I’ll believe “AI improvements” when I see it, which probably will never happen since they lost my trust on Empire. I wanted soooo much to like it :(
Man, how excited are we for Napoleon?!?!
This much:
;_;
I’ve enjoyed Empire and i can see, if it works right, how interesting a game it is (or, i suppose, could be). Far moreso than the previous games they worked into the strategic mode an web of diplomacy, trade, and multiple powers new to the series, basically historically … well, accurate insofar as it is accurate in the “emphasis” of regions in the minds of great powers of the times. Previous games were very much essentially a melee free-for-all by default, while in Empire it is quite possible, EU style, to create nearly permanent alliances and trade empires out-of-proportion to the size of your country.
Heh, screw Napoleon.
I would love if they added a civ-like diplomatic-trade system. Right now I can’t tell how much I need to bribe Austria to accept my trade agreement, and damned if I have patience to micro trades till I find the smallest amount of gold I can give out.
It seems like one of the “improvements” in the AI in later patches - which, btw, is better if not completely perfect (i get raided by sea constantly by the damn Brits) - is to get you into war with a major power after turn 2. The Ottomans also seem like they got hit with some major nerfs as most of their natural territory has been greatly reduced in income. Anatolia takes in quite a bit more than Rumelia in taxes, for ex., and other places like Egypt/Syria seem to have been completely hobbled.
Because of all the petty nations trying to bugger you along with the major powers trying to keel haul you, it’s hard to get far off the historic tract at first, which i do like and is appealing. Playing as Russia, for ex., you think you’re in this great position with the Eastern side immune to attack, yet suddenly you’re fending off double full stacks of Swedes and the constant annoyance three minors that love sending full stacks at you. Suddenly not having any trading income worth speaking of becomes a much more debilitating weakness, and the designers of the map are proved to have at least some macro insight into how the great powers play out. Eventually you break out of course but it does take 40+ turns of hard fought battles to jump the shark into ahistoric comp stomping.
Also, Russian infantry is lackluster in gun handling. Russia’s no cakewalk.
I have fond memories of Late Russia in MTW1. I got very good with stacks emphasizing arbalests and pikes. In MTW1, the Mongols come in off the east edge of the map. I never actually let them get ONTO the map.
But in Empire, it seems like the way to go with Russia is to let Cossacks handle Line Infantry duties and produce polearm militia, melee horsemen, and eventually guards etc. with the money you save on generally avoiding Line Infantry.
If it weren’t for the blurry text bug, I’d give that a shot right now.
The problem with Streltsy, and the reason i ended up with two full stacks of line infantry i could barely afford, was morale. Up north vs. the bastard children of Bridget the Russian line infantry would trounce the Swedish stacks 2:1 or greater (thanks in part, sadly, to some artillery dancing cheese i discovered). But in the south with nothing but Cossack and Streltsy armies those bastard Georgians would route my crap troops over and over, and and those kinds of troops just weren’t good enough to stop cascading stacks from different nations; by the time they fought off one stack, they’d barely time to hole up somewhere before the next stack came round. I would advance vs. Sweden but lose Don Voisko to the Georgians, then retake that and lose Kiev to the Crimeans, over and over. It wasn’t till i finally scrounged together enough trade income to make two full decent stacks that i managed to break the Khanate by making them a Protectorate after a big battle than double crossing the Tatars and capturing the capital. Of course, now everyone on earth thinks that Russia is scum; fair enough trade! A weird possible side effect of my very profitable trade with Maratha is their total and unhindered conquest of the Mughals, then smashing Persia, than invading and capturing Tripoli (?) and capturing every Ottoman province south of Anatolia (which i took by running full gallop into before they did). Theirs is now the strongest faction in my Russian game by far. I’m also their favorite ally (and only ally actually) so hopefully they’ll go somewhere else after they take out their vengeance on every remaining Islamic nation left.
Also, Courland captured Algeria by sea. That is… unexpected!
Yes, their poor morale is why Horse Regiments are a vital part of the process. And the advantage of numbers, if possible.
There is a review for TW Napoleon out on IGN.
…a narrower, more tightly scripted series of three campaigns, four if you count the tutorial…
The downside, of course, is that the campaigns tend to focus the action in the same direction each time you play them… Fans of the open-ended, expanding consequences of previous Total War games may feel a bit constrained by this approach.
I am guessing this is how they overcame the poor AI…Heavily scripted campaigns.
As you expand, you’ll find that the campaign AI is still a bit passive in some areas. The main obstacles to your expansion aren’t the armies and generals of your enemy, but rather by the increasing upkeep costs of fielding large enough armies to maintain your momentum and by the need to keep garrisons in your rear to subdue unrest in recently conquered regions.
Well that just sounds terrible. The main challenge is not the AI, but the increased upkeep?!?
Framerate can still be a problem in the driving snow with cannon fire bursting all around, but the visuals run fairly well when you consider the quality of the image.
Framerate is poor but that is acceptable since the graphics are good?!?
In terms of AI, the tactical battles are challenging but still exhibit a few of the pathfinding and judgment problems seen in Empire. Trying to lead large groups of units in a coherent formation is still sometimes a bit awkward. Units still try to cross from one flank to the other if you try to resize or reface the line. It’s only a minor frustration in single player, where you can pause the game to get things repositioned, but it can be very aggravating in multiplayer.
It is not a minor frustration in single player. It makes the game no fun to play.
Sounds terrible right? Here is the review score…
8.9
Huh? How is this review an 8.9?!?
In case you were still on the fence about this one.
It’s IGN. They score everything high.
As I haven’t done it for a page now, allow me to evangelise King Arthur as an alternative. It’s a focussed cousin to Total War, and battlefield pathfinding seems to actually work :) There’s a Steam demo…
Bought the TotalWar pack earlier from Steam. For some reason Empire keeps blue screening with an infinite loop in the graphics driver. Oh well, it wasn’t much and I don’t have the desire to fight my system at the moment.
Do you have updated graphic drivers?
Not to mention that despite all the negative talk you here (most of it justified IMHO), the metascores on Empire are still very high (Steam gives it a 90 for example) and it was one of the top selling games for PC last year according to NPD.
I really want to see two scores for every game: Design and Execution.
Design encompasses all of the design decisions, gameplay mechanics, model prettiness, etc…
Execution would take into account if the game manages to do what it sets out to do. Is the framerate playable? Does the AI do the job it needs to do to facilitate the concept? Does the control system work?
Ultimately ambition wise I’d say Empire was a spectacular concept but had some serious execution problems. The review scores and text seem to be people trying to reconcile the two. It sounds like the dilemma continues with Napoleon because the concept is significantly less ambitious than Empire but it sounds like the execution has been improved somewhat. How do you reconcile things like that with a one score slider?
Refreshed them yesterday to be sure (I was a level behind) and no problems so far… Thanks for reminding me!
This is only $10.50 over at D2D until tomorrow. It is a Steam game too, so it should just add right to your account with the key code.
http://www.direct2drive.com/4/7532/product/Buy-Empire:-Total-War-Download
1.6 is out.
The AI has been improved to allow it to handle formations better, form and maintain lines and reduce the occurrence of unnecessary melee behavior. It also reduces non reactive fort assault behavior.
Whilst this is not the improved AI system from Napoleon Total War, it does make a significant advancement on Empire’s current Battle AI.