Comments on: Games for 2008: Empire: Total War

By: metasolaris

metasolaris — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 08:40:08 +0000

The English Civil War is more historically significant and tactically interesting. There would have never been a US without it!

By: Noc

Noc — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 06:22:10 +0000

The Civil War, Yann. (Which means the American one. Geez. Don't you know anything?)

By: Yann Best

Yann Best — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 06:10:37 +0000

Which civil war? I imagine you mean either the English Civil War (in which case, too early), or the American Civil War (in which case, probably too late, though ironclads /would/ make for awesome naval battles). Alternatively, you could mean the French Revolution, in which case I should imagine it pretty much sparks off the game.

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 05:21:28 +0000

Anyone know what year the campaign game with end? I wanna fight the civil war.

By: adamsleath

adamsleath — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 09:14:27 +0000

i have high hopes for empire:total war; it is exactly the game ive been waiting for. french hussars and musket squares; woot.
plus a bit of naval stuff thrown in; rag dolls and controlled firing from infantry, i’m very excited.
i hope they’ve done a good job on the uniforms, as that’s what this era is all about, in my opinion.
should look very cool. i believe it is quite a refresh/departure from the previous total wars with many improvements and a new engine…

By: Spotty Men With Swords | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Spotty Men With Swords | Rock, Paper, Shotgun — Sat, 24 May 2008 11:00:41 +0000

[...] short Making of video for the upcoming Empire: Total War, concentrating on the mo-cap that’s going into the sword fighting. Cited influence? Sharpe. [...]

By: Searching For The Young Strategy Rebels | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Searching For The Young Strategy Rebels | Rock, Paper, Shotgun — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:37:16 +0000

[...] schedules, RTS also offers the most obvious talking points, outside of Fallout 3. Starcraft 2, Empire: Total War, Red Alert 3 and Dawn of War 2 loom, versus what’s a comparatively weak FPS hand – Project [...]

By: masterandcommander

masterandcommander — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 23:01:29 +0000

RTW and MTW2 were good, but far too easy, and i found the choices of regiments to be too few. I think that it would be cool if you could have all the different regiments in the British army, such as the Yorkshire Light Infantry and Coldstream guards. Generals should not all be from a family either, there should be more promotions from the ranks. Trafalgar and Waterloo should feature as well and you should choose whether to deploy generals on foot or horseback. The idea of revolutions sounds brilliant, as do naval battles and historic generals, far too many times have I played Rome and wished I could play as Julius Caesar.
And could you PLEASE, PLEASE release it just 57 days early!

By: Rock, Paper, Shotgun: Still Hoping For That Post-Apocalyptic Robot Versus Monkey Immersive Sim » Blog Archive » RPS Omnibus: Feb 3rd-8th

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 14:55:31 +0000

[...] Empire: Total War – Part of our Games for 2008 preview series [...]

By: Seth Tipps

Seth Tipps — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 23:09:35 +0000

I am looking forward to this, but I’m less exited about the naval battles than most. It can be very difficult to get the controls workable for naval battles, and they are not nearly as fast-paced as land engagements. That being said, Age of Sail 2 was a marvelous game, extremely pretty for it’s time, and had a somewhat similar interface to the total war games. In many ways it foreshadowed them, being a three dimensional RTT (real time tactical, because the only strategic element in Total War is turn-based). Hell, even just updating the Imperial Glory system to include all the features of Total War (I really loved that IG let me annex enemy nations instead of just conquering them) would make a pretty good game, and a beautiful one at that.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 15:20:22 +0000

Looking forward to this, the naval battles on MTW2 that took place on the campaign map were pretty pointless, real time naval battles could add a lot. Also I think it will be refreshing to have a new setting and new tactics to learn.

By: Mark-P

Mark-P — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 13:33:08 +0000

Making the AI more complicated does not necessarily make it more effective. Very often in Rome and Medieval 2 it will dither hopelessly whilst you shoot it up with archers and artillery. In so many cases it would be better served by simply attack-moving all of its troops against yours once it enters range. Occasionally it will actually do this, and combined with the real combat bonuses the units get in Rome ( but not it seems in the M2 campgain mode ) can actually be a threat.

The rest of the time it feels like playing a toddler at chess, and that’s neither enjoyable nor rewarding, no matter how shiny the pieces are.

The battle AI is a difficult problem I know. I haven’t seen any significant improvements on it by modders ( unlike the campaign AI )
I dislike this trend of leaving unfinished games for modders to complete. Firaxis were smart enough to actually employ one of these bright sparks for Civ 4 : Beyond the Sword, with great results. But now the cycle is complete, and they have abandoned that expansion with one slightly broken patch ( fixed by another modder ¬_¬ ) and moved on to focus on the console market with Revolutions. PC gamers are being taken for granted and now ignored and abandoned.

It’s the publisher’s fault, and the result of money talking and there is probably nothing we can do to stop it as customers. I see no reason to expect that Creative Assembly will reverse a trend they have been leading for pretty graphics, broken fundamentals and lousy patch support.