Empire: Total War

[Modern Angel]

Yeah, I'm only getting like 100K a second.  Guess I just won't get to play 'til tomorrow.  Definitely playing Prussia.  The challenge of being small and surrounded is just to great for me to pass up.

Tons of problems with the Steam download. Mine reset to 0 at about 50% and restarted. I cannot get more than 450k and was down at 100k this morning. THEN people are reporting that the download size doesn't match the game size so it just won't start on Steam.

[Paelos]

Two, if it's not much different than Medieval 2, I'm not really interested enough in the time period to worry about upgrading until it goes on sale.

Have you played the demo?  Gunpowder alone drastically changes the game.  Every unit has a highlighted "area of effective fire" cone in front of them, so it's not like they're archers you can just place anywhere and can fire in an upward arc; they need to be faced properly.  That's a fairly drastic change.  Naval combat?  Fairly drastic change.

Tbh, I play very few of the actual battles that aren't sieges. Mostly because they are rare, but even moreso because I usually drastically outnumber the opposing force. As of yet, I have not played the demo because it was so huge to download, and it didn't have the campaign part (which is 75% of what I enjoy in these games).

The gunpowder aspect does sound better, because I always hated archery in the earlier games. Also, I'm very interested in naval combat if it's going to be a key part of the game. However, we'd have to see the campaign map for that. I will download the demo eventually to check the specs for my machine, but the innovative features are the primary go-or-no-go for me pulling the trigger at $50 instead of $30.

[Big Gulp]

Tbh, I play very few of the actual battles that aren't sieges. Mostly because they are rare, but even moreso because I usually drastically outnumber the opposing force. As of yet, I have not played the demo because it was so huge to download, and it didn't have the campaign part (which is 75% of what I enjoy in these games).

The gunpowder aspect does sound better, because I always hated archery in the earlier games. Also, I'm very interested in naval combat if it's going to be a key part of the game. However, we'd have to see the campaign map for that. I will download the demo eventually to check the specs for my machine, but the innovative features are the primary go-or-no-go for me pulling the trigger at $50 instead of $30.

Okay, big differences in how this game plays, in battles and espeically in the campaign map.  Actually, way more than I thought they were going to do.  There's now a tech tree that's divided between military advances, philosophy, and industry/trade.  Each of those have discrete "tracks" available in them.  For instance, under military advances there's naval tech, formations, firearms advances, etc.  Regions are no longer just one city, there's a regional capitol for every region, and as the population grows smaller towns pop up on your map and start to grow.  For instance, the regional capital for Bavaria is Munich.  As Bavaria grows towns like Ansbach start to pop up.  Granted, it's not a huge difference, but for geography geeks like me it's nice.

The campaign map also shows farms, mines, etc on the map itself, and if you want to upgrade, say, a farm, you just click on it from the main map itself.  Taxes are now done for your entire empire on two sliders; one for the lower classes, one for the nobility.  This is the tax policy for your entire empire, and the only change you can make is to exempt one of your regions from taxation to keep 'em happy.  Government types are important, because it makes a difference in how you keep your people happy.  For instance, as Prussia I rely on repression, which means garrisoning troops.  I assume that parliamentary governments like Britain do it a little bit differently.

You no longer have to send out diplomats just to negotiate, diplomacy can be done with anyone, at any time.  You also no longer recruit spies, priests, etc.  These people pop up randomly depending on what buildings you have.  Lots of colleges, and you'll get a lot of scholars/philosophers who can have effects on a region.  Lots of taverns and you'll get rakes (ie, spies) out the yin yang.

[NowhereMan]

Holy fucking shit that sounds like a game I want to play. They've made the campaign map a lot deeper then so it's no longer just the means to getting more and better troops and watching you epeen (empire) grow?

fakeedit: Ok that's being overly harsh on the previous games but it's nice to know they're giving you some real variety in tech advances and empire type.

[Big Gulp]

fakeedit: Ok that's being overly harsh on the previous games but it's nice to know they're giving you some real variety in tech advances and empire type.

Yep.  I've been playing all night, (yeah, this is probably a blow off day from work) so I'm only up to the mid-1700's, but the tech advances make a huge difference.  As Prussia I've been going with land warfare/philosophical advances and neglecting my navy entirely.  Just got into a war with Britain (who used to be my ally) and thought I could at least be contender with them in naval warfare.  WRONG.

Even when slightly outnumbering the Brits at sea I get my clock cleaned on a regular basis.  On land it's a different story, but I have to actually get my troops there to do it.  Yeah, Operation Sea Lion was difficult even in the enlightenment era.   

[Modern Angel]

It's completely awesome.

My favorite change? Prestige Victory. You can now get Prestige which is that ephemeral measure of how rad your armies, economy and tech are. It's (ZOMG) pretty much like the system in EU.

Why is this important? Because no fucking country on Earth got to run around conquering the planet on a whim in those times. The balance of power wouldn't allow it. So with Prestige Victory as your option, you conquer 15 historically important territories AND you must have the highest Prestige at the end. There's a cultural hegemony endgame modeled in. That's how it should be.

One day and it's already my favorite of the series.

[Draegan]

I might have to buy this. I'll be out for lunch maybe I'll pick it up.

[Big Gulp]

One other great thing about the game?  Interdicting commercial merchant traffic.

There are no more merchants in the game, so thankfully that little bit of micromanagement is gone.  The little dashed green line trading routes still exist, however, and they're great money makers if you're at war with someone.  How, you ask?  Put a fleet on one of those trade routes and put that fleet in piracy mode.  Congrats!  You're hurting your enemy, siphoning off their cash to you, and actually using your navy as it was historically intended; to economically strangulate other nations.   

ETA:  Oh, and the great thing about this is that you don't really need to put large fleets on those trade routes for this to work.  Put one or two ships there just to harass them.  They'll send out a big fleet to crush you, and you can just run away when the battle begins.  This is the route I've been going since I can't stand toe to toe with Britain, but I can be a giant pain in their ass and siphon off big chunks of money.  Oh, and I might be able to get France as an ally.  Suck it, King George!

[Draegan]

I love a good strat game.  The only thing is that I end up buying these games play one or two long sessions and quit.  Maybe since I'm not playing any MMOGs right now I might get a few weeks out of it to justify the purchase price.

I'm to much of an impulse buyer when it comes to video games.

[HaemishM]

This game is SO WIN.

Big Gulp pretty well surrounded the changes, but fuck's sake, this game is DEEP. DEEP DEEP DEEP. Like Deep One Elder God deep. The campaign map is seriously expanded with the addition of the buildings that are actual settlements (that BTW have to be defended and can be attacked outside of major cities). The tech tree is HUGE. The first thing I went after was plug bayonets (to make my line infantry better at melee - when I plug the bayonets in). It's almost overwhelming how deep the campaign game is. Daunting is a good word. Expect weeks of your time to disappear.

As for Paelos's concerns, there are now 4 types of campaign: Short (1700-1750 conquer 15 territories including some specific to your faction); Long (1700-1799 conquer 30 territories); Prestige (Conquer 30 territories by 1750 and have the highest prestige by 1799); and World Domination (Conquer 45 territories). In addition, it looks like there is a 4-phase campaign called Road to Independence that is just the American theater starting in Jamestown in the 1670's.

For single player single battles, they have random land and naval battles, sieges and scenarios, along with custom battles. You choose your armies and you can choose early or late era armies. The only disappointment there is that there are only 3 scenarios, the two from the demo and another naval battle. I expect more will appear in time.

The load times were better than the demo, but still a bit long. I spent about an hour fucking with the graphics settings to find an acceptable frame rate. I'm on XP with an Nvidia 8600GTS and I can't even use the high and ultra graphics settings (they are grayed out). But using Shader 3 (Low) and some fiddling, I got the land battles to look fucking awesome and still run decently. Even using Shader 2.0, it still looked damn good, just not shiny lighting good. The campaign map, however, is jerky as hell. Animation on it is REALLY jerky. I can live with it, but I do hope they optimize a bit when they patch.

All in all, I spent about 3 hours last night and barely scratched the surface. I am sporting a chubby waiting to get home to play this game.

EDIT: A few things I forgot.

You no longer need to send damaged units back to a city to reinforce. Just click on the unit in the army, click the reinforce button and if they have the opportunity to reinforce, they will as soon as they can. Generals can recruit units while out in the field. The unit, once built, will leave their spawn point and have an arrow set to go to the general that called them autmatically the next turn (or the turn they spawn). You can also take control of that unit and more where it goes to after it spawns so you aren't locked in. When another country declares war, the popup has a list of both sides' allies, and you can choose which of your allies to ask for help. You can also trade technology you've discovered through diplomacy, or use the diplomatic channels to try to get tech other sides have researched that you haven't. You can also send gentlemen out to the schools of other sides and try to steal that tech, just like a rake can sabotage buildings. Finally, when an enemy unit enters your terrain and is about to attack a target, if you have an army in intercept range of that enemy, a dialog box will pop up asking if you want to intercept. If you do, it starts a battle. Just having an army close by helps your defense.

[Draegan]

So what are the bad things?  I've heard bad things about the AI out of the box.

[Sky]

1280x720? No thread on the widescreen forum, just curious.

[schild]

1280x720? No thread on the widescreen forum, just curious.

Weird I was just thinking how games should stop supporting that so that you'd have to buy a real monitor and/or a real TV.

[Sky]

1280x720? No thread on the widescreen forum, just curious.

Weird I was just thinking how games should stop supporting that so that you'd have to buy a real monitor and/or a real TV.

Oh you so funny.

Let me tell you about my truck.

[NowhereMan]

I need a friggin new PC.

[Megrim]

How is the actual fighting in this game? Is cavalry still cheese?

[HaemishM]

I haven't done enough land battling to tell you about the AI. My campaign game is only up to 1704 or so. The dastardly Prussians attacked me, and for some reason kept sending armies with 1-3 units in them, so the battles have been pretty easy so far. The single battles I did to tweak my graphics, however, were full-on battles and the AI seemed improved over Medieval 2.

[NowhereMan]

I'd hope cavalry start to become less and less crucial as the game goes on, muskets improve and you develop techniques like forming square. This is the first total war game they've done where I can see cavalry becoming less crucial, though of course I'd imagine successful flanking with them still owns.

[Tmon]

The road to independence seems like the tutorial mode for the campaign game, each phase unlocks new capabilities.  Since the only TW I have played was the first Medieval  one it has helped a lot.  With everything set to low it runs on my 3 year old machine fairly well.

[HaemishM]

The cavalry in the early campaign game is pretty crap, actually. It has no firearms, so relies on the charge. Early armies had pikes and as soon as your opponent researches the plug bayonet, even line infantry and militia will have pike in a pocket. But yes, it can be very effective if you hit from the flank - hit infantry anywhere else and it's a crap shoot.

[Modern Angel]

Honestly I'm getting my ass handed to me a fair amount of the time and it was NEVER like that in the other games. I'd say it's not too shabby though I may just be missing out on some big underlying mechanic.

[Draegan]

Installing this now.

[Montague]

Honestly I'm getting my ass handed to me a fair amount of the time and it was NEVER like that in the other games. I'd say it's not too shabby though I may just be missing out on some big underlying mechanic.

Haven't got the game yet, but are there differing types of cavalry? Cuirassiers would be your standard heavy shock cavalry while Dragoons would be more like skirmishers. Charging bayoneted infantry with light cavalry even from a flank would probably get them mowed down (if the game is more or less historically accurate, at any rate).

[Grand Design]

Installing this now.

I installed while I slept off a business trip last night. 

I got to peek at the game this morning and it is gorgeous - even considering that TW always slacks on the graphics due to the sheer volume of units to display.  Fucking gorgeous.

Time to play.

[Draegan]

I never played any Total War games and I loaded up a shot campaign and I'm confused.  Seems like I'm getting tossed out there not knowing wtf is going on.

[Grand Design]

It is confusing at first.

Listen to the chatty tutorial babe for the basics.  Figure out what units do what actions.  See what you can build in cities.  I suggest getting your economy going quickly.

The game is deep enough to allow you to play it in many, many ways.

[Grand Design]

Don't forget to start researching a technology (press T) on your first turn. 

I did.

[Rasix]

This download keeps fucking up and resetting.  Annoying.

[Draegan]

Road to Independance apparently is the tutorial.  It's basically running you slowly through the basics and what shit does.  If you're new to everything do that first. 

I did the first chapter tonight.  Awesome stuff.  I still need to get used to the ground assault stuff.  But this game is amazing.  I'm tired though so I need to hit the sack.

[Big Gulp]

Another thing I really like about the game is how important the economy is.  That province in eastern Prussia that doesn't have much population?  Ordinarily it'd be a scrub province that you really wouldn't care about, only now it has a textile mill and is a friggin' cash cow.  It really does wonders for prioritizing what you need to defend.  Money doesn't grow on trees like it did in earlier games (I used to rarely build castles), you really have to think about your tax policies, and keeping a huge army in the field will retard you economically since you can't afford to upgrade your provinces.

I used to never look for peace deals in the old TW games.  In this one I'll take a province or two and then try to sue for peace, even giving back a territory I just conquered, mainly because I want to demobilize some of my army as quickly as possible.  I also love the diplomacy.  Allies used to be pretty useless, now I really think twice before attacking some minor principality when they've got a great power backing them up.

[Rasix]

Hmmm.. one of my fans keeps flipping out playing this during the campaign screen. All of the sudden it starts up for a short period of time and then stops.

In the few battles I've done, the game run greats.  Looks to be great fun, but I'll be playing the "Road to Independence" until my chops are back up to being "bad" instead of "ohh god, why are my guys running backwards".

[Xuri]

Played this for some hours yesterday, until the GFX suddenly got all screwy. Units/buildings vanished, and all water got fucked up. I did get to play some great battles, though. In one instance I was heavily outnumbered, but achieved victory after digging in with trenches and stuff around a building occupied by one of my infantry-units. Thankfully the oppositing didn't have any artillery. :P

Hiding cavalry in woods and flanking unsuspecting enemy troops is also fun.

[NowhereMan]

So does diplomacy actually work in this game? I have gotten sick in previous TW games of getting into a war and having every attempt at a ceasefire rejected by the AI unless I was willing to hand over 2 or 3 provinces. Also I got annoyed with the certainty that any ally that bordered me would sooner or later turn on me and attack or that if I got attacked none of my allies would lift a finger to help. Maybe I just never leared how it worked but the AI for diplomacy seemed to be pretty much set to just fuck with you.

[Big Gulp]

So does diplomacy actually work in this game? I have gotten sick in previous TW games of getting into a war and having every attempt at a ceasefire rejected by the AI unless I was willing to hand over 2 or 3 provinces. Also I got annoyed with the certainty that any ally that bordered me would sooner or later turn on me and attack or that if I got attacked none of my allies would lift a finger to help. Maybe I just never leared how it worked but the AI for diplomacy seemed to be pretty much set to just fuck with you.

It works, but I'd call it more like WWI diplomacy; rigid.  Your allies WILL back you up, but that also means that you have to think long and hard about who you declare war on.  And yeah, getting peace treaties seems to be easier.  Case in point, I had to try to link up East and West Prussia at the beginning of my game since they're seperated by Polish territory (Danzig).  I started a war with Saxony, who was allied to Poland, and sure enough they also declared war.  In one turn I had an army take Saxony and another take Danzig.  I then asked Poland for peace, and threw in 2000 gold to sweeten the deal.  They went for it.

[Falwell]

I'm playing the Road to Independence right now to get my feet wet. I've found a new appreciation for what went down at Bunker Hill.