Impressions after a mere 40 hours gameplay

[Tordenskjold]

Gentlemen
There is in my opinion a lot of good thing and improvements with Empire TW compared to earlier TW games. The main improvements in my mind are:
· A lot less repetitive actions due to fewer battles and larger and fewer provinces
· Fewer and a lot more decisive battles, just like it was historically
· More historically realistic and interesting Victory conditions
· The introduction of sea battles, even though they are demanding and rather hard to win unless one has superior forces. (On land even forces is enough to win)
· An unique game experience depending on the nation you choose
· Native language speaking soldiers (not sure if this applies to all nations)
· Better trade and diplomacy system
This is certainly something many gamers would appreciate and things that make me stick to this game instead of returning to mods of MedievalTW2 and RomeTW.

There are also some flaws in this game that would benefit from improvements. In my opinion these are the main ones:
· The enemy is lacking initiative in general. Instead of allied enemy nations do cooperate and attack my forces on land or sea it seems like they are not allied and just keep to themselves. Hence missing the chance to beat my land or sea forces together and I miss an interesting challenge
· The few times the enemy nations show initiative is by sending forward small armies just to be crushed without any visible purpose.
· Lack of atmosphere (no music and sounds contribute to put the player in an 18. Century mood)
· It is too hard to get a close up of the units on the battlefield by clickign on them (both land or sea) and doing everything from a birds prospective reduces the game experience tremendously
· Some nation’s behavior in the Diplomacy screen is frustrating. Asking for province exchange each round without any sensible reason and without any consequence. Why would Spain think that I (France) would exchange Savoy for Sardinia? I am bound to refuse.
· No possibility to circle through all the units and hence don’t forget to do something sensible with an Indiaman, a force or an agent. It is very easy to forget something as the empire grows
· More bugs than expected

There is a lot more to say about the game, both pro and cons, but improving the flaws would certainly help. The game has en enormous potential the way I look at it

[Chaoticfist]

I agree 100%. I also wish the AI was smart enough to band together and conduct allied assaults.

Like sailing through into an undefended port and giving my islands a fight, as well as landing by my capital and attacking forcing the player to be on his toes and prepared.

[Samer312]

Agreed, the biggest thing that turns me off is the diplomacy, that said it's a lot better than Med2

[Sol Invictus]

Completely agree, though I do wish that the Prestige Victory Conditions didn't include so much territorial conquest. For Prussia to achieve their prstige Victory Conditions, they must essentially create the Second German Reich of 1871. That is completely rediculous imo. The Prestige game was included so that the Player wasn't forced to go storming through Europe like Napoleon, or at least that was my understanding. Prestige Victory conditions for Prussia should be much more weighted toward the non-conquest factors and only include about half as many Regions as it does now. For Prussia, I would think that West Prussia, Warsaw, Silesia, Hanover, Rhineland, and maybe Saxony would be plenty of regions. This should be easily modded soon so I am not really concerned. I will change all Prestige Victory Conditions to better reflect the historical goals of the Factions if a real modder doesn't beat me to it.

[BigB]

The funny thing with the "difficult" naval battles is that they are difficult because they dumbed down the entire naval part of the game. You cant actually use your knowledge of naval tactics, ships, and strategies to gain an advantage. Ships all pretty much zoom around like they have motors. The different types of shot dont have much effect. When all ships have similiar performance characteristics it just starts to come down to who brought the most ships and the most cannons.

[MrOsterman]

The funny thing with the "difficult" naval battles is that they are difficult because they dumbed down the entire naval part of the game. You cant actually use your knowledge of naval tactics, ships, and strategies to gain an advantage. Ships all pretty much zoom around like they have motors. The different types of shot dont have much effect. When all ships have similiar performance characteristics it just starts to come down to who brought the most ships and the most cannons.

I disagree heavily.

I find Chain Shot when used on moderate range bow shows to be incredibly effective at taking out a ship's sails. Add to this a line of battle organized to cross the T of the opposing squadron, and you can easily demast the lead ship. From there the rest of their line will break in an effort to avoid collision. Turn back your line and continue to broad side, how having the advantage of firing on as many as 3 ships while none of them can return fire.

It's all about getting and holding the weather gauge.

They ARE faster than 'real' battles but considering that some real battles took HOURS to resolve I'm okay with the faster pace. The key is to NEVER use right click to attack. This makes your ships act stupid. You ~must must must~ manage your lines of battle formally your self.

Mr. O

[nostradamouse]

I disagree heavily.

I find Chain Shot when used on moderate range bow shows to be incredibly effective at taking out a ship's sails. Add to this a line of battle organized to cross the T of the opposing squadron, and you can easily demast the lead ship. From there the rest of their line will break in an effort to avoid collision. Turn back your line and continue to broad side, how having the advantage of firing on as many as 3 ships while none of them can return fire.

It's all about getting and holding the weather gauge.

They ARE faster than 'real' battles but considering that some real battles took HOURS to resolve I'm okay with the faster pace. The key is to NEVER use right click to attack. This makes your ships act stupid. You ~must must must~ manage your lines of battle formally your self.

Mr. O

Yep, simply by moving my ships in a line, you can beat easily a 2x larger forces. It's really not funny. Just move them around yourself and everything is a-ok.

[wearycelt]

The key is to NEVER use right click to attack. This makes your ships act stupid. You ~must must must~ manage your lines of battle formally your self.

Don't yet know if it's true, but I read somewhere that Alt+right click gives your target ship "priority" and will focus fire on it w/o screwing your lines.

Like I say, haven't tried it, only read it.

As to the game..... when they iron out the kinks (and My GOD, the kinks) this has all the makings of being the best title in the series. Lots of good Ideas... esp. ministers instead of "governors" (SS terms of course, Vanilla middy2 didnt even have that.).

[BigB]

It's all about getting and holding the weather gauge.

Do you know what "holding the weather guage" means and how it was used? People love to throw that phrase around because they watched a couple of movies.

The "weather guage" doesnt do anything in this game beause ships can sail into the wind and make turns coming around into the wind. That removes any advantage having the "weather guage" would have given you. Ships also dont "heel" according to the wind so thats another advantage that isnt represented in the game.

Ships acceleration and deceleration arent portrayed properly. Ships performance sailing into the wind and before the wind varied based on rigging type and hull design.

Without acceleration, deceleration, and wind performance modeled correctly, the "weather guage" doesnt do anything in the game.

I understand the game wouldnt be playable at realistic speeds. However you could keep the existing speeds but still put in all the factors I mentioned and the game would be very playable and still preserve naval strategy.

You know what works better than "crossing the T" in this game? Just drive right into the enemy ships and split them down either side. Their ships can only fire one side of cannons. Your ships will be firing from both sides effectively doubling their DPS. Just keep swinging around and splitting them again so you keep firing from both sides. It makes you win battles fast. You shouldnt be able to get away with this but the arcade ships let you sail in circles.

[Épaminondas The "Oblique"]

Completely agree, though I do wish that the Prestige Victory Conditions didn't include so much territorial conquest. For Prussia to achieve their prstige Victory Conditions, they must essentially create the Second German Reich of 1871. That is completely rediculous imo. The Prestige game was included so that the Player wasn't forced to go storming through Europe like Napoleon, or at least that was my understanding. Prestige Victory conditions for Prussia should be much more weighted toward the non-conquest factors and only include about half as many Regions as it does now. For Prussia, I would think that West Prussia, Warsaw, Silesia, Hanover, Rhineland, and maybe Saxony would be plenty of regions. This should be easily modded soon so I am not really concerned. I will change all Prestige Victory Conditions to better reflect the historical goals of the Factions if a real modder doesn't beat me to it.

I totally agree with you : why everything is still more or less based upon pure conquest to achieve victory ?

[english tyrant]

Finally a constructive thread.

[Inhuman One]

In my very first campaign as the dutch, the france/spain alliance was quite powerfull. They often attacked me with combined forced and later a full spanish stack was standing next to a fully garrisoned Paris.

[Bloodzen]

In my very first campaign as the dutch, the france/spain alliance was quite powerfull. They often attacked me with combined forced and later a full spanish stack was standing next to a fully garrisoned Paris.

This has happened in a few of my campaigns so far were I march into France thinking ill easily destroy the weak armed citizens stationed in Paris only to see a full stack of strong experienecd Spanish troops right beside them
Honestly the only challenge I have had in any of my campaigns so far has been the France/Spain alliance

[Arctander]

...I march into France thinking ill easily destroy the weak armed citizens stationed in Paris only to see a full stack of strong experienecd Spanish troops right beside them

Interesting timing on this. I just now had the option of joining the revolutionaries in their revolt. The bad news is that there are 2 stacks of Spanish troops right next to Paris...

[man]

the language thing is awesome.
all previus total war games had every one seaking in english, separtated by a stupid accent

[Ahlerich]

i was playing prussia yesterday and thought its nice alternate history to secure a colony in america.
so i went to some indian tribe in canada and attacked their city with less then half a stack.
a full indian army appeared and attacked me. was a cool surprise and i thought ok thats it. expedition anihilated. there were just too many and knowing the predecessors i left lots of room for beeing optimistic because of the braindead ca labeled ai. boy was i wrong
i lined up my melitia coz i am acually damn uncreative when it comes to firearm battle strategies and here is what the indians did. or natives. dont wanna be not pc.

the were sending single units at my line and walking up and down parallel to my line until enough were dead so the leftovers routed. this kamikazi maneuvre has been repeated until the battle was over and i won lossing less then 20 men wiping out a whole stack.

i did not expect a creative ai but watching this i was shocked and turned of big time.

so much for gameplay. i see many interesting new features though as well and keep my major disapointment about the big picture for the rant thread.

[Geordie-warlord]

the were sending single units at my line and walking up and down parallel to my line until enough were dead so the leftovers routed. this kamikazi maneuvre has been repeated until the battle was over and i won lossing less then 20 men wiping out a whole stack.

i did not expect a creative ai but watching this i was shocked and turned off big time.

so much for gameplay. i see many interesting new features though as well and keep my major disapointment about the big picture for the rant thread.

yeah the same has happened to me but i had cannon shooting canaster shot and they stood there till they were all dead.
at first i was thinking "ha ha ha ha " then i thought wtf were they doing?
the spastic AI could of easly joined into hand to hand combat.
maby i was missing part of the big picture....what i meen is maby the ai looked at my forces all lined up in a chessboard formation and thought "we cant win so we will stay out of musket range"...but they didn't stay out of cannon range and died quickly..
but it's still overall a good game that has many more plus points than minus points..(gameplay wise)

[Indiana_Jones]

· It is too hard to get a close up of the units on the battlefield by clickign on them (both land or sea) and doing everything from a birds prospective reduces the game experience tremendously

I don't seem to have much problems getting close to the action, also have you tried the 'first person' mode?

[Tordenskjold]

I don't seem to have much problems getting close to the action, also have you tried the 'first person' mode?

I just wondering, how do you get to the first person mode?

[Medifh]

There's no such thing as "a mere 40 hours". That's enough time to finish most FPS games four times in a row.
Don't mind me though, just nitpicking.