Empire: Total War was the worst $50 I've ever spent

[Sogui]

Bought this game almost exactly one year ago.

Within weeks all my saves were corrupted and I lost a campaign that was 75% done and I had invested over 100 hours into.

I shelved the game for a while, and eventually they fixed the game and I could access my saves again, I was bored with my old campaign so I had started a new one and I'm about 50% done with that one.

Then they patched the game to "balance" things and after loading my save, within 2 turns, virtually every power on the map had declared war on me... that's realistic. I was Austria and suddenly had invasions on 6 different sides of my border.

Whatever, I gave up for a while, battlefield combat was getting old and the AI was still horrid.

Now for my 1 year anniversary of the game, I decided to come back. I loaded the most recent auto save and ended the turn... it got stuck on Spain for 15 minutes before I gave up and closed the game. I gave it one... last... shot.

I opened it up, loaded the autosave, and grabbed one of my armies and tried to do battle against a full stack of enemies. The battle played out well, despite starting with the odds against me, I was 90% victorious and only the enemy artillery wasn't routing, I moved my infantry up to swarm their positions AAAAAAND *CRASH TO DESKTOP*

The fact that this game is a year old and in such terrible shape would be bad enough, but now they've released 10 different DLCs and an expansion pack while there are still such basic problems with the game? Disgusting.

[SkyTrickster]

You invested +100 hours into a game, yet you feel like its the worst money spent?

Okay...

[johncage]

You invested +100 hours into a game, yet you feel like its the worst money spent?

Okay...

maybe he should have mentioned that most of the time was spent battling the crashes and bugs to enjoy the game...oh but wait, he has.

[SkyTrickster]

maybe he should have mentioned that most of the time was spent battling the crashes and bugs to enjoy the game...oh but wait, he has.

I don't think any human could spent 100 hours watching at a CTD screen and still be playing, trying to enjoy it. I would have kicked empire away in less then 2 hours. So obviously he had alot of fun with empire but doesnt want to admit it.

[irish437]

ETW has its issues, but if Empire was the worst $50 you ever spent, you are either the luckiest person alive or a homeless bum that for whatever reason spent the only $50 they ever had on Empire.

[Sogui]

Crashing wasn't an issue for me either.

My first 100+ hr campaign and my 2nd campaign both got really far without major crashes or slowdowns.

About 10 days into the first campaign it got corrupted, and the 2nd campaign is at a stalemate with every nation on the planet full hostile to me even though I'm still only fighting on one continent and don't control that much land. On top of that the game can't even go through a complete turn without lagging out on Spain and despite a year's worth of patches I got my first crash-to-desktop during battle this week.

Apparently CA found the time to release dozens of new units in ridiculous DLCs, AND they found time to insert new ways to crash my game too!

I'm might attempt one more time to "refresh" my 2nd campaign, but I'm so disappointed that this will be my first Total War Grand Campaign that I haven't finished.

[empr guy]

thats why i bought it on sale

although i agree that this game should have been released with the Ai (and features?) of napoleon, which seems to fix most problems.

[Magic Man]

I dunno dude my ETW has only crashed like.. once.

[Abspara]

you too huh?

[empr guy]

I actually kind of like empire, although i've never experianced any CTD's or any bugs that were more then a curiosity. The one thing i cant figure out is mods....

[Saint Nicholas]

To the OP. Try playing a few custom battles and starting a new campaign or two, old save files can become corrupted and cause issues. Also changes in patches and fixes may not be applied to savegames, if this is the case it's no wonder you're still experiencing problems. I've just put Empire back on my PC myself and I am having a blast playing as the Dutch. Haven't had a single CTD or any errors, encountered one or two bugs but they fixed themselves the next turn. I bought the Special Forces edition for around $80-$90 back at release. Granted I don't feel I've gotten my money's worth but I'm working on it. There are much worse games out there that I and I'm sure many other people have wasted lots of time and money on. Empire was bad, but now with 1.5 I find it is pretty good. CA will release 1.6 in the future which hopefully will make the game even better, retrofitting Empire with some features and fixes from Napolean I hope. ETW: Not the best way to spend your money but certainly not the worst.

[Willor]

When will people realize that its maybe their computer that is damn terrible and not the game? Sure, I dont like ETW that much but I played it for many many hours and I havnt had a single crash. You sir, dont complain about the game, buy a new computer.

[Reiver]

When will people realize that its maybe their computer that is damn terrible and not the game? Sure, I dont like ETW that much but I played it for many many hours and I havnt had a single crash. You sir, dont complain about the game, buy a new computer.

lol. Do you really want me to slap you about the face with my epeen? Trust me when i say that the problem is the game

[Willor]

lol. Do you really want me to slap you about the face with my epeen? Trust me when i say that the problem is the game

lol noob, dont get me started. Like I said, not many have thoose problems only some individuals. Obviously their computers cant handle ETW.

[TheFra]

lol noob, dont get me started. Like I said, not many have thoose problems only some individuals. Obviously their computers cant handle ETW.

It's definitely the game and I think a lot of the problems are linked to Nvidia drivers on Vista 64. Well that seemed to be the case for me.

As mentioned above, when I replaced my nvidia card with an ATI one stability improved dramatically. Thats the same install, on the same computer, with the same mods.

Also if it was computer related, surely people would see problems on other games? This was the only game I had major problems with. All other games ran fine when I actually installed drivers newer than a year old, which Empire force me todo to get even half decent stability.

Are your seriously telling me that total war is more demanding than Crysis?

[vonDuus]

lol noob, dont get me started. Like I said, not many have thoose problems only some individuals. Obviously their computers cant handle ETW.

Dear sir Willor.

Please don't be stupid. I bought a new computer when ETW was released, to make sure I could enjoy the fancy new graphics. It didn't help, the game crashed on me from day one, and did so for almost half a year, before it got reasonably fixed. According to your logic, my computer can't handle the game, so feel free to check my signature and tell me which part of my rig is the culprit. And don't tell me I should get new drivers, I do regular maintenance on my computer, thank you.

To all the other fan boys: Why do you think we complain? BECAUSE WE LOVE THE TW SERIES, AND IT HURTS TO SEE YOUR LOVED ONES GO DOWN THE DRAIN. Some of us have been around since Shogun, basically because the concept is unique. And to those of us, whose computers CAN handle the game, there is still a lot of game-related issues.

It seems the TW series have been accomodated to what casual players want. Casual players like those who compare the game with going to the cinema . Well, I guess that this is where the money is, and that my refraining from buying NTW means nothing to CA/SEGA, the fan boys make them think that they have sold us a good product. To me it is depressing to see the equivalent of a Ferrari be turned into a Volkswagen without any price reduction.

But how do I know that there are still problems, then, if I don't own the game? Because I read the NTW section, here at TWC and over at yuku. Hidden between a ton of uninformed praise from the casual main streamers and first-timers, you find some reports from serious gamers, who knows what TW is/was all about. Those reports are not promising.

Yours

vonduus

[emperor77]

I haven't had many crashes, but i still think Empire is terrible.

[Napoléon1er]

I had no problems at all with ETW. Maybe a bug or two, but that's it. The only crashes I have is when I activate/deactivate mods!

Napoléon1er

[eXistenZ]

Empire is a very stable gae when you don't use mods.

Never buy a game on the release. you know there are going to be patches. It's inevitable when the games are much more complex than 8-10 years ago, and the pressure of promotion and such doesn't help

(and if you are lucky maybe there is a discount)

[Sardonicus]

He's lucky he got 100+ hours out of this "game", I guess.

Never had any massive CTD problems but the game is just so frikin boring.

I try to get my money out of it but can get no further then maybe a dozen turns into the game when it hits me,... "This game just isn't any fun"..
I applaud anyone who can squeeze 15 minutes of enjoyment out of this "game". Unfortunately, I'm not so easily amused.

What is really odd is that the previous posters seem to be insinuating that he should be happy with a game that doesn't perform correctly on his computer (for whatever reason). Really strange responses for the most part.

If you like the "game", great... ... If it's the greatest thing since sliced bread to you, great! If it's everything you expected it to be and then some, great for you!

But just because YOU like it doesn't mean the OP isn't entitled to his opinion, is it? Crazy chit.