NTW My Experiences v ETW

hi, I have every Total War game since the beginning and I estimate I have played literally 1000's of hours on the series in total. I have been playing NTW now for around 8 hours and IMHO its is the best version to date. I absolutely love it. Here is a list of what I have found new that I love so much.

A word of note; I am not playing as the French. I am playing as the British. I have every single setting set to Ultra at 19x10 res and play with NVIDIA 3D Vision.

1, Naval battles. In ETW I skipped these every time because they were just not fun to play and they were very hard to win. In NTW they ROCK! Its hard to pin exactly what they did but they are just more playable. I also had one of my best game play moments in 10 years when I hit the rear of a French 2nd rate and it blew up in the biggest and most fun freakin explosion ever. I actually laughed out loud.

2, Gun smoke and muzzle flash. These are not only exceptionally cool looking they also add a ton to the gameplay. Fog of war is much more of a factor as often you cant see troop movements behind it. Nice job, and it looks spectacular playing with NVIDIA 3D Vision too.

3, Terrain deformation and physics effects. I was delighted when I saw that cannon balls started ploughing big holes in the earth where they hit AND the cannon balls spin off as a result. I am astonished that CA has managed to enable this level of detail, very cool indeed.

4, Building destruction. I was distraught when I sent a set of troops into a building only for it to then get hit by enemy cannon which blew up the building and killed everyone of my soldiers. But it was another dramatic moment, brilliantly done.

5, The Generals motivation effect. This is also really cool. A great addition too, sending your general to a particular part of the battle field really can save the day since he can motivate and give hope to a particular set of troops. Another great touch.

Thats it for now, more later but CA- well done, this game is just brilliant.
thank you

Moved to NTW forums

Hmmm... so the general's abilities are useful? I haven't seen any difference with them to be sincere. I thought it would be something like a +2 to morale or something.

I haven't found the generals to be very useful. The morale boost is nice but as soon as you bring him in range he's an open target so a lot of the time he ends up getting sniped. I agree with most of the things the OP mentioned but they have nothing to do with why ETW sucked. To be honest I've found the game to be the exact same just dumbed down and streamlined with better graphics. I've been completely disappointed.

well that sucks for you then.its not hard to protect your general at all,plus if your opponent is always targeting your general your troops can move in relative comfort.if your general dies, avoid combat for a couple minutes, the morale shock soon passes. i just tend to stretch the opponents micro, which means they cant react as well.the game ai isnt dumbed down, its pretty good on expert.unless you are talking about campaign on highest difficulty settings?

Napoleon is a much better game than Empire.

I would love Napoleon if it didn't crash in 1/10 battles in the campaign.

I frequently switch between both games. Napoleon does have better gameplay in some parts, though

So a good question: Is it worth buying?

Originally Posted by Rovernic

So a good question: Is it worth buying?

depends, like always. The battles and campaign are much better than empire. But offcours its the same time period and place, so some people dont wanna give the money to a game that is very similar, with less playable factions and theathres. I personally think its worth it: the improved campaign and battle AI make this the game empire should have been. The smaller focus makes it better. While the warpath dlc was average at best, the peninsular campaign in napoleon is a lot of fun.

As for online, the MP campaign adds a total new element to the game

I recently bought the 'Game of the year edition' of the game. This will give you Empire total with all the expansions and Napoleon total war with expansions. It was on Steam for €30,- when I bought it. If you'd buy Empire with expansions all apart, you'll be paying around 25-28 euros on Steam, so N:TW will then be 2-5€.

I have both games, and until reasently played napoleon the most, but after modding empire (Empire realism mod), i have a big thrill of playing empire more than napoleon, because the scope is so much biggere.

I recently bought the 'Game of the year edition' of the game. This will give you Empire total with all the expansions and Napoleon total war with expansions. It was on Steam for €30,- when I bought it. If you'd buy Empire with expansions all apart, you'll be paying around 25-28 euros on Steam, so N:TW will then be 2-5€.

lol i also bought it because it was cheaper to buy both of them than to just buy a standard single version of ntw.. so now ive got empire twice