You can pre-load it through steam. So you purchase it now, and the download will be available to you 2 days before the actual release. that should give you enough time to download it. Once it’s officially released (probably at midnight on the 2nd) it will be unlocked and you can play.
When we can preload, we can usually play upto a full day before it’s out on most store shelves.
Hm…that sounds good. It’s nice to get the box and maps and such, but I don’t really every do more than glance at them before I start to play. This is how I generally buy games from Stardock, even when they are in the stores.
-XT
I don’t care for ‘real-time’ strategy wargames and in one of the Empire trailers (the campaign map one) they mentioned the powers will act in ‘sequence’ does this mean the campaign map will be turn based?
Also, I don’t have a lot of experience with Total War games (my computer being too shitty in the past to play them and I’m lukewarm on the medieval era anyway), but I couldn’t really get into Europa Universalis II. The map was too large and if I played any colonial power I found myself scrolling all over creation to micromanage a plethora of postage stamp sized lands on 5 continents. Will/are the campaign maps in Empire going to be limited? Will there at least be a variety instead of just playing the entire world every time?
The campaign is turn based yes. The map covers three theaters: The Americas(From North America to norther Brazil I believe), Europe and India.
There are different long campaign and short campaign goals for each of the 12 factions, and different means of achieving victory. So you don’t have to dominate the entire map to win, even on the long campaign.
Cool, I’ll be taking the Dutch to victory then!
I’m looking forward to playing the fledgling US and kicking some Brit ass! 
Though in the demo I pretty much trounced the US forces even though they had all the advantages, so it might be a bit of a challenge…
-XT
Are you kidding ? That was hilarious !
I still remember a Medieval 1 battle where crossbowmen shot right through my super experienced crusader spearmen to hit some peasants they were fighting with. They had the time to fire two volleys before I could stop them - about 50 spearmen dead, for 5 peasants, who may or may not have died from spearmen instead.
The unit commander seemed to think it was a good, sound strategic trade, so I had him and his jolly band of fuckwits charge the enemy general, see how they liked it. I like to believe the handful of AI bits governing that unit shat their little bit pants.
I’m not really worried about the Empire cannons though, as I’ll probably end up not using them much. Arty in the TW games has always been lackluster, and paled in efficiency/cost ratio compared with any half-decent shooty unit. And they also slow down armies to a crawl. So, siege duty, maybe a piece or two to defend bridges and so on because those rebounding lengthwise shots are just too good to pass up, but that’s it.
They have quick drawn horse artillery now…and from what I could see the arty is more effective in this game than in previous games (which makes sense considering the time period we are now in with Empire).
-XT
The latter, thankfully, is much better in Empire, as you can limber the artillery fairly quickly and move at the pack horses’ pace. As far as effect, my 6 pounders in the demo didn’t rack up too many kills, but I probably wasn’t using them correctly. The AI’s artillery, on the other hand, did a fair bit of damage until I charged them with my hussars, especially towards then end when they were able to switch to canisters. Accuracy of artillery is much improved compared to Rome/M2, but they’re still most valuable to damage morale, it seems.
What’s the cav like? In Medieval II and Rome they was an annoying bug which stopped them charging at the last minute, meaning any cav charge was either going to kill most of your cav or most of the enemy, with no way of telling which.
That got a lot better in patches.
I have the feeling that artillary in ETW will be the equivalent of archers/crossbowmen in previous games.
Incidentally, IGN has a reviewposted. They gave it a 9.5, as high a grade as they’ve ever given a strategy game (if you don’t count Black & White, which they later apologized for).
I plan on getting it when released on the 4th. I’m looking forward to building a large navy and rebuilding the mighty British Empire.
When we rule the waves there is no way you’ll be getting games released a day before us! Enjoy it while it lasts…
Played the demo, feels more like Cossacks than Total War, to be honest. (Anyone but me think the animations and look of the battle maps looked really, really stiff? Anyone?) It’s not going to stop me - I enjoy the strategizing more than the battles, to be honest - but I had hoped they would at least have the same level of graphical fidelity as Medieval 2.
I’m not seeing stiffness really. In fact the melee animations are much improved. I’m seeing a lot of “duel like” animations happening and a lot less of the fighting with imaginary opponents that we had in Medieval II.
In the video clip of navel combat when the ships are shooting at one another the rear most guns fire and then the it proceeds down the line like a stadium wave, I’ve see the same thing in just about any movie depicting the naval battles of the time, yet on land soldiers fire volleys all at once. Did the ships of the time really do this and if so why?
My guess is to prevent the recoil from tearing the ship apart.
Purely because it’s more awesome that way.
I don’t really know. I’d think that firing this way would tend to mess with the aim of successive shots, making the tail end of the broadside less effective.
Well, both ships are moving. If the front and rear fire at the same time, they are gonna have a hard time hitting the same target, even if the target is a ship.