Gaming Empire: Total War

Havning been extensivley playing Empire over the last 2 weeks i have to say Joe's review is spot on. The naval combat is rubbish and the land battles never seem to be that well organised or as tactical affairs as were possible in Medieval 2. You just line your men up facing the enemy, chuck some artillery into the mix, and maybe toss a cavalry charge or two in. There's little of the land battle depth of previous games, and I've taken to auto resolving all but the biggest land battles now.

The campaign map and tactical choices there are still superb though, although there's a lot less emphasis on single general or leader characters. I'm up to 1770 in the long campaign, having completley captured all the Americas as the Brits and I've not even had a duel yet. I have however killed a LOT of Indians (sorry, native americans).

 

Greetings!

Welcome to the era of gunpowder and sail.

The naval combat is decent after the last patch. Pre-patch the ships got blocked by the AI.
You cant really ask more from the naval battles: form a column and pass it along the enemy fleet till all enemies are sunk. The joy comes from manual commanding one or two ships in the fleet to deliver that winning volley on that precise moment on that precise enemy ship.

As for land battles, once you research the advance firing technics, you only need to line up your Line Infantry (superfulous use of "line" word?), and micromanage the cavalry, grenadiers or, better, the Light Infantry.

Its not the games fault that battles were fought almost on a cerimonial way in that era:
Line up and fire away.

The campaign map adds some more depth to the game compared to previous releases. Mainly via the extended control zones of the armies and the towns raiding.

Some notes:
- Overall, I still dont like the era the game depicts but the game is enjoyable.
- VH/VH is now a challenge for some more years, till you stabilish a decent economy.
- Dragoons should be used as much as possible in garrisons.
- Taxes play a key role in the growth of the Empire.

I am just hoping the next patch finally corrects naval invasions. I do want to play a GB campaign, but not with the current cheat feeling associated with it.

PS:
Delete old save files!
They average around 100MB each!

 

Greetings!

 

Greetings!

Patch is out.