Empire Total War AI issues

Maximilian

I thought I'd give Empire another go after the patch but it seems the game is still buggy as hell.

My Road to Independence campaign got bugged, so I had to restart it. No biggy; I'll blame it on the pre-patch save game and start again I thought. Then, I played an epic battle earlier. Took bloody ages. Right before the end, the game crashed to desktop.

Oh yeah, the AI still, despite the promises, still cannot do naval invasions. Just as well the aren't any ships in the ohhangonwaitasec.

I give up on this piece of sh!t. Every single campaign I have started has ended in bug armageddon. I haven't managed to finish a single campaign. Not one.

I used to love CA. Now all they seem to want to do is sell people software that doesn't actually work and DLC that nobody needs and should have got with the game in the first place or perhaps as compensation for this debacle of a game.

Branoic

one thing this game has highlighted for me is the complete and utter failure of the gaming press. Review mags and sites are meant to be serving the best interests of the gamers, but instead they're too cozy with devs and publishers. When this game was released it got 9s and 10s across the board, despite being an obvious buggy mess with numerous game crippling bugs that games journalists could not have failed to notice. But still it was heralded as a masterpiece. Some reviews acknowledged it had bugs, but then gave it a 10 anyway! The review scores encouraged the public to buy the game, which in turn reinforced the idea for Sega that it's ok practice to release a half finished product and promise to patch it later.

Reviewers need to actually start doing their jobs properly. If they scored a buggy mess of a game a 3 or a 4, the public would stay away and the devs / publishers would learn pretty damn quick to tighten up their QA for their next title. It'll never happen though, the reviewers are too "in" with the industry.

komodosp

Couple of examples of AI ineptitude:
1 - Unit hides behind a wall while I pepper it with grapeshot. Although the wall provides some protection, I can gradually pick them off, comfortable in the knowledge they won't move.

2 - Units don't try and gain the high ground... The only tactics they seem to use are basic flanking manouvres with cavalry, quite easily dealt with once you have Square formation...

3 - When I'm attacking a town, instead of one coordinated defense, they seem to hide as many units in the different buildings as possible, reducing the strength of their main defence. Once I have that smaller defence defeated, it's quite easy to pick off the remaing units one by one as they try to hide in their buildings... (either by forcing them out with a cannon or attacking militia with linemen)

4 - When they are attacking me with walls, instead of holding their infantry back until their cannon can break a hole in the wall (and they have cannons), they send their infantry up to try and scale it (while still firing the cannon), as they wander around outside looking for position it's quite easy to pick off their guys with my lads from the walls.

5 - Tiny countries with feeble armies and destitute economies (without necessarily having powerful allies) declaring war on me despite me being all-powerful... Though this might not be a bug but some kind of strategy I amn't aware of, it usually gives me an excuse (or forces me) to steam-roll into their capital.

death1234567

I bought this game and gave up on it due to the bus and borked AI. Even with the darth_Vader mod installed its still not up to much. Branoic has it spot on above should have been hammered by the critics but instead it was lauded. Joke. Forums are the only place to get decent reviews these days.