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

[PrimusPilus]

It is now apparent I will have to buy a new computer to play. HP should be giving CA a kickback. I need a new machine for every new TW.

So what is the general thought about ETW now? I am reading a lot of complaints.

Thanks,

PP

[Dayve]

It's great.

Crap music, a lot of historical inaccuracies, severely buggy, but great.

I realize that looks sarcastic, but it isn't. Also, don't buy your new PC from HP. If you buy brand name, ready built PC's, that's the reason you have to upgrade everytime a new TW game comes out. Ask somebody who knows a little about computers to make you a list of what components would be best to throw in there, take it all to your nearest PC repair/upgrade store and tell them to put it together for you.

[Feanaro]

The strategic map is the best one to date and probably the best addition. Land battles are generally good, marred by sometimes silly AI. I think this style of warfare deserves a slower gameplay but that's probably just me. Naval battles have a hefty learning curve once you command more than two or three ships. Some people will probably never be any good at them without being shown how. You may end up auto-calcing them all. That said, there is strategy to it, it's just sometimes non-intuitive.

Some parts of the game are plain old busted. The AI being unable to invade via sea, artillery that limber and unlimber in an unending dance and a bipolar AI that has flashes of brilliance, followed by dancing in front of your muskets to be shot to bits. I still enjoy the game in spite of this but it can be annoying.

I've not experienced any crashes since starting my Grand Campaign. However, I had to delete the .ini file or I couldn't even start the GC. Some people experience crashed when selecting navies, clicking ports, and other oddities. Sometimes I have a lag of 5-10 seconds when clicking a fleet and the UI can be laggy in general.

E:TW is a good game but it could be frustrating to play until it's patched. If you are easily annoyed, you might want to wait until it's fixed. Otherwise, I'd say buy it.

[Chimpyang]

I've not met any gamebreaking bugs thus far. Buy the game and wait for patches/mods to make it better - same with any other TW game. If you can get good at naval combat in the meantime, well, there's a challenge!

[Turbosatan]

I can wait for the patch. I've only had the game since last Sunday & I've only played twenty six turns (after playing forty turns of a Russian one, then having to reformat my hard drive & reinstall for an unrelated viral issue) & have only had one CTD, when my antivirus finished updating whilst I was playing.

It does take a long time to load. However, I'm playing it on an XP rig with a 2.0 Ghz AMD 3400, 1 Gig of RAM & a 512 meg ATI PCIE graphics card. The battles don't lag & I run them on HIGH settings.

I'm enjoying it, & glad I bought it. It's not perfect, but I'm a realist. I've been playing Medieval 1 for four years & there's bits of that game that are totally broken. I'm happy with what I have now & quite interested to see how it develops.

[Quickening]

Best Total War game yet in my opinion. The game refused to install from the second DVD (actually the second DVD wouldn't work at all) so I had to download the rest of the game but aside from that I have had no problems at all. I love it. Music is good but not enough variety.

[crazyviking03]

After the first patch, I have only had 1 CTD. It was a few minutes ago actually (hence why im roving the forums lmao). There are a few bugs, the whole bit with the AI not being able to invade by sea sticks out like a sore thumb. However, if you play a landlocked campaign like Prussia or Austria, you are in for a treat. I may be a little bit biased since this is my favorite period in history, but this is a great game. I have added the Smoke Blood and Sound mod, the 4 years per turn mod, and the tighter formations mod, and I am now officially in heaven. They are really easy to install and add much realism. I havent felt this hyped by a game since Rome.

[MikeV]

So what is the general thought about ETW now? I am reading a lot of complaints.

Check out twcenter.net for the gushing fanboy raves. Here, you'll get a more balanced review.

It is now apparent I will have to buy a new computer to play. HP should be giving CA a kickback. I need a new machine for every new TW.

Yeah, I hate that too. But, all the game developers are caught in the same Prisoners' Dilemma: if they don't satisfy the magazine reviewers with high-end graphic eye candy, they'll never get the Best Game of the Year at E3. Sacrificing those of us with "ancient," 3-year old machines, is the price they're willing to pay to get it ("Think of the prize, boys!" )

[NimitsTexan]

Hence the introduction of scaleable graphics options. :)

[Daevyll]

It's great, bordering on fantastic.

So far, it is ranked second in my overall list-of-great-TW-experiences ;)

1. MTW
2. ETW
3. M2TW
4. STW
5. RTW

And I expect ETW will get better still with a few more patches fixing the things that are currently not optimal (like naval invasions and some diplomacy things, though already a marked improvement over previous titles).

Make sure both OS and drivers are fully up to date though. I cursed my way through the first week with crash after crash, then almost 100% stable since the latest Vista and Nvidia versions

[PrimusPilus]

Thanks for the replies.

I am playing RTW- europa barbarorum. I love the MOD

I will get a new comp...in some form or fashion. Thanks for the advice about getting one made to order.

More comments on the game are welcome!

I like the period.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Well, the new features certainly are an improvement. Especially love the new Strategy game features. However, the AIs ability to make use of these features is poor or just fails flat out. Not enough protection for capitals and uncoordinated attacks. The naval invasions have been mentioned and make the game ridiculously easy. Essentially any enemy overseas territory is yours for the taking and won't need defending. I garrison islands for the look if it, but you don't need to.
Tactically the AI can attack well enough, favouring getting on your flanks quite capably. The AI is too prone to being a bit indecive, most critically marching aimlessly back and forth in the range of the musketry of your battle lines. also, the AI should try and take better advantage of artillery superiority instead of launch it's attack straight away. Overall though, I'd give it a thumbs up.
But contrary to the traditions of wargaming it's not so hot on defence, where it'll frequently allow you to isolate and destroy units piecemeal. Especially when defending a town, where it'll happily place units in a building while some units sit well back and to the sides of the units in the buildings and will await their destruction patiently. It's just incoherent. It also is too fond of sitting behind walls, frequently continuing to do so when your units are behind the wall and firing in to their backs.

I don't agree with some of the units stats, land and naval units. But that's what modders are for.

And then there are the technical problems, CTDs and the like. If your one of the many that suffer from these, it can ruin your campaigns beyond salvage. As a result, I'm doubtful in recommending the game. I stopped playing all together. But the basics are there for the best game in the series so far. If I were you I'd wait till patches and mods fix the chief problems. Then snap up this title cheap. With even half the problems fixed, this game becomes a must have.

[Husar]

The delivery service is slow...

[seireikhaan]

The delivery service is slow...

Sheesh, no kidding. How long have you been waiting, Husar?

Anyways, my review:

I would say its a sold game, as of NOW. IF, and only IF, CA continues to patch the game, fix a few base AI issues(naval transports), and continue improving the stability of the game(I've personally had one CTD in my time playing, but others are apparently having a lot of trouble), THEN I would say that this game has the potential to be great. The base AI in this game is a lot more sensible from a diplomatic sense(though it can be overly stubborn); it will not just attack you because it has nothing else to do, in my experience. However, it will attempt attacks if it sees an open chance to take a city; the Huron, in particular, have been oddly stalwart it well-timed strategic backstabs, in my experience.

For land battles, sans the bugs(again, they DO need to be fixed), I've found the AI to be fairly competent. Yes, it sometimes does something puzzling, but other times, can be stalwart. This seems a decent deal to me thus far; I'd like more consistency from the "stalwart", but it certainly can get by. The battles are pretty balanced, in the sense that there really isn't a single "uber unit" although howitzers get pretty close when you've researched the full tech tree due to percussive shells; however, they are still far from insurmountable. Plus, the AI does a nice job of keeping up on technology, in my epxierence.

Naval battles are a bit odd. I'm still trying to get them properly figured out. They can be quite fun at times, but other times can be totally lopsided(such as when you end up with Ships of the Line battling galleys). The AI seems to handle itself well enough from the battle perspective; however, it needs to do a generally better job of getting its top ships built instead of a brig spam.

The campaign map is quite pretty; however, from a functionality standpoint, is generally adequate. It should be noted, however, that adequate is a vast improvement over the last two titles. The AI does a fantastic job of taking advantage of unprotected towns/mines/plantations/docks and sending small raiding parties to pillage these structures. Unfortunately, it seems to overvalue these same structures on their own land, occasionally leading to an under-protected city. Flint-locked armed citizenry, which join the battle of the defender in city battles, DO help to offset this, and are a nicely implemented featuer in general, in my view.

All in all: I give the game 8/10 thus far; however, all the correct pieces are in place to make this game a 9.5 if they keep working on it and updating it.

[neoiq5719]

Well, the new features certainly are an improvement. Especially love the new Strategy game features. However, the AIs ability to make use of these features is poor or just fails flat out. Not enough protection for capitals and uncoordinated attacks. The naval invasions have been mentioned and make the game ridiculously easy. Essentially any enemy overseas territory is yours for the taking and won't need defending. I garrison islands for the look if it, but you don't need to.
Tactically the AI can attack well enough, favouring getting on your flanks quite capably. The AI is too prone to being a bit indecive, most critically marching aimlessly back and forth in the range of the musketry of your battle lines. also, the AI should try and take better advantage of artillery superiority instead of launch it's attack straight away. Overall though, I'd give it a thumbs up.
But contrary to the traditions of wargaming it's not so hot on defence, where it'll frequently allow you to isolate and destroy units piecemeal. Especially when defending a town, where it'll happily place units in a building while some units sit well back and to the sides of the units in the buildings and will await their destruction patiently. It's just incoherent. It also is too fond of sitting behind walls, frequently continuing to do so when your units are behind the wall and firing in to their backs.

I don't agree with some of the units stats, land and naval units. But that's what modders are for.

And then there are the technical problems, CTDs and the like. If your one of the many that suffer from these, it can ruin your campaigns beyond salvage. As a result, I'm doubtful in recommending the game. I stopped playing all together. But the basics are there for the best game in the series so far. If I were you I'd wait till patches and mods fix the chief problems. Then snap up this title cheap. With even half the problems fixed, this game becomes a must have.

Amen brother!!!
Before a new TW title is released, they lure people into buying it with videos and all that stuff but the bugfest is typical in CA no matter what team is in charged ( and for this edition add the steam crap and the many CTD ppl are having just to mention some). Happened in RTW, M2TW and the expansion and is happening again with this title. CA is getting away with murder all the time cos they dont have real competitors in the gendre otherwise they would pay for this new outrage. YEAH YEAH some folks say, hey dont buy the game and all that stuff but we like this type of game, the titles are splendid, the whole things around it plus the era is enticing as well but once you get started, it pisses u off.
There´s nothing we can do here unless someone else does the same in order to set things straight, till then they can release any innovative piece of crap and we would fall for it again and again, that´s it.

[Husar]

Sheesh, no kidding. How long have you been waiting, Husar?

Tomorrow it will be three weeks and on Tuesday I will complain.

[antisocialmunky]

Wow, I just cancelled my order on the weekend, dropped by Best Buy and snagged a copy.

[Gaiseric]

These are solid reviews. I agree with them.

For me its hard to rate. I've wanted to throw out the game because of its horrible bugs, but I continue to play because of the cool new features. Feels like I am playing a beta though. This game should still be in testing.

With proper patching and modding this game has the potential to be the best TW game ever. This might take time though. CA has been doing a good job patching and fixing the game. Modders are having some difficulty making changes with the new steam engine. Though there are some mods now, and gamplay for most is stable, there are many parts of this game that badly need to be fixed. I am putting my copy on the shelf and coming back in a few months.

[Kulgan]

In my opinion ETW has many great assets. However for every good asset there are 10 major flaws, and I don't see it possbile to patch all those flaws. In order to get the game practially flawless they should better simply start all over.*

I never saw such a big ( in terms of money/people involved ) come out so poorly.

I think ETW is a very dark chapter in a great series.



* Although I still hope for succesfull patching, I seriously doubt it!

[Scribble]

when the bugs get ironed out it will be, imho, the best in a series of extremely good games. ETW has soem excellent features - particulaly the tech tree - but has some widely irratating bugs. One of the previous posts said the AI seemed bi-polar and that's very true. I've found that if you leave a very small window for the AI to hurt you, suddenly you've lost 5 territories and the Ai has destroyed all your buildings. It's good to see these raiding tactics.
But the numerous bugs are frustrating and, after being unable to unlock the US as a faction because of a bug, I'm thinking of returning to Milan in MTW2. But just until the bugs get fixed then I'll return to ETW.

[SpencerH]

I'm glad we've got a thread like this since I managed to keep my vow to not buy ETW on release. As I had somewhat decided from gleaning the various rants at other sites, I'll be waiting a while until this one is "completed" before I purchase it.

[Grumfoss]

Empire to me is a real advance in the Totalwar series. I got quite excited the first time I saw one of the naval battles on Youtube.

When I first installed the game (I was a little concerned about using Steam as I had heard conflicting stories about it) but all went well, and the updates seem to work fine. I started the game and ran through part of the RTI campaign. The land battles were beautiful to watch (I am lucky enough to be able to run the game maxed out) and when I got to the Naval battles I was really pleased, the level of detail was amazing from the reflections on the water to the ships heeling when the sails are filled, brilliant. yes I will admit that the path finding has occasionally made me mad and I can't board or capture anything but now that I have fought many battles I now know ways to get around most of the problems, not ideal but not game breaking.

On the Campaign map I really like the torn national flags to show a damaged army/navy a really nice touch, the animations of the characters are great as well as the appearance of things happening with carts going from town to port and then trade ships sailing away. The smoke rising from cities and damaged towns really makes the map come alive.

On the land battles there are a few problems with poor AI path finding and friendly fire issues, but in general the animations of the infantry firing and reloading is excellent and when artillery works correctly it is great to see it smash through buildings. The use of the insert key is a real breakthrough, it great to be able to be part of your cavalry charge (seeing the horse's head in front of you) or be on the front rank of your line infantry advancing on enemy is really great. Its fun if your a unit hiding behind a wall, loading your gun then popping up to take a shot and then bobbing back down hehe what fun. With the mods for smoke and fife and drums the battle fields look even better with the smoke drifting across the battle field and the new particle effects on artillery look excellent.

Yes there are bugs in the game, but every game that I have played on the PC has been buggy, we are lucky on the PC that patches are forthcoming and soon all of the killer bugs will be ironed out. I really feel for those people who have not been able to play the game and I wish that I could wave a magic wand and sort your problems out, but I think that CA are doing what they can as I'm sure they don't want to upset their customers.

I have only had one CTD (this was caused by trying to merge armies) i'm sure as time goes on i'll experience more...yes I will curse the game but It still won't stop me from loving it.

[Furunculus]

It's great, bordering on fantastic.

So far, it is ranked first in my overall list-of-great-TW-experiences ;)

1. ETW
2. MTW
3. ----
4. ----
5. STW
6. ----
7. ----
8. M2TW
9. RTW

[PrimusPilus]

I am able to run the campaign game and it is totally fascinating. I hope all the bugs get solve. Buying a new computer next month!

[Skott]

I give it a 7 or 7.5 out of 10 as is out of the box. I'm expecting the modders to take it to a 9.0 or possibly higher once they figure out all the ins and outs of modding the game and get some good mods out. This is pretty much how I rated RTW and M2TW when they first came out. IMHO ETW is more evolutionary rather than revolutionary of the series. CA makes an okay-good game but its the modding community that makes them excellent in the end!

[Megas Methuselah]

It's great.

Crap music, a lot of historical inaccuracies, severely buggy, but great.

[Beefy187]

It's great, bordering on fantastic.

So far, it is ranked first in my overall list-of-great-TW-experiences ;)

1. ETW
2. MTW
3. ----
4. ----
5. STW
6. ----
7. ----
8. M2TW
9. RTW

That is very pleasing to hear. Now I feel like buying a new computer and buying ETW

[Lusitani]

Pros:

-Good map although incomplete.
-Ships and naval battles.
-In general graphics are good if you have a suitable machine.
-Diplomacy slightly better but still needs a few touches.
-Very interesting period.

Cons:

-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

Conclusion:

In general I would say the game has a great potential but i find it quite unfinnished.
So, if one can afford it, should go for it hoping that at least CA will make some improvements and I am sure some pretty good Mods will show up.
As for the Steam issue, I still maintain what I have said before about finding ridiculous to have to access to Steam to validate a game bought in a shop.

V.

[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.