Empire: Total War has been release on Linux today! The game, ported by Feral Interactive, had first been hinted at through teasers and appeared in the SteamDB page several months ago as was previously covered here. Feral have been responsible for the excellent XCOM: Enemy Unknown Linux port and have made available a launch trailer for us penguins and OSX friends that you can see just below:
Direct Link
It's worth noting that it's 64bit only, and multiplayer is Linux vs Linux only. A Feral Interactive developer explained the Linux vs Linux multiplayer in our comments.
About The Game
The Total War franchise is a mix of real-time tactical combat with turn-based strategic movement of armies, technological research and development of cities and provinces against a historical backdrop. Empire: Total War is set in the 18th century, featuring major European powers as playable nations as well as bits of the New World and India to dispute and conquer in due course. This was a century of large wars including the War of the Quadruple Alliance, the Seven Years' War, and both the wars of Spanish Succession and Austrian Succession. Empire is also the first game in the franchise to have featured naval battles, pitting large wooden ships with dozens of guns against one another. The main part of the game, however, are the large land battles with hundreds of men, horses and guns on each side fighting for supremacy. Leaders can affect armies and their morale and various types of battles can occur including ambushes, sieges or even a classic open field pitched battle. Even though it is mainly a wargame diplomacy plays a role as does espionage and subterfuge; it helps add another layer to what is otherwise a game about conquest and battle.
Personally, even though this game is now several years old, I am looking forward to replaying and having a few hours of fun with this. User modifications are usually the lifeblood of Total War games and Empire fortunately features hundreds of such mods that make the game an unforgettable experience.
It seems inevitable that other games in the franchise will eventually come to Linux as hinted by images of Rome 2 featured in the announcement of steam machines. This is as good a place as any for Linux gamers to familiarize themselves with the franchise. Feral have had a good track record in bringing native ports and I can't wait to see what they'll bring us next.
You can get the game on steam here where it's currently 50% off, or grab it from the Feral Interactive store to support the porters directly.
Quoting: FinCoderThe problem with these ports are that people already have the games and wont buy them again. I already had this game. But I am considering gifting it to someone.
About total war games. There are many of them. Do they use the same engine? I am just wondering if we might soon see some other total war games ported.
Napoleon is basically the same as Empire (basically the same as Empire, aside from more limited scope in unmodded main campaign), I understand Shogun 2 has the same codebase but it has received a number of updates. Rome and Medieval 2 have another engine.
Quoting: dsngjoeI have enough strategy games with X-Com and Civ V. I will still buy it just to show my support for supporting Linux.
Same goes for me. Just bought it :)
Quoting: WaikanoQuoting: WorMzy*drools*Yea I thought a Dedicated 240 SSD was going to be enough...already having to manage my games and looking at upgrading to a 512ish.
I may need to increase the size of my Steam partition soon!
I'm in exactly the same boat - 240 GB SSD that I've set up a secondary Steam Library folder on, which is nearing 80% full. I'm probably going to just pick up a second 240GB SSD and RAID 0 them, though, instead of grabbing a single 512.
leillo1975 Dec 9, 2014
I will buy this as soon as I can access the Steam store again (seems to be under pressure the whole day).
P.S.: The font used in the comment editor at GOL is really bad for reading on a screen (maybe use a sans font?)
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Oh and the name doesn't mean anything but coincidentally could be pronounced as "Buttery" which suits me just fine.
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