amritochates
10-08-2006, 09:39
All Information is sourced from this link:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=58
I just read a post at the .net forums that claims that the Demo has been released in the Subscribers only November Issue of the US Version of PC Gamer and that is the only legal way to get it so far...
Additionally someone had posted the following:
Let me start off by first saying that regardless of my source, I do have the demo and it works fine. The demo features the tutorial battle, an overview movie, the Battle of Agincourt, and the Battle of Pavia. My specs:
X850 XT PE 256 MB
2048 MB RAM
AMD 3200+
I set everything as high as possible at 1280 x 1024 and the game just looks amazing. There's no other way to describe it. I give CoH the effects and physics of course, but Medieval 2 has better looking individual soldiers and terrain. No RTW mod comes close to the detail ingame. With that said, it ran a little sluggish at all high settings, so I think I'm going to tone it down a tad just to make the general feel of the game smoother.
Onto the tutorial. The tutorial was just like Rome's. You started out on the flank, beyond a bridge, fighting a unit or two of Saxons while the main Norman force was on the other side of the river. Your general, Rufus, is eventually ordered onto the flank of the main force and that is where I stopped playing the tutorial. I'm not sure what I was missing, but I moved all of my men into position, and nothing was happening? I'm sure I missed something, but it's not like I needed the tutorial anyway. I went straight into the Battle of Agincourt after that.
Agincourt was interesting, to say the least. I know it was a scripted battle, but for the first few minutes, I did nothing. I just watched as French cav and infantry charged my lines and were slaughtered. They made no effort to flank, no effort to avoid my infantry and go for the archers. Until the second French army attacked my rear, I didn't even have to lift a finger. I pulled some infantry to the rear and then their infantry and cav poured in some more but in the end, I drove back the second army and rounded on the front and won easily. Not much to say for the AI in that battle, but it was scripted. The French did cross the muddy field and get slaughtered so I don't know. Two things I noticed. Archers do not pull their strings. That discussion we had the other day based on that screenshot... they pull nothing. Strings stay tight throughout the animation. It really doesn't look that bad though. Infantry can navigate through spikes pretty easily as well.
I haven't gotten a chance to play anything else yet, but the game feels pretty amazing. The kill animations and blood look fantastic, but my system isn't good enough to play it on the settings I set it to so I don't think I got the full experience. Sure it looked great, but things were less fluent than they should have been. I plan on going back and lowering the settings and hopefully getting a better playing experience. I guess it's looking good, but it's difficult for me to judge the critical things like the AI when the only battles available to us are scripted ones. We shall see.
EDIT UPDATE: The music is great, the sound is great. Muskets sound great. I liked Pavia better than Agincourt, but it may have just been because I was playing with more than 2 FPS. Pavia required more movement, but for some reason I feel disoriented on the battle field. I know I don't have the controls down, it's been so long since I've played Rome and I'm stuck on Company of Heroes controls.
Pavia was a lot of fun though, I can't wait till get Rodeo to mod the demo so we can make custom. Another important note, it seems as if Dismounted Knights are a separate unit than mounted knights. Kind of sucks...
Ref:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=64206
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=58
I just read a post at the .net forums that claims that the Demo has been released in the Subscribers only November Issue of the US Version of PC Gamer and that is the only legal way to get it so far...
Additionally someone had posted the following:
Let me start off by first saying that regardless of my source, I do have the demo and it works fine. The demo features the tutorial battle, an overview movie, the Battle of Agincourt, and the Battle of Pavia. My specs:
X850 XT PE 256 MB
2048 MB RAM
AMD 3200+
I set everything as high as possible at 1280 x 1024 and the game just looks amazing. There's no other way to describe it. I give CoH the effects and physics of course, but Medieval 2 has better looking individual soldiers and terrain. No RTW mod comes close to the detail ingame. With that said, it ran a little sluggish at all high settings, so I think I'm going to tone it down a tad just to make the general feel of the game smoother.
Onto the tutorial. The tutorial was just like Rome's. You started out on the flank, beyond a bridge, fighting a unit or two of Saxons while the main Norman force was on the other side of the river. Your general, Rufus, is eventually ordered onto the flank of the main force and that is where I stopped playing the tutorial. I'm not sure what I was missing, but I moved all of my men into position, and nothing was happening? I'm sure I missed something, but it's not like I needed the tutorial anyway. I went straight into the Battle of Agincourt after that.
Agincourt was interesting, to say the least. I know it was a scripted battle, but for the first few minutes, I did nothing. I just watched as French cav and infantry charged my lines and were slaughtered. They made no effort to flank, no effort to avoid my infantry and go for the archers. Until the second French army attacked my rear, I didn't even have to lift a finger. I pulled some infantry to the rear and then their infantry and cav poured in some more but in the end, I drove back the second army and rounded on the front and won easily. Not much to say for the AI in that battle, but it was scripted. The French did cross the muddy field and get slaughtered so I don't know. Two things I noticed. Archers do not pull their strings. That discussion we had the other day based on that screenshot... they pull nothing. Strings stay tight throughout the animation. It really doesn't look that bad though. Infantry can navigate through spikes pretty easily as well.
I haven't gotten a chance to play anything else yet, but the game feels pretty amazing. The kill animations and blood look fantastic, but my system isn't good enough to play it on the settings I set it to so I don't think I got the full experience. Sure it looked great, but things were less fluent than they should have been. I plan on going back and lowering the settings and hopefully getting a better playing experience. I guess it's looking good, but it's difficult for me to judge the critical things like the AI when the only battles available to us are scripted ones. We shall see.
EDIT UPDATE: The music is great, the sound is great. Muskets sound great. I liked Pavia better than Agincourt, but it may have just been because I was playing with more than 2 FPS. Pavia required more movement, but for some reason I feel disoriented on the battle field. I know I don't have the controls down, it's been so long since I've played Rome and I'm stuck on Company of Heroes controls.
Pavia was a lot of fun though, I can't wait till get Rodeo to mod the demo so we can make custom. Another important note, it seems as if Dismounted Knights are a separate unit than mounted knights. Kind of sucks...
Ref:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=64206