Although Empire Total War has small bugs it is an amazing game that i believe was well worth my $50. My computer is equiped to handle it, but the visuals of the game are truly jaw-dropping. Although some of the AI strategy is poor and they easily be shattered with a smaller army the complexity of the game and the whole set-up truly make up for this. Between turns you definetely have time to go do something else. I usually do homework or something. Load times for battles and loads are epic and can take 3 or more minutes even with a fast computer.

Some of the definite downfalls of the game are the AI's diplomacy tactics. Instead of allying with a powerful nation they will always declare war on you. Currently playing as Prussians and am at war with 10 one territory countries that hated Poland-Lithuania which i fought and conquered, but they were ticked at me because of territorial expansion. AI strategy within battle and on campaign map is also nonsensical. Take one militia unit against your 20 line infantry units. Take one at a time for the next 10 turns. The resources outside the city walls however force both you and the AI to come out of your cities to defend it. Defensive objects and capturing buildings truly make this fell more lifelike too.

You will hear people complain about bugs, but one of the recent patches rectified most of them and make it a very playable game.

IF YOU DON'T HAVE A GOOD COMPUTER THOUGH DO NOT BUY THIS.

Somebody please, please tell me where I can find this patch!

PS. Has anyone else had problems where the game is so demanding graphically that in order to cope you have to do decrease the graphic accleration but then you can't see the cursor 99% of the time and it still crashes?

Me too, sadly it doesn't sound like I should give it a second chance anytime soon...

I got it for 50$....played it once! then forgot about it!

If worst comes to worst..I'm willing to sell my steam account to whomever wants it!

I just got it, i need a new video card for it because the one that could play was defective, but when i could play it it was astounding

Hmm.  Last one I bought was the VI expansion for MTW.  Looks like I made the right choice.  Well, I did buy RTW, but it was quite bad except for the visuals.

I kinda like the idea, turn based in just game mode and real time in battle, but $50, I am definely not getting it. I am one of those purist, I rather see a total turn based or a total real-time

Galciv 2 or SoaSE then.

BUY BUY BUY, YOU HAVENT EVEN GOT IT YET!!!!

BEST GAME EVER...............EVER

I like the game. It has its performance issues (mainly, they don't have a 64-bit friendly version so it runs out of virtual memory really quickly if you don't enable large memory awareness), and the combat AI leaves something to be desired. But it's a great game. I took a break from it because I got most of the way through my Austrian grand campaign and they did that big re-balance patch that screwed up my whole empire and I need to start over.

i got it for 35$ , still waiting on the multiplayer patch

Already got it

I'll simply second those who've recommended you wait for it to come down in price, have it more fully patched, or both.  Empire has a lot of potential....but then, so have all the other Total War games.  Thus far, only Shogun and the original Medieval have ever really been up to snuff. 

No.  No, it is not. 

Doesn't sound like it. Besides, I prefer swords, knights and bows to muskets and ridiculous uniforms (why on earth did military forces dress like that?!)

Yeah, the game's period is admittedly part of the reason I'm less than enthused about Empire -- I too prefer either the medieval or classical Greco-Roman era(s) -- but only part of it.  There's too many bugs, too many AI problems, and too many balance issues in ETW that still need to be fixed/solved.