Hi all. I'm new to the forums.

So, I'm contemplating whether to get M2TW or Empire. I like Rome and loved Shogun and Medieval 1. What do you guys suggest? Is Empire really as bad as everyone says it is? Thanks

M2TW

I haven't had that bad of a time with Empire, i haven't gotten the constant CTDS that everyone else is experiencing. I'd suggest getting Empire.

Med2 has all of the sword-fighting and the melee you could ever want.

Get M2TW + Kingdoms expansion for 4 times the game for half the price.

I got M2TW when it first came out and didn't like it at all. I seem to remember loads of others here didn't like it either. I guess they polished it like they did with RTW with patches and XPs. I actually think ETW is more complete than RTW and M2TW was when they came out - I just wish we could model and make map changes and it would be fantastic.

start with m2tw then etw

It's really that bad? Wow....what about the latest patch?

The reason I was leaning more towards Empire initially is because I really enjoy that period of time and thought it would be different/neat to fight battles with guns and cannons etc.

I like Empire more... mostly because I found the trait system in M2 to be overly complicated, opaque and frustrating. But at this point, it is a much more mature game, and has some KICK ASS mods (Third Age is amazing).

The atmosphere in Empire has really grown on me, and with a sound and smoke mod has a very vivid presentation. I still wish they'd gone in a more structured, paced direction with combat (ie, clearly marked range modifiers, a 'fire' button, etc - think "Cossacks"), but it doesn't feel as sloppy and rushed as it did at first. I'm not sure if that's because they changed something, or I got more comfortable with it - I'm thinking it's more the latter. Now if they would just make controlling artillery more responsive and snappy...

-HD

E:TW is a wonderful game, and I have thoroughly enjoyed playing it. The criticisms which are often expressed on this forum should not be taken to mean that the game is dreadful or in any way unplayable. Rather, many of these criticisms are expressed by veteran players and TW enthusiasts who are justifiably disappointed with the apparent absence of features which should have been included upon the initial release. Many of the initial issues have since been rectified by the post-release patches, while still others may be fixed in the near future.

I heartily recommend either. Both are fantastic games, situated in vastly different and exciting periods. The graphics are comparable, although E:TW does include landscapes, textures and animations which are superior to those of M2:TW. This might be of some importance depending on the processing power of your computer system. There are many gameplay differences as well, which may incline you towards one or another. M2:TW maintains many features which are absent in E:TW, while lacking some of the innovations of E:TW. There have been a number of mods released for M2:TW and many others in the making which may incline you to buy it rather than E:TW which has very few at the moment. The initial release problems with M2:TW have been fixed as well. Additionally, M2:TW is far cheaper than E:TW, costing sometimes >15$ for the Gold edition which contains the highly enjoyable expansion.

With all of these considerations, I would suggest that you invest in M2:TW first as it is far cheaper and remains a wonderful game. You will surely enjoy playing it for dozens of hours. Once many more of the patches and modifications are released for E:TW, it will in a better condition for you to play the Grand Campaign. However, the Naval Battles in E:TW are an epic feature lacking in M2:TW, and this may incline you to purchase it.

As other mentioned, MTW2 and RTW are so popular because they have lots of different mods.
Most of the major mods will/are updated to 1.3 and soon Imperial Splendour 2.0 will release, which will be together with another mod( TROMFX) will be (hopefully) the game I wanted to play when I bought ETW.

If you want a decent quality strategy game that is closest related to the Total War series, then your best shots are Shogun/Medieval1/Rome:Total War and Tetris.
M2 and ETW will have you spit on your screen.
Of course that is unless you're the kind of person who uses cheats while playing quake single-player; then M2/ETW is ok for you. AI/Diplomacy will make sure you're playing Quake, not a strategy, while retarded battle AI will make sure it feels like cheating more than battling.
Have fun.

Buy Med2 + Kingdoms. It already has several patches that eliminated most of the issues it had during release (unlike Empire) and it has a bunch of excellent mods you can try.

Play M2 for about a year and then buy Empire.

But if you are really interested in 18th century then buying Empire now would not be a bad decision either. It's just that it is still pretty rough around the edges.

IamthePope said:

E:TW is a wonderful game, and I have thoroughly enjoyed playing it. The criticisms which are often expressed on this forum should not be taken to mean that the game is dreadful or in any way unplayable. Rather, many of these criticisms are expressed by veteran players and TW enthusiasts who are justifiably disappointed with the apparent absence of features which should have been included upon the initial release. Many of the initial issues have since been rectified by the post-release patches, while still others may be fixed in the near future.

I heartily recommend either. Both are fantastic games, situated in vastly different and exciting periods. The graphics are comparable, although E:TW does include landscapes, textures and animations which are superior to those of M2:TW. This might be of some importance depending on the processing power of your computer system. There are many gameplay differences as well, which may incline you towards one or another. M2:TW maintains many features which are absent in E:TW, while lacking some of the innovations of E:TW. There have been a number of mods released for M2:TW and many others in the making which may incline you to buy it rather than E:TW which has very few at the moment. The initial release problems with M2:TW have been fixed as well. Additionally, M2:TW is far cheaper than E:TW, costing sometimes >15$ for the Gold edition which contains the highly enjoyable expansion.

With all of these considerations, I would suggest that you invest in M2:TW first as it is far cheaper and remains a wonderful game. You will surely enjoy playing it for dozens of hours. Once many more of the patches and modifications are released for E:TW, it will in a better condition for you to play the Grand Campaign. However, the Naval Battles in E:TW are an epic feature lacking in M2:TW, and this may incline you to purchase it.

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Is the AI really as dumb as people seem to say in E:TW? How about M2TW? I heard people didn't like that AI either.

At this point ETW isnt fully patched yet while M2TW is. But nonetheless ETW is quite playable and enjoyable. If you ask me it comes down to which history period you like most. If you like melee fighting, epic sieges and archer fire then M2TW is your choice. But if you like musket fire, cannons and ship wars also with a small flavour of melee fighting then ETW is the title for you.

WallStreetAce said:

Is the AI really as dumb as people seem to say in E:TW? How about M2TW? I heard people didn't like that AI either.

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That's because they haven't seen the ETW one yet

Seriously, AI in med2 is far from perfect but since it is a melee oriented game this issue is not that obvious. In Empire however the AI can't handle gunpowder-style combat very well.

The main AI problem right now in ETW is over-aggressive campaign AI. In Med2 Milan faction was infamous for being traitorous and eventually attacking almost any of its neighbours.
In ETW this goes for every single faction in the game. Because of that diplomacy is peactically useless and the game looks like a huge free for all war.

I've also played every TW out there in some capacity. I'm not sure what it was about RTW, whether the period in which it took place, or if the AI was just better, or the game more challenging, but for me it's the most fun I've ever had in a TW game.

Having said that, I am also in the same situation as you are, I picked up ETW at launch but the performance issues made it unplayable, in the meantime I picked up M2TW and played around with it.

I found that M2TW is a more developed game and runs smoother with fewer bugs, but it is very much the same as the other TW games that preceeded it. I'm not sure if it's more of a personal thing but I don't find the warfare of that era very compelling and I feel that I have done the melee combat thing enough in the previous TW titles. However, I have found some really interesting mods that I want to try out, The Third Age TW and Broken Crescent TW being two of them.

I decided to give ETW another go the other night and I felt that it was a breath of fresh air. The game certainly has AI issues, but I did notice improvement from launch. The time period is something that is very under-represented in the RTS genre in general even though it completely changed how wars were fought. I found the experience of ETW refreshing in a lot of ways:
- The fact that there are no generic rebels but every territory is controlled by a faction that you can negotiate with.
- The revamp of the trade system.
- The naval battles which is another innovation in the RTS genre.
- Having farms, mines and outposts in a region that can be taken.
- The greater emphasis on making decision for your research and technology.
- The map extending well into the Middle and Near East, and having the Maratha's be playable.
- The entire time period in general.

That's not to say the game doesn't have problems that have been well documented here. I think it really comes down to a personal decision, on the one hand you have an established game, relatively bug-free, with a lot of mods out there. On the other you have a new game with some issues but with a lot of fresh features.

I think it'll ultimately come down to your personal taste of which period you enjoy. If you do like the period in warfare as you have indicated you will find a lot to like about ETW, and hopefully CA has some improvements on the way.

This looks like a thinly veiled rant thread, but I'll bite. If you use mods, then MTW2 will give you a lot of bang for the buck until they release mod tools for ETW. I've had a blast with BOTH games, so I suppose it comes down to whether its an either/or proposition.

I really like ETW , that being said you should buy M2:TW at the moment, empire will be better with patches and maybe content updates that will wait for you, and even price drops eventually (if theres another 50% off deal though you should probably get it) and besides M2:TW has a ton of mods out for it that will greatly increase its playability and replay value.

RTW>M2TW>ETW

I still play medieval instead of ETW... wait a couple of years when the game will be finished plus cheaper than the beta

Thanks everyone so far. Keep the opinions coming please. I'd like to get as much advice as I can get.

With the latest patch Empire is now worth it. However Medieval is also cool. Just don't play vanilla and get a mod like stanless steel an sorts.

I'd say get medieval 2 first as you probably won't want to go back to it after playing Empire and you can get the game and expansion pack quite cheap. Then you could get Empire when the expansion pack comes out.

AlexSpartan said:

With the latest patch Empire is now worth it. However Medieval is also cool. Just don't play vanilla and get a mod like stanless steel an sorts.

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I've never tried a mod in my life, to be perfectly honest with you. I've usually just played vanilla total war, no matter the version. So you're saying if I don't use the mods on M2TW I'll be bored?

Ali_the_English said:

I'd say get medieval 2 first as you probably won't want to go back to it after playing Empire and you can get the game and expansion pack quite cheap. Then you could get Empire when the expansion pack comes out.

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So you're saying Empire basically sucks when compared to M2TW?

majk said:

At this point ETW isnt fully patched yet while M2TW is.

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Yeah if you mean the pathetic two patches that still left the game with suicidal generals and a BAI so weak that it needs an army three times your size to make it a challenge.

I've never tried a mod in my life, to be perfectly honest with you.

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You'll most likley be fine with both vanilla Empire & vanilla M2TW, as going by that quote alone you've been happy with the vanilla versions of the other TW games, which were also probably buggy at the time, even after patching.

I was like you once - I've bought every TW game since Shogun, but I never tried out a mod until last year when I was breaking out M2TW for the second time whilst waiting for Empire. They do help prolong the longevity of a game, but only after you've actaully played the vanilla version for a while, and now what more you want from the game.

Since this is the case, then get whatever era you prefer. Or, seeing as in M2TW is probably cheap now, get both! lol They are honestly two very seperate games now. Empire does for Total War almost the same thing as Rome did for Total War - evolves the series.

M2TW will feel just like Rome, only better. Empire will be almost like a new experience.

Up to you my friend, you can't really go wrong.

bodkin said:

Yeah if you mean the pathetic two patches that still left the game with suicidal generals and a BAI so weak that it needs an army three times your size to make it a challenge.

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We are definitely not playing the same game.

I say get Medieval 2 and play it until Empire gets to a more acceptable level with regards to modability, stability and at some points gameplay. The time inbetween should allow you to save up for Empire

I played Empire for some weeks, i enjoyed my UP and Prussia campaign,especially the battles on land and sea, the sieges are awefull. Though soon I was without any strategical challenge so I recently switched back to Medieval because of the awesome mod Third Age total war. It's really challenging, which is the greatest lack in Empire TW. Furthermore TATW gives me a much greater feeling of immersion.

Ibram said:

You'll most likley be fine with both vanilla Empire & vanilla M2TW, as going by that quote alone you've been happy with the vanilla versions of the other TW games, which were also probably buggy at the time, even after patching.

I was like you once - I've bought every TW game since Shogun, but I never tried out a mod until last year when I was breaking out M2TW for the second time whilst waiting for Empire. They do help prolong the longevity of a game, but only after you've actaully played the vanilla version for a while, and now what more you want from the game.

Since this is the case, then get whatever era you prefer. Or, seeing as in M2TW is probably cheap now, get both! lol They are honestly two very seperate games now. Empire does for Total War almost the same thing as Rome did for Total War - evolves the series.

M2TW will feel just like Rome, only better. Empire will be almost like a new experience.

Up to you my friend, you can't really go wrong.

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If it were up to pure playing quality/replayability and how fun the battles are, which one would you pick?

There are demos for both games... the "feel" is different, but it'll give you the general idea. All they cost is bandwidth.

-HD