Don't buy empire total war, Until they get their act together.
Lets start with The dvd case ,The Fine print is so small you would need a magnified glass to see it.
Don't bother wrecking your eyes trying to see the system requirements.
If you opened it and found out you were just ripped off , You cant return it either, Since you remove the packaging.
You cant play the game if you don't have the internet and the "steam" dogshit!!! The Load times are horrendous !! It had taken me 3 hours to install it off steam!! I have so far been unable to play it!! Since the game also requires you play the fiddle while you wait for steam to start up the game to play!!
No physical Manuel,You get a acrobat file for a Manuel instead,That also requires long loading and installing, Even if you get to see it nothing it offers can you help you with installation and play!!!
What happened to simple convenience?!!MedII TW , You pop in the dvd and there you go, Why this steam garbage? Why do you need to log onto a horribly unreliable service just to play a essentially single player offline game ?!!
Empire total war is so far the "vista" of the series,
A lot of PC gaming fans think Steam is pretty much the best thing ever, and any game not on it isn't worth buying.
Yeah, I don't really agree either.
A Black Falcon Wrote:A lot of PC gaming fans think Steam is pretty much the best thing ever, and any game not on it isn't worth buying.
Yeah, I don't really agree either.
How much are they paying them?!!
I am grinding my teeth remembering those lazy bitches whine about how much effort it takes to pop in a disc into the machine!! The problem is that they have imposed it on everybody else, Steam should be optional not mandatory!!
Steam is malware, From the impression I've seen so far, It runs at snails paste!
Unless they fix this, I wont be buying any future PC games if it requires steam.
Its like buying GTA4 only to discover that you need to be logged onto xboxlive just to play it!!
Malware...?
While I don't believe in the "if it's not on Steam it's not worth buying", I use Steam very frequently. It takes up half the resources than Firefox when running idle.
There's nothing wrong with Steam.
The problem is having more then one active program simultaneously giving and receiving information online.
I actually managed to pull out a Magnifying glass and looked at the dvd case , It may be that my computer is slightly below requirements.
I might be wrongly blaming steam for the poor performance,My computer runs more smoothly now that I uninstalled it though?
When I got medieval 2 total war, I was below requirements for it even then I could still play it I just couldn't play in the battle screen,I had to resolve combat automatically, I upgraded my computer and then it worked fine.
The reason I bring this up, Is that the EB clerk warned me that people needed to wait for a patch and that steam was overloaded with installations.
I still dislike steam , For the fact that it forces you to have the internet just to play it, Even if the sluggish performance is possibly also attributed to being underpowered.
I just got my computer upgraded, it seems to run better, I still cant play the game, Why?!! I don't remember my fucking steam account user name, how many times I make it send me a email to retrieve it, They don't send shit!! You cant create a new account with your cd key without canceling the previous one,I cant install the game or play it!!
I am now considering exchanging the game for another copy just to get another cd key.
Thats why I hate steam!! It replaces the risk of cd scatches with a new problem forgetting your account ID and Password and being blocked from playing!! If their customer service is shit your fucked!!
As a result of this new trite technology I think it will end the era of buying and selling used games, As nobody can play them without the old account being closed.
This is good for Softwaremakers bad for their customers and retailers.
I prefer the old school system that worked for years, The one were you have the CD and you can install it and play it, Now thanks to steam you also need to remember your account name. without logging online onto some trite online service and needing its faggoty account, Also you could play offline, Now you cant play it without the internet!!
Steam is one of the best things to happen to PC gaming in years.
-No CD necessary for Steam games
-Integrated multiplayer and Friends list
-Lots of awesome deals on games
-Intergrated patch support and automatic updates
-Lots of obscure/indie titles at affordable prices
Quote:Now thanks to steam you also need to remember your account name.
Uh...just make it something easy for you to remember then? Also, you can set it up to remember your username and password.
Quote:It had taken me 3 hours to install it off steam!!
Most likely it was downloading the latest patch for you.
Great Rumbler Wrote:Steam is one of the best things to happen to PC gaming in years.
-No CD necessary for Steam games
-Integrated multiplayer and Friends list
-Lots of awesome deals on games
-Intergrated patch support and automatic updates
-Lots of obscure/indie titles at affordable prices
Most likely it was downloading the latest patch for you.
No CD? So what!
According to the Steam Subscriber Agreement, Steam's availability is not guaranteed and Valve is under no legal obligation to release an update disabling the authentication system in the event that Steam becomes permanently unavailable!!
If anything happens to cause a disruption to the steam service, You cant play!
Total war is a single player game, Installation and Auto launch shouldn't require a internet connection!! Steam should be optional not a requirement.
If you like steam that's ok, In my opinion this game isn't right for it.
Before to get the patches, You just clicked on multiplayer, It would update from there.
Quote:Uh...just make it something easy for you to remember then? Also, you can set it up to remember your username and password.
That doesn't give you much of a safety net, In the invent you forget or lose it.
I now own two copies of ETW because of it!! Steams account retrieval service was unreliable it never responds to any of the email requests to retrieve a lost account.
Of course I lost my receipt, My fault. I'll probaily give the extra copy as a birthday gift.
It also makes it difficult to resell the game!
Empire total war has allot more wrong with it then just steam, The game is unpolished and bug ridden,The AI is dumb, It has a very high system requirement. It also has compatibility problems with Nvidia graphics cards.
CA drop the ball with this game, It was rushed to release before it was clearly ready.
I have been frustrated by this game, I have blown hundreds of dollars on this thing, I regret buying it.
With Starcraft II soon on the horizon, I should have waited for it.
After that's out, I am done with video games period!
I recommend that you guys wait till they release the gold edition of this game, It has allot to weed out right now.
I've used Steam for years and it's only gotten better. Between my hundreds of hours of Counter-Strike and Team Fortress 2, I've never had a problem playing. If the Steam servers go down, you can still play games and connect to game servers. It's really very user friendly.
As for forgetting your login, you're sure you didn't get an email? Check your spam folder, it may have been filtered.
I got two strange emails, Steam is very slow in responding, Its been almost a week since I made the first request.
Steam sounds like it would be better suited to FPS, To each his own.
Quote:No CD? So what!
According to the Steam Subscriber Agreement, Steam's availability is not guaranteed and Valve is under no legal obligation to release an update disabling the authentication system in the event that Steam becomes permanently unavailable!!
That's just legal-speak. Valve has always been really good to their customers and I doubt they'd just drop the service completely and leave everyone in the dark.
Quote:If anything happens to cause a disruption to the steam service, You cant play!
You can put Steam in offline mode and still play games.
How I rate Empire total war as it is now
The Good
Diplomacy is now a factor in how you play, Alliances are actually useful in this game, You can sue for peace by dangling seized territories, Unlike previous installments there is no need to make diplomats you can negotiate with any faction by clicking on the diplomacy panel.
You now can research technology, Much like sid miers Civilization except only limited to technology of the 18 century era.
You can decide your form of goverment as you build up research in the political sciences.
Three theaters to play on in the grand campaign, You can travel between theatres.
Naval combat is possible , You can even board enemy ships and capture them.
You can steal research using gentlemens by infiltrating foreign universities.
You can better manage taxation
Hire and fire ministers
You can plant a fort anywhere and upgrade it.
You can promote units into generals or admirals
No more distance from capital penalty
Sanctions and blockades are more effective at crippling rivals then in previous installments.
Negative
grossly High system requirements, They needlessly tax your PC by having a animated 3d world map with bells and whistles instead of using a Prerendered campaign map.
The game has long loading times, Sluggish performance,I admit That's a subjective complaint since I haven't played it on a high end dual core PC, I am basing this off my experience with my own computer that barely reaches the minimum requirements despite having just upgraded.
Enemy AI is smarter, but still dumb !
Ending Turns takes to long to go through, since you need to cycle every freaking minor faction from the Barbary pirates to Inuit,Before you can begin the next turn.
Instead of managing your farms,Mines,harbors,factories from the regional capital, Each of these things needs to be managed from the individual villages,Towns and Ports doted all over the regional map , Which is time consuming and annoying since their hard to spot and there is no short cuts in the panel.
You cant train, Rakes ( spies/assassins) and Missionaries , You have to wait for them to spawn at random.
No more family tree, Your generals don't come from your royalty.
Your not rewarded with treasure when you capture new regions anymore.
Rome TW combat still seems more enjoyable compared to the 18 century warfare of Empire TW, The only fun thing is blowing shit up with canons.
The soundtrack is dull compared to RTW, Even MTW2.
Pussy age of enlightenment means no more crucifying populations, Sacking and pillaging, Holding troops and generals for ransom.
I would like to retract all above
My problem was that I didn't have a cored computer and now that I possess one, I now can actually play the game and enjoy it.
Steam was new and alien for me, I vented all my frustration wrongfully on Steam and CA.
Don't buy it unless you have dual core and a broadband internet connection.
I now will recommend the game
I loved Shogun and Medieval, but then Rome ran terribly on the PC I had at the time and I didn't get it, and haven't really gone back to the series despite getting a better computer two years ago now... oh well. They are great games, I know. I'll play them eventually... there are a bunch of semi-recent PC games I'd like to try, once I can.
... Honestly though, I never finished a game of Medieval either. I did win a game of Shogun or two (conquering Japan), but not Medieval... I could understand why Gamespot gave it Game of the Year in 2002, though my GOTY was Warcraft III, but while the games are fun, I would, as that suggests, rather play a Blizzard RTS... quite different I know, but still.
Also, the diplomacy aspects are always pretty disappointing, as far as I know; Shogun and Medieval couldn't even match up to LOTR2's diplomacy, much less Civilization or Europa Universalis or something! Leaves you kind of stuck with 'fight everyone you can most of the time' a lot, really. There isn't cultural victory or anything like Civ either. Overall in Shogun and Medieval the strategy map aspect always seemed fun, but too simplistic; it doesn't match LOTR2 in depth there. The awesome combat engine and battles makes up for it, though... the battles have always been the highlight of the series for sure, and are really fun. But the strategy side... has it improved?
Diplomacy is now a vital part of the game, Alliances are actually helpful now since they deter attacks from aggressive nations and your Allie will assist you in battle.
You can make a nation agree to be a protectorate, Vassal state, Grants you full travel access and 50% of that factions earnings, They will be forced to join you in any war.
You can now tell what other factions sentiment is towards you, The diplomacy map displays sentiment in color coding just like the terror level, Red means they hate you, Yellow means they distrust you, Green means their friendly.You can improve relations by giving state gifts, paintings ,Prize stallions and jewelery.
Although I wish ships could be offered as gifts.
There is bugs, Especially with the agents.
I wish bullets and canon balls were more visible when fired.