Is it worth it right now?

**edyzmedieval** · 05-22-2009, 08:16

I was recently wondering if it's worth it to buy Empire: Total War right now. One of my friends bought it and he's enjoying it, and I have to admit, it's amazing, but the massive amount of bugs (the first time he loaded it, it crashed - second time, it wasn't responding - third time, crashed again - fourth time, it finally worked but he had a CTD after 10 mins) is a big turn off for me.

I will buy it anyways because I'm a Total War addict but I'm wondering if its good to play it right now, or wait more and play it after the bugs are fixed.

Thanks.

**Babblearossa** · 05-22-2009, 08:35

Crashes are rare for me now, I think it's worth it except I don't like the balance that's leaving me and the ai too broke for enough bloodshed. Well, enough for my taste. It'll never be exactly balanced for everyone though, that's what mods are for :)

I hope there'd be a patch by the time you could research till first rate ships of the lines, but you can always stick a slow ship in the fleet and avoid one of the main causes of crashing.

**seireikhaan** · 05-22-2009, 08:41

I'd give it a little while longer, if you're not in a rush. I'm enjoying myself for the most part, but with CA seeming to be more committed to patching Empire than previous games, I'd say you could wait. The game still needs touching up, but I'm seeing and hearing good signs, for the most part.

**FactionHeir** · 05-22-2009, 08:43

The most current patch is quite horrible with admin penalty, doubles prices across the board and AI attacking you left and right the turn after you start bordering them regardless of relations.

**Xipe Totec** · 05-22-2009, 08:49

I'm lovin' it now - every time a magical new patch appears it's like being reborn and learning basic stuff all over again!

**Skott** · 05-23-2009, 17:58

Since the 1.2 patch I've only had one CTD. Which really pleases me. As far as stability goes I'd say this is as good as its going to get. I dont expect any huge changes from CA from this point on. Just little tweaks here and there. Its up to the modding community now to take the game to newer heights. If you can afford the game I'd say buy it unless your the type that prefers to buy his games only when they hit the bargain bins.

**Boohugh** · 05-23-2009, 19:12

Personally I'd wait a little longer before buying it.

The main crash I'm still getting is the naval CTD (which is thankfully getting fixed next patch) and I know there are workarounds but it's still frustrating and ruins the immersion when you have to think before clicking any fleet "now, do I think this will crash the game, perhaps I should save it first just in case, or maybe I don't need to move it right now?" rather than "ooh, look at that nice French fleet sitting there, lets go sink it!"

Personally I play the total war games to have fun battles and fun campaigns. The battles are pretty decent but the campaign just isn't fun for me currently. I spend more time watching my money and deciding what to do with the 2 stacks I can afford and whether I even want to fight that battle as I don't know if I can afford to replenish the army after the battle... rather than plan a grand strategy of how to crush my opponents.

I'm also still getting slight graphical flickers on the campaign map sometimes (which could possibly be the cause of the odd CTD I get when just scrolling around the map). This is possibly a driver issue but when the game was released the latest Nvidia drivers were notoriously bad and I've seen nothing in any of the more recent driver releases about it improving Empire performance so I'm not really willing to go through the effort of updating them. I'd actually appreciate anyone elses feedback on the driver issue, do the latest ones (185.85) improve on the performance (both visually and speed-wise) at all compared to previous releases (I'm using 182.something I think)?