Empire:Total War Demo

[imported_Imp]

I'm on Windows XP, so no "compatibility" issues to report with Steam. My major complaint is that you are essentially buying the Steam version in a labelled box, minus loading with data pre-backed-up on labelled CDs. However, the fact that you don't need the CD in the drive to run is a nice plus.

Game-wise, I am really low on money as Britain. I lost my entire navy early on (incompetent maritime fighting abilities), so most of my trade routes are blocked. The research increase from housing agents in schools went right over my head until turn 20-ish, so wasted time there. Hope I catch up soon by stealing tech.

Also, my armies are spread thin, tied down in spain quashing the remnants of a rebellion. It won't be long before I march on France though.

I hate the load times. Might funnel my tax return into a new sytem.

 

[datalink7]

Originally posted by: Markbnj
I really wish they hadn't gone the Steam route. I played all the earlier titles, so I had to buy and play this, but having Steam in the way just isn't a value proposition for me. More importantly, since I run on Vista I often have to set the compatibility properties of game shortcuts to get everything working smoothly. The most problematic areas are chunks of code requiring elevated privileges, and incompatibility with the desktop window manager, theming, and view composition. Usually turning all those things off for a specific game solves all the problems, but I have no idea how to do that when the game process is launched from within Steam. Even if you ask Steam to create a desktop shortcut what you get is a shortcut to Steam with some parameters to launch the game process. So when ETW launches I have probems with the window minimizing during load, and other issues that I could otherwise solve. I get the point of Steam for digital distribution, but I bought $45 worth of DVDs. I don't need Steam. Kind of a bummer, but I suspect it's a trend that will accelerate.

In terms of gameplay, I only messed with it for two hours last night. I'm intrigued enough to keep playing, but I did find the world as presented at startup to be pretty overwhelming. First off it's farking huge, with territories in the Americas, Caribbean, India, and all across Europe and northern Asia. Second, there is a lot going on when you pop in. I started with five or six well-developed cities, three or four navies, and issues to deal with in two or three places across the large play map. Good thing it's turn based strategy . I kind of miss the old Civ model of starting with one nomadic band and working up from there, but even the MTW model of starting with one major city and a small, landlocked civ was preferrable for me to being dumped into the middle of this much bigger thing. But I'm sure that once I get into it I'll enjoy it.

Start with Prussia. They only have two territories and no navy to start with, so they are a good beginning faction to get a handle on the game. I started with the English but it was a lot to take in at one time, even as an avid Total War player. So I restarted with the Prussians and am having a blast. I got to learn the game as I worked my way up taking territories. Going to start with the Brits next time.

 

[TehMac]

Start with the Road to Independence, it's a good guide.

 

[Regs]

The campaign map is really different from Rome and medieval though it is complimentary to the time period. One army can do a lot of damage now that you can replenish anywhere on the map so you don't need a massive horde to conquer territory or entire nations. On one hand it left me feel empty because I liked to turtle and conquer nations with multiple armies, but on the other hand I like the strategic importance of one powerful army deciding the fate of a nation in one battle.

 

[tigersty1e]

So I have the dvds the game comes with.

It comes with 2 dvd discs... I can install the game from the dvd and then activate it through Steam, no?

 

[TehMac]

Yes. You should be able to do that. However, the game will then update itself through Steam. It's a sort of positive-negative thing: STEAM forces you to play the patched version if you're connected to the intranets, but at the same time, everyone has the newest patch, etc.

Also, CA has said to something of the extent that STEAM will make it easier to support mods, and so forth.

 

[Bateluer]

ETW is pissing me off. The campaign map appears to be fine, but when I enter the battle map, I have no UI. Its drops me into the tactics area, where I seem to have full control, ie, I can move my troops around, there's sound, I can scroll around the battlefield, etc. But no UI at all. There's no Start Battle button like in M2TW/RTW, no information on my troops when they're selected/moused over. No UI at the bottom of the screen. ESC appears to do nothing. The only way I can exit the game at this point is to ctrl-alt-del and end the application.

I can auto-resolve fights on the campaign map without a problem, and I auto resolve a lot of battles, but there some battles I want to fight myself.

Any idea how to fix this issue?

 

[datalink7]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
ETW is pissing me off. The campaign map appears to be fine, but when I enter the battle map, I have no UI. Its drops me into the tactics area, where I seem to have full control, ie, I can move my troops around, there's sound, I can scroll around the battlefield, etc. But no UI at all. There's no Start Battle button like in M2TW/RTW, no information on my troops when they're selected/moused over. No UI at the bottom of the screen. ESC appears to do nothing. The only way I can exit the game at this point is to ctrl-alt-del and end the application.

I can auto-resolve fights on the campaign map without a problem, and I auto resolve a lot of battles, but there some battles I want to fight myself.

Any idea how to fix this issue?

I did a brief search and couldn't find anything.

However, I would go to the Total War Center Forums and ask there. It is a great resource for all things Total War related.

 

[Coldkilla]

Can you rank up Agents? Or can you just throw them into villages/colleges so they speed up your research. I was under the impression that if you throw them out into the field and let them learn a few things, they could then return to these structures and be even more productive. I'm not interested in the Dueling etc, stuff they can do. Just the economic side.

 

[imported_Imp]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
ETW is pissing me off. The campaign map appears to be fine, but when I enter the battle map, I have no UI. Its drops me into the tactics area, where I seem to have full control, ie, I can move my troops around, there's sound, I can scroll around the battlefield, etc. But no UI at all. There's no Start Battle button like in M2TW/RTW, no information on my troops when they're selected/moused over. No UI at the bottom of the screen. ESC appears to do nothing. The only way I can exit the game at this point is to ctrl-alt-del and end the application.

I can auto-resolve fights on the campaign map without a problem, and I auto resolve a lot of battles, but there some battles I want to fight myself.

Any idea how to fix this issue?

You sure you don't have "minimized UI/HUD" enabled? If you are in the tactical/fighting screen, the menu button is hidden in the top left corner, and shows up if you scroll over. Sounds stupid, but it's possible. I think escape works for me though; "p" or pause doesn't when it's running like shit though.

Originally posted by: Coldkilla
Can you rank up Agents? Or can you just throw them into villages/colleges so they speed up your research. I was under the impression that if you throw them out into the field and let them learn a few things, they could then return to these structures and be even more productive. I'm not interested in the Dueling etc, stuff they can do. Just the economic side.

No idea. I've seen that you can "visit" foreign schools though.

 

[Regs]

bugs bugs bugs bugs...ugh. Some are not even technical issues but game design flaws. Like units getting stuck and you can't find which ones got stuck so you cant continue a turn. Other times, you hit a turn and the save game gets corrupted. Other times you just cant progress at all and the campaign ends prematurely. Steam rolling nations are terribly easy but I'm playing on medium at the moment. Though I figured they'd at least protect their nation and lands a little harder!

 

[Markbnj]

Starting as Prussia was good advice. Much easier to get a handle on everything than it was starting as GB. I have to agree it seems fairly glitchy. I'm running on Vista and have a couple of issues, but thankfully nothing major. Just doesn't seem very smooth, and sometimes clicking on an army causes the campaign map to freeze for 15-30 seconds. Going to try cranking down the tree detail tomorrow. I really don't need wavy trees in this kind of game, and they don't look that great anyway.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: Imp

Originally posted by: Bateluer
ETW is pissing me off. The campaign map appears to be fine, but when I enter the battle map, I have no UI. Its drops me into the tactics area, where I seem to have full control, ie, I can move my troops around, there's sound, I can scroll around the battlefield, etc. But no UI at all. There's no Start Battle button like in M2TW/RTW, no information on my troops when they're selected/moused over. No UI at the bottom of the screen. ESC appears to do nothing. The only way I can exit the game at this point is to ctrl-alt-del and end the application.

I can auto-resolve fights on the campaign map without a problem, and I auto resolve a lot of battles, but there some battles I want to fight myself.

Any idea how to fix this issue?

You sure you don't have "minimized UI/HUD" enabled? If you are in the tactical/fighting screen, the menu button is hidden in the top left corner, and shows up if you scroll over. Sounds stupid, but it's possible. I think escape works for me though; "p" or pause doesn't when it's running like shit though.

I checked the screen pretty thoroughly for any signs of a minimized HUD. And I know I checked the Options for the minimized UI, which is turned off.

Seems there are a LOT of people having problems with ETW. Seems like ETW is the most buggy TW game to date. Previous titles were buggy, but not to this extent. Hopefully, we got a patch soon.

 

[ayabe]

I'm dead in the water until they release a patch, my Austrian Prestige campaign is stuck on 1789 and I refuse to start another until it's fixed.

AI seems really fubar, especially with regards to moving navies around the Caribbean, game crashes 80% of the time whenever I try to do anything over there.

 

[acheron]

I haven't had any trouble with bugs or anything yet, but I'm still doing the Road to Independence campaign.

 

[ayabe]

I think most of the problems are Vista related, at least from what I've been able to find, XP users are having an easier time of it.

 

[razor2025]

I wished they implemented the "broadside" command feature for the land battles. Muskets does jack squat damage in the far-range, so I have to manually issue attack order at the "right" timing against a charging enemy. If I can just get them to ready their musket and wait for "Fire" command....

On a different note, I'm digging the new design. Less agents to worry about. I got put off from Rome and Medieval, because managing all the agents was a chore. Now that it's limited to two class, I can focus more on battles.

Naval battles are a bit pain if you're new to it. Key thing is to make use of both side of your ship's cannons, by zig-zagging against your opponents.

 

[Cellulose]

Is the SF units worth £5? (around $8)?

I got the non-SF game but I can buy the SF code for that price.

 

[ayabe]

Originally posted by: razor2025
I wished they implemented the "broadside" command feature for the land battles. Muskets does jack squat damage in the far-range, so I have to manually issue attack order at the "right" timing against a charging enemy. If I can just get them to ready their musket and wait for "Fire" command....

On a different note, I'm digging the new design. Less agents to worry about. I got put off from Rome and Medieval, because managing all the agents was a chore. Now that it's limited to two class, I can focus more on battles.

Naval battles are a bit pain if you're new to it. Key thing is to make use of both side of your ship's cannons, by zig-zagging against your opponents.

Did you try turning off fire at will? I believe it's on by default.

 

[ElFenix]

did they screw with the camera control in the tactical map or am i just not getting it? my complaints are that the camera used to zoom in and out on a curve, and now just moves straight up and down it seems, and i can't figure out how to rotate around a point in front of the camera.

 

[ZzZGuy]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
did they screw with the camera control in the tactical map or am i just not getting it? my complaints are that the camera used to zoom in and out on a curve, and now just moves straight up and down it seems, and i can't figure out how to rotate around a point in front of the camera.

IIRC there is a option to revert back to M2: TW mouse and camera controls in the keyboard menu somewhere.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: razor2025


On a different note, I'm digging the new design. Less agents to worry about. I got put off from Rome and Medieval, because managing all the agents was a chore. Now that it's limited to two class, I can focus more on battles.

M2TW only had four agents, merchants, priests, diplomats, and princesses. Merchants were pretty much useless. Priests increased religious %. Diplomats and princesses practiced diplomacy. Not exactly hard to manage.

 

[imported_Imp]

Originally posted by: Regs
bugs bugs bugs bugs...ugh. Some are not even technical issues but game design flaws. Like units getting stuck and you can't find which ones got stuck so you cant continue a turn. Other times, you hit a turn and the save game gets corrupted. Other times you just cant progress at all and the campaign ends prematurely. Steam rolling nations are terribly easy but I'm playing on medium at the moment. Though I figured they'd at least protect their nation and lands a little harder!

AI is pissy. I lost count of how many troops I lost because I marched them to point blank range to engage an enemy, After mashing fire 10 times, they just stand there to be raped by the enemy at point blank range. Also, when you have troops behind walls, they sometimes don't bother to fire. I lost the Hudson Bay region cause half by troops, entrenched, didn't fire at a few melee units charging.

 

[postmortemIA]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: razor2025


On a different note, I'm digging the new design. Less agents to worry about. I got put off from Rome and Medieval, because managing all the agents was a chore. Now that it's limited to two class, I can focus more on battles.

M2TW only had four agents, merchants, priests, diplomats, and princesses. Merchants were pretty much useless. Priests increased religious %. Diplomats and princesses practiced diplomacy. Not exactly hard to manage.

merchants were key to be rich, you missed it.

a good merchant could make up to 500f/turn, and additionally conquer other merchants worth thousands.

 

[Dorkenstein]

In Empire, how do you avoid shooting your own infantry while not putting your musket men on the very front line? Unless I am missing something here.