Loading...

Report Title: Diagnosis and Resolution of Ottoman Turn Lag in Empire: Total War – DarthMod

1. Executive Summary

Issue: Players of Empire: Total War with the DarthMod modification experience a severe, progressive increase in turn processing time (often 2–10+ minutes) specifically when the Ottoman Empire faction is active. This typically manifests after 20–50 turns, making campaigns unplayable.

Disable "Show CPU Moves": In the game options, turn off the setting that shows AI movement. This can reduce turn times from over an hour to under 30 minutes in some cases.

  1. Quick, low-risk steps (no mod editing)
  1. Navigate to: C:\Users\[YourName]\AppData\Roaming\The Creative Assembly\Empire\scripts (Note: AppData is hidden. Type %appdata% into Windows Run to find it.)
  2. Delete ALL files in the scripts folder. Do not worry—the game regenerates them.
  3. Restart Empire. Let DarthMod’s launcher rebuild the preferences. Do not alt-tab during the first load.

The Fix: Declare war on the Ottoman Empire and park a naval fleet (even a single sloop) directly in the Bosphorus strait.

Blockade with a Ship: Park a single ship in the Bosphorus strait. This "breaks" the land bridge, preventing the AI from attempting to shuffle land units across and thus stopping the calculation loop entirely.

ESF Editor Fix: Use an ESF Editor to open your save file and manually reduce the Ottoman Empire's treasury. This forces the AI to disband its surplus "lag-inducing" units on the next turn.