Empire: Total war thread

they want £2 to download extra content even with all the problems at the start of the launch? cheeky ****s.

 

since new patch

ctds-bs continuing with all drivers above 181.22

tried 182,185 and 190er.. (@vista 64bit)

 

I bought the DLC, patch is a welcome change. Enemy AI is especially a lot better.

I do like the new units, especially having Marines. (I also got the Special Forces edition when it first came out, so I have the HMS Victory etc).

Everything ultra with 4MSAA + 1920 x 1200... looks amazing. FPS hovers around 40-60 occasionally dipping to 30 when I have massive unit sizes visible on the screen up close at once.

 

I posted this in the TW forums:

I had it working for about 7 turns on a fresh Vista x64 install, went for tea and now i've got the same problems. If i try to skip the intro movies i get all sorts of weird flickering and it ends up crashing, so i have to sit through the intro. When i try to load my campaign the bar will fill up then the sound will stop, the loading bar will then jump back and fourth for a minute and it just loads a white screen with the cursor

I preorded the Special Forces edition and since i first played it i've had constant bugs. True there may have been the odd day when the game was feeling well enough to give me a few hours of play between crashes but i would persevere. Then came the corrupted saves, two campaigns up in smoke, one around 60 turns the other around 100. On the final play through i really couldn't ignore the blatant bugs in the AI both on the campaign and battle maps. By 1730 i owned all of America and all of India including half the Ottoman territories it was a walk in the park and it became pretty dull, no challenge compared to all the previous Total War games (the first Medieval is still my favourite + expansion ). Then another patch came and all my sounds went out of sync. I would click on things and the sounds would all stack up to be played 30 seconds after the event. While staring at the tedious loading screen in between random CTDs i pondered the shody AI. When i ask cannons to cease fire why do they offload a shot into my army nearly always killing a general? Why do my troops have a life of their own (not exactly life because they generally just stand there) sometimes not doing what you've ordered them to do? Why is no one invading my lands by sea? Why are these battle maps so repetitive? Where have City sieges and bridge battles gone (i know this was more to do with the period but still they were the most fun)?

I was still pondering many of these questions and more when no matter what i did the game would CTD after every battle i played, if i auto resolved it was fine but that quickly turned into a boring campaign. So i shelved the game and waited for a patch (changed my motherboard inbetween) and this is what i get....more crashes. Both hardware setups were stable running Prime95, Orthos, 3DMark Vantage and all my games. Tried every Nvidia driver including the latest 186.18 to no avail.

I was really happy to see the latest patch and stupidly i jumped on the downloadable content. The game seemed better and smoother in the turns i played but i did see the flashing textures bug during an AI turn, went for dinner and now i can't even load the game. I feel i've been patient CA you sold me an unfinished game and i believed you guys would make it better after all the great Total Wars in the series, i believed you enough to buy the DLC and now i'm just fed up. I want my money back..........

 

Is sli working for you?

I guess it's your cpu that helps to give you that kind of performance. It runs decent for me I guess but it slows down pretty much even with not that many units on the screen.

 

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,...ar-Patch-almost-doubles-performance/Practice/

Multi-threading test (One of the improvements of the new patch.), seems it really improved performance.

 

Sorry for bringing up this old thread, but I have three questions:

1. Do I need to register a retail copy of Steam (available to me @ $20 )? If yes, can I download the game via Steam if I lose the DVD?

2. What is all this Elite unit/Special forces stuff?

3. Is the game still buggy after the patches?

 

Not sure about your question one. (Just got the game and loving it)

Elite units are DLC contents that basically add different unit types to different factions. Special forces edition also add 6 different units to the game, but in order to obtain them, you need to purchase special force edition. With Elite Unit of the West, you can just pay and download the content regardless which version of ETW you purchase. (special force edition or standard edition)

As for question three, the performance is better than before. I am comparing the demo with the newest patched game. The duo core optimization does make loading faster I believe. However, I do get CTD. I think the reason is that I am running the game on my XPS laptop and I unlock the texture to high rather than the standard medium setting forced by CA.

Hope that helps.

 

For me the game is still buggy as hell. Definately the worst Total War game i've played Sure they've improved performance but the diplomacy and battlefield AI bugs are still game breakers for me. I really wanted to love this game.

 

Thanks for clearing up the bit about Special forces and Elite units.

Well, I confirmed that you need to register the game on Steam even if bought it on retail. While it has its disadvantages, it also has the advantage that I can DL the game via Steam later if required.

The feedback I got regarding bugs was that it is still pretty buggy. So I will wait for some more time for the patches to improve and for the game to get cheaper (it is available for $20 w/o discount via retail for me, but I will still wait )

 

Wow, $20. That's really cheap.

Personally I think the battlefield AI is better than before. In Rome Total War, you would get suicide general who charge straight into my spearmen. Now in ETW, even at normal difficulty, the AI knows how to use cover and flanking moves.

I don't think the diplomacy will change much. Even in the previous game, there is no point to make alliance because AI always break them or ask astronomical amount of money from you for forming an alliance. In my current Spanish campaign in ETW, France has been my ally since from the start. Even with my border undefended, France was not tempted to invade me yet. At least, there is some meaning to alliance in ETW. I think CA has improved the Total War series, but it still not perfect. I wish Total War one day has diplomacy like that of Civilization.

Just my two cents.

 

No PC game sells here in India for more than $20 - I have seen CoH gold and the like for $12 w/o discount at retail here. But almost all of them are region restricted, I think. Plus, few games are available here because of the enormous amount of piracy.

You are making my mouth water already. The game is HUGE, I have heard. Hmm...it is really tempting at $20 because I get to bind it to my Steam account and then the game will be mine permanently

EDIT - Will my rig be able to run the game properly?

 

When I got my ETW, I was really expecting the worst possible situation. I went on the forums and saw many complaints. After playing it awhile, it turns out not too bad after all so I guess always expect the worst and we will discover something good. If we expect something is to be perfect (nothing is perfect), we will be disappointed.

Anyhow it's up to you whether to wait or not. However, I think you need to upgrade your CPU and RAM though. Duo Core optimization definitely makes game loads faster than before.

 

nice, first TW which uses dual cores, time to try again! with double the old card and double the old CPU (same cpu but dual xP).

anyways medieval 2 total war lotr mod rules


razor update 6 works?

i bought mtw2 as a great game, but i dont buy buggy things, i dont like to make buggy programmes and neither to buy them. c1:

 

Yeah, MTW2 was great. I love the agent's mission videos.

BTW, I have not heard of razer update 6. Is that a mod for MTW2?

 

Seems there might not be many more updates for this game as they're now working on a sequel.

http://worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=65391

 

If that's not an expansion I'm not buying. Empire is not finished.

 

i had 9800GT's in SLI and i was getting corruption so i got a GTX275 to replace it and i still get corruption.

 

Wish they would get rid of the sea battles, Total pain in bum imo.

 

love the sea battles! i am sure NTW will be a expansion but will cost most likely, standard practice theses days.

i wonder if NTW will simulate napoleon's illness as he was trying to run his last campaign, that certainly sealed his defeat at waterloo.