Probably not. Hard to rally such a scattered group...I mean, how are you gonna find all the people who bought GTA IV and got ass-raped (if you're not MS or Rockstar)? They could find you instead, I guess, but it's not surgery gone wrong or cancer we're talking about. So I doubt many people will bother.

I'm gonna have to play Empire at War regardless of any copy protection I'm afraid. I had a 15€ voucher to order games with some store lying around, and it was only good til the 1st of November so...I pre-ordered Empire (only game in their small selection that looked really good).

heh... ok, I guess you'll have to tell us then. BTW, there's a class action law suit because of Spore's DRM. I'm hoping it becomes more common... if common sense won't get the bastards to stop using DRM, maybe some good old-fashioned American lawsuits will.

Anyway, I've really enjoyed all the Total War games I've played. I'm looking forward to it. What I'm really waiting for is WWII Total War or WWIII Total War.

Lol yeah, we've been over that. One thing that has me stoked for Empire: TW is the naval battles. I watched a gameplay vid with naval battles a while ago and I was going "DAMN!!".

EDIT: this is the video

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/38337.html

yea, looks pretty good. It'll actually be nice... all the previous games it's been almost impossible to dominate the sea... which is so horrible since the sea is the greatest source of wealth and the best way to move troops. Hopefully this will make ruling the ocean much easier.

Solar system: Total War. That'll be a game.

You could try Sins of a Solar Empire No DRM!

http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=e2Pv7TtV8js

If you can stomach the huge ground battles being replaced with space battles, that is.

I played it. It really didn't do all that much for me... it's a pretty stereotypical RTS with massed charges and all that. I salute their DRM-free attitude, but the game play isn't something I enjoyed.

Multiplayer campaign mode to come with Empire: Total War

http://news.bigdownload.com/2008/12/12/ ... r-release/

It'd be cool if they could have a cooperative campaign mode.

Stating the obvious here, but in a multiplayer campaign you could (of course) make an alliance or even recruit the other as a vassal and work together towards a common goal. That just leaves the "victory" conditions to be changed...like allowing a cooperative victory (allies win together with you), and/or creating harder conditions (conquering more territory; destroying more factions).


Having to fight off two decent human opponents on your own is HARD, especially if they coordinate a bit. I used to play Alpha Centauri in MP, which is in many ways similar to the campaign part of the game of the TW series. Once a player becomes too strong, you'll need to work together to bring him down to save both your games...like it or not. A really strong player can run into a whole lot of trouble against 3 well-coordinated weak players. The danger grows exponentially

But among the allies you'll always see the same problems. Will they keep their word? Are you putting in more effort than they are? etc. It's like a game of risk, only you don't always see what resources they can command.

I'm curious if you can coop a tactical battle. IE, both you and youro human ally group-attack an NPC army and each lead your own army into the field. That would allow for some serious tactics like pincer movements and all that good stuff. Thing you can do as a single player, I suppose, but with two brains behind it, it becomes that much more realistic.

Yeh, that'd be awesome.

As long as there's a multiplayer tactical campaign map, a co-op battle on the battlefield with a human player would be easy, right? Just do like you would do with your own armies or the AI: move an army next to that of your ally and when he attacks his enemy, accept the "come to aid" option.

In M:TW2, armies of allied factions would automatically be asked for assistance if you attacked an enemy with them standing 'next' to you (and vice versa, sometimes they asked you for assistance).

So should be totally possible. As long as I don't encounter any human players too soon I should be ok...I'm more of a manager than a general I guess, but with money you just bribe every freaking army coming your way.

Apparently the game will feature the American war of independence as a sort of tutorial campaign. At the same time it'll appeal to the American market, I imagine. Smart PR move.

Satis'll love slaughtering redcoats!


http://www.gametrailers.com/player/43831.html

I ordered Rome TW gold and medieval TW 2. Should arrive on monday or so.

Hehe...slaughtering red coats FTW. I'm surprised there haven't been many wargames focused on the US revolutionary war. I think it'd make for some interesting gameplay.