My plan had been that I would concentrate on Empire: Total War for a week. I imagined knocking off the "Road to Independence" tutorial campaigns and getting somewhere in the "Grand Campaign". Well, I must admit: total failure!
The problem is that this is a game that needs time, but I wound up being too busy to really give it that time. Also, I encountered a bug with the second "Road to Independence" campaign where it stopped telling me what to do . . . I wound up replaying it, and then it told me what I needed to do for the final step of that campaign. Blah.
One of the things that threw me off with this game is the fact that it is set in the "real world". This isn't a problem or a bad thing, it's just something I found unusual. Consider: how many strategy games start you off in an empty "game world"? "Civ" games, for example, start you in prehistoric times, building up your first city and all of that. Much later in the game, you have your various cities yelling at you for attention. Well . . . Empire: Total War starts right off with a busy active world, with some countries already allied to you and other countries already hating you.
Another aspect of the "real world" that threw me off was the dates. The second "Road to Independence" campaign, for example, was set during the French-Indian war. This was a tutorial campaign, so we were encouraged to take our time. But, I was a wee bit discouraged when the date indicated that it was long past the Revolution!
I'm taking a short break from Empire: Total Wars. I think I might plug away a little in the Grand Campaign, however. For this next week, I had already decided that it was time to fire up Civilization 4 again. I had bought Civ 4 when it came out, but I hadn't purchased the expansion packs. Now, with the release of the "Complete" edition, I decided it was time to purchase everything and give it another shot.