Thank you Dear customer, you are now part of ETW Beta teams

I am one of the few in which the game is running (with interruptions) and would still advise against current purchase and move it to a later date. Empire: Total War has potential but will be worth after several months of repair and only using the MOD community money.

First I want to say something to the 90% Up and exuberant Lobhuldigungen in some reviews. Those who are playing this game - perhaps their first Total War - are certainly excited about the choices and enjoy the spectacular staged battles.

Initially motivate the constant success and it adapts some plain yet-a-train-mentality.

A closer view, however, this game is an aerial number. Missing challenges in terms of KI prevent any long-term motivation, new features such as naval battles are immature and frustrating diplomatic decisions have little weight (or not work) and finally bursting the game engine making mistakes. Examples include sound problems, faulty trade zones, performance degradation, or countless caused by system crashes incompatibilities.

So you understand what I'm talking, I give a rough overview. I refer also to the comments, there you will find a complete summary of all errors found so far.

Artificial Intelligence:
I. No island invasions.
In the long run this game is so boring, because no opponent will be able to conquer countries by sea. GB, for example, never attacked, India and America can not by other peoples - to be conquered - except the players themselves. No wonder then, that this game is not even motivated to Very Hard.

II. Diplomacy works hardly.
Gifts (2500, 5000, 10000) always have the same bonus, namely +100. If you want to make peace despite superiority is always blocked and can not do anything other than to destroy the enemy nation.

III. Land Battles
To say that you can go through a battle against the computer opponent to 50 different species is nothing but a blatant lie. The computer always going the same - he rushes towards the player. If you're lucky you can at least watch the cavalry who tried to attack the flanks. In general, it is sufficient to set up his infantry in elongated lines and wait until the computer unit from the mouths.

IV. Ship battles
Ship battles, where you are trying to capture enemy ships laboriously only rewarded when just played the game until the end. Most "flee" the already hijacked ships and, after slaughtering a single ship.
Currently it is not possible to conquer with large ships Smaller because the crew of the large ship is too stupid rappel and dies while trying to jump onto the enemy ship.

Units
I. Balanced units?
An army with 10x mortar, 5x Linieninfantrie, 4x Cavalry and 1 general loses in a fight (if at all) men 10-20. Boring.

II. In comparison to MTW2 there is hardly different army lineups and you end up sooner or later in the same variant. I hope to Community-mods.

Bugs / errors / crashes
I. City Conquest
One fights against the natives of America, it may happen that the attempt to conquer the last city of the enemy with a crash ends.

II. Army / Fleet Management
Merger of larger fleets ends in crash; the same applies to troops that are retrofitted.

III. Trade Routes
If you add an existing vessels trading point added, so you have the whole fleet moving in order to benefit from the new ships

IV. Sound
Permanent sound dropouts or changing volumes

V. crashes in computer-trains
This is with me by opposing armies caused that cross a certain area of ​​the map.

Nonexistent Engine Features
I. Dual-Core / Quad-Core Support
Empire: Total War is based on the old RomeTM engine and is - contrary to the statements of the developer - not for Core 2 / Quad designed. Owners of quad cores thus may be "pleased" about grandiose 25% utilization.

II. Graphics cards with more than 512M memory.
Crashes a la "Insufficient video memory" / "Insufficient video memory" Although arise due to the lack of programming, but are dependent on the OS. Players with 64-bit operating systems will probably sooner or later receive a patch; Owners of 32-bit operating systems must always help out manually (see comment)

The exuberant nature which receives the game currently, that are totally unjustified. If you are English To deny powerful, so I set before you the test of Crispygamer his heart:
[...]

To Steam:
I can understand the rejection, but they do not share. Steam is completely overloaded always on release day of a game, then it works perfectly. This program has been around for several years and has now really proven. The ability to distribute patches globally so quickly is terrific! I do not want to search through tens of pages for an effective patch link and thereby catch me 3 viruses.

However, when the development company (in this case CA) unable is bug free patches to develop Steam is powerless. Not Valve (Steam) deserve the disgrace, but the useless beta testers, the incompetent programmers of CA and the greedy publisher $ GA.
Apart from the spyware accusation and the (small) system load so nothing speaks against Steam. If you want to return yet this game has to perform the following steps:

1) Run Steam
Search 2) Support button and click
Make 3) Question: CD-Key
Wait 4) Reply
Consisting attach from the CD-Key, the proof of purchase and the number of the response of the Steam support as Appendix 5) Scan