Empire: Total War

[BlackRider]

Having played ALL the previous Total War games (Shogun, Medieval, Rome, and Medieval 2), I was very excited about Empire. Empire is set mainly in the 18th century (1700-1820) and given previous experience with gunpowder units in Total War games, I wasn't quite sure what to expect from Empire. The tactical battles in previous total war games were mostly about slamming your army into your opponent's center and praying that they break. Then you run them down with your cavalry. My first impression with Empire is that this isn't so. However, the demo land battle is set on very rough terrain and so I have no hint as to how a battle will play out on an open field. The battle AI is far from brilliant but it is many times better than Medieval 2's AI. It will shift reserves to plug gaps in its lines and it will strike at undefended artillery and isolated units. The biggest issue that I've found with the AI is that it is far to easy to "game" it for an easy victory. It is far too easy to draw the AI into an obvious ambush and I've even managed to goad single units out of defensive formations, and eliminate them one-by-one.

Anywho, try the demo on Steam... and I can't wait until Empire's release on 4th Mar.!!!!

[XMEN Gambit]

It is far too easy to draw the AI into an obvious ambush and I've even managed to goad single units out of defensive formations, and eliminate them one-by-one.

Yer such a tease.

Anywho, try the demo on Steam... and I can't wait until Empire's release on 4th Mar.!!!!

I've got the demo but haven't played it yet. I picked up Dawn of War: Soulstorm a couple weeks ago for $7.50 and love it.

[BlackRider]

I picked up Dawn of War: Soulstorm a couple weeks ago for $7.50 and love it.

I tried the demo for one of those War Hammer games and I really couldn't get into it at all. I think it's mostly because Supreme Commander has me spoiled on camera controls. i.e. I kept trying to zoom out more and felt that I really couldn't see anything at all. That frustrated me to the point that I simply couldn't give actual gameplay a chance. :-/


Back to Empire: I am really hoping that campaign play lives up to all the hype... the demo has shown me that tactical battles are "ok", so all that's left to see if campaign mode.

[BlackRider]

I just have to say that Empire has ruined my life... and now I'm going to have to limit myself to just 1 hour a day of Empire or I'll never get anything else done! It's still a little buggy and they're still releasing panic patches to fix the usual memory leaks and CTDs, and it's still way too easy to game the AI with unrealistic tactics... but it's still much better than any previous total war game. The AI is still quite moronic, but it's still at least three times smarter than the Medieval 2 total war... and very rarely it will actually pull off a maneuver of such genius that can completely ruin my 10:1 kill ratio! (I'm really bad for exploiting every single weakness of the AI so that I receive as few casualties as possible... sometimes zero.) The campaign AI is dumb as rocks but when it decides to raid your territories (vs. trying to capture them) it can completely destroy your economy. Despite all the flaws this game really is very good!

Really the only flaws that make me want to go and do something else for a while are:
* CA boasted that the tactical AI and the strategic AI were now linked and that the tactical AI would know the strategic value of the battle it was fighting... but the AI will NEVER withdraw from a battle over... say... a farm... even when I'm defending it with a couple hundred guys and yet I have to break their entire army to get them to leave. Even 400 casualties out of 1200 will not get them to withdraw. I'd need to inflict 800-1000 casualties to break their entire army... i.e., I have to break them because they will NEVER withdraw.
* CA put in the option to peaceably surrender a battle, yet the AI will never make this offer, and if you give it to them... they'll NEVER accept. i.e., if I attack a (unimportant) fort with 1500+ men and they're guarding it with 200... you'd think that they'd accept my offer to allow them to leave the fort unharmed... nope, they'll fight to the last to defend "Pointless Middle of Nowhere Fort A" against overwhelming odds.
* CA claimed that the entire morale system was overhauled and was quite realistic... yet it takes about 60% casualties to rout a unit that's severely out numbered and 90%+ to route a unit with about even numbers... idk about you, but if I were in a militia unit of 120 and we just lost 40 men after 3 volleys from British regulars AND the 240 of them were now charging us w/ bayonets AND we have no support... I would turn tail and run... but in the game they would be charged and slaughtered down to about 15-20 men before they break... even worse, if that militia unit were defending a fort they would fight to the death even if they were outnumbered 50:1!

All I know is that if CA doesn't release a major AI update before the modding tools come out, first thing I will be doing is fixing morale.