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Empire: Total War's upcoming patch

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Originally posted by: Sylvanas
Originally posted by: TehMac
Shit that's even worse, I run my res at 1920x1200

Oh well, I better prepare for some rough times in Empire. Although I think it sounds more like a CPU limitation than anything else.
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It is. A High end CPU will do more for you in this than anything else. I play at Ultra 1920x1200 2xAA and just upgrading to a X4 955 over a previous 9950 I saw a huge jump in FPS, when the patch hit's on Monday I think the importance of a good multicore/thread CPU will indeed stand out.
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You have a Phenom II eh?

I have a Phenom II 810 x4 @ 2.6Ghz, I might overclock to 3.0 Ghz on a stock cooler, I think my chassis should be able to dispel the extra hot air anyway.

But that's what it sounds like. I'm glad they're adding the support now, I'll be installing this baby tomorrow.

Originally posted by: Koudelka
I play on max settings 4xAA with gtx260, i7, 6gb ram and no problems. Game seems to be a lot more CPU intensive than you'd think. Any medium-high end card will get the job done.
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Yeah, i7 is a beast. I was going to get one, but the motherboards are as expensive as the bloody cpus--some even more so. It's bloody ridiculous.

edit: In regards to graphics settings, do you have AA forced through your drivers or is your AA set ingame? I thought ETW supported higher than 4xAA. I know CoH does with a gtx260 (The max setting for CoH with my old x1900xt was 4xAA--now it is 16xQ.)
 
Originally posted by: brblx
maybe this will make the game playable.

over three months after release.
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That's not too bad if you think about it. Medieval 2 took over half a year to get the same patch done. And many people are playing it atm with minimal problems.
 
Ingame settings. I'd imagine AA would be even more of a FPS hit in ETW than normal especially if you have your unit size maxed out.

Yeah, the i7's are expensive, but i bit the bullet on this one. Built a new rig and better to spend a few more dollars on an i7 i can upgrade later on.. than having to buy a whole new motherboard/cpu combo later.
 
Honestly, I wish there was an option to disable the ability to enter buildings. If you have unit size maxed out, its nothing more than a complete pain in the ass to have 160 infantry inside a house with about 6-9 of them shooting. And half the time the buildings get bug'd and it will not let me enter them and i have to stand outside for 15 minutes shooting at them 1 by 1.
 
Originally posted by: TehMac
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You have a Phenom II eh?

I have a Phenom II 810 x4 @ 2.6Ghz, I might overclock to 3.0 Ghz on a stock cooler, I think my chassis should be able to dispel the extra hot air anyway.

But that's what it sounds like. I'm glad they're adding the support now, I'll be installing this baby tomorrow.
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Yeah 3.0ghz should be a breeze and don't forget to overclock that northbridge aswell as it helps substantially almost as much as core speed, especially in single threaded or memory intensive applications.

 
I start seeing the advantages of multi-core CPU's for gaming since a few months now, I myself am slowly but surely making my plans for a full system upgrade, but I will wait until the next Intel architecture is out (or a refresh), I will skip Nehalem and go for either Westmere or perhaps Sandy Bridge, and I do have the patience for that, all I want until then is to see developers working on improving performance by optimizing their multi-threading codes for games, and Creative Assembly are even going as far as still doing performance improvements for single-core CPU's, and that's one rare thing nowadays, I applaud them for doing it, with developers like that all around the place we wouldn't need to even consider upgrading our systems for gaming purposes each year or two.
 
Originally posted by: TehMac
So how's the patch? Anyone try it?
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Some over at the totalwar.org are saying the alt+tab is causing crashes where before it wasnt. I havent played the game yet today so I havent tried the new patch to see whats new/better/different.
 
I just finished downloading the patch, just came back from work, and well, so far I can start-up the game without any problems. I've also read a few moments ago on the Total War Center forums that apparently lots of people are reporting CTD's before the main menu appears, but I for one am not experiencing that problem. There's a new Steam Store option on the bottom right corner of the main menu now, nifty thing from Creative Assembly to do that, just to make sure that we keep getting reminded that new content is available and always keep the temptation in our minds to buy the damn thing. That DLC contains 14 new units, excluding the new ones from the patch itself, from what I've read so far.
 
I've downloaded the patch and played the tutorial and so far no problems. Granted, I never played it without the patch so I have nothing to really compare it to.
 
Yeah, I'm not all that interested in DLC, I'm trying to learn how the game works. I'm playing the Road to Independence, and it sort of makes sense, but I'm not all that impressed so far. 🙁
 
i thought the road to independence was pretty silly.

i guess i'll try and start up another grand campaign. i've dealt with the performance hitches, but if the AI and diplomacy are still utterly broken i'm surely going to let it be known...
 
Can someone give a brief rundown on what exactly I'm supposed to do in a Grand Campaign (that's the one with all the different empires on the world map right)? I've never played this type of game before. Am I supposed to just go around trying to conquer land and ships? Is it sort of like Risk? How many moves do I get in one turn?
 
Originally posted by: thilan29
Can someone give a brief rundown on what exactly I'm supposed to do in a Grand Campaign (that's the one with all the different empires on the world map right)? I've never played this type of game before. Am I supposed to just go around trying to conquer land and ships? Is it sort of like Risk? How many moves do I get in one turn?
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tutorial? manual? adviser? when you pick grand campaign, it tells you what goal is.
 
Originally posted by: postmortemIA
tutorial? manual? adviser? when you pick grand campaign, it tells you what goal is.
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Does the Steam version come with a tutorial? Okay maybe I should try the Road to Independence first.
 
you simply can't enjoy this game unless you learn how to properly play - you will get nowhere and everybody will beat you. Steam version is no different than any other version, it also comes with manual (right click on game's name)
 
Patch 1.2 did a lot for me. Before then it was unplayable.

I still get the out of vram error after an hour or so of playing. I dont think they're going to fix that anytime soon.
 
Originally posted by: thilan29
Originally posted by: postmortemIA
tutorial? manual? adviser? when you pick grand campaign, it tells you what goal is.
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Does the Steam version come with a tutorial? Okay maybe I should try the Road to Independence first.
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That's where I started. I've played the Civilization series so it wasn't a huge jump for me, but at least in Independence they start you off slow.
Plan on starting a grand campaign once I finish this off. The game started off slow for me, but I'm finding myself more and more impressed with the level of detail, and I've barely gotten anywhere.
 
Originally posted by: Regs
Patch 1.2 did a lot for me. Before then it was unplayable.

I still get the out of vram error after an hour or so of playing. I dont think they're going to fix that anytime soon.
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Using latest video card drivers?

I am now 10years into the Grand campaign as the Dutch and the new units are quite fun, adds more diversity to the battlefield. Performance improvements are very evident, Sea battles do not suffer any horrible slow downs and the audio hitching has ceased. As I continue I will have see if there is any change in the AI but even now it is very clear that the Pirates are more intelligent. Instead of pirate fleet sitting in trade theaters and not attacking your ships at anchor they will now pursue and engage any and all ships in the theater- so be sure to send an escort with your trade ships to clear them out.
 
Originally posted by: Sylvanas
Originally posted by: Regs
Patch 1.2 did a lot for me. Before then it was unplayable.

I still get the out of vram error after an hour or so of playing. I dont think they're going to fix that anytime soon.
Click to expand...

Using latest video card drivers?

I am now 10years into the Grand campaign as the Dutch and the new units are quite fun, adds more diversity to the battlefield. Performance improvements are very evident, Sea battles do not suffer any horrible slow downs and the audio hitching has ceased. As I continue I will have see if there is any change in the AI but even now it is very clear that the Pirates are more intelligent. Instead of pirate fleet sitting in trade theaters and not attacking your ships at anchor they will now pursue and engage any and all ships in the theater- so be sure to send an escort with your trade ships to clear them out.
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Hm I should try that. One of those things I usually don't forget about but I guess it's a sign I?m starting to grow out of gaming.

How about campaign AI? When they increased the upkeep costs on the previous patch, I noticed much of the AI couldn't muster up enough forces. AI navel fleets were scarce and I could steam role cities with one army. I played as GB and I took over France and Spain with one whole army. Maybe that's what they want, but to me that's boring. They need more hard points on the campaign map. Forts are hardly ever manned, and their resources are wide open for plundering. Capitals aren't getting the job down IMO, and the AI isn't smart enough to protect their land. It's usually just a city garrison and a small army located right outside the capital city.
 
There's lots of good feedback on the TWCenter forums about the campaign A.I with that new patch, it's supposedly more efficient at pretty much everything, especially attacking trading routes and forming more consistent diplomatic relations without breaking them the next turn.
 
It seems there is an issue with missing units in this update. People with the Special forces edition and those that bought the recent DLC might be missing these extra units (the free ones from patch 1.3 are all still there). I noticed my Special forces units were not there today so I hope they issue a hotfix patch soon. CA have acknowledged this and here is the response:
Dear All,

We've been aware since early this morning that some of you are missing units having purchased / updated via Steam.

As far as we can currently tell this may be to do with the Steam client update issued last night, and is seperate from Empire.

We are urgently talking to Valve to identify the source of the problem, so those of you who are trying to use new units will have these all fixed as soon as possible.

We are aware of the issue and are looking into it now, we hope to have it fixed for you as soon as possible.
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CA's post
 
CTD's out the ying-yang for me, feels like a timewarp back to release day. I'm done with this title.

Edit - And diplomacy is worse than fucking ever, turn 3 and every damn minor in the whole game is on your ass.
 
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