Empire: Incomplete?

[Sheogorath]

LOL

I actually dont think that Empires is bad at all. The only thing that was incomplete was shipping the game with a paper thin manual. Honestly, I've seen games with half the depth ship with manuals or pdfs of over 100 pages. I hope the stategy guide is not as worthless as it was for previos TW games.

I suppose I'm just a bit dissapointed with the unit roster. I mean, not only does all the western factions have the same generic 'Line Infantry' (except France, for whatever reason), but they all wear the same uniforms!

I mean, come on, I'm pretty sure people in Georgia didn't even know what a tricorn WAS at this period in time. It's silly. It's understandable in the medieval period that you can make militia units more or less generic, given that what your average peasant wore didn't really vary a whole lot ("Lets see, should I wear my summer rags, or my winter rags?"), but c'mon CA. A bit of effort would be nice. You could have at least given the British bearskins, since they seem to have had the most effort put into their faction in terms of units.

They've got like, five unique units, not counting the ones from the Special Forces version. The Russians only get Cossacks. This makes me a sad geisha

[quadalpha]

Re: line infantry: is Austrian line infantry supposed to be bigger than everyone else's?

[Polemists]

Some flair may have been nice if nothing else for the sake of flair.

I'm sure they wanted to keep the imagery of redcoat, and bluecoats and whatever, but in reality I think people would have preferred some differrent units if only by looks.

I'm sure they all use the same weapons and dress similiar, but something as simple as the units of germany carrying flasks of powder, and the russians wearing fuzzy hats, would probably been enough. They could have just called them, some german name and some russian name.

Again, would it have been historic? probably not.

Would it have been more amusing and fun to see ona screen? Probably.

Here's hoping for a expansion or mod as I highly doubt they will do this in a patch.

Don't get me wrong, I love the old school tricorn 17th century line formation look as much as next guy, but kinda dull to see units look the same for hundred years, even if it is historic.

[Cecil XIX]

To be fair, all TW games look incomplete when compaired to the better mods out there. That's just how it is.

[Polemists]

Well, I don't ever think they are incomplete, but I do think there are always new ways to add more exciting things :)

[Gaiseric]

I agree. Vanilla version of Empires Total War.....$50. Just thinking about all the great mods that will come with it......priceless.

I will pay $50 for a vanilla version of a total war game, even without the flaire and polish, so long as its stable, the engine works, and its not too buggy. Some of you may think that this game is incomplete, but think of all the great new features and the improvements ETW adds from the previous TW games.

[Incongruous]

I agree. Vanilla version of Empires Total War.....$50. Just thinking about all the great mods that will come with it......priceless.

I will pay $50 for a vanilla version of a total war game, even without the flaire and polish, so long as its stable, the engine works, and its not too buggy. Some of you may think that this game is incomplete, but think of all the great new features and the improvements ETW adds from the previous TW games.

There we have it, the Total War community is so great because of its MOD community, EB turned RTW into the single best Game ever.

I expect similar results from the MOD squads of Empire.

[Fisherking]

You could have at least given the British bearskins…

Oh! Oh! Sheogorath


What ever were you thinking…If memory serves the Brits didn’t use Bearskins until they beat the French units that wore them.

__________________________________________________________

As to Mods, thus far we are still waiting for someone to unpack everything. Have you seen how much they are struggling to even get little things done.

So far more moddable has not meant anything. More can be modded but it has not proved easy to get there.


I so want to get into those minor factions!

[pevergreen]

As to Mods, thus far we are still waiting for someone to unpack everything. Have you seen how much they are struggling to even get little things done.

Even after our PM conversation you still get it wrong Its ok

We have it unpacked, we just can't read these files.

We can edit unit stats, but it aint easy, its quite a lot of work.

[Tsavong]

I suppose I'm just a bit dissapointed with the unit roster. I mean, not only does all the western factions have the same generic 'Line Infantry' (except France, for whatever reason), but they all wear the same uniforms!

Back in my day we played Shogun total war were all the factions had the same units and we were happy dam it!


Oh and this place was all fields.

[Sheogorath]

Oh! Oh! Sheogorath


What ever were you thinking…If memory serves the Brits didn’t use Bearskins until they beat the French units that wore them.

This is probably true, but I'd rather have my early units wearing bearskins than my late units in tailed coats and tricorn hats :P

Back in my day we played Shogun total war were all the factions had the same units and we were happy dam it!


Oh and this place was all fields.

And everybody said "Ryokai!" in delicious 8-bit sound too

[Malkut]

I mean, not only does all the western factions have the same generic 'Line Infantry' (except France, for whatever reason), but they all wear the same uniforms!

"Hello, my name is Dismounted Feudal Knight. I am the same generic infantry that all western factions have, and I wear the same uniform no matter who I'm working for! Only there's no tech tree to upgrade me with, so I'm even more boring."

When it comes to unit rosters, Total War isn't exactly Starcraft. Never has been, never will be. I guess that's just how it goes.

[Subotan]

I'd like to see someone attempt to Zerg Rush a country with Peasants....

[Polemists]

Starcraft? Really? Someone is a fair bit behind the current sleu of RTS's, about a decade behind

That said, I think tw has plenty of color and flair, along with faction differences.

[Malkut]

Starcraft? Really? Someone is a fair bit behind the current sleu of RTS's, about a decade behind

Hmm yes, how dare I reference a game with diverse units to illustrate a point about unit diversity. Back to my cave to try and invent fire.

My point is that factions having units in common is a Total War staple. Rome had it's similar factions divided into cultures (Romans factions had legions, Greeks had phalanxes, barbarians had warbands). ME2 had it's western knights and eastern horse archers.

Now, we have line infantry, and it's suddenly a big deal. Why?

[Belid Hagen]

I think CA had some problems meeting the launch dealine (as all software developers do), having spent the better part of the last two days playing I've found bugs, most of which I can live with. But being anal attentive to detail, I keep seeing information messages that are outright wrong.



I mean, seriously, how difficult is it to type up the definition of celcius correctly, and there are loads of factual mistakes like that.

[Sir Beane]

I think CA had some problems meeting the launch dealine (as all software developers do), having spent the better part of the last two days playing I've found bugs, most of which I can live with. But being anal attentive to detail, I keep seeing information messages that are outright wrong.



I mean, seriously, how difficult is it to type up the definition of celcius correctly, and there are loads of factual mistakes like that.

Actually that was the original scale, before it got reversed.

In 1742 Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius (1701–1744) created a "reversed" version of the modern Celsius temperature scale whereby zero represented the boiling point of water and one hundred represented the freezing point of water.

Thats from Wikipedia by the way, but I've seen that fact pop up in more reliable places.

[Ishmael]

I mean, seriously, how difficult is it to type up the definition of celcius correctly, and there are loads of factual mistakes like that.

I remember thinking when I read this that a horde of people would probably go and complain to CA about bugs...
Ill second the other fellow by the way, I read it in Bill Bryson's 'A short history of nearly everything' (though admittedly thats probably less reliable than wiki)

[Polemists]

Oh yes, Starcraft with it's blue space marines and orange fire space marines, the differences were endless No game before it had ever done Space marines before (Sorry had to, GW fan club go)


In other news,

I still think the game has alot of potential.

[Discoman]

"Hello, my name is Dismounted Feudal Knight. I am the same generic infantry that all western factions have, and I wear the same uniform no matter who I'm working for! Only there's no tech tree to upgrade me with, so I'm even more boring."

When it comes to unit rosters, Total War isn't exactly Starcraft. Never has been, never will be. I guess that's just how it goes.

There's one big difference between Total War games and Blizzard games, one tries to be historically realistic(to an extent anyway) and fun, the other just wants to be fun. Besides CA spent so much time implementing new units and features that they just didn't have the time for it. I mean you really can't compare Starcraft or Warcraft 3's AI to Total War. In Craft games the AI just needs to collect resources, build units, and attack. In Total War games the AI needs to take into account many factors regarding enemy troop types, weather, and terrain. Besides if there wasn't diversity in games like Starcraft or Warcraft.... would people play the game? In ETW nations are different based on what they start with and where they are, among other things.

[Belid Hagen]

argh. DAMN YOU CA, now i have to recheck all the "mistakes" to see if they actually were. OCD is a evil mistress

[Graphic]

"Hello, my name is Dismounted Feudal Knight. I am the same generic infantry that all western factions have, and I wear the same uniform no matter who I'm working for! Only there's no tech tree to upgrade me with, so I'm even more boring."

When it comes to unit rosters, Total War isn't exactly Starcraft. Never has been, never will be. I guess that's just how it goes.

Very on point.

(Dismounted) Feudal Knights
(Dismounted) Chivalric Knights
Feudal/Chivalric Men-At-Arms
Sergeants/Armored Sergeants
Mailed Knights
Peasant Archers

etc. etc. etc.

M2 did have noticably more unique units in the late era, but almost all the Euro powers were still 90% carbon copies of eachother.

Yesterday browsing through the late era unit rosters, there only seems to be a couple factions that are quite generic: United Provinces, Sweden, Prussia. But even their "copy" units have different stats, plus United Provinces gets access to many colonial units in America and India (probably the case too with Sweden and Prussia if you make it that far).

England has a nice set of units, France has many unique units too. Spain too IIRC, U.S., Austria, Russia. Ottomans are totally unique, as are the Marathas.

Come to think of it, I wholeheartedly reject the notion that ETW's unit roster is generic at all.

[Subotan]

Very on point.

(Dismounted) Feudal Knights
(Dismounted) Chivalric Knights
Feudal/Chivalric Men-At-Arms
Sergeants/Armored Sergeants
Mailed Knights
Peasant Archers

etc. etc. etc.

M2 did have noticably more unique units in the late era, but almost all the Euro powers were still 90% carbon copies of eachother.

Yesterday browsing through the late era unit rosters, there only seems to be a couple factions that are quite generic: United Provinces, Sweden, Prussia. But even their "copy" units have different stats, plus United Provinces gets access to many colonial units in America and India (probably the case too with Sweden and Prussia if you make it that far).

England has a nice set of units, France has many unique units too. Spain too IIRC, U.S., Austria, Russia. Ottomans are totally unique, as are the Marathas.

Come to think of it, I wholeheartedly reject the notion that ETW's unit roster is generic at all.

From what I've heard though, it would be nice if the generic infantry had different uniforms.

[Graphic]

From what I've heard though, it would be nice if the generic infantry had different uniforms.

To be honest it seems to me like European/American uniforms were pretty standard in this time, but with different colors between the nations of course. Garish uniform colors and designs didn't really show theirself until the Napoleonic era.

They all basically wear similar jackets, pants and hats, with the white "belt" things crossing eachother over the torso (making an X). Just searching for uniforms on google, it looks like just color swapping British/U.S.-type uniforms from the period is pretty accurate.

The state of the unit roster is simply because that's the way the period was.