GOT WARLORDS-running in background now :)

[Kraellin]

ok. i know everyone's hungry for news, so here it is...bear with me as i havent even played a custom game yet.

the full install is 1.6 gigs. 2 disks. nice box and the most incredible intro i've ever seen in a game before. i really think they went back in time to get this one!

the install went well. no glitches. you might as well go out and get directX 8.0 or better cause the game requires it and it is on the disks if you dont have it.

the ea registration is a completely different matter though...that's such a clumsy process. you have to register first with your EA registration name before you can create an in-game name and clan. so, if you dont already have an EA registration, you might as well go do that also cause you'll HAVE to have it to register names for the game. trust me on this one...we tried to bypass it. doesnt work. you also HAVE to have the WE or MI to register names, you cant bypass this either. it checks to make sure you have the game installed before you can create new game names...sorry guys, i was hoping otherwise.

this means that NO ONE's previous names in stw are safe in WE/MI. anyone can take your current name and current clan on this new xpack server. the database is NOT the same. we tried to bypass it and see if we couldnt register game names without having the game. we couldnt do it. sorry.

there is a pretty good readme with the game. there are even docs for the map editor! and there are docs IN the editor by pressing F1 while in there. the editor is found in the OPTIONS menu off the main menu when you boot up. you cant directly boot to the editor if yer out of the game.

well, that's how i've spent the last 2 hours...the install took quite a long while even with my fairly fast machine. the registration was a nightmare, but that's partly cause my isp is having troubles right now.

so, like i said, i havent even looked at a custom game or been into the actual game server yet. what i think i'll do is try stuff, come here and post a bit, try some more stuff and post a bit more. i've already annoyed a couple of our european friends by telling them i had it installed and started telling them things about it, so i said, ok, i'll shut up...there was a pause...NO! tell me more! hehehe :)

so, as i find out things i'll try and post some more. you have no idea how much restraint it's taking to keep me out of the editor first ;)

will post more later :)

oh yeah, the manual is still pretty small but i did see a few things in there about some of the new stuff. there's a new tech tree and hot key chart and the battlefield ninja dojo and the drill dojo. i didnt see many new hot keys and when i checked to see if my name had registered ok i checked the top 100 list of players...only 6 folks listed and at least 2 of those were duplicates. :)

K.

oh, and tosa, the readme says there are now 161 textures! and, there are some little helps for things like when you work with textures, like, if it's a tree texture it says so down at the bottom. 41 texture type limits, the raise sea level thing we talked about is basically what it was before, so nothing new there. castles 'might' be a bit diff...i only scanned the readme and it seemed to indicate that you can now place individual walls to make a castle and even diff wall types...not sure. it covers the limits we already know about re rivers and coasts and bridges. but all this is from the readme so i'll post some more about what i actually see first hand :)

so next i'm heading to the multiplayer server and see what we got goin on there :)
------------------
I'm sorry, but i never apologize.

[This message has been edited by Kraellin (edited 08-09-2001).]

[vangersonm]

http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/mad.gif hey!!! someone took my Clan's name already!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



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http://www.plauder-smilies.de/person/ninja.gif If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them.

Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.

[Magyar Khan]

krae sent me the url please of the registreing

to joskap@tip.nl

[Kraellin]

ok, well that was quick since there was no one in the new server but me :)

k. there are some changes. it still looks the same at first glance, but it's not. there are NEW items up at the top where the games are displayed. here's how it looks now:

Game Map Era Players Koku Latency Status

under the names it now shows your name but also a number after it. i presume this is your honor rating since it says 100 after mine. i'm also assuming that 'Status' means whether the game is still looking for players and hasnt actually launched yet or if it has...will have to verify when i find someone actually in there to play a game with :)

that's about all i saw new, but that's a great improvement. the koku listing and status are great improvements. only thing missing now is a 'Season' listing, but maybe it shows in the status column....i hope so.

ok. time for a custom game or two :)

K.

(ok, my bad...koku and status are the same old ones from the original game)
------------------
I'm sorry, but i never apologize.

[This message has been edited by Kraellin (edited 08-09-2001).]

[Magyar Khan]

ktae the url pleeeeeeaseeeeeeee

[Kraellin]

wow. this is gonna be tough. there is so much new stuff in the custom game that's it's gonna be hard to describe.

first impression. 2 eras to choose from. well, we knew that already. i chose mongol era, of course and chose to be the mongols. as i began picking my army the first thing that hit me was...wow. i need more money than 5k. these guys dont come cheap. i think we're going to see a new default koku amount of more than 5k now...sorry, all you low koku players, but that's what i see with the new costs. add in being able to not only pick morale increases but armor and weapon increases too and low koku is going to much harder to be swayed into. i'm gonna guess that to get a decent sorta army on there yer gonna want more like 7500-10000 koku now.

so, that's what i did. i took 10000 for att and def just to see how things would work out and that seemed pretty decent. i could get the units i wanted and add bonuses here and there but it certainly wasnt too much money. btw...kensai cost 600 each and it is just one man. that sucker can put away the rice.

ok. next impression. LOTS of new maps...i counted 27 that i didnt recognize from before, but i may be off a bit. 2nd, in the little .tga pictures you see when you load in a map...there were ships in some of the map pics! so i chose one of those, a coastal invasion map. i played attacker. i was really hoping the ships would drop me off on the shore when i started the game, but they didnt :( you start on the land, just like before.

ok, i picked my army. hvy cav general, couple of thunder bombers, 4 light cav, 3 spearmen, 3 guardsmen, 3 skirmishers. i gave the jap army a hvy cav taisho, 4 ys, 2 kensai, several of those xbow guys, a couple nag cav, a couple of normal bowmen and frankly i forget what else :)

the map was a bit diff than what i thought it was, more hilly than expected and i had to climb a hill in the center for position...didnt quite make it in time, the enemy was upon me, but i had him somewhat flanked due to fog, with my light cav almost up the hill. hehehe...i'm not gonna detail this battle any further. suffice it to say it was fun. i won, my light cav being prolly my best overall unit. the thunder bombers are a total grin. i simply used one group to rush some advancing unit and the little explosions were going off and down went that in droves. i can easily see someone making a very heavy thunder bomber suicide army just for the fun of it.

the kensai were interesting. i gave the japanese army 2 of them and they wasted no time in heading straight into the thick of my army. i put the light cav into attacking them and dispatched the first one rather easily, although he does stand up amazingly well, but, he isnt a super unit, least not in my book....he's just a very, very, very goof fighter, dancing just this side of being super.

no battlefield ninjas in this era of the mongols, so didnt try them out yet.

i believe i mentioned that i like the light cav of the mongols. very fast, very versatile, but very few arrows. still, i liked them a lot. the skirmishes and spearmen seemed pretty good also, and my hvy cav general took on one of the kensai but got routed and eventually killed.

since i was the attacker and custom games dont allow you set up your own formations ahead of time, and only allow you those set formations, i made a mistake with my general and he ended up too close to the front to begin with and that's why he died.

i can easily see games taking longer to set up in multi. folks are going to have to learn the new units and pick armor and weapon ratings for their units now. i like it, but it will be slower.

the graphics do look nice. i also saw some of the new textures, like the beach property :)

oh yes, since i picked a coastal invasion map, the ships i came in on were visible out in the sea. nice touch. i hope we can edit those in in our maps also ;)

all for now, folks. i just gotta take a look at that editor tonight ;)

oh, one last thing. when i first installed the game i debated whether to uninstall stw first or not since i got the warlord's edition which already has the full game. i didnt. i installed it in a new folder and i recommend others doing this as well. you'll want to keep your cd key and game names intact so that you can still get onto the original server. so, dont uninstall stw just because you got warlords! i hope the registry can keep them straight and all works ok. i think that's where i'll go next...onto the stw server to make sure stw is still working ok.

later :)

K.


------------------
I'm sorry, but i never apologize.

[Swoosh So]

;-)

Swoosh

[This message has been edited by Swoosh So (edited 08-09-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Swoosh So (edited 08-09-2001).]

[The Black Ship]

Hey Krae...I went thru the whole re-registration thing too. Only thing is I can't get it to accept my new name yet. When I do I'll give you a game http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

Yeah, the armor and weapons upgrades are gonna take some refinement, otherwise we'll never get a game out of the lobby http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/tongue.gif

Did you notice the dust rising up from the feet of the moving armies...nice touch that. Is it me, or are there more birds too?

Hope to see you soon...if not I'll swamp EA with about 15 new names until 1 works http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

[The Black Ship]

O.K.

got the online to work, but now it's time for rest http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/frown.gif

Some observation from the Custom battle generator:

Mongol heavies can only be stopped by a high honor high upgrade Yari. Anything less will be chewed up and spit out. I tried 60 Mongol Heavies versus 60 Jap. Naginata cav: result=60 kills, 0 losses for the Mongols! That's right ZERO losses, and that with the Nags upgraded so they cost the same as the M. Heavies. Next, tried J. Heavies and M. Heavies, result: 60 kills, 1 loss!

Err...seems kinda crazy to me.

Mongol Lights are awesome too...they blaze right thru Japanese CA. Kinda like a combo of both CA and YC.

Mongols are gonna be tough...Magy should be happy http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

[Kraellin]

phew! finally made it into the editor. and it was worth the wait. there are indeed 161 textures now. things are laid out much better now. the modes are at the top of the screen so you can select them easier. the f1 key for help does work, but it's pretty limited...adequate, but limited.

i havent checked it all out yet. still a lot of tricks i know of in the old editor that i want to see if they've been incorporated or not. the save does thankfully work and works well. there is a full listing of all your maps when you go in to start or edit a map. very nice, that one.

and tosa, shld i tell you or keep you in suspense...nah, i gotta spill it...you can save models on maps now! and, there is a much longer list of them now! very sweet.

i've already made use of the undo feature..thank you all gaming gods everywhere!

the textures are laid out in a line at the bottom of the screen. you scroll thru them with the ins/del keys. very nice and very readable. and, most importantly, the bloody textures no longer change when you add in new textures! hallelujah momma! oh yes, some of the textures in the texture scroll bar now have text labels on them for easy identification. very nice.

most of the new textures seem to be beach stuff and rock types. very nice and very needed! i'm afraid they didnt change the way the no-go zones work though. they are still automatic. too bad. was hoping they'd let us place the no-go zones ourselves. oh well. small potatos.

i still have much to check out but so far this is a MUCH improved editor. i would now call it professional. it's prolly the single most improved feature in the game.

i think we're going to like this, tosa. i still see a small need possibly to re-edit a thing or two in the original editor, but not much. again, this is just a cursory look, so i'll have to see yet. one thing i couldnt do was click on a texture on the map and then shift-click to make that the active texture being placed. too bad. i liked that feature.

this is a much more wysiwyg editor now and i think the predictions that there will now be more map makers is accurate...much easier to use. thanks ca. nice job!

swoosh, i know, but i feel forewarned is forearmed. if the admins wanna edit it out, i'll understand, but i know there are some very smart *ssholes out there who would already figure this out so i thought i better brief everyone to give them a shot at trying to save their preferred names.

ships, yeah, i'll be on the multi server tomorrow again and i'll go back and forth to the original server to try and set up games in the new. it's kinda bare in there right now :)

no, i never even noticed the dirt rising, i was too busy watching my bombers blow things up :)

i didnt try too many of the heavy cav either and didnt run but one custom game so far to sort of be able to brief folks about it a bit. but i did leave fauna and smoke on in the options.

gus, if you read this, i had no vid problems whatsoever. installed very smoothly and ran without one hitch on vid or crashes. so, i'm gonna guess it's yer vid drivers. i'll check the tech forum later for your post.

and ragefury....nyah, nyah, nja, njah njah! ;)

K.



------------------
I'm sorry, but i never apologize.

[Kurando]

I was waiting to hear about the editor myself; that sounds good to me! I can't wait to get in there and give it a whirl + you are clearly giving us the most comprehensive info on the x-pack yet posted -Thanks for your time K2 + if it helps you to know: I am absolutely dying of jealousy!

[Kraellin]

k-man,

if it's any consolation, yer jealously isnt anything compared to ragefury. he practically bit my head off when he heard i had it ;)

ok. more good news. we had about 8 players in the new server tonight. fun stuff. and yes, the mongols can be beat...i know, i played them against yuuki's japanese. he whupped me good. i'll let yuuki fill ya in on the various game styles since he's tried most of them and i havent since i cant host...grrr.

the editor is a dream. they've changed a few things here and there, like re-keymapping some of the features, but i did manage to find most of my old favorite tricks, like duplicating height from one place to the next. the undo is wonderful. there are lots of new models and i'm still playing around with those, but you can now add actual rocks, ships, small buildings, a dock, and some other things.

the raise water thing is a bit weird so far. i havent found the old method and i'm not sure i like the new yet, since it's a bigger change all at once where the old was much smaller, easier to manage increments. it might still be there, but havent seen it yet. also, the radar map is instantly updated as you edit the water, which is quite nice.

oh, and tosa, just for you....they put in smoothing for just one location at a time so you dont have to hit the return key and smooth the whole map at once. that also works, but now the backspace key will smooth just one single location and the space key still works for flattening it. very nice.

this is definitely a much easier editor to use. each mode you go into changes the help file when you hit F1, so the help file for that editing mode is there when you hit F1 for that mode and that mode alone.

you can click on the texture scroll bar near one side or the other and it will scroll the bar. so that's another way to move around in the textures besides the ins/del keys. you can also right click on an existing texture on the map and it will select that texture for use.

shift-left click no longer works for copying heights. it's now control-left click, but works just like the old one as far as what it does.

models eat a ton of texture space. the bigger the model the more they eat. there is also a shrubbery model, but it's kinda weird looking...looks sorta like green barbed wire...sorry, but that one's a bust..maybe if place on the right texture it would work as far as the looks.

i gotta tell ya, it was strange seeing mongols on totomi...blashphemy! infidels! heresy!

the thunder bombers didnt work for nearly as well in multi as they did in single...gonna take some practice there, though i did manage to blow a hole in yuuki's daimyo unit ;)

and i was right about koku. looks like it's gonna more like 7-8k for a 'normal' game now. 6k worked, but i had almost nothing left when playing the mongol army to put towards armor and weapons and morale. i suspect the japanese will have more left over for those things, but i wouldnt want to play a 5k game and play the mongols.

oh, and here's some very good news in multi. you CAN see the season prior to joining a game. i didnt see it before because there were no games up in the server before...because there were no other players before :) in the place where it shows unit size, fatigue on/off, morale on/off and so on, it DOES show the season! it also shows the game style, capture the flag, last man standing, and so on.

i still havent touched the campaign game. maybe tomorrow.

yuuki days the readme file was written or finished on may 7th. i hadnt noticed that, but i'll look again. so, you can get some idea of how this thing got held up.

there was one or two comments about the mongols being overbalanced, but i dont see it yet. yuuki also says that the rout bug may not be as easy to invoke as before, so maybe it was addressed a bit.

i did manage to rally a couple of units in my game with yuuki in multi. i couldnt in single.

i think overall this is a very good improvement to a very good game. i'd say it improves the game by at least 50%. there's now more variety, more features, a much better editor. new music, new textures, better info being displayed and generally good feel to the whole thing. whatever complaints we've had in the past and whatever features we still want, this does show a VERY good effort to improve an already good game and i applaud DI/CA/EA on the work.

the only trouble i have with the game is that i still cant play worth a sh*t ;) oh well, i can still make maps ;)

whelp. gettin late here. more tomorrow.

K.


------------------
I'm sorry, but i never apologize.

[PSYCHO]

Well you've talked me into it ! Good review http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

Cheers

------------------
PSYCHO HOJO / PSYCHO SO

[TosaInu]

Running in the background? Is it a screensaver?

[Swoosh So]

yep sounds good, ive seen alot of negative stuff in other boards but lets remember guys this is an expansion pack not a follow up

swooooooooosh

[Erado San]

And I have to say that those negative comments are from people that don't seem to know what they're talking about... http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

Thanks Krae.

[Swoosh So]

Still.......i weep at not having a multi player campaign :-(, the thought of playing with a pal 2 against the pc or against each other would still make shogun alot better imo, i just dont want to see the shogun game without this feature as its sooooo crying out for it , HELL id even buy it as a seperate expansion!!!!!! go on make it slap 19.99 add a few more features and u got my money!!!!!!!

[NinjaKilla]

Thanks loads K! Congrats, you managed quite a comprehensive review without me wanting to choke you. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif Much appreciated!

BTW yeah, a multi-player campaign would have been gooood!

[This message has been edited by NinjaKilla (edited 08-09-2001).]

[Kraellin]

um, tosa...warlords as a screen saver, not a bad idea :) i'd certainly make that intro my screensaver if i knew how to do it. it really looks like it's straight out of a movie.

killa, and swoosh...yeah, i'd pay $20 for a well done multi campaign also. you listenin, DT/CA/EA?

and killa, after ragefury almost chewed my head off on icq over the fact that we yanks had it before most of the rest of the world, i figured i'd better not taunt too many folks even in jest or the state dept here in the u.s. would be knocking on my door over the international incident i just created ;)

and a couple of other observances about the map editor. there is no longer a 'weird' mode or 'stretch' mode and no rgb mode either; least not that i can find so far. so, no more 'flying horses' i guess, unless i wanna go back to the old editor.

ok, off to try out the campaign. new day, new toys to play with.

K.


------------------
I'm sorry, but i never apologize.

[TosaInu]

Konnichiwa,

Kraellin, the intro might probably be an mgg files stored it EvAnims or Movies subdirectory (I'm just guessing here as I'm Dutch, a kind of European, thus I don't have the xpack).

In a far past I used Macintosh. I remember a sreensaver that allowed the user to import his own PICs (and/or animation files?). I don't know recall the name of the app, but I do remember that I've experimented with AferDark. I guess I should search on Tucows a bit.

Undoubtly, those mpg files are about 15 mb in size. I don't know what would happen with a average system if such a file would be used a screensaver.


------------------
Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
Daimyo Takiyama Shi

http://www.takiyama.cjb.com

[Vanya]

Hmmm... nobody has tried a Kensai rush against a Japo army yet? How odd...

[TosaInu]

Konnichiwa,

I found something at Tucows that should do what you want: SLIDES SHOWER 2000. It can also handle movies and audio. The file is 3.4 mb. I guess it offers a freeware mode, registered mode can handle more numbers of images. I'm using a trimmed down version of Win 98SE, not sure if that's the reason but SlideS is missing files on my system and refuses to run (I guess that's because I haven't normal Win sreensavers installed either). Here are the urls: http://members.aol.com/doanc/slshower.html
http://interbox.tucows.com/mmedia/preview/196193.html

I hope this application is usefull for you. Have fun.

------------------
Ja mata
Toda MizuTosaInu
Daimyo Takiyama Shi

http://www.takiyama.cjb.com

[Kraellin]

tosa,

i was just kidding about making it a screensaver. just a joke. glad you didnt take it that way. i wrote the stuff down and maybe i will take a look at it. i'd have to get dreamtime's permission to release it as a mod, i think, but i could certainly use it for my own if it works. thanks :)

ok, moving on... i had a chance this morning to try out the campaign game. i only had about an hour of spare time so i just played it in easy with auto-resolving battles. when you start the camp you are offered 2 eras with some info on each era. these are, of course, the strictly japanese fighting the japanese and the mongol invasion mode. naturally i chose the mongol invasion.

once that is picked you get the chance to play one of three sides. you can play the japanese, the mongols or the ronin. nice options. i wasnt expecting being able to play ronin.

again, naturally i chose mongol. you start the game and you get another intro movie about kublai khan. very nicely done!

then you arrive on the camp map. mongols get no starting units, except when you start you are shown the landing. my troops landed on chikuzen. 2 full complements and the main general unit. so, 3 armies in all. only visible hojo armies were 1 in the nearby river province and the other in the port province. the hojo's attack to start things off and things are auto-resolved to show resistance to landing in japan, but you get the initial province as your foothold on japan. after that yer on yer own.

being an easy game i immediately attacked all surrounding provinces and almost regretted it, for i forgot that you cant see what's in some of those provinces without at least watchtowers in your province. i was immediately set upon by some hojo units, but managed to win all battles and take all provinces in question. within a few moves i had ALL of the western island and got reinforcements.

the reinforcements are interesting. they come in on the northern shore in provinces you own, or attacking japanese provinces next to ones you own. very slick. and i got a LOT of them. kinda surprised me. but, since this was easy mode and i'd been very aggressive i think this is why i got maybe 5 or 6 almost complete, new armies. and i was somewhat taken by surprise by all this so i didnt notice the turn number when the first reinforcements arrived. i'll try and be more observant. it was certainly within the first year and 'seemed' like it came that first summer. the game started in autumn, so i'd say reinforcements come once a year.

within very little time i had the old ronin island and all of the old mori lands and had brought the two main attacking bodies together near the eastern bridge from the ronin island, so i had conquered maybe a little over 1/3 of japan already in maybe 3 years or less. again, bear in mind that this is easy mode and auto-resolve combat.

i also built some buildings, but very few. i built a watch tower in chikuzen and could have then built that little fort thing that is like a larger watch tower, but didnt bother. i already had the whole island. that's about all the building i tried to do in that first hour, so i dont know how much more you can build.

i did have to leave 2 units back in each province to keep the loyalty rating above 100 to prevent riots and treason. i only had one revolt and it was VERY minor and easily put down. i mostly used the korean guardsmen for this, taking most of the cav units with me. the reinforcements were heavily korean conscription type units, but there were enough cav and others to keep me walking right through japan. the hojo hordes fell like clothespins before my onslaught. even their diamyo with his 5 star flag had to keep retreating.

so, that was the first hour on easy with auto-resolve. i'll not even finish that game cause it really is just a walk in the park. the main thing is that this works. i wasnt sure about how the mongols were going to support themselves and the reinforcements and so on, but it works. when you take a province you loot it and get koku for taking it. i started out with an generous 8000 or so koku from the magnanimous great khan and i think i was down to about 1000 by the time i got to where i got, so this might be a factor later on. dunno yet.

so all in all it works. it's a bit scary having to rely on the 'great khan' for your troops, but it does make sense and does add that nice unpredictability that games need in order to even be a game. besides, if you want more troops, take more provinces, kill more enemy. the great khan rewards those who serve :)

K.


------------------
I'm sorry, but i never apologize.

[HATAMOTOKILL]

Whew!give ur fingers a rest. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gifthxs for input,give us sorry people still waiting for it to arrive more http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif
got thread K

------------------
Hato!!!
Knight Owltwwooo!!!
http://hatamotokill.homestead.com/files/anim035.gif

[Kraellin]

hehe, ok, this is a fun post. we've got a few more folks in multi now. we had 8 last night and 4 this afternoon. i only played one game last night but played several this afternoon.

we tried out several of the different game styles. you remember those...capture the flag, last man standing, halve the enemy, assassinate the general and one other at least that i dont remember the name of, capture the hentai maybe? i'm terrible with japanese names...course, if my own name wasnt pinned to my underwear i wouldnt remember it either.

i only played 3 of the different styles, capture the flag, last man standing and assassinate the general.

ass the gen is just what it says; the winning conditions are killing the enemy generals. number of kills dont matter. this is a good one to take ninjas or thunder bombers or missile units on. kill the enemy general= game over.

last man standing is just the normal default game conditions we're already used to. no big changes there.

now, capture the flag is a complete hoot (hoot, for our non-english speaking friends means joy, cool, fun, sweet, kickin, rockin old time). there is a white circle of posts, sort of like a roped off area with no ropes somewhere on the map. it's big enough to put maybe 4-6 complete units into, maybe even a couple more. each team is trying to control that circle. you control it by having your own units inside and keeping the enemy out. in the setup for this style you can set up how many points it takes to win. points are awarded by controlling the circle.

we played this 2v2 and i can only imagine what a 4v4 would be like. you start the game with less than your full army. others come in as reinforcements later on. well, sometimes it gives you most of your army; the first game i only got 4 of my 16 to start with. what's more, your units dont all come in at the same place, even when first starting out. folks are scattered all over the place and the rush is on to get to the circle and start earning points.

our first game we played on a map with a coastline and the circle was decidely in favor of the defenders and they whipped our butts fairly quickly, reaching the designated point count of 50 points quite quickly. so we changed maps and played again. what a freaking brawl! it was like rival ant colonies that had all suddenly found a sugar cube at the same time! it was hilariously fun.

at first glance one might think that just hitting control a and double clicking on the middle of the circle would be the way to go, but there is actually quite a bit of tactical manuvering that can be employed here.

in our second game i took a smaller, faster, beefed up army hoping to get to the circle first and start wracking up the points. didnt work. the enemy beat me and my partner to it. and it's hell to kick someone out of that circle, so they were putting up the points quite nicely. we finally managed to boot them out and started setting up for the counter strike.

oh, btw, units never die a final death in this game, they just keep coming back to life as new reinforcements.

both my partner and i had taken kensai generals and had both beefed them up quite a bit. man, those suckers wouldnt die. i had an H3 W3 A3 kensai general and he was kicking butt in the midst of about 4 enemy units and not falling. in fact in the whole game he only went down once.

this time we played to 100 points and we managed to make a better showing of it, but we still lost. their counter strike drove us off and they got control again and stayed in long enough to get the 100 points needed.

but wow. this style is so far my favorite style.

we also played 2 ass the gen games. hehehe...i took 1 hvy cav general, 8 mong spearmen and 7 thunder bombers...rofl. you gotta be careful with those little suckers. i think i killed as many of my partner's men as i did the enemy ;)

the next game we played ass the gen again, but i think the host forgot he had that style picked cause he had 4 guns and one of them was his general and he had them all out front. i also had 4 guns and i simply used all 4 of mine to target his gun-general unit. i got 21 kills total game and it ended when i shot his general. we never even got close enough for melee or for me to use my 4 ninja units i had hidden :)

i'm not completely sure yet, but this game may just break the MUST take 16 units to win rule. with armor and weapon and morale tweaks available, it MIGHT be possible to win with fewer overall units, but have them beefed up with the bonuses. it didnt work in our capture the flag game where i only took 12, but i did like what i saw.

ok, that's kind of a summary of most of the game components. i havent done historical scenarios, i know, and i prolly wont for a while, so this is kind of the end of my review of the game. the other guys seem to be handling the stats and numbers in their posts so i'll not even bother.

oh, one last thing. fucy made a map with 2 castles! and it works! i tried to do this in stw and it wouldnt work there, but it does in the new game! very sweet! and, you can now make long walls that arent castles, but just barriers. also very nice. i'm playing around with a few of these new features in the map editor but i'm already being outpaced by the new crop of mapmakers coming up. i think we can expect some nice new ideas from folks that wanted to make them but just didnt want to be bothered by that earlier editor and its quirks. fucy's map looked very good and the 2 castles was quite a surprise.

one note to won ton here. you may be able to edit the textures and models to do your d-day map, but no one else will be able to see them, even if they have the map unless they also hack their textures and models in exactly the same way you do. that base data isnt stored with the map itself, so just giving someone your d-day map wont show them the textures and models you had to hack in other files. ya follow what i mean?

so all i can say to our friends that dont have the xpack yet...i feel yer pain. it is worth the wait, though, and we'll see you soon on the new server. i mean heck, we need some players there ;)

K.


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I'm sorry, but i never apologize.

[The Daimyo]

LOL Kraellin, you're a crazy man! You should take all of your info and put it into use here at the Org or at my site. BTW, what about that site you and the others were doing?

I'm going to play the crap outta this game tonight. I put in 5 hours last night, gonna try and do 5 more tonight. I can't update my site till tomorrow afternoon anyways, they're backing up all the hard drives for my servers.

OBTW, did you get my LargeFlatMap_1.zip file yet off of my site? It's 99% flat...left a little bump so I'd know it was mine...hehe...

Anywho, glad to see I'm not the only one in this group with the game. Perhaps I will catch you online later....then again those campaigns do look enticing! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif




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The Daimyo
Miaowara "Kakizaki" Tomokato
@ http://www.planettotalwar.com

[NinjaKilla]

Okay, K now you're sounding cocky.

http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

[Shadelord]

i am heading off to bed http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

i just spent 2 hours in the map maker and i am tired http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

I made a map already it is real simple to use even for a moron like me. I played online i lost in the mongol era and won in the japan era go figrue http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/tongue.gif

i like the x-tra's that they added it will be nice one all you euro types get in the server as well so we can have a go at it http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

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now you all have a great day because when night falls there will be hell to pay

Clan Shades Website
Shades (http://www.geocities.com/shadesofshogun/index.html)

[RageFury]

Krae i thought u were a nice bloke

...Now i merely hate you...

TELL US MORE!!!

http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

-Fury

[JAG]

capture the flag sounds awesome!! hehe

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Watch out for that. . . . . Dam too late!. . . the story of my life!

WarlordWarrior

[KukriKhan]

So Kraellin sees like 4-8 people playing multi-player WE. I bet none of them are expansion pack folks (MI), 'cause the freakin' CD Key numbers don't work (yet). Once they do work, you'll see a REAL horde in MP http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif Thanks for all the work Kraellin; very valuable info. Hope to meet you online once EA clears up the CD-key thingee for the MI expansion-packers (sounds like a football team, doesn't it?).