As buggy as a South American jungle.

There's a patch coming up that might alleviate some of that.

As it stands, I'd recommend it (I'd say it's worth the money), but only if you're a fan of Total War-style battles--the campaign map is busy and kinda clunky at the moment.

Most of the "bugs" at this point that I've noticed is just bad AI behavior in tactical battles. The game is (now) pretty stable, but it's still 32-bit and if you push the graphics settings up you will be running out of virtual memory and, sadly, crashing. There is a way to set the executable as large memory address aware and Windows will give it up to 3gb of memory to work with if you have it (this does not change the actual executable so it will remain "legit") and that alleviates the vast majority of out-of-memory crashing.

When I order my new pc ill be picking this game up... this will be in 2 weeks... ahh ill still love the game.

I'd buy it at 50% off. Patch 1.3 is coming on Monday. It primarily adds AI fixes, multi-threading support, optimizations and new units. There are more patches in the works too. They should make the game deserving of it's 88% Gamerankings rating.

Here are the notes from shacknews.com

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/59194

"We've worked on implementing the multi-threading in the game for multi-core processors and made many optimisations that will also help increase performance on single core machines.

Players will see huge benefits through increased frame rates particularly in land and naval battles.

14 Free Units have been included in this patch, adding a large amount of diversity to the playable factions and the armies the player will face. These units replace 'generic' equivalents giving each faction a unique identity on the battlefield. Here is a description of each free unit available in the update:

Prussian Grenadiers

Wearing a distinctive brass fronted mitre cap, the Prussian Grenadiers are an explosive force to be reckoned with on the battlefield.

Spanish Guardias de infateria

These elite guard infantry are charged with protecting the monarch and are a potent force on the battlefield.

Swedish lifeguard horse

This cavalry regiment forms part of the monarchs' household guard. Superbly drilled, they act as a shock force on the battlefield.

Holland Horse Guard

Armed with heavy cavalry sabres, these disciplined cavalrymen represent the elite of the army.

Prussian Garde Du Corp

The Prussian Garde Du Corp are a replacement for the Prussian standard Household cavalry. These heavy horse shock troops are best used to break enemy lines and overrun enemy positions. With a strong charge and fearsome attack, these riders make short work of those who would oppose a Prussian monarch.

Prussian Life guard

The Prussian life guards are equipped similarly to line infantrymen. However their uniforms are altogether more splendid, marking them out as a superior force, in arrogance if nothing else. They do a good job as garrison troops and are dedicated to the crown.

Russian Grenadiers

This new Russian unit is great for assaults and their grenades pack a mighty punch!

Spanish Guardias De Corp

The Spanish Guardias De Corp replace household cavalry for Spain. With almost unbreakable morale, on the charge they are almost unstoppable.

Spanish Grenadiers

These are a replacement for the standard Spanish Grenadiers with a distinctive bearskin hat to mark them out as exemplary on the battlefield.

Swedish 'Lifeguards of foot'

These are a highly trained replacement for the standard Swedish guard. They are often used as a force in a system that defends a monarchy and can be relied upon for utter loyalty and deadly accuracy in the field. Their professionalism is reflected in their fearsome battle reputation.

Holland Guard

The Holland Guards from the United Provinces are superior line infantry units. Carrying smoothbore muskets, they were traditionally chosen to protect the royal family and have an incredibly high morale, often making them the last troops to break in a fight.

Scots

The Scots are a Highland ex-patriate infantry used by the United Provinces, renowned for their deadly charge.

Swiss Infantry

Very disciplined infantry of the United Provinces with quick reload and excellent marksmanship.

Mamelukes

Mamelukes are fearless light horsemen, deadly when deployed against a broken or unsupported enemy.

Additionally the Spanish nation has had a new uniform design to better reflect its historical look.

Audio:

Sound loading has been made asynchronous, so heavy disc access is reduced to a minimum. This makes loading times faster and reduces any instances of 'stuttering'. Unit group sounds have also been improved, for more realistic group movement. The primary sound library (Miles DLL) has been updated to stop occasional clicking. And we've added more sound variation for unit deaths and musket fire.

Campaign:

• Several crash bug fixes in saves, movement, agents and logic.
• Various optimisations have been made to AI and path systems to reduce the campaign map turn times.
• When the pirates are destroyed and re-emerge they now maintain a status of at war with all and are unable to enter into diplomatic negotiations.
• Added small ships on domestic trade routes from the trade nodes to home regions moving in the correct direction, i.e. with the flow of trade.
• The AI should now no longer repeatedly sign a diplomatic agreement and then break it the next turn. Treaties are more valuable and adhered to.
• We've fixed some border trade agreements allowing greater numbers of bordering factions to properly trade with one another.
• Movement arrows now reflect the range of the selected units, not the whole army/navy.
• AI will no longer counter-offer and ask for more money than the player has available.
• Fixed commerce raiding taking money from blockaded trade routes.
• Fixed navies getting stuck when forced to retreat from ports (tactical retreat).
• Fixed rare inability to attack certain ports.
• Fixed middle mouse button camera drag stopping working occasionally.
• Made emergent factions be at war with the faction they emerged against if that faction is human.
• Fixed various movement extent crashes.
• Changed background income for minor factions.
• Fixed diplomatic relations with emergent factions.
• Tactical withdrawal will now always leave armies on the landmass containing the settlement of a region.
• Changed war score system to make the AI more likely to accept peace.
• Fixed crash when embarking and disembarking armies at ports.
• Fixed trade ships not being correctly registered in trade nodes after splitting forces.
• Fixed government change diplomatic effect.
• Improved commerce raiding display on trade screen.
• Faction specific text is now used in diplomacy.
• Prevent players cancelling the movement of fleeing agents.

Balance changes

Units

• Charge bonus generally increased across the board for all units and melee defence reduced.
• Greater diversification of stats between different unit types designed to emphasise differences and improve balance.
• Redone costs for all units for multiplayer to improve game balance which better reflects the actual battlefield worth of each unit.
• Mob formation added in for Native American, irregular and some skirmisher units.
• Spot distance for light infantry, skirmishers, irregulars, light cavalry and missile cavalry increased allowing them to spot hidden units at longer distances.
• Russian line infantry stats have been boosted to allow them to compete more with other factions' line infantry.
• Movement speed of all unit types reduced by 10%.
• Ammo for light infantry increased to 20, line to 15.

Land battle morale

• Charge morale bonus reduced from 10 to 4.
• Recent casualties, extended casualties and total casualties morale penalties increased slightly for higher percentages.
• Rear and flank exposed morale penalties increased.

Fatigue

• Fatigue penalty for melee reduced from 18 per tick to 10.
• Running fatigue penalty for heavy and light cavalry reduced from -3/-2 to -2/-1.

Artillery Changes

• Calibration area for cannons and howitzers reduced. Accuracy of non-round shot shot types reduced to compensate.
• Muzzle velocity of round shot for cannons increased to make them fire lower and bounce more, accuracy also increased.
• Lethality of shrapnel pieces reduced to match canister shot, range also reduced to 350.
• Load time for special shot types for howitzers increased slightly, and range reduced to 350.
• Calibration area for mortars increased, accuracy of round shot increased to compensate. Reload time increased slightly.
• Accuracy of 18 lbr horse guard artillery restored to 65.
• Hit points of gun trains increased to 50, all guns and caissons to 25."

thank you, i think they may persuade me to get it?

one last thing? how is modding? can i do ridiculous shit? or even without modding, can i set up crazy matches

I'm not sure about modding, but this is a more historical game. The Grand Campaign has you picking one of a bunch of countries in the world and you get to play it for a 100-year period to meet objectives unique to each country. There are a couple dozen other countries on the map with you, major powers like Britain, France, Russia and minor ones like American Indians and others. So you can tweak some things and difficulties, but the game is set in a historic context so there's nothing too crazy.

There are strictly scenario tactical battles, though I never bothered with them. To my knowledge, they're still supposed to be more "historic" so I wouldn't guess there's potential for "crazy matches" there.

well i remember seeing a rome total war where it was just a few spartans vs 1000 of peasants

i would like to do that, it appears as though i cannont

i miss the days of good rts's where i can make maps, make gametypes(starcraft and warcraft)

Frankly I think it was worth full price from 1.1.  Nothing's perfect.

It's Sega.  That alone keeps me frmo buying it.  Sega is the anti-Starodck when it comes to customer relations and support.

I never saw if they released the multiplayer campain ability yet or is it just skirmishes still?

No it's not in yet.  But it will be awesome.

EDIT-

New patch, 1.3, monday.

"v1.3 patch due on Monday (which will improve performance, add balance tweaks, and no less than 14 new units)"

Hi there,

I LOVE it.  When I first bought it and installed it from DVD it crashed, but after 1.1 it solved that problem and it's getting better all the time, and with the new units coming on Monday and Multi-Threading i'm very excited as this is MY kind of game (As is SINS), I love controlling large numbers in battles (Space OR Land / Sea is ALL good to me).  I have not had most of the problems others have had apart from the campaign map being jerky when the main large battles aren't, but again that's just optimizations.

And yes you CAN create some crazy fights such as a few versus hundreds

Chris Payne

Danman Games

VP of Music Arts and Website Development

http://www.danmangames.com

http://www.oxyge.net

I'm torn currently.  The price seems great, but I'm honestly not thrilled with musket fights.  I much prefer the swords, axes, and spears of Medieval 2.  That being said, as hard to control as the naval battles were in the demo months back, I really do enjoy the time period for wooden ships and cannonry.  Are these even better in the full game and an important part of controlling the map?  Or are they just a secondary concern that can be relegated to auto-resolve?

Is there some oomph to infantry battles or is it mostly standing apart firing inaccurate guns until out of ammo, then charging in and seeing clunky melee animations?  Do the campaign map upgrades of cities and recruiting forces still give a lot of enjoyment through planning and obsessing over what to build next?

I'm still hesitant to purchase because as much as M2:TW was enjoyable, bugs galore amongst combat, UI issues, the notorious family tree that auto-picked your leader based off of who knows what, etc. has me worried especially with all the forum posts about how Empire continues in that tradition.

The campaign map has more to do in it.  I personally love infantry fights and they're not that inaccurate, depends on the unit though and how far away you are..