Empire: Total War

80% downloaded... but I don't think I will play it for a few days.

This is because I got Rome: Total War gold edition free with my preorder on steam... I am having so much fun playing Rome I might not play Empire for awhile

Lol, I've leaving for Gamestop in 30 mins if they have it. Better have it, I have a gift card!!! So exciting Haha

I can't decide when I'll get it!!! I already have Sins, DOW2 and SFIV on the go at the moment...I can't see where I'll find the time to squeeze in a time sink like Empire *sigh*

There's a short in-progress blog thing about it posted on Gamespot.. but it doesn't really say anything too substantive other than that load times are still long.

I'm itching to hear some good player feedback.

I will get it... in time. There is no rush. I am too bussy to play anything right now and when the summer starts I do not want to spend too much time in front of the screen. So when I am going to buy it I probably get it for a lower price hopefully. But I will read the reviews and watch the videos to it. I know i will love it

Nice Nyx.

At lest your sorry.

Mine is 13 gigs into the installation!! Almost there. Takes a while to install even from a disc!! Eesh. 

Holy crap, that's a big install. Might it rival Age of Conan's 20+gb install?

Yeah its nearly 15 gigs. But don't bother getting it, it won't work yet. It says it is Temporarily Unavailable, Try again Later or some #$%^like that.  *^%&$3%. I made my anger known on their website, if you stumble upon a post by Phalnax.

Waste of life this is right now. 

Maybe a round of Sins while Empire: Total War and Steam think about working, sometime, hopefully today.

-Phalnax

Censored language since the game works now

Steam usually launches around 5-ish EST I think? Kinda silly that it's completely tied to Steam activation.

Yeah I know its tied to Steam, but I just wanted them to hear it too, since I wouldn't know where to post it on Steam (whatever?!)

Better be 5, 4 has come and gone....

Well I was actually surprised, until you said it I didn't know it used Steamworks. I mean, I get the whole pre-load/activation later thing, but come on, if the box is on sale in the morning, not to have activation up in the morning is silly People burn cars for that stuff!

I want to play it, but I tried to play the demo but found to my horror that my graphics card wasn't good enough.

Now I guess best buy gets another graphics card sale when I my it this weekend (hopefully).

Sins, you have my gratitude for being kind to those with less than up to date graphics cards. I salute you.

I have been reading some of the user reviews on gamespot. Some of them are furstrated over the fact that they didn't know the game required an internet connection to install, and by that reason, they are reviewing the game based on it's installation requirements than the content. I just bought a copy of the game and it clearly states on it's cover that it requires steam and internet to play.

Iam not saying it's a good step creative assembly has taken but still, people should check out their facts before venting.

Theres also the fact that steam had suggested pre-orders could pre-download so it would be up and running by the actual launch time, which didnt actually happen. Thank god I'm getting a boxed copy.

Edit: Really bummed out to hear about the loading times, it's a complete turn off for me. But I'm sure they'll fix that since so many people complained about it for the demo.

Ok here is the bottom line:

It is a great game, poor activation issues (box-copy/digital download pre-loads, etc.)

The AI turns take FOREVER!!! I usually get up and pet my cat or do a chore or something in between. 

The load times for battles seem bareable (but as I said, AI turns take forever)

System hog-15 gigs and needs a powerful PC.

Naval Battles-got bad reviews but I think they are fun, especially if I'm winning)

Grand Campaign is a wee bit diff, but it's a welcomed change

Tech Tree (research, 3 branches)

Wish more factions were playable, unless unlocked later (?) but i'm under the impression of no

Overall, A--.  It gets one - for long AI turns, and another - for various little things (more factions, 15 gigs)

Hope this helps!!!

-Phalnax

PS: Downloading this on my laptop now, wow it said it's going to take 8 hours, and I'm at home (wireless)

Yeah, luckily I somehow bypassed the whole downloading issue and installed the game right out of the box-copy I had bought. Somehow steam kept telling me to wait for a 15gb download of the game to finish, after I activated the game through my box-copy key. I immediately cancelled the download and tried reinstalling again from the dvd and it worked, it took me 30-40min to install the game.

There are some miner glitches/bugs that need to be patched, some mentioned in the above post. If you have a machine that can handle the system requirements, you will enjoy the game's huge gameplay content. The naval battles are truly amazing and fun, so are the land battles, but the AI realy needs some tweaks in it's pathfindings. I got an easy win in a close battle because the AI couldn't find it's way down a hill top.

Overall the game is great, once you get over the installation issues, minor bugs and glitches, you will truly enjoy yourself. I give it a score of 9.0 out 10.

You have to have steam running...even for the demo. It's a real turn off, in any case.

The game runs like crap. I can have a maxed graphics game of Medieval 2 run perfectly, yet I can't even apply a graphics change to this game without it freezing. Worse still, after a few tries and getting it to the worse settings possible and waiting almost ten minutes on the load to the tutorials, I found the graphics to look like shogun total war with the performance of a next-gen fps. (On all low, anyway).

This is sad too, because I loved all the Total War games, but this game is just unplayable for me. I can't even start the land battle without it freezing on me two seconds in.

Steam is kinda cool for me, cuz I'm downloading it on my laptop now, at 30% and I'm playing Wii Fit while so it's fun lol.

But that sucks that it runs slow, my laptop should be able to handle it one moderate settings and my desktop runs mighty fine.

I can run the game on medium just fine, but like you, I am miffed that ETW requires a practically brand new rig/graphics card to run at high or better (I can run M2TW on high or better).  CA always does this.  Whenever they release a new TW, they always blow the minimum specs out of the water.  It frustrates the heck out of me.

I am firmly in Stardock/Ironclad's boat:  games should be made to run with quality graphics on mid-range systems.  I would think this would be common sense for game companies, especially in these tough economic times. 

Besides that annoying issue, ETW does seem to be another buggy entry.  I suspect the game will follow in the footsteps of M2TW:  a year's worth of patches combined with some heavy modding to make the game as enjoyable as it should be. 

My score:  B+

I read/watched the IGN review this morning and succumbed to the craving. It's downloading while I'm at work

Hehe, I think I need to lower the difficulty to Easy down from Normal, I'm just getting into wars with six nations at once (as the bloody freakin' French) against all of Europe pretty much.

Indian Campaign, I find myself bankrupt.

Dutch and British are fun except my game was ruined by a freeze for the dutch and I don't know how many turns I lost of progress.

Owell, maybe I'll try the Russians...

-Phalnax

I have a M1530 laptop which can run M2TW and Sins on max, but runs Empire dreadfully.  Its still playable, but not what I hoped for.  Naval battles seem to run an awful lot better than the land ones..

I'm not one to complain about settings though.  My old rig (well I still have it, just don't use it any more) ran M2TW on low and couldn't even manage Sins on medium, so I'm used to rubbish graphics.  I find that the game is more important than the looks.  I'm at uni so I can't take my pc with me (hence the laptop), but I might upgrade it in the summer so I can play these sorts of games really well.