If you liked M2TW you will like this.. on paper at least. The use of rifles cause the player to use amazing diffrenct tactics, the addition of a large number of very small countries and the increase in trade abilities make this a welcome addition to the series. However was clearly rushed out, the game crashes repeatedly in various parts of the game for many of the users, the campain AI is laughable, even when at war nations (or shall i say EMPIRES) will rarely attack in land battles, only attacking fleets causing very dull gameplay. Couped with the extreme lag faced during unit selection and turns and the all over feel of unreadiness makes this game nearly unplayable. If you are new to total war get any of the previous ones, if you aren't then go play M2TW. Clearly the 'professional' reviewers once again haven't actually played the game.… Expand

This game offers so much to time of fun. You can command almost 15+ nations! AI are great; they can make it easy, or hard for veterans. (And I mean HARD!). This is the game that has the best graphics I've ever seen in my history of gaming.

this review is written after all the patches and with all the dlc, apart from east units thing, i like it i play as the dutch. the blue guard is THE BEST UNIT. however i find the game crashes often(may be my pc). graphics: speechless. sound: awesome. i would like a mix of napoleon total war and empire. if they made that then total war would rule over everything.

I would say this game will be the best game until 2015 The graphics are excellent the collision database is better New naval battles with Super detailed water and cannans actually make holes in the ships. The land battle are awesome, you can make your very own Barriers to avoid musket fire i would say to give this game atleast at metascore of 96!

Every history addict and strategy game players should try not only this game but all the games from the Total War series. This time CA has outdone themselves, making a game that will last in the annals of computer gaming....a true masterpiece in every possible aspect from graphics to gameplay and story ambience

9 for the game -5 for "Steam". As we used with the earlier versions of TW but with enchancments like sea battles and building you can inhabite on battlefield. Terrible the way activating with "steam" and the need if you want to play! Come on! I am certain that a pirated version is better and I am started to wonder why I've bought mine from store with all these "hocus-pocus"...

Laggy, buggy, crash-prone ... don't take my word for it: Look at the developer's own tech support forum. Minimum system specs are a joke. Sadly, the little bits that do run on my (well over minimum spec) system look great. Wait until it's patched at least twice before you buy. Not a retail-ready product at release.

Waited a few months to buy the game as suggested by other users, but its been a huge dissapointment, I installed the game and tried to load it but the annoyin windows messag came up saying that the game had stopped working. Ive been a huge fan since shogun came out and i feel let down so far by empire. im gonna write another review when the game decides it wants to work and then ill see if it lives up to game spys reivew… Expand

This game doesent play properly and it crashes continually- I cant understand how anyone can say it is good!! You are lucky to finish a couple of campaign moves before a crash. Avoid at all costs.

I never did this before but I've had such a horrible experience with this game that I could not help myself. All the "critics" must be playing a different game than the one I bought. First and the most infuriating of all is the AI. Out of all the total war games I have played in the past I can never remember it being so bad. The units are often unresponsive to your commands and when you do manage go get them to do what you want they usually have terrible pathing. Try taking a enemy fort without any cannons to see what I mean. Tell your units to grapple the wall and what usually happens is a few of them bounce up and down the rope while the rest of them sit at the base of the wall doing nothing. It's an exercise in frustration. Next is the load times. I don't know if it's just my computer or what but it takes upwards of 2 mins sometimes for a battle to load. Add it to the fact that after your AI does another idiotic thing and costs you a battle that you want to reload it. You spend more time at loading screens than actually playing the game. I don't know if this game was rushed out or something but it feels unfinished and it is almost unplayable in it's current state. And this is even after the patches downloaded from steam. In closing, I just want to give a big F.U. to all the people who had anything to do with this terrible, half-assed, pile of garbage. I used to like this series very much but after wasting 50$ on this embarrassment I will not be buying any more total war games in the future.… Expand

It looks great on paper. It looks absolutely amazing on paper. Unfortunately this is a PC game, not one played on paper. There is an absolute deluge of bugs which range from rending the game unplayable to making it just not fun. Examples include save files becoming corrupted, the AI not having the ability to attack over the ocean, units gladly firing into their own lines, cannons going off whether you tell them to or not, numerous sound bugs, the list goes on. To top it off most of the countries play just about the same, with the same units (different names) and not-unlockable minor nations. They also took out things like family trees. Aside from the terrible AI battles are pretty fun. The graphics are good and the underlying mechanics are good. I like how cities develop more in this one than in MW. Overall I'd wait a while before buying this. It's at least one major patch away from being any real fun at all, and likely an expansion away from realizing it's potential.… Expand

This game was broke from day 1 and after numerous patches it is still broke. I have a good rig, all the other 'new' games run just fine, but ETW crashes consistently during campaigns: Attack specific town= crash. Enter specific territory= crash. I just uninstalled the game, as it is a waste of my hard drive space. This is false advertising at its worst. But I guess the company is happy because they receive no reprisal and make tons of money on an unfinished game.… Expand

I love this game, and luckily I had none of the problems that everyone else had with it, and I've clocked in around 300 hours on it. Great game.

I think this is a really good game. A little hard to put the graphics on very high and make the game the best it should be. What I wanted to see was some fighting in Asia. And what happened the Africa and South America? And another thing is that troops from Europe look kind of the same just with different names and colors. Out of that the graphics could be really good (I just can't) and the game is cool.… Expand

The sound effects are just amazing, the land battles aren't boring, the use of gunpowder was very well addapted, the naval battles are the most chalenging issue in the game,and for me, as a portugues, I just loved to see the spanish conquering the portuguese and in the next turn they revolted and appear like a faccion again,very nice detail. Congratulations to the team.

This game is most likely the best game that i have ever played, and i have played a lot of games through my life. This game is truly epic, a icon to the games of the 2100 century. the cut scene of this game is breath taking, the story is far beyond exiting and the game play is nothing less then addictive. The only flaw about this game is that it ends.

An absolutely incredible game. I still find it strange how a few off the wall Critic Reviews, and a slew of asinine 0 scores from users for computer/Steam issues, can keep the true greatness of this game from being fully revealed to casual searchers. A user score of 6.7 is shameful for this masterpiece.

This game is awesome!! i am a video game enthusiast and i work at a video game store and i have to say this game is amazing! it's is by far one of the best games in the world and knocks other games of this category like sid meyers games out of the water. if you are a true fan of history and military strategy or just games in general you have to play this game! the user score it got is definitely not what it deserves and it may have a couple of things wrong with it but it is easy to look over with a game this spectacular! I would recommend this game to anyone who wants to sit down and play a nice addicting game.… Expand

I play this game and I think its great. I have all these games and they are great. I am waiting for Shogun2 to come out soon! I have the first one and that is cool but the new Shogun 2 will rock your socks off.

I have been an Empire total war fan since Shogun. I am throughly disappointed with this buggy pile of crap. 7 months out and I still get crashes and the AI is out right retarded. I will never again buy anything out of CA on relase date.

Empire Total War is my third Total War game, and it lived up to my expectations. Does the AI have problems? Yes. Is the AI mindless? No. Perhaps I am an idiot and really do not know how to play, but I found the AI challenging and competent. Now, I am speaking from the perspective of a patched game, but the circumstances surrounding the release of the game explain much (having your main AI programmer have to leave for family problems is going to harm any game at release). Enough of an apologia. This game has a lot going for it. Stunning graphics. A much better balanced economy. Actual naval combat! A tech tree! Lastly, know that the Total War mod community has delivered some great mods for this game. If you do not like the game vanilla, then find the mod that works for you.… Expand

I feel as if I am being nice to give this game a 2. The installation alone took WAY longer than it should have, and I wasn't even able to play the game. The fact that I payed $20 for a game that wouldn't work on my computer, take up memory space, add stress to my already horrible day, and waste hours trying to find an answer. Anyone looking into this game is much better off taking the simpler installation that comes with Medieval 2: Total War.… Expand

Great game. Good graphics, and very playable. All in all a very amazing game. It is a must have for any strategy enthusiast out there. The graphics are amazing and the battles are intense

While the game adds a lot of complexity to the frame that existed from earlier series in a way that makes the game more realistic and engaging (such as making mines, farms, etc. points within territories that must be defended), the added complexity becomes quite repetitive quite quickly. Unfortunately, the added complexity almost appears to be a half-baked after thought. Diplomacy in the game is almost comically horrible. Military alliances have been replaced by a general alliance system which makes it almost impossible to ally with certain nations due to factors outside the control of the player. Furthermore, it is almost impossible to develop a peace treaty with combatant nations regardless of who started the war or if territory changed hands leading to wars that have lasted for over fifty years (hardly realistic of the time period). Battles also appear quite buggy with animations being performed at the wrong time. While purely cosmetic, it does put a dampener on what is supposed to be the game's main feature. Another problem with the battles is their repetitiveness. While I don't mind fighting a battle for 45 minutes, I have used the same two tactics in almost every battle with either very few losses, or losses that are disproportional to those inflicted on the enemy. Finally, we have the steam element. After purchasing this game, be ready to wait for a roughly 1.5 gig patch to download through steam, and be sure to run steam offline if you have a bad connection. Otherwise, you will be unable to play as you have to be online to turn on the offline mode for steam (go figure). One distinguishing plus to add, however, is the naval battles. Although these are incredibly slow (even with the fast forward button), it is a legit step above simply having ships auto battle each other (especially when your nation is Dependant on a navy to hold its empire together. Graphics are also amazingly good save for the bugs mentioned above. Unfortunately, these are only present in the battles themselves where in general, you're too busy fighting to notice them. In general, Empire Total War is a great game if far from perfect. Admittedly, it was somewhat of a let down for me in comparison to Rome Total War. While fun at first, the problems I mentioned take quite a bit of the fun out of the game. Furthermore, the complexity, which does add a challenging layer, is one more thing to have to have to look after while still implementing the same interface present in Rome Total War which presents its limitations quite quickly.… Expand

I am mostly writing this review in response to John R...Dont rate this game a 2 because you are upset with the way steam functions, you are supposed to rate the game (which coincidently is available from many venues other than steam). John has not played the game and is here to review steam, so I will vote 10 to offset his score of 2

This is simply the best strategy game out there right now. If you want a long game full of depth and strategy, order this game now! I usually don't buy games until they go down, but this game is worth every penny. I'll be playing this for years like I have with all the other Total War games. A 10 doesn't do this game justice. It deserves a 14. It's epic. Simply epic.

I agree with John R. 4 hours later the game still hasn't installed thanks to Steam what a joke on the support forum they slate every antivirus program and recommend you uninstall it. DONT! its the software that is the problem. I would love to see how good the game is but so frustrated by now I think a trip back to Game looms.

Hey John R., why do you give a bad rating to a game because you bought it from a crappy system like steam. The game itself is great and very well done, i hope no one listens to someone who blames the game being bad on steam, because steam didnt make it.

thr game might be good... i dont know cos i cant play it, cos this f...ing steam doesnt update. I´ve got two dvd´s in my box, but they are not needed. I have to instal over steam... what the... steam sucks, it is slow and not worth the price, the game has cost. Maybe it is a good game but how knows without the ability to play it

Steam is not user friendly, download speeds are horrid. any other game I bought in a store I would be playing in 15 minutes, this game I bought 6 hours ago and am still hours from playing. Not a good experience and I am definately not buying any more games that steam is involved in.

This looks like a fantastic game but I wont be buying it because it's been Steamed, developers wakethe hell up !! you are commiting suicide by tying your products to this control freak system that so many of us despise, I'd rather give up playing games than have this intrusive rubbish on my computer.

Empire: Total War is the greatest addition to the Total War series. It is truly epic in size, the new ways to play the game, including naval battles and The Road to Independance, are absolutly amazing with little to no flaws. This game leaves nothing to be desired. My only wish is that the next one they make will be "Modern: Total War".

I would have given this game a higher score, but the fact that it is tied to Steam ruins the game for me too. I bought the retail DVD version and it still needs Steam running in the background to work. It really bugs me having stuff consuming resources running in the backround, especially when it is probably monitoring your every click. Steam sucks..

What the F***, steam is the worst thing to hit the internet. What were you thinking the total war team? send out a mod now to remove steam from the start up, they have under invested and almost no one can play your game, i have been waiting for this game for months, this is the last time i buy anything from creative assembly, due to your the fact you have tongue so far up steams arse

It's an amazing game, but the reason for why I don't give it a 10 is: Poor pathfinding, not only in sieges, but in all battles with high altidude differences. HMS Victory is painted in a colour she had in the 19th century, not the 18th. She was red originally. Well, I can't list all the mistakes... Worth buying nonetheless, but if you're a history freak you9;re gonna have some akward moments of "huh?"… Expand

I took a lot of my sparse free time to get my steam account going again, to get the game installed, only to find out it doesn't run. "Not available at this time, try again later". I paid for this game! I should not have to try again later. I will NEVER EVER by a steam game again. And as it is, I spent 50 Euro's on something that is currently not working at all.

I can't play the game because steam is messing things up . as they most of the time do. i bought the original special forces edition. but it is a waste of money next time i will get an cracked version from th internet. quess then i will have a much better chance the works fine.

Amazing game, and the critic reviews speak for themselves. In response to John R., are you inept? For you to rate a game, which is for all intensive purposes a masterpiece, a 2 simply because you dislike steam or it is causing you trouble is nothing short of pure idiocy.

As long it comes along "steam"... steam gonna come out your head. It makes it terrible... ,crushes, "staying in line" waiting long before playin'... awful. Slows down and diminishing every concept to enjoy the game! Otherwise the game is nicer than earlier versions... seabattles, getting into some of the buildings in the rts, better graphics, bigger maps and more interesting possibilites with trade routes on the map. Steam -7 Total War Empire 8 and more...… Expand

Buggy, Buggy, Buggy, has crashed 20-30 times in my first 8 hours of playing. Now stuck at one point in the game, crashing after each battle before I can save. Game should never have been released with such stability issues. When it was working it seemed like a great game. Don't waste your time starting it until the patches have been rolled out

I have not even been able to play the game yet. Steam is such a pile and keeps giving messages like, "game is not available at this time, please try again in a few minutes". I don't even want to use steam. I just want to play this game on my computer by myself. I'm sure the game is pretty awesome, but steam is just ruining it. Shame on total war for attaching this game to steam

Install instructions are non-existant. Steam is absolutely ********* Had to discover for myself that I needed to be connected to he nent just to install the game and that I had to create a steam account before the game would install. Once that had been done had to search the net to discover game could not be run offline until it had first been run once online which it would not do untill it had been updated. So far I have been unable to update and run the game because the steam servers are too busy. Need I say more ?… Expand

Steam is awful. The game crashes all the time. I love the total war series, but I can barely get it to work under this horrible engine. When it does work the load times are too long. All the finesse that existed in the former series are now gone. Plus you get to witness the Steam advertisements every time you start...

Very...very very buggy. Under all those bugs, and honestly there are too many to list (check out the official forums and TW forums) is a great game. I don't know if CA will be able to claw threw them all or not, its worse than any TW game on release to date I think.

Great game, but if you cant play a campaign to conclusion due to the many bugs in the game, you have to wonder if perhaps a little more testing was in order before release. Will try and go back to it if and when they patch the errors, until then, unplayable

The Game is great but because Steam it lost much of its magic. You can play only whe you are online, play only if you have updated version and even if the patch mess your game totally like it has happend with the first patch. I think that it was bad idea and because of that CA will loose their loyal players.

A bit of a disapointment, lots of features mentioned seem to have been cut in the final release, and above all it looks terrible in the battles when zoomed out - I mean really bad, like a 10 year old game with 6 pixel soldiers with waggly legs. Granted it looks great close up, but the AI is poor and the features are alot more limited than we were led to belive.

So far, I can't even get past the opening menu of the game, it keeps crashing when trying to download the campaign or scenarios. I have plenty of disk space, yet the game took over two hours to download. I liked the other TW series, but this has been the worst gaming experience thus far.

Very poor AI. AI embarks and transports no enemy troops on a ship. Many major bugs in the GC = Crash to Desktop. Then after you cant resume your game. I played Rome and Medieval II. These 2 games were almost a 10 score but Empire is almost unplayable might be because its unfinished.

I was looking forward to this game. Just recieved it delivered to find i have to load STEAM in order to play it. I hate Steam, I hate it with a passion. And for it to be added into a single player game is pathetic. Poor show for the Total War team

Sounds like a great game if you could install it from the CD. Went to website to see how to do it and tried it and it did not work. Sent an email and have not heard back from Sega. Best advice... don't buy, stay with Medival War II.

Das Spiel wäre sicher eines der besten, jedoch kann ich es nicht spielen, da meine Internetverbindung zu langsam ist, um die Updates oder das Spiel herunterzuladen. Des Weiteren habe ich unter der Woche keine Internetanbindung. Was soll ich mit einem Einzelspieler-Spiel am Wochende? Was soll ich mit einem Einzelspiele-Spiel, das eine Internetverbindung braucht, unter der Woche, in der ich kein Internet habe!!??… Expand

After playing Medieval II: Total War and seeing the promo videos of Empire, I purchased the game on the day of release. What a disappointment! The game is unfinished and requires a huge amount of work to become playable, let alone enjoyable. It is very buggy and will crash to desktop several times per turn. The AI is crude at best and it's almost impossible to lose the game. The developer, The Creative Assembly, has been slow to patch and if you read the gaming forums, has created a huge backlash through the gaming community with this release. My recommendation for anyone considering purchasing this game is to delay that purchase until it has become evident that the game has been fixed with appropriate patches and updates. At this time, the game is broken and unplayable.… Expand

I was a huge fan of the totalwar series, but this is by far the worst of the totalwar games released. It crashes constantly (after downloading the first patch) The AI is weak and unit pathing is terrible. I can't recall buying a game as bad as this one. I doubt that I will ever purchase another totalwar game, what a piece of junk! Buy Rome Totalwar if you want to play a good game.

A good total war title.. some how doesnt do it all for me though, in comparrison to say Medival total war the game play is just far better on that, If it wasnt for the sea battles this rating would be a flat 5. I feel that with the release of the patch in may that alot of the lag and jerkyness can be remidied.

Well it seems the customers and the 'game' reviewers have a big difference of opinion about this game. As a customer from day 1 that is still unable to play this game without CTD or white screen crash I can honestly say that this game is nothing more than a Beta. Dont beleive me? On C.A's official forum http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic/52508 they are asking the customers if they want to become part of a Beta Group to help get their game properly tested. Never thought I would see the mighty C.A fall from grace like this.… Expand

This would have been a great game . . . if they'd finished developing it. Buggy, crash prone, and utterly unplayable. Don't buy it for at least a few months - the fact that they're apparently using fans of the series to do play testing rather than doing it themselves is frustrating, to say the least.

Well I wish I could complain about the crashing in this game but I still have not been able to play it. I knew i would have to register is with steam before I was able to play... was not aware that it needed to download from them. I move around the country alot and don't always have a great internet signal. I love my other Total War games but wouldn't reccomend this one to my worst enemy.… Expand

What a Steaming pile! I cannot even get the demo to load (through Steam) without crashing. $50 for what? So Steam can regulate what I do? No thanks. Good luck to everyone who chooses to support such pile of waste (Steam that is). I agree with the afforementioned boycott strategy! DO NOT BUY THIS GAME UNTIL STEAM GOES AWAY!!!

I would love to have a rave review or statement about this game, but no matter what i try and whatever computer i try to install this game onto, it just will not work. And further more steam, which you have to sign upto and get downloads to patch the game just do not even attempt to download as the server is always too busy. So in summary, don't buy this game.

this game is unplayable. Repeated crashes to desktop from a multitude of reasons and corrupted save files which prevent you from reloading games. Just go here: http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/forums/126 and you can see all the issues with the game and the lack of support from Creative Assembly. DO NOT BUY THIS GAME.

The much talked about battle AI does not cut it at all in ETW, and is certainly no match at all for veterans of the series. The graphics are shiny, there are many innovative features in the campaign, sadly many are left half-done, and patches have not adressed the problem over the many months ETW has been out. Despite it's flaws, I can't say I don't enjoy playing ETW, even quite frequently. There are many nations to play, but very little variety between them. Line Infantry are the same across the board, even if they're called something else in some armies. Artillery is extremely powerful and can rip approaching armies to shreds due to the AI being unable to avoid it or close with your lines quick enough, but at the same time it needs to be micromanaged always, because the fire at will function will kill more of your own men than the enemy's.… Expand

I CAN'T BELIF' THAT SWEDEN IS A PLAYABLE COUNTRY .... Sweden was a Major power in Scandinavia... But Denmark had atleast the same power and ideas of making Colonies around the world... Sweden did not they just ... did Swedish things... they should have picked Denmark and not Sweden i am realy ... i cannot belif' it

You would think this is a multi-platform console release judging by all the dumbing down they did across the board. Also, loading times are way too long. If you're not obsessed with graphics, stick with Medieval: Total War (yes the first one). It's still the best and most fun of the TW games.

The game looks great and the battlefield really comes alive, but the AI remains as dumb as ever. I haven't lost a battle yet because the AI doesn't protect it's artillery. This means that things are a (very pretty) pushover. Hopefullly the promised multiplayer campaign patch will provide some decent human opponents :)

Excellent game. Significant AI improvements, magical graphics, deep and complex but still manageable given it's scope. Is let down by a great deal of bugs and occasionally frustrating naval battles (ships don't always go where you tell them, painful to manage reloading and firing of broadsides in large scale battles) Overall, a must buy.

All ten stars for me, this game is truly remarkable through out the whole thing game play is great , replay is great, and overall game smoothness is great, i have no problem running this game on ultra and it being very smooth. -AMD dragon spec pc. very well done creative, im usually a tough customer but you have really done great work and it is available steam!! yay

would like to give it a 10 because it's a fantastic game from what I have seen so far except i can't play it because it crashes ALL the time and i mean that literally all the time. I am currently waiting and hoping on patches to fix this before I give it another go, I really is unplayable in it's current state.

'Tis a very polished game next to M2:TW. AI seems at least slightly more responsive. Runs buttery smooth on my computer (may not be the case for everyone). I had no problems with steam, except the long, LONG download. It is still possible others will. Bottom line, another great game by CA.

The people whining about Steam are just frustrated free-loaders, so let's just ignore them. In terms of atmosphere and gameplay, ETWis as good as it gets. This isn't just the best strategy game ever, it's quite probably the best video game ever. And to think we're here to witness it in person! Unbelievable.

The game is fantastic in its campaign depth. The diplomacy, naval battles and fort system are much improved over previous total war games. The only draw back is the load time for battles and the lack of character depth regarding generals and leaders. There are some attributes but not the depth i would like.

The game is obviously great but steam has destroyed any pleasure in gaming that could have existed.. takes 2 days to download and its so full of bugs and crashes that its not playable.. i hope they learn! game was great the 1 hour it worked before i used 6 hours trying to fix it. feels like i bought a beta at retail price

questo gioco sarà pure bello ma è una merda il fatto che bisogna collegarsi ad internet ed aspettare ogni volta l'aggiornamento.....a me ad esempio salta internet e a volte và molto lento...molto spesso ci vogliono anche due ore per fare l'aggiornamento su Steam e mi passa completamente la voglia d giocare......vi ho regalato 60 euro...

this game would be a 10 if the game would actually play battles but the grand campaign deserves a ten and it is not my computers fault either actually its a little ironic that a pamphlet in the empire box says runs great on alienware m17 because it doesn't most of the time and my m17 is the best you can get it

For all YOU STEAM HATERS. THIS IS TO RATE THE GAME NOT THE STEAM. THEY RELEASED A "PATCH" where you don't have to work with steam. ALSO, IF YOU DOWNLOADED FROM STEAM... DON"T COMPLAIN CUZ U WERE SIMPLY TOO LAZY TO GO TO THE STORE TO PICK IT UP instead YOU DECIDED TO DOWNLOAD. STFU AND SIT DOWN. So to all YOU HATERS FOR STEAM DON"T GIVE THIS GAME A BAD RATING JUST CUZ U HATE STEAM. Anyways I believe this game was just amazing except the fact that they delayed this whole time to get the multiplayer campaign included and they still haven't included in yet. That's like the only disappointment but other than its fantastic. I showed it to my friends and they are all addicts of the game now.… Expand

Game wise, it is fantastic but CA has chosen a bad way of distributing their game, via STEAM. I have terrible experience with STEAM few years back and it fails me again similarly few years later. I wasted 3 hours (some folks on the net even days) without able to install the game, stuck at "Creating local game cache files" due to the large chunk of data required to be downloaded from the internet before you can even install it. STEAM is a bad bad choice CA.… Expand

This is the best game, dont listen to people who are mad at steam, steam IS NOT EMPIRE: TOTAL WAR, IT IS STEAM!! I suggest buying it at a store, not on steam to avoid those issues. It is very fun, if you liked any total war game, you will love this one, and if you havent played one, you will be even more in love with it.

With out the Modders to fix this game I will have to rate it a 6. I dont see this game having much of a future and in time I bet players will unistall this game and focus back on playing Rome and M2. To bad the nice graphics and naval battle option was fun.

This could have been the best TW to date, and given six months of patching probably will be, at the moment though it is so poorly finished as to be a waste of money. The game has some awful bugs that couldn't have been missed in playtesting so I can only assume the publishers concluded a public beta was the cheapest way forward - the most game breaking bug for me is the inability of the AI to invade across water - it simply cannot use land armies and ships to land invasion forces. In effect nations like Great Britain are invulnerable at the present time. Its depressing that most reviewers (both professional and otherwise) are simply scoring it on the basis of the game they hope it will be rather than the game it is today, to what extent this is down to them simply not noticing the poor AI and attributing their success to 'skill' is an interesting question particularly in relation to those who do this for a living. It will almost certainly be a great game once patched up, but anyone considering the purchase may be better served holding off for a few patches.… Expand

ok,first off,steam is the worst piece off junk ever and i think it is totally WORTHLESS! ive used steam before for other games and i couldnt even start the game i was playing,steam should have nothing to do with this game,secondly,empire itself is an amazing game.but it has so many bugs and problems that right now,in my opinion,this game would be a waste of $50,but if they would revise it,best game ever.… Expand

probably the best total war game thus far. I love the naval battles and tech tree!

As usual,CA turns out yet another masterful product. As for the people complaining about poor performance, I suggest they try playing on something more advanced than a Commodore 64. It's not the developer's fault if your welfare computer sucks balls.

I cant possibly believe the low scores given by people who claim to have "gaming" or "high-end" CPUs. I have a 5 year old CPU that runs the game a little slow with some chop but naval battles are clean. This game rocks!!!!

This is an awesome game the fact that it is able to keep 1000+ troops on the battlefield and not lag it outstanding! And i don't know what you guys are talking about because it doesn't lagg a single bit on my 9800GT =)

Everyone who says this game has glitches or crashes is 1. The don't know how to run the game, or 2. They are playing the game on an ancient computer. I've been playing this game for the past few weeks and all I got was a crash and that was because my computer had to install an update. I have always wanted a strategy game that involves all aspects of a real war and this game is as close as you can get to that. I applaud the developer for thinking of every possible angle. Although this will be a bit difficult for new players to the strategy genre to grasp, this is an excellent game. The only drawback is that the AI in single player and to aggressive and trying to make deals and agreements with them are impossible.… Expand

Excellent game although the online has been ruined by people doing anything to win for example massed skirmisher armies. This was a big let down for me but other than that it is great.

Al in all a good game, unlike most people i had no problems at release. The land battles are fun as always in the Total War series, but the great campaign is so boring and the ai too easy. For a decent campaing i suggest Rome: Total War or the very unappreciated Imperial Glory, which had many features of Empire years before.

I give 7 why? I think, that Medieval: Total War is better. There is more option in quick battle. Graphics is good, but it can be better and threre are to more errors.

keep up the great work, you can almost smell the gunpowder

Totally love the era Empire total war is exploring. With patience, the new patches and perhaps some mods made Empire total war an excellent, beautiful and addicting game. I would recomend it to anyone that own a good computer =)

the grafic is wonderful and it s a very good strategy game. On my pc it never falls and i fink that if you have a powerful PC this is one of the best games that you can install. It s a MUST HAVE for every rts player!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great game, campaign is mode is good and so is the online play. some problems with battlefield AI and diplomacy, also the writing is hard to read. Not as good as Rome but better than medieval 2

love this game. but ive had nothing but bad luck with steam. nothing works as it says after a purchase at steam store. support never accepts my support login or passwords. i am very disappointed with steam.

This is the best game I have ever seen. I didnot mind some bugs, that is normal in every software. I play it every day when I can.

Ive been a player of Total war games since Shogun 10 long years ago, and was sooooo excited by the prospect of guns playing a major role, as well as the naval warfare aspect... neither of these were as grand as I envisaged .... maybe even disappointing.... I dearly hope Napoleon will be better.....

Very good game.

Since there hasn't been a review since 2009, I thought I should write one. Steam recently released a bunch of updates that fixed the problems that other buyers/users/players were complaining about. On to the new stuff. The game play and storyline are amazing. I'm into the second part of the game and I've already played 50 hours (maybe more or less while enjoying the game and battles and not rushing). The graphics are amazing and very realistic, you can see the soldiers reloading the runs/cannons, etc. The naval battles are interesting but I wish it would be more user friendly since its easier and better to have the ships just auto attack and doing some minor controlling, unlike the land battles where you need to control everything. Realism is a problem in the game...well to me but thats because I find it annoying. Explanation: If you have cannons overlapping and they fire they will hit, and destroy, the cannon in front of them. Same with ships..if they are set on auto attack and are side to side they will fire their cannons and hit each other. So not really a problem but just annoying that its so realistic.… Expand

This is by far the most amazing game ever created, much better than the previous Medieval 2 and Rome, and in my opinion, better than Napoleon. The scope of this game is fantastic, it includes 3 land theatres: Americas (from the Hudson Bay to Guyana), Europe (Iceland to Mesopotamia, Sweden to North Africa) and India (Mesopotamia to Calcutta); and four trade theatres: East Indies, Strait of Madagascar, Ivory Coast, and coast of Brazil. Together, all these spaces combine to give the player a game that truly spreads across the world. In this game, there are 12 major factions, 11 of which are playable. They include Great Britain, France, Spain, Austria, Prussia, Poland-Lithuania, Russia, United Provinces, Ottoman Empire, Sweden and the Maratha Confederacy. The United States is also playable in a separate campaign. These factions all have different starting positions, victory conditions, economic and military strengths and diplomatic relations. Even with these factions and the more than 50 others, the game still runs smoothly and naturally through history. The graphics are great, especially with the new sea battles, they really help bring the action to life. Most of the other reviews complain about Steam. STEAM IS NOT THE GAME! Steam can be a little annoying at times, especially the fact that you cannot play the game without Steam, however, once the game is installed and updated, Steam will hardly ever bother you again. To those who gave the game bad reviews because of crashes, it's not the game's fault that you have a faulty computer, if your computer were up to the task, the game would run fine. This is my favorite game, and I have played many games. It will be hard to top it, so Creative Assembly should keep up the good work!… Expand