Demo Discussion Thread

[Marten]

hmm I keep getting close defeats on the naval battle, anyone gut suggestions to beat those wine drinking lads?

I splitted my ships in 2 squadrons, first lead by "Namur", second by "Prince". Crossed the french line between second and third ship with the squadrons - 2 french sunk. Then up to the other french line, same procedure.

After that, engage at will and close combat. Captured 4 french ships. The last one was the "Acheron" (nice one CA!) to sink. Unfortunately i lost the "Jersey" - brave men fought very well. :shame:

[miniwally]

how do you find out your internet connection sped for steam?

[Monk]

This is actually kinda depressing. My AMD turion x2- dual core 2.1 ghz laptop can run empire swimmingly. Load times are around 45 seconds -1 min. And no i'm not joking.

My poor desktop started having confidence issues when it saw how high i had the graphics up on my lappy. Looks like I was right, the ETW demo is not at all optimized to run on a single-core system. If you have one and meet the requirements, but wonder why you're having such long load times this is likely the case. :skull:

[miniwally]

how do you install demo i press install now but nothing happens

[Monk]

how do you install demo i press install now but nothing happens

Try restarting your steam client, as in completely closing it down and then reopening, not just logging off.

[Polemists]

This is actually kinda depressing. My AMD turion x2- dual core 2.1 ghz laptop can run empire swimmingly. Load times are around 45 seconds -1 min. And no i'm not joking

This is actually good news as I have a dual core labtop and was worried it may only run on desktops. Huzzah :)

[Captain Trek]

Frankly, I'm not sure why everyone's having so much trouble with the naval battle... The first time I played it, I throughly trounced the French fleet, forcing three or four of their ships to surrender and sinking the rest, losing none of my own ships (though the admiral's first rate and the second rate took substantial damage)... I guess it may partly have been to do with the fact that I was taking a ":daisy: chain shot, just sink the bastards!" approach, using nothing but standard cannon fire...

[miniwally]

Try restarting your steam client, as in completely closing it down and then reopening, not just logging off.

still not working

[miniwally]

now it's working :P OMG it's there do i dare try and go on it?

[Monk]

I'm actually loving the naval battle. It's crazy amounts of fun and somehow much more satisfying than the Land battle.



This is actually good news as I have a dual core labtop and was worried it may only run on desktops. Huzzah :)

I'm not sure what it was really. At first my lappy was having horrible load times too, and I almost gave up, but once I tinkered a bit and lowered a few things it ran it can now run it even better than my desktop can. Using much higher settings! :skull:

Optimization is a problem that can be fixed, which is the good news. Just look at The Witcher, a game who's loads were longer than this demo's were. Those problems are a thing of the past and it's actually a largely better game because of it. Here's hoping the final product has had a bit more optimization, or if not let's hope CA introduces some fixes in the future.

[miniwally]

how lonjg do you have to wait until you can play it mine said updating for 5 minutes and no progress up a progres bar if there is one

[Polemists]

Well that's why I think it's good the demo is out now because they still have ten days to try and tweak it, and even if that is far to short of a time (aka the copies already sent out to distributors) they can hopefully get a patch up with some quick fixes shortly :)

Hopefully CA is scouring these threads so they know what to fix when the game goes live :)

[miniwally]

wow 7 hours 32 mins updating :O

[pevergreen]

Info on my download: 30 minutes. :grin2:

[Vlad Tzepes]

First thoughts:

Register with Steam, download and installment - things used to be much more user-friendly in my good 'ol days.
Controls/land battle - switched to MTW style and I'm on familiar ground again.
Terrain is of high importance, nice improvement.
Enviroment looks strange and artificial, buildings quite sketchy. Maybe I'll get used with those?
Shooting range for infantry is shorter than I would have imagined.
AI reacts to flanking, but it wasn't convincing. I moved my entire army over the creek through the ford (Brandywine battle) and AI sent in troops to counterattack one by one (or at most two at a time).
Cavalry dies at frightening rates. Different role from now on.
Grenades make nice video effects but seem to be filled with confetti.
US artillery had sniper abilities. Tried to move mine on higher ground and it was shot to pieces immediately.

Unit icons a little difficult to comprehend, switching through modes (melle, shoot, grenades, un-limber etc) not very intuitive for now (but I assume it's only a matter of my learning curve).
Couldn't figure yet how to occupy a building - is it even possible to storm it?

All in all - I'm pretty sure the final game will be much better. Former TW demos weren't great, either, but I enjoyed the games very much.

Thank you CA and SEGA for your hard work. I'll buy the game.

[Captain Trek]

OK, played the naval battle again and once again I trounced the French fleet without taking a single loss, this time forcing all but one French ship to surrender... Actually, if forcing a ship to surrender means that you take control of it on the campaign map regardless of wether you actually board it or not, then it would seem there is little point in boarding actions... On the other hand, if you don't take control of a surrendering ship unless you board it, then you need to be able to board ships that have surrendered, because in the demo you can't...

[Zatoichi]

It seems like I suck at being an admiral - lots of poor English sailors hanging around Davey Jones' Locker thanks to me.

Do you do the broadside thing, or let your ships fire at will? I've been trying to micromanage the broadside for my ships, but I end up missing or not quite getting the angles right. Either way, I seem to end up being sunk. A lot.

On the land battle side, I'm faring much better (I guess it's because it's so much more familiar after nearly 10 years!) I haven't had the problem with my horse drawn guns not firing like I did first time round - I think it was a minor bug with them being too near trees or something. Now that they are firing, it's such a joy to zoom in and watch them! Ah well, what can I say, I like eye candy.

As for AI tactics in the land battle, I've not see them do too much wrong that overly worries me. So far I've not had them come at me one at a time except when they rally and come back for more punishment. I wish they'd move their cannons when they're in danger though. I've had some very intense fire fights - the grenadiers seem a touch powerful - it's certainly more fun throwing grenades than having them thrown at you.

I've had 2 crashes (1 in each battle) - these occurred right at the start while it was 'setting the scene' before I took control of my units, and were apparently caused by me deciding my rig could handle 2 X anti-aliasing. Turns out I was wrong. Changing it back to 0 stopped the crashes.

So, other than needing to bone up on naval engagements and learning how to manoeuvre my ships, I think I'm ready for the full game now!

[CBR]

For naval combat:

I don't really like the concept of giving destinations instead of a course. If things become a bit hectic you have ships stopping up instead of just continuing as you forget to give them new order.

Wind direction does not seem to be something to worry that much about. It might give different speed but with rather fast paced combat it does not appear to be that important.

In the tutorial my ship did a quick 20+ degree turn to move toward the enemy ship, with furled sails!

A few odd moments with ships ordered to take a hard 90+ degree starboard turn but furling sails and turning a bit to port instead.

Group function is nice though so don't have to give orders to every ship.

So a bit of a beer and pretzel arcade game.


Land combat:

Counter battery seems very effective although the shorter range might have had something to do with it. My 2 horse batteries needed only a few salvos to take out the enemy batteries on my left and center.

Infantry run run rates seem to be very similar to M2TW. Think they run about twice as fast as marching. But with the shorter range of muskets it cuts down on your reaction time. Cavalry seems to have been given a boost or at least the lighter cavalry (hussars and dragoons) They are now close to RTW run speeds.

Maybe it is the demo but fatigue is very low from running. With double speed from running and low fatigue one can easily run twice the musket range without worrying that much about fatigue.

So overall it is still gonna be rather fast paced. The demo might have felt OK but we did not face lots of enemy cavalry nor control a full army.


---------------------------------------


For those not interested in numbers you can stop reading now:

MTW run speed for normal/fast inf - ETW run speed for grenadier/line/light inf*
166/200 meters/minute - 180/200/225 meters/minute

MTW cav run speed for normal/light - ETW run speed for General and horse artillery/dragoons and hussars
333/400 meters minute - 450/600 meters/minute


Reaction time based on missile range versus run speed:

MTW (100 meter range)
Inf 36/30 seconds
Cav 18/15 seconds

ETW (70 meters - I use that as I assume most line inf will have 70 and only light inf will have 80)
Inf 23/21/19 seconds
Cav 9+/7 seconds

Of course there are rifle units that will increase the time by around 70%


*based on demo map so slight elevations can change the result a bit but there should be 3 classes of infantry speed.


CBR

[Miracle]

Couldn't figure yet how to occupy a building - is it even possible to storm it?
Switch to melee mode and right click on it.

To get out of the building, deactivate melee mode and right click on the ground outside.

[pevergreen]

I didnt have to do that. I just selected a single infantry unit and clicked the single building on the map with the door and and an arrow pointing into symbol above it.

[Vlad Tzepes]

Thank you. Me dumb :)

[Miracle]

The infantry unit must be in melee mode first. So in essence, you did have to do that.

[Zenicetus]

played the naval battle, got my ass handed to me, but it was really good, the only thing i didnt like was the men jumping onto the enemy ship, not because they were jumping just cos they were jumping like 10 feet in the air lol. looked a bit weird, to all the people who thought it was arcady i dunno wot there problem is, YES it is a little unrealistic, but i found the turning circles not all that small.

The problem for some of us, isn't that the turning circles are small. It's that there's a concept of turning circles at all! Turning circles are for jet fighter pilots, not square-rigged ships.

Some may prefer the way this is being done, and that's fine. Everyone has a right to an opinion. Others like me, are lamenting the loss of tactical challenge. It's bumper car combat, not the slow, stately motions of ships under sail, constrained by the wind to move only in certain ways. We may differ in our views of whether this is fun or not. However, from what I've seen so far, I don't think it's debatable that naval battles are being presented as an arcade game, at a different level of realism compared to the land battles. It will be interesting to see if any of the major game review sites pick up on this.

[jumpyg1258]

It's only a game problem if it happens on everyone, it does not happen on my computer and I have seen screenshots that are fine also.
And your screenshot clearly indicates a graphical card problem since I have seen that type of thing happen on my older computers with other games and the problem was always traced back to my graphic card.
So you have to wait and see if ATI will fix it with a update or get a card that don't have the problem.

If you go to this link and look at post 593 from a guy named TheHarbinger, you'll see that he is having the same problem as myself and he is using an NVidia card.

[jumpyg1258]

Forgot to add link...

http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic/42943/t/Official-Demo-feedback-thread.html?page=30

[Gregoshi]

My AMD turion x2- dual core 2.1 ghz laptop can run empire swimmingly. Load times are around 45 seconds -1 min. And no i'm not joking.

<Gregoshi eyes his wife's new for-school-only laptop and wonders if he should risk it...>

[scipiosgoblin]

The problem for some of us, isn't that the turning circles are small. It's that there's a concept of turning circles at all! Turning circles are for jet fighter pilots, not square-rigged ships.

Some may prefer the way this is being done, and that's fine. Everyone has a right to an opinion. Others like me, are lamenting the loss of tactical challenge. It's bumper car combat, not the slow, stately motions of ships under sail, constrained by the wind to move only in certain ways.


While I agree that wind should play a major part in naval battles of the period, I think CA did what it had to do to allow more people to play the game. I am an avid sailor and see the wind vector diagram in my head whenever I am at sea, but most people don't have any concept of how sails actually work. There are several people on this forum who are obvious exceptions. We are not average gamers however.

I guess my point is CA made a game that is simple for the mass of gamers. Our modding community will surely fix the arcade game issue with square-rigged ships. I look forward to playing that mod. Until then, I am happy that we have naval combat.

SG

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Blah! You and your demo! :inquisitive:
Since I can't run this ETW demo then I reinstalled Imperial Glory and blasted a French ship into oblivion! I feel much better now! :juggle2:

[quadalpha]

Would be nice to have some kind of indicator for land reloading, eh?

[Sir Beane]

I think the turning circles and fast ships were necessary to allow CA to market the game to the masses. I'm confident mods will fix many of the problems that have been spotted.

Naval combat is rather rushed and confusing due to the oddly turning ships and fast movement however. I can only imagine how bad it will be with twenty ships a side.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

While I agree that wind should play a major part in naval battles of the period, I think CA did what it had to do to allow more people to play the game. I am an avid sailor and see the wind vector diagram in my head whenever I am at sea, but most people don't have any concept of how sails actually work. There are several people on this forum who are obvious exceptions. We are not average gamers however.

I guess my point is CA made a game that is simple for the mass of gamers. Our modding community will surely fix the arcade game issue with square-rigged ships. I look forward to playing that mod. Until then, I am happy that we have naval combat.

SG

I'm starting to hate how modders are starting to become CA's 'get out of jail free' card. Most likely not everything can be modded. Stuff like manoeuvrability and ship speed probably can be. But the physics of sailing? That sounds like something hardcoded to me.
And I didn't expect a fully realistic sailing sim. Even I wouldn't want one. But, have CA overshot their mark?

As it stands now, a player can pretty much ignore wind altogether. I don't mind that ships can sail against the wind, I expected it. But do they have to sail dead against the wind seemingly just as fast as a ship running before the wind? I haven't found any point to gaining the weathergage at all, which should be the tactical alpha and omega in the age of sail. That's a BIG issue, when the no.1 tactic doesn't really work.

Another big issue for me is the exaggerated speed and manoeuvring changing the feel of a battle in to something more akin to Messerschmitts and Spitfires circling each other over the Channel, instead of careful manoeuvring of massive SOL. It just feels wrong. Modders hopefully can remedy this. Sure hope so, as I had my hands full in the demo battle, which was relatively tiny. 20v20? I think I'd get computer rage!

Another thing I don't like much is the anchoring. It's too easy and fast and once stopped you keep full manoeuvrability. This has allowed me to try a very gamey thing. Stop your lead ship. Then "park" the next ship close to it, and the next. And since their nice and stopped and you can rotate them in place, you can quickly put together a massive amount of guns and be done with manoeuvring altogether. Not a tactic that caught on much during the time, except among fleets caught in actual anchorages.
Not sure how I would like it changed though. Players probably need be able to stop and turn for playability's sake. But the way it is now does not promote realistic tactics. Some sort of middle ground would be nice.


Another thing, which thankfully isn't a fundamental difference of opinion about how naval battles should play, is an issue mentioned by CBR: Ships stopping at their destination. In a naval "furball" it's altogether too easy to let a ship come to a halt because you lost track of it. Especially if you are viewing the actiono from close or moderate ranges where it might be tricky to give an order to a ship that tells it to sail far away, due to where the camera is looking.
I would prefer it that ships would sail on, so I don't have to keep herding them in a hectic, confusing action. And more importantly that way, if I lose track of a ships orders for a bit, at least it'll be sailing away from battle instead of sitting motionless in the thick of it.


With all that, I have to admit it is slowly growing on me. I'm willing to go so far as saying it beats auto-calc, something my 1st impression wasn't quite so willing to concede. It's kinda fun. Dreadfully lightweight in places, but fun.

Oh, and kudos to whomever coded the AI for the boarding order. Admirable job! A ship tasked with boarding an enemy ship does a rather effective job chasing down and getting side to side with the intended victim. I tried to throw the boarding AI some curveballs by giving it some really hard to reach ships at inconvenient angles but it quickly chases it's prey down in a convincing and effective manner every time. Kudos, kudos, kudos!

[TB666]

If you go to this link and look at post 593 from a guy named TheHarbinger, you'll see that he is having the same problem as myself and he is using an NVidia card.
And ??
Still a hardware problem, not a game problem.
Again, wait for ATI or Nvidia to fix these issue or get a new card.

[miniwally]

OMG i think ths is amazing shame i can't vote 5/5. Love the naval combat except boarding.

[hoom]

I was expecting the turning at full rate when moving slowly/stationary but it still disappoints me.
A ship moving very slowly upwind should take some time to turn.
It seemed like the frigate in the tutorial was turning more realistically with the auto attack command?
Also the manoeuvring in the demo battle with ships in a group was more restrained.

The sailing upwind bit has definitely affected my play, I turn to cut across the stern of my enemy & my ship slows to a crawl such that I won't be able to cross close astern so I have to change my plan.

I think there is less speed difference than may be desirable between the speed at a tacking upwind angle & sailing on the beam/reaching though.

The coming to a stop thing is also a bit of a pain.
But see the arrow buttons on the right side of the screen? You can use them to have the ship just keep sailing.
Then you use the turn buttons to turn the ship.
I couldn't seem to get it working for the demo battle when the ships were grouped though.

[Sheogorath]

My main problems with the demo, after some consideration:

-The white lines from shots. Ugh. I hope there's some way to turn those off.

-The graphical slowdown when the camera is close to the ground. I guess this might be unique to me, but it's a bit annoying.

-Only the front rank of men fires their muskets. C'mon, guys, is it really that hard to have the second rank shoot too?

[TB666]

-Only the front rank of men fires their muskets. C'mon, guys, is it really that hard to have the second rank shoot too?
If I'm correct I think you have to research that first in the game.
Might be wrong tho.

[Monk]

If I'm correct I think you have to research that first in the game.
Might be wrong tho.

Yeah, one of the military techs. It's called "Platoon Firing" IIRC.

[Vlad Tzepes]

Extra thoughts 'bout the demo.

Replayed the land battle 6 or seven times. Definitely the AI reacts better than in MTW. At one point, AI even crossed the ford with 4 infantry units and attacked my isolated arty. Pity it didn't try a full punch counterattack, but maybe it's scripted just for defense and small counter-actions.

On the other hand, I don't remember replaying any of the other TW demos so many times - for those, it seemed pretty obvios what to do from the begining.

Naval battle - well... for somebody who has a difficult time when having to decide which is left hand and which is right hand, it's going to be... challenging.. in some way... :laugh4:

(Sir, try the other starboard.
This is the other starboard, officer.
Only if you walk with your behind forward, Sir. If I may.
Oh.)

Back to training now.

[TB666]

Pity it didn't try a full punch counterattack, but maybe it's scripted just for defense and small counter-actions.


Lusted said that they are scripted to not cross the ford so a proper counter-attack is not possible.
Which is too bad because I really wanna see the AI without restrictions.

[miniwally]

Naval battle - well... for somebody who has a difficult time when having to decide which is left hand and which is right hand, it's going to be... challenging.. in some way... :laugh4:

(Sir, try the other starboard.
This is the other starboard, officer.
Only if you walk with your behind forward, Sir. If I may.
Oh.)

Back to training now.

Got to agree with that

[Crazed Rabbit]

Yeah, one of the military techs. It's called "Platoon Firing" IIRC.

Oh, good. I was worried it wasn't in game.

CR

[Captain Trek]

Another thing, which thankfully isn't a fundamental difference of opinion about how naval battles should play, is an issue mentioned by CBR: Ships stopping at their destination. In a naval "furball" it's altogether too easy to let a ship come to a halt because you lost track of it. Especially if you are viewing the actiono from close or moderate ranges where it might be tricky to give an order to a ship that tells it to sail far away, due to where the camera is looking.
I would prefer it that ships would sail on, so I don't have to keep herding them in a hectic, confusing action. And more importantly that way, if I lose track of a ships orders for a bit, at least it'll be sailing away from battle instead of sitting motionless in the thick of it.

I don't suppose the "set sail" option (small upwardly pointing arrow on the right side of the HUD) allows one to do this, does it?

[Zenicetus]

While I agree that wind should play a major part in naval battles of the period, I think CA did what it had to do to allow more people to play the game.

I'm not sure I buy that argument, because they don't treat the land battles like this. Gamers have to learn terrain effects, flanking tactics, the pros and cons of different formations, and how to use cavalry and artillery. You can just grab your entire army and throw it at the enemy, but it's more fun and more rewarding to explore the use of historical tactics, because that's the tool kit the game gives you. The land battles in TW are a reasonable balance between ease of gameplay, eye candy, and enough historical realism to make it worth playing instead of yet another WWII or sci-fi RTS game.

And if that's the strength and selling point of the TW series, then why does CA expect gamers to handle a different level of challenge at sea? It's like the naval battles were designed by an entirely different team, under different assumptions about the audience.


I guess my point is CA made a game that is simple for the mass of gamers. Our modding community will surely fix the arcade game issue with square-rigged ships. I look forward to playing that mod. Until then, I am happy that we have naval combat.
SG

The problem with looking to the modders for a solution is the AI, which is likely to be buried deeper in the code. In the naval battle demo, we're not seeing the AI act as if it knows where the wind is, and how to use it. So even if more realistic wind an maneuver was modded in, what would the AI do with it? If it's at a level that can't be touched by modders (and I don't think we've ever seen major changes in the AI from the mod community in previous TW games), then realistic sailing would just become a player exploit. We'd know how to sail, and the AI wouldn't. We'd blast 'em to smithereens as we stay upwind and they try to reach us, floundering dead in the water because they're no longer driving bumper cars.

Maybe I'm wrong, and the modders can fix this. If not, I sure hope there's a decent auto-calc for naval battles, so they're just optional eye candy and we can focus on the land battles. That's something we won't find out about, until the game is released and we can get some reports from people playing the campaign.

[Sir Beane]

Has anyone else noticed how smoothly and intelligently units respond to orders? There is much less chaos, confusion and unnecessary movement when units respond to formation changes or target changes than used to be the case.

The whole process of commanding troops feels much more fluid than it used to. :2thumbsup:

[Megas Methuselah]

The scum of the earth is well-disciplined. :smile:

[knoddy]

I'll tinker around some more with options to see if I can find a balance later. It's probably my single-core that's doing it, all you guys reporting nice load times seem to be running dual/quad cores. Ah well. The battles run great and I can live with 1-3 min loads.

nope, im running a dual core amd 4200 and i get 5 minute loading time for the game and 3-4 minute for battles. and 1-2 minute at end of battles. i shamelessly blame steam because i hate it. i hope that faq that was quoted the other day about u not needing steam for a retail bought version was correct.





The problem for some of us, isn't that the turning circles are small. It's that there's a concept of turning circles at all! Turning circles are for jet fighter pilots, not square-rigged ships.

Some may prefer the way this is being done, and that's fine. Everyone has a right to an opinion. Others like me, are lamenting the loss of tactical challenge. It's bumper car combat, not the slow, stately motions of ships under sail, constrained by the wind to move only in certain ways.



i can see where this is coming from, but i can also see where CA is coming from, to ALOT of people i think realistic naval battles would have been very annoying slow paced and boring. while i can see why your disappointed i can understand why CA did what they did, and despite the battles being not historically realistic, i still found them quite fun, and had some great features, including men jumping over board when the ship was sinkin :) or on fire.

also land battles have never been that historically accurate, crushing defeats with thousands dead were not common place. they increase the kill rate and casualties to appease the masses with blood and violence, reminds me bit of ancient Rome :P

finally does any1 know what the wind strength was in the demo? i paid attention to the direction but not the strength, and is it possible the wind strength was non existent and thats why the ships sailed so effectively against it? just a thought.

and as for turning circles, im not much of a sailor at all, but ships could turn could they not? i found the turning circles quite a nice big arc and not violent quick turns. in my attempt at the naval battle i sailed my line past theirs then began turning back with my lead ships and it took a nice big arc to spin round, i still dont see the major issue with the turning or was it just that i didnt exploit tiny turning circles at all? like i said not a sailor so enlighten me pls :)


@ the guy with the graphics problem, had this a few years back with KOTOR 2 never really fixed it, i can only suggest changing graphics options updating drivers etc.


@ the guy who said go Nvidia - go to any gamin forums u will find people having trouble with both brands. no one is perfect. my first card was a nvidia and i had constant problems with it. since then ive gone ati and never had any issues cept for some easily fixed over heating problems with my XT1650. go to any GPU tech forums and u will find threads asking which is better, stories of people who have changed from 1 to the other and never had problems, etc etc.


boo for all day at work, i wanna try and win the naval battle. mine first attempt was close, i think i lost cos i was just enjoying it and not being very tactical :P

Cheers Knoddy

[Roy1991]

Ahh just experienced one of those 'movie moments' in the naval battle :beam:
My first rate and a French second or third rate (not sure) approached eachother from opposite sites, and then while they were alongside, both fired a full broadside simultaneously :captain:

[hoom]

and as for turning circles, im not much of a sailor at all, but ships could turn could they not? i found the turning circles quite a nice big arc and not violent quick turns. in my attempt at the naval battle i sailed my line past theirs then began turning back with my lead ships and it took a nice big arc to spin round, i still dont see the major issue with the turning or was it just that i didnt exploit tiny turning circles at all? like i said not a sailor so enlighten me pls :)They seemed to turn nice & slowly when in a group, but selected individually they turn very quickly.
Or at least the frigate in the Tutorial does. :inquisitive:

[bloodshed]

I gave up on downloading the demo. The first time it took 6 hours and ended up not working. Then I uninstalled it and tried to install it again, 6 hours later I click and it says This game is currently unavailable. So I give up and ill just wait for the full game which hopefully I wont have any problems. Thank goodness I didnt preorder it from steam it would take me forever and end up not working. I hope most of these problems people are reporting about arnt in the full game or I think that would be a huge mistake by CA to release an unfinished games that barely anyone can play without any problems. Cant wait for the full game.

Unless someone has an idea on how to fix the This game is currently unavailable thing that doesnt involve re downloading it.

[Alexander the Adequate]

Am I the only one who thought that the background clips for the Empire main menu resemble a main menu screen for a DVD movie war epic? All those flashes of men slo-mo raising their rifles to fire...but then it fades away to other guys preparing to fire? The similarities are really strong.

[Tomisama]

Ok, it's a long download, and it's slow to come up once you get it. That is all the same for everybody :yes:

But what do you think about the game?

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Unless someone has an idea on how to fix the This game is currently unavailable thing that doesnt involve re downloading it.

Make sure your firewall isn't blocking the processes. It turned out that Comodo was blocking mine from initializing.

[peacemaker]

finally. got the demo going and wow. Many of you seem disappointed at how easy this demo is, I found it very challenging. I guess I'm not that great of a gamer but it offered me challenges on many levels. The naval battles blew me away, then again I'm really new to gaming. I really will not have much time to play this too much, and I got beaten both times at the demo:wall:

[TheArsenal]

Intel Core 2 Quad 2.67GHz
RAM 4GB
Vista 32 bit
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS

Graphic settings: Ultra for everything. All additional boxes checked.
Load time land battle: 70 seconds
Load time sea battle: 50 seconds

I'm very pleased. Both the land and sea battles ran smoothly without graphic or audio glitches. And, the sea battle in particular, looks amazing at the very highest settings. My first try at the land battle resulted in having my ass handed to me. As much my inexperience with moving armies of that size as anything the AI did. My second try at it was far more successful, and not through any advance tactics. I simply circled the units that were lined up on left behind the American forces and timed a frontal assault with the remaining troops at the same time. The Americans were trapped and died accordingly, but I lost a good number of men. A Close Victory.

The sea battle also went better the second time when I got a better gasp on moving the ships. I broke their formation and basically circled single ships around the strays firing until they sank. But not without loss to a couple of mine own. Another Close Victory.

Have to say, well, well done. I am seriously looking forward to see the full game in action.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

I found the naval battle challenging, due to my lack of knowledge about any kind of naval tactics. Can anyone recommend a good tactic to use?

[Mailman653]

I found the naval battle challenging, due to my lack of knowledge about any kind of naval tactics. Can anyone recommend a good tactic to use?

I suppose some easy tips to follow are try to keep the wind on your back as much as possible, if your going to board, load up on grape shot and fire a volley or two so you have a better chance of taking the ship. You could also try using chain shot and slowing a ship down or maybe knocking a mast down, once you do that you can move on to another ship if there are any since the one without the mast won't be going anywhere, just stay outside of it's range. Or if there aren't any other ships and you just want to sink it (the demasted ship), move your ship to the stern or bow of the enemy ship, anchor and fire away, you'll take little or no damage that way.

[Polemists]

I managed to get to 1.2 gig before I left this morning, I am very optomistic that come lunch at best and after work at worse I will have the demo.

Major yayness.

It sucks to have slow internet but at least it is working somewhat :2thumbsup:

[scipiosgoblin]

The problem with looking to the modders for a solution is the AI, which is likely to be buried deeper in the code. In the naval battle demo, we're not seeing the AI act as if it knows where the wind is, and how to use it. So even if more realistic wind an maneuver was modded in, what would the AI do with it? If it's at a level that can't be touched by modders (and I don't think we've ever seen major changes in the AI from the mod community in previous TW games), then realistic sailing would just become a player exploit. We'd know how to sail, and the AI wouldn't. We'd blast 'em to smithereens as we stay upwind and they try to reach us, floundering dead in the water because they're no longer driving bumper cars.

Maybe I'm wrong, and the modders can fix this. If not, I sure hope there's a decent auto-calc for naval battles, so they're just optional eye candy and we can focus on the land battles. That's something we won't find out about, until the game is released and we can get some reports from people playing the campaign.

IIRC I saw a Ca interview or post where they said the programmers had the ships working closer to a correct physics model and they removed it because it wasn't "fun." I'm hoping they just commented out the code and left it in place so the modders just have to take the comment marker out.

If that is the case then the AI would obviously know how to use the wind effectively (at least for an AI). IIRC the problem was the friendly AI would tack for you to get you to the destination you chose causing the ships to turn in unexpected directions. I think the players could figure this out. How steep the learning curve would be is probably what CA was worried about.

SG

[Polemists]

I don't know what will happen with Naval combat, some people love it as is, some don't. I'm not sure the devs would leave in a code they deemed wasn't to be used in the game. If they did the mods can handle it, if not they may add something in a expansion where it has a check box that says something like "realistic wind"

In the end, I think you can never make anyone happy, alot of people seem to find naval combat fun tho as is, so that's all I looked for fun, not perfect just fun :2thumbsup:

[scipiosgoblin]

In the end, I think you can never make anyone happy, alot of people seem to find naval combat fun tho as is, so that's all I looked for fun, not perfect just fun :2thumbsup:

I completely agree. It is fun. :applause: I think the majority of people would find a realistic wind geometry problem for one ship difficult and for a fleet impossible. I used to do that for a living so I think of the fleet problem as mildly interesting. For one ship a piffle. :pirate2:

I think the way it works now is just fine for the game. If someone comes up with a mod for a realistic wind, then I will take it, because it will be more fun for me. But I'm deleriously happy that I can take sailing ships to war in ETW.

[Crazed Rabbit]

I decided to fight the land battle and charge right up the mouth of the American guns on the defended ford.

Surprisingly, I won. Lost a lot of men, though (almost 700). It was really close, and the AI might have won had it moved the hidden long rifle men who were hidden, guarding the other bridge. But they only came after I drove back the main force completely.

Also, at the end of the battle I had my general chasing the other general, who happened to run through a line of stakes set up earlier in the game. My general's cav lost five of seven horsemen as they tried to follow.

CR

[Forward Observer]

I thought the battles fun and did manage to win both on the second try.

The ships look wonderful, but there is one thing that bothered me visually about the naval component that no one here has mentioned. A poster at another forum mentioned this some time back, but I didn't pay much attention to it at the time since his illustration was from a very early build screenshot. I just assumed they would have corrected the error by now, but there it was in both the naval battle and tutorial.

Anyway, all the 3 masted ships, as portrayed in the game, have a technical error that evidently no one at CA has discovered in their nautical research.

At full sail they all have a sail bent to the cro'jack or crossjack. This was simply not done during the period that the game covers. The crossjack is the lowest yard on the mizzenmast. (rear most mast) However it is simply a lower brace for the mizzen top sail. To fly a lower sail, or course as they are called, from the crossjack is incorrect and would compete with the function of the trailing spanker or gaff sail.

Later 19th century sailing ships like the Cutty Sark actually did use a mizzen main course along with a gaff sail, but they were engineered differently and mainly for speed

In the screen below, the arrow is pointing at the crossjack and the sail circled is the one that does not belong. I guess somebody in their art department figured if there was a yard there, it was supposed to have a sail. I wonder if this could be modded out.

https://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y74/forward_observer/Empire2009-02-2121-23-41-76revised.jpg

Cheers

[peacemaker]

nice catch! I really don't know too much about ships back then but it sounds about right.

Yay I finally beat the naval demo~D

[Polemists]

I'm curious for those who have demo (tonite....common download)

Everyone says the land battle Ai is improved and the naval battle has easier Ai.

Yet from what I read, everyone has a harder time winning the naval battle.

Is this just because the naval battle the unit numbers are more against you?

[Ishmael]

I'm curious for those who have demo (tonite....common download)

Everyone says the land battle Ai is improved and the naval battle has easier Ai.

Yet from what I read, everyone has a harder time winning the naval battle.

Is this just because the naval battle the unit numbers are more against you?

Well, for me it was because I had absolutely no idea what tactics to use for naval battles, how the ships would work, what do do in general etc. At least for land battles I knew to flank and focus overwhelming firepower, but for naval battles I just pressed Ctrl + A and clicked on enemy (to paraphrase another Orgah) and hoped for the best.

[A Very Super Market]

Actually, the land battle has the numbers advantage as well. I didn't even find the naval demo that hard. As soon as I figured out that I didn't need to use the broadside button every time I wanted to fire, it was alright.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Broadsides actually seem very weak. Maybe I'm not using them close enough, but letting the ships handle firing themselves seems to score much better hits.

[pevergreen]

CA got actual ship plans and based their ships off those.

Broadsides are situational. You need to be close enough that all guns will actually hit, as the all fire straight, not at an angle.

[Miracle]

Lusted said that they are scripted to not cross the ford so a proper counter-attack is not possible.
He said that they would remain in position initially, but be brought under normal AI control once you make a move towards either of the fords. This is what happened when I accidentally revealed my light infantry unit that was hidden in the trees near the main ford:

https://img22.imageshack.us/img22/2572/ford.png

The Americans chased after my light infantry all the way to the my starting position. They were then slaughtered by my prepared line infantry. Notice that there is a battle already underway at the other ford. Some four or five American units crossed that ford (and were utterly defeated) as well.

[Polemists]

Well I finally got the demo and played a little bit during lunch, only the land battle tutorial so that's all I'm going off of at this point.

The Pros: Was fun (this is key :P)

The Cons:

Land Animations:
Am I the only one who found land animations not connecting on certain units? Certain units would go into the animations but for some reason my officer did this sort of ginsu sword swing that never seemed to connect with any unit. Also the units seem to die far..far to quickly..maybe that's just my view or the tutorial hard to tell.

Graphics:
As mentioned by others the auto detect plopped me into Medium which as you can see by screenshots while decent hardly shows off much. I switched to low out of curiousity and did not see much of a difference to be honest. I guess the graphics will only matter at High, Very High and Ultra.
The speed was fine so I could have probably pushed it to high and only hope when game comes out we can choose our selves.

My only two comments thus far, otherwise it was fun, and enjoyable. Look forward to playing the other battles tonite.

I don't think it's the finished project but it is enjoyable so I'm optomistic :)

[Wausser]

He said that they would remain in position initially, but be brought under normal AI control once you make a move towards either of the fords. This is what happened when I accidentally revealed my light infantry unit that was hidden in the trees near the main ford:


The Americans chased after my light infantry all the way to the my starting position. They were then slaughtered by my prepared line infantry. Notice that there is a battle already underway at the other ford. Some four or five American units crossed that ford (and were utterly defeated) as well.


Hmm in one of my games, the yanks actually did attack the Hessians(+ general, Hussars and light infantry) I left at the starting position, with IIRC 3 line infantry

[bloodshed]

Yeah! I finally figured out what was wrong and was able to play the demo. Its awesome!! Can't wait till it comes out. I was hesitant after hearing all the negatives about it but after playing I found out it was awesome so that relaxes me until it comes out.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Personally, I didn't have too much trouble with loading times, they're hardly any worse than what I was used to with RTW 1.5 + EB. :shrug: I do run the full graphics though, that might have something to do with it.

I miss the arrow keys, and I'm not entirely sure why all key-functions should be grouped under the left-hand-side of the keyboard. Oh well, you can probably re-assign hotkeys anyway.

[Hooahguy]

downloading now.
my speed is an average of 190 kb/s.
i feel lucky, from what im reading on the official TW forums, where averate is like 75.

right now im at 412 kb/s.

[Hooahguy]

I miss the arrow keys, and I'm not entirely sure why all key-functions should be grouped under the left-hand-side of the keyboard. Oh well, you can probably re-assign hotkeys anyway.
from what i hear, the idea of doing that is to promote better form for playing computer game. i read a study in the NY Times that you have less of a chance of getting Carpel Tunnel if the keys for moving are on the left side.

[oudysseos]

So far.... meh.
Certainly there seems to be a lot of Imperial Glory in there.

Looks like lots of good modding potential though.

[peacemaker]

hmmm.it doesn't let me switch to high or very high on the settings mode thing. The options are just low and medium...:inquisitive:

[A Very Super Market]

Well.... maybe you just can't handle it? You can just change the settings manually...

[ConnMon]

I wasn't going to download the demo, but I finally broke down and I just started it about 10 minutes ago. Is the demo worth it overall? I'd like to know before I download the entire thing. Thanks :2thumbsup:

[peacemaker]

the options for manually switching graphics are greyed out or just not there, i figure my comp probably cant handle it anyway. Is there a way to play as the americans in the demo? cuz that would be cool\


The demo is most certainly worth the time, btw

[ConnMon]

Thanks peacemaker for your reply! I'm 25% into it after about 10-20 minutes of downloading. I'll post back when I have a chance to play.

[Tellos Athenaios]

When the options are cranked up to the max you get some very nice looking vegetation. The game play itself... I guess it's just no quite my cup of tea (or I just need to spend a day or so fiddling with custom battles to see if there's something hidden which will turn my opinion 180 degrees): like Oudysseos, I see that it can be awesome but on the whole I was kind of underwhelmed. :shrug: Nice landscape though. :yes:

[Mailman653]

like Oudysseos, I see that it can be awesome but on the whole I was kind of underwhelmed.

That was my initial impression as well and I thought, this is a TW game, it's really a whole other level not just a prettier version of IG. After playing the game while longer the game has lots of potential and demo/hardware issues aside, I'm still looking forward to the game next month. :yes:

[Ibrahim]

I have obtained and played the download of the demo of Empire total war. now where do I criticize it?

[Megas Methuselah]

When the options are cranked up to the max you get some very nice looking vegetation. The game play itself... I guess it's just no quite my cup of tea (or I just need to spend a day or so fiddling with custom battles to see if there's something hidden which will turn my opinion 180 degrees): like Oudysseos, I see that it can be awesome but on the whole I was kind of underwhelmed. :shrug: Nice landscape though. :yes:

I sort of liked it. I was dissapointed for the first 10 minutes, but in the end I sort of fell in love with it. You just gotta get used to this kind of warefare; it's a big change from EB.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

now where do I criticize it?

Here. :bow:

[quadalpha]

the options for manually switching graphics are greyed out or just not there, i figure my comp probably cant handle it anyway. Is there a way to play as the americans in the demo? cuz that would be cool\


The demo is most certainly worth the time, btw
Modding the demo:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=651

[Mailman653]

Ive been wondering where the Mod the demo threads were hiding. Some people even got Austria in there, facinateing.

[ConnMon]

I just played the land tutorial and land battle part of the demo. I had 2-3 minute wait times, without disabling steam's online connection. Didn't experience any lag during battle or tutorial. I liked the size and span of the battlefields. Tutorial artillery seemed to fare better than my battle's artillery did, which was annoying. AI had a blonde moment where one of their units placed stakes when I crossed the ford, which is fine. The problem was that the stakes they placed were placed in such a way that they were totally useless against my cavalry. The stakes later killed a ton of the American cavalry. What the heck?

[peacemaker]

gah modding is too complicated for lazy people like me. That's why i have my faithful internet aides who go and do it all for me:smash: and even if it's too complicated then(complicated for me is anything beyond clicking "install" then "next" then "next" then "finish". I'm so lazy that way:laugh4:

[Roy1991]

Each time I start the demo, it resets my graphic options :( Have to change them again every time, and then endure the long wait while it adjusts :(
Anyone else having this problem?

[Belgolas]

Each time I start the demo, it resets my graphic options :( Have to change them again every time, and then endure the long wait while it adjusts :(
Anyone else having this problem?

nope. Also my load times are closer to 30 seconds.

[Hooahguy]

i have played the demo and i have passed judgment:
the land battles:
a bit flawed. units dont react as well as id like them to. graphics are a bit flawed. one instance is the famous "zoom out and the color of the hats change" problem.

sea battles:
very nice. i liked it, and played the battle over and over. water and graphics looks nice.

[peacemaker]

the graphics in this game are reallly nice, even on the lower settings it still looks decent. One thing I really don't like is how the scroll wheel makes the camera move up and down vertically, not zoom in as in m2 and rome. It's also annoying how when fully zoomed in, the camera is soooooo slow to move around. I also miss the thing where you can double click on some point somewhere and the camera will zoom to that spot. It's too bad, really, how the camera controls became clunky. I figure i'll get used to it though.

[Ibrahim]

IMHO, the first thing that needs to be modded is how the files are organized. the purpose of course is to speed this stuff up.

there has to be some way of speeding things up. either that or CA figures out a way of doing this.

[quadalpha]

I also miss the thing where you can double click on some point somewhere and the camera will zoom to that spot.

Seconded!

[Zoring]

Is it just me or do the cavalry move at incredible speeds. So fast that they were out-running their running animation. You can't even keep up with them at ground level with the camera.

[peacemaker]

well at ground level the camera was unbearably slow, i couldnt even catch infantry...its kind of wierd and will take a while to get used to

[Polemists]

On Medium it all looked and worked crappy but when I clicked it low it worked pheniominally better.

Also low and medium look almost identical to me, so i'll be keeping it on low :).

Looked good and was fun. :2thumbsup:

[bloodshed]

I had a huge awesome linebattle. I lined up almost all my infantry across a huge plain so there was at least two or three rows of guys and the opponent AI mimicked me and we had a sweet battle (which I ultimately won :2thumbsup:) cant wait for the game!

[Polemists]

I normally get in trouble because i'm to busy watching land animations to remeber I have another 2-3 battles on other sides of the maps going on at same time haha :laugh4:

I was so used to the old mtw2 idea of one line, one battle.

[therifleman]

My load times can be from 2-3 minutes. Probally because I have everything set on Very High. Loading times aside, it all still runs very smoothly on my comp when playing. I have noticed a slight bit of lag when in close combat though.

[Roy1991]

For everyone who has trouble with the loading times, try unpacking the files (http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=227839)
Loading times dropped from over 3 minutes to less than 30 seconds after doing this.

[Polemists]

My load time is about a minute, sometimes less, but again I did it on low. Higher settings, longer load times I guess.

[Sir Beane]

My load time is about a minute, sometimes less, but again I did it on low. Higher settings, longer load times I guess.

My load time is on average 45 seconds. And I have the graphics set to high :2thumbsup:. I think it's having a powerful dual core that helps.

[Polemists]

Yea duo core is Nice, i have a duo core laptop, I don't have the graphics to do high, but it seems to cut down the load times a fair bit.

[Barkhorn1x]

I sort of liked it. I was dissapointed for the first 10 minutes, but in the end I sort of fell in love with it. You just gotta get used to this kind of warefare; it's a big change from EB.


Me too - I cannot wait to get my hands on the full version as the fixes and the addition of the Camp. level will be nirvana. :2thumbsup:

[KipDan]

I hated it to start with, felt very arcady and too fast paced, although they must have done osmething to make the maps look a lot bigger and rivers look beautifull. The naval battles are absolutely great, although if they improved the scale of the ships it would be great. I can imagine massive ships where you can zoom into the cannons and such. That would be superb.

[Barkhorn1x]

I hated it to start with, felt very arcady and too fast paced, although they must have done osmething to make the maps look a lot bigger and rivers look beautifull. The naval battles are absolutely great, although if they improved the scale of the ships it would be great. I can imagine massive ships where you can zoom into the cannons and such. That would be superb.

Try hitting "Insert" for a 1st person view.

[KipDan]

I knew that but I still feel the scale of the ships could be made bigger.

[Northnovas]

Well I finally downloaded and was pleasantly surprised. P4 2.8 single 7600 GT most of the graphics set to high and had good game flow. Slow on the start and end but the game play it self flowed.
Still trying to get used to the controls but I liked what I saw and I think that is close enough to the Napoleonic Era you will get. The artillery can be powerful.
Like I mentioned the controls were quirky with the zoom but I will get the feel. It was a bit fast at times but I can see the potential especially with the help of our mod community in the Org.

Looking forward to the release. :2thumbsup:

[Murmandamus]

I've only given the demo a quick go so far, but I'm enjoying it. I'm gonna need to get some more books do some learning. It was the same with Shogun and RTW though, so I look forward to it :)

As with others, I got lost in micro on the sea battle the first couple times trying to manage all the broadsides and ship positioning individually. I figured that can't be how it's done, so I just grouped them, clicked on the other side of the enemy and observed. They did a much better job on their own, and with them grouped they all just follow each other in line. Much easier.

I was disappointed that there doesn't seem to be any wind and that the ships can just go in any direction. Feels a bit silly sailing in neat circles around the enemy. Pirates! did a reasonable job of accessible sea battles with wind IIRC. It made the battles more tactical when you could get the advantage from being upwind, as well as having to tack etc.

One thing I did notice is that when enemy ships were fleeing they would still fire on my ships, while my ships that were fleeing would stop firing. I've also had ships just sink all of a sudden when not being fired upon for ages. I'm guessing there is some random element to whether a ship sinks when it has hull damage.

I haven't had the terrible load times that many are reporting. 20-30 seconds tops for me, so maybe I got lucky there. Either that or it's a cpu dependent problem (decompressing assets perhaps). I've got an E8400 and the people with longer loading seem to have slower cpu's.

New battle tactics, sea battles. Totally different vibe to swords and arrows. I'm anticipating this more highly than I did RTW or M1/2 :)

[Belgolas]

Load time in any game or any aplication has to do with mainly hard drive speed, cpu and ram. The most important one for load times is the hard drive. If you are on a laptop it will take longer because your hard drive is slower.

[pevergreen]

I disagree, my laptop is a 200gb 7200rpm.

[Polemists]

It depends on speed of your laptop.

I have a duo core and have only a minute or less load times. All depends on speed, memory and configuration of your system, whether desktop or laptop.

Though yes a laptop and desktop of same speed the desktop does load faster usually.

[Megas Methuselah]

Despite that, my laptop is better than the common, cheap desktops employed by most Orgahs. Thus, I experience fast loading times, and am proud to flaunt it. :snobby:

[Sir Beane]

Despite that, my laptop is better than the common, cheap desktops employed by most Orgahs. Thus, I experience fast loading times, and am proud to flaunt it. :snobby:

Are we comparing the size of our hardware now? :tongue:

[Haxorsist]

I tried a couple more naval battles and I'm getting a little better. I managed to capture two ships, one of them was the admiral's flagship, without losing any of my ships.

[PBI]

So, finally got the demo to download properly. My thoughts:

Tried Brandywine twice so far. First time I went straight for the defended crossing, sniped the artillery with my light infantry, and sent my heavies straight across to slug it out with the enemy foot. A close battle, and my infantry took heavy losses, but eventually I ground the Americans down and they retreated and reformed a line around the farmhouse when their general was killed by musket fire. I brought up my horse artillery on the flank of my line and started firing; this seemed to cause the remaining enemy infantry to mount a last-ditch attack rather than sit there under fire. The enemy infantry seemed a bit too willing to expose their flanks to enfilading fire from my line. After a final siege and shootout at the farmhouse, the last American unit routed, giving me a close victory. The second time I did it "properly", taking the undefended crossing and approaching the enemy farmhouse from the other side giving a much more decisive victory.

Load times seem quite long, but not quite as interminable as some people seem to be finding (I set all settings to minimum before starting since my graphics card barely scrapes past the minimum spec). Having watched some of the videos I'm relieved to see cavalry don't seem all that effective against line infantry except from the flanks, and that a close-range volley really will decimate a cavalry charge. Some enemy behaviour seems odd; in the second battle, the Americans sensibly sent their light infantry to waylay me at the crossing, deploying stakes, but bizarrely did so facing the wrong way, thus promptly getting slaughtered by my cavalry. Artillery deployment is giving me headaches; in both battles one of my horse artillery seemed to get "stuck" with one gun limbered, the other not, thus being unable to move or fire. The American artillery didn't move at all throughout the battle, possibly 'cause it was always in range to fire at my men (though fairly ineffectually); would have been nice to see it integrate with the infantry a bit better and redeploy once the direction of the battle had shifted. Battlefield is pleasingly huge, and the enemy seemed to make good use of hills and woods to ambush my flanks.

On the naval battle, I apparently am somewhat of a landlubber since on my first two attempts I was soundly beaten, though I won quite convincingly the third time. The tactic I found finally worked was to group my whole fleet and rush to try to head off the French line. My flagship passed in front of the lead French ship and my others either passed between the first and second ship and turned to starboard or turned just before the French line to fire on it from the port side (ha! Get me with my fancy naval terminology!) Concentrating broadsides from all my ships on the lead French ship was enough to sink it, a tactic repeated on each of the following ships, eventually leading to victory without the loss of any of my ships, much to my surprise.

I find it hard to pin down what I did differently the third time, except that my ships seemed to manage to physically block the progress of the French column, preventing them from landing successive broadsides on my flagship as they had done previously. Pathfinding seems a bit off, in all three battles I found the encounter seemed to result in both fleets getting snarled up in a big confused mess, although perhaps this is supposed to happen. Regarding ammunition, I stuck to roundshot on my successful attempt, tried grape and chain previously with little effect. I suspect the latter two are best used when your fleet is at a clear advantage, to maximise chances of capturing enemy ships without sinking them, while roundshot is better when you simply want to make sure you win the battle. For targeting, I found it more effective to simply give ships movement orders and let them worry about firing rather than ordering them to target specific ships, the latter seems to result in them wheeling about to fire both broadsides alternately.

The damage system, of both sides of the ship having a separate health bar, seems a little odd; I can't quite figure out whether it is better to double-up on a ship, so that the crew cannot return fire against both sides at once, or to simply concentrate all fire on a single side to drop its health as fast as possible. Similarly, I can't quite figure out if raking fire is as effective as it should be, since it seems to result in both more shots missing due to the smaller target, and to the damage being shared out between both sides rather than on a single one. Others thoughts/observations on this would be welcome. Weather gauge (being upwind of the enemy, giving an edge in mobility) seems to be helpful, but not essential. There seems to be an option to set the amount of sail each of your ships carries; has anyone found a reason to have this set at anything other than full sail at all times? Ships look very pretty, even on lowest settings, but then we already knew this.

Both battles were fun, although I can see naval tactics are going to take some getting used to. Land battle was definitely good apart from the eccentric artillery behaviour, I struggle to see why so many people seem to be of the opinion that encounters based primarily on ranged combat would ruin the series. In short, I saw no reason not to buy the game; I may even buy it and attempt to make do with my weedy graphics card for a while while I look for a decent upgrade.

[The New Che Guevara]

I'd love to talk about the demo... it's got a nice mouse...


I've downloaded steam and the demo but it crashes on the opening thing with like SEGA copyright and Bink~:mecry: :feedback:

[Sir Beane]

I'd love to talk about the demo... it's got a nice mouse...


I've downloaded steam and the demo but it crashes on the opening thing with like SEGA copyright and Bink~:mecry: :feedback:

It seems like you aren't alone. Many people have this problem and no one yet has found a way to fix it.

[Alexander XXI]

The demo was very good, a nice appetizer.

[The New Che Guevara]

It seems like you aren't alone. Many people have this problem and no one yet has found a way to fix it.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO... oh well... back to the medieval times for me:egypt:

[Megas Methuselah]

Yes. Yes, the demo was very good. Awesome, in fact. Especially the grenadiers... :wiseguy:

[Lokar]

Just played through the demo a few times, this is what I noticed:
The little cadre of officer, flag carrier, drummer and/or bugler that lead every unit. These guys look great especially the flag carrier! (scenes from so many movies come to mind). The modding potential for this is huge. I love watching the officer pull out his pistol to put some lead downrange. The animations are also good fun to watch, and are neither too generic (RTW) or too slow (M2TW). The cavalry animations in particular are vastly improved over M2TW. I noticed a few glitches here and there, especially in a bayonet charge, but I'm not concerned, I think it will be fixed in a patch. Remember the first version of the M2TW demo where every other soldier was doing that spin attack? The uniforms look great and accurate as far as I can tell, and there's not a single neon turquoise or hot pink pajama to be found among them. Some of the uniforms in the past have had more pastels than an episode of Miami Vice. Overall I thought the demo was excellent, it looks like Empire is going to be a great addition to the series. I can't wait to play the full campaign, as I always find the historical battles to be sort of meh. They just don't have the same sense of epicness that you get from leading the same troops on the campaign map as on the battle map.

[Tomisama]

What are your best demo scores?

The Historical Battles Competition is collecting winning scores for both demos (take a picture if you can).

This is just for fun, and to practice making entries into what will be a monthly Org badge competition, after game release.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=279

:charge:

[Zoring]

Why do Cannons have unlimited ammunition? Is that intentional?

[quadalpha]

Why do Cannons have unlimited ammunition? Is that intentional?
Yes. Theory is that battles in this period didn't last long enough for the artillery to use up their supply.

[IRONxMortlock]

I agree with most in that the loading times are certainly on the long side, however I was impressed with the demo. It ran smoothly, looked great and was very atmospheric. I really enjoyed the ranged style game.

The land battle was fun but I didn't find it that challenging. The AI did seem to have a habit of foolishly throwing one or two units into the fray against my whole army though.

Navy battle was good too once I learnt that you can make grouped units operate and move as a formation. With formation the sea battle is way too easy. You start with a strong fleet and in a perfect position. Aggressive skippers need just steer all ships straight ahead. With the weather gauge you can "cross the T" of the first French fleet. Once all ships in the line have fired, do a 180. This will bring guns to bear on both fleets. Then just sail up and down keeping the weather gauge and the French get massacred. Done it twice now without getting even close a losing a ship.

I usually stick away from pre-orders however after playing this demo I just knew that I'd buying this game at some point so I ordered it right there and then. I was expecting Steam to pre-load it however it looks like it's waiting till release so that's pretty much going to guarantee its a turd fight on release day.:no:

[Belgolas]

Despite that, my laptop is better than the common, cheap desktops employed by most Orgahs. Thus, I experience fast loading times, and am proud to flaunt it. :snobby:

Well thats because you spent more money then they did. No nid to say my PC is better then your because all you need to do is spend more and you get more. Plus laptops are more expensive and slower for the same price of a desktop every time. There hasn't been a single generation of hardware for laptops that beats desktops. Infact laptops are lagging really far behind in graphics cards compared to a desktop. A 1000 laptop will perform the same as a $600 desktop. A $3000 laptop will perform the same as a $1500 desktop.

Anyways this is far off topic.


Only a few days till the game :)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Polemists]

Not to get too off topic but I tend to agree.

My own laptop is rather cheap, but then again I needed it for travel, not gaming. So now I game what I can on it. Yet I know if I was home and gaming I'd go out and spend on a desktop.

If you look on most store sites you are going to pay premium dollar to go from 256 graphics card to 512, and your going to pay extremely high to go from duo, to quad.

i7 is out now and I can assure you that in maybe 3 months a new line of desktops will be out with it.

Not saying you don't have to spend 2-3k on a desktop to keep a pc that will last you 2-3 years, but I am saying that 2-3k will go alot farther on a desktop.

Back to topic, I loved demo but really want game....this last day of Feb is soooo long.

[Sir Beane]

Not to get too off topic but I tend to agree.

My own laptop is rather cheap, but then again I needed it for travel, not gaming. So now I game what I can on it. Yet I know if I was home and gaming I'd go out and spend on a desktop.

If you look on most store sites you are going to pay premium dollar to go from 256 graphics card to 512, and your going to pay extremely high to go from duo, to quad.

i7 is out now and I can assure you that in maybe 3 months a new line of desktops will be out with it.

Not saying you don't have to spend 2-3k on a desktop to keep a pc that will last you 2-3 years, but I am saying that 2-3k will go alot farther on a desktop.

Back to topic, I loved demo but really want game....this last day of Feb is soooo long.

Laptops cost more because parts have to be made smaller and more energy efficient. They also have to be better at disappating heat. All that adds up to more expensive parts if you want them in a laptop rather than a PC.

Empire Total War in 3 more days!

How are you going to celebrate? I'll be celebrating by playing the game non-stop for as long as I can without collapsing :2thumbsup:.

[Explodingcannonballfromhell]

Anyone having the problem that units become sprites when you zoom out to much, no matter what setting i have it on the units turn very ugly from distance, like a blob of pixels moving across the screen. Its not something i have ever encountered in MTW2.

Is it something to do with my graphical settings or is the demo not optimized enough?

[A Very Super Market]

I've had that. It simply takes less memory to remember a sprite than a 3d unit. RAM probably.

[Sir Beane]

Anyone having the problem that units become sprites when you zoom out to much, no matter what setting i have it on the units turn very ugly from distance, like a blob of pixels moving across the screen. Its not something i have ever encountered in MTW2.

Is it something to do with my graphical settings or is the demo not optimized enough?

It happens in Med 2 as well, but the sprites are better so it isnt as noticable. Sprites are much easier to do from a distance than 3D, it helps stop lag when zoomed out.

[Explodingcannonballfromhell]

Hopefully the draw distance is a bit better in the full version then.

[peacemaker]

something I'm glad about is that now units load their weapons BEFORE enemies get in range. That helps a ton now...

[Belgolas]

I just played a naval battle when one of my ships was caught on fire and I guess it reached where the store the gun powder and it went up in a big explosion ripping it in 2. Nice! Too bad the enemy wasn't boarding it haha.

[Polemists]

The blowing up ship graphics is nice, I saw it on medium, and enjoyed it immensely.

Well where I live it's now March 1, do to delivery i don't get the game till March 7. So 6 more days for me, 2 or 3 more days for rest of you.

(Regular edition March 3
Special and Collector March 4)

[Sir Beane]

The blowing up ship graphics is nice, I saw it on medium, and enjoyed it immensely.

Well where I live it's now March 1, do to delivery i don't get the game till March 7. So 6 more days for me, 2 or 3 more days for rest of you.

(Regular edition March 3
Special and Collector March 4)

The ship explosion effects are fantastic on ultra. As are the air shockwave effects when cannons fire. :2thumbsup:

[Patricius]

Well, I played it on my notebook with the following specs:

Core 2 Duo 2GHz
2GB DDR2
256MB 8600M GT
1920*1200 24"

and it works, on medium without AA or anything like that.
It looks a bit worse than M2TW does on the same machine IIRC and it's not completely fluid on these settings, but it works. May buy a new desktop PC sometime this year but we will see.

I wasn't too impressed by the americans, they kept sending single units to intercept my forces so I easily overwhelmed them, they got my artillery but then I didn't really need it anyway.
Got a bit confused by the two fronts(I scroll around less when the game lags a little bit) so that helped them. In the end they had only a few units around that farmhouse while I had not lost much more than most of the light infantry, most of my hussars and some dragoons, then I just went there and shot them dead with half my infantry, not really needing the rest.
Well, it was just one battle, I'd expect a bit more in the campaign though.

The sea battle I lost the first time around, then won the second time, I'm sort of missing a follow feature that makes one ship follow the other in the same path, similar to the convoy they start out in.
That ships can almost turn on the spot is also quite weird, you cannot even plan a course around another ship or anything like that and the curved direction arrows are useless because the ships never follow the curve, they turn really tight and the curve becomes straight...
Doesn't mean it can't be fun, but it could be better, if ships actually followed those nice curves for example.

Oh and what I really like is the detail on the ships and how they sink, they seem to sink more realistic than they move.

Mine has those specs, so some hope for me.

[Polemists]

Those are my settings and I run it on medium sometimes and low other times.

I find that on low generally the animations seem to work better, and look more fluid. The downside of course it the zoomed in graphics look different. Still zooming out looks the same on medium and low so as campaign goes on i'll probably just stay on low.

It does work though, but like others have said, your better off with a 512 graphics card and a quad if you can afford it.

Laptops just arn't made for gaming.

[quadalpha]

Did anyone notice that the shortcut keys for wheel right and move forward overlap?