"Installing Empire TW" Topic

Ok…maybe I'm being dim but I'm having huge problems installing ETW on my PC.

It seems it has to install the software for Steam before it does anything else but it has now spent the whole night [literally] downloading updates for the game.

It doesn't seem to have actually installed the game from the disks themselves [unless I've missed something]. I've tried clicking 'activate a product on Steam which looked promising but it keeps getting stuck on 'creating local game cache files].

Should it be taking this long [using BT broadband which is usually quite fast on a new laptop]?

Have I missed something about installing from the disk??

Many thanks folks

If you bought the game in the store, then you probably do have numerous updates/patches to load. Unfortunately, you have to go thru the whole Steam 'thing' (Which I personally find to be a royal pain and utterly useless).

It's been awhile since I loaded the game, but IIRC it took some time for steam to set up, then each disk took some time. And I have a pretty new/fast computer.

At least you should miss the complete mess when they were still patching the game every so often and changing the whole mechanics of the game.

It's a great game now that they seem to have stabilized it.

Steam is famous for being a PITA, and trying to rule your life.

OTOH, they have a lot of games for good prices.

There's a whole lot of downloady-ness involved.

I really hate when you "buy" a "game" in a store, and all you get is a disk with the Steam software on it – seems like that ought to be illegal.
-Kle.

I've since found lots and lots of discussions on line about the exact problems I was having so at least I don't feel alone anymore

I'm still not entirely sure if I've installed the game itself [I suspect not]. This morning it said it was fully updated [after running all night!]but when I then tried clicking 'play game' it said Steam was busy…try later. Again this seems to be a common result.

One of the discussions I found has some tips about installation and playing the game without connecting to the internet so I'll have another tinker tonight.

…and it works!!!

But what a pain in the arse to get it working in the first place!!

Is Steam one of those ruddy 'online community' things. I hate it when developers work on the assumption that theirs will be the prefered programme, and its hard to get it to understand that actually it isnt- music/photo programmes are bad for this.

Based upon my recollections of limited uses (Half Life 2 years ago) it's not really a community. It's a download library with their own software. You buy your game in the shop as normal…just turns out what you really bought is the Steam software and codes to download your game etc… They do provide the latest patches etc… and some like it.

It can be a pain as every time you start your game it checks online with Steam, and Steam is always running in the background eating resources as far as I could tell.