What do you think of Empire TW?

[Elta]

AA (antialising, spelling?) reduces jagged edges and smooths non-horizontal/vertical lines.

Yeah that's the more technical term

Not worth the drop in frame rates from 4X to 16X or anything else IMO.

If it drops below 30 FPS in any game I lower my setting. If they are over 60 I will keep adding stuff until it hovers around 60. It takes a very sharp set of eyes to notice anything different when it is over 60 FPS. IIRC that is around the rate of speed that human eyes-mind process things.

 

[cephalo]

Ok, so I'm playing the game for a week now, and I do like it. It has many, many minor bugs and lacks polish in general, but it's a solid design. I really like the new agent game compared with previous TW games.

In some ways it's a step back though. For example, the battle maps no longer reflect the features of the campaign map like they did in Rome and M2TW. I've fought many battles in Europe, India, Morocco and Texas, and the map is always the same rolling, gentle slopes no matter what, Although in Morocco the colors were more deserty. In previous games you could defend huge mountain crags if your army was in the mountains. In city battles, CA could never figure out how to get the pathfinding exactly right, so in this release they just gave up and made the cities much simpler.

 

[Maniacal]

Actually you're fighting on the outskirts of the cities, not in the city it'self.

 

[Leonel]

The best Total War for me personally. It's held my attention the longest by far.

 

[Markstar]

IMHO it is totally boring and not worth it. The options (especially compared to a game like Civ) are very limited, especially concerning units (a lot worse than Medieval 2 where newer units were actually stronger).

 

[Elta]

IMHO it is totally boring and not worth it. The options (especially compared to a game like Civ) are very limited, especially concerning units (a lot worse than Medieval 2 where newer units were actually stronger).

You underestimate fire by rank, newer bayonets, fire while marching, mortar, rockets all of that good stuff. In my games where I have maxed out technology by 1740 I roll over armies double my size.

 

[Leonel]

You underestimate fire by rank, newer bayonets, fire while marching, mortar, rockets all of that good stuff. In my games where I have maxed out technology by 1740 I roll over armies double my size.

THIS! Especially fire by rank and the newer bayonets. It sucks at first 'cause only the front line will fire but then when you get fire by rank, all the lines will fire while the front lines kneel and reload.

 

[Elta]

Yeah, cavelry can tear you up in the early period if you don't counter it with cavelry.

 

[Rub'Rum]

Yeah, cavelry can tear you up in the early period if you don't counter it with cavelry.

Or an awesome wall of spears. I managed this with pikemen for the first time yesterday. It was spectacular. A fully fresh and eager cavalry charge on my army turned into a routed regiment in a matter of seconds.

I'm still trying to figure out the game, since I've never played a Total War game before, so I can't say for sure yet what I really think of it. My experience is mostly positive right now.

 

[germanicus12]

Square formations also help infantry against Cavalry. In one of my battles 4 of my cavalry regiments were routed by 1 Native American cavalry regiment. But 2 infantry regiments when ordered into square formation easily took out 8 of the native American cavalry before finally being overrun... but by this time the battle was almost over and my reinforcements were just arriving to bolster the flank.

 

[Shekwan]

Its easily the best TW title since MTW. The AI seems to have a basic grasp of tactics and will actually try to flank, which they didn't do in M2 or RTW. Theres a lot more tactical decisions with regard to cover, fields of fire, light infantry, artillery isn't a sideshow anymore.

The naval battles are really challenging when you're in a fair fight. However I'd like it if there was more use for the faster more agile ships to make a difference. The way it is now you just have to build a dread fleet of 2nd rates and cruise the oceans terrorising everyone else.

The only major bug that annoys me is the naval invasion bug, ruins many aspects of the game - Europeans won't reinforce their colonies, makes the caribbean a massive money maker with no risk of invasion, French and English will never colonise India, and London is never threatened.

And already theres some pretty good mods for it already too.

 

[Elta]

Its easily the best TW title since MTW. The AI seems to have a basic grasp of tactics and will actually try to flank, which they didn't do in M2 or RTW. Theres a lot more tactical decisions with regard to cover, fields of fire, light infantry, artillery isn't a sideshow anymore.

The naval battles are really challenging when you're in a fair fight. However I'd like it if there was more use for the faster more agile ships to make a difference. The way it is now you just have to build a dread fleet of 2nd rates and cruise the oceans terrorising everyone else.

The only major bug that annoys me is the naval invasion bug, ruins many aspects of the game - Europeans won't reinforce their colonies, makes the caribbean a massive money maker with no risk of invasion, French and English will never colonise India, and London is never threatened.

And already theres some pretty good mods for it already too.

To be fair, in the real medieval ages they actually were that inaccurate.

Their main purpose in a field battle was to force the enemy into close fighting, or at the very least keep the enemy from maintaining one position (such as a good spot to shoot arrows from whilst only being able to be attacked uphill)



From 1789 to 1939 a plurality of the deaths in warfare (discounting civilians) came from cannons. So in this regard I feel that the game has gotten it right

 

[Leonel]

I'm still trying to figure out the game, since I've never played a Total War game before, so I can't say for sure yet what I really think of it. My experience is mostly positive right now.

I would suggest first experimenting with different units in battle mode. Try two line infantry, a general and an artillery piece.

But if you want to mobilize armies, a preset that I like to use is having 4 cavalry, 4 artillery, 10 infantry, one special unit and one general. When using that to attack, I'll mostly auto-resolve as those kind of battles are big and a little too complicated to manage. But when I get mortars, I'll just turtle on a hill with my infantry protecting my cannons while they rain down explosive and quicklime shots on the enemy. One barrage of quicklime from 4 artillery units at just the right spot can completely rout numerous units.

 

[Rub'Rum]

I would suggest first experimenting with different units in battle mode. Try two line infantry, a general and an artillery piece.

I think the actual empire management concepts confuse me more than battles. But thanks for the tips

 

[Leonel]

I think the actual empire management concepts confuse me more than battles. But thanks for the tips

Oh well build every economic enabling structure as high as you can! Cobble roads, factories, anything that gives a bonus on income. Open trade negotiations with anyone you can in the diplomacy screen. After about 10 or 20 turns, you should have more money than you can handle. I get so much, I just outright buy regions.

 

[Rub'Rum]

Oh well build every economic enabling structure as high as you can! Cobble roads, factories, anything that gives a bonus on income. Open trade negotiations with anyone you can in the diplomacy screen. After about 10 or 20 turns, you should have more money than you can handle. I get so much, I just outright buy regions.

It's little things that I do and I'm not sure I understand what their effect is exactly. Like when I send a gentleman to a university or a college, I'm not sure which one I should send him to, and how much it really helps my research. I need numbers, a civilopedia, something. I feel like when I first started playing Civ, trying to figure out what "shields" meant and how they were produced.

 

[cephalo]

The naval battles are really challenging when you're in a fair fight. However I'd like it if there was more use for the faster more agile ships to make a difference. The way it is now you just have to build a dread fleet of 2nd rates and cruise the oceans terrorising everyone else.

Yeah, the naval battles are a nice addition, and I'm glad to see them but there's one thing that really annoys me. The game doesn't allow multiple ships to board a single ship! That's kindof the very heart of naval combat of the era, and without that, it leads directly to the consequence you mentioned. Individual ship size matters far more than the number of ships in the fleet. A single second rate ship can take out a whole fleet of brigs, simply because the brigs aren't allowed to close in and board.

That of course requires that the second rate ship doesn't spontaniously explode. I've seen alot of ship explosions so far, waaay too many. That's the thing that does give the smaller, more numerous ships something of a chance. The smaller fleet of larger ships suffers more from the frequent explosions of otherwise healthy ships. I once lost 3 out of 5 ships that way against a fleet of 4 gun galleys! Quite a disaster that was. I don't think any of my ships had even lost a cannon before exploding.

 

[LightSpectra]

Features I'd like to see added by mods or some patch otherwise:

1. Monarchs should be allowed to abdicate (leaving the throne for the next heir), absolute monarchs should be allowed to sign a constitution, and perhaps also immediately transition into a republic (though I'm not sure how that would be done). Coup d'etat should also be an option to transition to absolute monarchy without a revolution (perhaps it would be some kind of function where there's a probability of success; if it fails, your popularity drops a great deal).

2. In general, I'd just like to see more interaction with royal families. The War of Spanish Succession happened because of the chance of France inheriting the Spanish empire by dynastic union, yet such a thing appears to be impossible in E:TW.

3. If a gentlemen is located in another faction's capital, diplomacy should be more effective with that faction. Generals who sit inside colleges and schools should increase the advancement of military technologies.

4. Auto-resolve battles need to be fixed. Badly. It's random chance in some cases (I once had a decisive, AR'd victory of 300 v. 1200), and sometimes it's completely fixed (1000 French vs. 800 Natives always failed, for some reason).

5. The one-turn delay when moving to other theaters is ridiculous. It should only take one turn to go from Europe to America. Because of how long it takes to load ships, I feel like the prospect of contrafactual scenarios is too drudging. I would like to try and colonize South America as Austria or invade Cuba as the Ottomans, but it can take six or seven turns just to move your troops there; not even counting the danger of just having your navy sunken on the spot.

 

[Maniacal]

and sometimes it's completely fixed (1000 French vs. 800 Natives always failed, for some reason).

Well there's your problem, you should NEVER auto a battle unless you outnubmer the enemy at LEAST 4 to one. If not 5-1 or more. Secondly, natives are NOT weak little wimps, they are good fighters.

 

[Elta]

Well there's your problem, you should NEVER auto a battle unless you outnubmer the enemy at LEAST 4 to one. If not 5-1 or more. Secondly, natives are NOT weak little wimps, they are good fighters.

I save and check, my estimate if I have 66%+ I auto resolve because I know I'll just roll over them.

If I lose the autoresolve I'll just reload and do it myself.

And yeah the natives can be pretty nasty.