First Impressions

[Quickening]

Thanks for the video quickening :)

Ill probably buy the game based on your video of the campaign looks huge and very detailed. Will you be doing a full review?

Yeah at some point in the near future but Highlander comes out later this month and there are a couple of other games I'd like to cover first

[andrewt]

Did shogun total war suffer from not having a tech tree? MTW? M2TW? Not in my opinion.

Total War games aren't meant to be "civilization". To me, they should be: Here is a historically realistic sandbox. Go change history.

Building requirements were the tech tree in previous Total War games. It took forever to upgrade to the top line castles, armores, stables, etc. You couldn't build your top soldiers early on in any campaign.

200 turns using the same type of weapons and units would be boring. I like the progression of starting out each campaign with smaller battles that get bigger as the game progresses.

[Nelson]

I'm a bit dissapointed that uniforms dont update as the game goes on. I guess that's a lot of modeling work, but still, they managed it with MTW2.

Do we know for certain that a unit’s uniform never changes at all in game? Most grenadier caps disappeared by the end of the 18th century IIRC. And long trousers began to supplant knee breeches. So CA had a rationale to included updated skins had they wanted.

The armor and weapon changes were excellent in M2:TW. True, the new skins do represent tech upgrades but the graphic work was done just the same and could have been done for Empire too.

[ArtillerySmoke]

Building requirements were the tech tree in previous Total War games. It took forever to upgrade to the top line castles, armores, stables, etc. You couldn't build your top soldiers early on in any campaign.

200 turns using the same type of weapons and units would be boring. I like the progression of starting out each campaign with smaller battles that get bigger as the game progresses.

Same...

The gradual ascent leading to the climactic battles near the end of a campaign are what it's all about.

[Sheogorath]

Do we know for certain that a unit’s uniform never changes at all in game? Most grenadier caps disappeared by the end of the 18th century IIRC. And long trousers began to supplant knee breeches. So CA had a rationale to included updated skins had they wanted.

The armor and weapon changes were excellent in M2:TW. True, the new skins do represent tech upgrades but the graphic work was done just the same and could have been done for Empire too.

There's no difference between units in the 'late' and 'early' Skirmish battles, and (as far as I can tell) experience doesn't affect uniforms.

And yeah, by the end of the 1700's I dont think ANY sensible state had their troopers wearing tricorns. That'd be like a modern German soldier wearing a pickelhauber into battle.

There were some states, though, that retained the old Grenadier mitre caps in special functions, though. The Russians, especially, let the Pavlovsk Grenadiers (who I have so often mentioned :P) keep their mitre caps up until WWI! Some of their men were wearing caps that went back to the battle of Friedland up until 1917.

Anyway...

I just hope somebody comes out with a uniform mod. I like the later period uniforms more, myself.

[IsItStillThere]

Building requirements were the tech tree in previous Total War games.

Yeah, but the pure tech tree is a new feature. So why not start the tech tree at a historically accurate level? Its arbitrary anyway, so why not let history be the guide? It seemed about right in MTW and M2TW, you were starting in the dark ages (1100's) and your starting units seemed to reflect that. So why pretend that the foremost navies of the world in 1700 had nothing larger than a frigate just for the sake of making the tech tree deeper? If your making a history-destroying design decision like that, you better be getting a heck of a lot more benefit than just a few more techs to research.

I really don't see why CA couldn't come up with a perfectly reasonable tech tree starting from the actual technology available to each faction in 1700!

[Fookison]

Argh!!!!!!!
I have been reading all these posts within the forum for the past few days since you players have gotten your games and low and behold I got a call from the local EB Games that my pre-ordered special forces edition had arrived this AM. Rushed out from work and picked it up and now am sitting at my desk at work looking at the box and wishing that it was 5PM so I could dash home, do the install and drool over the new game. However, somehow the clock seems to be ticking ever so slow right now..........Only 3.5 more hours!!!!! Tick, tick, tick...................

[Oleander Ardens]

@quickening: nice review

[A Very Super Market]

If you start from the actual technologies researched at the time, there would be about 5 that weren't researched yet.

I don't find it fun to be able to build all your best units, and destroy everybody in an hour. If England had its historic navy, wealth, and army in the period, we as actual people would easily blitz the map.

[Gaiseric]

First Impressions: I am Extremley Happy!!! After seeing the computer games indusry, for years and years, dumb down its games for younger adiances with attention spans of goldfish, its great to see that CA can make a game, taking into account the suggestions of its veteren players, to be worthy of previous TW titles. When I saw the Intro I literally wept. Total War, Totally Awesome!!!

[Tartantyco]

-I was confused at first and didn't know what to do with my gentlemen for about 20 turns... The manual is a little shy on details but I've been able to figure most things out by now. The few things that annoy me is the bugged cannons(Unlimbering and facing the wrong way, won't limber if you switch ammo and try to limber, mess up their positions when grouped with other units, ignore Halt and Limber orders when grouped, and refuse to fire at times.), the AIs constant trade requests offering me techs and money for a province every other turn. The next offer is usually techs and I have to pay them to give them my province... /facepalm. Seriously, the AI shouldn't ask for provinces unless at war.

[ArtillerySmoke]

After 2 days, I finally got down to unwrapping my Special Forces Edition.

Best packed TW yet. Gorgeous and sturdy box, world map, tech tree map (seperate maps), History Channel's Volume 1 of "The Revolution", Rome Total War Gold for free, booklet that contains "The Art of Empire Total War", 6 exotic units included on my disc, a pamphlet containing pictures of the 6 exotic units along with basic descriptions of each...etc.

About to watch the History Channel DVD on my PC

p.s. - This was $69.99 (US dollars). Not bad.

[Polemists]

I think it also goes back to visuals as far as the Tech tree goes.

I mean think about it, if you start with first rates what would you upgrade to? First rate with a few more guns? That may be exciting as a historical but the average player (not a historian) would not enjoy that. They'd rather start with small little frigate navies and then later on when the finally get the ship of line have alot ooohing and aahhing about how much different it looks.

As for uniforms, i'm sure they will mod it, but as it is there are a few who can barely run game as is, i'm sure they didn't want to increase the graphics requirements anymore (if that would have)

It also could have just been a time thing, every company has to make cuts, and maybe uniforms were one of those, since it's not part of gameplay (which still needs a little to alot of tweaking depending on who you listen to)

[Tartantyco]

-Okay, I'm currently at 1774 and it's takes 6 minutes from when I first click end turn to I regain control for the next turn. That's getting annoying...

[A Very Super Market]

You haven't played EB, have you?

I'm used to waiting for a while, and I don't really mind it.

[thurjack_mahr]

Regarding the earlier post about England and France being Maritime partners yet not starting with large fleets:

Remember, this is a video game abstraction where units have upkeep costs, so implementing larger navies would lead to being such a great burden on your fledgling treasury as to bankrupt you immediately were you to actually start with that many ships. I think they did a good job of providing maritime powers with adqueate naval facilities. Trying to rescale the game to allow for larger starting navies would tip the economy - if you try to adjust it the other way, the player only has to disband the huge starting navy and will have a massive cash influx of coin normally set aside for upkeep of naval units.

[Subotan]

You haven't played EB, have you?

I'm used to waiting for a while, and I don't really mind it.

Right on, brother.
In the meantime whilst waiting, you could do something useful, like lift weights. (Heh, "weighting")

[crpcarrot]

wow i really cant believe there are so many complainers here already, its amazing how people wnat the game to exactly to their own preferences and say its a bad game if its not lol

i am pretty amazed by this game and ive been playing since STW and so far the all the game systems are new and seem very interesting diplomacy,policy,governmet wow i still dont know how these things work exactly and it really fun learning.

i took the advice of some on here and started my campaign on hard difficulty and the AI seems pretty good. admittedly most of the battles i fought so far i have been outnubered but the AI have showen pretty goos tactical AI for example

in one battle they sent a couple of units right up to my line and made me engage in melee while i was dealing with that some units had flanked me and taken cover over the wall

in another battle the ai held back till i adcvanced and when my general was vunerable sent cavalry units right at him. they use the cover very well to get units that can hide use all the cover available and in this battle its had kept a nice reserve of about 4 units. i routed about another 10 units and didnt relaise there were 4 units left was going to finish off the general when these 4 units pring out of hiding. my depleted units couldnt handle the fresh reserves who charged me down to finish me off.

of course i havent still adapted to this form of fighting just not used to seeing so many units just stand facng eachother and shot each other feels wrong lol

[Suraknar]

My First impressions are Good for the most part.

I really enjoy the changes on the Strategic map, the new building system as well.

Of course, Naval battles are just great!

The AI needs some work and so is Path-finding, some few tweaks and fixes here and there as well.

But other than that I am having a blast so far :)

I did the complete Road to Independence Campaign so far, and that is as good as First impressions Can go.

For the Future I can see this TW having many possibilities, expansions couls actually add more theaters in this new Map system, I foresee an expansion that can take us all the way to Napoleonic era, but I would love if it can just combine with the main Campaign and add more units and technologies permitting the game to evolve up to maybe 1850 or so Technologically and the game ending in 1899 for the sake of playing a while with Napoleonic era techs...19th century is tough many technological breakthroughs that could unbalance the game, the end of the age of sail the advent of ironclads and steam engine etc may complicate things too a bit.

Yet TW series for me has always been about being able to reshape history somewhat, while starting with a Historical setting.

We shall see what the future holds, I can see however with this new engine many countless fun Hours of play, and hoping about the multiplayer campaign as well.

(now going to start my first grand Campaign) Cheers!