Comment # 1

First, thanks for taking the time to write this blog. I am a big fan of the series, having started playing with Shogun.

I think the AI with Empire is very impressive compared to previous versions. The diplomacy for one thing now actually makes sense, and you can do planning around alliances and such, and count on events being rational. As well, the actions of the AI show some strategy when it comes to taking opportunities and movements, etc.

In my case, I have made some comments about not purchasing the expansion pack this time until I can actually play the game. I have a brand new computer, all my drivers are up to date, and I have no problems except in E:TW. It is 95% impossible for me to complete a land or naval battle without the game crashing. So, I am currently playing my campaign with all my battles automated, reducing my CTD’s to once or twice a day. This of course makes the enjoyment of the game much less, and I’ve awaited every new patch with trepidation.

But overall, great work on the gameplay!

Posted by Pierre-Yves St-Onge on October 9th, 2009 at 5:22 pm

Comment # 3

After reading your second blog post I have two questions based on comments made in the blog post.

—
Patch 1.5 has just been released. This is the last planned major patch for Empire: Total War, and attempts to sweep up the remaining AI issues that for the hardcore gamer take the shine off of the Empire apple.
—
Q: How much more continued support and patches for Empire will there be? Based on your comments about the AI only “firing on two or three cylinders” would not another “planned” major patch be needed? Or do you consider. AI fixes to not fall in a “major patch” category? Will you clarify your comment?

—
We’ve had it on the coder’s couch for 6 months now, and it’s finally feeling better. It’s more aggressive, it uses naval invasions, and it doesn’t dither much more than most humans I know. It should now be well ahead of Rome/Med II’s AI, but it’s still only firing on two or three cylinders and had much untapped potential.
—
Q: Is there plans to continue to improve this AI for Empire or is the AI we have at the end of patch 1.5 the one we have for Empire? If there is ‘untapped potential” in the AI, would it not make sense to continue improving it and adding value to Empire?

Posted by Chris Bell on October 9th, 2009 at 5:47 pm

Comment # 5

i am sorry, but despite the AWESOME ending you typed, there is still something bugging me like a lot:

didnt your people managed to propagandize the “ALL NEW AI SYSTEM FREE OF FLAWS” as a “unified” system? meaning it combines the battle ai and campaign ai?

because you just said quite the opposite.

Posted by martin on October 9th, 2009 at 6:04 pm

Comment # 7

i thank you for the honesty, and while most of my qualms with ETW are fixed, I still think the game is lacking in historic battles. Right now I think there are only 5, 2 of which came with 1.5, meaning there were only three before.

I dont know how much pride the company takes in making sure that the battles are 100% accurate representations of what happened in real life, but the information on the battles seems like something that could be easily acquired from the internet. And from what I see, the battle landscapes aren’t very complex. Some rolling hills and natural cliffs, but really nothing that a newbie map maker couldn’t do. And it should even be easier for naval battles, you dont have to worry about terrain at all.

So why can’t you have battles like the American battles at Ft. Washington, Ticonderoga, Quebec, or the siege of Boston, or some other European battles which I’ve never heard of?

Posted by greg on October 9th, 2009 at 6:35 pm

Comment # 9

I take issue with the Empire Total War interface. It’s too hard to read the text, and too difficult to tell the units apart from one another by their icons (especially the naval units). I am comparing this to RTW/RTWBA and M2TW/M2TWK.

I prefer to play on a projector (which has the effect of limiting my resolution to the lower end). You would think that at 1280×720 I could read the text. There’s more to the craft of game design than making the engine display at each resolution. Some assets need to [be able to] be scaled differently depending on how the game is used.

Having played the aforementioned games end-to-end, sometimes more than once, I have to ask: what happened? This could have been resolved in testing before there even was a prototype. Iterative testing should be part of the design process.

Posted by David Pepper on October 9th, 2009 at 8:02 pm

Comment # 11

Well first think first – I want to thank you for sharing this info\private view on the situation.

Some people claim the battles are the reason they play this game, for others it’s the campaign feature which stands out. I myself see my self leaning a bit forward the campaign feature since I always loved the battles only when they effect the game the war and eventually lead to defeat or victory. So for me any patches including the last 1.4-1.5 where major improvement as I can actually say how critic that patches were when after 1.5 was done a lot of things turn upside down in my campaign.

While I know patches do not pay rent and good deeds never goes unpunished I do believe also Empire when released was a broken game, I am not pointing fingers but I can presume it was something to do with publisher and cash deal. Luckily for you guys I guess that issues didn’t cost you on the sails to much but sending out a broken product with the note I will fix it later doesn’t work in other cases (I bet no one will buy a projector that it’s color wheel is broken) so I do believe that you were ought to fix it. The complainants came due to the fact in some cases How it seems from out side how much more cost demand things were added lately around the game if its new units new expansion new minor expansion (Warpath) and it just seems from out side like you guys don’t give much of a damn thing about the old product which was released. I myself didn’t play this game till just recently I think after 1.4 because I was to worried that you will drop this project as it hits the stores and will leave it broken as it was. Now however we are at a point were we can almost say that the game is done, I am just hoping that while you may not call it major patches I hope there will be some more work that is still essential to the game to be done even if it means yet again digging the AI coding you just recently messed with.

So lets go forward to the other issues you mentioned Aggression level is kind of directly connected to the game level. since If I chose hard settings and I play as GB if I don’t start to put a lot of effort on fixing the terms with France I will be disappointed if they won’t plan an attack on me at the best first chance they get. I remember at the start of the campaign how fun it was play as GB in America with the Indians aggressiveness and how hard it was to survive at first with my colony. I don’t expect all the nation to be as aggressive but as active yes. Players who look for sandbox game should lower the level or the use diplomacy and here I start to talk about the issue that really bothers me in this game.

Empire unlike its predecessors equipped with a more proper yet still basic diplomacy system as an old Civ 4 player I remember how much I enjoyed the diplomacy in the game and seeing a system that resemble made me a bit happier. One of the things as I player I experienced in this Total war game and yet to feel it in any of the other games was the feeling of controlling an empire – from the start of my campaign with GB I targeted myself to be a navy based empire who control the seas without interfering directly with Europe only having colonial power floating with money from over seas I finally reached a point were by 1740 I spent about 15k per turn on the ottomans who even weren’t my allies to block the Russian\Polish advancement in Europe. For once I can say it wasn’t just about conquering the next territory it was about keeping balance try to keep old friendships and still keeping ahead on with technological and financial advantage on the other nations.

While the game gives me that taste it still does it to poorly to actually giving me what it suppose to do. The diplomacy while built mostly(missing some option on the diplomatic screen) right its lacking the correct A.I for it. A.I don’t see the need in you even in a bit its a one side relationship they rarely offer anything they don’t compromise they don’t bag they looking for help they don’t recognize your requests. While I can throw here a dozen of examples I think what will be better is to just throw in solutions and ideas.

I have noticed that you can see what other nations think of you and you can also see what you think of other nations however this is barely have if any influence on the relations. What I think is that this should be a scale for the A.I before they through demands and a way to the A.I to now whether they should offer anything before demanding or to stabilize the relations. What I am missing from the game is an A.I that recognize he’s in trouble masseurs it’s Nemesis strengths in financial (who is he trading with hes state power – number of states and colonies) diplomatic (who’s his allies enemies and whether they are close to him whose on the lead and who is he with other nations good\bad relations add up to the reputation) and of course the army strength from what the A.I can observe on and does the same on nations around him that might help him checks whose they enemies and so on and in cases come to bag for his enemy with offerings and not demands. You can see that this is hardy missing with how hard to nearly impossible to gain a protectorates in the game its like they can’t acknowledge you as a superior power that either can crush them or support them. Also I have yet to see an A.I that sends a state gift to improve relations with you or other nations, long time allied nations don’t get bonuses and even if you are on top relations of +100 with them they don’t go for fair deals in trades. poor nations are not that attracted for money for 20k i would expect to get a poor 1 state protectorate but they seem to disagree also gaining a state on the same number doesn’t work. When the country is low on states but got cash and army power understandable but that isn’t the case is it. I do like in this game how relations can finally grow old without your ally getting hardcore on a specific territory of yours and throws away 25 year relationship to hell but it seems like some friendships are unbreakable in the game and some protectorates of others can’t be bought out. All this things can be fixed and should be fixed and the it will do wonders to the game by simply getting the A.I to measure other nations and you. Also there should be more bonuses for long time pluses and good agreements. One last thing the A.I doesn’t seem to adopt in the game after a blockade that on the only trade port Sweden had I would have presumed that they will demolish one of their fisheries to get that major income from their sea partners – me as the richest and guess what they didn’t it didn’t occur to them to adopt to the situation and build a new trade port nor to go and capture one.

I am starting to slide of the subject but that’s about it diplomacy is the key and all you need is to add up options to the diplomatic screen and with the hard work it will carry add features like – demand or offer army support -number- against\for -number- of turns and if not war, or features like coordinating attack defend state\port -name- and so on features which will give you the empiric feeling i was talking about the ability to manipulate without direct interference.

After you will setup this kind of a fix maybe the A.I when dealing with a though about invading a territory it will measure the situation and will decided if he should expand first on his weaker neighbors or should he ally with them and then attack the territory\nation he desires.

to sum it up will I am looking forward to see all the things I brought up to bring this game to that 100% done stage. What I am really looking forward is the Multiplayer Campaign which if will not only feature 1v1 but more players (some real diplomacy demands more players) will remove the zoom from the A.I which is still important to a purely evil mind of a humans and with luck I hope to see it by December at least the 1v1 beta

thank you and I looking to hear some good news !

Posted by J on October 9th, 2009 at 9:26 pm

Comment # 13

This kind of response of fan criticism has done a lot to gain back my trust of CA. Havent had much chance to test out the new patch yet since my computer burnt out the processor and motherboard. Now with a new computer im looking forward to seeing the changes.

Still my biggest gripes is the mod community. Many game files are still locked and can’t be accessed by the mod community. Since mods were 3/4 of the reason I bought the game im delaying buying Napoleon till after mod support is enabled. There is some conspiracy theories floating around saying that you locked the files to sell more dlcs, I hope they are untrue, I say good mod support is a much better way of increasing revenue either way.

Theres been much talk about developers only thinking about the money I say that is bullshit. Of course a developer cares about making a good product. Now I don’t think many people became game developers for the money eh?
That said, im not overly happy with how the game was on release, but I realize most of the problems probably were due to too high ambition in some places and producers pushing for a fast release while bugs were still being ironed out.

Since I plan on becoming a game developer myself it’s interesting to get a bit of an insight into development.

Posted by Helios on October 10th, 2009 at 2:50 am

Comment # 15

I can confirm, that Campign AI is much better now. Even better then previous TW games, dispite of the fact, that is more complicated.
Keep going in this direction !!!
It is time for Battle AI to be improuved!

Posted by Tchavdar Tzenkov on October 10th, 2009 at 10:13 am

Comment # 17

I am very pleased with the CAI right now. But I think it’s wrong to say that aggressiveness has to do with only “play style.” A faction’s primary concern ought to be its own survival. After its survival is fairly certain, then it can think about being ambitious. Aggressiveness just for the sake of being aggressive is just foolish. This was pandemic in the first iterations of ETW, when Courland would attack everybody and their mother.

I’d like a more logical aggression in the future TW games. For example, an understanding of a nation’s motivations. In ETW, every faction has its “victory conditions” – but theres no way for us to see the other factions’ claims to territory. It would be helpful to have a “territorial claims” map filter, enabling more thoughtful AI-player diplomacy and strategy.

I totally agree with your statement regarding continuing development. It’s foolish to say that CA should stop developing just because something is wrong with the AI. Are the 3d modelers, sound engineers, lead designers, concept artists.. all supposed to just grind to a halt and have an indefinite tea-break? Makes no sense. You explained it well I think.
You’re also right about the AI not running all cylinders yet. The CAI may have improved dramatically, but the BAI still needs a MAJOR overhaul. You stated 1.5 was the last major patch. I hope you realize the BAI still suffers from bunching, indecision and inability to hold a line.

I do not miss out on the fact that you keep reinventing the genre which yuo created with Shogun. Every 2 to 3 years you bring revolutionary change to the game core. You’re not just content with milking a formula. And you’re doing this despite having not a single competitor! It really speaks volumes about your intent: To constantly raise the bar and increase the ambition-level. And this is of course what involves the risk-factor. You cannot guarantee that all parts of your development teams will synchronize perfectly. As we have seen, the AI needed many more months of work than initially expected. If your game was a squareheaded A4 sheet of paper like most RTS games are, it would’ve been much easier to guarantee.

The most important thing is that you’ve been able to carry on working on the patches to make the game what it was always meant to be. This is what I feel 1.4 and 1.5 is to me.
Though the BAI is still abhorrent..

I really appreciate your candor with us. Your friends are lucky to be able to play an ETW unspoiled by the birth defects. I understand that your publisher (and owner), Sega Sammy Holdings, has a sloppy Quality Control department – greenlighting the release of this game before it was ready. And I understand there are financial realities which precipitated a premature release. I just hope you are willing to communicate to Sega the very real negative consequences of doing this. And I hope sometime in the future CA will be able to decide 100% for themselves when the game is ready. For that you need money to buy yourselves out of course. I think you made the right choice in going with a publisher when you did though. You get “security” – and that is especially useful in a financial downturn.

I understand the need to “diversify” your portfolio with console titles like Spartan Warrior and Stormrise. But based on the results, I think there’s less risk involved with the Total War series than in the secondary titles you’ve produced. Spartan Warrior proved a partial disaster, while Stormrise proved to be a total disaster.

Posted by Shigawire on October 10th, 2009 at 12:18 pm

Comment # 19

Well, thanks for releasing a $50-$70 game that you wouldn’t even give to your friends for free.

It’s a lot better now that the patches are out, hopefully support will continue for issues that come up.

Posted by Matt on October 10th, 2009 at 5:42 pm

Comment # 21

can I also say Mike, I would like TW to go back to unlocking new playable factions as you defeat them. I felt Empire lacked variety only being able to play 9 factions (I think it’s 9) most of them being Europeans. I must say i was gutted when I didnt unlock any factions in empire lol!

Posted by Nathan on October 10th, 2009 at 8:38 pm

Comment # 23

Congrats on more AI fixes to the entire empire team! I just started a new campaign and already the AI is being more aggressive and challenging than ever Before! I really like it because ti mixes up the standard territory control that you see stay the same throughout the entire game. It always drove me nuts to get to turn 100 and only see very little expansion in other countries when im already spreading out like crazy. Its more challenging and fun when the whole of Europe actually joins you on your quest of Imperialism. More aggressive and Unpredictable AI means that 2 campaigns are never the same, which increases replayability! I live in the US and i always love Sandbox play, but I especially like it when things are mixed up otherwise its jsut like any other game on rails. Im really happy with the AI progress since release! great job.

Posted by Sam on October 10th, 2009 at 9:07 pm

Comment # 25

An incredibly insightful and informative post. Bravo! In spite of any shortcomings the game has been plagued with. The effort and ambition of the team behind Empire will undoubtedly pay dividends to the Total War Franchise in the future.

Posted by CrowBAR on October 10th, 2009 at 11:44 pm

Comment # 27

Thanks for the explaination, 1.5 works great!

Posted by tate on October 11th, 2009 at 3:36 am

Comment # 29

maybe an idea for the next update:
limit ALL rifled units… not only the better ones like windbuchse or fergusons
all rifled untis should be limited to 2 because there are still to much players who use to much rifles and most players just can’t win anymore and there is no fun anymore on multiplayer…
the rest kicks ass so keep up the good work people
love the Total War series

Posted by Mats on October 11th, 2009 at 10:10 am

Comment # 31

Ok I’ve always been a TW fan since Shogun and I’ve been awed by every game that has come out up to MTW 2 which was a helluva experience. However ETW was a complete failure, the bugs, the glitches, the shady animations that are a downgrade from MTW 2. The main part of the Total War experience is and always have been the epic battles. Yet for ETW the battles have been such a let down that I constantly ask myself, What the hell were CA thinking. The pathfinding is off, units don’t obey your command making battle coordination almost impossible. The sounds and music are blah, not worth an epic Total War game. The AI is strait retarded, instead of trying to destroy your army, they get cluttered up into a turkey shoot. If CA couldn’t fix the problem after five patch releases, that means the game is broken. The campaign map was a step forward, the sea battle was an added bonus. But the bread and butter of the land battles were all wrong. The melee is so boring, coming off of MTW2 which had so much animations, I’m left to wonder if the same development team did the game, and if not, why weren’t they involved with the project. Whats up with the cavalry sliding everywhere instead of galloping, why doesn’t the artillary hit anything, why won’t skirmish units skirmish shoot then run like hell instead of stand there looking lost, why does your general die so quick and easy, the sieges are more than laughable, why why why? I’ve read CA’s two blogs and they are tip toeing around the main problem, deflecting criticism to angry bloggers. The game was never finished before it’s release, patches won’t fix the main gameplay which was a step back from MTW2, you can’t put band aids over a mortal wound and hope it stops bleeding. This animal was dead at first contact. I just hope that all the mistakes that were made in ETW will be fixed for Napoleon Total War which will win back alot of fan support for the Total War series.

Posted by Jlmccul1 on October 11th, 2009 at 4:43 pm

Comment # 33

Any news on modding tools?

Posted by Alex on October 12th, 2009 at 4:57 am

Comment # 35

Since Steam uploaded Emipre Total War version 1.5 The game has crashed at launch every time. I have reinstalled Steam and Empire Total War several times hand I get the same result. A Miscrosoft message tells that the game has been stopped.
My event log states Faulting application Empire.exec, version 1.5.0.0, time stamp 0×4abbc9d0, faulting module Empire.exe version 1.5.0.0, time stamp 0×4abbc9d0, exception code 0×000005, fault offset 0×00cbec4a, prosess id 0×12ed, application start time 0×01ca4942899f7999. What the hell does this crap mean?? How can I fix it as a user? What is the solution?

Posted by R Taylor on October 12th, 2009 at 4:55 pm

Comment # 37

Not picking on Total War so much but the gaming industry – i have a question maybe you could answer …

Shouldn’t glaring flaws be fixed before any game is even released?
Why is it the standard now-days to release unfinished products at full-price and then attempt to patch them up?

It’s gone from fixing minor glitches and adding support for more video-cards to total AI rework and half a GB patches. It’s a rip-off for the consumer and not what people should be getting when they chunk down $50.00 for a game.

The PC gaming industry is already dying off (unfortunantly) …i just bought a GTX 275 and no new games on the horizon (besides Napoleon) that are not simply console ports.
Sad days.

BTW

Latest patch really butchered my EMPIRE (1.5) Warpath is unplayable … flashing on-off interface and more … yikes!

Posted by TD on October 12th, 2009 at 7:02 pm

Comment # 39

Mike –

I appreciate your posts and the reasoning behind the company wanting to move on. It does make sense. That said, you set up a straw man argument in the first paragraph, and that in turn weakens the whole. While a few people may unreasonably state that a game should be perfectly patched before a company moves on, that’s not what most people are saying (to your credit, you carefully avoided using the term “most”). Take my issue, for instance – despite having more than adequate hardware, I continually crash in the Road to Independence campaign again and again and again. This experience is far from unique. *THAT’S* the kind of scenario which drives a lot of the complaints which then pick up momentum and bandwagoners among the “internet public.” Those bandwagoners are, I dare say, far more likely to bring unreasonable expectations with them due to the very nature by which they came along. The rest of us just want it to work.

Most people I chat with who are experiencing such problems almost unanimously agree that Empire is a game we’d love to play. Sure, there may be some AI issues every now and then but what complicated game doesn’t have those? Graphical glitches happen once in a while – PC gamers expect that, just as we expect most games will get a patch or two or three in their development lifecycle. No game and no coding team is perfect. Again, most of us just want it to work and then to let the game stand on its own merits. Improvements to the AI are always appreciated, but those would be about CA as a company wanting to make its product better instead of merely trying to salvage it.

Unlike some outspoken souls, I haven’t written off Creative Assembly games in the future. However, it would certainly help if voices of the company such as yours were able to better and more directly acknowledge the legitimate issues that your customers may face instead of just tilting at windmills.

Thank you for your time, and also for your willingness to communicate to so many customers such as myself. Lastly, thank you for your company’s creative vision. Without that, we’d never have anything worthy of our frustration in the first place – an odd sort of testament to all of you.

Sincerely,
Dan

Posted by Daniel B on October 14th, 2009 at 12:11 am

Comment # 41

This blog post further illustrates the arrogance and disrespect you have for your customers. I for one was disappointed that you are releasing no more patches for this game when clearly the game with its absolute joke of a battle ai is not finished.

I have preordered every single total war game and expansion bar warpath will not be purchasing Napoleon until the battle ai is fixed in empire. See the point is i want to play all the total war games for years to come, i sometimes even flick on shogun and medieval 1 to re-live the experience. Empire is a game i would not go back to and will not go back to because the ai reforming its lines and then walking into melee ruins the feel of the battles.

P.s. Total war primarily for me = Large Battles, if you can’t provide that then where is your series heading to?

Posted by Andy on October 14th, 2009 at 12:45 pm

Comment # 43

Well, this last patch did what all the previous ones hadn’t been able to do: the program now crashes before it completes the loading screens. There’s a MS crash message and log, but it’s all gibberish to me. I’ll post again on the support pages at the forum.

Posted by Ike on October 14th, 2009 at 8:47 pm

Comment # 45

Patch 1.5 really fixed the AI its much more responsive in diplomacy giving counter offers and stuff and even did a pan atlantic sea invasion on me once… only 1 army though… im really looking forward to the non passive AI you were talking about and i agree it should be a option for casual gamers. Cant wait for Napoleon, id really apprieciate more deveopler diary videos though… all the best, keep up the good work…

Posted by The Crusader on October 15th, 2009 at 9:08 am

Comment # 47

Thanks for the hardwork. I’m a hardcore war gamer and agree with the agression issue. Nonetheless it still was a great game and far beyond any other similar game. I’m wasnt going to play war anymore but I’m going to patch and see how you did! Thanks again. -”Wraith”

Posted by Wraith on October 16th, 2009 at 3:18 am

Comment # 49

Your 1.5 patch works about as well as your Empire game.
Over the last 5-6 yrs. Total War has been the ONLY GAME that i ever purchased the same day it was released … without awaiting a review. That’s because you could always count on it being a good game.

I think Empire is the worst of the series …
people are tired of getting less with each release. Less factions, less unique units, the same old (crappy to begin with) diplomacy and alot less options.
Not too mention tired of the same factions over and over again … Great Britain, France, Spain, etc … been there done that for almost a decade.

I will be awaiting reviews on your next release and holding off on buying it when it comes out … it would seem that your no better than the rest after all.

Posted by Teresa Finch on October 16th, 2009 at 9:10 pm

Comment # 51

It’s great that you’re always trying to improve the game, but it seems to me that each patch that comes out makes this game worse for me. When I originally bought the game it worked perfectly. When the update before this one came out I started getting fleets stuck in ports and problems with land battles where the unit cards, instruction buttons and the map all became obscured by random colours (not every battle, but maybe 50% of them) now after the latest release I still have these problems and I’ve just had my first crash to desktop. The game is becomming unplayable, which is such a shame. I have always loved the Total War series and bought every release. Because it’s through steam I have no choice but to have these updates on the program, if I had my way I would uninstall everything and then play the game as it was when it came out of the box.

Posted by Alex on October 17th, 2009 at 8:17 pm

Comment # 53

Hi! Is it possible to change the layout in empire? cuse’ i don’t like the indian music. and i liked the old backround pictures that comes in the menues better than the new indian pictures. just wondering.

Posted by Bernhard on October 18th, 2009 at 11:27 am

Comment # 55

last patch is 1.5? All I see when i cruise any ETW related forum (searching for answers to my crashes) is a list of ppl that experience flaws with your game… continue to patch ETW! Else I know this is the last game I buy from CA

Posted by Dp on October 19th, 2009 at 5:06 pm

Comment # 57

Hello,

Im a huge Fan of all total war games and Absolutely love Empire. I have one thing that bothers me. Im not a graphic’s hound or a glich master which means i really dont care about those things. The only thing i ask for is some cheats lol. As in Previous total war’s i have been able to gain my unlimited supply of money. I find in this one i cant do that……yet. I just wana be able to play the game with some extra cash i find it funner. I know ur busy and always getting these but if you could just toss that little thing in the next patch. (and throw it in the Napoleon expansion) Even if you dont throw cheats in ill still play but it would be nice to have them. Thanks a bunch Keep up the good work!

Austin :_D

Posted by Austin Ramos on October 21st, 2009 at 9:55 pm

Comment # 59

“I had 6 copies of Empire: Total War sat on my shelf intended for close gamer friends that I didn’t send out because I was too embarrassed about the flaws. Old friends are the harshest critics. Well they’ve gone out now. I think the game now meets my personal unreasonably high quality threshold – not just good but great. Hopefully my friends will agree.”

So it is ok for us to buy a game with crippled AI and terrible multiplayer connection issues. How many units have you sold to paying customers vs your 6 friends? I’d still be embarressed.

Posted by Jim on October 22nd, 2009 at 3:16 pm

Comment # 61

Still waiting on that promised multiplayer campaign

Posted by Dawoad on October 23rd, 2009 at 2:02 am

Comment # 63

Excuse me but, whatever happened to????

The extra development time will allow us to finalize and polish Empire, making it the most accomplished and epic of the Total War series.” said Kieran Brigden, Studio Communications Manager at The Creative Assembly. “There is a great deal of anticipation around Empire: Total War and we want to ensure that it is the benchmark for strategy games upon its release.

I think the result has fallen far short of the mark.

Posted by Andurath on October 26th, 2009 at 11:12 am

Comment # 65

I really like the new AI. It does behave more like a person. However, you did promise us the ability to actually play with a person… is there any news on the multiplayer campaign?

Posted by ilikepie on October 28th, 2009 at 4:45 am

Comment # 67

So, when is the Napoleon specs out 8D

Posted by Richard M on October 29th, 2009 at 6:52 pm

Comment # 69

Thank you for your commitment to the community and to making an awesome game. There are few game developers who care enough to keep honing the game after release like you do, and that commitment to excellence shows in the amazing franchise you’ve created.

Posted by jordan buckley on October 31st, 2009 at 7:44 am

Comment # 71

I’m a Chinese player.I played this game from Medieval TW.I like TW very much,and there are a lot of fans of TW in China.We are all eager that you can product a new edition about ancient China.You know China has a very long and complex history.Its square is almost equal to the Europe,and it also several split period such as the two very famous time— the tri-kingdom period and the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (the 770 BC to 221 BC).All of this will make it bacome a best subject matter for TW.Finally,I want to thank you that you have product the perfect game.(Plase forgive me for my poor Einglish)

Posted by Daniel Feng on October 31st, 2009 at 3:18 pm

Comment # 73

Me and my friends were very impressed by the Game-Empire. In the series of total war, that was the first time, then we saw the relise of GP, where AI acted like a human being. I would like to say that AI of Empire was realistic and repeated the historical facts as we all know it. AI thought more, then fighted. And everything was well, till the time then AI 1.4 was relised, or maybe even 1.5. Now after 1.5, AI demonstrates magic. For e.g. on the 25th turn of the Game during the play for fraction of England, London was attacked and captured by fraction of Maratha! It is clear that you had artificially added too much agression to AI in purpose to make fanatics happy. Now the balanced gameplay had become a fantasy. There is nothing left from history. And it is the same for the games of any fractions. Steam made us as a prisoners. Now we can not change the version of AI to the more realistic, unfortunatelly.
I would like to thank you. You were the first one to make a gameplay, where the peaceful functions on fraction were so important. The setting of 18th Century has more technology and pecefull living, than setting of medieval ages. Before Empire the importance of Total War was understandable. Now you had changed setting and Total War must take the second place after peacefull technologies. You were doing everything right.
Best regards.

Posted by Sargon-1 on October 31st, 2009 at 6:27 pm

Comment # 75

And what about the navalgame. Steamships with unrealistic capability, 5th rate ships when firing chain will win every battle agains ships of the line. They take away the sails in 3 or 4 salvo’s. Rendering the line ships helpless. Patch 1.4 is a HUGE mistake. And 1.5 didn’t solve them.

Posted by Lord PriceWater on November 1st, 2009 at 2:52 pm

Comment # 77

Im still waiting for online campain multiplayer for empire. I will never buy a total war product again untill i get campain multiplayer. Me and my freind have actuly been playing medieval even though I have empire.

Posted by michael on November 1st, 2009 at 4:52 pm

Comment # 79

so now that your game is ready to be release .. . :\ where is that multiplayer campaign?

Posted by Dawoad on November 8th, 2009 at 1:34 am

Comment # 81

Well that’s just great that no more major patches will be released. So will someone tell me after downloading everything (apparently) required, the game runs worse now? It just crashes as soon as it goes from the menu screen and into a campaign or battle screen.

Posted by pete on November 9th, 2009 at 10:03 pm

Comment # 83

as a huge FAN, i want to make known what i think would make Total War great…i agree with all the fans, don’t release a game until it is ready, free from bugs and with near perfect AI…i really hope this will happen for Napoleon. please work on the multiplayer..if u don’t wanna make good AI opponents..then let us face human opponents, i think a great online community can build upon a good multiplayer which can continue to get you more customers even after it is released…

i actually dream of a perfect strategy game of Total War combining with elements of Hearts of Iron & Romance of the kingdoms 4 by koei, which is an old old game translated from chinese, although they will never achieved graphics that of TW, which makes battles dull and alot of the stuff is manual. and but they add so much life to the generals and logistics, cities…which actually makes it more fun, because every general has different traits, those that are good at logistics, or good at siege weapons, or a good fighter to duel another general, or a intellect who can devise tricks, traps & strategies…and before u send an army out you have to plan and choose the amount of provisions and gold, allowing u to bribe enemy generals, if ur general is charming, he has chance of persuading an enemy to join u or surrender, plus u can train troops to increase their morale and fighting ability, u can also bribe tribes to fight for u. while i dont deny TW has certain aspects of that, it is severely limited.

one more thing…dont keep releasing games of different ages, definitely not the way to go, cos i am disappointed with Empire total war actually, while the graphics were and sea elements were great…it adds to whole lot of AI problems ..i think it is good idea to focus on a single age that everyone loves…and expand the possibilities from there(Empire：TW 2, empire:TW 3, empire TW 4)…and get it right…and get it right well…by adding life to city building, generals and logistics…it is through all these that make winning a battle most satisfying…i believe CA has the engine, you just need to build upon these elements…dont keep rereleasing games of different ages…romance of three kingdom games in China have been immensely popular which incorporate both real time and turn based strategy in its games albeit shitty graphics, where each game lasts 4-6hrs…i believe CA can do much better…for such a great game engine…..just stop wasting time on computer opponent AI…..it has the potential of making a great competitive online multiplayer strategy game, nothing is more satisfying then defeating a player through strategy…thats what i want…thats what all strategy players want!

Posted by Louis on November 18th, 2009 at 6:38 pm

Comment # 85

Empire is still not what it was promised to be. Break that trust with your fans, and we will not buy any new games. You can expect that Empire Total War was the last big seller of this series. From a purely economic point of view, finish Empire or you doom your future projects.

Posted by Eric on November 23rd, 2009 at 7:22 am

Comment # 87

Are ya’ll still planing to do the multiplayer campaign. I would like to know because the hole reason i bought the game was to play multiplayer with my Uncle. Me and him are into this games. The game is good dont get me wrong. Ive been ckecking like every week to see when this thing was going to come out.

Posted by Vaknr on November 29th, 2009 at 4:59 pm

Comment # 89

Ex-Ex-Hardcore fan here. Im glad I read this, quickly put your last couple of paragraphs won me back.

You see the thing is, us hardcore fans generally are quite intelligent, we generally know a bit about programming, so all you had to do from day one was say as you did above ‘look we know its bad and no one feels as dissappointed as we do’ and I for one would have understood perfectly.

Instead you seemed to alienate your customers when they were in most need. When they were sitting at home with a game that didnt work properly thinking that here we go again another title ruined by corperate greed. I mean simply put TW was what got me into gaming,its everything i wanted in a game and Empire has barely been played because its just not a nice fealing to play it anymore (still mind whilst were out of pocket, you lot arent really giving much bar charging us for Napoleon which is basically Empire fixed, oh yeh id forgotten that was another thing that really got me annoyed!

How about free goodies in the normal addition like the map that was always a given? Not only are you on a thin rope about getting the game right this time, dont forget the hardcore audience (your repeat buyers rather than those who go ‘oo shiny’) will not tolerate your little extra money making ideas styled of Ryanair.

“oh so you want your game to come with a soldier? thatll be £2, oh but you want a gun on him? £1, hes not going to do much without bullets, £2, now will he be wanting an oponent? £5, oh and you want a map to fight on? £10, now you want this on a CD rather than Steam, thall be another £10, will that be with multiplayer? £10 (please leave a year or two for arrival). Ofcourse we have these special edition soldiers that will be able to win a battle on their own, theyre shiny so theyll cost another £5, sure they were supposed to be there during the time period but youve got no choice.”

PS. In all honesty i went from sympathetic to furious just from writing that.

Posted by BlueWolf on December 3rd, 2009 at 4:46 pm

Comment # 91

Dear Empire creators,
let me start off by saying that the total war series is amazing and Empire, though some rough spots, has been escpecially magnificent. BUT LET ME TELL U! THIS SO CALLED UPDATE HAD CAUSED CONSIDERABly REDICULOUS SITUATIONSS!!!!! Before this patch, battles made sense and if you had more people and better people, you wouldnt get slaughtered by two line infantries. Why is it that in my campaign i have had three armies full of new line, grenadiers, cannons, and heavy cavalier lost to one average westphalia army. NOW THIS WASNT JUST A SMALL LOSS!!!! please tell me why i lost 4050 men and they lost 500!!! tried it again on automatic and it was worse!! THIS HAS HAPPENED MANY TIMES!!! THIS PATCH HAS CREATED IN ME A REPULSION OF EMPIRE!! i used to love this game but bust a vein on my forehead when i think about it anymore. battles WERE NOT like this before the patch. SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH THIS!!!!! AND DONT TELL ME I AM NOT GOOD AT THIS GAME!! I HAVE PLAYED EVERY TOTAL WAR GAME WITH EXTREME SKILL and APTITUDE!! thank you for listening to my pugnacious comments.

Posted by tacticalblitz on December 5th, 2009 at 6:13 am

Comment # 93

Just installed Empire to my new desktop with Windows 7.

Naval battling with Pirates (Holland, the Caribbean) crashes the game, not to desktop but it just freezes. Have to force shutdown. Sometimes this happens with land battle as well.

I would be very grateful for a remedy.

Posted by d_s on December 28th, 2009 at 3:38 pm

Comment # 95

Whats the deal with Nvidia and CA??? It’s all very well talking about bugs and so on… but what about driver compatibililty? This makes the game unplayable for all with relatively modern Nvidia cards unable to play the game! Whats that?, 60-70% of people that actually own the game! Please look into the shogun totalwar forums, support section. Rolling back to driver version 186 is simply not an option for us now. There seems to be allot of pass the buck attitude concerning this issue. the new WHQL Nvidia driver came out yesterday and still! the issue is not resolved, whether it be flickering textures/ outright driver crash or more recently. buildings and trees in the campaign map dissapearing. Can we get some communication between NVidia and CA to get a working game, that we can atleast get a working game??Forget lame duck AI, we just want to play the game!!

Posted by Julius Ceaser on January 21st, 2010 at 1:26 pm