I was already peeved at Creative Assembly for bypassing the Renaissance era; I would have loved to do 30 Years War and esp. English Civil War. The "Steam" requirement has proven to be a total pain in my fundament as far as "upgrades" & support goes.
ETW was nice in places, the global scale was an excellent addition, but it really didn't add a lot tactically. The Naval addition was a nice feature however.
Napoleon TW is just a joke; No tactical difference between 1700 in ETW and 1800 in NTW. No columns, no Ordre Mixe, no lying down to avoid artillery, no massed shock charges, none of the things which really distinguish the Revolutionary Wars-Napoleonic Era tactics even exist in the game.
It is an insult in point of fact. No support, no patching, no updates for a d*mn. Crash-happy, graphically compromised, uninspired, waste of money which is really heartbreaking if you love the era as so many of us do. I stopped playing it because it crashed literally every other battle--after turning all the troops various colours of chocolate. I bought a new video card, same problem, Creative Assembly, taking a page from the Microsoft XP manual, essentially said: "Sorry, but we don't care, we are working on something new."
Creative Assembly really screwed over their loyal fan base with this series of fiascoes. They made it clear the don't give a damn about the Napoleonic community and they are in ecstatic and vapourous swoons over their 3rd incarnation of "Samurai," which is fine, but, after loyally following them since their inception, I won't be buying anything else from them, I won't encourage their behaviour and I strongly urge everyone else to follow suit.
--T--
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O'Malley: You still got those Lewis guns?
Struts: Lewis Guns? Yeah... Why?
O'Malley: Because we're going to Afghanistan, we're probably gonna need 'em!
"High Road to China"
One thing I noticed about Empire Total War (which I had just got along with Napoleon Total War and Civilization V last weekend) is that compared to Medieval 2 Total War and Rome Total War, units rout much faster. In Medieval 2 Total War one would often have to wipe out well over half of a unit over a course of a minute or so to get them to rout while in Empire units will often rout after only fifteen or thirty seconds of combat after having only lost a third of their unit. In addition, compared to RTW and M2TW, units are much more fragile, dying far more quickly in either melee or ranged combat than their predecessors did, though it is quite a bit harder to completely obliterate a unit before they all rout than it was in the preceeding games (probably because as stated before units apparently rout more quickly, and cavalry have been nerfed somewhat.)
One last thing is the fact that the defense stat seems to be rather arbitrary. An Ottoman Elite Jannissary who is only wearing an open vest and some rather stereotypical arabian short pants has an equal defense stat to an Irsaely unit who has a fracking coat of mail. A heavy cavalry unit who has absolutely no armor at all has a higher defense stat than a Dragoon who wears an actual helmet, or most ridiculously, said heavy cavalry unit has a higher defense score than a Polish Winged Hussar who is equipped with a full breastplate, a heavy helmet, and plated armguards. Really CA, and you did so well at assigning defense scores in M2TW...
I do have a few complaints about the grand campaign map though, In medieval 2 total war CA managed to ensure that every part of the map was part of a province, but here in ETW there are huge expanses of the map that aren't part of any province like the Sahara, most of Northern and Western America, Arabia (which is especially irritating since they excluded Mecca and Medina even though they were a part of the Ottoman empire.) And I don't think the map is quite global enough, the 1500s-1800s marked a period of time when Europe was exploring and expanding across the world. The fact that Brazil is a simple trade theatre when nearly the entire place was occupied by Portugal and in fact had a larger population than the Thirteen colonies is particularly annoying. Instead of theatres I would have much rather have had a single large map that covered the world with all the factions being playable.
And really, France and Spain (the geographical areas, not their empires) only being one province each? That's really, really stupid.
__________________
Standing here, I realize you were just like me trying to make history.
But who's to judge the right from wrong.
When our guard is down I think we'll both agree.
That violence breeds violence.
But in the end it has to be this way.
All those things you mention in previous CA releases (RTW, MTW2) were moddable; they have pretty much removed mod tools from the community and seek to bleed our wallets with DLC.
I won't be buying any more TW as long as Steam is involved and as long as they follow their current business plan.
All good things must come to an end, I suppose.
__________________ "My country, right or wrong" makes about as much sense as "My parents, drunk or sober".
I got the ETW + NTW + All DLC for both games for $25 in the Steam Christmas sale. I know they limited the mods so they can sell DLC. Many companies are doing this. CA was not the first and won't be the last.
There are still good mods. I have been playing the DarthMod and it is fantastic. It changes many things and makes the game much better. I believe many of the things that people are complaining about in this thread are fixed or changed. Check it out here.
All those things you mention in previous CA releases (RTW, MTW2) were moddable; they have pretty much removed mod tools from the community and seek to bleed our wallets with DLC.
I won't be buying any more TW as long as Steam is involved and as long as they follow their current business plan.
All good things must come to an end, I suppose.
I'm sure that it's more than possible to mod games to an unlimited extent even if it has steam as long as the number of hardcoded files are kept to a minimum, in addition the readibility and ease of use of the programming language matters a lot. ETW hard coded far more of it's files than M2TW or RTW did, since the creation of a mod is akin to stealing for a company that uses DLCs. While Bethesda has been most friendly to it's modders despite using DLCs, Creative Assembly seems to have gone in the opposite direction to punish it's modders and milk the cash cow further.
__________________
Standing here, I realize you were just like me trying to make history.
But who's to judge the right from wrong.
When our guard is down I think we'll both agree.
That violence breeds violence.
But in the end it has to be this way.
I'm sure that it's more than possible to mod games to an unlimited extent even if it has steam as long as the number of hardcoded files are kept to a minimum, in addition the readibility and ease of use of the programming language matters a lot. ETW hard coded far more of it's files than M2TW or RTW did, since the creation of a mod is akin to stealing for a company that uses DLCs. .
I am using the Complete DarthMod on my Steam version of ETW with no problems.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Czin
While Bethesda has been most friendly to it's modders despite using DLCs, Creative Assembly seems to have gone in the opposite direction to punish it's modders and milk the cash cow further.
Yep, many games notice all the great stuff that mods can do and see that as lost $$$.
__________________
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
Yes Darthmod is a game changer. Well worth getting ETW and then modding it. The sailing ships can still come up into the wind too easy but better than the old model for sure.
Thanks for the replies, guys. I am confused now since each of you recommend both ETW and NTW, but, unfortunately, I can't afford both. Which one of the two would you pick if you had to?
Thanks for the replies, guys. I am confused now since each of you recommend both ETW and NTW, but, unfortunately, I can't afford both. Which one of the two would you pick if you had to?
Thanks.
Napoleon. If you ask me it runs smoother and more beautifully than Empire, and with way less bugs. The multiplayer is outstanding, and although the campaign/factions are limited, you can always download a mod (personally I have "Order of War") to fix all that.
__________________
"I am the Lorax, and I'll yell and I'll shout for the fine things on earth that are on their way out!"
Napoleon. If you ask me it runs smoother and more beautifully than Empire, and with way less bugs. The multiplayer is outstanding, and although the campaign/factions are limited, you can always download a mod (personally I have "Order of War") to fix all that.
Well said.
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. "Direction .. le trou du cul de mon cheval...Chargez !"
- Ney at his troops before the charge -
" Debout les morts, on change de cimetière !"
- Adjudant PERICARD, 1915 -
Thanks for replies. I would rep you, but a pop-up says I have to spread it around first.
Not to ramble on, but I've actually found the Empire total war campaign to be rather dull even with esteemed mods (Darthmod, Ultimate Commander, etc.) The AI offers barely any military resistance to your invasions besides the regular armed populace (who get very boring after a while!) Even your monetary difficulty in the game will usually only last the first 10-15 turns; so Empire, although it provides a grand scope of a campaign, really doesn't offer much gameplay variety. Napoleon offers distinct challenges when you invade an enemy province (especially at harder difficulties) and the issues of happiness and costliness of your provinces prove pretty tough to manage; making for interesting gameplay.
By the way, let me know if/when you've bought something...so I'm not just rambling for no reason But otherwise I'm happy to help.
__________________
"I am the Lorax, and I'll yell and I'll shout for the fine things on earth that are on their way out!"
ETW was dreadful; truly dreadful. NTW tried to correct the problems, but it was only marginally better. S2TW was pretty good, but I am waiting patiently for the EB II mod which will give a much needed kick to the early Roman Imperial era based upon the MTW2 engine.
__________________ "My country, right or wrong" makes about as much sense as "My parents, drunk or sober".
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But otherwise I'm happy to help.
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