Empire: total war

I don't have it ( I can't run it ) but a little bird told me chaney both has it and can.

Review Review Review!

It's a great game, the scope and range is epic with there being absolutely no chance of sampling all the game has to offer in a single campaign.
There is a huge range of new game mechanics to explore including provinces which spawn new towns over time, an improved and more in depth diplomacy system, new trade systems, improved espionage and even larger battles.
The downside to all this improvement for me was the battles. Ever since Rome: Total War i found the battles to be less engaging and this still proves to be true in Empire. Although there is a raft of new units each with their own stats etc and many with special abilities it often boils down to a line of musketeers firing at an advancing enemy until they die. Battles seem to be more static than they ever did. This is not aided by cannons being pants, melee infantry being pants and the larger numbers of units etc being hard to control.
Don't let this distract you from the campaign though which is rich, varied and rewarding. I truely love playing through the campaign as different nations using auto resolve for the battles. I sometimes control the odd battle here and there when there are fewer units involved, especially at sea which helps break it up etc.

Yeah this game is Brilliant alright. I have one major problem so far though but dont know if its just me... THERE ARE SO MANY FUCKING ERRORS. After every 2 or 3 battles my game crashes,although i control just about every battle. Just as Winthrow said the campaign map is cool. It has a bigger version of the European map then Medievil had. Also it has 2 further maps which are played in the same campaign. The americas and the indies. Making this by far the largest Total war yet.

As for the battle I have the same few problems as Winthrow. They are not as engaging. If u were to play both medievil and Empire battles side by side u would most likely choose Empire because the fights just seem more grand and violent. Also Artillary is a huge let down. You can have 20 cannons shoot 10 times each and about 3 enemy men would die. However I do like the fighting with infantry. Its pretty cool just watching ranks of men fire and many of the opposing team drop dead.

However Again its like the cannons, you could have 4 squads fire on one with about 200 bulets being fired at once and see just 7 enemies drop. Melee I find is imprtant though, especially later in a battle. It could be what u need to rout the enemy.

The most impressing thing by far though, is the new AI. Whereas in old total war games u could refight a huge or important battle and know exactly where there men were gonna be so u could pretty much surround them, It is completely different now, the enemy change where they attack from and the way they attack. Depending on ur formation they could either lead with cavalry charge, cannons or just shoot and then charge methods. I had to reinstall the game because I had a glitch where everytime I played a certain battle the game crashed afterword. i played this Fight about 6 times and everytime they attacked a different way with different units(After me changing where I put my men after first fight so they would run right into a death trap). So you can no longer reload fights to set ur men up better, they will just come a different way.

Although I make it sounds like the battles are crap I must say they are not. They are really damn good and makes you wanna cry with happiness when u see your armies crush the english scum that are in Ireland (No offense guys,just dramatic effect lol).

The new Naval battles are really good to. I was not impressed when i heard they were bringin them in, thinking they were going to be boring and a waste of time. But I have become a believer, they are really damn good,lots of cannons and bodies flying everywhere. Anyways 9.5 out of 10. Merely cause cannons are huge dissapointment(was looking forward to them) and they could have done more with the land battles.