Well, I'll be honest. This is probably the first (and hopefully the last) game I've bought on steam that I felt the need to refund shortly after trying it out. Now, I'm not a complete stranger to the Total War franchise. I've got a relatively old disc-copy of Medieval 2 with the Kingdoms expansion, and recently took advantage of Shogun 2 being given away for free (while also buying a bit of DLC to complete the experience).

Maybe I was a bit biased after experiencing the two aforementioned games, but my first hour of Empire was... bizarre. The UI makes a rather sharp divergence in terms of infantry control--which, by the way, seemed to not want to cooperate with my attempts to form firing lines that AREN'T at weird angles--and the introductory campaign... well... Look, I understand that it's meant to ease you into things, but each battle ended up turning into an overly-long wait time for the troops to line up and fire. They don't even fire in ranks, either--no, apparently you don't get that yet. Thus my foray into having to micro-manage a bunch of different groups of soldiers with (seemingly) wonky control systems across the battlefield began.

I suppose what bugged me the most was how... boring everything felt. Maybe it's the comparative lack of melee units smashing into each-other. Maybe I just had the wrong set of expectations because of previous experiences. Take it with a grain of salt if you will, but I just can't recommend the game after such a lousy first impression.

Hell, if you want some good and fun line-battle action, go get Fall of the Samurai. How an expansion set in a just-then-industrializing country managed to make the gunpowder units more fun than a game about globe-spanning empires is beyond me.

Well, I'll be honest. This is probably the first (and hopefully the last) game I've bought on steam that I felt the need to refund shortly after trying it out. Now, I'm not a complete stranger to the Total War franchise. I've got a relatively old disc-copy of Medieval 2 with the Kingdoms expansion, and recently took advantage of Shogun 2 being given away for free (while also buying a bit of DLC to complete the experience). Maybe I was a bit biased after experiencing the two aforementioned games, but my first hour of Empire was... bizarre. The UI makes a rather sharp divergence in terms of infantry control--which, by the way, seemed to not want to cooperate with my attempts to form firing lines that AREN'T at weird angles--and the introductory campaign... well... Look, I understand that it's meant to ease you into things, but each battle ended up turning into an overly-long wait time for the troops to line up and fire. They don't even fire in ranks, either--no, apparently you don't get that yet. Thus my foray into having to micro-manage a bunch of different groups of soldiers with (seemingly) wonky control systems across the battlefield began. I suppose what bugged me the most was how... boring everything felt. Maybe it's the comparative lack of melee units smashing into each-other. Maybe I just had the wrong set of expectations because of previous experiences. Take it with a grain of salt if you will, but I just can't recommend the game after such a lousy first impression. Hell, if you want some good and fun line-battle action, go get Fall of the Samurai. How an expansion set in a just-then-industrializing country managed to make the gunpowder units more fun than a game about globe-spanning empires is beyond me.