Empire Total War

[JudgeDredd]

ORIGINAL: undercovergeek

what are you playing it on JD? spec wise i mean

Windows XP SP3
Intel Core 2 Quad 2.33Ghz
4GB Ram
nVidia 8800GT 512MB OC2

[Phatguy]

Well,  putting in a solid 30+ hours into this game gave me some insights.

The RTI campaign is interesting but at one point the French just keep full stacks in Quebec and Montreal. As the American, I can barely field  a 3/4 full stack without going broke. Not very realistic as the French never had the population the colonies had.

Main campaign..Some have had problems controlling the naval portion but I found it to be very easy and a bit fun, even though not too realistic.
The AI has some problems  in the overall campaign with it's timidity, although I do like the fact that you are not in constant war and the AI does not DOW at the drop of the hat. I Dont like the fact that the AI comes out and attacks you in sieges. The land battles take some getting used to after the chaos that was the earlier TW game battles. I do like the fact that elite units die just as easily as conscripts, just not as fast(better accuracy,faster rate of fire).No more super-uber units like the previous games. Cavalry dont fly across the battlefield anymore..Terrain obstacles actually impede cavalry quite a bit.

The trade income is too large I think.. I tried the United Provinces and after taking over 1 province in Europe and 2 Spanish provinces in the new world I was rolling around in money, making over 10,000 profit per turn by 1710. While In my Autrian campaign, I control the base provinces, the whole of the Balkans and Greece along with Constantinople plus throwing in most of the Italian penninsula and i'm only making about 3,000 profit to build up everything. In my opinion the tax revenue is fine, its the trade revenue thats seriously out of control.

Diplomacy is a lot better. Nations dont hate you forever and will take decent peace treaties. I had Spain declare war on me when the king died(war of Spanish Succesion) I managed to take both of it's Italian provinces as they were a bit occupied by Morocco suddenly declaring war on them, along with England, Portugal and United Provinces. They took a quick peace treaty from me as there was no way to get to thier Italian provinces. But the diplomacy can be wonky too. Poland declared war on France. Neither was part of a defensive treaty so it was just those two. Nothing I could see they could fight over.


So far no game crashes but it did freeze up for 1 minute in a big battle. I thought of cold reboot but as I was getting ready it started up again.

And yes, CA did something idiotic that is really really inexcusable. The saved games are in a hidden folder deep in your system. I use Vista. Vista gives you a save folder.Why they refused to use that but stuck it in the appdata folder is beyond me.Also to compound the problem, they did not include a delete game button. Why? Thats not something that is just missed.

[undercovergeek]

ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd

ORIGINAL: undercovergeek

what are you playing it on JD? spec wise i mean

Windows XP SP3
Intel Core 2 Quad 2.33Ghz
4GB Ram
nVidia 8800GT 512MB OC2

ORIGINAL: undercovergeek

what are you playing it on JD? spec wise i mean

Windows XP SP3
Intel Core 2 Quad 2.33Ghz
4GB Ram
nVidia 8800GT 512MB OC2
[/quote]

hmmm its my graphics card thats letting my end down - im mostly medium and low but the thing still looks beautiful - almost temptedto return to desk top for a high end ish rig

[Terminus]

Out of curiousity, where IS that damn save game folder?

[doomtrader]

Terminus: AFAIK in AppData folder.
Hidden far from your eyes.

[Terminus]

And that folder is where, exactly? I completely agree that the save game function (both in terms of the UI and where it puts the files) is a big fat minus.

[doomtrader]

It might be something like:
c:\Documents and Settings\your_login\Application Data\
 
I think that this folder is set to hidden

[Terminus]

Found it, thanks. Whoever thought of this placement should be fired out of a siege mortar![:@]

[JudgeDredd]

At least that would give you a reason to USe a seige mortar...gawd knows there's no need for them in-game!

[Phatguy]

And continuing my Steam rant...My wonderful steam decided to download Empire:total war a few minutes ago..... Yes, the full version, not the patch....Never mind that I have the retail version on my system, which I registered last Wednsday and I have had no issues with the games so far.. I really hate steam..hopefully when I shut down steam it didnt screw my install over.... blech

[undercovergeek]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Found it, thanks. Whoever thought of this placement should be fired out of a siege mortar![:@]

is this where it keeps your saved battles for you to watch later?

[barbarossa2]

I keep thinking about getting Total War: Empire, but I hear their "pirate" stack is horribly unrealistic and that pirates are so powerful it unbalances the game. The fort defense/attack AI has also been reported to be weak.

I may wait to get the game until the first patch comes out as is my policy now with most games, as I don't enjoy being someone's playtester just to get my hands on it first.

[Phatguy]

ORIGINAL: barbarossa2

I keep thinking about getting Total War: Empire, but I hear their "pirate" stack is horribly unrealistic and that pirates are so powerful it unbalances the game. The fort defense/attack AI has also been reported to be weak.

I may wait to get the game until the first patch comes out as is my policy now with most games, as I don't enjoy being someone's playtester just to get my hands on it first.

Pirate are a big problem but there are only a few big stacks..many single and double units doing the piraty thing..A concerted effort to stop the pirates is pretty easy, just time and cost consuming..Don't expect to trounce the big stacks until around '18-25 when you start popping out the bigger gun ships.

[JudgeDredd]

ORIGINAL: apathetic lurker

And continuing my Steam rant...My wonderful steam decided to download Empire:total war a few minutes ago..... Yes, the full version, not the patch....Never mind that I have the retail version on my system, which I registered last Wednsday and I have had no issues with the games so far.. I really hate steam..hopefully when I shut down steam it didnt screw my install over.... blech

I've NEVER seen that happen! I have the retail version and it just downloaded an update...that was all!

[Terminus]

Same here... Sounds somewhat unbelievable...

Anyway, just use Steam in offline mode. No problems...

[Terminus]

ORIGINAL: apathetic lurker

ORIGINAL: barbarossa2

I keep thinking about getting Total War: Empire, but I hear their "pirate" stack is horribly unrealistic and that pirates are so powerful it unbalances the game. The fort defense/attack AI has also been reported to be weak.

I may wait to get the game until the first patch comes out as is my policy now with most games, as I don't enjoy being someone's playtester just to get my hands on it first.

Pirate are a big problem but there are only a few big stacks..many single and double units doing the piraty thing..A concerted effort to stop the pirates is pretty easy, just time and cost consuming..Don't expect to trounce the big stacks until around '18-25 when you start popping out the bigger gun ships.

With a little bit of luck and a little bit of skill, you can kill the first big Carib pirate stack on turn 2 when playing as the Brits.

[Greybriar]

ORIGINAL: apathetic lurker

And continuing my Steam rant...My wonderful steam decided to download Empire:total war a few minutes ago..... Yes, the full version, not the patch....Never mind that I have the retail version on my system, which I registered last Wednsday and I have had no issues with the games so far.. I really hate steam..hopefully when I shut down steam it didnt screw my install over.... blech

I don't know where I found this, but according to Kellie:

Thursday Mar 05, 2009
Solving Common Issues with Empire: Total War

We’ve noticed some common issues as people begin to install and play Empire: Total War. The helpful folks in our customer service department have just published a new knowledge base article with answers and tips to help you along.

1) Nvidia Drivers.

a. After the game was finished, Nvidia released a new set of drivers which we were unable to test before release. Unfortunately this has caused some incompatibilities with the game. We recommend that you roll back to the previous drivers until this is resolved (located here: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_182.06_whql.html)

2) STEAM installation issues

a. There are a couple of known issues with STEAM that occur when the servers get very busy.

i. Sometimes downloads will pause whilst downloading from the STEAM servers, the download should eventually restart. However you can force restart the download by selecting pause and then restarting the download using the right mouse button and selecting the appropriate option.

ii. After STEAM downloads the game, sometimes the game cache doesn’t update. In such circumstances, simply quit and restart the STEAM client. This restarts the process and allows the installation to complete.

iii. After a complete installation, sometimes the activation will fail due to the servers being very busy. Usually waiting 5 minutes and trying again solves this issue. If that doesn’t work please close STEAM and restart the client.

iv. Despite having a boxed version, Steam appears to be downloading the whole game. Answer to this here on Customer Services http://help.sega.com/index.php?_m=knowl ... av=0,6,165

STEAM have identified a fix that will correct the majority of problems here that will be implemented ASAP today. In the meantime quitting and restarting STEAM is the best way to resolve these issues.

3) FAT32 (Portable Hard Drive/Old Hard Drive)

a. Due to the large size of the game, FAT32 will not work with the title. You are unlikely to have a FAT32 drive unless you have an old hard disk which you have installed STEAM to, or are using a portable drive. You can fix this problem by converting the hard drive by using any partition tool such as Partition Magic or the Microsoft Tool found here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307881. We recommend backing up any data on your hard disc before using any partition tool.

I hope that helps you out.

[Terminus]

I stand corrected... Weird bug...

[Phatguy]

see?  I might be old and my eyesight may be failing a bit but I know what I saw!!! lol..

The weird and wacky world of Steam

[Titanwarrior89]

I went out and bought it.  Played it some and so far it seems to be a fairly decent game(overall).  Based on history but it is not historical.[:)]