Empire total war. Is it worth buying? After all probs that I read

[Castout]

Finally the local store has them. They are tagged at US$54.00

I've been waiting for this game for a long time but today having read some of the gamers painful experience and whining I have to admit I'm having doubts whether this game is worth the money at all.

Crashes, poor performance, patch that actually adds to the problems instead of eliminating them and patch download problem thanks to steam!!! Why would patching require steam??? I've read so many complaints on steam. And playing the game requires prior patching and if the gamer is having a patch download problem he or she would not be able to play the game until it is patched up or so I read. That's terrible.

So what would you say empire total war gamers out there? Is this game worth getting for? Or is empire total bust or empire total rip off a more suiting title to this newest addition to total war games?

I've read gamespot review on it but I've noticed that gamespot has lost its critical character (which was always useful for gamers) since years ago.

[Biggles]

I love it. I seem to be one that has a very stable copy of the game, because I haven't encountered any of the major problems that so many other have. I think people tend to forget the buggy start of M:II. I am not, however, happy over the decision to make the game exclusively a Steam game. Any problems I've had, I can relate to Steam.

But to answer your question, I would say, yes, it is worth it. Some drawbacks must be expected. You might want to wait a while, but ultimately, I say you get the game.

[stabiz]

I have no technical problems either, not with the game and not with steam. The game has some bugs, of course, but only gameplay bugs affect me, like the AI not doing naval invasions.

[Castout]

I love it. I seem to be one that has a very stable copy of the game, because I haven't encountered any of the major problems that so many other have. I think people tend to forget the buggy start of M:II. I am not, however, happy over the decision to make the game exclusively a Steam game. Any problems I've had, I can relate to Steam.

But to answer your question, I would say, yes, it is worth it. Some drawbacks must be expected. You might want to wait a while, but ultimately, I say you get the game.

Well to me Medieval 2 was perfect right from the start. At least i didn't notice anything major preventing me from enjoying the game.
Thanks for your say. It's hard for me to say no to this game :DL. Making it steam really screws everything up. I hope the patches could be made available as usual. For god sake if it was their intention to prevent pirated copy it's not working I've found links pointing to the full game and to some of its patch. I mean those who use pirated copy in the first place would not spend or could not afford to buy the original game. This is punishing the paying customer while those who didn't buy the game still play the game anyhow.

[HunterICX]

I would get it, but my advice is to wait a little longer.

Steam -

*yes, the game will only run if its up to date (you have an option to disable this thought but dont know if the game will still run IF there is a new patch out.

*But you are able to play the game without the need of the dvd in the drive and thats a plus.

*all in all, in aint that bad, but I would rather have seen that CA (creative assembly) didnt go in sea with STEAM.

ETW the game -

*from out of the Box it ran fine, for my hardware standards it handled the game well Performance wise

*I've yet to encounter a serious case of CTD's all the time (I've had 1 or 2 but they where completly random)

*Thought after the latest minor update called the 26/03 (date) update, my sound got affected by it ''missing sounds & long delay of sounds'' its make my teeth grind when it happens.
its true about the rumors you read about people having similar of different issues like ''the game doesnt load at all, battles dont load, CTD after battle, CTD's when clicking a naval unit on the campaign map''
lucky my only issue are the sounds, some are worse of then me and I can hope for all of us that the Big patch will fix it.

thats are somewhat my observations of the game in general.

so wait a bit, and keep track on the forums when this big update is released, and lets hope for the best it will fix most of these serious problems.

HunterICX

[Raptor1]

The game runs almost fine for me (Apart from some minor bugs)

It seems that the game runs horribly for some people, and just fine for others

Having to use Steam is a pain, but it ain't so bad

[Dowly]

ETW is definitely worse than the rest of TW series if you ask me. I especially hate the new research thing, it doesnt take that long until you have everything researched, which in turn makes the game a tad too easy. The battles lack the tactical element that was in the other TWs, you can go sneaky on the enemy's arse, but once you research the fire by rank etc. you can just march your guys to meet the enemy and you win, so the battles become pretty repeative after awhile. The lack of special units or any other units that would require you to play till the endgame is also IMO kinda crappy. Naval battles arent THAT great either, would've expected abit more from them, after all, 90% of the hype was about the naval battles.

Despite me listing only negative things, it's a good game for those who are into that kind of games. Sadly, not my cuppa and I dont see myself returning to it time after time like I did (and still do) with RTW.

[nikimcbee]

I'm new to the series. I bought the CD at the store. I've had a few crashes <5, and every once in a while the sound cuts out in the battles. It runs great on my laptop and not as great on my desk top (need better graphics card:doh:).

I totally love the game.:up:

[fatty]

It's a good game. The battles require a bit more tactical finesse than previous incarnations of Total War; with firing arcs and cover you must babysit your troops a little more, whereas in Medieval it was just 'into the breach' provided your horses weren't running into pikes.

There is no shortage of stuff to do on the campaign map, with research, diplomacy, assassinations/sabotage, duels, etc. So if you are worried of a 'busy' game then you may want to steer clear of it. But it's pretty easy to learn, especially if you do the Road to Independence campaign first. It only takes a few hours of your time and is actually a fun little tutorial.

The devs seem pretty committed to supporting the game and another major patch is just around the corner.

[A Very Super Market]

I enjoyed. It has the TW feel. Unfortunately, the changes in the most important places (AI, mostly) have been smaller than what I had expected. No naval invasions, for one, but it was announced that they were in-game, but just handicapped by something else. The game feels just a tad bit unpolished right now, but that has happened for most of the TW games. I would reccomend you get it, but not now. It still causes bugs, and not everything is up to snuff.

Anyways, stability for me has been a non-issue. Things have run fine, apart from the occasional CTD, which I've gotten used to already from the other titles. Steam has never been a problem for me, and I buy most of my games from there. I think the problem is that, while the players who have problems with their game are the most vocal, with good reason. However, they aren't the majority, and it simply seems like it because the players without problems have no need to post threads, or comments that say "Okay, yeah, everything is fine"

[Castout]

Thanks for all of your say.
Most of you seem to be having little problems with Empire or only a few CTDs.

Umm I think I'm getting it by this weekend. I don't see the point of waiting as I'm going to buy the boxed version unless CA or SEGA decided to release a boxed version with the patch...which is unlikely at least for another year.

I'm just glad that most of you don't seem to run into big problems running it as what I feared.
Thanks. :)

[robbo180265]

I bought it at the weekend and I'm one of the unlucky people who cant get past the loading screen. No-body is too sure what causes this problem , there is a massive thread about it here

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=231820

We've yet to hear anything conclusive from the devs about it whatsoever. I suspect that its something to do with our graphics cards (mine is a 256mb card) so I am awaiting delivery of a 1g card as I've been meaning to upgrade for a while.

So be warned , it would appear that this is yet another game that lies about the minimum specs.

Oh yeah and because of the whole "must dowload the game from steam" thing , I had to wait 3 hours before I found that my game was unplayable:nope::nope::nope:

[stabiz]

If you buy the boxed version you dont have to download the game, only the patch(es).

[robbo180265]

That's interesting - I tried to run it straight from the disk and it was always Steam that runs followed by a huge download. Must have been the patches that took 3 hours to download.

Either way I wasn't too impressed at waiting 3 hours to find that I have a game that wont play , a game I cant return to the shop because its been opened, and a message from the devs (in the topic I posted a little while ago) saying that they are unlikely to do anything to support 256mb cards , as they are too low to run the game properly. You can find it on page 23

I quote:

"However, you should know that your card is at the very bottom of our listed minimum requirements and some of the hardware architecture it's designed around cause it to choke on larger packets of data. Because of this we will be unable to ensure that any performance issues can ever be resolved and even on the lowest settings you will still likely encounter very low frame rates and the occasional memory related crash to desktop."

Yet on the back of the box it clearly states 256mb as the minimum requirements. Once again a clear case of lying about minimum requirements.

To be honest - I feel ripped off and even if I get this game to work (and there are no garantees of that , as nobody has a clue what is causing the bug. I am unlikely to buy another TW game, which is a shame because TW is the one game that I used to love playing

[A Very Super Market]

I doubt it's your card. Hell, I managed to run the thing on an integrated one.

[Castout]

Hi everyone, I just got the game now trying to install it Steam installed just fine and I have activated the game(keying the download code) however when installation was about to begin it says this game cannot be installed. What am I doing wrong here?

Running from the auto run on the DVD didn't help too. It always ends up with the message this game cannot be installed?

:shifty:. STEAM!!!!

Anyone can help me on this?

Went to steam support and it says my username and password are not registered. Wtf? I have steam client running and logged in?

[A Very Super Market]

Hmm... Restart, and I'll snoop around a TW forum for some more help on this.

[A Very Super Market]

Meh, just try a restart and see if it works.

[Castout]

Umm it seems I mistakenly entered the downloadable elite unit code instead of the game code Doh

btw thanks for the quick reply. I was kind of surprised to receive reply that fast in subsim. Thanks

[A Very Super Market]

Alright, try this.

Stop the download by right clicking and clicking 'Pause'. Then right click on Empire again and click 'Delete Local Content'.

Then take out your disk, and put it back in again. It will install off the disk.



Edit: Oh well. Try this is it still doesn't work.

[Castout]

It's fine now mate....

Now it's updating the counter says 42 minutes before I'm able to play...well it's steam not microsoft so downloading speed is quite slow 25kB/s

Thanks.

Looking forward to the MP part of the game especially the campaign part once it's released in future patch with you guys here from subsim :D.

[robbo180265]

Installed the Ge force 9400 GT - game runs fine. So as I suspected the company lied about the minimum specs.

Happy to be playing the game now, annoyed for all the people on that thread I posted on my first post who have also been lied to and maybe can't afford an upgrade.

[A Very Super Market]

I just said that I managed to run it acceptably with an integrated one! Granted, it was in windowed mode, but still.

[oche]

Game is excellent. Some new features added for the TW series, such as Naval battles, Technology advances, etc. It has some bugs such as the nasty unpredictable occasional CTD present in all TW games, but the way is being slowly paved thru patches thx to Steam. I had my doubts at the beggining with steam, but hey, you can always start Steam Offline as well :up:.

If you haven't got it yet, wait a couple of more months for more game stability thru patching.

[robbo180265]

I just said that I managed to run it acceptably with an integrated one! Granted, it was in windowed mode, but still.

And I heard you too

Here you'll find 25 pages of people who can't , most if not all with the minimum spec 256mb card

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=231820

[HunterICX]

And I heard you too

Here you'll find 25 pages of people who can't , most if not all with the minimum spec 256mb card

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=231820

I noted some specs are really laughable.

having Vista and just 1Gb of ram.
or having a horrible outdated Video card.

2 things, I don't suspect its all due their hardware (the ones that do comply with the specs) some issues are caused after the latest update that at the sudden nothing loads anymore (campaign, Battle)

and perhaps it should've said on the box instead of just 256 Mb video card.
something like you see a lot latelely.
a 256 Mb card a Nvidia Serie 7 or better, same for ATI a serie *** or better.

HunterICX

[robbo180265]

I noted some specs are really laughable.

having Vista and just 1Gb of ram.
or having a horrible outdated Video card.

2 things, I don't suspect its all due their hardware (the ones that do comply with the specs) some issues are caused after the latest update that at the sudden nothing loads anymore (campaign, Battle)

and perhaps it should've said on the box instead of just 256 Mb video card.
something like you see a lot latelely.
a 256 Mb card a Nvidia Serie 7 or better, same for ATI a serie *** or better.

HunterICX

I do think that its about time these gaming companies were more honest about the minimum settings. Supposedly the games manufacturers are struggling somewhat, I would be more inclined to buy their games if I knew that the specs on the back of the box could be trusted.

One of the worst offenders (in my view) is Microsoft with their flight sim series.

You are right Hunter about a few of the specs on that thread , they were really asking a lot. But certainly in my case the only thing that was on the minimum specs was the graphics card (I had to do a complete rebuild last year and poured about 600 quid into it - couldn't afford to replace the card a the time, can barely afford it now )There were plenty of others who seemed to have the minimum requirments and were suffering the same problems as me. The e mail one of the chaps recieved (that I quoted earlier) saying that the developers were unlikely to do anything to support 256 cards really annoyed me - why put 256 as the minimum then?

The good news is the game now plays fine (apart from the bugs everyone mentions) and I am a lot happier now.

[Castout]

I do think that its about time these gaming companies were more honest about the minimum settings. Supposedly the games manufacturers are struggling somewhat, I would be more inclined to buy their games if I knew that the specs on the back of the box could be trusted.

One of the worst offenders (in my view) is Microsoft with their flight sim series.

You are right Hunter about a few of the specs on that thread , they were really asking a lot. But certainly in my case the only thing that was on the minimum specs was the graphics card (I had to do a complete rebuild last year and poured about 600 quid into it - couldn't afford to replace the card a the time, can barely afford it now )There were plenty of others who seemed to have the minimum requirments and were suffering the same problems as me. The e mail one of the chaps recieved (that I quoted earlier) saying that the developers were unlikely to do anything to support 256 cards really annoyed me - why put 256 as the minimum then?

The good news is the game now plays fine (apart from the bugs everyone mentions) and I am a lot happier now.

My Vista crashed into bluescreen after I uninstalled Comodo Internet security and I uninstalled it because its diagnostics reported some installation integrity problem which it couldn't solve and I noticed it was becoming increasingly annoying with much more defense+ alert popping up.

I cracked Vista disc after that installation and my PC now refuses to shut its power off when shutdowning probably because I now run ny hardisk in AHCI mode and somehow the PC refuses to cut the power after shuttingdown Vista.

Now reinstalling empire. I've been having bad days lately :dead:

[Arclight]

Not sure if I understand it correctly, but if you switch to AHCI mode for the HD you need to reïnstall the OS. Changing operating mode normally results in the OS not booting at all. :hmmm:

[Castout]

Not sure if I understand it correctly, but if you switch to AHCI mode for the HD you need to reïnstall the OS. Changing operating mode normally results in the OS not booting at all. :hmmm:

Yea I only made the switch after having to do a clean reinstallation of my OS