How good is it? ETW, overall....review

[MikeV]

IMHO ETW is more evolutionary rather than revolutionary of the series.

I agree. The revolution was the 2-level strategic and tactical system (which I had only seen once before, in an obscure ACW title). Everything since then has been incremental. Major steps along the way:

1. the VnV system in M:TW, refined into (permanent) traits and (transferable) ancillaries
2. the "living" strategic map in R:TW
3. build tree differentiation (castles vs. cities), and AI controlled battle reinforcements in M2:TW
4. the regional towns/ports/resource sites (parallel builds), tech tree and building interactions, and naval system in E:TW

It's surprising that each step required years of development, yet were consistently (and increasingly) buggy at release.

CA makes an okay-good game but its the modding community that makes them excellent in the end!

Yes, but the modders can only change the data: they can't fix buggy code. We're all stuck with that.

[PrimusPilus]

Thanks for the useful info and reviews. I hipe this has been a good thread for others as well.

With the patch download and my drivers updated the game has been running better. I made it through the first part of road to independence with no problem.

[Hooahguy]

i give it a 9/10.
only 9 because of the AI.

[neoiq5719]

oh the RTI is a piece of cake and really short, what a shame it could have been great. I did that with no problems BUT i started a grand campaign with spain and guess what...........bang CTDs. I had to restart it and after 75 years again same story but it sucks more now cos i have been playing for awhile and i cant continue. Sometimes i wonder why dont they have a mail so ppl can mail them the saved files that crashed so they can look into them? wouldnt it be easier than creating a huge patch that in the end i dont know if it gonna cure everything?

[CavalryCmdr]

-Historical accuracy.
-Steam.
-Bugs.
-Steam.
-CTD's...some of which simply shut down my laptop...but then again its a laptop...I shouldnt complain much about that anyway :).
-Steam.
-Star Forts are most of the times useless, you still go to the capital and reduce it to rubble easily.
-Steam.
-Some very crazy pathfinding.
-Steam.
-Battle sounds could be, imho, much better, with proper fife and drums and cavalrymen could at least shout when charging.
-Steam.
-Crazy campaign map, dragons ate much of 2 continents and completely obliterated the other two.
-Steam.
-Loading times get enervating after a while.
-Steam

A good list of cons IMO. I wouldnt even try this game with dial-up, personally I have satalite with limited download limit, Steam will eat that up on install...

All in all, however, I must say this game is an improvement in the series. The AI is better, though thats not saying much, and despite what they said the AI DOSE get "cheats" on harder dificulties (ie. one AI Provincial cavalry taking out 2 of my Coursiers with less then 1/2 losses...) Also the single region factions tend to spawn instant armies on hard-very hard dificulties. Those same factions tend to declare war at the most inoportune times (Crimea waiting until I've totally finished off Russia with my armies less then a turns march away, georgia waiting until I finish off Crimea and so on down the line till all the single region factions I bordered declared war on me one at a time...) On the up side the AI is definately better at navigating the campaign map (though the pathfinding could be improved) with allot less AI armies getting "stuck." In addition to generally more reasonable diplomacy, backstabbing being less irratic and more logical. Dispite complaints about defending thier cities, the AI is cirtainly ALOT better at it then it was in M2, but again that means very little.

I think with a little fine-tunning the AI has more potential then it did in either Rome or M2, but probably will not match the moddability of the first Medieval.

Despite all that, however, it is a fine game, both entertaining and captivating. It cirtainly "pulls you in" better then the previous 2 titles, I think with a good sound track it could make you loose hours out of your day... I would not sugest upgrading your CP for this game alone unless you have the cash to spare, if you can run M2 you should be able to run Empire, though you may get sick of load times. Simply upgading you video card should take care of most of that. Note the game is not compatible with NVidia, though it seemed to run ok, my load times were cut in half simply by upgrading from a 256 NVidia to a 512 ATI, with less campaign map lag, and no CTD's since.

All in all I'd give it a 7.5-8 out of 10, on the assumption it will continue to be patched and the bugs will get fixed eventually. If you like the series and genere, definately worth the money, and if you like the time period, dont even hasitate.

[CanCritter]

4....mp gameplay has all gone to hell since vikeing..generic&clean.no lobby chats..no community what so every...,,,
unit responce is like watchin a drunk on skates....wont even bother wastein time on campain till they sort bugs out...no point spending all that time getting to a point and EA updates game through steam and your screwed because stats have sudenly changed and and saved games now crash..pointless

No name tags on units....who was the morron that thought this one up?
l can go on but why bother....
as for online campains...for those new folks here thats a well orhestrated lie that preceeds every TW release.....kinda like politics and elections.....

l keep playing in the hopes that they can only screw up this game for so long before they accidently get it right