Empire Total War

[CanadianCat]

haha that worst part of this is that the computer arrives next tuesday, but i have to write my exam on friday!

[natty]

"Your estimated download time is 8 hours 26 mins"

:frown:

[CanadianCat]

ok so i dont know what STEAM is?

sounds to me like i cant go to the store and just buy it, i need to download it?

[CanadianCat]

oh never mind, you can do either. So why would some DL it rather then just buy it. Is it cheaper to DL is?

[natty]

Looking at the Total War forums - you DO have to have Steam to authenticate and launch the game. And it seems some people are having problems installing from the discs(but I think it's because they don't understand it still needs to be launched from Steam).

I just bought it from Steam because I already play other games through Steam and I was going to download it while I was at work. But I totally forgot this morning - being out of work Monday has thrown my whole week off....

[TerriblePizza]

Well fug. Looks like I'll be waiting three months 'till I get home to get it.

[CanadianCat]

well im an old school type of guy, ill probably just buy the game from the store rather then DL it.

@ n4s720 - why not just get a friend back home to fedex the game to you. You'll get it in like 3 days?

[TerriblePizza]

The problem is Steam, as explained in my earlier posts in this thread.

[natty]

This game rocks!

- You can't play as America because it starts out in 1700, but there is a special game mode Road to Independence which also doubles as a campaign tutorial. It was cool to see "A new town has emerged - Charlotte", having played total war for almost 10 years that was a cool thing to see.

- Technology, region building/management, diplomacy, agents, etc have ALL changed.

- You build schools to research technology - needed to upgrade most buildings - it's split in 3 different ways(can't remember exactly but it's like Military, Agriculture and Philosophy), then each is broken down further. It seems technology is a crucial part of the campaign mode. They take a long time to research(assuming only 1 school), you can trade technologies and they heavily affect your income or fighting ability

- Regions are no longer just a capitol. You have your main capitol for each region, but farms/trading posts/smaller towns/ports are all separate. So instead of, for example building farmland from your capitol, you'll have a separate "building" on the map that represents you farm and you can upgrade it. This means you can build a lot quicker than in previous games because you can upgrade lots of stuff at once(i.e. you can upgrade your farm at the same time upgrading your port).

- Agents no longer have any effect on diplomacy, you can open negotiations with any nation at any time(no more lugging you diplomat 1/2 across the world taking 20 turns). Nations are a lot more strict with diplomacy, trade rights/alliance/military access are a lot more difficult to get.

Ok i've spewed out enough.

[TerriblePizza]

Cool. I saw it at the mall today and was tempted to buy it. I still may this weekend and just put up with it in Spanish.

[SmootsDaddy89]

This is by far the best-looking total war game to date. Even the campaign map is beautiful.

[natty]

I only have a couple gripes about the game, first being the loading times. Now I know the graphics are great and that usually comes with long loading times, but I often find myself auto-resolving battles just because I don't want to wait through 2 loading screens. Second is lack of troop variety, although it does make sense for the time period. Nearly every faction has line infantry, horse regiments and some sort of light infantry/skirmishers. The only difference between armies is usually some special kind of calvary (that's equal to or worse than the regular horse regiments) or some special kind of infantry.

[Miaoww]

Sadly my computer won't play this game. It looks superb though.

[TerriblePizza]

TWO loading screens to get into a battle? Thats a bit stupid.