Will anybody else not be able to play for a few days?

[Fisherking]

Mine isn’t here yet either…

Any time between tomorrow and when ever…

If it had come by air I should have had it today…if it comes by oxcart then it has maybe reached Rouen…

[Polemists]

Mine comes by prority international carrier and even then it gets stuck in customs...you just can't win sometimes.

But i'm still hopeful for the 7th...even tho it hasn't shipped yet.

[Gargravarr]

Well my work colleague's copy arrived yesterday, spent the day gloating and laughing as mine hadn't arrived THEN was able to activate it and run it last night. Kept sending me text messages on how good it was DAMN ANNOYING!!! However, mine is now here and sat on my desk as I wait for the work day to drag to an end and I can then join the millions of others trying to register it this evening. TBH I suspect that those who are not getting it till later are actually going to be better off as by then steam should've calmed down a bit and activation will go smoothly I fully expect to be very frustrated by this evening when I am STILL trying to install it and keep getting told that steam is busy and to try later(There is always a silver lining folks)

For those who have ordered it just remember to keep you chin up and look forward to a trouble free install with no holdups due to all those annoying people (me included) who are trying to run it tonight. I suspect a lot won't be able to even install until tomorrow or even later. Now that IS frustrating having the thing and not being able to use it!!

[Polemists]

Yes, that is one advantage of getting it later is that steam should be cleared up by then.

Although at this point i'm coming down with a deadly case of fanwantitis, where I'm willing to rant against anyone who says anything bad about the game because I want it so badly to judge for myself

[Grumfoss]

Garg. I hope you don't have too much trouble installing the game tonight.

I'm sorry that I gloated but It was to good an opportunity to miss
I will try not to send you too many texts on how good the game is. I will be looking forward to our MP battles...

Good luck

[Gargravarr]

Well, I suppose on the plus side, at least you never sent me any picture messages showing just what it looked like.

[Polemists]

I've got 12 min till my weekend (I work Sat-Wed, weekend thurs/fri) then I can hopefully return on Saturday to ETW and glory

However these next 12 minutes are going to be looooooong

[JeromeBaker]

I will have the game today, but can't play it. My computer was on its last leg and crashed . So part of my savings for a new roof and kitchen countertops was diverted towards a new computer which should arrive thursday. But then I got stuck on a dinner double date my wife set up thursday night...... and by the time I get home ittl be too late to play. So I wont get to play until Friday... At least I can read the manual/look over map while I wait to play.

[Monk]

Here's some info for you guys who can't play yet. I was gonna put this into a new post, but decided it would be a much better fit here:

I got the game downloaded and finallygot a chance to play it. Let me just say first hand, before i get into the nitty gritty. Wow. This game is deep. It has a lot more depth than previous titles and its just down right gorgeous to look at. Technologies, diplomacy, unit creation. A lot of things have changed and for some, the changes are gonna bring with them feelings of frustration and uncertainty. We like things that are familiar.

However, the changes (most of them) are in a good way. Most of the reviewers have touched on them so I won't get into huge details. Rather i will touch on a few things I know a lot of people wanna hear about.

Performance -

Load times are back, but they are not as bad as the demo's were. Trust me. They run anywhere from 1 min to 1:30 on my machine. Turn time is around, as pever said, 1-3 seconds per faction. Honestly, the game is actually a lot smoother than it was in the demo and CA was telling the truth. It was old code, it wasn't optimized very well. That being said, the campaign map is a little jittery at times and you may notice a second or two delay when selecting things. This needs to be fixed, but its a minor annoyance. One I quickly overlooked passed the third turn (you get used to it).

In battle the performace was, well, it was beautiful I fought a single battle. Half stack versus half stack on High and hardly saw a single drop in frame-rate on my machine. This is without a doubt where CA spent most of their time refining graphical bugs, ect. Melee animations look light-years ahead of where they were in the demo, but could still use some minor tweaking. I'll touch on this later.

The AI -

What's the biggest draw of the TW campaign? The AI of course. And the Ai in ETW is a step up from m2's I can say that for a fact. The strategic AI seems much more reasonable, and is pretty straight forward about asking for things. Turn one, Poland demanded a settlement swap. One of mine for one of theirs and some cash! I thought no, i need Hungary. When you declare war you have the chance to call your allies to do the same. They can decline, but in my campaign every ally I had accepted my call for war. Saxony ended up at war with Half of Europe thanks to me.

As for battle AI -

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I won't lie to you folks.

It's definitely improved, but it still has some stupid moments. I fought a battle outside of Dresden against an army comprised of cavalry and militia. I was pretty confident in my Austrian line troops and artillery to hold on. I decided to set up along a stone wall and wait out the advance, however I noticed a second line that Saxony could have used to set up. It would quickly turn the battle into a stalemate!

I pushed my line troops forward, the 3rd and 5th Vienna foot taking up positions along the second line while the 1st and 4th garrisoned some nearby buildings. I thought I had a pretty strong position, when the Saxons sent a massive cavalry detachment and hit the 3rd. Being turn 3 and super early in the game, I didn't have many military techs and couldn't form a square to counter them. Still the cavalry did minimum casualties on impact and I was confident my boys could hold.

What I didn't realize is the AI had sent its cavalry on a diversionary attack. It quickly thre militia into the effort and bogged down half of my army dealing with them. The 1st and 4th were frozen in the buildings, unsure of what to do while the 3rd, 5th and 6th fought for their lives against half of Saxony's army unsupported. The other half of the AI army made a powerful strike against my general, who was watching the artillery line. I was forced to micro my general and keep him out of harms way...

Spending all that time micro'ing him I completely forgot about the 5th! By the time I got back to them the entire regiments of 5th, 3rd and 6th Vienna were destroyed. The AI had effectively coordinated an attack on my general and in my panic, I let it pick apart my men who were pinned down.

Quite angry the 1st and 4th withdrew from their garrison and took up positions near the first wall, our original line. Both sides settled into a stalemate taking bot shots at one another. And here's where the critizism comes in: The AI was amazing up to THIS point.

It was unsure of what to do with a single unit. the rest were positioned nicely, but one could not figure out where to go. Path finding when there are multiple stone-fences seems to throw the AI for a loop at times as they continually hopped back and forth. It couldn't decide if it wanted to attack or defend, so I decided for it and threw my remaining troops into an attack. It focused then and reacted to me, rallying around the focal point of my assault

Final Verdict: AI is improved but still prone to idiot attacks. This battle was a huge shocker to me and forced me to withdraw in disgrace. The 1st and 4th were the only survivors of what should have been an easy campaign into Saxony! The Austrian King Leopold must now stand on the world stage embarrassed his mighty army was defeated by mere militia.

I'll post some more thoughts and bugs i found later, but for now I need some sleep.

[Fisherking]

Thanks Monk!

Enjoy, and thanks for thinking of us.


What was your difficulty setting, by the way?

[Monk]

Thanks Monk!

Enjoy, and thanks for thinking of us.


What was your difficulty setting, by the way?

Hard/Hard

Wouldn't have it any other way.

[Dayve]

Do the harder difficulty settings actually improve the way the AI play now, or does it just make them cheat more the higher you put it, while their level of stupidity stays the same?

[Monk]

Do the harder difficulty settings actually improve the way the AI play now, or does it just make them cheat more the higher you put it, while their level of stupidity stays the same?

I dunno, but the AI in the RTI campaign is completely worthless.

I wouldn't even bother playing it. I just jumped into the grand campaign and learned hands on with some throw-away games.

The AI also seems to be thrown a loop when it starts with a small army and gets a large one for reinforcements. Its really easy for it to get confused about where to send units. Its formation priority also needs to be tweaked. It likes to finish setting up its formation before it reacts to you.

[Polemists]

Again, this is personal opinion. I have no desire to see Hard AI in a tutorial. I know you guys are vets and play on VH but I just don't care for VH in everything I do. I even played Rome in Very Easy when I started. So for those of us who just want a tutorial, it's probably fine.

Moving on,

Good news today

Items shipped on March 4, 2009

Bads news

Delivery Estimate March 10 :(


Oh well, you win some you lose some I guess

[Meneldil]

Homework, essay, papers... I definitely won't be able to play for more than a few days.

I might even wait to be back in France (late april) before finally buying the game.

[Fisherking]

The post came,

But still no game

So it is back to the demo for me!

[Dayve]

Mine was delivered today between 11am and 11:20am, shipped from play.com on the 4th.

Left 4 Dead still hasn't arrived though, and that was shipped on the same day.

[PBI]

For me, a cautiously optimistic review from Monk is worth more than a hundred 9/10 magazine scores.

From what people are saying about the AI though, I may have to jump straight in on H/H or even VH/VH, it certainly seems as though difficulty has a big impact on AI performance, from what I hear Medium probably won't be worth bothering with. Does anyone know if difficulty still has an effect on AI unit stats at all, or is it all about the AI?

I am also seriously reconsidering my choice of first faction to play, I was going to start as Britain but I'm reading so many thrilling accounts of breathtaking life-or-death campaigns in continental Europe that I'm thinking I may have to start there. Building a huge continental empire as Britain would seem somehow wrong, much more British to simply intervene here and there to maintain the balance of power while building up an empire overseas. I'm seriously tempted by any one of either France, Sweden or Austria.

My copy is due today. Here's hoping there'll be a bundle of joy waiting for me when I get home from work.

[Mailman653]

So I wake up this morning, check my mail hoping I get "your item has been shipped" news, instead I got this:

The item listed below is not yet available to be shipped. We expect to ship it within the next 1-2 weeks. We will ship the item sooner if it becomes available.

[phunkbot]

I will get mine tomorrow, but I had to switch ISP's today and would be really lucky if the new one manages to get their service going tomorrow as well (I'll pay them today evening and the activation time is "up to" 2 business days so I'm trying not to get too hopeful about that), and from what I understand without access to Steam I'm stuck not playing until Monday... and darn why did I have to even come here before installing the game? I am so anxious to get it now

anyways, I wish all of you out there still waiting to get to slaughtering stuff lots of patience and the best of fortune


*psst* I got my connection running already, but don't you dare tell my local game vendor! I'm sure thats just what they're waiting for... be vewy vewy qwiet!

[ArtillerySmoke]

OP, here's a story that should let you know that you're not alone in the falling from the sky:

For literally, 1.5 years I have been waiting for this week. Not for my 27th birthday, not for the chance of nice spring weather, not for the snowstorm that actually occurred, but for Empire TW baby!!

I worked my tail off last week. Got everything I needed to do for the next few weeks out of the way and basically let people know "Hey, I'm AWOL for at least a month". I ordered a couple of history channel videos from the time period that Empire covers. I had my cable box programmed to auto change the channel from whatever I was watching, to any program that covered an industrial era + topic. I had beer, food, and other refreshments set aside. I was comfortable in my house and thinking "Wow, what a week this is going to be!".

I even put on my white robe ("gift" from the Waldorf a few years ago ) that I used to wear when playing the previous TW's. Always made me feel powerful. Like a Roman Emperor of sorts. (I know, how corny, right?) This great moment occurred on Monday, around 1pm.

And then it happened. Like word of your King dying...Like a freak thunderstorm during your wedding, like gas during fellatio: The landlord called.

Purpose of the phone call? To let me know that Wednesday afternoon, he was sending someone over to appraise the house. I let out a HUGE "!!!!??!!"

I'm not a pig. I keep the house neat. But things happen over time. Stains, dust, a basement that a Roman Legion couldn't push through. Piles of things 15 years old that you didn't even know you had moved into THIS house with.

Long story short (long. I found out during my cleanup that I am indeed a pig) I spent Monday through about 2 hours ago cleaning, taking garbage out, fixing things, etc etc etc. Not one program watched (Well, some Crescent and Cross on the history channel @ 2am one night...but that's Medieval) and I couldn't even buy the game until 2 hours ago. Whole week shot. I mean, I was PISSED.

But it's over now. Cleanup and fixing: Done. Appraisal: Done. Nightmare: Over.

And here I am. About to install the game and settle down to God knows how many months or more of Empire. The original feeling of "this is it...Empire time" is back

Moral of the story? Don't worry. Your day will come soon enough. This game just, I mean JUST hit shores lol. You aren't missing out on a thing man.

[Callahan9119]

did anybody else chuckle when they read the op saying he was buying hardcopy so he didnt have to use steam

[ArtillerySmoke]

did anybody else chuckle when they read the op saying he was buying hardcopy so he didnt have to use steam

I didn't only because it makes no difference. The heretics will believe that Steam will eat their computer, while everyone else enjoys the game.

Me? I don't even have Steam yet and I know it's not "malware". What a joke.

[Fisherking]

Well, I saw the Postman go by about half and hour ago.

It looks like it is going to take the full 5 days for delivery from play.com.

I hope no one in the vicinity of Luxemburg turned that ox into Beef Wellington and used the cart for firewood…

It was shipped on the 3rd. If it isn’t here tomorrow then I won’t have it until Monday. Never mind I won’t even think that way.

Things will be fine, the world will still turn, and I can amuse my self with the demo, right?

But it is tough reading about all of the wonders of campaign I am missing. The Cherokee stealing their cannon. The slow way men wade through the swamps. AI that at least sometimes kicks butt.

If I do get it Saturday, you know the Wife and kids are going to be hogging the internet connection not to mention shopping and chores. *sigh* I wan’ a play!

I may get a bit testy as all the moderators and Sir Beane are off playing. So bare with me if I seem to be locking too many threads or seem to critical in my posts.

Did you ever get the feeling that you just wanted to kill something?

[Ishmael]

NOOO! Back from the dentist (a cavity and 4 teeth will need to be removed for braces-yay), and found that the games store i was going to buy empire from has managed to go out of business in my absence. Seriously. Mums using the car tonight, so I cant get it till tomorrow.
Another day of waiting.....

[Dayve]

did anybody else chuckle when they read the op saying he was buying hardcopy so he didnt have to use steam

I think you misunderstood me.

I bought a real copy because i absolutely refuse to put a single cent in Steam's pocket. I knew i'd still have to use Steam to play, but at least this way i'm not funding their crappy program that should have died long ago.

[Mailman653]

Finally got my copy today, had to buy it at the store. I was on the phone with their customer service for almost an hour waiting for a rep, then they tell me the computer shows the store I'm at doesn't have any in stock then I said, well I'm in the store right now and I have a copy in my hand, she said well they can cancel my order and just buy it at the store. Which I did.

I'm looking forward to this weekend for sure now!

[PBI]

Good news: Dentist let me off with a telling-off for not flossing.

Bad news: Post been and gone and ETW still not here. Amazon still says it was supposed to arrive yesterday.

[ArtillerySmoke]

Good news: Dentist let me off with a telling-off for not flossing.

Bad news: Post been and gone and ETW still not here. Amazon still says it was supposed to arrive yesterday.

It will be there tomorrow, I'm sure.

This is why I don't order online @ launch. It's a total flip of the coin as to whether it will show up on time or not.

I bought the Collector's Edition and am considering buying another one that I never open up and keep as ...well, a Collector's Edition. That one I'll order online, but only because I already have the game.

[Subotan]

My story is pretty bad

DAY 0: So, I get the demo, and the game runs on medium. Ok, but no different from M2TW IMHO. So, I decide in my infinte wisdom, to purchase a new graphics card, for two hundred Poonds. I order the next day delivery from ebuyer,and it comes, on time the next day, the very day that E:TW is released and the day when I walk into town to purchase my hard copy.

DAY 1:Soo, I come home, and get to work installing the game. Thanks to Steam (YAY), it takes an entire day to install, and I don't get to play until tomorrow. "Ok" I think "I'll get home from college tomorrow, pop in my shiny new graphics card and it'll run like a dream"

DAY 2: Before leaving for school, I decide to tinker around with my box, to see if I could get it working. I pull my graphics card out, only to discover that I should uninstall the drivers first. Nevertheless, I leave for college. I get back, plug the card back in, to find that it wouldn't boot. I then spend the evening switching cards, unscrewing and plugging cables in. My dad gets home, sees that the hard drive data cable had become unplugged, popped it in and voila. It worked. GAH. We then spend the rest of the evening uninstalling drivers, and trying to get the graphics card to work; unfortunately, it doesn't. I think we must have disabled the wrong thing, as we can't even get to the login screen. Looks like I jumped out of the frying pan into the fire.

DAY 3: Today, I get home from school, kick my computer about (Not literally) in a futile effort to work. I know that I need to wait for my dad to come home, which wil be about half seven (Two and a half hours after I come in from college), before anything can be done. So, I wasted £10 on the one day delivery, and possibly £200 on the graphics card. If anyone has any ideas as to how to solve it, tell me as soon as possible please, it would be very much appreciated. Add to that the fact I have a big German test on Monday, and I'm in a bit of a pickle.

(N.B. In real life, I have burrowed my way through this wall, and am busy drilling into a clifface.)