Total War Empire

My impression after playing the demo:

absolutely stunning!
Again Total war proves itself an absolute must for any serious strategy gamer. I cannot wait till my pre-order comes on Friday!!

Noticeable additions include the amazing but very chaotic Naval Combat which I must say we have been yearning for since Rome.
Since the Era has changed the way you approach battle has changed too, instead of charging headlong into the fray, you must maximise your firepower from each unit.
Of course once your muskets start whittling down at the enemy, then you can charge and finish them off.

Artillery has become alot more accurate, alot more necessary and oh yes alot more effective.

Units have beautiful new captains/ flag bearers and drummers as well as a wonderful variety among soldiers

The only slightly off point I have noted is that it IS a system hog regardless of requirements. I am hoping that the load times for the demo were just because it was the demo and it was thru steam. But hey you cant expect this level of quality without having a bit more demanded from your rig.

Dont deny yourself the infinite excitement and enjoyment to be had from Total War ANY longer… pre-order now!!

Where do I begin, this game is one of the best if not THE best strategy game I have ever played. It is like Risk the boardgame on steriods. If you have a good computer you are in for a graphics treat, but even if you do not the gameplay is really what it is all about and once you start you'll not be stopping till you realise it's 3am and you've got school/work in the morning. There are a few minor glitches which will be ironed out over time with updates (there have already been one or two updates since release) but nothing too serious at this time. I've only found my main problem so far has been getting units to go over fences and one semi-floating house. But hey, pobody's nerfect. The new naval battles are visually pleasing and loads of fun once you get a good sized armada built up. I've had the game for a little under a week and i've only just managed to get into the final act 3 of the introductory campaign based around the United States of America's road to independence. I must also stress that the game is very tactical as far as games go and positioning and planning goes a long way towards winning. I myself managed to hold a fort with approximately 500 men against an invading army of almost 1,300 though plenty of luck must be attributed to that as well. There are plenty of other elements of the game to keep you going and all add to the experience including managing resources and taxes with the later being important as if you tax too much especially nobles they might decide to rise up against you though you can usually raise taxes for a few turns to fund raising a big army without any hassles. I've also still not managed to get to grips with getting through allies teritories as more often than not they will want to turn me down if I want to march an army through their teritory on my way to a destination even if I offer them good trade deals or the like.
I have both Dawn Of War 2 and this game and while they are both a bit different especially with DOW2 being more small unit based now and almost RPG like, it hasn't even gotten a look in since I bought Empire: Total War. I'm not taking anything away from DOW2 either as it is a great game. But there is something about marching into battle with 1,500 plus infantry, cavalry and cannons in view that brings out the inner Napoleon in us all.
I'd give this game 10 stars out of 5. Epic.

I have been a total war player since the release of medieval total war and this one is the best of all. Took me a while to get used to it as I have to change strategies with troops focusing on gun powder and with the introduction of naval battles. It is more exciting being able to see what you construct on the map and having more diplomatic options. Having to research your technology is also another fun new feature of the game. I definitely recommend this game to total war players and to players who have never tried the game. PC gamer gave it a solid 94% so I see the reason why not. Word of warning as you might need a decent machine to run this game smoothly. My graphics card is a NVDIA 9600 GT but the performance is not perfect. Possibly because I am a little fussy, putting everything on the highest setting.

An important peice of information for multiplayer in New Zealand is to find occupied servers you need to change Steams download server via going to File tab, settings tab and downloads. Select a countries server, such as UK & Ireland or Australia. Help forum for issues is at http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com.

Its a good game.

Empire: Total War would most likely be a tremendously good game if it was playable without CTD's at the end of every turn after a certain point. The game is littered with bugs and the worst thing is that Creative Assembly doesn't appear to be fixing the game with any conviction either.

The Campaign AI is terrible too – many forums that I have looked at have noted that the AI never puts troops on transports to invade, and as such, the age of sails and exploration is flawed.

Land AI i'm afraid isn't much better. Cannons blow your ranks to bits even though you have 5 seconds earlier told them to halt their barrage. The AI is much too passive and will rather turtle and get blown to bits by artillery instead of mounting an assault.

That said if these problems of the AI and crashes to desktop were solved I would recommend this game wholeheartedly. But as is; it is unplayable.

Please don't just take my word for it – look at the official forum and many other forums. They are saying exactly the same – a potentially good game marred by bugs. If CA had taken another 6 months to polish it, then it would deserve the reviews that IGN gave it. It seems unforgivable that everyone is raving about this game when really it is a fundamentally flawed, buggy, unfinished, beta release of a game.

I certainly won't be rushing out to buy a Creative Assembly game again.