My verdicht about the DEMO....

[Magyar Khan]

So far, i liked the demo as a demo for the outside world. Being sure it will attract more people to this game.

---------------------------------
Gameplay is even better than we are used to.
Graphics is nice
Sound is nice
Tutorial is nice
Artwork is nice
AI still a bit stupid, at least for most of us http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

Overal, the demo is nice and worth to download although die hard Shogunisti would have limited playingfun with it.
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Some notes

I like the little flags for honourlevel, so it becomes even harder to determine the real strength of the unit when its a long distance away.

I like the way the walls tumble down. No need to improve this. Siege seems ok. esp in 4 vs 2 players i guess.

I like the mapsizes. Lets hope that teh designers made the edges and corners lower so battle focusses in the centre while attackers have room to go around.

I like the way grouping is done, since it always messes up on me the way its done in STW. Must be this damn Mongolian keyboard i guess.

I dont like the extra info with the units like "we are happy that our flanks are protected". Much of the time the info is false, it fills the beautifull battlescreen with words and it just dont add a thing. Or "we are concerned about the casualties" as if i care about casualties when the unit is sacrificed to ensure the win http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

About the AI, I read in the PC gamer something like "it was hard to make the AI more stupid". I can assure u, they managed to do this http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

I am happy with the different unitsizes. Its more realistic.

I like the way individual soldiers get fragmented over the map.

In the demo Battle of Jaffa i noticed how easy the enemy units routed when i charged in with my h6 royal knights. It feels if units are more vulnerable for a rear attack.

Routbug or similar not detected yet.

I noticed that for each battle the screen for a split second jumps to windows.
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I am sure that TWm will be a big hitter, STW will die in some months.... Its time to redress our clansites and help CA hyping this game amongst our friends.

CA has to be sure that we get all things that enables the online multiplay community to do their own linked battles and campaigns.

Sainbanuu
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To be tested more....

How marching/running effects fatigue....



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http://home-4.worldonline.nl/%7Et543201/web-mongol/mongol-images/stampnew.jpg Quote All land from sunrise to sunset is given to us.[/QUOTE] Quote Before we slaughter you in battle, we herd you around like cattle.[/QUOTE] www.mongols.club.tip.nl (http://www.mongols.club.tip.nl) www.totalwar.club.tip.nl (http://www.totalwar.club.tip.nl) www.campaign.club.tip.nl (http://www.campaign.club.tip.nl)

[Orda Khan]

I share the same concern about marching and fatigue. It seemed no different to me so the thought of marching heavily armoured knights around a larger map makes me wonder.
Two of my maps, Orda's Khanate and Realm of the Horde are large maps. I have ended up a few times arriving 'quite tired' and these were my cav. My Korean infantry were 'worried their Khan is gonna kill them before they reach the enemy'.I have mentioned before that marching tires your men too fast.They should tire when fighting but should be able to march a bit further.

I did like the horn that sounded the retreat for Saladin's army though.
...........Orda


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" Send us your ambassadors and thus we shall judge whether you wish to be at peace with us or at war..if you make war on us the Everlasting God, who makes easy what was difficult and makes near what was far, knows that we know what our power is."

[FasT]

Agreed men do tire too FasT http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

[the Count of Flanders]

my impression: H6 royal knights are dead hard. You have 20 of them and I think they could have won the battle on their own, first they rout a 120 man strong unit of cavalry and then they kill Saladin and rout his bodyguard without having suffered a single casualty in return!!! The rest of the army was running soon after.

[Kraellin]

a fair appraisal, magyar.

i kinda liked the morale info, myself. it may or may not have been accurate about why they were this way or that, but it did give you an idea that this or that unit was hurting morale wise and that you needed to be cautious with this unit.

also, i'm reserving judgement on the ai till the full game. sometimes ai's in tuts are hardwired to demonstrate certain things, so the verdict on that one is sitll out for me. my impression of the ai on jaffa was that they were trying to re-create saladin's actions during that battle, so the ai may have been tempered for that specific battle. we'll see.

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Darkmoor_Dragon]

The demo is purely a demo game and not a particularly fair representation of the AI (read on).

Bear in mind that the Campaign AI is affected by a number of things:

Level of game (Easy - Expert) and the quality, experience and Vices (or virtues) of the AI General.

Without knowing the Valour, Level and all his V&Vs its hard to say what "level" or "competence" of AI you are fighting.

(BTW I've just come back from a day at CA playing the latest build [up again from the last one] and have lots more info - particularly got some MP questions for you guys - more articles and details once I've transcribed tapes and i'll post URLs of new info asap)

Re: Tiredness - heavy troops tire far more rapidly on arid maps than lush temperate ones or in the rain, snow etc - the difference being quite dramatic and a real tactical challenge in some (to pick the right troops for the conditions)

[This message has been edited by Darkmoor_Dragon (edited 06-26-2002).]

[Sir Kuma of The Org]

Keep on posting Darkmoor_Dragon http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

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La vie est un don.

[vyanvotts]

you dont like the extra info that the units give about what they are feeling and stuff? i think its a good idea....... what are u talking about it covers the battlefeild, its like a line....it hardly covers anything?? you say it doest add anything when it does... it tells you if there flanks are protected, if they are happy that there flanks are protected they will fight better, if they are worried about the casulties they will have low morale and fight worse, it adds more tactics to the game, i have no idea why u dont like this magyar khan

[This message has been edited by vyanvotts (edited 06-26-2002).]

[Major Robert Dump]

It seems a little unrealistic that the morale detail is so great during battle. Its not like all the units had cellphones and can call the general to give him an update.

In STW and MI the general only knows what he sees. He knows thay are wavering but must figure out "why" they are wavering. I like this appproach better.

[vyanvotts]

Quote Originally posted by Major Robert Dump:
It seems a little unrealistic that the morale detail is so great during battle. Its not like all the units had cellphones and can call the general to give him an update.

In STW and MI the general only knows what he sees. He knows thay are wavering but must figure out "why" they are wavering. I like this appproach better.[/QUOTE]

but the general flying above the battle map, being able to see all of the battle feild from a confy "god-like veiw" is the height of realism, we could sit here all day picking at small things, its been added for gameplay, IMO i think it adds a tactical advantadge to the player.

[Fast Death]

Both have valid points.... how about a way to switch that feature off. My opinion, I don't like ANY pop-up words or boxes during a "real-time" battle. Even in STW, with the general fleeing and general killed box.

[Wavesword]

If I and my hatamato (huscarls whatever) are dead I want to know about it dammit. Particularly if it's a victory condition.

[vyanvotts]

and if i have stuck there generals head on a spike, i damn well want to know about it so i can grin to my self!

[MagyarKhans Cham]

The info may be usefull for some, esp new gamers. but i dont think the online vets will be helped with it, esp not in the long term. For our Khan the info is just wasted and just eats some clockcycles http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

perhaps a toggle?

[Orda Khan]

I think Fastdeath refers to the annoying large box that says 'your allies general is fleeing' or 'your general has been killed'.
This is not the end of the battle so messing about moving this thing is a pain and if you leave it your view is hampered. Some commentator gives you the sad (or good) news so I agree this is plenty.

What I hate is when he says 'let us use his skull as a drinking cup' and then the defeat music kicks in. Now that's irony!!!
........Orda

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" Send us your ambassadors and thus we shall judge whether you wish to be at peace with us or at war..if you make war on us the Everlasting God, who makes easy what was difficult and makes near what was far, knows that we know what our power is."

[DrNo]

Well on the realism front of flying above the map and 'cellphone' info I think it's ok.
The alternative would be to have the sound effects of the information coming to your general and having a FPS view.
But then the view would hardly be as good as reality. Ordering your units where you want them to go would be a nightmare, as true 3D that represents what we see in normal life, cannot be handled by PC's yet.

Certainly in 5 years time we can expect to see FPS strategy games and that will be great, but for now I will settle for the best and that's MTW!


Fatigue as Darkmoor said is great in MTW. Try the siege battle from the demo and just watch your knights wilt away down to very tired without even moving them.
Go outside when it's 30 C with a couple of jumpers on and you will get the same effect.

The campaign game is going to be about applying the right troops in the right region rather than which is the best overall unit to use. I just hope it's not too easy for a European army to recruit Desert units, and there is a good chance of them rebelling if you do.

Darkmoor there's a question for you:

Do units every rebel during an actual battle and switch sides?

[BarryNoDachi]

i agree that the AI was a bit er... stupid and "flanks protected thing" maybe not very useful to an experienced player like yourself magy, but how many times have you played a less experienced player on-line and after they say "why did my men run?" if this comment is acurate it can hopefully open ppl's eyes a little wider http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif maybe even trigger some creativity http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

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Clan Kenchikuka (http://www.totalwar.org/kenchikuka)

[Darkmoor_Dragon]

Damn good question Dr No! (Wish I'd thought of that) - afaik no they dont/cant.

The overidding impression I got yesterday from CA though was that they had gone through a massive list of "things that might be cool/fun" (a lot dragged off forums like this) and then retained what worked well and canned the rest.

Im not sure if that was ever an idea but I know that even know they are still messing around with more and more options - the difference in the builds between the last two weeks was tremendous - especially on the Campaign map side of things.

As far as the info-blurbs in battle - For " experienced gamers" its intuitive, but for neophytes it isnt the no brainer we think it is "Why did my men run away?" is a problem for some and i think the battle-status-tips do help more than they hinder.

There was a French Jounralist at CA yesterday who had never even seen Shogun (believe it or not) but within an hour he was holding his own in a 4 way MP battle. He loved the battle unit tips and in fact wanted MORE of them and MORE detail - things like showing tips on enemy units (what they are, there advantages and disadvantages) and precisely what stat bonuses they get from "feeling safe on the hill" etc.

As with all of these things there is discussion within CA as well as here - those for and those against - Im not mad keen on the stats being shown but i know many who would love it - maybe a toggle is on the cards as they have added some excellent toggles in the campaign map (you can now auto-build, auto-train, auto-tax, auto-assign-titles, show comp moves, hide tooltips)

CA really seem to be trying to make the game easier for all types of players by enabling a lot of toggles and options - I wouldn't be surprised to see one for unit-status-tips.

[Kraellin]

yup. i've always hated those pop-up boxes also. i dont mind the info, but sticking it in the middle of my screen while i'm having a click fest with units is not wanted or needed. i wouldnt have minded a small command line type box that showed this sort of info on an ongoing basis or simply making that sort of info all with sound, but sound and a pop-up? nah. this also applies to the deployment phase. no telling how often i've auto-deployed because that popup comes up at just the wrong moment.

K.

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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[Magyar Khan]

so why not toggle the info, a little checkbox with header like

"detail unit info" O

i am sure that can be programmed http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif

in the end most lasting newbees end up as veterans and will know why their people fled.

[Krasturak]

Gah! Darkmoor Dragon! Gah!

Please tell us more!

Gnish! Gnash! Gnii!!! Gniiiiiii!!!!!

[Fast Death]

Right on Kraellin !

I really don't care about what some "French Journalist" had to say.... but I do agree with a "toggle" or switch for experienced players. Voice queues would suffice.

These messages are misleading and they bring about over-confidence in new players that come to rely on these prompts.

Which brings about an interesting mod, you start out with the pop-ups and sound ( say at rank 2 or 3 ) and once you reach 4… they stop. Because, hopefully by now you have learned “some” battlefield tactics.

[Darkmoor_Dragon]

I tend to agree with you guys - but remember its a wide audience - I mentioned the French journo as an example of how wide the desires will be - i think a toggle is the answer mind you. Although even wihtout a toggle I cant say it'd bother me much and i think as a general feature its a V Good addition.

[Fast Death]

Cheers!

[KukriKhan]

Great discussion and info; myself, I'm jazzed by the easier groupings control. I fumbled so much with groupings in STW & MI, that I finally gave up on it & tried micromanaging, to the detriment of my game, unless I limited the amount of units.

I'm also hyped on the differentiating climate: from desert to forest to plain...making unit selection even more important (and the maps fantastic).

[Puzz3D]

That grouping bar is nice. I don't know how many times I clicked between two unit icons when I was trying to select a group in STW and WE/MI.

The morale status reports can seem out of place. All the units are "Happy" as that Saladin horde comes over the rise. No way would they have been happy faced with that. Maybe "confident" that there flanks are covered would be a better word. Most of your units in the demo start out as impetuous which makes it pretty hard to loose since the units will fight until almost no men are left in them.

I didn't even try to Kill Saladin in the Battle of Jaffa, but he died anyway after some tense fighting. Immediately, all his troops ran. I won that first time through with 850 kills, 500 men taked and 250 losses.

The battle wouldn't end. Eventually, I found 92 Saladin Mercenary cavalry behind the castle. When I sent some units back there, the Saladin unit moved to the back corner along the beach (top right on mini-map), and kept trying to go out across the water. The way I got them to come out of the corner was by sending my crossbow unit as close as lossible and exposing its flank. The 92 cav came out of the corner and routed. Those Saladin units seem to have very low morale.

The game works with my 3dfx v3/3000 and v1.03 driver, but the crossbow unit graphics had some red glich hovering over each men.

I had a unit rout back towards the castle wall, and after getting stuck along the wall for quite some time trying to run away, the unit just melted into the wall and was gone.

The game speed is considerably slower than we are use to with WE/MI. I found the bright red color of the units a bit hard to take.

I was able to get substantial kills with the seige weapons on enemy units. I often saw 5 men to drop with one hit. The seige weapons seem fairly innaccurate, but they do take down walls with only a few hits. The towers take longer mostly because there are more misses.

I was able to extract a cavalry unit from the fighting without the leader having to turn around, move to the rear and have the unit form up behind him before moving out. What happened was each man turned in place as he disengaged his individual fighting and moved out to the rear. The unit leader was one of the last to get out, but the whole unit disengaged rather well, and I was able to reform it and charge back in to the melee.

MizuYuuki ~~~

[tootee]

Just finish the demo and my feelings are:

1. Don't really find the group bar useful, maybe I'm not use to it yet. I don't have much problem selecting group using ctrl+click *or is it alt+click* in STW, but cant do it in MTW for it just select individual unit. But it solves alot of problems relating to selecting sub-units within groups to form into another group *w/o the need to ungroup 1st*. Also combining two groups into one is easy now.

2. Units disengage real nice, and react to change of targetting fast even when engaged.

3. Now the group formations maybe useful in MP.

4. Like the different unit sizes.

5. Like the way spears have different stat vs cav.

6. Don't like the units color. Sprites quality as per STW, but I still think the one s in STW look best.

7. Didn't find the siege battle fun.

8. Loves the terrain tiles are in .tga formation! *dont think its like that in STW* And so many of them!

9. Cav in wedge can actually cut through a formation, neat.

10. Stack command still 'buggy'. If current executed command in stack is a walk to nav point, using [run] still don't make unit run to it.

11. Selecting units looks more window applications like. Shift+click one unit on left, and shift+click another on right will select all inbetween (and even if [enter] after shift+click on 1st unit, it is in memory). Ctrl+click select indiv units. These are just like window file manager.

[Hirosito]

i was worried about the colours cos everyone was talking about them just finished the deom and i have to say in the midts of battle i couldn't give a f*** what colour my troops were. maybe when you have more than 1v1 it might get hard on the eyes.

battle of jaffa was quite easy prolly because the morale was so low for the opponent.

it seemed to me that archers in general and maybe genoese sailors in particular were not too shabby in hand to hand. can someone confirm this (especially if sailor are better than archers.)

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Hirosito Mori

Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

[DrNo]

GenoseSailors are 1 point better in h-t-h than Archers but still not good.
The reason they perform well and the last battle is so easy is becuase of the weapon and armour upgrades all the troops have, along with the honour advantage.

[Orda Khan]

I agree Puzz 3D. Something like 'more than a little bit worried but realising there aint much option' may have been more accurate or even 'need the toilet now'
I had 102 ghulam cav that got stuck around the side of the walls. I had all my units left but most were marching the enemy off the map. The only units I had nearby were Genoese sailors and crossbows. I actually routed the ghulam cav with these two units.
My favourite has to be the little horn that sounds the retreat. I love it
.........Orda

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" Send us your ambassadors and thus we shall judge whether you wish to be at peace with us or at war..if you make war on us the Everlasting God, who makes easy what was difficult and makes near what was far, knows that we know what our power is."

[FasT]

Groupings i not noticed how this has changed?
all i noticed is there arent any gaps between units in the icon bar?

[Puzz3D]

Another thing I noticed is that your unit will relentlessly pursue a routed enemy unit. In WE/MI your unit often stops chasing the unit it routed, and you have to keep giving attack commands to keep up the pursuit. The downside is that you can end up with many units running off after routers away from the main battle if you forget to check on them. Use of hold position may be more important now.

MizuYuuki ~~~

[Cheetah]

They will give a chase even if you have put them into hold position. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/eek.gif

[tootee]

Another thing I don't like is the new group drawing. Try this. Get 3 units of same size. Make each a different shape (1xsingle row, 1 sq, 1xsingle column). Select these 3 and drag-draw.. stupid resultant formation. Still prefer STW equal shape sizes.

The one improvement that I'll like to see is a more reasonable position of units after drawing. It should correspond to the order of selection of the units. Since [group] order units left to right in order of selection, and we draw them out, the units should also do so correspondingly. MTW still have STW funny order of units.

The group bar is too small and thus doesn't serve it purposes. Selecting the group by clicking on it is so tedious now in the heat of battle. STW's ctrl+click on any unit in the group to select the group is easier as the area to click is much bigger. My suggestion is now alt+click on any unit in the group will select the group, since this key combo doesn't have a function defined.

My suggestions:

MTW current:
1. ctrl+click = selecting units (like file manager)
2. shift+click = selecting units including inbetween (like file manager)
3. ctrl+click_on_groupbar = selecting groups
4. click_on_groupbar = selecting particular group


Add new:
5. alt+click_on_a_unit_in_group = selecting the particular group the unit is in
6. ctrl+alt+click = selecting groups like (3)

change:
7. drawing back to stw style of almost same shaped units
8. selected group of units, when draw out, should be position left to right in order of selection, earliest on left --> like the resultant grouped unit icons when [group].

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tootee the goldfish,
headmaster of Shogun-Academy (http://shogun-academy.tripod.com)
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[This message has been edited by tootee (edited 06-28-2002).]

[This message has been edited by tootee (edited 06-28-2002).]

[MagyarKhans Cham]

valuable info guys, keep posting

[tootee]

Maybe the game designer at CA can think of useful functions to map to this keys combo, as they are really easy and convenient:

shift, alt, ctrl, left_click/right_click

These will give us a total of 14 combos.

[JAG]

i think the demo was v good . . especially the siege mechinism .. i think that there will be many hard fights overa castle in single player http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif


i am looking forward to the release huge amounts!

------------------
"...but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive,
and the other would accept war rather than let it perish,
and the war came."


Abraham Lincoln, 2nd Inaugural Address
4 March 1865

[hach]

In one of the First Missions the Knight Cavalry defeated Spearmen very easily.

Is'nt that going against the Old Stone-Scissors-Paper Formula.

I appreciate Cavalry can win against Spearmen depending on a number of things'but the Spearmen routed really quickly.

Hach

[Wavesword]

Stone paper scissors is virtually broken by now. Historically longbows slaughtered cavalry better than the guns we're used to. Crossbows were outlawed by the pope because they chewed up knights relatively easily. Also lightly armed infantry could kill full plate armoured units by weak points in the vizor and armpit- often the opposition worked this out mid-battle! Then again in the crusades tiny cavalry armies slaughtered hordes of poorly armed conscripts with ease, though this was really a question of morale. Cavalry's advantage was when it was something strange and new to the opposition- as the aztec fear of 'centaurs' shows.

[Wavesword]

(Can't see my post to edit it!)
At the battle of Poitiers the French learned the lesson of Crecy and dismounted their knights so as to have an ordered attack rather than a horse slaughterhouse. In this case the English charged them down with cavalry as they tired, the longbows being insufficiently effective on this occasion. Terrain, weather, and troop quality will be more important than the troop category this time around I think.

[Emp. Conralius]

As far as the Antioch battle goes, why do the mosques and shacks seem to shrink when bombarded?

[Momotaro Asakura]

Hi All, yeah I noticed that too about the buildings just cumbling when they were hit only once or twice, and even when hit by debry from shattering walls. Maybe they were built on soft sand.

[Momotaro Asakura]

Generally speeking I felt there where many good points about the demo.
I liked the
1. Siege, using the catapults etc to hammer defenders/walls was fun. The overall visuals of the castles was impressive.
2. The general quality of landscape and features as the grouping of units, click and drag and formations has definately improved since STW.
I don`t like
1. The fact that castle defenders cannot use their castle walls to full advantage. Being not able to mount the castle walls and use this height advantage against attackers is a big let down. So defenders just have to hide behind the walls and then if they do that they are prone to falling walls and debry falling on them. I hope the defenders will be able to have some large balistic weapons of their own to try and balance the situation.
2. The AI seems a little strange, in the one of the battles where I was up against 3 units. The last unit standing was a group of spearmen and against my cavalry they should have won easily. I just circled them after they moved to open ground and attacked from the rear. The AI did not even turn the men to face me head on.
3. AND why can`t the general/king hide in the trees? What is the point of this?
4. Call me a diehard STW fan but I liked the sound of the arrows flyng through the air and they were more visable. In the MTW demo I could tell from the left hand icons what the my men were being hit but visualy
it does not have any cinematic impact.

[MagyarKhans Cham]

Hi Momo, ru the old Kenchi Momo?

[Momotaro Asakura]

Yes the one and only, Magy! How are you and your little one these days? Seems such a long time since we were in Kenchi together!



[This message has been edited by Momotaro Asakura (edited 06-29-2002).]

[youssof_Toda]

Demo seems good for introducing new ppl to the game. looks nice and music is ok. maps look much better, hopefully the developers take corner and edge camping into account this time so make the maps somewhat bigger and lower the altitude of the edges. for me personally i thought it was worth playing it to take a look but 2bad you can run through the demo in less than an hour.

[Hirosito]

the decreasing size of buildings seems to depict the fact that these were upgraded buildings where their upgrades are being destroyed

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Hirosito Mori

Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

[Emp. Conralius]

I agree with Momotaro! Not being able to mount the walls is a definite turn-off. But other than that the castle sieges are very entertaining! Constantinople is a province in the final game, I wonder if can siege the city itself.

[Gregoshi]

Regarding destroying buildings: my 9 year old son just discovered that regular units (spear, archer, etc) can destroy wooden (non-stone?) structures. If you select a unit and move over the shack in the north edge of the Antioch Castle battle, the mouse pointer turns to a sword. The same holds true to the outer, wooden stockade of the castle itself. The men throw torches at the structure to destroy it. Very cool. It is a terribly slow process though.

Upon exiting the demo, I then noticed (hindsight) the "burn villages" item in the features list. I imagine this is one way to increase your dread rating in the game.

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Gregoshi
A Member of Clan Doragon

[Orda Khan]

Yup...My boy found the same........Orda

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" Send us your ambassadors and thus we shall judge whether you wish to be at peace with us or at war..if you make war on us the Everlasting God, who makes easy what was difficult and makes near what was far, knows that we know what our power is."

[Gregoshi]

LOL

Leave it to kids to do the unthinkable. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

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Gregoshi
A Member of Clan Doragon

[LordTed]

Interesting comments so far, does this mean we are making it live up to its expectations or are we starting to hype it a little. I can,t say as i haven't tried the demo yet.

[Emp. Conralius]

man, once you try the demo, you'll be playing it non-stop. I'm gonna have to try out that torches thing. I think the final game wll be a whole lot better than the turorial demo. I wonder what the guys at the Creative Assembly will think of next!

[Taohn]

I'd like to see the cavaly charge a bit deeper into non-spear units. Also, how far the knights smash through the ranks should depend on how much buildup there was in the charge. So, if I charge a line of peasants with 60 somthing chivalric knights, in wedge formation, from a screen away, they should pass completely through that portion of the unit, leaving a gap the size of the rear of the wedge. But if I charged the same formation of peasants from half a screen away the knights would only pass through a few rows. Of course going right through should only work for non-spear units and even then higher quality troops would be less susceptible.

Spears also need a little more toughening against cavalry. They hold a line well but they kill really slow. The demo dosen't say anything about the effects of weather for people new to the game, but other than that it was excellent. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif



[This message has been edited by Taohn (edited 07-01-2002).]

[Emp. Conralius]

Like I said before it's just the demo. To my understanding, Activision is ironing out all the bugs and tweaking portions of the game as we speak. But yes, even in the demo they could have made heavy cavalry charges have more push. Everytime I attack with a wedge formation, my men only penetrate about 2-3 rows deep, while the wider end of my formation seem to wait until their comrades up front die.

[Hirosito]

well basically there some damn strong cav units now so that the paper scissor stone thing wont always apply. i dont doubt there will be infantry that chews up cav as well. but judging on the strength of gothic knights etc. i'm really geared up to see the HRE's teutonic knights they must be killing machines.

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Hirosito Mori

Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

[Taohn]

You're right about the rock-paper-scissors thing, and I'm glad they diversified it more, but 60 men with long spears, on massive horses, charging at max speed....no matter what, they should completely break through a non-spear unit if they make a long, uninterrupted charge on open grond. (not uphill or in forests of course)

I don't remember exactly, but in the Shogun demo (downloadable one, not the one that shipped with the game)weren't there 3 different maps for the last level "first encounter" ?

[Taohn]

Oh, about that opening cinematic, they should have posted it for download separately to save some download time for us poor 56kers. took me 25 hours. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/redface.gif

[ShinKamiizumi]

I've enjoyed reading the info so far waiting for my demo to download. I'm guessing the AI level will have an impact on the ratio of those who play campaign SP, Multi, or both. Aside from official testers, where else would the developers look for the most incisive feedback? The previews mentioned that the final version will have a couple of editors. I'd be interested to know more about them.

......50% d/l so far 8hrs and counting!

May the Ryu be with you...Kamii
Clan Shinkage (http://clan-shinkage.com)
http://electricninja.150m.com/images/smred_crest.jpg

[This message has been edited by ShinKamiizumi (edited 07-01-2002).]

[Papewaio]

Quote Originally posted by Hirosito:
well basically there some damn strong cav units now so that the paper scissor stone thing wont always apply. i dont doubt there will be infantry that chews up cav as well. but judging on the strength of gothic knights etc. i'm really geared up to see the HRE's teutonic knights they must be killing machines.

[/QUOTE]

Teutonic Knight
RUN_SPEED( 20 ), CHARGE_SPEED( 22 ), CHARGE_BONUS( 8 ), MELEE_BONUS( 5 ), DEFENCE_BONUS( 5 ), ARMOUR_LEVEL( 7 ), HONOUR_LEVEL( 8 ),

Gothic Knight
RUN_SPEED( 12 ), CHARGE_SPEED( 16 ), CHARGE_BONUS( 4 ), MELEE_BONUS( 3 ), DEFENCE_BONUS( 7 ), ARMOUR_LEVEL( 9 ), HONOUR_LEVEL( 8 ),

I suppose you could just change the name of the unit in the file settings to see how well teutonic knights run...from the stats they are faster and lighter armed then the gothic knights. But the teutonics are better at melee then the gothics so they will kill faster, except for the gothics charges are more effective.

[Hirosito]

how come the gothics charge better?

------------------
Hirosito Mori

Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

[Emp. Conralius]

Im a little curious, are the HRE's Teutonic Knights on foot like in AOE2 or are they mounted? From what Sir Kum has told us the HRE by far has thy advantage in Europe. They start out with most of Germany and the Low Countries, and they became more technilogically sophisticated much faster than theother European nations.

[Papewaio]

Quote Originally posted by Hirosito:
how come the gothics charge better?

[/QUOTE]

whoops worse much worse....

[pdoan8]

I won the Battle of Jaffa by capturing the enemy leader. I also captured some 300 enemy soldiers. What can I do with these captives? For the leader, I can release him for a big ransom. How about the soldiers? Can I have them serve in my army? Or intergrate them into the population? Enslave them? Use them as practice tagets for my archers? Otherwise, the extra column says "men captured" in the battle report seems to be useless.

In the battle of Antioch, I had 2 trebuchets deployed next to each other. One of them fired off all ammo then the crew just stand around do nothing. The other one, most men get killed and only 2 left. Two men are not enough to operate the engine, so the ammo level is still almost full. Can I have the crew, who are standing around nearby doing nothing, to refill/replace the depleted crew and be able to continue firing the engine? It seems that I can't get the crew to abandon the engine if it still has some ammo.

[This message has been edited by pdoan8 (edited 07-03-2002).]

[Hirosito]

cornelius the teutonic knights shall be on horseback.

pdoan, i think all men captured can be ransomed or you may execute them there and then thus raising your dread level.

about the crews you are right it sucks that other crews cant help depleted ones, at least crews of the same siege engine should be able to help each other.

------------------
Hirosito Mori

Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

[Flame of Udun]

Which one is the General in the Battle of Jaffa? hehe i was too busy admiring the great scenes of gore and death to notice http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif Seriously though the Camels seem to be very weak and the Saracens routed like 6 times before the did the final charge (i finished the battle with 1000+ men killed 225 men lost with some 250 men taken)

The battle of Antioch was great bombing the crap out of those buildings was fun

[This message has been edited by Flame of Udun (edited 07-03-2002).]

[Choco]

I am just in the middle of my demo run. So far so good.

However I already have a question:

The camera moves nicely and is easy to control but I am already wishing a zoom in/zoom out feature

The mini map is nice, but It would be great to be able to zoom in-out to see more of the battlefield instead of having to run the camera from one point to another.

Perhaps I am missing something here and all we will get is the demo's current fixed zoom, or perhaps that zoom feature is already in the game and I haven't find it yet.

Well back to testing the demo http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[Emp. Conralius]

I think the game physics work graet, even in the demo. After downloading the Hundred Years War Mod, I awaited the French attack. Then, with plenty of open terrain they charged at me, I figured that a solid human chain of Feudal Men-at-Arms and Feadal Sergeants would surely stop the Gothic Knight's charge (they had maces), but, believe it or not, the momentum built up by the French totally broke through my lines! Only my sergeants could put up a descent fight!

[Hirosito]

choco use the '*' and '/' keys to go up and down you can also tilt the camera with +and-

------------------
Hirosito Mori

Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

[Kocmoc]

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,

this 20 heavy cav (knights)...WOWOWOW, what the hell....?!

my first thougths are...

unit colors should be more different, its hard to see wich unit it is! if u a bit far away its impossible to see a difference between infantry units...

the fatique a bit to fast.

gamespeed still to fast.

i dont like the extra info, moral (with this units) is heavy....very easy routs!

koc

------------------
Grey Wolves (http://www.totalwar.club.tip.nl/)

[MagyarKhans Cham]

Dear orlok koc, goto teh .adf battlefiles in jaffa battle u will see the knights are h6 and all enemies h0

if u rename teh files by chaninging richard into alladina nd alladin into richard u can play same scenario as turks

[Emp. Conralius]

The Civalric Foot Knight get tired just by standing around in the desert! Routes happen to fast, very frustrating! On the Greece mission, as soon as my knights barely touched the Byzantine infantry, and they routed almost immediately. Though I still enjoyed the demo very much. Im not the type to point ou all the bad pointsand minor technicalities.

[ElmarkOFear]

I just played the demo and think the game will be good, but nothing seriously different from what we are used to. There will be many more units available and this will be nice. I agree on too much info. on troop morale (too wordy). I DO like the info. that lets you know your general unit is adding morale to units when he is near them. A better way however to put this info. on the screen would be to do it with icons like in Gettysburg by Sid Meier. The icon bar let you know if you were concealed, had a general unit nearby, had one or both flanks covered, had a unit covering your rear flank etc. . . all of these added to the morale of your individuals units. MTW could accomplish all of this info. on the flag (standards) at the bottom of the screen for each unit. Easier and not too wordy, I never have time to read anything during battle anyways. HEHE but then again, I am slow!! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[Hirosito]

knights in the desert are gonna tire no matter what you do and i think that's good but still they shouldn't tire as quickly

------------------
Hirosito Mori

Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

[tootee]

maybe the knights ram their women too much the night b4 the battle http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif