14 DAY TRIAL // Creative Assembly and SEGA are announcing that, on Monday, players will be able to get a new patch for Empire: Total War, which will offer quite a lot of fixes and improvements, alongside new units. The update will be delivered, as all Empire-targeted content, via Valve's Steam, and the update will come when you first run the game.
Out of the units provided via the patch only the Russian Grenadiers are completely new, added to the faction that most missed a powerful assault force.
The rest of the units are special versions of some troops that you could already use or faction specific variants. These are: the Prussian Grenadiers, Spanish Guardias de Infateria, Swedish Lifeguard Horse, Holland Horse Guard, Prussian Garde Du Corp, Prussian Life Guard, Spanish Guardias De Corp, Spanish Grenadiers, Swedish “Lifeguards of foot,” Holland Guard, Swiss Infantry, and Mamelukes.
Other than the variations in units, the patch also comes with promises that it will fix most of the issues troubling Empire: Total War, while optimizing the game code so that performance is improved across the board (let's hope that this includes a significant decrease in A.I. turn time). Apparently, the diplomacy behavior of the computer has also been improved, with treaties lasting longer once they are agreed to and with bargaining improved.
On the balance side, the patch will offer a general increase in charge values for all units and will force a drop in defense, so that players are encouraged to do more than snipe at the enemy from long range. It seems that the Artificial Intelligence will be more adept at exploiting gaps in the tactical plan of the player. The costs of the units have also been redrawn so that elite only armies are not a possibility anymore.
It's good to see that Creative Assembly is delivering this amount of support for Empire: Total War, adding content while still balancing the game. Let's just hope that the patch does not break more than it fixes.