Empire: Total War

[Saulus]

Anyone else tried this out yet? I played the demo on steam as soon as it came out. I've always been a fan of the Total War series. I also read the review in my PC Gamer which gave the game a 94% citing it as one of the most complex and beautiful games ever designed.

I was tempted to purchase the game off steam but instead opted to wait for the nice boxed Special Forces edition, which I soon found out was delayed in Canada due to the French manual packaging (which I throw out anyway). I finally found a shop with it just today though so I'll definetly be playing this for awhile.

For anyone who is a fan of the Master and Commander books (and movie), the special forces edition gives you access to Lord Nelson's 106 gun flagship ... You don't want to get broadsided by this bad-boy.

For anyone else who is a fan of the series and has a game... what are your thoughts? I am very interested in trying out the multiplayer capabilities of the campaign.

[Gamling]

Love the total war series, though I've mainly played Medieval two total war. Definitely want to get Empire. Haven't tried it yet, but I'm looking forward to it.

[Stratigo]

So far a pretty good ame. There are some problems, and a few annoying bugs (HAd the british saves all corrupt.) But its a fairly cool game and I'm enjoying it.

[Redjack]

I played Rome total war for >year exclusively. I certainly will pick up Empires.
Been so focused on NWN2 lately Empires snuck up on me.

[The Failmonster]

Since I played Shogun :Total War, Oh... back in the mid 90's I believe, I was hooked. Also played Rome, and still do from time to time. Great series, planning on grabbing Empire, soon as I force my boss to give me more hours.

[Kang]

I've been playing through the demo a bit I like what I see so far. I'm going to buy it tonight through steam. Id be interested in giving the multiplayer a try if your interested.

[Firechicken]

I have only played Rome but people on steam say its good so I mite log on my account and get a demo of the new one.

[Machiavelli]

I've been a total war fanbhoi since Shogun came out, but Empire is super bug-ridden =(. I'm sure it'll get patched up in relatively short order, but for now I've found the campaign to be virtually unplayable. Multiplayer works just fine though, and with the Steam factor it's way easier to find games than it was on the previous ones.

That said... strategically it's been streamlined, but the scale is larger than previous games and the system for agents in previous ones was pretty clunky, so simplification is probably a good thing. In terms of the tactical nature of battles, there are less unit types overall but that doesn't detract from the richness of the tactics that are required for battles; it's different, and the more limited unit selection makes sense in terms of the gameplay as well as the historical context. Awesome game, just needs some patching.

[Thief Of Navarre]

Yeah I enjoyed shogun and medievil total war, didnt play Rome much. Lets hope they iron out those bugs on the new game eh?

[Ghost]

I loved the Total War series. I started with Rome, was quickly hooked, and jumped to Medieval 2 when it came out and played that for a good while. That being said, I have to say I was very disappointed with Empires.

The game itself is, as some have already noted, very bug ridden, to the point where the campaign game is so jarring and choppy that it's difficult to enjoy. I know that the bugs will eventually be stamped out, but that's not all that concerns me. The game itself seems very... simplified. Some call it streamlined, but I enjoyed being able to micro-manage my nation if I wanted to. Now, it just seems too simplistic. That's just my personal opinion, of course, but I know I'm not the only one who thinks so.

The units in this game were very disappointing. It seems like there's five or six different units in the entire game, with different skins and names slapped onto them for the different factions. Hopefully they'll work on that, too.

You also have to have a damn good machine to be able to run it well enough without having the graphics turned all the way down - which, when done, makes the game look pretty bad on the battlefields, and even then it's still choppy.

In short, the game itself has a lot of promise, but in my opinion, they really failed to deliver what we were hoping for on release day. It feels like playing a beta version where chunks of gameplay have been left out or aren't finished yet. I still have it installed on my machine, but I don't play it anymore. I'm waiting for them to patch it up, and hopefully the community will start pumping out some great mods like they have for the other TW series.

[Machiavelli]

It feels like playing a beta version where chunks of gameplay have been left out or aren't finished yet. I still have it installed on my machine, but I don't play it anymore.

QFT. I love TW, and it saddens me to agree with you =(. At this point I'd rather fire up Medieval 2 or Rome than Empires.