By Jim Rossignol on December 13th, 2008 at 11:53 am.
A post over on the Sega UK site reveals that the multiplayer for Empire: Total War will be released after the main game, free to purchasers of the main game. There will be a testing period and “an opportunity to participate in the 1 versus 1 multiplayer campaign mode beta will be made available to all Empire Total War buyers post release.”
A multiplayer campaign mode. Interesting. This might well be related to the one month delay of the game: it will now appear in March.
13/12/2008 at 12:26 SPLastic says:
Cool, I’m glad to see this. For me, the lack of a multiplayer campaign is something that really let the Total War series down, when compared to Civilization.
13/12/2008 at 12:36 Dorian Cornelius Jasper says:
A multiplayer Campaign mode? As in, skirmishes linked by a campaign system?
I wonder if this’ll work like a Warhammer campaign in structure. I mean the flowchart-scenario-thing. Because playing multiplayer campaigns with a strategic map like with the single-player Total War campaign system sounds like it’d take quite a while to get through.
But probably the most epic and involved game of Risk you’d ever play, though.
13/12/2008 at 12:43 Skurmedel says:
Civilization 4 in multiplayer takes a while to get through too, believe me :)
I’m all for this, but most importantly I want multiplayer skirmishes with AI. I used to do that all the time with my buddy and we had great. When Medieval 2 came along they had stripped the AI from multiplayer which was very dissapointing for me.
13/12/2008 at 12:50 Heliocentric says:
This model already exists in sword of the stars. Its not perfect. But the flow of the game has issues, for example if due to neutral units or more than a two sided war some players don’t have any battles to fight. Battles of more than 2 player games need to be time limited which causes problems in itself.
Can i check something, a retail copy of this game can have the key added to steam just the same as buying it on steam? Because the steam price is obscene.
13/12/2008 at 13:04 DuBBle says:
I’m quite happy the multiplayer mode will come later – ’twill give me a chance to become intimate with the game before I have people who naturally think in Real Time challenging me to battle.
13/12/2008 at 13:12 Heliocentric says:
Dub is your brain turn based? That must make tasks like walking a real chore. How many steps in a turn?
13/12/2008 at 13:50 rob says:
I really hope they’ve dropped Gamespy for this one. I loved the multiplayer in Medieval 2 but trying to get a game going over Gamespy regularly proved to be an insurmountable challenge.
13/12/2008 at 13:53 Jahkaivah says:
If they do this right they will have a sale from me.
Heroes of Might and Magic V tried to figure out ways for making long-turn-based games work in online multiplayer didn’t they ? I never tried it so I don’t know how well they managed it.
But it would be nice if this new Multiplayer Campaign could have all the goodies of the original without the potentially hideous waits.
13/12/2008 at 14:29 Fede says:
Finally! I’ve been strongly in favor of multiplayer campaigns since the release of Rome, this was a feature I missed a lot as the Rome and Medieval 2 AIs had the infamous diplomacy bug.
Take even another year to make it, but make it well! :D
13/12/2008 at 15:06 Jeremy says:
Color me excited. Haven’t played the series since Rome, but I enjoyed that immensely.
13/12/2008 at 15:13 DuBBle says:
Helio: It’s one turn to take a step, but two turns to make a turn. I’m glad my ailment doesn’t get much public attention because it, shamefully, results from hexual promiscuity.
13/12/2008 at 15:24 thefanciestofpants says:
The phrase “Fuck Yes.” comes to mind.
Relevant to my interests.
13/12/2008 at 15:27 theleif says:
@Heliocentric:
Nope, you have to buy the game from Steam to have it there.
13/12/2008 at 16:21 Nimic says:
I’ve been waiting for this since Shogun!
13/12/2008 at 16:51 Heliocentric says:
They have dropped gamespy steam does the matchmaking.
13/12/2008 at 18:26 Johnson says:
I’m fairly certain that you have to add your game to steam whether retail bought or bought through the steam store. This has caused a lot of controvesy about the place because you need to validate online in order to play single-player. However I’m glad they have taken the steam anti-piracy route as opposed to the other options, also the steam multiplayer/matchmaking system is the best I have used.
The main thing which bothered me about it is the special-ops edition of the game which costs about ten quid more and gives you extra units. I hope this doesnt have any real bearing on gameplay beyond “ooh look I have the hms Victory” and I also hope this doesn’t herald any further money for extra units shenanigans.
14/12/2008 at 00:26 StalinsGhost says:
“DuBBle says:
I’m quite happy the multiplayer mode will come later – ’twill give me a chance to become intimate with the game before I have people who naturally think in Real Time challenging me to battle.”
Weeeeak! Weeeeeak!
I can already hear the march of my forces parading around your capital :D
14/12/2008 at 09:35 Heliocentric says:
Extra units are single player only. Sega and CA seem to understand this better than EA or Actardiblizzivision. Don’t screw up the balance just to sell a high end sku.
14/12/2008 at 11:56 Johnson says:
Ah thats good I would be tempted to buy the special edition but held off out of principle, BUT DAMMIT I WANT TO BE NELSON.
14/12/2008 at 18:56 Erlam says:
The last turn based multiplayer game I played was Chaos Gate, and goddamn that was fun.
15/12/2008 at 17:31 Fumarole says:
To quote a philosopher of our times: “Dude, I think I just filled the cup.” Thank god, hopefully this is done right.
Am I the only person here wondering what hexual promiscuity is?
15/12/2008 at 23:25 Neil says:
They never actually say that this mode will be available for free to people who buy the game, only that those people can be in the beta. Are they going to hold it back as a feature for the first expansion pack?
17/12/2008 at 13:24 Phoenix says:
Hexual as in Sexual but a hex is an octagon on a board game map, which relates to turn based play. If his brain thinks in turns rather than in real life he could be said to be Hexual rather than Sexual ie turn based rather than real time.
1 vs 1 player I think has been decided because rather than using AI for the opposing player your mate will take over the role of the AI. Otherwise when your mate attacks the french you don’t want to be sat around for an hour waiting for the battle to end so you can get on with the game. If you’re both involved in the battle the game continues straight after the battle finishes.
It’ll make the campaign so much more interesting as you won’t have to deal with stupid AI, especially when taking fortifications.
17/12/2008 at 13:25 Phoenix says:
Multiplayer will be free to anyone who has bought the game
24/02/2009 at 06:24 blog hosting says:
blog hosting [url=http://wordpress.com]blog hosting[/url] blog hosting [url= http://wordpress.com ] blog hosting [/url] (added by Mobile using Mippin)
25/02/2009 at 03:59 jordan says:
i really wonder how the 1 vs 1 multi. campaign will work, like if there will b other AI factions to conquer and not just the other real player itself..