Empire: Total War

[FatuousTwat]

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/40753.html

Anyone else looking forward to this? I hope it is better than Medieval 2.

[WayAbvPar]

I liked Medieval 2, but I didn't play Rome very much or Total War at all, so I am sure YMMV. There are definitely some improvements that could be made.

[AngryGumball]

will we see more improvements and new additions to the game with more stuff taken away that we had before.

people say that original Med:TW was more complex and Med2:TW.

While I really enjoyed how smooth Med2:TW was and how smoothly is ran. I gotta agree it seemed to be a little more simple in depth. However all this has been discussed to death on the official boards.

I miss the nearly impossible to kill Swiss halberders from Med:TW. I still do not see Boiling Oil drop in Med2:TW castle sieges.

Empire: Total war will be a day one purchase. I do miss the things they have taken out to change and improve the game each incarnation though.

[Grand Design]

Best part of the trailer: 3rd February 2009.

Shit, now I'm really going to start counting the days.

[Engels]

As someone who is still playing both, more than just about any other game in the last year, I'm totally psyched about this one. Feb 6th?! The economy better not tank, that's all I'm sayin.

[HaemishM]

I am dying for Empire: Total War. I'm an absolute fanboi of both Napoleonic and Seven Year's War historical periods, and these games looks so sweet. February can't come soon enough.

[Montague]

Absolutely looking forward to it. I've been playing the crap out of RomeTW lately. Watching the Rome DVD's got me in the mood to kick some barbarian ass. 

[Big Gulp]

Yep, can't wait.  I still play Medieval II religiously.

The only thing I would put on my "want" list is for them to expand the timeline and let us go all the way to the American Civil War/Franco Prussian War era.  You still have the ranks of infantry, cavalry, and artillery so the game's format wouldn't have to change, but the weaponry's gotten a lot deadlier.

[Rasix]

Wary of this.  Loved Rome: TW and disliked Medieval 2: TW.  The latter just didn't click for me in the way that the former did.  The Papal layer and nobility just annoyed the shit out of me.

Still, the time period chosen should make for potentially really interesting gameplay. 

[eldaec]

Only thing that makes me a little nervous about this is that noone has ever managed to mix sea and land battles in an interesting way.

That said, people griping about any form of Total War are being silly. They are all wrought from pure awesome, and anyone who suggests otherwise is a fool and a charlatan.

[dusematic]

Wary of this.  Loved Rome: TW and disliked Medieval 2: TW.  The latter just didn't click for me in the way that the former did.  The Papal layer and nobility just annoyed the shit out of me.

Still, the time period chosen should make for potentially really interesting gameplay. 

This.  And some unforgivable bugs in M2TW.  And some unforgivable dumb-ing down.  I doubt I'll ever buy another Total War game.  The expansion to M2TW was a joke.

[Grand Design]

Empire is up for pre-purchase on Steam.

2 months, 1 week, 1 day and 16 hours to unlock. 

I'm not entirely convinced that the inevitable apocalypse won't occur in that timeframe, so I'm holding off.  And I don't see any incentive to pre-purchase, other than the self satisfying knowledge that it will rock you.


Fake edit: wait, you get Rome: Gold for free.  Hmm.  Hmmmmmm.  I never did buy the expansion...

[Rasix]

Fake edit: wait, you get Rome: Gold for free.  Hmm.  Hmmmmmm.  I never did buy the expansion...

Ohh, that's fucking devious.

[Big Gulp]

Fake edit: wait, you get Rome: Gold for free.  Hmm.  Hmmmmmm.  I never did buy the expansion...

It should have been called Rome: Barbarian Rape Party.  It starts off decently with you holding your own, but the hordes of barbarians are just never ending.  As it should be, playing the eastern Empire is slightly easier than the west.  The west is pretty much fucked.  Really tough scenario.   

[NowhereMan]

I found the campaign map ridiculously big, just lost track of where everything was and got sick of micro-managing much quicker than any of the other TW games. I think I might need to actually retool my comp some just so I can play this though, first game in a while that has caused my heart to pop many boners.

[Yoru]

I'll likely pick this one up later towards the summer next year, or shortly after playing a demo, whichever comes first.

[Speedy Cerviche]

Creative Assembly better not drop the ball here. ALL their 1.0  releases asides from Shogun Total War have been ridiculously bugged out and barely playable (you could bank on stuff like AI generals suicide charging the front lines and range/melee hybrid troops' AI not working properly making an appearance). Even their patches are mediocre and it's up to the modders to fix the game. They've said they re-done the entire AI/Engine so maybe they're serious about restoring their reputation for quality.

[WayAbvPar]

Speaking of terrible patches- has anyone tried to patch ME II TW: Kingdoms? I have tried over and over and keep getting errors telling me to reinstall and delete files, then repatch. Have tried reinstalling twice with the same results. WTF? How the fuck can a patch like that go out? If you are unfucking your game, maybe you should make the patching process easy so people can play the new improved version? God it is fucking annoying.

[dusematic]

Creative Assembly is incompetent.  I'm embittered with how they hung us out to dry with Medieval 2.

[HaemishM]

Pika?

[AngryGumball]

Speaking of terrible patches- has anyone tried to patch ME II TW: Kingdoms? I have tried over and over and keep getting errors telling me to reinstall and delete files, then repatch. Have tried reinstalling twice with the same results. WTF? How the fuck can a patch like that go out? If you are unfucking your game, maybe you should make the patching process easy so people can play the new improved version? God it is fucking annoying.

OK 2 months later I find this, I've had no problems with ME II TW: Kingdoms. I have played 2 separate campaigns midway/3/4ths thru, Spanish in Americas, and Irish in Brittania. Even started a new Teutonic campaigns. Even stopped for 6 months came back loaded up and played several more turns no crash to desks or load up problems.

[dusematic]

The game is too easy.  Even with all the setting son very hard, how can you fail to easily dominate every game?

[Sophismata]

Sometimes their patch process goes wrong, and you need to surgically remove the software off of your system before you can reinstall it. This is both R:TW and M:TW2, I'm not sure about the earlier versions (in that, I've never had trouble installing or uninstalling them).

Anyway, I wonder whether Empire will exhibit the same gameplay problems that Rome and Medieval 2 did, in that the new strategic map shifted the focus of the game's battles from controlling provinces to small border skirmishes. The computer tended to disperse into multiple small army stacks and was more annoying then challenging to fight.

[AngryGumball]

and I wonder how much simpler the game will be by removing aspects that were present in previous editions. With each release we lose something, albeit we are getting sea battles this time around. Medevial Total War then down to simpler RTW, MTWII, even if they get nicer looking graphics they lose little things that made it seem more complex. Like actually seeing the boiling oil fall down and burn those fools with battering rams and such.

[dusematic]

Yeah no kidding.  Not to mention the replay value lost when they removed the feature where you could start at different time periods in M1.  There were different kingdoms, and the kingdoms had different strengths, that was great.  M2 was also very easy in comparison.  I don't think I ever lost a battle on the hardest diffioculty.  Just get strong infantry to hold the line, and a couple calvary to charge the flanks. Works everytime. 

[Paelos]

They really fucked cavalry in Mid 2. I'm not sure why they did it, but they did. The early versions die to low level archers for heaven's sake.

[Llyse]

Yeah no kidding.  Not to mention the replay value lost when they removed the feature where you could start at different time periods in M1.  There were different kingdoms, and the kingdoms had different strengths, that was great.  M2 was also very easy in comparison.  I don't think I ever lost a battle on the hardest diffioculty.  Just get strong infantry to hold the line, and a couple calvary to charge the flanks. Works everytime. 

I was a massive fan of M:TW and was pretty hesitate about M2:TW.

I wasn't a big fan of the changes in UI, the removal of provinces to individual pieces of a chessboard in R:TW.

Having said that though I'm having a blast in M2:TW and I know exactly what you mean by M2 being bland, but the modding community seems pretty insane and even though I'm haven't installed this yet

You should check out this linkhttp://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=159996.

They've even got quite a few features that I'm looking forward to try out.

Stainless Steel: Is effectively a complete overhaul of the game.
-It has a completely new map with more regions than ever before.
-It includes brand new factions (including playable Mongols).
-There are two campaigns. an early era and a late era. The late era is something alot of people missed from MTW.
-The unit balancing is far superior to Vanilla, allowing longer battles.
-The AI has been overhauled and is much smarter than ever before.
-As you said, Its beautiful. With new skins for almost all existing units as well as brand spankin new units.
-It comes with optional sub-mods that allow you to make the game more difficult (as many find Vanilla too easy).

The fact that you can pick to start at late stage instead of being locked in with peasants wars  is alone, is enough for me to install it.

On a side note I found Cavalry to be actually much stronger than it was previously. Even light Cavalry in the rear of dismounted knights had a massive impact. R:TW had this feature/problem as well though.

[Big Gulp]

On a side note I found Cavalry to be actually much stronger than it was previously. Even light Cavalry in the rear of dismounted knights had a massive impact. R:TW had this feature/problem as well though.

I don't see the problem.  Unless they're going against a square of pikemen cavalry should have a massive impact against infantry.  Yep, even light cavalry.

[Paelos]

I guess that's the problem with the early game for me and calvary, because EVERYTHING I fought was spearman. The earliest infantry units were "grab a pole and stab at those horsies." It wasn't so much the strength of the calvary unit, it was just the cost v. fighting the simplest unit created. Also, I can't really figure out what to do with them in a siege unless you've already broken into town, which you needed melee for.

As you get more advanced cavalry, it's very strong. So your point there is true.

[Big Gulp]

I guess that's the problem with the early game for me and calvary, because EVERYTHING I fought was spearman. The earliest infantry units were "grab a pole and stab at those horsies." It wasn't so much the strength of the calvary unit, it was just the cost v. fighting the simplest unit created. Also, I can't really figure out what to do with them in a siege unless you've already broken into town, which you needed melee for.

As you get more advanced cavalry, it's very strong. So your point there is true.

The trick is to use cavalry as it's been used throughout history; to flank units.  The only time I ever sent out my cavalry on an unsupported attack was against archers.  Otherwise, I use them as the hammer and my infantry as the anvil.  You hit even a pikeman unit from behind while they're occupied with your infantry and their morale will be toast in no time.  Often I'd detach my cavalry from my main force and leave them way, way, way out on the wings where they'd be my sort of quick reaction force.  You can use them to scatter archers, or flank enemy infantry.  One thing you never want to do is use them against other cavalry.  Try to use a spear unit for that.

In cities I'd completely split them off from my main unit and use them for diversionary tactics.  Often if the computer knows you've got cavalry off somewhere else in the city they'll split up their army.  Make use of that by trying to draw them further and further from the main force.  Anything that weakens the enemy and makes your job easier is gravy.  And of course, since cavalry is fast you can still use them to hit the enemy from behind while your infantry is engaged.  It just takes a little bit more work getting them to navigate the streets.

ETA:  For cities, you might have different problems than me.  I tend to go infantry light, and I really spread them out far.  So maybe 4 or 5 infantry units, 3 archers, 4 cavalry and the rest is all artillery.  For cities I don't even bother sieging, I just knock down towers and walls.  The enemy tend to try to defend their walls, but if you pound the shit out of them with artillery they usually scamper back to the city center.  That makes your planning much easier since you can usually just waltz on into the city.  I never actually fight my way in.

[HaemishM]

The trick is to use cavalry as it's been used throughout history; to flank units.  The only time I ever sent out my cavalry on an unsupported attack was against archers.  Otherwise, I use them as the hammer and my infantry as the anvil.  You hit even a pikeman unit from behind while they're occupied with your infantry and their morale will be toast in no time.  Often I'd detach my cavalry from my main force and leave them way, way, way out on the wings where they'd be my sort of quick reaction force.  You can use them to scatter archers, or flank enemy infantry.  One thing you never want to do is use them against other cavalry.  Try to use a spear unit for that.

This. Even shitty cavalry is decent against archer/crossbow units, or against filler light/lower morale troops like militia and peasants. And if your opponent has artillery pieces, just send out a light cav unit or two to flank around and tear them up. It's worth it to sally forth in sieges for just that reason.

I'm currently playing through my 2nd campaign, this time using the Byzantines. They don't get a lot of upgrades in units in the early periods, but they get shitloads of cheap, missle cavalry. Those things help offset the lack of decent infantry.

[Zane0]

The game is too easy.  Even with all the setting son very hard, how can you fail to easily dominate every game?

I thought very much the same for the longest time. The series has been very much bittersweet ever since Rome when it started sacrificing proper gameplay for feature creep -- the heedless bloatation of the campaign map, the confused nonsensical AI, the unintuitive economy, the retarded 'flavorful' units, and so on.

I've been replaying M2 in anticipation for Empire though, and I must say the mod scene does almost salvage the entire sodden mess. I would not recommend Stainless Steel, too many features (like supply) that the engine is hard pressed to handle, but I've found Lands to Conquer surprisingly good. In the Very Hard/Very Hard campaign I've been playing since, I've fought a number of pitched battles against balanced enemy stacks, navigated a web of alliances to realize my ambitions, and made hard decisions about investing in infrastructure versus strengthening my military capacity.. something the base game never really offered and that most mods fall short of. It's still hit or miss at times, but honestly quite a surprising treat that you might care to sample.

[Grand Design]

Release date pushed back to Mar 3.  All this Medieval II hatred has me excited.

Apparently, activation will be done through Steam whether or not the game is purchased in store.

[Rasix]

I must have been the only person on the planet that wasn't very good at this game. I may have been doing it wrong (as I read this thread), but I seeminly always picked a side where EVERYONE decided they hated me and must immediatley go to war while I have no army and no economy.

Well, except when I played as Turkey.  That wasn't very challenging.

I just found the game somewhat tedius and not fun.  I had fun in Rome:TW. 

[Sophismata]

The reason people seem to have different opinions on M:TW2's cavarly is probably because of the bugs. For some reason, M:TW2 unit stats tie in heavily to animations, creating a whole slew of problems, chief among them being the ease with which cavarly get stuck on either the terrain, or friendly (or enemy) units. This causes cavarly to lose their charge bonus, and they then get easily defeated in melee.

In fact, individual soldiers randomly getting stuck was a big problem. It would screw up the enitire unit, often causing them to become engaged with enemy units that they cannot reach or were retreating from.

Also, units with fast animations (eg, peasants) had a ridiculous ability to hold castle walls. Two-handed units often bugged out and wouldn't attack properly.

Oh, and shields actually apply a negative modifier instead of a positive one (shielded troops take more damage from the front).

The shield thing was (eventually) fixed, but most of the unit animation problems never were.