"First" Impressions

[Marten]

Your impressions are indeed very interesting to read. Remembers me on my first hours with Empire ...

I've said it once here and will always repeat it:

I'd appreciate a TW:Renaissance!
With colourful armies, hundreds of flags, horns and drums, choral music, catholic priests in front of marching tercios, protestants praying before the beginning of battle ... so many chances for great "battleground atmosphere" with the engine of empire.

Or just a shogun II ...


Marten

[Megas Methuselah]

I'd appreciate a TW:Renaissance!
With colourful armies, hundreds of flags, horns and drums, choral music, catholic priests in front of marching tercios, protestants praying before the beginning of battle ... so many chances for great "battleground atmosphere" with the engine of empire.

That actually wouldn't be a bad idea. And you could also be able to include the Americas in there... sort of.

[LordCurlyton]

Agreed. Honestly I always felt they should have done their TW games thusly:
Classical Total War (roughly 700 BC to 300 BC, covering Greece's heyday and its struggles against Persia plus the rise of Alexander)
Rise of Rome Total War (they did that period mostly, though I'd do 300 BC - 118 AD, allowing the portrayal of the Samnite wars to Rome's greatest territorial expansion)
Fall of Rome Total War (say 200 AD - 600 AD, BI did the most "dramatic" part of it)
Byzantium Total War (600 AD - 1000 AD, the Dark Ages of Europe, plus the former ERE's re-emergence as a continental superpower, since by at the turn of the millennium the Byzantine's were practically unchallenged, and then Manzikert happened)
Medieval Total War (1000 AD - 1400 AD, done that period, twice)
Renaissance Total War (1400 AD - 1700 AD, this is when the whole "discovery" of America should have occurred, plus the beginnings of the colonies, and the height of Italian power, as well as the Protestant/Catholic schism)
Empire Total War (1700 AD - 1850 AD, done already, but adding the extra 50 years allows for all of the major revolutionary uprising in Europe and America, plus you get the first true Imperial wars)
Imperial Total War Total War (1850 AD - 1918 AD, you'd need 4 turns per year, but it covers the height of Imperialism and the consequences thereof, namely WWI, and would allow CA to give us tanks without losing the set-piece feel)

Straying from Europe, I'd like to see these TWs:
Shogun 2 TW (you know it'd sell)
Three Kingdoms TW (it'd be interesting to portray this period of China's history)
Egypt Total War (probably set around the time of the Hyksos)
I know the other two will never see the light of day but S2TW should happen. Well, I can hope...

[LordCurlyton]

Updating my impressions:
More good: the diplomacy, again. So much more reasonable.
The neutral: "Interesting" AI choices. Seems to be very aggressive and not incompetently so, esp against other AI's. To note, so far in my France campaign I've had: Hannover take on Sweden with some success, actually taking Sweden for a while, as well as Denmark and Norway at other points, only to have the Swedes come back and reclaim it all. Also, Hannover vs. Austria has been interesting, as Austria took Estonia, Courland, and East Prussia only to have Hannover take them from them. They have since stalemated but there is a pool of Hannoverian troops in the south of France that I believe wish they could walk on water to reach the African holdings of Austria. Also, the Italian States took Bosnia and Istanbul (!!!) from the Ottomans only to have the Ottomans finally get peace with Russia and take Istanbul back (looks like Bosnia might remain in Italian hands though). I strengthened Mysore during my India jaunt (as well as giving Hannover a territory) to the point where they have been launching inexplicable yet not insignificant attacks on European nations, first at Venice, though that area is too well defended, then at Spain, just recently taking Portugal from them! We'll see how long that force lasts though...also, Maratha took Jamaica from GB and managed to hold on until they signed peace. So yeah, interesting, if somewhat irritating (I'd rather see them focus on growth first, war second but at least I get some interesting tales).

[gibsonsg91921]

Yeah, I got it on Steam when it went on sale. At first I was disappointed in it... I am still pretty terrible at battle and having trouble with pathfinding. However, I enjoyed the Grand Campaign pretty thoroughly as Great Britain - it was definitely worth the 10 bucks. I like how Medieval 2 Total War is more shiny (not a metaphor, I think the game is overall brighter and more colorful), but I acknowledge that Empire is pretty manly. I dig the decentralization too... I guess I am not a hardcore (really hardcore) gamer, or a modder, but I thought Empire was pretty hot.

[Caliburn]

I bought the game first when it came out a bit over a year ago, and played it for about 3 hours, after which I gave up. It didn't seem to work very well. I still find Shogun and the first Medieval to be the best of the series.

I started a Polish campaign about a month ago, and I must say that I enjoyed playing the game. I'm a big fan of the period, so it was great fun to march troops with muskets and devastate formations with canister fire. Diplomacy seems to work to an extent, however, it seems strange that other nations constantly break peace treaties but don't send troops to either defend their own borders or to attack my regions. The addition of secondary settlements in regions is a nice touch, I'd still like that those would be included in the region capital's screen, so there wouldn't be a need to scroll through a hundred settlements. After all, wasn't that why capitals were incorporated in the system? To simplify management? Maybe there is a feature like that somewhere, but I never looked for it too well.

The battle AI is quite stupid, they simply do not understand how to use cannons or how to counter them. The siege system is not only completely inaccurate historically (welcome to Bizarro world!), but also completely broken and murder for the AI. There are many simple improvements I could think of, like limiting the ability of most non-light infantry to run on the battlefield at least close to the enemy (would make maneuvering to a superior position near the enemy a bit more challenging!) and limiting the range of cannons so it would be a bit more risky to lure the enemy away from a safe position with superior artillery (this would also make the galloping guns and dragoons much more useful!).

The naval battles seem to have a lot of "whack-a-mole" potential, even if fleets become impossible to control effectively if there are more than six ships. The most disappointing thing, though, are the insane balance issues with galley and light galley. They could be a fun and useful addition, but in the game, they are overkill. A few galleys with 42 pound cannons blasting a small fleet of 3rd rate ships out of the water without so much as maneuvering?

Lucky I didn't build fleets until the last part of the campaign, because otherwise it would've been another three hours of playing this game before giving up.

It's still a nice game to play, and even when the player uses good tactics, there are always some losses due to enemy fire. Retraining units works pretty well, rakes and gentlemen are useful even if the player doesn't want to fiddle with huge numbers of small things all the time. According to Steam, I've played the game for about 26 hours, which is not too bad for 40 euros or so. There are many worse games that cost more and people play for maybe ten hours and are still willing to pay for them. I think I'll return to this game, even if its only for blasting a square formation with canister and charging them with horses (bad idea in the game, but ah well)...