RE: Empire Total War

RE: Empire Total War (Full Version)

All Forums >> [General] >> General Discussion

Message

moose1999 -> RE: Empire Total War (2/22/2009 9:34:18 AM)
I have a pretty mediocre system and the load times weren't that terrible for me... About 1-2 minutes.

leastonh1 -> RE: Empire Total War (2/22/2009 9:51:03 AM)
LOL! So, the better spec PC you have, the longer it takes to load. Ironic. Is that just because of the textures and mappings you get with a better gfx card and more memory?

Joram -> RE: Empire Total War (2/22/2009 11:21:16 AM)
I have a decent system and it didn't take too long though it did crash on me once. Lots of eyecandy but found controlling the units a bit more difficult for some reason. Just have to get used to it I guess though I really do like the fine tuning controls they have now (turn right, left, forward, back). Those helped considerably. I really didn't feel like I had a clue with the naval battle but it was very pretty. The 'tracer' comment someone had was a bit harsh. They are very unobtrusive and is a fair enough concession for gameplay so you know that you are firing at what you expect to be firing at. If you're looking for realism in the naval battle, be prepared for lots of concessions. I was a little surprised to win only a 'close' victory in both the land and naval battle despite in both cases having inflicted more than twice as many casualties. In the naval battle, didn't even lose a single ship or come close really(though flagship morale wavered because it somehow got set on fire). Did experience some pathing issues on my side though the AI side seemed improved. A couple times my cav went into odd drawn out formations. In the naval battle, I couldn't figure out if there were formations or not but it would be a real shame if there weren't. Will have to withhold judgment until the final product and a patch comes out.

Joram -> RE: Empire Total War (2/22/2009 11:28:45 AM)
Oh, and regarding "Steam". The pre-order box quite clearly states that you will need an internet connection and Steam to activate. I would presume this means you need the client but I suppose they may have come up with something new.

leastonh1 -> RE: Empire Total War (2/22/2009 11:32:50 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Joram Oh, and regarding "Steam". The pre-order box quite clearly states that you will need an internet connection and Steam to activate. I would presume this means you need the client but I suppose they may have come up with something new. Yes, that does mean you do have to have the Steam client installed, which defeats the object for me. Presumably, it also means patches will only be available via Steam too. Again, I'll forget it and save my money for when Matrix release something shiny and new. [:)]

Phatguy -> RE: Empire Total War (2/22/2009 1:43:40 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Jim_H quote: ORIGINAL: Joram Oh, and regarding "Steam". The pre-order box quite clearly states that you will need an internet connection and Steam to activate. I would presume this means you need the client but I suppose they may have come up with something new. Yes, that does mean you do have to have the Steam client installed, which defeats the object for me. Presumably, it also means patches will only be available via Steam too. Again, I'll forget it and save my money for when Matrix release something shiny and new. [:)] Yeah, I have issues with anything that forces me to patch when it wants, not when I want

sol_invictus -> RE: Empire Total War (2/22/2009 3:01:27 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: V22 Osprey I may get Empire:Total War, but I am not willing to pay 50 bucks for it. Amazon has it for $40. Yes, you do need Steam to activate your game and I presume to patch, but you don't need Steam running while you play; after the game has been activated. Demo was great and the AI was a step up from previous TW games. It does seem from my own experience and reading several forums, that the ones having the most technical problems are those who have higher end systems. My Specs Duo 2.4 E6600 4MB cache 2 MB Ram GeForce 7900 GTX 512MB XP A fairly mediocre system. I auto-detected to Ultra settings but went with Trilinear and no Shadows and the game runs great. Once I get the boxed game and activate it, I can turn off Steam, Firewall, and Anti-Virus after I disconnect from the internet, so the game should be able to run that much better without those background programs running.

Phatguy -> RE: Empire Total War (2/23/2009 4:40:48 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Arinvald quote: ORIGINAL: V22 Osprey I may get Empire:Total War, but I am not willing to pay 50 bucks for it. Amazon has it for $40. Yes, you do need Steam to activate your game and I presume to patch, but you don't need Steam running while you play; after the game has been activated. Demo was great and the AI was a step up from previous TW games. It does seem from my own experience and reading several forums, that the ones having the most technical problems are those who have higher end systems. My Specs Duo 2.4 E6600 4MB cache 2 MB Ram GeForce 7900 GTX 512MB XP A fairly mediocre system. I auto-detected to Ultra settings but went with Trilinear and no Shadows and the game runs great. Once I get the boxed game and activate it, I can turn off Steam, Firewall, and Anti-Virus after I disconnect from the internet, so the game should be able to run that much better without those background programs running. Sure you can, until everything goes splat when steam and your computer try to contact each other so steam can foist the patch on you when it wants... While I hope it is like you said and we all can disconnect steam, I have a deep dark suspicion that every once in a while Empire will try to call steam to see whats up with a patch and if there is no connection..oops

JudgeDredd -> RE: Empire Total War (2/23/2009 7:29:33 AM)
Far be it for me to stick up for Steam, but you can right click on your game and select "Do not automatically update this game"...the only downside to this, that I know of, is inconsistent online versions, meaning you will have issues playing against other people (like Team Fortress 2). So you are NOT locked in to automatically updating games with that 400MB patch...you can switch it off. And the game will not break if it cannot get a connection. You will be able to play as before. Thanks alot you guys....making me stick up for steam [:@] [:'(]

Joram -> RE: Empire Total War (2/23/2009 8:08:43 AM)
LOL JD. Before you know it, you'll be the Man! I'm with you though, I have Steam and never had any issues with it since the early days of Vista. But they patched it up and it's pretty unobtrusive to me. I'm much more concerned with the gameplay and some of the bugs people have pointed out from the demo than I am about Steam.

leastonh1 -> RE: Empire Total War (2/23/2009 10:04:14 AM)
LOL! JD - The Steam fanboi [:D] I did turn auto updates off after a while as I got very fed up with it wanting to install updates so often. I installed everything from the Orange Box and ended up getting something like 1Gb updates. It was ridiculous anwyay. I would happily give away my nearly new copy of Orange Box, but as it's tied into my Steam account, I doubt it would be much use to anyone.

Phatguy -> RE: Empire Total War (2/23/2009 1:09:53 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd Far be it for me to stick up for Steam, but you can right click on your game and select "Do not automatically update this game"...the only downside to this, that I know of, is inconsistent online versions, meaning you will have issues playing against other people (like Team Fortress 2). So you are NOT locked in to automatically updating games with that 400MB patch...you can switch it off. And the game will not break if it cannot get a connection. You will be able to play as before. Thanks alot you guys....making me stick up for steam [:@] [:'(] Have you made a pact with the gentleman with the pointy tail?Have you no shame....[;)] Seriously, that sounds better than I heard.......

Phatguy -> RE: Empire Total War (2/23/2009 1:15:10 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Joram LOL JD. Before you know it, you'll be the Man! I'm with you though, I have Steam and never had any issues with it since the early days of Vista. But they patched it up and it's pretty unobtrusive to me. I'm much more concerned with the gameplay and some of the bugs people have pointed out from the demo than I am about Steam. Well, the one problem that I still get is that Steam absolutlely, positively refuses to shut down automatically when I want to shut down my system.Yes, I did everything but the damn program refuses to die and the only way to shut my system down is to sit there and handhold it until steam pops up and then manually terminate it. Or, if I remember to, go down into taskbar and shut it down there prior to shutting the system down...Too much work..imho And anyways, I have issues with CA anyways and thier policies on Collectors editions elite units. It would be like Matrix popping out an Eastern front game and charging us 20 bucks more for the collectors copy because it has "elite "units.. Gee, guess what? you bought the regular? sorry charlie..no Guards and SS, they are in the collectors edition!Go buy another copy! So the whole thing is Iffy for me right now... Crap, while im on my rant let keep going..... Another one... Is there going to be a problem making mods? If Billy makes a mod using the elite units, will it work on joeys vanilla edition? How about vice Versa? Is team going to create problems for mods? . What if at some point steam decides to charge everyone for being a steam member..Is my copy going to be bad if I refuse?I don't know as this will be possibly my first foray into steam and it's policies SO the "Special Forces" edition has extras besides those units mentioned earlier..You get a DVD, a book and a handy dandy fold out map..ok, sounds like stuff that came in regular copies 15 yrs ago. Now, how and why the Hell is steam selling this? Why would someone pay them for a DL only Collectors edition, for 20 bucks more and just get what? scans of the extras? I just dont get it...Must be my age and meds..I dont understand the business and purchasing practices of these young whippersnappers........

ilovestrategy -> RE: Empire Total War (2/23/2009 4:43:39 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: apathetic lurker And anyways, I have issues with CA anyways What is CA?

JudgeDredd -> RE: Empire Total War (2/23/2009 5:00:27 PM)
Company that makes it, I thought. Creative Assembly??

Phatguy -> RE: Empire Total War (2/23/2009 8:23:31 PM)
Yes

ilovestrategy -> RE: Empire Total War (2/24/2009 7:04:29 AM)
Ahhh ok. Thanks! [:)]

Zakhal -> RE: Empire Total War (2/24/2009 8:55:00 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins Don't forget about the upcoming Crown of Glory: Emperor's Edition if you want detailed land and naval battles, great strategic gameplay as well as a great AI! [8D] The new sea battles looks good. I might buy the new CoG too and this time with a printed manual (if such is available). Allthough Im having some doubts about empire total war. The last game was beyond bad. I never lost a single battle. After conquering the whole europe with minor nation I didnt see what point there was to play anymore. I never played the original game. Just modded versions.

mack2 -> RE: Empire Total War (2/25/2009 9:47:50 AM)
The Special Edition stuff is all publisher/distributor/retailer driven, the devs get told to add 7 units into the game by the publisher (who pays the bills), the publishers turn that into a special edition, maybe a collectors edition as well (with a few random pieces of crap), and sell it for $10 or $20 more. As for the steam haters.. try offline mode. If your pc is so crap you can't run a progam that only takes maybe 30,000 k of memory, and your internet is so poor you can't patch games (try the "do not download updates button), then maybe modern games aren't for you. I have 27 games installed via steam, and 8 which aren't installed, and I've never had a problem with it. Yeah, you might get launch day issues, but try having some patience. Now as for the actual game. I became interested in the game (and preordered it) from the new Naval action (I'm 14 books into the Aubrey/Maturin series, and recently finished playing a age of sail mmo), but going via the demo, it's not flash hot. It has pathing and formation issues (I tried to get my ships, who had passed the enemy in opposite direction, to turn around and get back in the same direction, 2 of them hit each other and a 3rd hit the enemy flagship), as well as some less than perfect behaviour (ships changing sail/speed when not told, ships that should be firing by doing slight turns to get their guns into position, instead just sitting there getting pounded). I think the full version and modding will help in this regard. The land battles were extremely surprising. I really wasn't expecting that level of graphical quality, and at least IMO, looks like the full version will be challenging and AI able to punish errors. In the main version of the demo, once you head over the river the AI enables, and it moves it forces to counter you moving over the river (if you go the full front attack you are charging into half a dozen units + 8 x 24lbr cannons, suicide), and after you get the hang of the interface, you can end up in really fierce, close range gun battles, as well as having alot of tactical scope for how you do so. There is also alot of modding availble for the demo itself, including deployment, unit size, play as america, activate rank firing, activate certain tactical abilities, for the land battles. Some go so far as to change the unit compositions, and I think you can also change it to the actual tutorial map as well, which is more open. Mods for the naval battle include activating a 2nd naval mission, and also being able to completely change the makeup of the 2 sides in the default battle, in scope from a 1v1 Surprise vs Acheron duel, to a Trafalgar near recreation with 20 ships a side. Oh, there is also ways to improve load times (unpacking certain files), which also is required for the demo mods. I didn't find them that long anyway. I do get one annoying bug, where the text doesn't show up properly, but that might be a GPU driver issue.

JudgeDredd -> RE: Empire Total War (2/25/2009 1:26:09 PM)
Well, yes...the AI DID move units to it's flank from the main route across the river once I had decided to go that way (I think a unit of soldiers were already in the tress on the "grassy knoll!")...but it didn't do enough. The troops there were woefully inadequate for the force I sent, and it didn't seem to send anymore. Now other people may well bitch if the AI had moved men from the "other" front line....that the AI had abandonded it's position too easily. I don't know what the answer is. I do think it kept too many troops back to protect the schoolhouse and if it was wanting to thwart the crossing, it should've sent more troops....or kept them back for the onslaught...what it did was react, but in a piecemeal fashion...and I don't think that was very smart. The 80 troops it sent to it's right flank were sent to their slaughter...insufficient as a task force and insufficient as a blocking force. Once I started attacking the troops near the schoolhouse, I think it did move the troops from the main crossing back...but it was all too little too late. To be fair, it did show signs of thinking, but I doubt it will be challenging. Also, there was no difficulty level...so it could be that it was the lesser for the demo...I would hope so. I haven't fired the demo up since I got it, so maybe that says something!

jagdwolf -> RE: Empire Total War (2/25/2009 5:47:30 PM)
I've had the demo battle go several different ways, but the AI does seem to react to the flanking attack differently depending on how fast/hard you flank. In at least one battle where I threw the Brit cavalry in fast, followed by the light infantry and the rest following as fast as possible - the AI reacted with the American cavalry and light infantry/rifleman in what turned into a swirl of skirmish/cavalry melees until my line got across and formed up, when they fell back and tried to reform a line around the schoolhouse. In others, where I have gone more slow and methodical with the flank - the AI tends to skirmish a bit with the rifleman/lights and fall back to a reasonably formed line near the schoolhouse. This one ends up being a fairly standard open field battle. The AI tends to lose either way, but it does react reasonably appropriately in my experience.

Phatguy -> RE: Empire Total War (2/25/2009 6:24:36 PM)
As to graphics, I have a ATI cards and saw multiple words mangled in the land phase but none whatsoever in the naval portion..go figure.. On the issue of Collectors/SE version, do you see any need for steam to sell the coll/se version? After all, it is supposed to have a bunch of physical extras that the regular version doesnt. It seems thats it a way to part money from fools. No reason imho to buy the special edition via DL. On the issue of steam. I could never figure out why anyone would buy via DL when you could go to a store and buy a boxed version.If game x was 10-20 bucks cheaper then yes, but full price? not me. Unless it only came via DL. I would be afraid of so many unknowns.. I figure steam will not now or ever go out of business but service can be interupted. I remember seeing lauch day issues for some games. Local providers can go pfft...The usual.I figure eventually everything will be DL only but until then I prefer to sit in my 20th century bunker. Now one serious question to any who owned rtw or mtw2 via steam or really any heavily modded game. I know many of the mods required clean installs and it was semi easy to do it correctly with disks, but how does that work with steam? Could you install 2or more copies on your machine?

Aurelian -> RE: Empire Total War (2/26/2009 6:34:25 AM)
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=222206 Everything you need to know about Steam and ETW.

Dreadnaught -> RE: Empire Total War (2/27/2009 1:09:22 AM)
The load times are long. I just built a new system, not a monster, but new: Intel Core 2 quad 6600 New EVGA mobo, forget which one exactly Nvidia 524 MB 9800atx (no sli yet) WD velociraptor HD 4gigs ram vista 64 With that setup, I have some long load times. I wasn't really impressed. I love the TW games, since shogun, but it does seem like more of the same. The naval battle was cool, but like someone already said, it's a bit arcade-ish and may become boring quick. The thing w/ total war games is, they are awesome at first. then it fades quickly, and you wind up skipping battles (the best part) and just playing from the strategy map, which is very shallow. That said, i'll probably buy it, like I always do w/ TW games. however, I'm definitely going to buy Crown of Glory: Emperor's Edition. I bought Forge and love it, and I'm in the mood for some Nappy era games. Paradox's victoria was one of their best, but COG looks like it will be much more deep. I'm less experienced in the 'hardcore' wargames, but COG looks great.

marklv -> RE: Empire Total War (2/27/2009 1:33:57 AM)
Having tried the demo, I am quite disappointed. The battles just seem like the usual clickfests you see in the 'shoot'em up' games that are so common these days. Medieval II was good, but then this was melee fighting, so not insane shooting everywhere.

Phatguy -> RE: Empire Total War (2/27/2009 2:09:21 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Aurelian http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=222206 Everything you need to know about Steam and ETW. quote: p I get it..I don't like it, but I get it.. Most likely I will fall into temptation and buy it day 1. Hopefully the problems that plagued the Steam DL of MTW2 are behind them. Reading through the forums I noticed that once it is activated, you cannot sell/give the game away as its tied to your steam account. Not to sure on that but I never sold any of my TW games so hopefully......

NefariousKoel -> RE: Empire Total War (3/4/2009 5:28:43 PM)
I'd probably purchase ETW sometime, but requiring Steam just lost them a sale. I have many and more colorful words for the situation, Steam, and DRM in general, but I'll save you the bleeding eyes.

Greybriar -> RE: Empire Total War (3/4/2009 6:18:50 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: NefariousKoel I'd probably purchase ETW sometime, but requiring Steam just lost them a sale.... Same here.

LarryP -> RE: Empire Total War (3/4/2009 6:54:47 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Greybriar quote: ORIGINAL: NefariousKoel I'd probably purchase ETW sometime, but requiring Steam just lost them a sale.... Same here. Amen!

Phatguy -> RE: Empire Total War (3/4/2009 7:00:43 PM)
Another bad thing I noticed with steam and E:TW.....No manual, not even in pdf form..Or so many are complaining about..Granted, the manuals that the Total War series put out werent great, but not including one with a DL? Boggles the mind.....Oh yeah, some complaints about servers being busy and therefore not being able to play....Maybe time for me to get and play a non-steam driven game. I like the concept of Steam, but somehow the execution is lacking, especially with the "big" releases.. It seems to handle small games fine. Maybe i'll try it out on one of those bargain games first before spending 50 at gamestop and letting Steam control my fun. EDIT: The no manual part is only for the direct download from Steam, not the boxed version.

Page: << < prev 1 [2] 3 4 5 next > >>

Forum Software © ASPPlayground.NET Advanced Edition 2.4.5 ANSI

0.8671875