Empire : Total War

[Calax]

One of the biggest things to note withing Empire that seems to have been missed is with the expansion of the campaign map came a few... weird changes.

For example, France is no longer a couple of povinces, instead france itself is one MASSIVE province (as is spain) that can be taken in ONE fight (when you take paris). Also each of the theaters when put together might make the same size as MTW/RTW/MTW2 but each of the theatres is quite small (you can get from one side of europe to the other pretty dang fast).

As britan I sat there for about 14 years twiddling my thumbs before deciding to try a fight (the Huron Confederacy), They actually took an outpost i had in the americas, but I was able to get troops in there retake the outpost then take the Huron homeland within about 10 turns. Then on of my allies got into a scrap with france and I shrugged and invaded them wiping them out within 4 years (totally...).

All in all I think that the grand campaign was hit to hard with simplification in terms of # of provinces in europe (at least). One thing I think that they shouldn't have done was the addition of india. India feels in terms of size about as big as europe itself, and most of the provinces are at least as big as France by itself. I've yet to try sending my military in there, but it seems like they could have dropped india completely and expanded europe and had a better game for it.

On the technical side, I haven't fought with bugs as much as some others seem to have. The graphics seem to be degraded from previous installments on the battle map, but a part of me wants to blame that on the fact that you're using rifles rather than swords for the most part. The AI is dumber than a box of rocks, often running strait into a kill scape you set up (by standing on a hill with your troops in a very wide U shape) and get diced to pieces. Arty seems to be useless except to knock down fortifications, which I don't believe was historically accurate. I mean I've sat there and pounded away at an advancing army taking out about 15 people in the time it took them to get from their deployment spot to being within my armies range. The only time hitting an army with artillery was ever useful was when my first barrage at a troop deployed near a wall, took out the enemy general by a fluke.

I think most of my dislikes will be fixed by the mod community, but I still think that Europe should be larger than india.

Edit: I did want to add that oddly, if you win by large margins it'll still be called a "close" victory. If you win by STUPIDLY large margins it'll be called decisive, I've yet to have a Heroic victory.

 

[Wicky_42]

I've had a heroic victory - I think I lost about 15 men to almost 1000 or some such silliness, heh.

Artillery's fine - 6 units if it in one army broke several enemy platoons before they got into rifle range, and then continued the bombardment as they stood there trading musket balls. Less expensive than replacing all those squishy troops.

A couple of nice features not already mentioned:
-Diplomacy is streamlined, and the addition of being able to make expensive state gifts makes it much easier to open negotiations - something I struggled with in previous games.

-Unit reinforcement and recruitment can now be made whilst the army is on the march. New units will automatically move to join the army once they are produced, and being able to reinforce your men after a full tern has passed no matter where you are adds flexibility and momentum to your armies. With enough cash you can just keep on rolling >

-There are now only 2 turns to a year - I believe there were 4 in Medieval 2. Unit movement distance is much larger than it was in previous games, and there's now the addition of a large zone of control around each army and fort. Should an enemy enter it you get the option to attack, and if you enter an enemy's zone you cannot move past without attacking them first. This allows you to set up forts in chokepoints much more effectively than was possible in Medieval.

-Cavalry is now almost exclusively a harrying force - charge a group of riflemen from the front and expect HEAVY casualties. Charge through your own men and watch both sides suffer. Move them through cross-fire and see the horses just melt away. However, charge them into the flank of an engaged enemy line and you can break their entire battlefront with perhaps a single cavalry unit. Good times

-Taxes are now raised against middle and lower classes separately, allowing you to either please the masses (resulting in higher population growth) or support the industrialists, looking to build future prosperity (albeit with less in the coffers for the time being).

-If you are counter-attacked during a siege your troops can deploy cavalry traps and raised trenches for cover, and artillery can dig in, becoming much better defended at the cost of being immobile and limiting the fire arc.

I've not had much trouble with bugs or any such - it's crashed randomly (mem leak) twice, but both times the end of turn auto-save meant I didn't loose much noticeable progress. Looks nice, sound effects could do with being bulked up but are ok. One thing is the naval combat - kinda suck horribly at it, and I swear the AI doesn't always obey the same wind laws that I'm saddled with, heh. That, coupled with the occasionally (though not persistently) deaf units, refusing to turn to meet the foe, or ignoring an attack order, are perhaps my only real peeves after having completed the mini-campaign 'Road to Independence', which btw is a very nice way of introducing you to the game in a more structured way than launching into the grand campaign straight off.

 

[StPararararanex]

Does anyone else miss the speech that your general would give at the start of each battle? Why did they get rid of that? I thought it added character to the battles. I also liked how it used to zoom to a defeated general in battle so you could actually see him get killed.

The new "size" of the map doesnt really bother me, I thought there were way too many cities before and I much enjoy the farms and such scattered throughout the map.

My main complaint is the AI. I understand that a game like this is probably difficult to setup AI for, but why are the enemies so ridiculous? You'd think they would have finally got it right this time... One battle where the enemy sent in reinforcements I just stood on the other side of a river, with all my lines setup in a U formation. The computer just sent in cavalry after cavalry unit straight into them, not even all together, they did it one at a time. I've seen many other occasions where the CPU seems to have no clue what to do at all and simply keeps reorganizing their lines and moving around the map in a completely non-tactical manner. When things like that happen it just makes me think of auto-resolving each battle because 70% of the time its going to be the CPU doing something totally stupid.

It sounds like I don't like the game but I'm having fun with it still.

 

[Luke_446]

i have only played the demo version and have had no real crashing problems even on ultra high. the game seems fairly fun but i must agree i hope the AI on the real game is smarter than the demo because they just march slowly towards you as you set up long lines of infantry to mow them down, oh and the artillery occasionally freezes refusing to fire of hook up to the horses for movement.

 

[Luke_446]

oh forgot to say the sea battles are real difficult the ships need individually managing to cause any real damage but there is no way to manage more than two fully at a time and without constant attention the just sit idle getting shot to shreds by the enemy. oh and maybe im just really bad having never played before but the mini map is just to small you cant tell what is going on e.g i had my admiral ship sat doing nothing while all my other ships were engaged but i never realised till the end and by then i only had it left against there admiral and a second class ship of the line.

 

[oliveira8]

Does anyone else miss the speech that your general would give at the start of each battle? Why did they get rid of that? I thought it added character to the battles. I also liked how it used to zoom to a defeated general in battle so you could actually see him get killed.
The new "size" of the map doesnt really bother me, I thought there were way too many cities before and I much enjoy the farms and such scattered throughout the map.

Around this time period few generals marched with their troops into battle, and no longer there were speeches. Most Generals started to sit behind the lines, cause of the risk of getting killed more easily by musket fire, or getting blowed up by a cannon ball.

I too prefer the fact that theres less towns to raid, cause 80% of the battles in other TW games were sieges and they were..well...boring. This way it makes armies come out of their forts/cities so you can have more open battles. What they shouldnt have done was, take the capital and you destroy faction. They should let the faction be in game but give the said faction a time limit to set up a new goverment and retake the capital.

 

[Calax]

Does anyone else miss the speech that your general would give at the start of each battle? Why did they get rid of that? I thought it added character to the battles. I also liked how it used to zoom to a defeated general in battle so you could actually see him get killed.
The new "size" of the map doesnt really bother me, I thought there were way too many cities before and I much enjoy the farms and such scattered throughout the map.

Around this time period few generals marched with their troops into battle, and no longer there were speeches. Most Generals started to sit behind the lines, cause of the risk of getting killed more easily by musket fire, or getting blowed up by a cannon ball.

I too prefer the fact that theres less towns to raid, cause 80% of the battles in other TW games were sieges and they were..well...boring. This way it makes armies come out of their forts/cities so you can have more open battles. What they shouldnt have done was, take the capital and you destroy faction. They should let the faction be in game but give the said faction a time limit to set up a new goverment and retake the capital.

I actually prefer the seiges in these over the old ones, probably because you can seige right out of the box rather than have to wait 3 turns to put together enough engines to make it onto the walls. As to the capital/faction thing, actually if you take the capital in europe, it moves to the next province they own in europe, the problem is that most european countries only really own 1 or 2 provinces that you march through on your way to their capital ANYWAY so they can't run very far once you've taken the capital.

I managed to wipe out france (as britan), and immediately after france died Ottowa popped up as it's own country, and the other territories it held quickly became rebels. this kinda bugged me because Ottowa only had ONE territory and the other french holdings in the area became rebels that I quickly snagged for myself completely isolating Ottowa from everyone else.

As to territory size, I've found that you can't really blockade anywhere on land anymore because of the sheer speed your armies move about the field. Within ONE turn from landing within a province I can take it. I took Paris one turn after I landed my army on the normandy coast. their armies were south of paris so after I took it I had to defend against two hastily attacking armies who got demolished by the standard "set up in a U and wait" war doctrine.

 

[angryfinger]

Great game ... but you may loose some of your life to it !!!

 

[AndyFromMonday]

I got it...it's pretty good I suppose, but I can't get into it. Guess I'll just go back to Rome: Total War.

 

[S.H.A.R.P.]

I have had the luxury of a quite stable game, and almost no crashes as of yet. I play as the Netherlands (United Provinces), and am playing on med/med difficulty. It is a breeze to be honest. The entirety of India was taken in about 10-15 turns. As others have mentioned, France was destroyed in a few turns (which was really a bummer, not the France I've read about).

I do like most of the new features of the game. One of the good improvements is the diplomacy system. Instead of sending a diplomat to each faction, you can make a deal with everybody without a hassle. At the beginning of the game, other factions are actually quite reasonable, especially if you give them a nice state gift like some jewels or a pretty pony. Now that I'm more powerful though, everybody kind-off hates me, even Great Britain, who have been my ally since the beginning, is regarding me with hostility.

The technology part is also quite interesting. You can really focus on warfare (land or sea), production (agricultural or industrial), and philosophy (economy or, well, philosophy). The tech trees seem quite balanced, and it takes quite a while before you researched it all.

At the beginning the battles were at most interesting, but now I researched all of the warfare advances, things are really quite exciting. It's very useful to have a balanced army, though you might suffice with 20 regiments of infantry of the line, it's far more interesting to have a few riflemen (they absolutely rock), grenadiers, cavalry, light dragoons, 24lb'er cannons (raking canister shot, I love you) and a splash of rocket artillery, all helping to support your line infantry.

I haven't had much to do with naval warfare. I tried it a few times, but I must have missed a tutorial somewhere (I skipped the Road to Independence), since the PC resolves the battles better then I can (which far from the truth on land battles). I do realize now that I haven't seen my Heavy 1st Rate Ships of the Line in action yet, so I should at least try it, even though the opposition has a less then meagre fleet at sea.

I also like the trading system in the game. Depending on the amount of neighbouring factions, and the size of your home trading port, you can have a number of trade agreements with other countries. You can gain these trading agreements through the diplomacy screen, and you actually have to plan them out quite well in order to get the most gain. There are also four specific trade regions, with each about five ports where you can let a trade ship do it's work. I found out the hard way though, that if your home port gets occupied, you lose nearly all of your trade income, which for the Netherlands, proves quite devastating.

All in all, I am really enjoying this game and it's new features. I am looking forward to crank up the difficulty in my next play through (probably the British), and see how challenging it gets, because it's going a bit too fast now. I can really recommend it, though you should be a bit careful, since there are quite a few complaints about the instability.

 

[Undead Dragon King]

Playing as France was an incredibly edifying experience. Seeing just how much ass Frenchies can kick really made me re-evaluate my idea of them. Strangely enough, La Revolucion never occured for me. Around 1750 (when I had completed the entire tech tree) I dismantled my schools and put up Seminaries and Pleasure Gardens. Since I was getting so much cash from America and India, I kept taxes in Europe to a minimum and still got 75,000 gold per turn. King Louis XXI was sitting cool in Paris on New Year's Eve, 1799. Thus Bourbon France ruled the world.

Next up on the campaign block: Poland! Let's see how YOU like getting stepped on, Europe!

 

[Undead Dragon King]

It's very useful to have a balanced army, though you might suffice with 20 regiments of infantry of the line, it's far more interesting to have a few riflemen (they absolutely rock), grenadiers, cavalry, light dragoons, 24lb'er cannons (raking canister shot, I love you) and a splash of rocket artillery, all helping to support your line infantry.

I would say that armies should still mostly comprise of Line Infantry, with only a dashing of Elite Infantry for Morale purposes. Platoon Firing just doesn't compare to Rank Firing! I found that our the hard way as France.

I really enjoyed the 24 lb'er cannons for a while, but then I discovered 24 lb'er Howitzers. They are now my artillery of choice. They can fire safely behind your line (or fortress wall), and their ammunition is breathtaking when you research it all. Percussion shells are like the Grim Reaper himself, and don't get me started on the quicklime shells!

Let's also not forget the most entertaining artillery pieces: The Puckle Guns!

 

[Fightgarr]

The only thing I really have to critique in terms of phrasing is that this sentence sounds awkward:

Land combat is fairly unchanged aside from the annoying fences which seem to be more of a challenge to cavalry and infantry than it would seem

Other than that it was a pretty well-written review.

 

[Vlane]

Next up on the campaign block: Poland! Let's see how YOU like getting stepped on, Europe!

Like that doesn't already happens *looks at Steam*. Curse you!

 

[S.H.A.R.P.]

It's very useful to have a balanced army, though you might suffice with 20 regiments of infantry of the line, it's far more interesting to have a few riflemen (they absolutely rock), grenadiers, cavalry, light dragoons, 24lb'er cannons (raking canister shot, I love you) and a splash of rocket artillery, all helping to support your line infantry.

I would say that armies should still mostly comprise of Line Infantry, with only a dashing of Elite Infantry for Morale purposes. Platoon Firing just doesn't compare to Rank Firing! I found that our the hard way as France.

I really enjoyed the 24 lb'er cannons for a while, but then I discovered 24 lb'er Howitzers. They are now my artillery of choice. They can fire safely behind your line (or fortress wall), and their ammunition is breathtaking when you research it all. Percussion shells are like the Grim Reaper himself, and don't get me started on the quicklime shells!

Let's also not forget the most entertaining artillery pieces: The Puckle Guns!

I've had armies with just about 4 line infrantry, 2 guards, 6 rifle man, 2 grenadiers, 2 24lb'er, 2 rocket, 1 general, 1 cavalry, and shamelessly kicked butt. Though I concur, after having researched the fire by rank, line infantry made mincemeat out of those indians!
I haven't tried any other artillery then the 24lb'er and the rockets though, I should give it a try, these percussion shells sounds like some awesome kick-ass =).

 

[Pimppeter2]

Good Review, but try to do more transitioning

 

[Ancientgamer]

There's just one thing I have to know... Is there anything that replaces those awful crusades?

 

[oliveira8]

There's just one thing I have to know... Is there anything that replaces those awful crusades?

Theres Native Americans to kill...dont know what you really mean.

 

[Ancientgamer]

There's just one thing I have to know... Is there anything that replaces those awful crusades?

Theres Native Americans to kill...dont know what you really mean.

ME2 The pope would always call crusades, that if you didn't go on, most of your armies would probably desert anyway. It'd get real annoying. Spent 27 years amassing the most effective army the world's ever seen? Ready to unleash your hoards and descend upon Europe with a vengeance? Suddenly... LOLCRUSADE!

 

[Ronwue]

Nothing to replace those awful crusades.