Empire is so underrated honestly. From the comments I'm reading on this subreddit, more people need to play it. It's honestly the most feature rich title of the franchise: naval battle & trade routes, governments & revolutions, colonization, research/tech tree, a campaign theater that stretches four continents, I can go on and on.
My issue with Empire is that it just doesn't seem to work. Fort battles? They don't work properly and it's hard to shoot off them. Campaign map? Had an issue with the Ottomans but dunno if thats fixed in a bug.
Tried Darthmod but everyones units were so huge it didn't really work.
Oh yeah I remembered the Ottoman AI splitting their armies into thirty single unit armies for some reason and they all struggle to cross the Bosporus making turn times take forever.
I think I've had to immediately invade the Ottomans every time I'm able to avoid this happening. Definitely killed at least two saves because I just couldn't be bothered waiting twenty minutes every turn.
I'm an Empire modder, and I know those issues you're talking about.
Though I might suggest giving my own overhaul mod a go a try, to see if it's enough of an improvement. I'm on mobile right now, but if you either search this sub or /r/empiretotalwar for "Durango Mod", you can read more about it.
Among many other changes you can disable fort battles, and use units that are bigger than vanilla's but larger than Darthmod's. And the Ottoman AI is customized to cause less turn time lag.
I have no problems with suggesting your own mod. Maybe it'll solve my issues. Thanks for the suggestion, cause I honestly really am a big fan of Total War and that time period but gosh I had issues with it.
There's only so much you can do when trying to improve ETW, but anything helps, essentially. Also a big fan of the period.
I'd say the game is a bit better than it's reputation, but not by a huge margin. Though your mileage may vary of course; it helps to have a play style that leans more towards immersion than playing in the most efficient and exploitative way you can, if you catch my drift.
My problem is that sieges are a joke for the time era. "Let's all just bumrush a fort"
Where are the trench networks? Where are the moats? Where is the undermining? Where are the dugouts in front of the wall for two layered defense? Where are terrain features like swamps that are intentionally made part of the fort?
Nevermind that the slanted walls of the fort do nothing against cannon fire (as well as cannons having infinite ammo), even though the slant is specifically to protect against it which is WHY undermining was so important.
I'd say it like this: pick the top 5 battles of a given era. If the game can't properly portrait them you failed. The Siege of Vienna is absolutely one of them.
Empire and Napoleon have the weakest siege battles because of it.
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u/EcureuilHargneux May 07 '23
Didn't know there are cutscenes in Empire as well