Customer Reviews

Empire Total War: Special Forces Edition

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

Gameplay Positives:
============

- Good graphics
- Interesting scenarios
- Improved Campaign and Battle AI (over MTW2)
- Field battles are fun and on occasion the AI does some clever things.
- detailed sea battles
- Suicidal general problem seems to have been improved (over MTW2)

Gameplay Negatives:
===================
- Siege battles are horrible and almost impossible to lose. This in itself makes the game a cinch to win.

- The AI artillery frequently fires into the backs of its own troops.

- AI artillery inside settlements demolish their own walls.

- More issues but somewhat minor in overall nature.

*BUGS*
======
- Major memory leak being reported that causes your game to eventually crash reported. You will need an occassional reboot of your system if your performance starts to decline on your system.

- performance issues even with high end PC's due to some choppiness with the animation textures. Turns are very slow.

- ATI Graphic card owners need to be aware of some graphics issues.

- MAJOR activation and install problems!! It took me over 4 hours to get the game installed/running without crashing. This only after I read lengthy posts at the company web sites. The sheer number of bugs being reported at their site is staggering.

Conclusion:
============
For this game to be released in this condition is disgraceful. It is evident that the game was rushed out with little or no testing. This game is in need of an immediate patch before it is playable.

Is it worth buying? Yes and no. All Total War games are worth buying. In its current state I can't in good faith recommend buying it right now so waiting for the patches to be released is your best bet.

I thought I'd clarify the included content in the ETW: Special Forces Edition. It would appear that Creative Assembly is working with different retailers to provide different unique units, which cannot be obtained otherwise, except through that specific retailer. These unique units are generally more powerful than the regular ones featured in-game.

**It would appear that at this time, there is no way to buy all 9 special units.**

The Collector's Edition adds a flask (with real gin perhaps?), compass, campaign map, treasure chest, and art book.

And here's a run-down of the basic 6-units you'd get from Amazon/Steam.

* HMS Victory: The Royal Navy's most distinguished and formidable first rate ship of the line; Lord Nelson's 104 gun flagship is one of the most heavily armed ships of the 18th Century.

* Rogers' Rangers: Major Robert Rogers' company of rangers are highly trained elite light infantry, specialising in reconnaissance and special operations. They are extremely mobile in even the most challenging environments.

* Ottoman Organ Gun: A viciously powerful field gun, able to inflict incredible damage on the opposing army. Emphatic proof of the Ottoman Empire's advanced knowledge of gunpowder and firearms technology.

* Ghoorkas:"Better to die than be a coward" has been the motto of these elite Nepalese soldiers for centuries. Disciplined, tough and courageous, they carry a deadly 18-inch long, curved knife known as the kukri.

* Corso Terrestre Guerillas: An independent light infantry guerrilla regiment, experienced in skirmish and stealth tactics. Surprise raids and ambushes are the guerillas' favoured tactics, a way to compensate for their limited number and light armour.

* Bulkeley's Regiment: A French unit of Irish mercenaries with a fearsome reputation for hardiness. Exceptionally tough and resilient, they make for a highly flexible and dependable regiment.

So the question is, how do you get the other 3 special forces units, e.g. the Death's Head Hussars, USS Constitution, and Dahomey's Amazons? It turns out that the game is already coded with for all the special forces units, and unlocking them may just require particular research or holding certain territories.

USS Constitution: this unit is only available when playing as the USA and your technology has sufficiently advanced. It may also be captured by opposing factions.

Death's Head Hussars: this unit is only available when playing as Prussia and your technology has sufficiently advanced. Prussia must also hold Brandenburg.

Dahomey Amazons: this unit is only available when holding territory in North Africa.

Empire: Total War comes with Steam DRM.

First of all, the game requires online activation. Steam requires you to activate the game online, or else it simply won't run.

Second of all, you don't get discrete patches with Steam. The game is automatically updated, but there is no option to save those patches for later.

And worst of all, you CANNOT sell your game. The game is tied to your steam account, and cannot be transferred. This is in violation of the US First-sale Doctrine, and your basic rights as a customer.

Why don't they make Steam optional? That way, both groups of people who like Steam and people who hate DRM will be happy.

Sorry, but Steam is just as bad as SecuROM when it's required for a single-player game.

The core Empire game is pretty cool. One of their best yet.
The whole steam nonsense is a huge pain though. You can't install the game without installing steam, and once its there it runs in the background of windows, even if you don't open the game. THAT is not acceptable. Also, I was playing multi-player and steam kicked me out of a battle in the MIDDLE of it to tell me there was an update. That is TERRIBLE.

The thing that really bothers me though is that it claims to come with the "revolution" DVD, which is why I paid more for the special forces edition. (I could care less about the other stuff) It specifically claims that you can watch the founders mold a nation, when really all you can watch is them declare indapendence and fight a few battles. You only get 1 of 4 discs! This is false advertising at its worst and CA should face legal action for it.

I have been a huge fan of the Total War series since it first started.

This installment however, is a complete disaster. Gameplay is incredibly buggy, crashes are frequent. Even if it didn't crash, the game is somehow less entertaining overall than Total War Medieval. To add insult to injury, you have to add the Steam app to run it. Steam will constantly bombard you with "Update Needed!", which is just a neverending stream of advertisements for games you've never heard of.

I really wanted this game to be better, but this will likely be the last in the series that I buy.

I started with TotalWar back with Shogun, did Medevil 1, Rome, and the new Medevil. I look forward to the new TotalWar Game every few years and I always buy a new computer at that time just to play the game. I did this for Shogun, Rome and recently for Medevil. This should tell you that I am a rabid fan.

I have been looking forward to Empire TotalWar for a few years. As much or more than I was waiting for Rome. BUT..........I hate to say this, and I can't believe I am going to write this, DO NOT BUY this game!!!!!!!!!!!

It is terrible. The worst part is, I do not have internet except at work. I do not want it at home. But if you do not have internet, you cannot play this game! You cannot even start the game. I like TotalWar game as I can take it with me anywhere, and play it on my laptop at my leisure. On a plane, train, or other. To download the damn game took me 9 hours!

Creative Assembly what the heck is wrong with you? Do not realize that a large portion of your audience is not the online gaming type? Many of us are old fashioned wargammer types that just want to buy the game and never see you again? I am 39 and not at all unfamiliar with technology but this is terrible.

The next issue....the bugs! The AI is terrible! How hard is it to beat an opponent that shoots its cannons into the backs of its own troops, or in a seige fires cannons to knock down its own walls? The thing that makes a game boring is when it is easy to win.

Creative Assembly, I am sad to say, but my 6+ year relationship, and automatic loyalty with you, to where I would buy every new TW game you release has now ended. It is sad, as I was hoping you would follow up this effort with a TW based on the Victorian Age. But I have no confidence you can pull off any new endeavors and that I won't have wasted $50 on a game that will not work.

What is wrong with you? How can you destroy such a loyal fan base?

Richard

Well when I preordered this game I saw nothing about steam in the review. I now have 3 games that use steam, Last Remnant, Dawn of War 2 and Empire Total War. So Basically I have spent over $100.00 on games I can't use.

I have tried steam, between it telling me that my credentials have expired and that the steam servers are unavailable I have not successfully entered 1 single product registration code successfully into it. I am currently in Afghanistan. Though I may get ohh well when you get back to the US you can play. That isn't the point. I work hard for what recreation I do get, and when I pay money for said entertainment I shouldn't have to go through some other company just to have my enjoyment.

Boxes should be clearly marked STEAM so that I know I can't enjoy these titles and find some other products that I can actually enjoy to spend my money on.

I've played every era in the Total War series since Shogun, but I'm putting this one away indefinitely. Requiring Steam to install is enough of an insult. The number of bugs you are confronted with once you complete the install is the final nail in the coffin. It's the Windows Vista of the Total War series.

Pass this one by, unless you get it for free and have plenty of time to waste installing and hassling with the overloaded Steam servers.

Empires covers a period in the TW series that I had eagerly anticipated, and the addition of naval battles is a boon. But there are plenty of mods for earlier Total War games -- I for one am looking forward to Europa Barbarorum II running on Med II Kingdoms -- the current EB that runs on Rome TW is my favorite mod of all.

Just hope that Sega/CA survive and learn from this fiasco and return to providing great software that has been debugged before shipping and without onerous and intrusive half-baked protection schemes.

STEAM= Utter feces

Look, I understand the concept of steam and it's mission to stop software pirating and add interesting features like forums and game support. All of this would be good and well if STEAM didn't fail at it miserably. It took repeated installs and reboots just to get the game running after 3 hours.

The game itself is scattered across the board in terms of positives and negatives. On the plus side the graphics (especially the sea battles) are particulary impressive and are much improved over MTW2. Unfortunately the overall product seems like an unpolished beta version... game crashes, sometimes flawed AI and ridiculous loading times for running on my high-end alienware. The land combat leaves you with something to be desired... battles seem one-dimensional and there is a lack of good unit features to spice up combat.

Bottom Line: Disappointing. Nearly all of the bugs and gameplay issues could have been fixed had they delayed release for another couple of months and perhaps listened to their beta testers. As for Steam, I get it that most software developers wish to protect their work from piracy; fine, but please use a platform that has been sufficiently tested and released problem-free. Very disappointing SEGA... Stardock's Impulse would be something to aspire to.

I like many people were excited for Empire:Total War, and the game itself delivers, no question. Its a great game, and it looks spectacular. The problem is two fold.

First its misleading when the special forces edition says it includes the History Channel DVD Revolution. You only get 1 disc, meanwhile Revolution is 4 discs. What a rip off.

Secondly Steam fails, when you try to install it, it automatically keeps trying to download the ENTIRE game off steam and completely ignores the disc in your drive. And most of the time it wont even download, it will give you an error about overcrowded servers. To get the game installing off the disc, your required to go online and prowl forms for the information. This bit applies to both Special Forces Edition and Regular. The game wont install OR Run without steam. Period.