Empire: total War

[Dreaming]

Well i allowed it to dl today while I was sleeping (night shift work) Now i have one of those mobile t-mobile sticks which said I was getting about 300 to 500 kb a second. But in the steam menu its said between 6 and 92.5 kb a second. Anyway left it to download- got up and saw it now said updating 0% and after a long time it went to 1%. I then paused it and then resumed it. A while later it said 'updating 100%' but still was showing the dl speed. I then paused and resumed thinking it may have just got bogged down or something. But it went back to updating 0% after i resumed. Can anyone tell me if the demo has dl ? or should i just delete what i have dl and start again. Had to turn my pc off before i went to work so paused it. If i resume it tomorrow will it just start where i stopped it.


I hope that makes some sense (not had a lot of sleep)

Something similar happened with me, it downloaded the demo and then appeared to download a patch afterwards?

Don't delete it, verify game cache and see how that goes.

[Dreaming]

Is anyone else stupidly excited aout this? I'm getting the retail version from Amazon, will that just install straight into steam as well (I would like it to ideally, but valve can f*** off if they want me to pay £40 for it when amazon are selling it preorder retail box for £23).

[Andy3536]

Is anyone else stupidly excited aout this? I'm getting the retail version from Amazon, will that just install straight into steam as well (I would like it to ideally, but valve can f*** off if they want me to pay £40 for it when amazon are selling it preorder retail box for £23).

yes, it installs it to you steam games list with the disc copy. I to think this game is gonna be pretty epic. Would have nice if they could have included some of the improved fire disiplines for the soldiers but looking foward to seeing them work in the game while i crush France.........or try.

[AledJ]

Well got a chance to try it..........and i like it. I'm not wowowed by it but i will enjoy playing it. The load times are very annoying!!!!! and for some reason when i played it today where the opening film starts the sound would play but loop and then cut out and in. Once I got to the main menu there was a thin blue line right at the top, also so part of a blue line on the side of the screen when i was doing the ship mission. Anyone else had this prob?

[Andy3536]

Well got a chance to try it..........and i like it. I'm not wowowed by it but i will enjoy playing it. The load times are very annoying!!!!! and for some reason when i played it today where the opening film starts the sound would play but loop and then cut out and in. Once I got to the main menu there was a thin blue line right at the top, also so part of a blue line on the side of the screen when i was doing the ship mission. Anyone else had this prob?

Running ATI card?

Had issues with terrible tearing on going into the level. Solved by disabling forced AA.

If you are running ATI card then try these.
Disable adaptive AA and also for the normal AA setting have it as 'use application settings'

[AledJ]

Yeah I have ATI x1950 i think. Thanks for the tip will give it a go tomorrow. Do i do that from in-game or from the ATI control panel?

Cheers

edit: just read your tip again so i guess change the setting in the ATI control panel.

[Andy3536]

Yeah I have ATI x1950 i think. Thanks for the tip will give it a go tomorrow. Do i do that from in-game or from the ATI control panel?

Cheers

edit: just read your tip again so i guess change the setting in the ATI control panel.

Yes from the catalyst control center.

[Splash]

My copy was despatched by Play yesterday, fingers crossed for an early delivery

[snedger]

I got my order from Game today and have just played for a few hours after work.
Might be a good idea to read the manual - much more complex than any other Total War game.
Just got trashed in a sea battle and now my head hurts too much, so that will do for today.

[Dreaming]

I've been playing it, it's pretty fun. I found the sea battles pretty easy - it's about outgunning your opponent. Just select all ships and tell them to go to full sail so they go in a straight line, and when enemy ships come past you you just blast them to smithereens. That's why they were called 'ships of the line' because they were supposed to be used in a line. Of course Nelson messed that all up when he sailed straight into the French / Spanish formation, taking broadsides without being able to retaliate until the British ships reached the line and blew everything up.

I find land battles less tactical than previous games, but that's probably because I don't really understand the tacts as well. It seems to be, shoot each other or charge. I find charging to have good results. Cavalry are pretty weak so far, taking losses even just taking out an artillery position, they are certainly no longer the ultra shock unit they used to be. Much better for harassing and such. Artillery is effective but again I am sure if you have an army of just linesmen / regulars, select all and march in column to the enemy centre they will be ok, charging when you've closed range.

I am slightly disappointed that so far I've not been so good with volley fire, even if I turn fire at will off, it has some peculiar behaviour at times when telling to shoot manually. Also, the distinction between militia and regulars isn't massive, I've been happily using militia in my centre, as long as you cover flanks and have general nearby they don't panic and run off, even under melee attacks. Overall it feels like the combat mechanics are quite simplistic, and to an extent the game is a little boring in battle because you can just sit there and let your men do the work. I don't even bother manually deploying because I don't know what units should go first it's missing the rock / paper / scissor element that all the other total war games have. It's about who has the best and most plentiful infantry.

Finally, has anybody noticed really bad performance? On auto is set my settings to 1680 x 1050 on low settings, I changed it to medium manually and although its prettier I am still getting poor performance at times. It's not like the 8800gts isn't a capable card (even if its a little old now) and same goes for the e6300 especially overclocked as much as it is. Going to try a friend's 4870 this weekend as he's selling it quite cheaply and see how that fares.

[Digerati]

I had a similar experiance. I played this game till the early hours of the morning and have found it so much more complex then previous Total Wars, which isn't a bad thing at all. Deciding where to invest in your military units can either make or break your empire in the beginning moves.

I picked to play as the British. Obviously expanding from the British Isles at the start of the game is a bad idea as I don't have enough funding to go to war with France or any other European country which may affect any of my alliances. So I built up my fleet for defences and invested in a small army out of Port Royal to attach Georgia and push out the Cherokie Indians.

Meanwhile Austria decided to go to war with France and I was given the choice to side with France (who hates me anyway) or side with Austria who was also backed by most of my other alliances. For fear over most of my trade agreements crumbling I decided to side with Austria in the war but because most of my military efforts were concentrated in the US my defences were left very thin back home. I had disbanded some units and replaced them with milita to save outgoings and my investment in my fleet didn't really pay off as in one move the French sailed round them and invaded England with nothing to stop them.

Dispite the crushing defeat of my home country I still throughly enjoyed the game and have come out wiser to spend more time and money in defences before thinking about advancing my empire.

[Dreaming]

I'm still playing the American tutorial campaign thing rather than jumping straight into the grand campaign, each act kind of introduces you to a new concept.

Want to go play it now, but I am stuck at work. Somehow (I only noticed at 12am last night) my name ended up on the flexitime sheet for today. But I don't remember putting it there . . .

[Digerati]

I'm still playing the American tutorial campaign thing rather than jumping straight into the grand campaign, each act kind of introduces you to a new concept.

I'm going to start that tonight, I think I was a bit too ambitious to jump into the grand campaign straight away. Found it a bit overwelming.

So to anyone, even if your a Total War Vet... run through 'Road to Independance' 1st

[chuckskull]

Been playing this most of the day on campaign, wasn't to impressed by the land battles at first. Felt like both sides just banged heads til one side ran away. Then figured out you have to research military tactics like platoon fire etc, before you can use them. Starts feeling a lot more familiar after you've spent a few turns on them.

There's a lot more detail in the campaign map, which I like. Along with the new theatres style of breaking it up(even though I didn't notice I had American colonies for a decade).

Only problems I've had so far is some stuttering on the campaign map occasionally and my cannons don't make any noise for some reason. I want my British thunder

As the British the best tactic seems to be building up the colonies(India and America). Keep a defensive force at home and enough ships to control the channel. Then you can pretty much expand unhindered out there. Just spend a few turns recruiting a decent sized army first, the natives come in big numbers. Muskets put them down pretty easy, but you need a high enough volume of fire to stop them getting into melee range.

[neonplanet40]

I'm finding it quite buggy. For example i have my TV attached to my computer as well as a monitor. But when i scroll right with the mouse during a battle it just goes onto the other screen rather that panning right. Its really annoyin cause it means u have to go a full circle left to get back.

Haven't came to a decision on the game itself yet.

[chuckskull]

Just got my first CTD from it :\