The (Old) Official ETW Criticism Thread

[Kip]

lol @ everything

[The Englishman]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And people think the game has bad ship collision effects... ha....

[Remo]

How do you guys put up with it? Fracking shelving this garbage until a modder fixes the crap we paid $49 for.

[PopBot]

Not really a rant, but instead a funny little error.

The news event that occurs around 1741 mentions that a certain Mr. Celsius invents a new way of measuring temperature. In my game it says that the scale is set so 0 degrees is the boiling point of water and 100 degrees is the freezing point.

Whoops!

[Bobsters34]

ETW is an ok game, if it weren't for the bugs it'd be a good game, if they bothered to add in more than 30 units and 12 playable factions it'd be as good(if not better than) MTW2 and/or Rtw.
I am just so ing sick of having these bugs that should of been fixed before release, and alot of the bugs that I have are completely game killing. I can't play the Grand Campaign past 1740, why should I play it if I can't get past half the game. I thought I payed $49 for a game that I expected to be finished, but in reality, I payed for an unfinished game.

[LJGoose]

I am sorry but this game is a piece of (put what you like here). I can't get past 1709 on my prussian campaign! It keeps freezing and crashing on Sweden. I have now been encountering numerous CTD occurences along with general glitches such as the world map suddenly turning all black and gray over the water with only the units shadows appearing.

This should have NEVER went out with how buggy this is. Thank you Sega for the nice $50 coaster that I have just purchased. Never again will I purchase another Sega product! No wonder they are out of the console wars. Good thing to!

P.S. I know sega did not create the game but THEY ARE the ones who pushed CA to put the game out the way it is. Therefore as long as CA is teamed up with Sega I will not purchase anything else from them.

[fishcop444]

Troops were not all the same in the 18th century! Each country's armed forces had advantages and disadvantages. In the game, line infantry has the same stats in every country. Are you telling me that line infantry from a third-rate power should be the same as from Prussia and have the same abilities? My big problem with the troops being all the same is in the uniforms. They took a 1780 model uniform and used it for a whole century and the only difference between the factions is a the general color. To me, this is a "cop-out." or "short-cut." They thought that adding beards (show me an 18th century painting of anyone with a beard) and mustaches would be good enough. And to top it all off, it seems super-difficult to mod anything, after they claimed this would be the most "moddable" TW yet. Mods could save this game.

[erik34]

ABOUT GRAPHICS:

I was on the landbattlefield and I had selected explosive shells.
My cannons fire on the enemy but nothing is happening
you see the cannonball coming in and then you see a little bit of fire in the sky and thats it ??????????????????

Instead when an explosive shell hits the ground in the middle of a large enemy force you should see an AREA OF IMPACT in which limbs are flying everywhere and you should see a MAJOR explosion killing many units creating a big gap in the enemy force

Graphics SUCK
Overall gamesounds SUCKS
Speech is not included only almost unreadable text size in diplomatic menu


I thought I buy this very expensive game cause normally an expensive game means its completely developed and BUG FREE like COMPANY OF HEROES

This is the very first time in my gaming life that I bought a game that actually needs and extra YEAR of testing and development

[The Longbowman]

Having been a massive fan of all the Total War games, I was eagerly anticipating the release of Empire Total War but cannot express how disappointed I have been with this game.

Firstly, it's so easy! I'm pretty rubbish at most computer games, but somehow managed to achieve world domination even on the hard/hard setting. It becomes fairly obvious that having lots of schools to research technology is fairly important, but it seems the computer factions struggled to work this out, as I was always miles ahead in this area at all times.

Secondly, the battle AI is just stupid. Particularly when under seige. It's just too easy.

Thirdly, the settlement/city changes are a massive step backwards. By taking one city you can pretty much cripple a whole faction - what rubbish.

Forthly, I just didn't get the same love for the faction and certain characters as I did in M2TW. In M2TW, I remember holding my head in my hands for a minute when my best general was killed by a stray arrow against some rebels. I was genuinely interested in the whole family tree thing, but in ETW the characters are pretty much faceless nobodies.

If I wanted to play a copy of the Civilisation game series I would have bought the latest version of that! - I hope the next release goes back to the values that made the Total War series so great.

[Whatthatguysaid]

Having been a massive fan of all the Total War games, I was eagerly anticipating the release of Empire Total War but cannot express how disappointed I have been with this game.

Firstly, it's so easy! I'm pretty rubbish at most computer games, but somehow managed to achieve world domination even on the hard/hard setting. It becomes fairly obvious that having lots of schools to research technology is fairly important, but it seems the computer factions struggled to work this out, as I was always miles ahead in this area at all times.

Secondly, the battle AI is just stupid. Particularly when under seige. It's just too easy.

Thirdly, the settlement/city changes are a massive step backwards. By taking one city you can pretty much cripple a whole faction - what rubbish.

Forthly, I just didn't get the same love for the faction and certain characters as I did in M2TW. In M2TW, I remember holding my head in my hands for a minute when my best general was killed by a stray arrow against some rebels. I was genuinely interested in the whole family tree thing, but in ETW the characters are pretty much faceless nobodies.

If I wanted to play a copy of the Civilisation game series I would have bought the latest version of that! - I hope the next release goes back to the values that made the Total War series so great.

I registered just to say, this is exactly how I feel. Through I feel most of this criticism falls on deaf ears. I can only hope some great mods can help to create the experience I was hoping for.

[JFC]

I'm at a loss for words...

I have never been one to have a pop at the staff at CA and have never been drawn into a slanging match about vanilla releases being bugged... but honestly...

I actually had obscenely high hopes with regards to this game. I bloody loved MTW and RTW and when M2TW was on it's way, I thought YES!

When M2TW arrived, I was happy... it had it's flaws (2 handed bug, Shield bug remember them? good times, good times....) But the pagentry, the flags, the colour, even the feel of the rot of medieval times. No real game breakers, no random CTD, no wierd graphical errors... it loaded and I played... despite it's flaws and the modders were activated. Production of fantastic additions such as Dues lo Vult, Stainless Steel, and mods which even gave Lusted a job at CA!

And then... EMPIRE, topping the charts! ... the aticipation, the reviews... good lord... the plans I had for Great Britian. Epic battles agianst the French and Spanish, the tug of war over the Iberian penninsular, smoke, fire, the sound of bagpipes and drum, the shuddering bellows of gunfire, the chaos and confusion, god I was watering at the mouth. I took to watching Sharpe again, watching Waterloo... even watching The Patriot and thinking, "that aint gonna happen on my watch, Gibson you fool..." and with the age old saying of those bagpipes and drums, the enemy shuddered, as they finally knew the British were coming.

But what happened? Where to begin?
I watched in almost disbelief when 3 Pirate Ships taught 8 of the Royal Navy's finest how to swim and sank the lot... I smacked my head at the ease of sending the French packing from the whole of France, by taking only one city! I watched as my Ultra Graphics would load confusingly different settings and sometimes not even at all... and why does my artillery not actually blow the opposition to pieces? especially those rubbish sprites over there?! I can tell they are baddies, as the flags I don't want over their heads, won't go. No flags of colour, no pageantry, no music...

I was perplexed at why my rakes where only good for dying and not much else and wondered why they, the gents and priests spawn in the most oddest of places. Build a church in India, well it makes sense that a priest appears on the other side of the planet. Must be using online e-learning?

Not only that, the technology? Offer five for one.. Bargain for the opposition... but no, I'm not good enough. I must have been using GCSE books for my techs for farming, global social improvement and copper plating for ships compared to the PHD quality of a french plug bayonet.

And the crashes to desktop... my god, the crashes. I can't remember the last time my pc did this during a game. Game breaking... I never really regarded a game as being 'broken', until now. My excitement has gone and when I click 'attack' or 'end of turn' my mind changed from, 'who will have a pop at me now' to, 'will it crash?' And right now?... I think, 'I can't even be bothered to load it.'

That's a shame.

[joreto]

Boys I'd like to ask why can I only somethimes put stakes in front of my granadiers ? Why cant i do it everytime ?

[upsettingshorts]

Boys I'd like to ask why can I only somethimes put stakes in front of my granadiers ? Why cant i do it everytime ?

You need to stay put in a certain area long enough to build defenses. You'll see the stakes surrounding your army in the campaign map when you've been sitting still long enough (2 turns?)

Anyway, the reason I came into this thread was to about liberating nations. I liberated Poland and huge swaths of Russia from the Swedish, but in the end they disliked me despite the fact I handed every bit of territory to their rightful owner... my negatives for expansion grossly outweighed my "gifts" to them.

In fact, giving Russa St Petersburg and Moscow and Poland Warsaw (and Riga I think) did less for their opinion of my nation than giving either of them a small State Gift. Seems way out of whack, IMHO they should worship at the altar of my awesomeness after that.

[joreto]

Thank for your answer it really helped me !
And about your question, I am not sure that the AI accept your help as a help so i think there is no point in "liberation wars"

[anaztazioch]

slow loadings
very slow loadings
stupid AI (Sweden declares war on Russia, so i Poland, joinin, at my turn i ask for peace, techn ology and trade, they agree... or Ottoman empire asking for province and 800gold for trade agreement, when i declare war on them and ask for peace and trade, they agree... Or Prussia as resarch center for Poland. Trade West Prussia for EAst Prussia and technology, wait few turns, adn trade East Prussia for West Prussia and technology, and over and over till you conquer Berlin couse you have all techs)
useless pikemans
super weak cavalry charges
cavalry breaks formation when fighting enemy and for them to retreat is a killer... as they dont run, they mustw ait for "the idiots that got lost in combat" to fill up formation... So i cant use my best lancers to break through enemy lines and hit the rear forces.
Bad AI invasion, My war saw was attack 5 times by Austran troops in 1 turn, each time by 4 infantry each time held of by town inhabitans with rifles, not military units... I ask, why h hasnt put that 20 infantry in one attack adn took the city ? Becouse auto-resolve 4 linesman vs 7 civils gives a win ?
No sea invasion
Bad managment of troops

[ambien]

The patch has made gameplay WORSE!!! I never had any CTDs before the patch was installed. Now I get a CTD after 1 turn every time!

[Democratiya]

I think my biggest gripe so far would be fleets getting stuck on trade nodes, which does happen a lot!

Also AI is overcautious, and my save game as sweden stopped working so I had to give up on it many hours down the pan! Onto the Dutch now...

[VALIS]

And world domination would have been mine but no this POS game crashes (for the nth time) and I reboot the game and click on continue campaign, and it crashes on every loading sequence. Try to load from a previous load. Nope, crashes there too. This game is a joke, and any developers should be ashamed for releasing such shoddy garbage on us.

When the hell is the next patch out that fixes this crap?

[Godless Pickle]

Whats your specs? If you are below minimum its bound to crash.

[tokaiser]

Not only is this game unstable, it really doesnt have that much replayability. Yes I crash often too but even when the game is running somewhat well, I just dont enjoy it that much. All the nations play the same, all the techs are the same, ai is predictable and cheap on the hardest settings and very little happens between AI factions. It all feels so incomplete and bland, kinda like suger free vanilla ice cream with reduced fat and no toppings, thats empire. Guess M2TW and Rome will be the series high points.