Medeval Total War 2 or Empire:Total War
- Thread starter Vault Boy
- Start date
aronnax
Let your spirit be free
I hate ETW because the graphics are ugly, the siege battles idiotic, the new campaign map system stupid, the system buggy and God I hate how the borders are drawn. God I hate it so much....
all of which are essentially the same problems as were in RTW and M2TW
aronnax
Let your spirit be free
And in Canada, you have the Colony near Newfoundland, and then NOTHING, for the whole stretch between the Atlantic Coast to the Hudson Bay Coast where you find one isolated fur-producing site.
Are one-province nations still stacked with a whole lot of troops that randomly attack their neighbours after the patches?
no, but they omitted important areas of the map...Rome was particularly egregious here in screwing around in Mesopotamia and Iran and totally ignoring Central Asia and eastern Iran
both other games definitely were intended to have unplayable factions
501st Legion
Warlord
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2009
- Messages
- 107
Get Medieval II instead! Here's a list of Empire's pros (+) and cons (-):
+Massive, 3 Theater World (although crippled by small # of provinces - France being one province for instance)
+Many different nations to choose from (most of them sharing the same bland, cookie cutter format albeit)
+Naval Battles
+Open Ended Campaign
+New features such as governments, recruiting via generals (you don't need to recruit via a settlement all the time), improved economic system, a technology tree like in Civ (although most of the techs seemed more appropriate for a game that starts in the 17th century), a surrender option, revolutions, and a nation can't enter your territories without asking for military access or declaring war
+Nice unit animations, though somewhat unrealistic (melee combat feels like a one-on-one only affair, with other troops just looking by)
-AI (Campaign and Battle)
-Bugs (Half finished on release and I'm being kind)
-Mostly the same units for each faction, specially with non DLC rosters (excluding Native Americans, Ottomans, and Marathas)
-Same ships for each navy
-The game doesn't look good as Medieval II if not set on the highest settings; buildings really look butt ugly if you ask me when compared to Medieval II buildings, clone armies return (which doesn't feel right for non Western factions), 2D sprites look god awful (from trees to units)
-the worst sieges in the history of Total War (ladders were replaced by a system of your soldiers becoming Spiderman wannabes)
-atrocious pathfinding (I in fact won a battle because the entire enemy army was trying to pass between two buildings and their units got stuck there
)
-the reinforcement system is a major step back from the Medieval II Kingdoms one (a nation can't have more than 20 units in the field, which means reinforcements can only enter if one or more of your units has been routed or destroyed)
-neat game features from previous games missing such as family trees, prisoners of war, the ability to type in any amount of money to spend during custom battle, missions, the option to loot or exterminate settlements, kings who can be assassinated, each settlement having its own tax rate (it's now each continent), etc
-cavalry are frustratingly weaker than they were historically
-unlimited ammo for artillery
-ugly and historically inaccurate looking Janissaries (non DLC)
-lack of variety in music
-no multiplayer chat lobby
-lack of immersion
-Doesn't feel polished (Wonder why)
On a side note there is currently no mod for Empire with the likes of Europa Barbarorum, Roma Surrectum, Rome: Total Realism, Broken Crescent, and Stainless Steel (Darthmod ain't as epic enough).
Even though Empire is in a better condition than it was when it was released, I find it almost impossible to play the game without a mod - and I was content with Medieval II vanilla for months on end.
+Massive, 3 Theater World (although crippled by small # of provinces - France being one province for instance)
+Many different nations to choose from (most of them sharing the same bland, cookie cutter format albeit)
+Naval Battles
+Open Ended Campaign
+New features such as governments, recruiting via generals (you don't need to recruit via a settlement all the time), improved economic system, a technology tree like in Civ (although most of the techs seemed more appropriate for a game that starts in the 17th century), a surrender option, revolutions, and a nation can't enter your territories without asking for military access or declaring war
+Nice unit animations, though somewhat unrealistic (melee combat feels like a one-on-one only affair, with other troops just looking by)
-AI (Campaign and Battle)
-Bugs (Half finished on release and I'm being kind)
-Mostly the same units for each faction, specially with non DLC rosters (excluding Native Americans, Ottomans, and Marathas)
-Same ships for each navy
-The game doesn't look good as Medieval II if not set on the highest settings; buildings really look butt ugly if you ask me when compared to Medieval II buildings, clone armies return (which doesn't feel right for non Western factions), 2D sprites look god awful (from trees to units)
-the worst sieges in the history of Total War (ladders were replaced by a system of your soldiers becoming Spiderman wannabes)
-atrocious pathfinding (I in fact won a battle because the entire enemy army was trying to pass between two buildings and their units got stuck there
)-the reinforcement system is a major step back from the Medieval II Kingdoms one (a nation can't have more than 20 units in the field, which means reinforcements can only enter if one or more of your units has been routed or destroyed)
-neat game features from previous games missing such as family trees, prisoners of war, the ability to type in any amount of money to spend during custom battle, missions, the option to loot or exterminate settlements, kings who can be assassinated, each settlement having its own tax rate (it's now each continent), etc
-cavalry are frustratingly weaker than they were historically
-unlimited ammo for artillery
-ugly and historically inaccurate looking Janissaries (non DLC)
-lack of variety in music
-no multiplayer chat lobby
-lack of immersion
-Doesn't feel polished (Wonder why)
On a side note there is currently no mod for Empire with the likes of Europa Barbarorum, Roma Surrectum, Rome: Total Realism, Broken Crescent, and Stainless Steel (Darthmod ain't as epic enough).
Even though Empire is in a better condition than it was when it was released, I find it almost impossible to play the game without a mod - and I was content with Medieval II vanilla for months on end.
I dunno, maybe I'm satisfied with less and am the least common denominator of the video game purchasing public. I liked Mass Effect 2 better than the first game, too. But I just don't really think that ETW was that much worse on release than M2TW, and certainly not unplayable. 
LightSpectra
me autem minui
I've hardly had many problems with Steam. That is not the issue. Not even counting the lack of unit variety and bizarre siege battles, the main problem is the complete lack of artificial intelligence and balance. Play a campaign passively (i.e. don't expand very much), and tell me what round the Marathas (or occasionally the Mughals) take over the entire world.
