Empire: Total War

[Ginger Yellow]

The latest installment in the glorious Total War series of turn-based and real time strategy games is now out and, by crikey, it's marvellous. Last night I massacred 2000 Frenchmen by forcing them out of their walled city into a swamp where my 1000 colonial line infantrymen were waiting in the treeline like a giant semi-circular firing squad. Despite how that might sound, the tactical AI is much improved over previous games - I've been ambushed and outmanoeuvred on several occasions. The scope of the campaign is enormous, although I haven't had time to really explore it. The all-new naval battles aren't quite as fun as the land battles, sadly, but they look very pretty indeed.

Anyone else a fan of the series and fancy a battle?

[Ginger Yellow]

Empire: Total War

You might want to start out with Rome: TW, which you can pick up on the cheap now, is less demanding on your computer, and the scale is a bit more manageable for a newbie. It can still take 50+ hours to do a full campaign, though.

I picked up the mobile phone version of Risk last week and am utterly addicted.

[Ginger Yellow]

Empire: Total War

Lake Trasimene is in there as a historic battle, but you can also reshape the course of Roman history to your liking. And you can still fit in some reading while the computer is taking its turns.

[delicatemoth]

Empire: Total War

I recently got Rome Total War, it's splendid fun. Basically like Civilization with the added real-time battles. I had a look at Empire but my computer won't be up to it, which is probably a good thing. What are the 3D naval battles like? Ah, I see you already mentioned them.

[garcia]

Empire: Total War

what computer specs do you need to play either version of the game mentioned here?

[Ginger Yellow]

Empire: Total War

I haven't played too many of them yet (apart from in the dem), but they're strangely unsatisfying. For simplicity's sake they've made it so that ships can turn on the spot, which just feels weird, the wind direction is nowhere near as important as it should be, and they tend to degenerate into chaos when there are a lot of ships involved. Then again, I haven't messed about with the formations much. Like I say, though, they look spectacular. All the sailors, shots and their impacts are individually modelled, so you can see the cannonballs ripping through the decks, knocking over masts or throwing men overboard.

[Ginger Yellow]

Empire: Total War

Rome:

English version of Microsoft Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP

Pentium III 1.0GHz (1000MHz) or Athlon 1.0GHz (1000MHz) processor or higher

256MB RAM

8x Speed CD-ROM drive (1200KB/sec sustained transfer rate) and latest drivers

300MB of uncompressed free hard disk space

100% DirectX 9.0b compatible 16-bit sound card and latest drivers

100% Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP compatible mouse, keyboard and latest drivers

DirectX 9.0b 3D hardware Accelerator Card Required - 100% DirectX 9.0b compatible 64MB Hardware Accelerated video card and the latest drivers:

ATI Radeon 7200

ATI Radeon 8500

ATI Radeon 9000

ATI Radeon 9500

ATI Radeon 9600

ATI Radeon 9700

ATI Radeon 9800

All Nvidia GeForce 2 and higher

Empire:

Operating System: Windows XP 32(service pack 2), Windows Vista 32 OS.
Processor: 2.4 GHz Single Core Intel or AMD equivalent processor.
System Memory: 1GB RAM (XP) 2GB RAM (Vista).
Graphics Card: 256MB DirectX 9.0c compatible video card (shader 2.0 or higher).
Sound Card: Directx9.0c compatible sound card.
Peripherals: Windows compatible mouse & keyboard.
Hard drive space: 15 GB free uncompressed hard drive space.

Alternatively, go here, select the games from the list, and it will tell you if your computer meets the requirements.

[wingco]

Empire: Total War

I get the feeling I would need to read a lot more books in order to beef up my brain in order to be capable of playing a game like this.

[Ball Comrade]

Empire: Total War

Ginger Yellow wrote:

You might want to start out with Rome: TW, which you can pick up on the cheap now

This says it's free:

http://www.mofunzone.com/download_games/rome_total_war.shtml

[wingco]

Empire: Total War

Any books. Books about stuff, anything, you know, just so that my brain could get better at helping me do stuff and figure out stuff. It's the only way, dude.

[Ginger Yellow]

Empire: Total War

BC: I doubt that link is legal, but it does remind me that you can stream (!) the game from a service called Awomo. They did offer it for free as a sign-up incentive a while back, but I think the offer is closed now. I've no idea how reliable that service is, though. It's dirt cheap to buy anyway.

[beak]

Empire: Total War

On a similar tip, has anybody played Europa Universalis 3? (I think it is 3.. the new one, anyway.)

I've been suckered in by listening to a mate go on and on about it, but fear the learning curve could give me a brain haemorrhage.

[TMA]

Empire: Total War

I tried a demo of EU3, thinking it would be right up my street, but I honestly had no idea what was going on. I've gone back to the relative safety of CivIV.

[Ginger Yellow]

Empire: Total War

I like EU3 a lot in principle, but in practice I kind of lose interest in the mid to late game. I need a bit of structure to my openended games, and it can be quite hard to judge how well you're doing in EU3. It's all about setting your own goals, which is not my forte.

[sw2borshch]

Empire: Total War

I've spent more of my life playing EU2 than any other single thing apart from sleeping, I reckon.

But these days it's all about Crusader Kings.

[Guest]

Empire: Total War

I'd have the ETW demo by now... if I could remember my Steam login, password, or even the email a/c I used to create said. Grrr.

RTW modded with Total Realism or Europa Barbarorum (or Middle Earth Total War) is the best of the series; for unmodded RTW: Barbarian Invasion is probably the most playable game, with the least endgame problems. RTW can run on fairly low spec machines, with the fx turned down, and still look & play well. M2TW did not impress: bugged to hell (not that RTW isn't in places... chariots & corruption in particular), appalling patches, and micromanagement requiring add-ons that brought little to the game.

[TMA]

Empire: Total War

GY: What did you make of Civ IV: Colonisation? I have to admit, I didn't even realise there was another Civ game out.

Is it worth a go?

[Ginger Yellow]

Empire: Total War

To be honest, I haven't played it all that much. I enjoyed it, but there were just too many other games coming out and I moved on. It's basically the old Colonisation with updated graphics/interface and some gameplay tweaks. I may end up going back to it, but I suspect Empire is going to be taking up most of my gaming time for a while. The Total War games are pretty much my favourite games ever.

[beak]

Empire: Total War

Resurrecting a thread to continue a tangent? Ok!

Got my hands on Europa Universalis 3 and am having an absolute ball playing it; saying that I'm only about 20 years into my first game (bar a brief five year dabble with Bohemia.)

So yeah, a really cracking game. I (as the English) have destroyed the Burgundians in a war, forcing them to cede control of Antwerp and its lucrative centre of trade.

As for the new Colonization: it is essentially the old game tarted up, which is no bad thing in my eyes. I just haven't got the time to play all of these things at once unfortunately.

[Ginger Yellow]

Empire: Total War

If anyone is playing Empire, here's what I've learned (especially for when playing as Britain).

Rush trade ships early. Every single port should be producing them, and ship 'em straight off to the trade regions to secure the routes. As far as I can tell, the AI doesn't attack "docked" ships, only the routes themselvse and ships in transit. You may need to eliminate the pirate threat in the Caribbean first, but otherwise you don't need escorts at this stage.

To go with this, negotiate as many trade routes as you can (this is dependent on the number and level of ports in your home region). Be willing to pay up for them - they pay for themselves very quickly.

Go Tory. Lower taxes, especially on the lower classes, to increase growth, which in turn will speed up town development. You can raise taxes later on when you've built up a taxable economic base.

Similarly, tech up your farms ASAP to assist population growth.

For the moment, you don't have to worry about naval invasions, although apparently this will be patched. This means you can leave islands undefended (although your trade routes may be pirated/blocakded), so take your troops and use them elsewhere.

Research detachable bayonets, rank fire and square formation ASAP - you may want to convert some towns to schools to get an early tech lead. Your combat effectiveness will dramatically increase

As for combat itself, don't bother with cannons at least until you have canister shot, and you only need a handful of cavalry - they're much, much less powerful than in previous TW games, although they still have their uses.

[Guest]

Empire: Total War

EU3 is massively improved by the MMP mod.

[Mitch]

Empire: Total War

I really like the Total Realism mod. It's just a much better game than the original.

But Europa Barbarorum is a bit too historical-hardcore for me. You have to appreciate the immense amount of effort that went into it - but the problem is that it's the game that Mark from Peep Show would be obsessed with.

[Ginger Yellow]

Empire: Total War

Historical hardcore sounds like a niche porn fetish.

[Guest]

Empire: Total War

Sounds like...

EB is more work to play, yes, although I think they both have their merits. The DarthMod series (Rome & M2) is good for AI and balance fixing without huge game changes. Just goes to show the significance of community-created content in improving PC games; not sure I have anything that I'd choose to run vanilla.

I'm not convinced by the direction ETW's strategy game has taken. Most of the additional features of M2TW were a burden, rather than a boon, I thought, taking away from the real genius of the series, which is tactical combat. Whatever they bolt on to the strategy game, it's always going to fall horrendously short of a genuine strategy title, while running the risk of time-demanding micromanagement getting in the way of the slaughter.