Napoleon Total War. I believe it's out. No excitement here?

[onelifecrisis]

The Creative Assembly are not getting another penny from me. I bought Empire a year ago and I've not yet been able to play it due to a well-known nVidia driver issue that both nVidia and TCA seem happy to ignore indefinitely. I could play it by rolling all the way back to some prehistoric driver which, I gather, did not have the problem... but then I wouldn't be able to play any of the games I've bought in the last two years except for Empire! Screw that.

[Arclight]

I had a similar sentiment towards Napoleon: if Napoleon is what Empire was supposed to be, then why the hell haven't they fixed Empire yet? Not buying Napoleon untill they fix Empire.

Shogun 2 though... can't resist that one.

[Raptor1]

Originally Posted by Arclight

I had a similar sentiment towards Napoleon: if Napoleon is what Empire was supposed to be, then why the hell haven't they fixed Empire yet? Not buying Napoleon untill they fix Empire.

Shogun 2 though... can't resist that one.

I've never had any problem with Empire, besides the obvious design problems, even with the original release version. The AI was troublesome, of course, but I heard it got much better since the patch they released after NTW (Though I haven't played that yet).

[Arclight]

Infantry not firing from behind walls after you get the fire-by-rank upgrade, for example.

[Raptor1]

Hmm, alright. I never did notice that one too much as I didn't use walls for cover almost at all.

Maybe I should have said it better; while it had some bugs (And an awful AI), I didn't find it nearly as unplayable as a lot of people did.

[Arclight]

No no, not unplayable. Just feel a little left out in the cold. There was a time the game wouldn't even start 'cause I had anti-aliasing enabled, think I even have a YT clip showing what happened. At least they fixed that.

Another thing is the battlefields: I remember landing in Denmark, southern coast. Next turn, and army aproaches from the N and attacks, bringing some reinforcemets too. In the battle, there was no sea in my back, and their reinforcements aproached me from behind...

That was the drop that made me quit the game, and I haven't looked back yet, though I'll probably give it another chance during the build-up to Shogun 2.

The game just triggered so many "this is bull****" responses during the time I played it, it's hard to still take it serious. Especially with something like Rome being available, with battlefields that reflect the campaign map situation and sieges that are actually fun.

[HunterICX]

ETW with the DM and CA's latest AI fix the game is quite enjoyable...playing on the suggested dificulty (hard - hard) and as Prussia I've gotten into a war with Austria that lasts 8 years and I haven't been able to retake West Prussia from the austrians after I took it from the Poles.

Casualties rate are going throught the roof on both sides.

thing that still piss me of thought in ETW:

1. Interception, whats the point of having your army strategicly deployed on the map while the enemy always can just walk pass you without beeing intercepted by my army and have them striking my Weaver's cottages, farms and schools without resistence or sieging my capital having my army just out of range to reinforce the garrison.
if a enemy army comes in the intercept range of my army it should be intercepted...simple as that (the only times I got the intercept to work is when my army was garrisoned in my province capital)

2.the generic maps, like pointed by Arclight in RTW the battlemap ressembled that of the strategic map, when you fought near the coast...there was a coast...if there's a volcano your fighting with a volcano in the background. in ETW it's generic boring maps that don't make sense.
also the lay out of the map is just random, if you're having a full stack agains full stack fight, things get a bit cramped up as there's no space to manouver as there's random stuff in the way.


3. the battlemap size, now they're to cramped and small to have real strategic manouvers to perform that could be desicive. it renders dragoons and horse cavalry near beeing pointless.
I don't know why they picked that size, but I would say at least minimal 3 - 4 times the size we have now would be acceptable.

4. something that bothered me from the start, the diplomacy and alliances...

-Diplomacy, can't count the pointless times a AI nation wants a province from me in trade for 2 crappy ones...England for example in my last campaign wanted Konigsberg (east prussia) for the Bahamas and another island....WTF?! what kinda trade is that ''Decline!'' the diplomacy comes up again and England declares war on me ''WTF!!!!!'' first of all, is there in history a event that they traded a european province for a island/province in the Americas on Indias? I guess it would make sense to demand a province as war claim after you had a mayor victory over an enemy and the enemy nation has nothing to fight back with.

-Alliances, pointless....dull and they don't do jack sh!t to help you in any way.
the only good thing from a alliance is that they don't attack you.
is it hard to code that a AI nation sends a message that it plans to siege for example Paris in the next season or 2 and asks for your help in the siege? or having them activily help you in a war against another nation, heck even if they ask a price for it (a province after the war is won, or a sum of gold.)

and I can go on nit picking the flaws the TW game has, but it's better to enjoy what it does have to offer.

ETW flaws however did prevent me from buying NTW straight away when it was released, I might purchase it in the future when its to be found in the bargain bin.

HunterICX

[onelifecrisis]

Well, at least you can play it - mine won't even start. It locks up the PC. And I mean it totally locks up! No mouse movement, no CTRL+ALT+DELETE or ALT+TAB, I have to press the reset button (the physical frickin button on the front of the PC) to force a reboot. I think the last time I saw a PC game lock up a PC like that, it was running Windows 95...

[Task Force]

Odd, I use Nvidia, and have had no driver issues. Whats yer GPU?

[onelifecrisis]

Originally Posted by Task Force

Odd, I use Nvidia, and have had no driver issues. Whats yer GPU?

GTX 260. The lock-up is actually a recent development (started with the 197.45 drivers). Before that I could play but towns and units disappeared from the campaign map and trees and buildings would vanish from the battle map. Google it and you will find a *lot* of people have had this issue and all of them find it goes away if they revert all the way back to the 180-something drivers that their grandma uses. Here, check this...

http://news.portalit.net/fullnews_nv...-war_2128.html

AFAIK it was never fixed.

[Biggles]

Biggest annoyance for me in ETW and NTW is the fact that it almost always rains for me in battles....truly annoying...

[CaptainHaplo]

Thats really odd - I have a 260 and it runs NTW great. Never got ETW though - I think I tried a demo (or maybe it was a friends game) and was not happy with it. NTW however I did enjoy.

Really looking forward to STW2 - and the RTW2!

[Castout]

Anyone still playing this game. Kind of funny that even though I made this thread I've only gotten the game today.

The retailer is not stocking this game and I had to buy it online and I bought it because I just couldn't miss ArmA 2 Arrowhead and saw Napoleon and thought this game would be my natural second choice.

[Crécy]

Originally Posted by Castout

Anyone still playing this game.

Yes, although I haven't played it for a while now.

[Castout]

I bet I know what's causing it: Less than good AI. That actually made me stop playing Empire.

But I am convinced that the only way to play a challenging game is to go BOARDGAMING. Somehow the level of challenge and thus affecting realism in electronic games is so pathetic.