So, the demo...

[Megas Methuselah]

What did you guys think of it? Give it a rating out of 5 stars, and state the reasons for your rating.

[pyradyn]

I gave it 3 Starts. I think it is good but is a bit lagy. I do not like Historical battles though, little to motivate me to win or try to keep most my army alive. I like it when the battle means something to my campaign. If I lose this battle I do not have an army to stop this force....I must win!!!!:smash:

[A Very Super Market]

I give it 0 pizzas out of 5 pizzas, because my download is taking so long.

[pevergreen]

5 Stars

Reasoning:

OMG ITS EMPIRE TOTAL WAR OMGOMGOMGOMGOGOMGOGMOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOGMOMGOMGOMGOM GOGMOMGOMG
[/FANBOY]

1. Melee charging is SO COOL
2. Cannons don't wtfpwn you.
3. I gave it 5/5 and I haven't even played naval yet!
4. I like the coding they use for Historical Battles
5. ITS SOO GOOD.

[Megas Methuselah]

5 stars!

I loved charging my entire army into melee, then keeping my grenadiers back to toss grenades into the whole mob. God, it was glorious!

[A Very Super Market]

Good lord, your men must hate you so much

[Megas Methuselah]

Hey, at least I didn't load those poor bloody infantrymen with grapeshot.

Meh, not many of them lived long enough for their hatred to reach its full potential; I'm happy.

[A Very Super Market]

Eh, I guess its roleplaying the classic British officer then.

[a completely inoffensive name]

3 stars, loading times were terrible and controls are a bit too slow for me. for me at least the only way to move around the battle field quickly is to double click on the mini map, which is annoying.

[PseRamesses]

So far I´m a happy camper. My 3yo PC is a bit sluggish though.
But on monday my new QuadPro will arrive so I´m firing up
for the big release in March.

[cannon_fodder]

3/5

The naval combat tutorial is the most frustrating I've ever experienced in a game. You're prevented from operating controls for much of the beginning of it, it often takes a long time for it to acknowledge a completed action, and it got stuck on the first attack order (no matter how many times I ordered the attack, I was still prompted to do so, despite the fact that the order clearly went through). It's pretty much broken. My first attempt at the sea combat historical battle went poorly towards the beginning as my units did not behave as expected. Too early to judge though, I'll need to try it again.

Land combat didn't disappoint. I like the new default camera control scheme, IMO it's the best of the series so far. The pace of combat and movement is reasonable, and the interface remains functional, though an unfortunate amount of micromanagement is necessary to ensure the combat efficiency of your troops. Cannons seem a bit overpowered, but I think that's just because the Americans have so many deployed in that battle (I would never attack across a river with so little artillery). Cavalry are extremely good at dying. Even if you only send them on perfectly legitimate attacks on enemy flanks and rears, they seem to suffer immense casualties all the time. Don't think I'll be using melee-only light cavalry in the game. If memory serves, the AI is better than in Shogun. It reacted sensibly to every one of my actions (it still lost, of course; it's not as smart as a person). No single unit or ability seems considerably overpowered, including the grenadiers' grenades.

The graphics, including the framerate, are impressive. My only complaint there are the sprites used for distant trees: the color of the bark is vastly different than on the 3D ones, making the boundary and transitions unconvincing. Load times are the worst I've experienced in a PC game. Textures and sounds are the only game resources that are large enough to induce large load times, and the difference between M2TW's load times and ETW's cannot be fully explained by those resources. So maybe it'll improve in the final game.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I had to decide between a 3 and a 4. I voted 4 because I still want to play it a lot even though it's the same scenarios over and over again.

[Polemists]

Well I think you have to judge it for what it is, I mean this is tw, if you remeber demos of the past they weren't going to do custom battles, mp, or campaign map and I think most of us expected that.

All said it's a fair bit for a demo, and the game is out in one week anyhoo.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

The MTW demo was fantastic. I played and replayed it many times. I think ETW's demo is the next best one (haven't played Shoggy's though).

[knoddy]

4/5 load times were horrible even on my decent rig, while hte graphics were good i just dont like this period of warfare, theres something alot less tactical feeling about 2 lines standing opposite blowing each other away, i much prefer the action from the earlier games, the ai seems a little better tho :)

Cheers Knoddy

[ekKstRa]

i dont know if its my computer or the bugs or what but
when it first loads to the part where it shows all the info it freezes most of the time, when i actually get to play, it was real laggy. i really dont know what is wrong with it because my computer was suppose to be good enough to play it, i could barely play low quality...:help::help::help:
driving me crazy because i want to play it:wall::wall::wall::wall:

[Zatoichi]

Well, I'm saying 5. It works fine on my 2 year old PC (with a new graphics card) which is a bonus, but for me it's done exactly what a demo should do - let me have a little play around and whet my appetite for the full game.

[Fisherking]

I gave it 4 stars.

I didn’t have any in game issues, as of now. The intro was very jittery and laggy but in game was fine.

The load times were a bit over 1min and after victory about the same.

I am not going to give it negative marks for my own learning curve.

I got so excited in the first naval battle that I didn’t remember to group and suffered…so I quit out.

I was pleasantly surprised my 2 year old laptop did so well.

Now 2 battles for 10 days…maybe I’ll be up to a decent showing when the real thing gets here.

:laugh4:

[Monsieur Alphonse]

3 out of 5.

Loading times
Sound when zooming in to the drums
Don't like the new controls
Sea battles not intuitive enough.
Graphics of the battle map looks a little bit to much arcade stile. Especially the water of the little stream looks like glue when you zoom in. I have seen better water.

[Sir Beane]

5 stars, because after playing for hours I still had a huge grin on my face at the end. :2thumbsup:

I don't know about everyone else but for me the game loaded as fast as Medieval 2 does, and it ran smoothly with fantastic looking graphics. Maybe I'm just lucky?

@ knoddy

If you had two lines lined up just shooting at each other you are doing something wrong :tongue:. I managed to complete the entire battle without getting into a fight like that. Clever manoevering and the use of cover and charges meant that I spent most of my time stabbing cowardly American soldiers in the back. :2thumbsup:

Once you get used to the control scheme and style of warfare you will probably find better tactics and ways of avoiding a drawn out shooting match.

[ArtillerySmoke]

I wasn't going to try the demo (I usually don't demo games) but based on some of the feedback I'm seeing, I may have to.

I just know how it's going to go if it's decent. I can hardly wait to get my hands on the game now. It will only be 10x worse after I play the demo.

[Wartz]

4 stars. Amazing except for the annoyingly long loadtimes

[miniwally]

can someone say what the battles you get with the demo are?

[miniwally]

how do you check what internet connection speed is for computer?

[Polemists]

The demos you get are listed over at Shogun tw forums,

I don't member names but battles are

Player vs Ai

Land Battle Brits vs Americans

Sea Battle English vs French


Each time you play as the british.


As for internet speeds you can see them here

www.speedtest.net

But it's irrelevant, it only matters how much you can download on steam. I would suggest going into setting and chaning your region until you get a decent speed. Many had luck with East Coast USA, or UK, some with Hong Kong.

[Emperor of Graal]

The download and loading times are too long, however the naval battles are impressive!
It was less lagy than the land battle!
I think they should have given us a taster of campaign though.
3 balloons for you CA! :balloon::balloon3::balloon2:!!

[FesterShinetop]

4/5 Really good demo. Runs great on my system with all settings on high. Like most people I think the loading times are a bit too long but that will hopefully improve in the full version, still if it isn't it is no showstopper to me...
I really like the looks of the naval battles and the control scheme is the best of the TW series so far IMO. So great job CA!!! :2thumbsup:

[pdoyle007]

The land battle was a bit laggy for me, will this be the same on the full game? Other than that it was good and the need to use new tactics interesting.

Naval battle also very good, despite me not getting the hang of the controls and tactics and losing a chunk of her majestys navy 3 times in a row.

4*/5

[Barkhorn1x]

Three stars:
- Horrible load times
- Options menu does not work 100% (flags won't go away & selecting a higher rez freezes the game)
- Historical battles in TW are not very historical (athough CA did include the Hessians)

I am getting excellent frames in game on high to medium settings and that bodes well for the release which should be a bit more optimized and hopefully the two bugs listed above will be squashed.

[A Very Super Market]

The Hessians seemed a little lacklustre in the game, when the were in fact very competent soldiers.

After trying it out, I give 3.5 stars. The demo is just using some horrible code, and the tutorials don't work at all

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

3/5

The naval combat tutorial is the most frustrating I've ever experienced in a game. You're prevented from operating controls for much of the beginning of it, it often takes a long time for it to acknowledge a completed action, and it got stuck on the first attack order (no matter how many times I ordered the attack, I was still prompted to do so, despite the fact that the order clearly went through). It's pretty much broken.

This.

I also lost the first naval battle, but that was my own fault due to how much time it took me to find out how the ships moved and fired effectively. I lost almost all of my ships, and then came close to winning with only two remaining - so I think I'll have a good victory next time.

Land battles were excellent, once I tweaked the graphics settings a little bit it no longer looked like a cross between M2:TW on low and M:TW from a distance. The graphics were fairly impressive on high, and CA really deserve bonus points for the following:

The framerate was excellent.

Load time were not as long as others were complaining, maybe a minute and a half maximum, but it did take a while to get back to the menu sometimes - also about a minute. For the record, my specs are:

Windows XP Pro
2 GB RAM
nVidia 8800GTS, Superclocked
E6600 Dual Core
700W PSU

[Barkhorn1x]

The Hessians seemed a little lacklustre in the game, when the were in fact very competent soldiers.

Agree - use them as fodder


After trying it out, I give 3.5 stars. The demo is just using some horrible code, and the tutorials don't work at all

Tutorials work fine for me. Again, I am pleasantly surprised at how well the demo performs on my less than cutting edge system. :balloon2:

[DisruptorX]

The Hessians seemed a little lacklustre in the game, when the were in fact very competent soldiers.

After trying it out, I give 3.5 stars. The demo is just using some horrible code, and the tutorials don't work at all

My Hessians got shot up pretty bad in my first battle, because I used them as bait while my men circled around. In my second attempt, I circled my men around first, then sent in the Hessians, and they were able to hold off and defeat the American units sent at them. In any event, they were mercenaries, and you know what Machiavelli says about those.

Anyway, as far as demos go, this one is damn good in that it really makes me want the full game. Its better than MTW 2's demo, and a hell of a lot better than Rome's. I usually dislike historical battles, but this one interested me because of the different tactics you can do every time, and because you aren't charged in 2 seconds like in the rome/medieval historical battles.

Naval combat isn't something that really interests me, so I'll leave that for people who are fans of ship combat. I did find it rather fun, though.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I thought the Hessian stats were identical to the British line...

[Sir Beane]

I thought the Hessian stats were identical to the British line...

They have slightly lower stats, but are by no means bad.

I managed to win the first time I played the battle using the three units of Hessian Line and the one unit of Skirmishers to lure out and shoot at the American troops. It worked incredibly well and resulted in me winning the battle without the majority of my army seeing action. I only lost 128 men, and most of those were cavalry I stupidly sacrificed.

[Megas Methuselah]

Ah. You overestimated the cavalry, eh? At least you didn't do what I did and charge your general's unit across an open field to take out the American artillery... :laugh4:

[Jaeld]

Load times were appalling.

Someone mentioned that it freezes when you change resolution...it may just be that that person wasn't as stubborn as I was and didn't wait the full 8 minutes or so for it to adjust to the new resolution. Rather crazy.

Other than that, pretty good demo.

Still trying to get graphics settings fine tuned, which is made difficult by the 8 minute loading process every time I change settings.

Tutorials worked fine for me.

Enjoyed the stately pace of ship combat.

Wouldn't mind a touch more transparency on the white bullet/cannonball trails, though conceptually useful...

[Emperor of Graal]

Tip for sea battles.
Get your shape to top or bottom a ship with a T like that.
Broadsides aren't as good unless you want to screw up men on the decks

[Belgolas]

4/5.

Positive
It runs so smooth
Looks really good. Much better graphics then M2TW.
It was fun.

Negative.
Some bugs
Load times could be a bit smaller but they are less then 45 seconds for me so not that bad.

[The historian]

I give it 3 stars for the problems with the installation i faced started at 3 pm and finished at 11 pm due to the fact that the download kept stooping got up to 1 meg then down and stop, start, stop, etc aaaaaah... well you know what i mean.
Played the tutorial seemed to easy so when i started the battle though maybe I'm just that good:laugh4:, so i charged though the defended forge towards the the canons with al lmy cavalry cavalry and placed the artilery in suport got slaughtered evidently, went to the other crossing with the general got him killed fast lost light infantry and grenadiers in a last charge vs guns so i thought well that was stupid the AI will surely whipe the floor with me now you'd think, i'd lost all cav the general the artilery the grenadiers and the lgiht infantry and the ai had lost 30 me, wrong!! i crossed at the other river crossing with the remainder of the infantry and held of the AI cavalry with one of the hessian's, the AI came in the same nice stupid fashio of one on one so ai cavalry all dead
advanced with the infantry to the town hall and there i placed myself defensively vs the ai not exactly in front but on the hill in the forest, what dii it do next it went around with almost all of it's infantry to attack from the rear and they came one by one till i killed them all and them charged the guns.
So the AI is the same as MTW and RTW , that is that's why i say 3 stars The AI outnumbered me 3 to 1 i lost the general the cavalry the guns and it somehow manged to lose.Other then the ai it's what i expected so i'm pleased with it wait for the game:D

[miniwally]

I give it 3 stars for the problems with the installation i faced started at 3 pm and finished at 11 pm due to the fact that the download kept stooping got up to 1 meg then down and stop, start, stop, etc aaaaaah... well you know what i mean.
Played the tutorial seemed to easy so when i started the battle though maybe I'm just that good:laugh4:, so i charged though the defended forge towards the the canons with al lmy cavalry cavalry and placed the artilery in suport got slaughtered evidently, went to the other crossing with the general got him killed fast lost light infantry and grenadiers in a last charge vs guns so i thought well that was stupid the AI will surely whipe the floor with me now you'd think, i'd lost all cav the general the artilery the grenadiers and the lgiht infantry and the ai had lost 30 me, wrong!! i crossed at the other river crossing with the remainder of the infantry and held of the AI cavalry with one of the hessian's, the AI came in the same nice stupid fashio of one on one so ai cavalry all dead
advanced with the infantry to the town hall and there i placed myself defensively vs the ai not exactly in front but on the hill in the forest, what dii it do next it went around with almost all of it's infantry to attack from the rear and they came one by one till i killed them all and them charged the guns.
So the AI is the same as MTW and RTW , that is that's why i say 3 stars The AI outnumbered me 3 to 1 i lost the general the cavalry the guns and it somehow manged to lose.Other then the ai it's what i expected so i'm pleased with it wait for the game:D

I thought they started from scratch with the AI i have definitely seen some improvements

[Sir Beane]

I give it 3 stars for the problems with the installation i faced started at 3 pm and finished at 11 pm due to the fact that the download kept stooping got up to 1 meg then down and stop, start, stop, etc aaaaaah... well you know what i mean.
Played the tutorial seemed to easy so when i started the battle though maybe I'm just that good:laugh4:, so i charged though the defended forge towards the the canons with al lmy cavalry cavalry and placed the artilery in suport got slaughtered evidently, went to the other crossing with the general got him killed fast lost light infantry and grenadiers in a last charge vs guns so i thought well that was stupid the AI will surely whipe the floor with me now you'd think, i'd lost all cav the general the artilery the grenadiers and the lgiht infantry and the ai had lost 30 me, wrong!! i crossed at the other river crossing with the remainder of the infantry and held of the AI cavalry with one of the hessian's, the AI came in the same nice stupid fashio of one on one so ai cavalry all dead
advanced with the infantry to the town hall and there i placed myself defensively vs the ai not exactly in front but on the hill in the forest, what dii it do next it went around with almost all of it's infantry to attack from the rear and they came one by one till i killed them all and them charged the guns.
So the AI is the same as MTW and RTW , that is that's why i say 3 stars The AI outnumbered me 3 to 1 i lost the general the cavalry the guns and it somehow manged to lose.Other then the ai it's what i expected so i'm pleased with it wait for the game:D

To be fair to the AI its infantry is on average is much poorer than the player's. And cavalry are pretty much worthless in that paticular battle, as they are nowhere near as powerful as in Medieval 2. The fact it is scripted probably doesn't help it either.

It would be better to wait for the actual game before condemning it, during the demo battle there brief moments were it behaved much more intelligently than the RTW or M2TW AI ever did. I think it will be better. :2thumbsup:

[Thermal]

I can't wait till mine downloads, been 3 hours, I only just realized i was downloading from germany, only on 8%, after 3 hours! moving to east coast america through advice and its already at 46% after 20 mins

[Sir Beane]

I can't wait till mine downloads, been 3 hours, I only just realized i was downloading from germany, only on 8%, after 3 hours! moving to east coast america through advice and its already at 46% after 20 mins

That East Coast server is truly a savior. I don't know how it manages it but it is getting excellent speed. I'm using it now to nab the demo for my laptop and it is twice as fast as UK/Ireland. :2thumbsup:

[The historian]

Maybe i was a little harsh with the AI, i did use better tactics to win after my initial rash approach charged weak points, used reserves, high ground and forests and othertried and tested MTW and RTW tactics. Maybe i was to harsh but this is what i see as shortcomings of the AI:
Coming at me 2 3 units at a time allowing me to destroy them one by one instead of using it's overwhelming numerical superiority to crush me; charging its general into a square; not using the artillery properly by moving it instead of having it fire at maximum range over a wooded hillside.
I'll admit ambushes were good and the AI dismounted it's cavalry and charged the square after a first unsuccessful charge, the artillery changed to grape shot as i charged and moved down the frirst wave, The AI did do some interesting things.

[Megas Methuselah]

Coming at me 2 3 units at a time allowing me to destroy them one by one instead of using it's overwhelming numerical superiority to crush me;

Agreed.


charging its general into a square;

With its general?! Are you sure?? Its entire army must have been destroyed and the AI itself acting in desperation. Can't blame it for that...



not using the artillery properly by moving it instead of having it fire at maximum range over a wooded hillside.

Agreed.



I'll admit ambushes were good and the AI dismounted it's cavalry and charged the square after a first unsuccessful charge, the artillery changed to grape shot as i charged and moved down the frirst wave, The AI did do some interesting things.

Agreed. For my part, I noticed how it pulled its Line Infantry out of a bloody melee with my highlanders, guards, and hessians in order to regroup with minutemen and long riflemen in the rear, leaving me to struggle with its dragoons and cannon crews. It came back in full force and crushed me with musketfire and bayonet charges. That's the result of me making a frontal assault across the first ford for giggles. :smile:

[antisocialmunky]

Load times were appalling.

Someone mentioned that it freezes when you change resolution...it may just be that that person wasn't as stubborn as I was and didn't wait the full 8 minutes or so for it to adjust to the new resolution. Rather crazy.

Other than that, pretty good demo.

Still trying to get graphics settings fine tuned, which is made difficult by the 8 minute loading process every time I change settings.

Tutorials worked fine for me.

Enjoyed the stately pace of ship combat.

Wouldn't mind a touch more transparency on the white bullet/cannonball trails, though conceptually useful...

4/5 for the above reasons, mainly the fact that my load times are multi-minute and I can't really figure it out. :sweatdrop:

[Thermal]

3/5

Positive

-More Intelligent AI on land
-Great new game feel along with nice unit models
-Garrisoning buildings and destructible buildings evident
-More powerful gunpower than previous games thankfully
-New displayed unit stats, all of which intrigued me
-Fair sea battle graphics

Negative

-Slow download and even slower in game waiting times
-Increasing graphics or increasing any option mostly lead to game crashes, leaving me with disappointing graphics on land battles
-Still rather sluggish AI at sea
-Morale and formations more difficult to judge and access
-While expected as being poor, cavalry are beyond that and are completely useless
-Lack of varied in battle fighting
-Lots of micromanagement needed as units are terribly stupid on there own initiative


Tutorials

I only did the land battle tutorial, the process, while I knew most of it was very nice, a good map to fight the spanish against, it shown building fortification and the potential of the new units

Sea battle


I won my sea battle without losing a single boat! I was amazed at how easy it was, lining up in a row and turning to fire was rather good, but towards the end tiresome as I was chasing a french boat around the map at the slowest of speeds, while the AI acted foolishly, nice visuals though. Looks like I'll be more an admiral than a commander as I did abysmal on the land battle....

Land battle

I failed miserably, the terrain looked so graphically flawed because of my settings too, and I hated the river crossed map, My troops disobeyed and tactics were in short supply, I managed to send my men over the crossing in dribs and drabs and therefore hadn't the power to fight off the unbelievable large horde of the Americans, that once grouped, could take out one of my units in one shot of there packs, more intelligence in my opponent however.


Still going to buy it no doubt, a bit of a mix of thoughts from the demo though.

[Bob the Insane]

4 stars with a note of optimisim...

The Tutorials were good enough, not much new for the land (other than use of cover), the naval one was more interesting but I still learn't more through experimentation...

At first I thought naval combat was going to be a nightmare of micro-management, but then I discovered grouping and formations... :2thumbsup:

I soon have my line sweeping past the french chewing them up...

The land battle was interesting but just as in RTW and M2TW it is hard to judge historical battles because there is always some scripting in there interfering... I can only hope that the regular battle AI works so well in defensive battles. by harassing the main American fornce and taking the bulk of mine around the left flank I was able to defeat the enemies troops as the approached. I did take a lot of casulties though...

Personally I found the cavalry both useful and vunerable. Used right they and harass and even ride down the enemy, used wrong they are cut down by infantry in a hurry.

One nice point where all the options available. It seems we don't need to go into the files to disable path makers, selection markers, floating flags and such (though this does not appear to work in the demo, the options are there). Also the minimal HUD returns again.

A bonus for me personally is that my setup got through with all graphics on max at 1680x1050 (I switched of the field focus effect simply because I didn't really like it)...

4 stars because i am still not convinced on the battlefield AI and some of the options not working in the demo (including group formations in the land battle)...

[Lord of the Isles]

1/5 for me, though I think I was a little harsh and 2/5 would have been fairer.

I'm not totally turned off E:TW because of that however, since I remember previous demos (especially the M2:TW one) which disappointed me when they were first released and the full game was fine.

Positives

1. In-game graphics very smooth and little lag (ok, I do have a 8800GTS)
2. Naval battle eye-candy attractive, ships look decent and crews too
3. Was expecting silly exploding cannonballs all over land & naval battles, but no sign of them yet, well done CA!

Negatives

1. Naval battles are really dumbed down. Wind? Tactics? Yuck.
2. The land battle soldiers seem less realistic that those in M2:TW, somehow cartoonish and flat. This may be one of those things that will go away in the full game however. Maybe I just have to get used to lines of men wearing the same uniform in a more disciplined formation than was the case in earlier periods. But I was looking forward to a jump in eye-candy and if anything it has gone backwards.
3. Immersion lacking. The demo hasn't engaged me in the way that say R:TW did (especially after some modders got to grips with the Rome demo I had some great battles with it). I believe there are a lot of extras missing in the demo like sound files which may account for this lack of immersion.
4. Steam. Don't get me wrong - if I have to have DRM rubbish with a game I'd much rather it was Steam than Starforce/SecuRom/Sony/anythingelse. I'd just rather not have it at all.


One thing I've decided on is not to preorder the game. I'll wait to see what people think of it after 4th March and decide whether to get it then.

[Daevyll]

Gave it 4/5.

Mainly because the items that bother me I put down to it being a demo and available through Steam.

Main cause for concern is battle AI, and this stops it from getting 5/5. It tends to feed in reinforcements in response to manoeuvres piece-meal. I can win 4 vs 3 twice, I cant win 4 vs 6 at once.
Hope this is better in the full release.

[Starforge]

5/5 though much of that is the expectation that the real game will have all the features as advertised.

No lag (fairly beefy box) and the graphics looked incredible.

The tutorials were a bit cumbersome but I didn't take any points off for it simply because after having played so many games over the last 30 years it was probably me not wanting to have the basics explained rather than the actual explanations.

I preordered - with only 2 large glaring question marks that the demo can't explain (hey-it's still cheap entertainment even if it doesn't live up to all the hype):

1. Campaign (big deal for me)
2. AI overall (not just individual fights) since many times in previous versions if the AI isn't competent enough in the campaign to generate a decent army, it won't matter how much more intelligent it gets on the battle map.

Regardless - hours of fun will be had.:2thumbsup:

[IlDuce]

I'd say a solid 4. The tutorials seem much more bland and small scale than before. I have fond memories of R:TW where you actually saw a big battle occuring.

The AI seems to have improved though. I found myself almost being caught out on a few occasions by it. Maybe it's because I'm pants at micromanagement though. Either way it's nice to see that while I was concentrating on coordinating my main attack some little buggers manage to get on my flank and slow things down a bit.

The naval combat I wasn't great at which might have deterred me. But then I remembered my first battle in a TW game and remembered how overwhelmed I was then. Naval combat requires a different strategy and feel than the battles we're used to but over time I'm sure they'll win me over.

Would liked to have seen a basic campaign map tutorial, even if there was no freedom. Just to see the new features in action. I always like to use diplomacy to augment my evil plans so I would liked to have seen that.

All that being said our thirst for a hands on of the game was quenched, though I fear it's only whetted my appetite more.

[Dayve]

I'll give the demo 3/5. I'm really enjoying it, well, most of it. There are a hell of a lot of missing sounds, most importantly the sound of marching feet and galloping horses. The music is dreadful and doesn't fit with this period whatsoever, had to turn it off.

I took a point off for naval battles. They were way too overhyped for what they are... which is nothing more than click on your ship, right click on the enemy ship. They look good, but with tactics playing no part whatsoever in naval battles i see me auto-calcing them after the first day or two of playing. Make a good game graphics most definitely do not, as far as navy battles are concerned.

The animations are kind of silly... soldiers and cavalry just don't look angry when they fight in melee, they look like they're dancing and lightly, ever so softly touching each other with feathers... not screaming, hacking, slashing, stabbing, bludgeoning, beating to death with rifle butts like i imagined it would be.

Still, i know it's going to be the best game to come out in years (for me) and i'll play it every single day until the next TW game comes out after it because i know it's going to be amazing despite the few things that personally aren't to my taste.

I know i'll rate the full game 5/5 though. Even if it turns out to be horrendously bad, (it won't) i will still rate it 100% if for no other reason than CA finally put in a command that will let you move your soldiers forward in order without completely mangling their formation. Seriously, you should have seen that this feature was necessary in the beta stages of Shogun, why has it taken a decade?

[Basileus]

I would give the demo 4 out of 5, i wasnt planning on buying Empire but the demo seemed like a lot of fun and i especially enjoyed the naval battle.

[Monk]

3 stars.

Loading times and lack of cpu optimization nearly killed it for me. Naval battles aren't totally realistic but I sort-of expected them to be arcade-like as this is CA's first attempt. I like them, personally. Land battle was fun, AI was heavily scripted and was on normal so I dunno how much this will equate to the full game result.

A fun demo that raised a few more questions than it answered. :book:

[Daevyll]

I took a point off for naval battles. They were way too overhyped for what they are... which is nothing more than click on your ship, right click on the enemy ship.

Try taking direct control of one or more ships. Navigating, manually firing broadsides etc, I had a great time playing with it. Reminded me of Pirates!, which is no bad thing :)

[Dayve]

Try taking direct control of one or more ships. Navigating, manually firing broadsides etc, I had a great time playing with it. Reminded me of Pirates!, which is no bad thing :)

Oh they're lovely looking no doubt and fun the first couple of times... i mean graphically they're perfect, it's just... after 3 or 4 battles, they stop being fun, they become boring. Like i would put them under AI control and watch the battles because they're so nice looking, but i wouldn't play them.

[Bob the Insane]

Oh they're lovely looking no doubt and fun the first couple of times... i mean graphically they're perfect, it's just... after 3 or 4 battles, they stop being fun, they become boring. Like i would put them under AI control and watch the battles because they're so nice looking, but i wouldn't play them.

Well the battle in the demo is a little biased towards the player...

You have one 1st rate, one 2nd rate, two 3rd rates and two 4th rates, they have six 3rd rates and one 4th rate in two groups with only four 3rd rates close to you are the start... As long as you dont mess up you should win everytime...

[ThePianist]

3 stars. I surely hope the actual game is better in quality. Like, I really like and want to like this game, so I have some expectations of qualities.

Now, the landscape is not complicated at all, the terrain of hills and trees and rivers. The graphics of the soldiers, at medium, are about at the same level as the M2TW graphics. So how come the land battles take so long to load, much longer than M2TW. It also takes longer to load than EB 1.1, when EB graphics look better than ETW's medium graphics (the soldiers faces look like crumpled paper, at least on the British side). I also have a rather mid-high end computer, so how can I play a campaign when each battle would take 30+ seconds to load and 30+ seconds to exit?

Perhaps some pernicious and unnecessary scripts have been added, codes that slow down the game (allowing a single player game to be hijacked, for instance).

Here is the thing with making hype. When hype is made, the product has to match the hype, else it's better to be matter-of-fact, and not make hype at all. It's difficult to match the hype of the intro video (which is what I expected) when the demo's British line infantry only has the front line firing and the rear line standing idle. It's also difficult to match the hype when that WWII RTS from two years ago has cratering when a shell hits the ground, even on medium graphics, and this Total War game doesn't, at least not in the demo. I mean, in antique and medieval times, it's OK, because firearms was not the emphasis, it was blades. But in the era of near-modern warfare, where nearly all weapons are firearms, the land should crater when hit by a cannonball (and the unmoving remainder of a collapsed building should at least look similar to that WWII RTS, rather than like the simplification of RTW's siege battles. In RTW the collapsed city buildings are not that detailed, because it's meant to be only a background. But in ETW you can enter the buildings, which make them almost part of a unit, then how come the collapsed building graphics still look like the simplified RTW version?).

Reloading animation: here are some modded RTW units in "Ogniem i Miecem", which, may I remind, is a mod of a game from 5 years ago. How come the animation sequence here looks better made and smoother than in ETW, and this sequence is all the more difficult to make on RTW that is not designed to have firearms (vs. ETW which is designed to have firearms):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX5-1mCe0bw especially the sequence from 2:20 - 2:30

I seriously think SEGA is wrong to have pushed the release because the devs didn't have time to polish on the details. Vast majority of the game is done, but some details are missing on the land part. I suppose the devs are like Rafael and Michaelangelo, whereas the game publishing companies (SEGA) are like merchants who sell paintings in bulk.

Sea battle is really well done. The secondary regimental flag is really well done. The movement mechanic is well done (not sure about the close-up of the bayonet combat though) The menu, user interface and music and atmosphere is really well done. The faction designs and unit roster is probably very well done. The few land details can be added in a patch.

Now, this is from a person who actually wants the game to be totally great.

[Ibrahim]

I give it more a 4 (3.7 to be sure).

graphics awesome, naval battles fun, and the land battles were ok.

AI on the dull end on land, and the game is a bit laggy.

[Polemists]

5 out of 5

The only two things I dislike are 1. I can put graphics all way up but I own a laptop so can't complain. 2. Slightly laggy but I assume this will be fixed upon release.

I turned the settings to low and it was a blast. I know alot of people hate graphics on low and medium by they were just fine for me. I guess I'm to spoiled after living with MTW1 for years.

So I'll go over what I do like

1.New animations are fun:
Now that I can see them (medium they were all clunky) they are pretty awesome and all working qutie fluidly. All the rifle hand to hand combat looks good, and I enjoy it.

2. Ai Also impressive

So my first land battle was very impressive. Not sure where I'll put my strategies and comments, maybe under clever AI.

Long and short was I tried Ctrl-A strat, got slaughtered, broke up my units and attacked got a close victory.


3. Naval Combat is fun

I enjoyed it, not perfect but fun and challenging.


So lots of fun, can't wait for full game :)