Empire: Total War

If you haven't yet bought The Creative Assembly's latest historical RTS game Empire: Total War, this week is the percent time to do so. Today the game has released its first mini-expansion, The Warpath Campaign, via Steam for $9.99. It adds five new Native American factions and a new playable campaign to the game.

But that's not all. The main game is now on sale via Steam for just $24.99, a 50 percent discount, through Monday, October 12. A new patch to the main game has also been released with a number of changes and additions. Finally a previously released Special Forces pack, which adds six extra units to the game, has just been updated with three additional units that were previously unavailable for sale (Death's Head Hussars, the The Dahomey Amazons, and the The USS Constitution ship). It's now on sale for just $2.49.

While The Creative Assembly team is busy working on their Empire: Total War mini-expansion The Warpath Campaign they are also planning to release some new free content as well via their next patch. An update on the game's official message boards reveals that the upcoming 1.5 patch for the historical RTS game will include five multiplayer maps.

While the patch will be released the same day the $9.99 Warpath Campaign will be made available via Steam, the new multiplayer maps will be totally free and will not require players to purchase the mini-expansion. There's no word on when the patch or the expansion will be released. The maps are:

• Grassy Flatlands - This is a flat, balanced map designed for competitive/tournament play.
• Austrian Pinnacles - A maze like European landscape with plenty of opportunities to outflank and maneuver around your opponent(s).
• Syrian Ridge - A desert map with several oasis scattered around and a large sandy hill near the centre to dominate the opposition.
• Siberian Plateau - A balanced flat snowy tundra map, heavily forested to allow for ambush and concealed fighting.
• Homestead - An American plains map with several cabin dwellings and low rolling hills with opportunities to seize elevated positions.

The Total War series is as much about re-writing history as it is about experiencing it. The upcoming Empire: Total War - The Warpath Campaign DLC expansion does just that by allowing players access to five new Native American factions (the Iroquois, Huron, Plains, Pueblo and Cherokee nations) that each come with their own Elite Units. Using them, players can try to repel the Colonial invasion. The downloadable expansion is expected to release in October and can be purchased exclusively through Steam.

"A new detailed North American Campaign Map expands the Empire: Total War experience, with 5 brand new American Indian factions, new units and technologies. Experience battles in the new Warpath Campaign and lead one of the 5 new factions in an epic war to defend your lands and drive out the invaders. Or take these units and their unique strengths into multiplayer battles."

Download HD Empire: Total War - The Warpath Campaign Trailer (44 MB)
Check out all Empire: Total War downloads

Some fans of Empire: Total War were a little miffed that developer The Creative Assembly and publisher Sega announced plans for an all new stand alone game, Napoleon: Total War, recently. They believed the game should be an expansion to Empire: Total War. Today, however, word has come down that there will in fact be a downloadable mini-expansion for Empire: Total War coming very soon.

The expansion is titled The Warpath Campaign and will be made available exclusively via the Steam download service. Look for five new playable American Indian factions that you can use in the new campaign (Iroquois, Huron, Plains, Pueblo and Cherokee) along a newly expanded North American map, new elite units, new agent types, new tribal technologies and more. The price for the mini-expansion will be $9.99. The Warpath Campaign will be released in late November.

As promised last month, The Creative Assembly is continuing to update and expand on their recent historical strategy game Empire: Total War even as they work on their next game Napoleon: Total War. This week they revealed the details for their next major patch for the game which will include some new content.

The 1.4 patch will have a ton of bug fixes and improvements (including an increase in the rate of naval invasions) along with some balance changes. It will also contain two new historical missions (Battle of Rossbach and Battle of Fontenoy) that will be made available for both single player and multiplayer. The patch is expected to be released late in September.

Last week, developer The Creative Assembly and publisher Sega announced Napoleon: Total War, a new stand alone historical RTS game that's due out in February 2010, about a year after the release of Empire: Total War. Much like gamers upset with Valve over releasing Left 4 Dead 2 a year after its original release, many gamers are not happy with plans for Napoleon: Total War. Some claim that Empire: Total War still has many bugs that need to be fixed and others feel that the content in Napoleon: Total War should have been in Empire: Total War.

In a post on the Total War message boards, The Creative Assembly's Kieran Brigden states that they have no plans to stop supporting Empire: Total War, saying, " The major AI upgrade patch is still very much being worked on and is coming shortly." He adds, "After the major AI upgrade patch that is coming we're going to announce another major piece of DLC for Empire, adding more content to its universe and expanding the game even further." And what about the multiplayer campaign add-on which was promised months ago? He states, "The MP Campaign Beta has not been forgotten, work is ongoing and it will be released before Napoleon allowing us time to absorb your comments and feedback (Which is ultimately the point of a public beta). To stress: Empire's MPC Beta is still under development and will be coming shortly it has not been dropped or forgotten and will be available soon."

Finally he answers the thoughts of some fans who feel the content in Napoleon should have been put into Empire. Bridgen states that Napoleon is a big game in of itself adding, "Napoleon focuses on a man and his destiny and how this is tied to the rise of a nation, a man who defined an era. Empire was a very seperate theme, defining the interplay of actions between nations over a turbulent period of history. These are two very different games. We couldn't, nor would we, have added Napoleon into Empire. It's a huge piece of work worthy of its own title."

The Creative Assembly decided to improve and add onto the land units and battles for their recent 1.3 patch for Empire: Total War. However the development team behind the recent historical RTS game is already prepping for their 1.4 patch and this one will make some improvements in the game's naval battles.

In a post on the game's official message board, the team states they hope to "create greater diversity between different ship types along with improving the overall game play of the battles." What does this mean? Well, it means that for the upcoming 1.4 update, the high powered Ships of the Line will still be powerful but will have "low accuracy, slow turn speed and lower range compared to frigates and small ships." That means the patch will bring "a new dynamic and rock, paper, scissors element" to the game's naval battles. There's no word on when the patch will be released.

We are a little over halfway through the end of 2009 and so far things in the PC game industry have pretty much been what we have expected. We've had some games that were as good as we expected and other that didn't quite meet our high hopes. We've also had a couple of surprises that have kept us on our toes.

Today, We have decided to look back and give our picks for the best PC games released so far this year (in the order of which they have been released). We have also picked a couple of high profile titles that were also released but did not end up to as good as we had hoped.

However the first half of the year is usually not when the big PC game releases show up. We still have a lot to look forward to in the back half of 2009 with games like Modern Warfare 2, BioShock 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Borderlands, Champions Online, Aion, Dragon Age: Origins and (if Blizzard sticks to its announced schedule) StarCraft 2. In other words we likely haven't seen the best games of the year just yet.

Download Dawn of War 2 Single Player Demo
Download Zeno Clash Demo
Download Plants vs Zombies Demo
Download Tales of Monkey Island Demo
Download F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin Demo


Click on the image above to read more of our picks for the top PC games of 2009 (so far)

As promised, the best selling historical RTS game Empire Total War has a new patch available only via Steam. The free patch not only has a number of bug fixes and performance improvements but adds 14 free units to The Creative Assemby-developed game that replace generic units for each faction of the game.

However if you are willing to spend a few extra bucks ($3.49 to be exact) there's also a new downloadable expansion available for the game called Elite Units of the West. This DLC, also available via Steam exclusively, adds an additional 14 units and this time each unit is unique to the game.

We kind of expected this and this weekend we were right; just a few days before a major patch to the game is release, Steam is offering both the regular version of Empire: Total War and the Special Forces edition for 50 percent off their usual prices for this weekend only. The regular edition of the historical RTS game is now just $24.99 while the Special Forces Edition (with a number of extra and powerful units) can be bought for $34.99.

As we have mentioned, the game's developer The Creative Assembly is planning to release a major new patch to the game on June 22 (that's this Monday) that will have not only performance improvements and bug fixes but will also add 14 additional units to the game.

We've been reporting that The Creative Assembly has been working on their next major update for Empire: Total War and today the developer revealed on their blog site that the 1.3 patch will in fact be released on June 22. As with previous patches this new update will be delivered via Valve's Steam service.

As we have mentioned before, this new update will add 14 new units to the game with many of them replacements to established "generic" equivalents. That should give players more unique units to play with. The blog has a list of all 14 units. In addition the patch will improve multi-threading for PCs with multi-core processors along with performance improvements for single-core PCs.

Last month The Creative Assembly revealed that they would be releasing new free units and replacing existing ones for their best selling historical RTS game Empire: Total War. This month the game's official message board has posted up more info and screenshots of many of those new units.

One of them is pictured above; the line infantry units called the Holland Guards. Other new units revealed in the message board's daily updates include the Spanish Guardias de corps cavalry unit, a replacement for the Spanish Grenadiers and the The Prussian life guards. There still no word on when these new free units will be released.

The Creative Assembly and Sega's historical RTS game Empire: Total War has remained a big seller and this week the game's official message boards revealed that the development team is working on new units that will be released for free via patch update. The above screenshot shows off the first announced new unit, Russian Grenadiers.

According to the message board post, "The aim of the free units is to increase the graphical and unit variety of several factions rosters. We will also be using them to introduce more balance variety between factions as well." In fact some of the new units will actually replace some existing ones in the game. All in all there will be 11 all new units released, while several other units are being added that are already in the game but are "not used in the release version that are being added into rosters." There's no word on when this update will be released.

Empire: Total War has been a critically acclaimed and best selling title since the historical RTS game was first released in early March. However, there's been some players who have been critical of the game's post release support from developer The Creative Assembly. That may change due to a pretty large patch that's due for release early next wee via Steam.

According to a post on the game's official message board, "There are over 70 bug fixes in this upgrade, plus a tonne of balance and feature tweaks." The development team hopes that players will ' . . . see a marked improvement" in the game. However the game's naval invasion feature will still be a bit handicapped, with the post saying, "The gameplay upgrade will make naval invasions possible but they will be rare." The development team hopes to make more progress on this issue with the next patch.

In this economy it's always a good idea to save money while you can. However you are still a PC gamer and have to stay on top of new releases. GoGamer.com is making that easy this weekend with it's latest 48 Hour Madness sale. For one they have the just released Empire: Total War on sale for $35.90, about 10 percent off its normal price.

GoGamer.com has a number of other good weekend deals on their site including the recent fighting action game X-Blades on sale for just $24.90 (a 50 percent discount) and the original GRID for $19.90. If you want to go really cheap pick up Sid Meier's Railroads on sale for a mere $5.90.