Amazing game with a few flaws

I spent a couple months playing this game every night. It is totally awesome. It takes about an hour to get into it, because the learning curve is a bit steep. However, once you get the hang of whats going on (make sure to have the advice turned on), youll start doing some serious strategizing. Strategy, taking risks and the battles are what make Empire Total War a great game. You have to manage your money supply, all the while both defending your land and attacking others to increase your revenue flow. Unline Rome: Total War, where everyone seems like the enemy, Empire has a very sophisticated diplomacy system and its not all about war. Sure, there are other nations who want to take your valuables, but defend yourself well and many wont make the power play. Better yet, once you have an ally firmly established with great relations, they will even help to defend your land. When playing United Provinces, I became great friends with the Mughal Empire. Even when my most valuable lands had few troops defending, they never turned on me. I gifted them land in Europe, and they started lengthy campaigns to take out Austria, an enemy of both of ours. The battles are a lot of fun and require very careful and well executed actions. I have one of the new MacBook Airs and it runs great at high graphics. Gets a little hot though.

All that said, this game of course has some drawbacks. The biggest issue is with enemy sieges. Time and time again, the computer failed to assault my bases, even when I was way outnumbered. It seemed the computer would glitch out a lot, constantly shifting their artillery around. At times, they just would not budge. I would have to exit my base with a small army, move towards them, and then they would start running at the base. Very strange. I have spent a great deal of time on full speed just trying to speed things a long. Very annoying. Other than that, the computer is fairly smart when doing normal land battles.

Tip: to avoid getting your army blasted by cannons, place them at the bottom of the back of a hill. This way, the cannons sail right over your armys heads or hits the hill. It pretty much renders enemy cannons useless.

MDS86 about Total War: EMPIRE