period and know the kind of details that have the grognards in a hissy fit already.

[Aeon221]

People always find things wrong with strategy games, partially based on their own personal preferences and partially based on being easily worked up over minor historical details. The nice thing about the TW series is that the games are very moddable.

Personally I've always found the TW games very playable at release and expect the same here. You may later find some things that you would like to see changed, but I doubt you will be offended by the release product unless you are a huge fan of the historical period and know the kind of details that have the grognards in a hissy fit already.

The number of people dead and dismembered in a given battle isn't exactly a minor detail. Certainly wasn't to them.

[Sarkus]

The number of people dead and dismembered in a given battle isn't exactly a minor detail. Certainly wasn't to them.

Which has nothing to do with the question asked by RepoMan.

Most of a Total War game is non-historical other than in a general sense of the era. While the casualty levels should generally be correct, it's not like even the historical battle scenarios are accurate - I sure don't see the 15,000 troops each side had in that demo battle, do you?

And in general you can look at sites like twcenter.net and see discussions that are pretty much minor details. Like whether the decision to make the US colonies a protectorate of Britain is fair or whether the blunderbuss is represented in the game as it should be. People need to calm down and remember it's a game.

In the end the TW games are not historical sims. If that's what you want out of them then you need to wait for the mods or go look at one of the excellent hard-core games that are aimed at the grognard wargamer crowd.

[Gabe Lewis]

The number of people dead and dismembered in a given battle isn't exactly a minor detail. Certainly wasn't to them.

Unless you're playing a video game, in which case nobody gives a fuck, they like the 'splosions.

[Rorschach]

The balance is between actions happening fast enough so you're not bored or taking all day to play a battle versus having the time to survey the battlefield and make decisions in time to have them be effective. Over time the TW games have been leaning towards the former and away from the latter.

[TomChick]

Maybe because it was so new at the time, but I seem to recall Shogun being a thrillingly different real-time wargame for how engagements would come down to morale rather than casualties. Units would break and run before they would die. It was more about the rout than the slaughter. I remember the original Close Combat (I think that's what it was called) doing something similar on a much smaller tactical scale. Both games made the point that you didn't need to kill your enemy if you could just get him to stop fighting somehow. I really liked that.

Maybe I'm misremembering or reading too many message forums, but it seems like Creative Assembly has increasingly moved away from that model with successive games.

-Tom

[Enidigm]

Firearms are not as powerful in Empire than they are in Medieval 2: Conquest, or at least thus it appears from the demo. Those Irish Gun-Cavalry were almost like semi-automatic English slayers, and that stupid Mangonel-of-Doom, a catapult like weapon that threw flaming and exploding barrels, was so overpowered relative to the battlefield it's a wonder anyone bothered with gunpowder at all.

From the demo, at least, the gameplay was much slowed relative to Medieval 2. The biggest problem with the Medieval games was the engine's over-emphasis of ranged fire. In skirmish after skirmish my ranged troops - regardless of faction - would do the lion's share of damage, even useless European peasant bows fired by useless European peasants. Medieval always tried hard to make melee relevant, but it was the age of the Mounted Horse Archer, and it showed.

[Enidigm]

What changed between Medieval 1 and Rome was the ease by which routing troops were slaughtered. In Rome, rout = death, most of the time. This sort of pushed unit balance and the syncopation of battle in a certain direction, culminating in Medieval 2 (in which it was changed to a moral/financial choice, but still just as catastrophic).

[Jasper]

Maybe because it was so new at the time, but I seem to recall Shogun being a thrillingly different real-time wargame for how engagements would come down to morale rather than casualties. Units would break and run before they would die. It was more about the rout than the slaughter. I remember the original Close Combat (I think that's what it was called) doing something similar on a much smaller tactical scale. Both games made the point that you didn't need to kill your enemy if you could just get him to stop fighting somehow. I really liked that.

Maybe I'm misremembering or reading too many message forums, but it seems like Creative Assembly has increasingly moved away from that model with successive games.

-Tom
That's been exactly my problem with the Total War series after Shogun, which was easily the best of the bunch despite all its warts. It all became so fast and overly arcadey, with barely any chance to maneuver while forces were engaged in melee, and way too much slaughter during battle. That, and they gave everyone +3 arrows of Major Human Bane. :-P

It's my favorite genre, so it wouldn't take much to get over my skepticism despite feeling burned in the past several outings. I was a bit non-plussed by what I've read about the naval engagements though, but I still hold out hope I'll hear that morale is once again key...

In the end, I just hope battles plays out somewhat akin to the old Sid Meier's Gettysburg.

[copet]

Maybe because it was so new at the time, but I seem to recall Shogun being a thrillingly different real-time wargame for how engagements would come down to morale rather than casualties. Units would break and run before they would die. It was more about the rout than the slaughter. I remember the original Close Combat (I think that's what it was called) doing something similar on a much smaller tactical scale. Both games made the point that you didn't need to kill your enemy if you could just get him to stop fighting somehow. I really liked that.

Maybe I'm misremembering or reading too many message forums, but it seems like Creative Assembly has increasingly moved away from that model with successive games.

-Tom

That's why I hope for a revisiting to the good ol' Shogun days! I'm not much of a demo person, so I have yet to play Empires myself, but I really hope its as good as people are making it out to be. And by people I mean biased media source.

[Aeon221]

Which has nothing to do with the question asked by RepoMan.


I wasn't responding to RepoMan. I'm sure he'll be perfectly happy with what looks to be an excellent game. I was responding to your rather silly assertion that a historical wargame shouldn't be worried about its historicity or wargamey attributes.

[Pogo]

If Medieval 2 was featured in a History channel special on the weapons of the era, I'd say some historical accuracy was intended in its development.

[SpookyKG]

That's why I hope for a revisiting to the good ol' Shogun days!

I haven't really got into Total War games since Shogun... I find trying to conquer Eurasia is just too big of a task and there are too many territories and areas to be attacked from, etc. In Shogun, I could focus on moving up my front line etc. and while I was very involved in the economy, I also saw alot of action. It was challenging but I never felt overwhelmed.

Bows are more fun than guns anyways.

[Ben Sones]

Maybe I'm misremembering or reading too many message forums, but it seems like Creative Assembly has increasingly moved away from that model with successive games.

Not really. All of the Total War games are still like this; "deadlier" is sort of a relative term. For instance, I won when I played the demo battle of Brandywine, but I don't think I wiped out any of Washington's units, with the exception of one artillery squad that took a cavalry charge from the rear (they didn't really stand a chance). The rest I merely routed, but that's all that's required to win, and most often the way it happens.

[schurem]

It all depends on playstyle really. A unit in TW loses morale when it has:

Few friends to its side (and when they rout, it will take a huge morale hit too)
Enemies to its side, or much worse, rear.
Charged by cavalry, with flank or rear charges being progressively worse
Taking hard casualties (especially artillery fire can be damning in this aspect)

What this boils down to is you either smash two lines of infantry and you get major frakkin carnage as they maul eachother but nobody routs, because the lines remain relatively intact. But mr Chick would cunningly trap his enemy in one or more fire sacks, ensuring they take fire from at least two sides, while manouvering his cavalry to rout the weakest units in order to entice a mass rout. It can be done, just takes more mouseclicks really.

[Naeblis]

Maybe because it was so new at the time, but I seem to recall Shogun being a thrillingly different real-time wargame for how engagements would come down to morale rather than casualties. Units would break and run before they would die. It was more about the rout than the slaughter. I remember the original Close Combat (I think that's what it was called) doing something similar on a much smaller tactical scale. Both games made the point that you didn't need to kill your enemy if you could just get him to stop fighting somehow. I really liked that.

Maybe I'm misremembering or reading too many message forums, but it seems like Creative Assembly has increasingly moved away from that model with successive games.

-Tom

I agree. It's one of the reasons i hold Shogun TW dear to me. Around Rome TW they began to slightly raise the pace of the battles. Making the infantry run a bit too fast, the lethality a bit too high, etc. Of course they still are very different affair than DoW 2 or AoE or another RTS, i am talking more about the gameplay at a fine-tuning level, but they lost a bit of realistic gameplay in the transition. In Shogun things like fatigue or morale were more important, and because of that, indirectly things like distances and height terrain were also a bit more important.

It's not like they aren't fun games as they sell it (i have Empire preordered), but imo they could be still better.

[Sarkus]

I wasn't responding to RepoMan. I'm sure he'll be perfectly happy with what looks to be an excellent game. I was responding to your rather silly assertion that a historical wargame shouldn't be worried about its historicity or wargamey attributes.

I didn't say that a historical wargame shouldn't be worried about those things. However, I think it's a mistake for anyone to think that what CA is trying to accomplish with the TW games is a "historical wargame" with a great degree of historicity or realism. As I noted above, the historical battles included don't even try to represent the true number of troops engaged. Another obvious factor is the relatively thin strategic layer. So why should you or anyone else hold them to that standard?

This isn't Combat Mission or Crown of Glory and it should be obvious to anyone by now that CA has no interest in competing with those types of games. They are always going to sacrifice realism in favor of what they consider "fun."

[moromete]

... and if Rome and Medieval are anything to go by then modders will bring in the "historical accuracy" that some players value so much. It's very cool that Creative Assermbly has included enough modding space in their releases to allow modders to do that. Other than that please add my excitement to the one exhibited by you gentlemen...

[KieronGillen]

My impression is that the pace of battle is slower than Medieval 2 or Rome. Especially Rome, in terms of infantry speed, etc.

(I also think Morale remains paramount throughout. You win by making people run and you make them run by scaring them to shit.)

KG

[Hanzii]

My impression is that the pace of battle is slower than Medieval 2 or Rome. Especially Rome, in terms of infantry speed, etc.

(I also think Morale remains paramount throughout. You win by making people run and you make them run by scaring them to shit.)

KG

I agree with Kieron (also his Eurogamer review. At least so far).

I'm no grognard, so this series (alongside Civilization) is my perfect mix of history and fun (oh noes). I played Shogun a lot and the first medieval quite a bit. I never got into Rome, perhaps because of the lack of things that go boom. I wanted to play Medieval II, but never found the time and then this was announced and I decided to skip it instead.

Morale are still the crux of battle. When I win against a superior force, it's because I manage to hold while they break and scare their friends to break as well. It's true that battles are very deadly (especially if you use autoresolve), but most of the deaths when you're in control of the forces happens when the soldiers rout... throwing down your gun and turning the back to a horseguy (to show my non-grognardy sense of terminology) with a sword, seems like a pretty dangerous idea in this game.

(I have now wiped Denmark of the map and would like the Swedes to stop bothering me, while I go kill some indians... of the red sort. The other sort will come later)

[Naeblis]

Good news then, Kieron. I have played the demo, but i didn't want to judge the mechanics (for good or bad) until playing more in the full version.

[Chris Nahr]

Why are people playing this already (I mean the final game, not the demo) when the Steam download isn't even preloading?

[KieronGillen]

Some people are reviewers. Some people are excited. Some people are both.

KG

[salwon]

Why are people playing this already (I mean the final game, not the demo) when the Steam download isn't even preloading?

They're jerks who hate us.

[Cal]

Why are people playing this already (I mean the final game, not the demo) when the Steam download isn't even preloading?

My pre-order turned up on monday, although sadly i need steam to authenticate it before i can play. Loads of people have pre-orders sat at home, but we are all waiting on steam to unlock them so we can play i think.

[zengonzo]

Curiously, the website says the NA release is March 3rd, but the stores all say the 4th.

[Cubit]

Curiously, the website says the NA release is March 3rd, but the stores all say the 4th.

It is one of those games that is shipping today, won't hit stores till Wed.

[Hanzii]

Why are people playing this already (I mean the final game, not the demo) when the Steam download isn't even preloading?

Again I must agree with Kieron.

.. and salwon, except that I don't hate you (too busy hating the Swedes for that).

[Slainte Mhath]

Morale was super important in Rome and Medieval II, not just in Shogun. While those two games offered battle on a more massive scale than Shogun or Medieval I, they still centered around using combined arms to defeat enemies through breaking formations and routing. It is possible to fight battles in Rome/MEd2 where the losses on both sides are heavy, but it's far easier to use strategy to rout enemy units and take apart huge enemy armies piecemeal by doing so. It's always been one of the things I liked the most about the tactical aspect of the games, using morale against an opponent. There are even units and formations specifically designed to take advantage of such tactics.

I look forward to the challange that a different age of warfare will bring to the Total War series. I can't wait to form infantry squares against cavalry, use artillery to soften morale and fight naval battles. Unfortunately my backlog is rather full at the moment, so I don't anticipate picking up Empire until it's had a chance to drop to the $40 or less range in a month or two.

[Cal]

Well the UK version just unlocked, i picked it up froma store in my lunch, had a quick look around, and man does this thing look good :) more impressions later. Game time!

[Gabe Lewis]

Morale was super important in Rome and Medieval II, not just in Shogun. While those two games offered battle on a more massive scale than Shogun or Medieval I, they still centered around using combined arms to defeat enemies through breaking formations and routing. It is possible to fight battles in Rome/MEd2 where the losses on both sides are heavy, but it's far easier to use strategy to rout enemy units and take apart huge enemy armies piecemeal by doing so. It's always been one of the things I liked the most about the tactical aspect of the games, using morale against an opponent. There are even units and formations specifically designed to take advantage of such tactics.


Well yeah, battles would technically "end" if you forced a good rout, but really, if you wanted to have any chance of ever completing a long campaign, you'd continue the battle past the victory screen and get your cavalry to cut down every man left running on the field.

[Ben Sones]

This was true in Shogun as well, though.

I think one thing that Shogun did do well was campaign length. I think the newer campaigns have just gotten too long, and the game is unquestionably better when you play either the short objectives (though the quality of these varies from game to game), or when they release an expansion (like Viking Invasion) that has a much tighter campaign on a smaller map. These tend to be a lot more fun for me than the epic monsters that drag on for days or, in some cases, weeks. I played a long Rome campaign once that took me over 40 hours to finish. That's longer than most entire games, for one scenario.

[zengonzo]

It's nice that you can opt to play a longer campaign if you prefer, though. At least as long as they have the short versions included, everyone should be satisfied.

[Soapyfrog]

Well yeah, battles would technically "end" if you forced a good rout, but really, if you wanted to have any chance of ever completing a long campaign, you'd continue the battle past the victory screen and get your cavalry to cut down every man left running on the field.
To be fair, I did that in Shogun also. However, it was harder back then as routing units would spread out as they fled, and sometimes routing troops would actually kill the pursuing cavalry so there was some risk to it. It was a better system I must say.

[Naeblis]

We all agree that the basic features (morale, fatigue, experience, weather, flanking, depth of formations, and more) are present in every Total War game. That said, how well implemented were these features and in which degree one affected the other, the influx of tactical choices that they caused in their exact combination, etc is not the same in every Total War, imo. Therefore, battles in Shogun were slightly different than battles in Rome TW, and not only for the change of setting and epoch.

[Naeblis]

Also, EG interview

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/empire-total-war-live-interview-live-q-and-a

[schurem]

Oh goddamn you steam, why didnt you autoresume while i was away! trickling down at a meager 300k/s while i can manage a whopping 1000k! curses curses a thousand curses!

[Libra]

How are you people downloading it from Steam? I haven't pre-ordered the game yet, but I've been reading that Steam is not allowing any sort of pre-loading of the game. Are you telling me that if I go to Steam and buy the game right now, I can start the download and play it tonight when it unlocks?

[Ben Sones]

They are probably in Europe. I think it's actually available to play (off Steam) there right now; in the US, it won't be available until tomorrow.

[mixuk]

Hmm, hasn't it already unlocked? I'm downloading it right now.

[moss_icon]

i'm getting terrible performance on the campaign map, but the battle runs extremely smoothly. i don't have a great pc (1.86Ghz dual core, 2GB RAM, ATI AGP 3850 graphics card), but surely it should be the other way round in terms of what should put pressure on the hardware? seems weird to me.

[Sarkus]

If you are looking for the game in stores in the US check your local WalMart. It appears they are the only major retailer to have it today - I picked up a copy there a short time ago and am installing now. Also FYI it appears that having the demo installed confuses the installation software a bit. When the autorun came up it didn't give me the option to install but did offer a "reinstall" option.

[Larinson]

First impressions are exceedingly good. Enjoying it much, much more than M2:TW. It actually feels like Europa Universalis, in the sense that I really can't do everything. I'm playing as Britain, fighting a campaign against the Huron which is more difficult than I thought it was going to be. Also trying to build up my trading fleet (without building up my military one at the moment). I have a feeling the first game is going to end badly for me. Will be interesting to see how the AI plays, diplomatically-wise. If France declare on me, will my host of allies honour their agreements?

[copet]

Wait...how are people DLing? Still says I can't on steam.

[Lorini]

I thought I was going to buy the CE but then I wasted $20 on Puzzlequest Galactrix and don't want to spend the $70 anymore. I do want a printed manual, but since I get up really early in the morning it'd be awesome to be playing as soon as I got up (I've cleared all day tomorrow for playing this game). Too many damned choices! And who knows when BB will get it in <sigh>. On top of that, I bet Fry's will have it on sale tomorrow but it won't get to them until like 2pm and that's most of the day gone!!

<wrings hands>

[Lorini]

Wait...how are people DLing? Still says I can't on steam.

They are not in NA. They are in other countries. Not here. We have to wait until tomorrow.

[Eduardo X]

I thought I was going to buy the CE but then I wasted $20 on Puzzlequest Galactrix and don't want to spend the $70 anymore. I do want a printed manual, but since I get up really early in the morning it'd be awesome to be playing as soon as I got up (I've cleared all day tomorrow for playing this game). Too many damned choices! And who knows when BB will get it in <sigh>. On top of that, I bet Fry's will have it on sale tomorrow but it won't get to them until like 2pm and that's most of the day gone!!

<wrings hands>
I think you should have taken Thursday, as we all know how poorly Steam handles authenticating games, even ones you buy retail.

[Sarkus]

Wait...how are people DLing? Still says I can't on steam.

The whole release thing is ridiculously complicated. In simple terms, the game is out today in Europe and other areas and that's why those folks can play right now, including those who bought it via Steam. In North America you can play today if you have a store bought copy (though only WalMart appears to have it today in limited numbers) but you have to wait until early tomorrow morning to begin downloading it if you bought via Steam or another activiate it if you went with a different digital source.

Some initial impressions: 1) not much in the way of historical battles to play, basically it's the two demo battles plus one more naval battle. 2) Tutorials are the same as the demo. 3) the "Road to Independence" campaign where you start off colonizing the US is basically the campaign game tutorial. That's what I'm playing right now and it's a pretty good hand-holding way to learn what's different from the previous games.

I am seeing better load times for those that were worried about that.

[flyinj]

The whole release thing is ridiculously complicated. In simple terms, the game is out today in Europe and other areas and that's why those folks can play right now, including those who bought it via Steam. In North America you can play today if you have a store bought copy (though only WalMart appears to have it today in limited numbers) but you have to wait until early tomorrow morning to begin downloading it if you bought via Steam or another activiate it if you went with a different digital source.

Some initial impressions: 1) not much in the way of historical battles to play, basically it's the two demo battles plus one more naval battle. 2) Tutorials are the same as the demo. 3) the "Road to Independence" campaign where you start off colonizing the US is basically the campaign game tutorial. That's what I'm playing right now and it's a pretty good hand-holding way to learn what's different from the previous games.

I am seeing better load times for those that were worried about that.

Wait, you can play a store-bought game without authenticating through Steam? I've read many people who said they bought the game from a store, but it won't let them play because it requires Steam to allow them to. And Steam says no way.

[Rob Beschizza]

The first two total war games, Shogun and Medieval, demanded a thoughtful consideration of tactics that balanced morale, force and real-time movement in ways nothing else has since approached. Any given battle between two competent human players could turn on a single excellent strategic decision.

Since Rome, it's been about carnage. Click faster! The end.

[Abilio Carvalho]

I bought Empire, but steam is fucking up royally. It's at 0% since last night, and won't budge.

[Lorini]

Hey if I buy a DVD version of ETW, will I be able to install it in some other drive than c:? And then do the Steam thing? Because otherwise I'm in for some major re-working of my c: drive if it does in fact take up 15g.

[smr]

The first two total war games, Shogun and Medieval, demanded a thoughtful consideration of tactics that balanced morale, force and real-time movement in ways nothing else has since approached. Any given battle between two competent human players could turn on a single excellent strategic decision.

Since Rome, it's been about carnage. Click faster! The end.

I've somehow managed to avoid diving into this series, ever. Is Shogun still worth getting/playing or are the graphics/gameplay feel too old this days? Not a graphics whore, but would love if the game at least would display natively on a 1680x1050 screen (strategy games tend to suffer most from scaling due to all the text).

Or should I just get Empire:TW as I'm so strongly leaning for and wing that mother?

[flyinj]

Hey if I buy a DVD version of ETW, will I be able to install it in some other drive than c:? And then do the Steam thing? Because otherwise I'm in for some major re-working of my c: drive if it does in fact take up 15g.

Whoa shit I hope Pogo doesn't see this post!

(The solution I got from here is you can install many instances of Steam on different drives on the same computer. Just install another copy of Steam on the drive with space on it, and have it use that one)

[rrmorton]

I've been a big fan of this series over the years but never much of a player. I bought all three releases (but skipped the expansions) and dabbled with each one for maybe 3-5 hours. I just never got hooked.

Still, I never regretted the purchases. I just love the look and the scope and the idea of these games a lot and I want to support them with a purchase just to have them in my game library. Kind of like how I bought Citizen Soldiers by Stephen Ambrose and Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace because I like having them and always hope I'll get to them someday.

I have Empire preordered from Steam. Who knows? Maybe this will be the one that finally grabs me. I really like The Ancient Art of War at Sea and Pirates of the Burning Sea so the naval battles ought to be a welcome addition.

[Tacitus]

I've somehow managed to avoid diving into this series, ever. Is Shogun still worth getting/playing or are the graphics/gameplay feel too old this days? Not a graphics whore, but would love if the game at least would display natively on a 1680x1050 screen (strategy games tend to suffer most from scaling due to all the text).

Or should I just get Empire:TW as I'm so strongly leaning for and wing that mother?

I love Shogun. It was definitely the high point of the series for me and the one I put the most hours into, but I can't recommend it. I think playing it for the first time now would not be a great experience.

I've actually liked each new release of the game a little less than the last, but I'm holding out hopes for this one since it's a period I haven't spent much time with(much like Shogun). I went ahead and pre-ordered it on Steam.

[Sarkus]

Wait, you can play a store-bought game without authenticating through Steam? I've read many people who said they bought the game from a store, but it won't let them play because it requires Steam to allow them to. And Steam says no way.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. The authentication servers were up today for the US, at least by the time I installed the game (2PM PST). However, the actual download servers don't go up until 1AM PST 3/4.

Like I said, the whole thing is weird the way they did it.

[Naeblis]

The first two total war games, Shogun and Medieval, demanded a thoughtful consideration of tactics that balanced morale, force and real-time movement in ways nothing else has since approached. Any given battle between two competent human players could turn on a single excellent strategic decision.

Since Rome, it's been about carnage. Click faster! The end.

I've somehow managed to avoid diving into this series, ever. Is Shogun still worth getting/playing or are the graphics/gameplay feel too old this days? Not a graphics whore, but would love if the game at least would display natively on a 1680x1050 screen (strategy games tend to suffer most from scaling due to all the text).

Or should I just get Empire:TW as I'm so strongly leaning for and wing that mother?

I think he just being sarcastic about the previous discussion of Shogun vs modern TW games. Rome and latter TW games are not about clicking faster, don't worry ;).

[nordhus]

Has anyone found out where Steam hides the manual?

[BobJustBob]

And it's up. When Steam says it takes up 15GB, that means after it downloads the much smaller image and installs it, right? Right?

[Naeblis]

11,5 Gb is the real size, i think.

[Chris Nahr]

Yeah, I think I'll download this one after the zombie apocalypse when nobody else is accessing the Steam servers...

[flyinj]

I'm getting a steady 2.4 megs a second right now. And it just unlocked 20 minutes ago.

[Chris Nahr]

Well, my download would hardly even start and my line gives me a maximum of 360 KB/sec anyway, so the download will have to wait until I can get a whole day with a good connection. (And that's why I'm not a big fan of download distribution for AAA games.)

[Cubit]

well, i'm going back to bed after getting up to start this download. everything is looking good so far, and am pulling a max 350 kb/sec for my connection. I just hope that it continues...

[Equis]

You know. I wanna play this, but what is up with Steam these days. I've had DowII crash on me when I'm loading up replays and I can't even gete Empire to launch. I got the hard copy disc and everything. Can I even go offline and launch it from there?

Also, how come I have to download it from steam. I bought the disc, can't I install it from there?

[Cubit]

You know. I wanna play this, but what is up with Steam these days. I've had DowII crash on me when I'm loading up replays and I can't even gete Empire to launch. I got the hard copy disc and everything. Can I even go offline and launch it from there?

you can put steam in offline mode, an option under "file".

[Naeblis]

I'm getting a steady 2.4 megs a second right now. And it just unlocked 20 minutes ago.

Steam only gives me around 400-450 kb/s, here in Spain. :(

[schurem]

In steam settings, you can set a different server to get it from. Shop around. The dutch server wouldnt give me jack shit, but the french one was fast!

I get weird blue artifacting on some objects in the battle map. other than that, it looks and plays awesomely :) I'm in love :D

[Cal]

In steam settings, you can set a different server to get it from. Shop around. The dutch server wouldnt give me jack shit, but the french one was fast!

I get weird blue artifacting on some objects in the battle map. other than that, it looks and plays awesomely :) I'm in love :D

Do you have a 4850/4870 ATI card? Lots of people have that problem, and it seem its a driver issue fixed with some ati beta driver. Sorted it out for my friend with exactly that problem.

[IndridCold]

Finally had a chance to check out the demo for this. Very impressed! Like many of you I've played Rome:TW and MTW to death in the past.

One thing I wanted to ask for those of you who've had a chance to play the full version: What are the load times like? As much as I liked the demo, waiting 2-3 minutes for the battle scenario to launch gets old very very quickly. I know I'm not the only one with this issue (the internet is awash in similar observations). Can anyone tell if they are improved in the full version? I'm hoping against hope that they are.

[Cubit]

Back at 1% :(

[Hanzii]

Finally had a chance to check out the demo for this. Very impressed! Like many of you I've played Rome:TW and MTW to death in the past.

One thing I wanted to ask for those of you who've had a chance to play the full version: What are the load times like? As much as I liked the demo, waiting 2-3 minutes for the battle scenario to launch gets old very very quickly. I know I'm not the only one with this issue (the internet is awash in similar observations). Can anyone tell if they are improved in the full version? I'm hoping against hope that they are.

I haven't played the demo, so I can't compare. But on my 4GB Quadcore loadtimes for large battles are 1-2 minutes, I'd say (I can stopwatch them tonight, but I haven't yet).

[Ben Sones]

Weird. The demo battle loads for me in 30-35 seconds on a 4GB dual core, and that's a pretty big battle (plus apparently not optimized quite as well as the final game). I wonder what factors are causing the variation in load times?

[Enidigm]

"Steam is too busy to process your request. Please try again in a few minutes."

[zengonzo]

Is that just for validation with a store-bought copy, TSG?

[Ben Sones]

When last I looked, I was getting a good download speed and was at nearly 50%. Now when I look, it's gone back to saying "Download starting..." and seems to be stuck there. So I'm not sure what it is doing, or if I should stop it and restart the download.

Edit: All right, it was still stuck on "Download starting...", so I paused the download, closed Steam and then relaunched it, and then resumed the download. It immediately picked up again at 60%.

[Adam Altmann]

Sorry if I'm being obtuse, but, store-bought copies require Steam to play?

[Cubit]

Sorry if I'm being obtuse, but, store-bought copies require Steam to play?

Yep, like Valve's first-party games.

[Lorini]

Sorry if I'm being obtuse, but, store-bought copies require Steam to play?

Steam is the DRM they are using. You only have to be online with Steam to install; after that you can play offline if you wish. I highly prefer Steam as DRM instead of SecureRom or limited installs or having to have the DVD in the drive. A lot better.

[Adam Altmann]

Steam is the DRM they are using. You only have to be online with Steam to install; after that you can play offline if you wish. I highly prefer Steam as DRM instead of SecureRom or limited installs or having to have the DVD in the drive. A lot better.

I have an irrational hatred of things that put icons in my notification area. I'm also imagining a worst case scenario where I get the game, install it, dick around for twenty minutes trying to find my old Steam ID and password...eventually giving up and creating a new Steam account, and then finally not being able to play the damn game because Steam won't authenticate my copy, or something. Also, there will be another little icon in my notification area. It's untidy.

[zengonzo]

By notification area - are you talking about your system tray?

Because I'm sure they have an option to remove that. Unless I'm mistaking.

Edit: Not that I'm happy with the situation, but as Lorini mentioned it's the least abusive alternative about.

[Lorini]

You have to have a Steam account before you can install it, so if you can't find your Steam account info then you won't be able to install it anyway and you'll still have to create a new account or retrieve the info for the old one.

[Ben Sones]

Retrieving account info is not all that hard. As DRM goes, I have to give Steam kudos for being the only system that also offers some benefits for the end user. It can entail some headaches as well, but it's still better than all the other DRM systems out there.

[Staff Sergeant]

Hating Steam is so 5 years ago.

Honestly, Steam is awesome. It keeps all of your Steam enabled games so you can download them to play anytime and anywhere with no dicking around with CDs or codes or anything (you put the code once in if you bought it in a brick and mortar, never if you bought if off Steam), it has a store where you can buy all sorts of games you'll never ever find in a store, and for great prices, not to mention the random ridiculous sales, and there is a community system/whatever you want to call it that rivals (/is better than) Xbox Live.

[Tim James]

They just need to step up their launch day work.

[schurem]

Do you have a 4850/4870 ATI card? Lots of people have that problem, and it seem its a driver issue fixed with some ati beta driver. Sorted it out for my friend with exactly that problem.


I fixed it by turning off adaptive AA. I have a 4870.

[Mark L]

Guys, would it have been so hard to scan your manual, throw it in a pdf, and include it on Steam?

[Enidigm]

Is that just for validation with a store-bought copy, TSG?

Nope, Steam download.

[Enidigm]

I'm almost to the point of not using Steam anymore. 3/4 of the time my unlocked weapons aren't available in TF2; half the time i can't connect at all in Dawn of War 2. If i can't play my games because the network is too busy to bother with me, i'm not going to continue bothering with Steam.

[Mark L]

EFG, is it okay that I hate that they didn't give me a manual? I don't want to play the tutorial campaign, I just want to read how to play and jump into the grand campaign.

[Cubit]

I'm almost to the point of not using Steam anymore. 3/4 of the time my unlocked weapons aren't available in TF2; half the time i can't connect at all in Dawn of War 2. If i can't play my games because the network is too busy to bother with me, i'm not going to continue bothering with Steam.

weird. i've never had any of those happen to me. the one time i got a network busy error, i refreshed and everything worked fine. you must have bad luck man.

[RepoMan]

Wait, what? There is no manual in the Steam version??? AW, FUCKING HELL. That blows. And here I already bought the sonofabitch. Memo to self: check manual existence before buying strat games on Steam.

[Eduardo X]

Steam never seems to have manuals, which blows.

I think IL-2 1946 came with a PDF manual, which is why it is included in the game. Valve really need to get on that, though.

[Ben Sones]

On the one hand, I agree that all game manuals should be available when the game unlocks. It's absurd that there is a printed manual, but they could have some intern spend fifteen minutes scanning it in and saving it as a PDF.

On the other side of the coin, though, apparently the manual is pretty much worthless, so you aren't missing out on much. You need to play the tutorials to learn how to play the game whether you have the manual or not.

[zengonzo]

I've always enjoyed the trial by fire approach.

[Deadbuffalo]

Watching the game download progress go from 50 % back down to zero just knocked away a bunch of my enthusiasm for digital distribution. So much for playing this tonight....

[Cubit]

Watching the game download progress go from 50 % back down to zero just knocked away a bunch of my enthusiasm for digital distribution. So much for playing this tonight....

that happened to me dead. it got up to 50% and then steam said download stopping and it locked up. after a steam restart, it was back at 0% but rose more quickly in percentage than a download should take. i think it just has to check what you already have. an hour later, i'm at 75%.

[zengonzo]

Wonder why they don't use a peer-to-peer model for the Steam downloader.

I was hovering on doing the download method last night. Glad I resisted, now. Sorry, fellas.

[Morberis]

Wonder why they don't use a peer-to-peer model for the Steam downloader.

I was hovering on doing the download method last night. Glad I resisted, now. Sorry, fellas.

No! I'm all for P2P as an alternate source but I absolutely detest it when I need to use it for something like say, updating WoW. Why is that? Well the first is that more than a few of my past ISP's start seriously messing with my internet speed when a torrent starts up, to the point that I in fact couldn't even download WoW patches at more than 0.2kbps. The second is that no matter where I've lived or what ISP I've had the official P2P speed sucks. Even when they haven't limited it the best I've ever gotten downloading WoW patches is 20kbps, and that speed is pretty much average for everyone I personally know who plays(ed) WoW. Compare that to the 80kbps I got from direct downloads of the same patches and I just avoided their dam P2P patcher entirely.

With steam I get a good 200-400kbps average and I don't need to search out mirrors and find by trial and error which will let me download faster than 10kbps. It's simple, it easy, and its fast.

[zengonzo]

Be nice to have a choice, certainly.

But if the direct download is slowing down to the point that it takes someone more than a day to download ..

Sucks about your ISP, anyhow.

[Aeon221]

So how's the campaign? Anyone with a modest machine get to take a go at it?

[Cubit]

this quote from the gamespy review (http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/empire-total-war/959077p1.html) makes me really want to be home playing right now:

More importantly, the new map gameplay actually deepens the strategic depth while making an empire much, much easier to control. In just one example, one of my first games as the Maratha Confederacy (Indian Hindus who staged an uprising against the Muslim Mughals) was nearly derailed when I spent the first portion of the game focusing on the land game and battling against the Mughal. Europe, particularly Great Britain, was merely a source of funds that came from my fantastically profitable tea plantations. I only needed enough ships to fend off Mughal raiders and Barbary Pirates and keep my sea lanes clear. Then I tried to kick the Portuguese out of the biggest, most lucrative port in India.

Suddenly everything changed. Portugal, while only a minor computer-controlled nation in Empire, was allied to Great Britain... most definitely not a minor nation. Suddenly I not only lost my best trading partner, I had every ship in the British Navy strangling off my trade routes. Empire's campaign map gameplay does an amazing job at simulating the empire-building, intricate webwork of trade partners, diplomacy and alliances and the jockeying for power that make the 18th century an inexhaustible treasure trove for armchair monarchs. The addition of naval gameplay connects three different action theaters (Europe, India and North America) with four naval action-only trade zones and makes what might seem like a sprawling game world feel small and intimate. Since the game's 22 nations each have their victory conditions balanced out for their historical starting position, it also makes every game a very different experience.

[Lunch of Kong]

On the one hand, I agree that all game manuals should be available when the game unlocks. It's absurd that there is a printed manual, but they could have some intern spend fifteen minutes scanning it in and saving it as a PDF.

Well, seeing as how almost all printed manuals these days are sent to print bureaus as a PDF, they could have considered adding the same PDF to the online distro.

Is there really not a Documentation or a Help folder with a PDF of the manual in there? That's very strange.

[zengonzo]

this quote from the gamespy review (http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/empire-total-war/959077p1.html) makes me really want to be home playing right now:


Aw, man, that sounds so good.

That stuff never seemed to happen in the old games ..

[cliffski]

Hating Steam is so 5 years ago.

Honestly, Steam is awesome.

Really???

I bought a physical copy of this game from amazon (it was cheaper, so I did that). I've installed the game, entered the CD code, fired up steam (my compulsory background process that i don't want, and only need for this one game), and guess what...

Im sat here with a legal disc copy of the game and steam is downlaoding something. What exactly I don't know, maybe a patch or final exe, but its still at 0%.
I deliberately waited till tonight, figuring that earlier in the day it would be swamped with kids who got it a day before me, or installed it right after school or whatever.

This is shit.
I bought the game and I can't play it. That sucks. next time I see a game requires a steam account, I'll be tempted to skip it. Sad but true.

Don't require a web connection then not have the fucking bandwidth for it.

[Cubit]

Whoops, sorry cliffski.

I deleted the post he was responding to.

Just think cliffski. Its because of all those damn software pirates that you are going through this trouble. ;)

[flyinj]

I can't believe Valve/Sega didn't include a manual. Especially for this game!

Luckily, someone here scanned pages he found "relevant", so at least we have half the manual:

http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=113618

The worst thing is, lots of people are complaining about it on the Steam forums, and retail owners are chiming in telling Valve to never include it as it "doesn't explain much". I mean, come on!

[Sarkus]

Really???

I bought a physical copy of this game from amazon (it was cheaper, so I did that). I've installed the game, entered the CD code, fired up steam (my compulsory background process that i don't want, and only need for this one game), and guess what...

Im sat here with a legal disc copy of the game and steam is downlaoding something. What exactly I don't know, maybe a patch or final exe, but its still at 0%.
I deliberately waited till tonight, figuring that earlier in the day it would be swamped with kids who got it a day before me, or installed it right after school or whatever.

This is shit.
I bought the game and I can't play it. That sucks. next time I see a game requires a steam account, I'll be tempted to skip it. Sad but true.

Don't require a web connection then not have the fucking bandwidth for it.

It's downloading a patch.

[NuclearWinter]

I haven't played the demo, so I can't compare. But on my 4GB Quadcore loadtimes for large battles are 1-2 minutes, I'd say (I can stopwatch them tonight, but I haven't yet).

Weird, I've only played through the Road to Independence campaign but with my 4GB dual core the largest battles take 35 seconds to load for me. That's with the maximum amount of units on both sides, plus reinforcements, with unit size set to Ultra in options. This is an improvement over the demo on my machine.

[flyinj]

Yes, the full game loads a ton faster. That demo was definitely a much earlier build.

I have a single core 3.4 ghz P4 with 2 gigs of ram, a 8800GT running XP SP2, and the game plays fine. about 30-40 seconds to load a big battle.

[Lunch of Kong]

Can't wait to get home. :)

[Gabe Lewis]

EFG, is it okay that I hate that they didn't give me a manual? I don't want to play the tutorial campaign, I just want to read how to play and jump into the grand campaign.

Yeah, TW manuals used to be really good, not so much nowadays.

But the Grand Campaigns have a scalable help system, which, if you turn it to it's highest setting, will give you some helpful information about every single thing you click forever.

Once you get the hang of all the doo-hickeys, you can just turn the bitch off a sail, no need for turtorials.

[Lunch of Kong]

But the Grand Campaigns have a scalable help system, which, if you turn it to it's highest setting, will give you some helpful information about every single thing you click forever.


That's fine for reference material, but it usually doesn't help customers with the conceptual material such as the actual game mechanics. It's like giving someone a French-English dictionary and saying "Here, now write me a business letter."

I'm really glad that guy posted scans of some of the manual pages. It described a bunch of game mechanics I didn't even know about. I hope more conceptual material is available in the help system than what we're used to getting.

[Ben Sones]

The Road to Liberty scenarios seem to be a lengthy tutorial on how to play the campaign, though--that's probably a better place to start than just diving in with the help messages turned on. I've only played through the first episode, but it starts very basic, with most of the interface buttons disabled, and gives you a series of missions that each teach you how the various stuff in the campaign game works.

For folks wanting to see scans of the rest of the manual--what that guy posted in that thread is basically it. He left out the credits and the pages explaining the menus and basic interface stuff, but most of that requires little explanation.

[ohsweetconcord]

I think I may have inadvertently re-set my Empire download through Steam. It was at 60% when I got back from my classes. I clicked "Launch" to see if it would tell me how long it needed to finish, which re-set the % progress to zero.

Has anyone else done this? Did I, in fact, erase all my progress?

[GregB]

Well, the Scenario just bugged out on me. I made a Military Alliance with the Iroquois so I could send my troops through their territory and stage an attack on the French. About halfway through Iroquois land they cancelled the alliance.

This left me, oddly enough, free to move about the territory I was in, but unable to cross into any other territory including ones owned by me.

[cliffski]

It's downloading a patch.

...or not. as 0% signified.
I finally got it to download by lying and pretending I'm in France. Yay!

Only tried a few land battles so far. Good performance for me (geforce 8800 GTS), sieges are pretty cool.
Seen a few interface bugs. artillery limber/unlimber status not always toggled right, and turning off the flags is a setting it doesn't seem to always save either.
Feels suitably epic though.

[UncleSmoothie]

I think I may have inadvertently re-set my Empire download through Steam. It was at 60% when I got back from my classes. I clicked "Launch" to see if it would tell me how long it needed to finish, which re-set the % progress to zero.

Has anyone else done this? Did I, in fact, erase all my progress?

I saw the same thing when I came home from work, but when I clicked launch, it picked up again.

For the record, I started downloading at like 8am EST, and it's currently sitting at 38%. :(

[schurem]

Awesomely Epic is the right term yea. I had a couple battles give 1500-500 casualty figures without them being killer stacks of doom meets at all.

Tried a quick battle with some end game stuff. Goddamn three row firing drill looks impressive! chews em up real good too! And the dutch speak dutch, obviously voiced by real dutchmen! cool!

<not excited at all, nuh uh :P >

[wisefool]

Patching.

I got my Empire to patch by restarting steam in offline, then back online.

[tronnc]

Interesting info about the multiplayer campaign that will hopefully be eventually released.

Blackguard asks: Can you tell us anything about multiplayer campaign mode which we hear is in the works?

Kieran Brigden: The multiplayer campaign mode will be a post release feature of Empire Total War. We are going to release it as a beta shortly after the game's come out. The campaign mode allows two friends (or mortal enemies) to play against one another and the AI through the Grand Campaign mode. Players will be given the option of fighting every battle as the enemy, meaning whoever your friend fights wherever in the world it will always be the two of involved in a deathmatch. It's an awesome new feature and one we've been keen to do for a while. The basic code is there, now we're getting the rest sorted!

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/empire-total-war-live-interview-live-q-and-a

I would love to have the time to play that, maybe on spring break. It would make the campaign so much more difficult.

[Hanzii]

Weird, I've only played through the Road to Independence campaign but with my 4GB dual core the largest battles take 35 seconds to load for me. That's with the maximum amount of units on both sides, plus reinforcements, with unit size set to Ultra in options. This is an improvement over the demo on my machine.

Yes, after actually measuring the time I agree. A really huge battle took me around 50 seconds to load, but regular battles are 30-40 seconds.

And I second that review. The way the map is set up with traderutes is quite clever. The sea game is integral - troop transport and protecting trade is really important. But also the way the big regions work, with a capitol to conquer if you want the region and plenty of cities and other stuff to mess up, if you just want to hurt his economy.

And I can just emphasize what I said earlier. Morale is integral. I just researched cannister shot and boy do a good timed hit on advancing troops break their morale. Add a charge from the side, and they're on the run even though casualties are low.

[zengonzo]

OK, I bought the disc from the store, brought it home, installed ..

Steam: This game is currently unavailable. Please try again at another time.

That's pretty much the scenario I was nightmarizing. It doesn't even give me a clue as to what the problem might be.

Edit: OK, shut down and restarted Steam and it seems to be alright. My earlier skepticism of the concept triggered my indignation circuit.

[flyinj]

The Road to Liberty scenarios seem to be a lengthy tutorial on how to play the campaign, though--that's probably a better place to start than just diving in with the help messages turned on. I've only played through the first episode, but it starts very basic, with most of the interface buttons disabled, and gives you a series of missions that each teach you how the various stuff in the campaign game works.

For folks wanting to see scans of the rest of the manual--what that guy posted in that thread is basically it. He left out the credits and the pages explaining the menus and basic interface stuff, but most of that requires little explanation.

So, when I forget what one little doo-hickey does, I guess I should just play through the entire Road to Liberty tutorial until I get to the point where the doo-hickey is explained?

I want a goddamn manual. This is absurd.

[Cubit]

So, when I forget what one little doo-hickey does, I guess I should just play through the entire Road to Liberty tutorial until I get to the point where the doo-hickey is explained?I want a goddamn manual. This is absurd.

wah wah wah

stop whining about the lack of manual and play the damn game. maybe then you wouldn't need the help system.

Gabe says:

But the Grand Campaigns have a scalable help system, which, if you turn it to it's highest setting, will give you some helpful information about every single thing you click forever.

[flyinj]

wah wah wah

stop whining about the lack of manual and play the damn game. maybe then you wouldn't need the help system.

Gabe says:

I'm playing the damn game. What do all the symbols and meters on the battle screen mean? They're never explained in the battle tutorial, nor up to Chapter 3 of the War for Independence tutorial campaign, nor in the "extensive" in game help system.

What structure is needed to recruit agents? What agents are used for what? Etc etc. It's not too much to ask that I get a manual with a game I buy. Especially seeing how you get one if you buy it in the store.

[cliffski]

personally I always skip any in game tutorials for anything because...
I
can't
stand
being
given
information
at
the
speed
of
a
retarded
child.

Maybe E:TW lets you read text and skip voice tutorial stuff, but to be honest so few games let me read, and insist that I listen, that I just assume tutorials are useless now.

Having said all that, I've played both land and sea battles with zero hints or tutorial help and it all seems pretty straigtforward to me so far.

[Sarkus]

I'm playing the damn game. What do all the symbols and meters on the battle screen mean? They're never explained in the battle tutorial, nor up to Chapter 3 of the War for Independence tutorial campaign, nor in the "extensive" in game help system.

What structure is needed to recruit agents? What agents are used for what? Etc etc. It's not too much to ask that I get a manual with a game I buy. Especially seeing how you get one if you buy it in the store.

While I agree that it is stupid that they don't have a manual PDF on Steam (yet, I'm sure it'll be up soon), it's not like the manual included with the store copy is all that comprehensive. For example, this is all I see in the manual about how agents are recruited:

Agents cannot be recruited like military units; they are automatically generated by the presence of certain buildings in your regions. These buildings also influence how many agents you can have at one time.

Gentlemen, Scholars, Missionaries, Imams, and Brahmins are generated from eductational buildings in your empire - such as universities.

Rakes, Hashishin and Thugees are generated from entertainment-based buildings in your empire - such as taverns.

That's it.

[Demorve]

If I have been understanding the posts here correctly, if I buy the game at a store I need to have a steam account just to play? If this is true then that sucks big donkey dicks. :(

[Cubit]

If I have been understanding the posts here correctly, if I buy the game at a store I need to have a steam account just to play? If this is true then that sucks big donkey dicks. :(

Yes, just like Valve-developed games.

[flyinj]

Agents cannot be recruited like military units; they are automatically generated by the presence of certain buildings in your regions. These buildings also influence how many agents you can have at one time.

Gentlemen, Scholars, Missionaries, Imams, and Brahmins are generated from eductational buildings in your empire - such as universities.

Rakes, Hashishin and Thugees are generated from entertainment-based buildings in your empire - such as taverns.

That's exactly the kind of information I want to have access to when I have a question. It answers exactly what I needed to know. Hearing it in a tutorial once, then trying to remember with no ability to look it up is not an ideal situation.

[Hanzii]

I agree completely. A manual should be included - in fact Steam should just have a seperate tab for manuals.

When that is said, the in game help is quite good. I didn't bither finishing the tutorial campaign and just jumped in and the tooltips explain stuff quite well - there's also info on rollover and on right click on a lot of stuff.

[Demorve]

Originally Posted by Demorve
If I have been understanding the posts here correctly, if I buy the game at a store I need to have a steam account just to play? If this is true then that sucks big donkey dicks. :(

Yes, just like Valve-developed games.



I'll have to seriously reconsider buying this game. I don't mind buying online and then downloading, I just don't like games that phone home every time I want to play.

[UncleSmoothie]

I'll have to seriously reconsider buying this game. I don't mind buying online and then downloading, I just don't like games that phone home every time I want to play.

Play in offline mode.

[Ben Sones]

That's exactly the kind of information I want to have access to when I have a question. It answers exactly what I needed to know. Hearing it in a tutorial once, then trying to remember with no ability to look it up is not an ideal situation.

Well, look--I don't want to defend the lack of manual, because I agree that it's dumb. But you can look that stuff up without playing the RtL tutorials, and the manual doesn't have much information about that stuff anyway. Just right click on stuff like universities and such to open a detailed window telling you all about it, or just single-click on it with the tutorial help tips enabled. "Information on specific doohickeys" is not the manual's forte.

I brought up the Road to Liberty campaign because someone specifically asked what they should do if they didn't want to look up info on specific doohickeys, but instead wanted to learn the game in a more general sense.

[ohsweetconcord]

can anyone comment about the game's performance on older systems? i'm running a core2duo 6600 at 2.4ghz with an 8800GT and 2 gigs of ram, and i was fairly disappointed with the demo's performance on my machine. can i expect anything better from the full release, or should i get used to looking at battles with significantly less visual fidelity than those found in medieval 2?

[Cubit]

my system is the same as yours concord, except with some more memory. the game runs great, and loading times are much better than the demo. i would say they have almost been cut in half. i don't know about the campaign map, but the battle maps runs at a solid 40fps with auto-detected settings.

[Adam Altmann]

Got home and started the install. Upon installing Steam, it didn't recognize the Steam account I had created through their website hours ago. It let me create a new account with the same name, username, email, and password though. Kind of strange, since I have emails from them verifying the account I created earlier.

I then installed the game itself, which took a good twenty minutes. Now I'm sitting at a Steam screen that's telling me my game will be ready to play in approximately 1 Hour 23 Minutes. This has been a great experience that I'm eager to repeat.

[Cubit]

haha, how come it seems that every time a steam-activated retail game is released we go through this same song and dance?

[copet]

There hasn't been a game out recently that has made me want to play it the instant it came out, so I guess I don't mind the 8 hour download I had today.

My first impression of the game is that it will be fun, but there may still be some AI annoyances.

And I REALLY hate the fact that they didn't ship the game with any significant amount of historical missions. I mean really... pick a few out of the 100s in this era.

[flyinj]

Woohoo!

Valve responded, now we have a manual. Available here:

http://store.steampowered.com/manual/10500/

[Troy S Goodfellow]

And I REALLY hate the fact that they didn't ship the game with any significant amount of historical missions. I mean really... pick a few out of the 100s in this era.

Yeah, the lack of historical battles is a huge, huge "what were they thinking?" moment for me. Saratoga? Valmy? Poltava? Blenheim? All should be here.

Troy

[Aeon221]

Yeah, the lack of historical battles is a huge, huge "what were they thinking?" moment for me. Saratoga? Valmy? Poltava? Blenheim? All should be here.

Troy

Lest we forget, there were also Quiberon Bay, the Saints, the two battles at Finisterre, Vigo Bay and of course Aboukir Bay, otherwise known as the Battle of the Nile, to choose from.

I know Lagos is in there, and apparently one other naval scenario was included. What is it?

[NuclearWinter]

Lest we forget, there were also Quiberon Bay, the Saints, the two battles at Finisterre, Vigo Bay and of course Aboukir Bay, otherwise known as the Battle of the Nile, to choose from.

I know Lagos is in there, and apparently one other naval scenario was included. What is it?

Pondicherry is the other.

I too am disappointed in the measly number of historical battles.

[UncleSmoothie]

Jesus. 82% downloaded on Steam. Remember that this download started about 13 and a half hours ago. Periodically, the status will change from the percentage to "Download started..", and I'll tell it to launch the game, and it goes back to downloading. I've got the bandwidth monitor open, so I can verify that every time it changes to "Download started", it actually stops downloading.

I was hoping to play after work tonight, now I'm just dropping by the desk every so often to micromanage my download.

Oh, Steam.

[Aeon221]

Pondicherry is the other.


[After Pondicherry] Pocock had reduced the French ships to a very shattered condition, and killed a great many of their men; but what shows the singular talents of both admirals, they [Pocock and D'Ache] had fought three pitched battles in eighteen months without the loss of a ship on either side.

In other words, not what I was expecting.

[Gabe Lewis]

Was it Winston Churchill who said, "Steam is the worst form of direct download, except those other forms that have been tried from time to time." ?

Man was that guy ahead of his time.

[UncleSmoothie]

Was it Winston Churchill who said, "Steam is the worst form of direct download, except those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

Man was that guy ahead of his time.

I'm just flailing away at the night here. I love Steam from the bottom of my tiny black heart.

EDIT: I did the "delete clientregistry.blob" trick and I went from 70kbps to 950kbps. Huh.

[Gabe Lewis]

Never heard of that trick, link please?

[UncleSmoothie]

Don't really have a good link for you Gabe - this trick was passed on to me by my Pappy, who learnt it from a Frenchman in the Great War.

If Steam is getting squirrelly, close the application and then you open up your Steam directory, and delete the file called "clientregistry.blob". Then restart Steam.

Steam will then download a new clientregistry.blob, and treat you like it's your first date again, winning you over with fast download speeds and whatnot.

[schurem]

Dammit, french are kicking my arse in the 2nd chapter of the Road to Independence. Not on the field mind you, but when it comes to economics, fielding huge stacks of cannon fodder. Speaking of cannons, mine seem to be rather ineffectual at anything but wtfpwning forts.

[Kid Socrates]

Grabbed disc version, installed, couldn't play. Put Steam in offline mode, game then worked.

Then completely blown away by the battles and having little to no idea what's going on. Hoo boy, got some learning to do.

[schurem]

Overlapping fields of fire FTW. Dont count on cavalry to seal the deal, charge and get out. Don't have your guys shoot their buddies. They're dumb and scared enough to do it you know.

[Alan Dunkin]

My feeling is that they may do historical battle micro-packs or something similar, with Steamworks it should work fairly well. An upcoming patch will have a multiplayer campaign so...

Anyway, am hoping :)

--- Alan

[Libra]

They need to do an American Civil War expansion pack. I've got my fingers crossed.

[Aeon221]

Dammit, french are kicking my arse in the 2nd chapter of the Road to Independence. Not on the field mind you, but when it comes to economics, fielding huge stacks of cannon fodder. Speaking of cannons, mine seem to be rather ineffectual at anything but wtfpwning forts.

Cannon, like any other weapon of the age, are effective only en masse. Group a ton of them together, Napoleon style, and target them at a single unit in the center of the line. Then charge over the corpses and break their line in two -- because unless muskets are way more effective than they were in reality, you'll want to rely on the bayonet as your finisher.

I'd guess, based on previous games, that you'd need between four and six cannon units at minimum for artillery fire to be really effective.

The cannon balls... nah... they're not using round shot right? CA is just using explosive, right? Because if they're using round shot, you'd have to account for bounce, in which case you'd want cannon level with enemy soldiers. Otherwise, put your cannon up on a hill. They've got range, it'll work out.


As a personal note, your post here broke me. I'm buying the game when I get paid this Friday -- I obsess too much about the period to wait for a sale.

[flyinj]

Cannon, like any other weapon of the age, are effective only en masse. Group a ton of them together, Napoleon style, and target them at a single unit in the center of the line. Then charge over the corpses and break their line in two -- because unless muskets are way more effective than they were in reality, you'll want to rely on the bayonet as your finisher.

I'd guess, based on previous games, that you'd need between four and six cannon units at minimum for artillery fire to be really effective.

The cannon balls... nah... they're not using round shot right? CA is just using explosive, right? Because if they're using round shot, you'd have to account for bounce, in which case you'd want cannon level with enemy soldiers. Otherwise, put your cannon up on a hill. They've got range, it'll work out.


As a personal note, your post here broke me. I'm buying the game when I get paid this Friday -- I obsess too much about the period to wait for a sale.

They're using round shot alright. It's actually pretty awesome, as they bounce all over the place after hitting.

You can upgrade to many different types of shells later through tech research, though.

The grand campaign in this is overwhelming. By far the deepest campaign CA has done yet. I don't even know where to begin when I start my first turn.

Also, tactics are pretty different in the battles. Using musket fire took some getting used to. It seems like the most effective way to use your guys is to spread them as long as possible, to create just two rows of guys. Otherwise, only the first row of troops will fire (you can later research something that allows the first 3 ranks to fire, apparently).

So, what is the most effective strategy employed at this time? Make a long row of musketeers, have them fire a few volleys, then have them charge in with their bayonettes?

[Calistas]

Grand campaign Q: Does the raiding the non-capital stuff of a territory really matter when you can just bash the capital with a big stack? I mean, sure, you could do it for lulz. But has anyone found it at all strategically useful?

[copet]

I can't figure out how to work my musket lines well. Why can't everyone just walk straight so I don't have to rotate my guys :/

[Troy S Goodfellow]

Grand campaign Q: Does the raiding the non-capital stuff of a territory really matter when you can just bash the capital with a big stack? I mean, sure, you could do it for lulz. But has anyone found it at all strategically useful?

If your opponent has a big army in his capital and you don't have enough men to smash it where it sits, it's not a bad idea to send cavalry around pillaging his goods, occupying his ports, etc.

But if you can smash him, do so and spare yourself the expense of rebuilding all those farms.

Troy

[Eduardo X]

I'm playing the Road To Independence mini-campaign first. I do not like slaughtering natives!

I do like slaughtering French, though. I attacked a fort, not Niagra but the one further south. It was ugly: I lost 500 soldiers to their 700, and it was mostly because I tried to cross my troops at multiple fords. Bad idea! Next time I'll keep it together and know that I can storm the walls pretty easy. And also that I can blew the hell out of their walls if my canons are close enough.

[UncleSmoothie]

I played for about an hour after the Steam install finished. Okay, 2 hours. I totally screwed myself because I have a million things to do for work before 9am.

But man was it worth it. I started the Grand Campaign as Great Britain, had to make some seriously interesting decisions about how to build my economy and where to send the expeditionary force I built up - India or America? I ultimately decided on India, but I apparently have some latent racism against our Indian brethren because I was shocked when I landed at Mysore and noticed that the local army was 2x the size of my force and featured cannons! I had been certain that including cannons in my army was going to turn this into Poland 1939, but I got my ass *handed* to me.

This is going to be awesome.

[flyinj]

The Enlightenment is by far my favorite area of history, and I love how the game alerts you to developments in science, philosophy and medicine every turn. The amount of writing done on every unit type and pretty much everything else is top-notch and fascinating to read.

This is shaping up to be my favorite in the series so far...

[Ben Sones]

Speaking of historical battles, the Battle of Bunker Hill is hidden in the Road to Liberty campaign. It's just a standalone thing that comes up when you reach the American Revolution. It's a cool battle, but played out pretty much like history for me, which was unfortunate (I was the Colonial army). I took quite a few of them with me before they routed all my forces, though.

And also: what flyinj said. I am liking Empire a lot so far.

[Sarkus]

They need to do an American Civil War expansion pack. I've got my fingers crossed.

That's my dream as well but I'm pretty sure it's not going to happen officially. For one thing this period is built around Napoleon and there is almost no Napoleon included in the game as shipped. The official era it covers ends at 1810, no historical battles from that time, nothing. Seems like a giant bullseye target for an expansion. Second, CA did a survey a while back where one of the questions was what era people were interested in for the next game. Among the options was the 19th century, which suggests they consider the post-Napoleonic period to be a different era game-wise.

But I know some modders will want to see what they can do with this engine and the ACW would be a perfect subject.

[flyinj]

It's pretty brutal playing as England in the beginning of the game. I went in and absolutely slaughtered the Cherokee Nation... and actually felt kind of bad about it. This truly is a game about being a real asshole! I find it to be almost the opposite of Civilization. You start out incredibly powerful, wiping the floor with your enemies... then in the later game are in conflict with similar-powered units.

It also seems like they avoided the "slave trade" issue by making the coasts of Africa generic trade-revenue generating ports, without saying exactly what the trade is.

[Johan A]

Yeah, the lack of historical battles is a huge, huge "what were they thinking?" moment for me. Saratoga? Valmy? Poltava? Blenheim? All should be here.

Troy

I got severly disappointed with my purchase of empire :(

No historical battles made the game far more dull for me, as the campaigngame is rather well..ehh..bad..

[Hanzii]

You can see the trades on the trade screen - it's ivory.
They just glossed over the slavery thing.

What are peoples experience with diplomacy? I can see all my actions assign values to how people feel about me, like in Civilization but more detailed, but I can't seem to do much about it. The friendly nations allready have agreements for trade or alliances with me (Great Britain) and those unfriendly or worse refuse everything anyway.

[Chris Nahr]

Hey, the game actually downloads now. Only 65% to go! See you tomorrow, when it's finished.

[strategy]

Artillery in the early game is not too impressive since they don't have cannister shot. Consequently, Napoleonic massed batteries is not really that effective; the best way to use them that I found was to simply deploy the arty in gaps between the infantry lines (which I almost always deploy two or three deep and with two lines - just remember to turn of fire at will on the rear line).

There's a lot to like about this game, I think - especially for any fan of the series. But there isn't much practical improvement in the AI (I can see its trying to be smarter, but since the game is more complex, the actual level seems about the same). Three big problems for me are the sieges (horrible IMO, both gameplay wise and AI), friendly fire (your own troops will happily shoot their friends in the back), and friendly fire (the enemy artillery happily wipes out the troops supposed to be guarding it).

It will be interesting to try some multiplayer battles in this. I fear it may be a bit too fast to be really compelling for me (I use pause a lot), but who knows.

[Sarkus]

But there isn't much practical improvement in the AI (I can see its trying to be smarter, but since the game is more complex, the actual level seems about the same).

That is not my experience at all. Every battle I've fought I've taken way more casualties then I would have in previous TW games. The AI flanks, takes advantage of special abilities its units have, and is generally very smart with what it does. I had a battle where I was still ordering my troops around and suddenly the AI brought some cavalry through some trees and just wiped out one of my marching artillery units. You would have never seen that in the previous games.

If anything my complaint is that the battle maps are too big. It's easy to route a unit but then it has plenty of time to reform and become a problem again. Sure, it works both ways but it can make the battles drag when you don't get the option to complete because some units you dispatched earlier have reformed on a hill near the map edge and now you have to march your entire army over there to take them out knowing they'll route after a volley or two.

Three big problems for me are the sieges (horrible IMO, both gameplay wise and AI),

Please explain. I'm not seeing much of a problem.

friendly fire (your own troops will happily shoot their friends in the back), and friendly fire (the enemy artillery happily wipes out the troops supposed to be guarding it).

So what, you want to throw the realism out the window? Or maybe its because the game wants you to be smarter about how you use your units. Its generally a bad idea to put guys armed with guns behind other guys armed with guns and then tell the guys in back to shoot away. The whole concept here is to let you as the player use realistic tactics, which in this era involve rotating units through the frontline as they got fatigued or ran out of ammo (whcih does happen). Turn off "fire at will" and you will solve this problem.

[Panzeh]

If the AI had bayonet techs and was using good infantry units, i could understand its tendency to get into melee(line infantry should avoid shooting it out with mobs/militia because these units have poor morale and shooting just gives them a chance to inflict casualties). Instead, it uses militia and other garbage units a lot more than it really should.

I think the modders can make the AI more challenging in this way, though it does use varied compositions of armies, from hordes of militia to a full stack with 12 demi-cannons.

[Therlun]

If the AI had bayonet techs and was using good infantry units [...] Instead, it uses militia and other garbage units a lot more than it really should.

I think the modders can make the AI more challenging in this way, though it does use varied compositions of armies, from hordes of militia to a full stack with 12 demi-cannons.

Heh, funny how that appears to be the case with every single Total War game to date.

[Panzeh]

Heh, funny how that appears to be the case with every single Total War game to date.

This is pretty common in TBS games, from dominions 3 to imperialism and such.

[Naeblis]

Well, in TW every army unit had a hefty maintenance charge, apart from the initial purchase, so sometimes it's a good choice to have an army of cheap units or a balanced army, instead of a full elite army.

[schurem]

Skirmishers vs Line infrantry. Why would one ever use choose ranger over line infantry? they are fewer in numbers, and numbers seem to be a deciding factor in both morale and casualty-inflicting potential. Am i missing something crucial about skirmisher units here?

Light cavalry has always been the unit to use to make shure routing units stay routing and attrit the frak out of them while they're at it. Been that way in every TW game. They are also very good at frakking up enemy artillery. Just dont think of them as tanks lol.

[grinningman]

Are the loading times in the full game faster than they were in the demo?

[Naeblis]

Are the loading times in the full game faster than they were in the demo?

Yes...

[Ben Sones]

So what, you want to throw the realism out the window? Or maybe its because the game wants you to be smarter about how you use your units. Its generally a bad idea to put guys armed with guns behind other guys armed with guns and then tell the guys in back to shoot away. The whole concept here is to let you as the player use realistic tactics, which in this era involve rotating units through the frontline as they got fatigued or ran out of ammo (whcih does happen). Turn off "fire at will" and you will solve this problem.

I find that it's also good to turn it off on your front line guys until you have marched them into firing range. And by "firing range" I don't mean the maximum range of their guns (which is when they will start shooting by default with "fire at will" on), but instead maybe half that. Accuracy seems to fall off pretty sharply with distance, as you'd expect from guns of this era, and reloading takes time, so you really want to march your units in close before you fire your first volley (especially since it can sometimes be your only volley, if they decide to charge you). "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes" and all.

I'm finding that "guard" mode is pretty crucial as well, even when (or especially when) you are on the offense. When an enemy pulls back, you don't want your lines of musket chasing after them all willy-nilly on their own. In guard mode they will hold their formation, and then you can march them forward manually with the "formation compass" controls, which keeps them orderly and prevents one unit from running forward into another unit's firing arc. In fact, they could have just renamed the button from "guard" to "maintain discipline," since I suspect that's what you'll most often use it for in this game.

Love what I've seen of the naval battles, too. I've only done one so far in the main game, but it was pretty epic. I had two frigates, the French had three brigs and two sloops. So I was badly outnumbered, and they had the wind in their favor. They were all faster than me anyway, though, so I loaded up both ships with chain shot and decided to try to take away their speed advantage, relying on my thicker hulls to keep me alive in the meantime. I figured that if I could slow them down and string them out, then I could take them on piecemeal and maybe have a chance. It worked, but only barely. I lost one ship (and admired the water effects while watching the 1100 gold that I had just spent a few turns ago sink to the bottom of the Atlantic) and the other was in rough shape when I took down their last ship. At one point in the battle I fired a broadside at one of their brigs from fairly close range (~50 feet), and I must have hit their powder magazine because the ship exploded. Awesome.

Loading times are faster for me in the full game. I was getting 30-35 seconds in the demo, and now I'm getting more like 20-30. Still a bit on the long side, but tolerable.

[cliffski]

They're using round shot alright. It's actually pretty awesome, as they bounce all over the place after hitting.



oooh. Do cannon balls bounce less if its raining? That would be kinda cool. I bet they do.
Ideally cannons should take more time to roll into position in wet ground too. That was a real bitch at waterloo for the french.

[Panzeh]

On VH/VH minor powers seem to be able to field gigantic armies, far beyond what their provinces could feasibly support. Reminds me of EU2.

[Ben Sones]

Ideally cannons should take more time to roll into position in wet ground too. That was a real bitch at waterloo for the french.

Oh, they do. They do. I was trying to move an artillery unit across a field last night in the rain, and after I gave the move order I was like "Why aren't they moving? I told them to move, didn't I? Their unit card says they are moving!" So I zoomed in and saw that they were moving. But only barely.

Marching through mud is also hell on your foot troops--they get tired really quickly, which kills their movement speed and their accuracy. So beware of rain.

[zengonzo]

I'm loving it.

Particularly impressed with the strategic AI. Notably, it has been extremely pro-active, diplomatically. For instance, trying to negotiate strategic region swaps, even when our relations are indifferent/neutral.

I've never seen that happen in previous versions.

Technology is very interesting, and the idea that you are primarily research concepts that already fielded armies can take advantage of is such a refreshing change from perpetual obsolescence.

The depth and complexity of the maps is awesome, as well, and I'm really surprised about how much I'm enjoying the tactics (though I expected to be, if that makes sense).

Just .. loving it.

[Aeon221]

Skirmishers vs Line infrantry. Why would one ever use choose ranger over line infantry? they are fewer in numbers, and numbers seem to be a deciding factor in both morale and casualty-inflicting potential. Am i missing something crucial about skirmisher units here?

Light cavalry has always been the unit to use to make shure routing units stay routing and attrit the frak out of them while they're at it. Been that way in every TW game. They are also very good at frakking up enemy artillery. Just dont think of them as tanks lol.

If it's anything like the previous games, it'll be able to hide in long grass, which gives you lots of opportunities for tactical ambuscades. Pop one far ahead and out on a flank, then nail the enemy artillery after they engage.

You'd use it over cavalry only in situations where you'd expect lots of hills and forests, or where you expect the enemy to have many counters to your cavalry units, or where you need a unit that can, at a pinch, join your main battle line.

If it can't hide, I dunno wtf it is for haha.

[Ben Sones]

They can hide in both long grass and woods. They do it automatically, just by moving them there--it will say "hidden" on their mouseover status box, and you can see the guys crouching down if you zoom in. As Aeon says, this gives you some good opportunities for ambushes.

[Idar Thorvaldsen]

Particularly impressed with the strategic AI. Notably, it has been extremely pro-active, diplomatically. For instance, trying to negotiate strategic region swaps, even when our relations are indifferent/neutral.

In the short time I've been playing, I've seen enough bad to go with the good. For instance, while playing as France, two of my minor neighbours declared war on me, then proceeded to do nothing more than park a single unit on my border until my overwhelming forces took their capital. I wasn't even at war with anything other than the pirate nations.

It seems to have the potential to be a really great game once modders have had some time with it, though. It's a pity much of the data seems to be harder to get at than earlier games in the series; hopefully people will be able to figure it out in time.

[Ben Sones]

By the way, the PDF manual is now up on Steam.

[zengonzo]

For instance, while playing as France, two of my minor neighbours declared war on me, then proceeded to do nothing more than park a single unit on my border until my overwhelming forces took their capital. I wasn't even at war with anything other than the pirate nations.

That's a shame - one of the issues I hate the most from the series. Haven't had that happen yet, most of the war I've experienced has been a result of following an ally in (another aspect that I love - the very clear decision to join in or break a treaty).

My greatest problem has been a glitch wherein my navy has an identity crisis and complains that it can't move anywhere in the sea because it isn't an army. This seemed to happen primarily while I was figuring out trade spots on the Gold Coast.

They become absolutely immobile and useless - I had to dump them. Anyone else experience this?

[Hanzii]

No.

I've experienced some suicidal Swedish generals, stupid troops climbing down the outside of castle walls when defending and one unit of Swedish troops stuck just outside the map, forcing me to fast forward the battle all the way to the end to finish the battle.
Nothing on the tactical map.

[Ben Sones]

By the way, I discovered that the culmination of the Road to Independence is an actual mini-campaign game, but a bit shorter than the regular short campaign games. It's all scripted tutorial stuff until the American Revolution, then it drops you into a big historical battle (the Battle of Bunker Hill), and after that you are dropped into a full, non-scripted scenario focused on the American Revolution. It's smaller in scope--you only have to control 15 territories to win (all in America), and it only lasts 50 years (1775-1825). But you get to play with all the toys (technology research, trade, etc.), and the smaller scope makes it ideal for a starter game.

[Adam Altmann]

By the way, I discovered that the culmination of the Road to Independence is an actual mini-campaign game, but a bit shorter than the regular short campaign games. It's all scripted tutorial stuff until the American Revolution, then it drops you into a big historical battle (the Battle of Bunker Hill), and after that you are dropped into a full, non-scripted scenario focused on the American Revolution. It's smaller in scope--you only have to control 15 territories to win (all in America), and it only lasts 50 years (1775-1825). But you get to play with all the toys (technology research, trade, etc.), and the smaller scope makes it ideal for a starter game.

Huh. I've been debating whether to finish The Road To Independence, or just go with a trial-by-fire Grand Campaign to learn the game. Maybe I'll tough it out.

I had some trouble getting myself to slow down in the tactical battles last night. I'd get impatient with the firing lines, switch units to melee mode, and charge. This worked well enough, but I felt like I was playing it too much like the other games in the series. I guess I was kind of bummed that it worked as well as it did. It's going to take me a few more battles to adjust to firearms, I think.

[Alan Dunkin]

Just went straight to the grand campaign as Prussia, don't think I'm on a very high AI setting though. In any event, immediately went to a siege and wasn't really impressed with the AI either--it slapdashly inhabited a few buildings throughout the town and had a couple more units linger around far on the right. I just picked each apart easily with two or three line units and smashed the units out in the open at right without much problem.

I did notice the friendly units will happily attack your own quite easily; after I charged a building with one unit and had the second firing, when the enemy fully left, the second unit was just pouring more fire into the building. Oops. It's possible I might have just said target the building but not 100% sure.

Anyway, the strategic feel for the strategy portion is a lot better it seems like--being able to build stuff and maintain things way out in the country rather than sitting in the city can be big. Only got about 3 turns into it though (and already fought 2 battles). I think maybe the AI wants to go straight into melee a lot because the infantry I've encountered so far won't be able to stand against volley fire for long (lots of militia).

--- Alan

[copet]

Huh. I've been debating whether to finish The Road To Independence, or just go with a trial-by-fire Grand Campaign to learn the game. Maybe I'll tough it out.

I had some trouble getting myself to slow down in the tactical battles last night. I'd get impatient with the firing lines, switch units to melee mode, and charge. This worked well enough, but I felt like I was playing it too much like the other games in the series. I guess I was kind of bummed that it worked as well as it did. It's going to take me a few more battles to adjust to firearms, I think.

I know what you mean. The first episode in Road to Independence isn't that great, I don't really like fighting the natives.


So what exactly is the best way to line up musketeers? 2 Deep? Can only the first two lines fire when I do that? I guess I have so many questions about controlling these groups. Do you rotate them when the enemy moves to the side, or do you just fire?

[Alan Dunkin]

For line infantry I use at least 3 deep, and sometimes 4 if I have to scrunch up the line a bit.

--- Alan

[Tim James]

Backing up a little bit... the Total War games have historical battles? I guess I always skipped that part of the menu. Are there any separately available in the Kingdoms expansion of Medieval 2 or are they left to the main game?

Not something I would play first because I enjoy teching up during a campaign, and when I'm done I feel like putting the game away for a few months, but it sounds like something I ought to go back to.

[Lum]

First game I played as Prussia:

1) Invaded Saxony. Poland then DOW'd me. OK!
2) Took Saxony and then wheeled over to West Prussia, then got a ceasefire from Poland. Yay, Prussia is united!
3) Very next turn, Poland allies with Sweden and Russia and then DOWs me again. Whoops.

The tactical AI is adequate so far, it looks like... AI calvary will flank and try to hit artillery.

[Ben Sones]

I know what you mean. The first episode in Road to Independence isn't that great, I don't really like fighting the natives.

I thought that all of the scripted scenarios in RtI were fairly lame. I mean, they teach you game concepts well enough, but it's all very scripted, so there's not much real gameplay there, aside from the battles. I don't think there was any need to spread the tutorial stuff over three or four scenarios like they did.

They go faster when you realize that the AI is basically turned off during them, though. I was wasting time trying to balance fortifying Fort Niagra against having enough troops to send on the sea mission, but eventually I realized that it's completely unnecessary. The big French army that sits in the fort right over the border from Niagra is just there as a roadblock--I don't think they will ever attack you. So in general, just do what the mission objectives tell you. and you should cruise through the scripted scenarios more quickly.

So what exactly is the best way to line up musketeers? 2 Deep? Can only the first two lines fire when I do that? I guess I have so many questions about controlling these groups. Do you rotate them when the enemy moves to the side, or do you just fire?

It's a bit of a balancing act. Spreading them out allows more of them to fire, but when you take losses there is nobody to fill in the line, so you can end up with gaps in your formation that the enemy can break through.

[Benhur]

I was wasting time trying to balance fortifying Fort Niagra against having enough troops to send on the sea mission, but eventually I realized that it's completely unnecessary. The big French army that sits in the fort right over the border from Niagra is just there as a roadblock--I don't think they will ever attack you.



I thought the same thing, until I took most of the garrison out of the fort. I left three militia there and once I sent Washington to Acadia, the French pounced on my meagre garrison and booted me out.

[Sepiche]

It's a bit of a balancing act. Spreading them out allows more of them to fire, but when you take losses there is nobody to fill in the line, so you can end up with gaps in your formation that the enemy can break through.Spreading them out also makes them less vulnerable to cannon fire, but they seem to be more vulnerable to being split and routed in melee if you thin out your lines too much. I think three ranks is a pretty good balance in most cases, but I often extend to two ranks if it looks like the battle might become a slugging match.

[wisefool]

The Gentlemen seem to be the newest shiny.
* They can duel other gentlemen OR generals.
* If you have two universities you can specialize them because gentlemen get better at particular areas (military, industry, enlightenment) with practice.
* Manual mentions they can visit rival universities to steal technology. Must try!

We are Prussia. We only had two territories to improve and defend. With our gentlemen we would tech up on the Enlightenment branch first. Unfortunately, by the time our researchers were ready with their military doctrines, Austria, Poland and Russia were allied. I managed to snag a minor power (Courtland declared on me, so I stomped her and managed to appease the other powers).

Once our monarch died, the bloody Swedes thought they would claim our throne. Even thought the Swedes seemed to be at war with every other European power the last 50 years, they still managed to hang on to two provinces tenaciously. I realized it was because the Swedes had a decent-sized navy (8 vessels) patrolling the water. After a crash naval construction (what I meant to avoid by playing Prussia in the first place), we pulled a reverse Viking and annexed Sweden.

[Ben Sones]

I thought the same thing, until I took most of the garrison out of the fort. I left three militia there and once I sent Washington to Acadia, the French pounced on my meagre garrison and booted me out.

Huh... interesting. I ended up doing the same thing (I think I left three or four low-level militia guys there) and they never attacked. But I guess the point is that even if they do, you don't really need Ft. Niagra any more. You should have enough guys in your army at that point to accomplish the rest of the objectives. Once you take the fort the first time, the mission objective to capture it goes away. I don't think there is any requirement that you hold it, though the extra income is handy for ordering reinforcements.

[Panzeh]

Spreading them out also makes them less vulnerable to cannon fire, but they seem to be more vulnerable to being split and routed in melee if you thin out your lines too much. I think three ranks is a pretty good balance in most cases, but I often extend to two ranks if it looks like the battle might become a slugging match.

Until you get fire by rank it's best to spread out units you want to fire with as much as the game will let you, once you get fire by rank and are using the appropriate units, go 3 deep with a few men in the 4th rank to fill in.

Shooters are very similar in ability, even mobs don't shoot much worse than line infantry, so it's best to melee if you have a qualitative superiority in troops, at least until you get fire by rank.

[Vincent_GC]

Tried it out yesterday. Not to shabby, but diving into the grand campaign left me overwhelmed. I'm so used to how the strategic map was handled in the previous games I was unprepared. Hell, I still am running about with little clue as to how the strategic map works, specificly in developing cities.

The naval battles are still lost to me. No idea what I'm doing. This is countered by the fact the battles themselves are awesome. I greatly enjoy watching the navies duke it out. In one pitched battle my admiral's ship smashed into the opponent's admiral ship ina rather poor attempt to board it. the resulting crash destroyed each of my masts, rendering it immobile. It wasn't dead however, and when another vessel came along side to board it, I let loose a full broadside and the ship exploded.

Ground battles have been great too. Paris was my first major battle (I am England) and I only lost a few hundred units (we both fielded about 1600 apiece). The early battle was decent, with my line infantry pushing back the militia. At one point the enemy general attempted to break through my firing line strait at my cannons. He broke strait through my center which was only 2 lines deep and reloading. The charge was cut short however, when my reserve line behind my main opened up, killing the general and more than half of his bodyguards. Then the fight decended into a slogfest in the city, where I had to route the enemy from each garrisonable building. That was a bitch and where I lost the most.

[Soapyfrog]

I like the startegy map so far, pretty interesting stuff. Love the interception feature, love the strategic significance of all the little minor towns and forts.

Few odd things though:
1) You no longer take prisoners in combat; that's unfortunate!
2) After fighting a battle against 2 enemy stacks, only statistics for on of the enemy stacks was displayed in the battle results.
3) The cannons I have started out with are immobile; surely they should at least be able to be manhandled about the field like artillery was in medieval 2? I mean, the gun carriages do have wheels after all

AI is pretty retarded so far. Fighting on hard/hard the AI has showed almost total incompetance on the battlefield, including that good old Total War classic of suiciding his general into a unit of my pikemen! Oh well... time to look into modding!

[flyinj]

I like the startegy map so far, pretty interesting stuff. Love the interception feature, love the strategic significance of all the little minor towns and forts.

Few odd things though:
1) You no longer take prisoners in combat; that's unfortunate!
2) After fighting a battle against 2 enemy stacks, only statistics for on of the enemy stacks was displayed in the battle results.
3) The cannons I have started out with are immobile; surely they should at least be able to be manhandled about the field like artillery was in medieval 2? I mean, the gun carriages do have wheels after all

AI is pretty retarded so far. Fighting on hard/hard the AI has showed almost total incompetance on the battlefield, including that good old Total War classic of suiciding his general into a unit of my pikemen! Oh well... time to look into modding!

Mobile cannons are I think one tech level away at the beginning (research cannister shot)

[flyinj]

One thing I'd love to see is the option to choose which faction's turns you want to see. Turning it off gives too little info, while having it on shows every single thing your trade routes can see. I don't care what 3/4s of the factions are doing, but I do want to see 1/4 of them.

Seems like it would be pretty easy to implement

[Tim James]

It's hard to read these threads when new games come out. Everyone complains about the same things that have existed for a while and kind of kills the excitement. I guess if you were hoping for improvements that is important to know. I just want to find out if it's still fun to kill mans.

[Hanzii]

It's still fun to kill mans.

And now you also have ships that explode, sink, keel over, loses masts and other nifty stuff.

[Soapyfrog]

It's still fun!! And multiplayer will forgive any sins of comission or omission.

[UncleSmoothie]

It's still fun to kill mans. Even when all the mans getting killed were mine.

[Sepiche]

And now you also have ships that explode, sink, keel over, loses masts and other nifty stuff.
I nearly wet myself the first time I was in a fleet battle and had a ship explode.

I had a few brigs, had defeated a bunch of enemy brigs and was turning to take out the few galleys they had remaining. As my ships were turning to approach I watched one tiny little ball get fired from a galley. The shot ended up hitting my Admirals ship dead center which suddenly disappeared in a fiery shock wave.

Very satisfying except that it was my ship that did the 'sploding.

[zengonzo]

Even more fun to make run mans.

[Tim James]

Even more fun to make run mans.And kill them afterwards, right?

[zengonzo]

Believe me, Tim, it's a blast. You won't be giving much mindshare to the petty complaints we're voicing while you are actually playing.

[zengonzo]

(I'm just being a bitch because I'm here at work instead of at home playing .. Fuck it, I'm leaving. Later.)

[Tim James]

Yeah it's not going to affect my gaming experience, just bored-at-work browsing experience.

[strategy]

That is not my experience at all. Every battle I've fought I've taken way more casualties then I would have in previous TW games.

Oh yes - one takes casaulties; but that is inevitable given that every unit is capable of missile fire. What I haven't seen is my units taking casaulties because the AI does anything smart (though I might sometimes take it from me being too impatient).

The AI doesn't outflank - it moves its cavalry onto the players flanks. If it fixed my front with infantry before moving on to my flanks it would be impressive. Simply moving cavalry into a position where I can easily deploy infantry to kill it is not. Horse, Foot, and Gun warfare is all about combined arms. The AI is pretty good at using both foot and horse, but it treats each of those components as separate forces.

<Sieges>
Please explain. I'm not seeing much of a problem.

I have difficulty believing that. Where to start? The pathfinding? Defensive units deciding to climb down ropes to get at a point inside the fortress? Units on walls moving slower than units in the open (meaning that the way to win a siege if one doesn't have guns is to outflank the defenders). Units on walls being ineffective at firing at the enemy. The guns on the walls only being used if units are placed "just right" (why the heck not simply make them automatic units, like the militia?) The AI seems to go into automatic melee mode once it has a siege map regardless of the forces involved (I've encountered this several times when intercepting from a city)?

Siege assaults are essentially huge melees, which results in the rather absurd situation that some of the most effective siege defense units actually seems to be cavalry (as they can be used to sally forth and take the escalating enemy units in the rear).

<Friendly Fire>
So what, you want to throw the realism out the window? Or maybe its because the game wants you to be smarter about how you use your units.

That kind of comment would make better sense if the game itself was smart about how it used its units. It's not. Although it rarely uses multiple lines, it will happily fire through its own troops when it does. The AI will artillery absolutely slaughters any units which are in its vicinity.

No - I don't think it is particularly realistic. And I don't see the fun in having to micro-manage every single unit on the battlefield, which is what the inability of the AI to recognize any kind of obstacle results in.

I don't want to bag on the game too much because I really think there is a lot to like about it. But the sieges and the friendly fire are not among them.

[Tim James]

Everyone's playing with tactical AI on very hard, right? I remember even with Lusted's AI fixes it wasn't that great, but at least it kept me somewhat honest.

[Enidigm]

What does the difficulty level change? AI tactics, give the AI free resources, ect?

IE, as an experienced player, what would the best campaign settings be? Hard/Hard. Medium Campaign/Very Hard Battles?

[Cubit]

Having a great time with the game so far. I've always thought the Total War real-time engine was more suited to this time period than others they've done.

[cliffski]

This game is huge. I'm not sure I actually have the spare time to learn to play it properly to be honest.
But the land battles are awesome, even played out of context.
I'm glad I have a vaguely decent PC though. I can see older PC's struggling badly with even the needlessly-3D campaign map.

[Zane0]

It took me a while to find but battle difficulty in empire gives the enemy morale and maybe combat bonuses. This is in contrast to Medieval II where adjusting the slider just made fatigue more consequential. AI subroutines are unchanged by difficulty.

In my personal experience, VH puts a nation like Britain at particular disadvantage, since military research generally takes a backseat -- my line infantry was getting slaughtered by proportional numbers of vagabonds and pirates in the Caribbean before I decided to begin again.

Campaign difficulty gives the AI a cash infusion, I believe, and probably makes diplomacy trickier.

[Funkula]

Last night, I taught the AI an important lesson. It had already mastered "waist-high stone walls are great to hide behind and fire from cover," but I showed it the important corollary, "until the cavalry gets directly behind you and nails your ass to said wall."

Cavalry is still the most fun thing in the game. I'd like to see them do a 20th-century era game at some point, but I fear the phasing out of cavalry would kill a lot of the fun of the game.

[Enidigm]

This game is huge. I'm not sure I actually have the spare time to learn to play it properly to be honest.


That's why i wanted to know what the difficulty levels influenced to make an informed choice about how to play the campaign; i've never actually won (or lost) a campaign of any Total War game as i've never finished one. But i do want to learn-as-i-go, instead of reading strategy guides and figuring out what is the best or perfect strategy - it's more fun the first time through, and i don't have time to play it for a hundred hours before i understand how it "really" works. I'd rather do it once, make recoverable mistakes and enjoy discovering powerful strategies on my own.

[Sepiche]

Last night, I taught the AI an important lesson. It had already mastered "waist-high stone walls are great to hide behind and fire from cover," but I showed it the important corollary, "until the cavalry gets directly behind you and nails your ass to said wall."
You know... I haven't tried it yet myself to be sure it wasn't just a crappy unit dying to a unit with superior melee skills, but the AI had a unit of cavalry charge a unit of my infantry that was hiding behind a wall head on and they slaughtered my troops.

I saw them start into the charge, so I zoomed in to watch, and the bulk of the cavalry jumped the wall, landed in the middle of my infantry and proceeded to evict them from their safe little wall. Might be that cavalry from any direction is a good tactic in that case.

[Naeblis]

That's why i wanted to know what the difficulty levels influenced to make an informed choice about how to play the campaign; i've never actually won (or lost) a campaign of any Total War game as i've never finished one. But i do want to learn-as-i-go, instead of reading strategy guides and figuring out what is the best or perfect strategy - it's more fun the first time through, and i don't have time to play it for a hundred hours before i understand how it "really" works. I'd rather do it once, make recoverable mistakes and enjoy discovering powerful strategies on my own.


I finished campaigns in previous TW, like only one long campaign and perhaps two shorter ones (that was the case in Rome, btw). That said, I never understood the fans who complain in the forums about how only there are 12 playable factions in TW. As i could play 12 different campaigns!

[Cubit]

Troy's review is up:

http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3173120

[UncleSmoothie]

News of the first patch (http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/57533):
The patch will fix a gameplay bug related to trade routes and improve upon the game's stability and performance, which has been criticized by fans following the game's Tuesday release.

[Demorve]

Other than the cloth map and the History Channel's DVD on the revolution do the special forces make the CE edition worth the extra $20?

One other question, since I have never bought a game from steam or one that uses it do you have to have the steam client on even in offline mode?

[flyinj]

Other than the cloth map and the History Channel's DVD on the revolution do the special forces make the CE edition worth the extra $20?

One other question, since I have never bought a game from steam or one that uses it do you have to have the steam client on even in offline mode?

I have no idea. But I would -love- to have an organ gun right now.

Also, in the 1up review, there is a screenshot standing right on the deck of a ship. Is there a way to get the camera that close?

[flyinj]

I have a question about trade routes. So, I'm taking over Cherokee Territory, and have a cotton plantation and silver mine. However, there is no trade route on the land going to my capital in the region nor at sea. How do you get trade routes on land and on sea? Do I have to build a port? I don't see the how to build a port in Georgia or Florida...

And what exactly are land trade routes for? I have two active in England. But, none in Scotland. How are they made? Can they be blockaded?

Also, how do I get my riflemen to fire on enemies on fort walls? And is there any way to completely destroy the front of a fort? I can only seem to breach the left and right walls by the main gate, but I can't destroy the walls surrounding the gate or the gate itself...

[Xeorn]

Also, in the 1up review, there is a screenshot standing right on the deck of a ship. Is there a way to get the camera that close?

Press insert for first person view and page up/down to switch person or to move between decks.

[Lorini]

Other than the cloth map and the History Channel's DVD on the revolution do the special forces make the CE edition worth the extra $20?

One other question, since I have never bought a game from steam or one that uses it do you have to have the steam client on even in offline mode?

It's a paper map. Actually it's not a map, it's a poster of the techs. The art book is very very nice, too bad I can't order prints to put on the wall in fact. I haven't played enough to know anything about the units. I got my CE from BB, which gives you a coupon to get the USS Constitution, which should be nice if I ever see it in the game.

[Sarkus]

It's a paper map. Actually it's not a map, it's a poster of the techs. The art book is very very nice, too bad I can't order prints to put on the wall in fact. I haven't played enough to know anything about the units. I got my CE from BB, which gives you a coupon to get the USS Constitution, which should be nice if I ever see it in the game.

Really? Because that paper tech tree foldout poster comes with the standard version. And I know there was some talk about a map. However, with so many country specific versions of this game, it's possible that was limited to only some.

[Equis]

Really? Because that paper tech tree foldout poster comes with the standard version. And I know there was some talk about a map. However, with so many country specific versions of this game, it's possible that was limited to only some.

I got a paper map, printed on a nice glossy stock. Unfortunately, I don't think it's worth it. It's a two tone map reminiscent of the style of maps in the 18th century, but that's all there is to it. The art book is nice, but a little small. I didn't get a foldout tech map. :(

Roger's rangers are pretty crap as a special unit. I haven't seen any of the rest.

Besides, I only paid an extra 8 bucks* for the CE, and I like the box much better so all in all, I'm satisfied.

*that's 5 bucks in plummeting US dollar.

[Mysterio]

For those still having issues with "Download starting...", I found this post on Steam's Empire: Total War forum by a user and confirmed by Valve:

First off, all credit goes to Chiral's findings, originally posted here (http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?p=9322513).

The reason for the download getting stuck at "Download starting..." is not Steam's servers' fault, aside from the common belief.

This happens because supposedly Empire: Total War has single files larger than 4GB. On any hard drive with the NTFS file format, this is not a problem. The problem occurs with hard drives that are formatted in the FAT32 format, an older format that does not allow single files larger than 4GB.

This is the reason for the seemingly "random" occasions of it working on some people's computers and not others, and this is the reason that the download will just flat out get stuck and not want to move any more. Your hard drive simply isn't allowing it.

The solution to this is kind of a complicated one, so if your really not a techie, pay close attention.
For Vista users, first open the command prompt (click Start and type in "cmd" and you will open it).
If the drive you want to convert is drive D:\, type in "convert d: /fs:ntfs".
It will then ask you for the Volume Name of the drive. To find this, simply open My Computer, right click the drive you are wanting to convert and click Properties, and the name in the top box is your Volume Name.
If the drive is in use (which it probably is), it will ask you if you want to force the conversion. Say No to this.
It will then proceed to ask you if you want to convert next time you restart your computer. Say Yes, and it will tell you that the conversion will be performed next time you restart.
Simply restart your computer, and Windows should take care of everything, not deleting any of your files. You never know, with file conversions, so if there is any absolutely critical data on that drive, back it up.This has been confirmed by multiple people to solve the "Download starting..." and the updating problems. Once again, all thanks should go to Chiral for these findings.

Good luck.Hope this helps.

[Calistas]

I'm still stuck at "Server busy" on trying to install my disk :(

[Kid Socrates]

I don't like it too much so far, but that's because I have no idea what I'm doing. I've been playing the other Total War games since Medieval 1, but I so far do not grasp the differences of combat in this one, knowing little about the time period. My facing buttons don't seem to do anything, and when I selected my army, all lined up, and pressed the "march forward" button everyone turned and walked in different directions. I'm sure this is my fault somewhere, but I don't know where.

The naval battles are both incredible and confusing. Again, no idea what I'm doing or why I won one but lost the other. Boarding didn't work when I commanded that, and I seemed to take a lot more damage than I dealt.

The strategy map is ten kinds of awesome, though.

I'm sure that once I get a handle on what to do, I'll really enjoy it, but right now I'm not really liking it and acknowledging that it's completely my own fault.