Prussia - gain three provinces lose three provinces

Prussia

1707

The Bavarians have come at me with a vengeance since declaring war on me. It seems that they have been a lot more dangerous and aggressive than the Austrians. The Austrians took West Prussia from me, but since then have been fairly passive, with just an army or two threatening to march on Berlin. However, the Bavarians have taken Dresden in the last year and the Venetians have taken the empty, pillaged Vienna, which I decided I didn't have the resources to garrison. Also the Poles marched across Austrian territory to take Prague - do they have designs on Austria too perhaps?

I am using the 1.5 patch and it seems that the AI so far has been more co-ordinated and aggressive in its actions.

Battle of Rossbach - new Historical Battle for Empire Total War

I played this new battle that comes with the 1.4 patch at the weekend. Much like Fontenoy it seems too easy. I think this is because the quality of the Prussian troops has been put too high. You don't really have to be too clever to win it.

The set-up for the battle is also a bit bizarre - with quite a few large mountains really defining the battlefield, and I am guessing, forcing the enemy AI to act in a certain way. This works as the cavalry try a flanking manoeuvre, which fails, and then the infantry deploy badly in a sort of shaky column, which is quite easy to defeat.

Here's the actual dispositions taken from Wikipedia:

New 1.5 patch for Empire Total War

With the 1.4 patch just out, it's great to hear that there is a 1.5 patch in the works as well! See Mike Simpson's post at the official Total War blog site.

I think it's a shame that there has been so much criticism. I have been playing since they first released Shogun and I think Empire is the best Total War game yet. It's much better than anything comparable on the market at what it does.

If you want historical recreation then go for a worthy but duller game like John Tiller's Battleground series - great games, but take longer to play and less immediate fun to the general gamer.

New beginning with Prussia

I have just started a new campaign as Prussia. Unfortunately I didn't get to the end of my campaign as France as I bought a new computer recently and didn't transfer the save game files over.

Also the new 1.4 patch is out, so I thought I would start from scratch with this patch installed.