But the game still remains largely affected by some of its worst bugs, including one that can surprisingly render save games useless. Users are still reporting that the save-killing bug--which sees the game consistently crash during an AI turn, ruining campaigns that can last for dozens of hours--still exists following today's patch. Shacknews has independently verified that the bug remains in the game post-patch.

Empire developer Creative Assembly plans to release regular updates, slating the next patch for early next week. Check out today's patch notes below:

We will be rolling out the first of a series of updates later today with a variety of fixes for Empire: Total War, including:

• Fixed Alt-Tab issue which prevents players from switching away from a full screen window
• Fixed text rendering for certain resolutions
• Fixed localized font overrun issues.
• Fixed a variety of crash and memory leak issues
• Fixed a variety of multiplayer client lock
• Fixed trade nodes for those nations with resource in home region which caused unprofitable trade theatre routes eg: Sweden and Marathas.

There is a constant support program in process which is using your feedback as well as our own testing. We are currently working on the next update which will be available early next week.