Empire: Total War

Prince Toad · 04-02-2009, 12:32 AM

So, what does everyone think of Creative Assembly's newest TW game? Naval battles, a huge map, tons of little nations, and the good old US of A.

I played through the whole Road to Independence and have started a short campaign with Great Britain. First 2 RTI parts were fine, reasonable tutorials, etc. Part 3 wasn't bad either. I didn't love Part 4, since I lost all the gains I'd made in Part 3, and I don't know why every other nation in the world had the entire tech tree unlocked (the Cherokee knew classical economics? Who'd have thought). Also, I didn't like the "capture and hold until the end of the game" mechanism, since I just made peace and sat there pressing "end turn" (which took about three minutes each time) until 1810 rolled around. Annoying.

My Great Britain game is going fine, should have it beaten this weekend. I figured I'd start with an easy country and then pick a more challenging one once I had the hang of the real campaign.

Naval battles are interesting. I haven't gotten the hang of them yet, but I can manage alright. I found it helps to organize your ships into groups and have them use the "line astern" formation, which lines them all up neatly. They then follow the leader of the group, so they're easy to direct.

Land battles took some getting used to but the idea seems pretty much the same as always, with a slightly heavier emphasis on cannons and... grenadiers, who ****ing rule. You still form a line, keep some reserves, hit them in the flanks with cavalry, etc. I don't really like siege battles though-- you can only knock down very small parts of the walls, and defending is kind of a bitch too. I stopped playing them, I just wait it out or autocalc.

I do like the overhauls of the campaign map. For example cities can now construct several buildings at once, and things like farms and mines are now outside of the cities themselves. Those provide opportunities for raiding enemy land and drawing out their forces from the cities. There are too many other new features to go into them right now, but I have very little to complain about on the campaign map.

I would like to point to diplomacy in particular as an area that's gotten a huge lift. In Medieval II and Rome, at least, diplomacy was basically useless. All it was really good for was making alliances which meant nothing and getting quick cash by selling your map information. In Empire the computer actually makes reasonable proposals, like trading a territory you might want in exchange for one of yours that's near their land.

Anyone else buy it? What do you think?

04-02-2009, 12:32 AM	#1
Prince Toad Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Rookery Gender: Posts: 11,720 Thanks: 50 Thanked 65 Times in 56 Posts	Empire: Total War So, what does everyone think of Creative Assembly's newest TW game? Naval battles, a huge map, tons of little nations, and the good old US of A. I played through the whole Road to Independence and have started a short campaign with Great Britain. First 2 RTI parts were fine, reasonable tutorials, etc. Part 3 wasn't bad either. I didn't love Part 4, since I lost all the gains I'd made in Part 3, and I don't know why every other nation in the world had the entire tech tree unlocked (the Cherokee knew classical economics? Who'd have thought). Also, I didn't like the "capture and hold until the end of the game" mechanism, since I just made peace and sat there pressing "end turn" (which took about three minutes each time) until 1810 rolled around. Annoying. My Great Britain game is going fine, should have it beaten this weekend. I figured I'd start with an easy country and then pick a more challenging one once I had the hang of the real campaign. Naval battles are interesting. I haven't gotten the hang of them yet, but I can manage alright. I found it helps to organize your ships into groups and have them use the "line astern" formation, which lines them all up neatly. They then follow the leader of the group, so they're easy to direct. Land battles took some getting used to but the idea seems pretty much the same as always, with a slightly heavier emphasis on cannons and... grenadiers, who ****ing rule. You still form a line, keep some reserves, hit them in the flanks with cavalry, etc. I don't really like siege battles though-- you can only knock down very small parts of the walls, and defending is kind of a bitch too. I stopped playing them, I just wait it out or autocalc. I do like the overhauls of the campaign map. For example cities can now construct several buildings at once, and things like farms and mines are now outside of the cities themselves. Those provide opportunities for raiding enemy land and drawing out their forces from the cities. There are too many other new features to go into them right now, but I have very little to complain about on the campaign map. I would like to point to diplomacy in particular as an area that's gotten a huge lift. In Medieval II and Rome, at least, diplomacy was basically useless. All it was really good for was making alliances which meant nothing and getting quick cash by selling your map information. In Empire the computer actually makes reasonable proposals, like trading a territory you might want in exchange for one of yours that's near their land. Anyone else buy it? What do you think?