Demo impressions and discussion (everyone please post here)

[econ21]

Now that some people legally have the demo, I am creating this thread for them to post any impressions they have of the demo and to discuss the demo.

To avoid profileration of threads, please use this thread for this topic.

Please do not discuss acquiring the game illegally here.

To start the ball rolling - can anyone comment on game speed (specifically kill rates and movement speeds)? Specifically, how they compared to RTW?

[Monarch]

Meh, tbh I was just playing not really taking any notes. It seemed alot like RTW tbh.

Also I thought you campaign guys might be interested in this screen:

http://www.freewebs.com/monarch1/gmt.gif

French cav charged right on to my stakes....

But blood looks great, animations very cool, user interface virtually the same as rtw. Also cannons look sweet, when they load them that rocks, if they do a NTW3 on MTW2, that'll look great.

Erm, can't think of much else to say lol. Its hard to test unit speeds because for example in agincourt you just sit their whilst frenchies charge at you lol.

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

I'm sure the French cavalry is scripted to fight as such

[Monarch]

Scripted to charge...but onto my stakes...I wasn't aware they has kamikaze guys in medieval france (and ones that didn't even kill anyone in the process)

Btw, the tutorial said different type of units get different shaped banners, as I said I just raced round winning the battles, but can someone confirm this? IMO thats pretty cool :)

[TB666]

Ran it on medium setting and ran very good.
I was really surprised.

Tutorial Battle: was slightly pointless IMO but on the other hand I'm a TW vet so it is useless for us

Pavia: Awesome battles this.
Just hearing the german accent is just awesome.
Seeing the cavalry charge your landsknechter was slightly fun but the real fun was when you see your zweihander in action.
They are just as cool as we had imagine.
Also the first time I saw some finishing moves was from these guys.
Needless to say they can turn a unit into a bloody pile of corpses very fast.

Agincourt: Oh this battles was a bit tough on my computer but still fine.
The french infantry almost destroyed me but then I noticed that I had billmen ready so I was saved.

The music is great and so is the sound.
Graphics even on Medium looks wonderful.
The animations are so much better.
The AI is scripted like hell but in times where I felt that it could act on it's own I felt it was better.
Movement and kill-rates are fine now too.
Gotta remember that your troops have alot of bonuses compared to the enemy and still they lasted longer then in RTW.

I say M2TW is looking very very good

Some screens from Pavia

[Monarch]

(i can't say if it is legal or not because i would break the forums rules)..

Its not up for download legally, only way to legally get it through PC Gamer magazine lol. So I thinks its fine to asume which way your getting in :P

Anyway, we need a mod for this, I want some custom battles

Btw, are any of the already announced mods looking at this? Its their first chance to get some actually textures are however it works lol, I hope they're going through this

Edit: Oh ye I have a question, those musketeers you see firing in TB666's screenshot, in game you can see their bullets, you can't see bullets in NTW2, but thats set a good 300 years later. I know squat about early fire arms, but could you see the bullets back then firing from the guns?

[Furious Mental]

Since the historical battles are scripted and the units all seem to have increased experience I don't think they would be a very good indicator.

[TB666]

Since the historical battles are scripted and the units all seem to have increased experience I don't think they would be a very good indicator.

Indeed.
All your units in Agincourt have 3 gold chevrons while the enemy have 1 bronze.
They don't stand a chance.
Still the battle last longer then in RTW with the same settings

[Lord ZORO Savage]

Are there custom battles in the demo?

[CBR]

I have done some test on running speed. I tried my best to find some flat pieces of terrain and make sure the units stayed at max warmed up so fatigue didnt reduce speed. There is still no way to mod the demo so testing is therefore a bit limited.

But here are the numbers I have come up for infantry (might try and test later today with the single cavalry)

Light infantry (in this case archers) ran at a speed of about 240 meters/minute. Heavily armoured units like dismounted knights did 180 meters/minute.

Im still not sure there is a movement class in between them but I did get some results for militia halberds (classed as heavy infantry but very little armour) that suggests they could be right in between at around 210 meters/minute.

So for those who dont know what these numbers mean:

In MTW running speed was 133/166/200 meters/minute for dismounted knights/heavy inf/light inf.

In BI it was around 250/300 for heavy inf/light inf. Which was a 10% reduction from RTW.

So it appears running speed has been reduced by around 20%

Killing speed is pretty difficult to say. In Agincourt we have English valor 7 units versus French valor 1. Some French units rout pretty quickly while others dont. A guess would be that its slowed down a bit from RTW, but these units are also heavily armoured, and heavy units in RTW didnt die quickly either.


CBR

[Lord ZORO Savage]

Thank you for the testing CBR

[Aenarion]

Any info on where this 'virtual' demo is pls?

[Lord ZORO Savage]

Any info on where this 'virtual' demo is pls?

Legally you can get it from PC GAMER MAGAZINE,illegally i can not say.

[Aenarion]

Ah I see ok thanks. :)

[Duke John]

So it is again scripted battles with high valour units? How is that supposed to give an indication (about AI and gameplay) wether it will be worth buying the game?

Perhaps I know enough already, I've got a download link and I am not even interested in using it. (I won't share the link, so don't bother asking.)

Have fun everybody!

[Taliferno]

Just browsing around some of the demo files, and I Found this in the preference folder:

[multiplayer]
hotseat_autoresolve_battles = 0
hotseat_disable_console = 1
hotseat_disable_papal_elections = 0
hotseat_save_prefs = 0
hotseat_update_ai_camera = 0
hotseat_validate_diplomacy = 1

A multiplayer campaign?

[CBR]

Infantry marching has not been changed so still the 100 meters/minute.

The heavy cavalry in Pavia did just about 375 meters/minute running which IIRC would be 20% less than BI.


CBR

[Taliferno]

Heres the unit stats (unmodified by experience, etc) for the units in the demo.

A:attack
m:missile attack
D:Defence
EAA:Efective against armor
C:Charge

Landsknecht Pikemen. A:14 D:6 C:4

Arquebusiers A:8 (m16+EAA) D:4 C:1

Halberd militia A:12+EAA D:6 C:1

Zwei Hander A:18+EAA D:19 C:4

Culvern A:63 (Against buildings 230) D:9 C:0

Sword and buckler men A:21 D:20 C:3

Muskereers A:8 (m21+EAA) D:4 C:1

Gendarmes A:12 D:27 C:13

Pikemen A:12 D:5 C:3

Voulgar A:14+EAA D:14 C:2

Scots Guard A:24 (m13+EAA) D:20 C:3

Dismounted Chivalric Kinghts A:21 D:26 C:3

Crossbowmen A:8 (m5 +EAA) D:10 C:1

Sergeant Spearmen A:17 D:14 C:2

Chilvalric Knights A:15 D:25 C:13

Dismounted Noble Knights A:22+EAA D:22 C:4

Heavy Billmen A:16+EAA D:17 C:3

Yeoman Archer A: 10 (m8) D:9 C:3

I havent included any of the tutorial units or the general units. Also note that units like Halberd Militia can form spear walls making them better than their stats would suggest.

In regards to the demo, I already like it more than RTW, even with the extra experience etc thats the units get. Pavia was an excellent battle, and one I almost lost, which was a surprise (got an average victory in the end) considering I consider myself something of a master, as I've been playing since Shogun was released.

[Furious Mental]

I can't really tell exactly but it *seems* as though missile units hav greater range. The longbowmen on Agincourt and the Scots Guards at Pavia are like artillery (and of course the artillery can fire pretty far too). The arquebusiers, and more so, musketeers also seem to be able shoot pretty far as well, definitely further than in MTW, although I haven't checked to see how much damage they deal out at long range.

[Mount Suribachi]

So it is again scripted battles with high valour units? How is that supposed to give an indication (about AI and gameplay) wether it will be worth buying the game?

Perhaps I know enough already, I've got a download link and I am not even interested in using it. (I won't share the link, so don't bother asking.)

Have fun everybody!

It sounds like Pavia is much less scripted, so that should give a better idea.

[Lord ZORO Savage]

It sounds like Pavia is much less scripted, so that should give a better idea.

I think Pavia is scripted.

[Taliferno]

The start of the Pavia battle is scripted (the French calvary charge into your Pikes) but after that it seems to be down to the AI.

Agincourt is completely scripted.

[TB666]

Pavia is pretty much scripted as well.
However still some AI is there.
The cannons will always fire on the unit closes to it is something I have noticed.

[Taliferno]

Well to give an example for the Pavia battle, I sent my Generals unit (my only calvary unit) off to deal with the cannons. The remenants of the French calvary disengaged from the melee that they were in and gave chase.

[|Heerbann|_Di3Hard]

Hello,

the demo doesn't work on my PC, because I have an Athlon XP without SSE2. Only CPUs with SSE2 are supported. Do you know a solution? How can I fix that problem? I wanna also test the game.

Thank you,

Best Regards
|Heerbann|_Di3Hard

[Gustav II Adolf]

The demo is hard on my computer (p4 2.8, 1 Gb RAM ati 9600 256mb). I cant play without lag even on the lowest settings. It is still a great experience. I love the sound and feel of the gunpowder units. There is blood splashing when you hit the enemy! Cool feature but it is not beauterful on my computer.


/G

[The Blind Samurai]

how did you guys get the demo where can i get it

Moderator edit: To the best of my knowledge, the demo is legally available from the US PC Gamer. Let's keep this thread to gameplay issues, not how to get the demo.

[Puzz3D]

The demo doesn't work on my PC, because I have an Athlon XP without SSE2. Only CPUs with SSE2 are supported. Do you know a solution? How can I fix that problem? I wanna also test the game.

There is nothing you can do about it except buy a new computer. Possibly the full game won't have this SSE2 (extended SSE instruction set) requirement since it isn't mentioned in the minimum game requirements.

[Lord ZORO Savage]

What is SSE2?

[Monarch]

The pain in the ass of Athlon users :P