One thing we don't need is a click fest
.......Orda
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One thing we don't need is a click fest
.......Orda
Quote:
Originally Posted by frogbeastegg
Then perhaps it's the unit commander talking to his men, like I said.
Few other things - the map size seems pretty much the same as in MTW, and when I clicked on "assume AI command" or something for my skirmishers the game froze!
1. Agreed, definately not the worst music for a game, but not as classy as the Shogun one. We have yet to hear the music for other factions as well, though, and a lot of different tracks.
2. See GFX's post, it is in fact the general ordering.
3. The camera is far superior to the MTW one, imo, but just enable 'general camera view'. The tilting doesnt annoy me at all, and I can better control the camera here.
4. Agreed, units are fast. What I have thought is this: we only experienced one battlefield, with set units, so too early to say how this works in the actual game, however, for the demo it is too fast. Also, a simple mod can just reduce speed for all units by two or something suitable.
5. Well, it is a DEMO (demostration) it is not supposed to be a full game, be glad that it COULD be hexed ~;)
6. Again, you are correct. But untill proper testing in the actual game, it is too early to say.
7. Does it really matter? You can use your mouse if it is too hard to locate the p.
8. Well, he is o k for utterly new players to the game, but it is nice he can go away.
9. Arrows, be gone!
10. I like the fighting, try zooming in and you will see fighting like you've never seen before!
Good input fenir ~:)
Just a few quick questions i forgot to enter..........
1. Is there someone new in charge of the developement of the game?
2. Are they American, no offence intended just asking.
3. Mr R.T (godlike) Smith, i would hazard a guess is not working on this game?
IF any CA person can answer these, i would be most grateful.
thank you in advance,
fenir ~:)
thank you Sjakihata,
I should have mentioned, this is only pre look, as it is only a take off the Demo itself.
I do expect the full game, to be a .....perhaps more polished affair. For want of a better way to put it.
But then again, a demo is what is released to sell the game.
fenir
As for the camera, put it on total war and it's great....
Wow I just found a really cool thing.
Zoom in on one of your units or on any enemy unit as they charge into battle and follow them. It sorta looks like you're looking over their shoulder as they charge into battle. Looks really awesome with horses because of the awesome charge effect.
I have come to the conclusion that I want a pet elephant... with armor...
My only problem with elephants is that they must have super-low morale. After the initial charge into a battalion of infantry my elephants immediately rout. then again that might be realistic (I've never seen an elephant attacking people before...).
I'm pretty sure that's real Nightcrawler. You'd be pretty ticked off if a bunch of little guys were stabbing you and shooting you. Besides, they can't be invincible, than that would be no good (for obvious reasons, I'd think).
Although I too experienced a few things Im not really comfortable with (stupid arrows!), Im FAR more impressed by all the thousands of little changes they put in. For example:
Cavalry charges. They look a lot more realistic, charge _through_ the unit and recharge again. They have tons of new animations (I even had a running unit of Numidians JUMPING over my triarii! The result was 6 dead horses, but 2 guys made it to the line), and are very effective. Sacred band is overpowered, though.
And so on. The new animations (MTW only had 5 or so per unit) are great and the special abilities the strawberies on the cake. The music is all right. I usually put on some of my own anyway. The unit repeating orders is actually useful to locate it. The accents are horrible (which goover decided to give the Romans an Australian accent??), I hope they can be changed before the release. All in all, I really like the demo however limited it is. It promises great gameplay, and Im dying to try out the testudo!
And in answer of Fenir:
1. No, I doubt it. They've planned this game from the start of STW, and I assume they've worked on it with the same crew for years.
2. They have an office in Brittain and one in Australia, so no, they are absolutely no Americans.
3. Dunno :undecided:
You said unit commander or general; I was replying to the general part (as in it can't be him so it'd have to be the unit's officer). Sorry for any confusion. ~:)Quote:
Originally Posted by GFX707
Regarding the red/orange rays that flash when a unit is hit by arrow fire, it may be an ATI graphics problem. I have an ATI 9700 TX with the 4.9 (beta) drivers and DirectX9c that I installed to (try to) address some issues with Doom 3. So far, only people with ATI cards have complained about those nasty rays.
About the music, it may well have ended half way through the battle, it just seemed to play on for a long time. Maybe I just didn't notice it had stopped. It was about 4am when I was playing it.
Whether for good or ill, I think it is too quick to make any kind of final judgement on the demo or the game. Give yourself a couple of days to get used to the changes before giving a :thumbsup: or :thumbsdown: . There is quite a bit to take in with just a few plays of the demo.
lol, don't worry about it! I was just trying to clear it up....Quote:
Originally Posted by frogbeastegg
I also get those orange bursts of light (look like lots of stretchy polygons, exactly like in that screenshot you posted) Radeon 8500 here.
I think if we all frantically bitch at CA they will slow the speed down a little in time for release! You have no time to enjoy the battle because you have to constantly pause the game so your entire army doesn't disappear in the time it takes for you to order them!
If they could slow it down to just a tad above MTW I think we would all be happy....speed seems to be the number one complaint!
the best thing is that i never played battles in MTW, so i wont be dissapointed by battles in this game - i am wierd for the strategy map aspect
also - i just bought a new dell pc with the specs (i starred the importnat stuff) i was wondering how the game will run in an experts opinion:
---Dimension 8400
Pentium® 4 Processor 530 with HT Technology (3GHz, 800 FSB), Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition Qty: 1
Unit Price: $1,268.00
Dimension 8400 -----
***Pentium® 4 Processor 530 with HT Technology (3GHz, 800 FSB)
***Memory 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz (2x512M)
Keyboard Dell ® Quietkey ® Keyboard
Monitor 17 in (16 in viewable,.27dp) E773c CRT Monitor
***Video Card 128MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) ATI Radeon™ X300 SE
Hard Drive 160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
Floppy Drive and Additional Storage Devices 3.5 in Floppy Drive and 64MB Dell USB Memory Key
Operating System Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
Mouse Dell® 2-button scroll mouse]
Network Interface Integrated Gigabit Ethernet
Modem 56K PCI Data/Fax Modem
CD ROM/DVD ROM Dual Drives: 16x DVD-ROM Drive + 16x DVD+RW/+R w/ dbl layer write capable
Sound Card Sound Blaster® Live! 24-bit ADVANCED HD™ Audio
Speakers No Speaker Option
Productivity Software Productivity Pack including WordPerfect®
Security Software Norton Internet Security™, 90 day trial
Digital Music Dell Jukebox - easy-to-use music player and CD burning software
Digital Photography Paint Shop™ Pro® Trial plus Photo Album™ Starter Edition
Limited Warranty, Services and Support Options 1 Year Limited Warranty plus 1 Year At-Home Service
Dial-up Internet Access 6 Months of America Online Membership Included
Personal Finance Software Microsoft® Money 2004 Standard
Dell Media Experience Dell Media Experience
FREE Dell 720 Color Printer with 1 Yr Advanced Exchange Service Qty: 1
Unit Price: $0.00
Overall its ok, well it looks good at least. The important stuff for me is online and theres still no way to know if CA will program out the simple problems we have now in MTW.
3 points however:
- Is it so hard for CA to leave the basic controls the same/implement a choice to use the same basic Totalwar control options i.e use left mouse button, dragging out lines, swivelling the grouped units direction around???(Please fix this before this goes gold!)
- is there no rally button?? is this automatic now?
- selecting different grouped units - the old system of having a bar over the icons of the grouped units was intuitive. The new icons size and odd way of having 2 rows makes it irritating to select them in the middle of battle.
For those lost on the Rally button, it's the special ability of your General. You can only do it sometimes, though.
The charge is really awesome, that has to be said. I also liked how elephants are done. Not that we could really judge it by now, but they aren´t invincible. You still have to use them wisely.
Overall I really liked the fighting. People beat each other, some fall to the ground and stand up again, units celebrating when they win. Cool. At least when the soldiers were more than grey squares. On lowest setting, the graphic isn´t impressive at all. Though I have to say, I just have the minimum requirement and the game played smoothly.
Saying the unit´s name seems useless and annoying to me, however, repeating commands make sense. The unit commander has to address his men after all. In MTW you heard orders too.
The camera will simply be a matter of practice.
I found the battle to be extremely easy. I send in my elephants without any sense, practically wasting them and still won. Though general camera might be a challenge.
Over all, I liked the demo. I hope that RTW will be more polished than that, but it was definitely fun.
Ok first up, the criticisms.
I didn't like the camera control or the interface... In my humble opinion CA have messed with a winning formula there and i do sincerely hope they have a "classic TW" option regarding all of this. it all seemed a bit unwieldy to me.
Secondly, it did move wayy too fast for my liking. You cannot marvel at the graphics and see your men grind the enemy down like you could in MTW... Constantly moving along the field to try to make sense of the mess was not good.
Thirdly, units repeating their names is not a very good touch... "I know what you bloody well are, just obey my orders!"
Then there's the skirmishing range for the javs, but I just took them off skirmish to counter that one.
Now for the good stuff.
Elephants are good, but as some have said they needs to be used carefully. The main reason my armoured elephants routed in a game was because they charged into some Hastasii... (the velites pelting them probably didn't help matters)
However when I played again I managed to draw out the poeni infantry in a much longer line and draw most of the Roman army into the middle, then my elephants came in and charged right through the Triarii!! It was carnage, Romans flew everywhere!
The graphics were superb and I loved them, the little cutscene when the enemy general died was great fun... Hannibal pinned him in combat when some war elephants came in on a flanking charge, it was a brutal way to die!
As for the units the Carthaginian cavalry and the Numidians did impress me. Their missiles were good when they came behind the enemy lines pelting them, then when the rout was udnerway they truly earned their keep mopping up.
But all in all it was fun.
TuffStuff,
I used to work at Dell, and I have built my last two computers. Based on the demo, your rig should be able to run the game with all the eye candy turned on, no problem. Just make sure you have all the newest drivers, especially for your Radeon card. ~:cheers:
Hmmm, kind of look like an RPG screen. And I'm not crazy about the green highlighting of the chosen units. Also, I don't like the button setup. I liked the old way better.
But... the graphics are pretty good and I can see some monumental battles happening once the controls are gotten used too.
Mind you, with the graphics turned up a notch, this thing slowed down my XP2000/512 RAM/9800 Pro quite a bit. Must be quite the CPU pig when things get really heavy.
Can't wait for the demo mods to really get the feel of it. :knight:
I turned all my graphic setting up and the demo is amazing, too short but amazing!
yup IMHO a fab improvement on MTW-like a few b4 my only query: why the switch betw left and right mouse functions?
Music i thought was fab and actually helped me enjoy the game more
Camera controls i thought better than both MTW and RTW once u get used to them
Like others thought demo a little on the fast side
Units repeating orders-a bit strange-maybe they'll sort that b4 game release
all in all a massive improvement on MTW-really takes the game to new level as CA promised
one last thing guys....remem this is just a demo-games developers often will make final adjustments on the basis of the feedback they get from ppl playing the demos-have faith ~;)
For the people with ray glitches, have you tried disabling advanced shadowing?
For routing units: if you choose your general, its special function (F key iirc) is to rally troops nearby him. So... rallying will be so clumsy and hard to do now...
Cav charges are too powerful, you send a cav behind routing units and they die in... 1-2 seconds? Swiping was a joke compared with this. You back-charge cav against a unit of spears (specially if they are already engaged with another unit) and they simply get destroyed at once. I hope this has more to do with the obvious valour and energy differences btw the two armies (romans are clearly weaker in this demo).
Hello!
I returned to the .org after quite some time, having played Civ3: Conquests in the meantime.
About the RTW demo:
I think the strategic map looks more promising than this. Now we see how great the graphics are in truth, plus how streamlined the gameplay became.
1.) The graphics: Not as impressive as the handpicked and well-animated graphics of .avis before. Even if you activate the option of the units not doing everything synchronous.
You either see the units from afar as tiny icons or up close where you have little control. They do not look much better than MTWs bitmaps from afar.
2.) Formations? Plz someone tell me, how can i spread out a line of Infantry in MTW-style, by dragging them into shape?
3.) Facing? What must I press to change the facing of my troops?
4.) I see some improvements, the rally feature of the General and some troops makes sense, the right click interface, too
5.) Camera controls are now horrible. Could not get use to any setting. :(
6.) AAAH!-Effect. Some people already complained, I do so, too, because...
7.) ... the battle in the demo was more arcady and showed little depth. Okay, it was a simple and biased demo battle, but besides the standard TW-series "elevation kills" it looked more like a streamlined MTW.
I still hope the campaign feature / strategy map turns out to be much better than MTW, but the battles are only mediocre.
They are not up to the standards they wanted us to believe through several videos before they released that demo. Especially graphically, this is not "gorgeous", you need to work hard to get such great graphics with the camera controls. The far away graphics are not impressive, not even with all options set to HIGH.
But well, may be it is like Joint Operations, I did not like the Final Demo while the Beta Demo was cool, the Full Version was again cool :)
Longasc, to change depth you right click and drag it out. So not alt, not control, just right click and drag. It took me a while to. ~;)
It makes the painful misordered unit problem a non-issue. Use left to select, right to direct, and everything is OK.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ashantiwarrior
This was a big problem for most human beings playing MTW, who had a unit selected already, attempted to select a different unit, and ended up mistakenly ordering the unit already selected to march somewhere entirely different from where they ought to be.
Tamur
After playing a few more times this is pretty amazing! Especially the animations, for instance when troops come to a halt after running and the flying guys tossed by charging elephants!
I think if the speed was fixed I would be pretty happy! The demo is pretty amazing when you get used to the differences. The only thing I still don't like are the flame arrows (where is the big pot of firey stuff they are lighting the arrows with as someone said? impossible) and on mine some of the grass is missing but on the whole I still can't wait!
Hey thanks, just found it out on my own - tried it again and voila. But I must agree with you, it is not mentioned in the tutorial and well, formations used to be a key element in MTW, so I really wondered what happened to them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steppe Merc
Well, at least *one* gripe less to worry about. :)
I'll give it a few days before deciding for sure, but after a few hours I've mixed feelings about the demo.
On the good side, I was impressed how well my Geforce 4 MX 440 (64 Mb) performed, even with most settings turned up to medium or high. I agree with longasc's point about far away graphics not being much of an improvement but I can live with that.
On the other hand: the speed is a real pain (slow it down CA, please). And there's an arcade-game feel to it that's hard to describe exactly but it's there nonetheless. Maybe more familiarity with the new controls will ease the feeling but I worry that I might end up feeling as pessimistic as Darkmoor Dragon (on a .com thread) about the game. To paraphrase, he sees RTW as CA selling out to a wider C+C market and spoiling the great tradition of the TW series by putting eye candy before gameplay. Harsh but if the changes to the campaign map, diplomacy, seiges etc don't live up to my expectations I might start to agree with him.
We'll see.
Just played the tutorial, here are my thoughts:
Interface takes a bit to get used too, but after a few minutes it was fine.
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the way the cavalry rides down infantry. Far more realistic than MTW. In fact, it had me thinking I wish I could do a medieval mod for RTW-- I'd love to see some Teutonic Knights charge into some Ghazis with the new physics. Well done, CA.
Had a cool little moment when the barbarians were coming over the bridge: my Triarii spotted them and all turned their spears towards the enemy. Fantastic.
I'll try the Battle tonight. But first impressions are, pretty darn good. The gameplay is not really very different from MTW, but the graphics and sound are better, and everything is new. yaay.
pretty good demo on the whole, way too easy of course but so was the medieval demo.
speed much too fast
camera jerks whenever you select a unit
annoying repeating name of unit
don't like the green arrows under the units
graphics were very good I thought, especially since my card is under minimum specs
loved the cavalry and elephant charge
unit flags turn white when routed, very nice
intro was really good as well
being able to zoom in underneath the trees and move along with my cavalry as they charged was awesome.
The funniest thing in the demo was when the Gauls attacked my Triarii across the bridge. Some of them were actually facing in the wrong direction. They were facing away from my Triarii while throwing javelins in their direction.
Now, on to comments. The speed is way too fast. Walk/run speed is already fast and killing speed is even worse. Cavalry takes 2-3 seconds to kill an equal number of fleeing soldiers. Even one of my elephants started fleeing before I knew they were already engaged. Sound effects are almost nonexistent. I had sound effects cranked all the way up and could barely hear the arrows firing and traveling. I couldn't hear the weapons being used either. I suspect that this is just for the demo and the real game wwill have the proper sound effects. What I heard all the time is the units saying their name when they are clicked which really got annoying.
Also, does anybody knkow the button to make a unit face a certain way. It used to be Ctrl + Shift, IIRC.
Ok, some more answers and thoughts from me:
- the camera can be changed to the MTW-style one, please look into the options before you complain about that. ~;)
- I could bet that most graphic bugs are only on ATI-cards.... ~:p ~:rolleyes:
- The sound is cool, I don´t know to who the units say their names, but with EAX 2 I get a hall-effect in the forests and I´m sure that the orders are not repeated to the player but given to the unit by the commander, try giving an order to a unit on the other side of the map, I don´t hear anything then and the closer I am, the louder I hear it.
- the unit speed is simply realistic in my oppinion
- only bad thing about the units is that sometimes they are very friendly, they just stand there and don´t attack, while their comrades are heavily engaged, I ´ve also seen my cavalry following routed enemies, but instead of killing them they ride besides them, like an escort, or as if they couldn´t see them.(maybe they have a V&V that they are drunk? ~;) ~D )
- btw: if you don´t like flaming arrows, why don´t you just turn them off? ~:rolleyes: they are a special ability of archers and you can turn them off in the lower right corner when you have the archers selected. ~;)
Just played it twice so why not give my two cents (as unoriginal as they may be).
I also feel everything happens one bit too fast... This is, in my view, inconsistent with the obviously well achieved attention to graphic detail:
If you want to win your battles you are never going to take time to watch the nice animations and textures of your troops.
You freeze the game to look at things (no animations)
You zoom in the middle of battle (and the somewhat clutered interface makes you loose sight of the overall action, risking unnecessary losses)
Or you keep your birds eye view (and you couldnt care less for the animations and detail)
having the ability to go half normal speed, might have been a good idea.
Unit formation look looser than in MTW. Means when you are looking at the tightest unit be it a cohort or phalanx, you still see a lot of ground in between individual soldiers. This coupled with the richly detaild terrain creates a sort of visual noise that was not present in MTW.
These are factors that impacted directly my "situation awareness" something i have trouble with, by default ~:dizzy: , but i'm ready to agree that with time i can get used to the new Total War.
One reason why i wasnt really excited about this, is directly related with the reason i play campaigns and not MP or Historical Battles. I like to "grow" into my armies and vice versa. Call it silly but when i play a campaign i get an attachment to my units i just dont get in "quick action" sort of games.
Verdict: Will take some time to get used to, but looks good.
PS: THANK YOU THANK YOU!! To the person that discovered how to disable the green arrows.
all good points by Husar-lets be positive guys-its a massive improvement on MTW-great graphics u just have to get used to the slightly diff controls-i for one am really looking fwd to finished product
No offense but I think you're alone there....Quote:
Originally Posted by andrewt
Hellelujah! They fixed that one. About time! ~:cheers: :jumping: :thumbsup:Quote:
Originally Posted by Tamur
Ashantiwarrior
I don't think anyone is being negative about the game/demo.
What is happenning, like myself there is a lot of people here who have played the TW series from day one, and we feel we have an interest in the game and CA.
What we are trying to do, is give feed back, if not just between ourselves, but also CA if they are watching, and they usually are.
We are simply trying to desect the game in a way that we have come to enjoy the games, and from our collective experiances.
I know quite a few of the older members of this website, and from experiance they and myself would not 'bagout' CA or the series of games, we just want to see the best game produced that possibly can be.
And if our input can help in anyway, then we are helping produce what we all are going to buy.
Hurin_Rules
I think you have not only read the minds of most of us, but you have certianly read mine.
I have ever since they started giving us details of the game, I thought it would be good for MTW mod.
After i thrash the game for a month or so, i will be trying to get a MTW mod going, with out a shadow of doubt.
I even posted as such several months ago in the modders forum.
fenir
One thing that seems to be missing that I'm NOT happy about - the casualty ratio bar thing from the STW and MTW minimap. I need that thing...
my turn,
The good:
I like the graphics both for the units and the map.
I like that they kept many of the customizable options - even though it supposedly alienates newbie players
the okay:
the right click/left click thing is odd but I think I could get used to it and it resolves some of the issues I had with STW and MTW.
I don't mind the green highlighting when selecting units but make it more indiscrete.
the bad:
I turned off the advisor and any other 'helpful' hints the game would try to give me so I didn't have a chance to be annoyed by this
Even so, I was annoyed by units shouting their names every time I clicked them. Also the accent of the generals and units is atrocious. It would be infinitely better to have them speak in their native tongue.
I couldn't get the game to recognize my audigy gamer X soundcard. Funny, it works fine in MTW and every other game I own.
Dragging a line of soldiers seems broken. Maybe I just don't know enough about the controls yet...?
Pressing space to show where your units are heading has changed to show little arrows instead of the actual units. I can see how this will get really confusing when lining up troops in the real game. "Was that front line of little pink triangles my infantry or my missile units? Wait...where were my calvary heading again?"
The unit hotkey assignment rules have changed. No, I'm not talking about the Ctrl+1 instead of Ctrl+Shift+1 change (this is a good thing) You can no longer have subsets. A single unit can no longer be a member of two different groups. This is lame.
Even worse, and this is a terrible thing, when a unit routs, it automatically loses it's hotkey designation. So if you have a unit of elephants that temporarily routes and then rallies a short time later, you'll have to pause the game and re-designate them. This is a killer for MP play and pausing to reassign numbers pretty much destroys any chance of immersion in SP.
I couldn't get the camera to work like I wanted. In MTW I start each battle by zooming up and then using the right mouse key to tilt the camera down. In RTW I could never zoom out far enough and tilting is bound to a key that I have to reach across the keyboard for. It's awkward.
Another thing with the camera movement is it now always rotates when I drag the mouse to the edge of the screen. I prefer MTW's method of only rotating when I drag near the top of the screen - otherwise strafe.
The HUD is way too big. It gives the sense of peering through a periscope. Please give me the option of hiding the overview map and the thoroughly useless 'little window with commands' with some keys...please!? Even better would be to do this and follow unreal tournament 2004's lead and give the option to make the hud partially transparent and scaled.
The fact that the camera can't zoom out enough or be controlled easily, the giant HUD hiding 1/4 of the battlefield, the speed of some of the units, and the de-hotkeying of routing units goes a long way towards reducing the immersion of the game.
Hopefully (though I should know better) these things will be addressed before the final release.
Great points, Fenir.
And an MTW mod will make the game stay on our hard drives just that much longer! ~D
Would prefer music at least “trying” to be true to the period. Maybe based on some semi-authentic instruments of the period (flute, drums, trumpets, lairs). Voices too, in the language of their origin. Must have! Atmosphere is “everything” in a period game…
The “extra” graphics, the arrows on the ground under the selected troops; dead! Hope is only for the demo, like the gold halos in the MTW demo (if I remember right). And the white flag routine is moronic (I’m sorry, but had to say it). I hope that also is only in the demo.
On the other side, this is a beautiful game. Once the controls are mastered, the ability to take a close look at the fighting may be one of the best things about this game. Not just because it’s a great view, but because (it at least seemed to me) that I could see in a glance what I had to read before. That is, who was winning, and who was loosing. Important stuff :knight:
Overall I am personally pleased with the direction that RTW is going. We are only a few patches away from heaven :wings:
Salute!
Frog- I don't have that problem at all. I play on medium settings, low anti-aliasing.
Also I wish there was some way to order your troops not to pursue fleeing enemies....or some kind of built in common sense that would make a cavalry unit chase routers a certain distance or something like that. With the speed of the demo your cavalry is off the map before you know it....
Its there on the bottom left box near the speed/pause buttons. Hover your cursor over it and it will give % for yourself, allies and enemies...Quote:
Originally Posted by wasaaabi
The main problem I had with this demo, is that it was a demo and not a full game.
I want to take over europe ~:(
i want to be able to move the damn PAUSE like in MTW. it's very annoying. at least we should be able to turn it off.
Ok, some of my impressions...
1. The graphics are definitely better, but when viewing the action from a distance, it doesn't make much of a difference. I'll be upgrading my hardware soon, so I'll then be able to perceive the full impact of this improvement.
2. For some reason, it seems a bit harder to keep track of what's going on. This is probably just because I'm just not used to the changes.
3. I happen to like the musical score. The voice acting is average in quality and out of place at times. For example, selecting a unit causes that unit to announce its type, and soldiers scream "we're under attack!" when attacked. These features seem like attempts to mimic other strategy games, and are out of place in the Total War series.
4. The Battle of Trebia is quite easy; I won a "heroic victory" the first time. As has been noted, skirmishers run away too soon when on skirmish mode and the Poeni infantry are missing their spears.
5. The green triangles beneath selected troops really are too intrusive. Banners turning white for routed units also look rather silly; such measures weren't necessary in prior TW games.
6. I agree that the fights seemed rushed. I had hoped for longer melees, rather than shorter ones. When combined with the inherent difficulty in keeping track of everything that's going on, this is less than ideal.
That's about it for now. I enjoyed the demo overall, but wish some things were different. Oh well.
I know what you all are talking about with regards to the speed of the game, BUT could it be "rushed" only when the units are running? At the beginning of Trebia, when the Romans are just walking towards you, the movement seems almost painfully slow. Same with giving your units (even the cavalry) movement orders - they take their good old time about it. Give them running orders and the afterburners kick in. After playing Trebia a couple of more times, I'm beginning to think that the speed issue is that the speed between walking and running is greater than it was in STW/MTW. When you are playing the battle, it seems very fast, but when you look at the scale of things and then the speed at which the units are running (fast!), it doesn't really look unnatural - at least to me. Maybe STW & MTW coddled us too much with a reduced running speed. Well, that is my impressions on the speed issue.
I don't believe I've read any comments here about the Numedian Cavalry's special "circle" attack. I gave that a try and it is a very neat attack to watch. I don't know how effective it is, but visually it is impressive. I wonder what other cool special attacks this game has in store for us.~:smoking:
About the music, the piece that I really fell in love with today was the one that plays over the menu. There is a part where the music has a sweeping and almost majestic feel to it - but in a very subdued way. That isn't a very good way to describe it, but there it is.
I messed some more with the camera controls. I do believe there is a bug in there. The "rotate" controls don't rotate, they strafe. So we have two ways to strafe with keys and none to rotate. Unfortunately, I'm more comfortable rotating with the left/right keys rather than using the mouse, so changing my view is a bit awkward for me.
Does anyone else notice the odd behaviour of some of the units, the light barbarian infantry (sorry to those of you who cringe at that name). At the beginning of the battle, more often than not, some of the barbarians (maybe 8-10) start walking towards the rear, like they are leaving the unit. This is as the Romans are still approaching and I haven't given the barbarians any orders yet. Could CA have added deserters or something like that?
The Barbs walking towards the rear... I would say that is a discipline rank thing... something that has been toyed with in the TW series but not fully fleshed out... would be far more important to a Phalanx if people decide to open up the ranks...
The speed problem for me is not so much as how fast they walk/run but how fast they kill. The cavalry charges in particular are ridiculous but even the infantry charges look like they kill too much. Even the melee when it is supposed to be a long meat grinding thing is resolved too quickly. I charged a 30+ (already suffered a few casualties) sacred band into 100+ hastati and princeps units and they kill more than 50% in 2-3 seconds when charged at the back and around 33% when charged at the front. It's also way too easy to disengage and charge again. That part is actually fine if not for the damage charges do.
I played a game controlling the Sacred Band Cavalry almost all the time and I had 10:1 kill ratios with all 3 of them. They had more than 200 kills each and one had almost 400.
The elephants are insane!!! I LOVE THEM!!!
Also the cav is great. It always used to anger me in MTW and STV how HEAVY, HEAVY cav like Lancers or Golden Horde Heavy would simply hit a unit of anything, no matter how weak, i.e. peasants, and just STOP. The point of heavy cavalry is that they RAN YOU OVER. In melee, though they were proficient, they could be unseated by someone with a stick.
I found the speed to be spot on, It may need to be reduced a smidgen (one hair of a bees dick) But I think the new speed is good...
I have an Radeon 9600XT and have only had the light show a couple of times, not everytime I play Trebia
Strange but true ~:dizzy:
I think the speed looks like the guys are gliding over the terrain... watching the Roman Heavy Infantry run at a very fast speed over half the map chasing skirmishers and looking like they never tire... it may be no fatigue... but the sheer speed looks silly... might have to report steroid abuse at those rates ~;)
That's a very good point, Gregoshi. At first the speed was also my major gripe about the demo - at the first try things evolved so quickly that the battle was over before I even fully realized what was going on (and funny enough I was victorious without even doing much :dizzy: ) - but when I player the tutorial afterwards it seemed to be slower.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gregoshi
Overall I was very happy with how things looked and felt in the demo. Graphics and overall "feeling of reality" were very good.
The cavalry charges sometimes seemed indeed overpowered but I think it's hard to really judge this without having played more balanced units.
The green arrows and the unit replies after giving orders were quite annoying (but at least the units did not give annoyed comments or started burping or something like that when you clicked them several times) but these are very minor things that (as well as the speed setiings) can hopefully be easily changed or made optional in the final version - so I'm quite optimistic that these things will turn out well.
I also experienced the "arrow-flare" but luckily it stopped after the archers shot their first two volleys.
I am eagerly awaiting the final version.
First off, graphics, wonderful. I have a Raedon 9600 pro and I ran high detail and high res with no slow downs. AA caused it to choke of course, but AA always does that.
Interface, I thought could have been much better. I'd go into details but most of what I would want to say has been mentioned.
I will certainly buy Rome for the single player campaign, but I'm more into multiplayer. Just from the demo I don't think it will make for a good multiplayer game (given how little CA seems to care about that I'm not too hopeful). I will have to wait to see how the full game and full unit roster pans out, but this thread is called demo impressions afterall.
My main concern is that RTW is going to be an infantry-centric slug-fest. It's like those boring MTW multiplayer games where you get two wimps who take mostly infantry and run them into each other. What the hell is the fun in that? At least RTW has much larger maps, so aforementioned wimps can't take map flank positions and remove flanking options.
I'd have to echo that I don't think the demo did the hype justice. I was really excited loading up the demo and after playing it 10-12 times I'm much less so. Still, the strategic aspect of the game looks like great fun.
Oh and the war elephants were cool, if overpowered. I liked seeing them slice right through a Roman unit or three. Reminds me of the old swiping trick in MTW.
First impressions (played an hour last night, couldn't devote more, since wife is out of town I went out for the 4th night with some ladies - beats RTW, actually would beat it even without pharaos, dogs, cats and bitches):
- Not bad, not bad at all. The voice acting is terrible (can live with it - just turn it off, actually) there are some glitches and chokes (I already received my new super graphic card and I'll install it when I got some time) and some features are just awful (green arrows anyone?). But overall it looks impressive and plays nicely.
- I managed to play the tutorial once (upped speed too) and Trebia once (again, with upped speed - CTDed while I was trying to finish off ze Romans... maybe due to the increased speed?) and I will try them tonite once more. I don't think I'll play them any more after that, that is if I won't get some MODification for the demo.
- Overall I can't wait for RTW to come out. I'll ban dogz, catz and pharaos (until I manage to get a hold on modding) and play the heck out of it!!!
Ok now its my turn, firstly i think the cursor moves to slow in response to the mouse but i know some of you others have already said that. And i dont like the green arrows when you click a unit, it just gets it my way. Apart from that i cant find anything majorly wrong with it, maybe the voice acting but i can live with that.
Hi everyone ~:wave:
I must admit being initially very disappointed by the demo but after playing the battle a 2nd time felt a little better.
Just a couple of points:
- Did anyone else end up with the camera view under the bridge in the tutorial? Good job I only had control of 3 units!
- Has anyone let AI control a group for them? I took control of the elephants and cavalry while grouping the skirmishers in 1 group and the infantry and archers in another. The AI then altered the group formation and angled the group at about 45 degrees which was not sensible!
- I am also struggling to get a view where I can see the battle and also make out individual units. close-ups are great but not practical for full battles.
Played it on my home system last night (AthlonXP 2600+, 1GB RAM, Geforce 6800GT), config was 1280x960, no AA, all options set to high or higest and all turned on except advanced shadows... Runs smooth most of the time but you can sense the frame rate dropping when it's busy on screen, no stuttering though... Looks fantastic IMO, no funny light or dodgy colours for me luckily...
Game play, I don't know what people mean about it being too fast, the speeds people move at do not seem unrealistic and the historical battle starts with the sides very close together so the batle starts very quicky which is probaly why it seems so quick... Personally I am not a strong fan of the historical battles in MTW as I perfer a battle to be part of a campaign and have some context and consquences, so for me this demo is only showing part of the game.. It looks good and plays well and the landscapes look a little more realistic this time... This is still total war in style and content but with additonal features too... The special abilities of units in cool and I like the way rallying your troops has been implimented... Nothing in the demo seems to be overpowering and yet nothing appeared uselessly weak, ever the skirmishers have their place and their uses..
Personally I think the tutorial is a bit poor, but I have an idea about that... I reckon the tutorial in the full game is tied to the campaign map and as that is not in the demo they could only use an actual battle portion of the tutorial...
Additionally, anyone else think that the scale in RTW is sightly larger? I don't think you can zoom out as far as in MTW... Might be mistaken though...
well, first impressions of playing the demo? grinning like a FOOL ~D (yes, like that) the graphics and system work well and the cavalry charges are most amazing :jumping:
the map does seem larger, definitely more interesting and fun to play on as it doesn't just cut off...
yes, i had that bug with the worrying dissapearingunder the bridge act...takes me back to using VIZ and disappearin into the ground - possibly direct x needs updating? i think the battles were rediculously easy...the romans at trebia broke very easily, so maybe i'll see what the mods can do :knight:
the rtw camera can go further out than the mtw one
Just adding to my impressions the fact that i also had that weird glare attributed to ATI card (X800 pro), but i fiddled a bit with the graphic settings, mainly getting higher quality, and i must have done something that works.
I played the demo a couple of times, and to me it seems this is an old version of the game which is soon to go gold... stuff like the Poeni holding invisible spears is a real pity to me.
The graphics are great - after a bit of messing around I got my GeForce 4 MX to run the game like a jewel, and I like the animations and action of the units in battle. I might try that 'disable synchronizing' option just to see what it does.
Trebia is pretty good - although I kept the impression that the terrain isn't all that pretty, even with details on full for terrain.The fighting, thanks to the engine, looks somehow more realistic - instead of two pretty immobile lines duking it out, it turns into a pretty big morass of men which can get confusing - something that happened to me the first time I played it (subsequently I lost). The elephants seem pretty useless to me - I ran them in just prior to my cavalry's charge, but nothing much was achieved and the formation of the oh so dangerous triarii (to my cavalry) was not disrupted very much.
The music is good, but is it my impression alone that TC's music was better?
Also, the skirmishers were pretty useless also... they ran while a good 200-300 meters away from the velites, something I didn't see the Numidians do... I think they're gonna need a lot more microing than ol' MTW to be effective, at least if this stays in.
I like the control groups and their easier accessibility. It means it's much easier for me to micromanage my troops and therefore be a more effective commander than before - although I did see that the game doesn't react immediately to my pressing the '1' button, which also goes for 'Esc' and 'P'.
Now the voices and reactions of your units are pretty bad, imo. I'd much, much rather have had barbarians screaming in Welsh, for all it matters, rather than in some hoarse idiotic voice. The voice of the Roman units suck too, and I do not like the constant standard RTS-like things that are said when you select them. I much preffered the voices of STW and MTW, which were pretty indescernible but probably in the real language (at least they sounded like they were... not this crap english, it does not help the immersion one bit)...
Overall, a pretty good go at the game, and it's actually looking to be pretty good, save for some important problems do not help the immersion CA seems to be going for at all.
I won't be going into historical details because I'm too lazy at the moment ~;)
~Wiz
Apparently people want the battles to last for hours like in real life. :sleeping: Forget the fact that this would completely turn off 99% of the people that will buy the game, and therefore the game wouldn't have been developed....Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob the Insane
Same here. I've played maybe one or two historical battles outside of the demos for STW and MTW. I care about the campaign battles, and if you look at how far apart the starting positions are in the tutorial, that gives more of a feel for how the campaign battles will play out. LOTS of room for manuever prior to contact. Should be good. ~:)Quote:
Personally I am not a strong fan of the historical battles in MTW as I perfer a battle to be part of a campaign and have some context and consquences, so for me this demo is only showing part of the game..
I subscribed to Fileplanet so I could download it quickly and was rather underwhelmed- but then it was only a 100MB demo so I guess expecting lavish music and Tutorials was a little optimistic of me.
The speed is alot quicker and took some getting used to - and my skirmishers were pants too
I think the demo music is beautiful and the battle music is very energetic and doesn't need to be changed....
Particularly a few horn type noises that seem to have come directly from Warrior Kings!Quote:
Originally Posted by Kommodus
See my petition thread....Quote:
6. I agree that the fights seemed rushed. I had hoped for longer melees, rather than shorter ones. When combined with the inherent difficulty in keeping track of everything that's going on, this is less than ideal.
I couldn't agree more!Quote:
Originally Posted by Gregoshi
The camera controls in the tutorial are set to the new ones and you can't change them but during trebia you can press escape and look through the menus, find the part that says "RTS mode" and change it to "Total War" and you have your old MTW camera back....Quote:
I messed some more with the camera controls. I do believe there is a bug in there. The "rotate" controls don't rotate, they strafe. So we have two ways to strafe with keys and none to rotate. Unfortunately, I'm more comfortable rotating with the left/right keys rather than using the mouse, so changing my view is a bit awkward for me.
Well overall i am not too disapointed about that demo, keeping in mind its just a demo. Gameplay its just a question of being use to it. Maps look good.
I have just one wish, I hope the game will be easily modable.
I think the demo was perfect. Loved the music, loved the voice acting, nice fight scenes. Just everything was sweet. Some of you guys are really REALLY spoiled or unrealistic... ~:(
I'm learning to master the elephants quite quickly.
In my last game I used the armored elephants to charge through the entire Roman army, crushing every formation. Once their formations had fallen the massed into one big clump. Using the war elephants I easily ripped through that, distorting them even further. Finally, I charged every unit I had in and ripped the Romans apart from every side.
The demo rules. ~D
I am kinda worried about the lack of tactics the Roman army seems to use usually. Most of the time they just charge every unit into my infantry.
I set the camera controls to "Total War" before fighting Trebia. Are you saying I need to do the in-battle by pressing the escape key? Aside from changing the control in-battle rather than pre-battle, I tried everything I could think of and I still couldn't get the camera to rotate with the keyboard. Since no one else seems to be complaining about this, I've got to conclude I'm being a complete dunderhead about this. Oh well, once more into the breech!Quote:
Originally Posted by GFX707
@ Gregoshi
Rotate the camera with your keypad. Numbers 4 and 6 for rotating, 1,2,3,5 for moving. - and + for tilting. / and * for altitude.
Just try a battle where you use just your keypad for the camera. I did, and it worked wonders. You can use the camera far more easy with the keypad, ánd next to that, you can do two things at once. Steering the camera, and using your mouse to hover over units, clicking and directing. It needs some adaption and getting-used-to, but it works wonders for me!
~:dizzy: Just a shame I'm righthanded. Keypads are on the right too you know... ~:wacko:
Yeah, try that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gregoshi
Bingo! Thanks folks! Changing it in-battle did the trick. It felt much more like MTW with the old controls back. I'm a happy boy now. ~:)
Well this demo has made me do summat i;ve never had to do in a defensive SP battle to date - i had to throw hannibal into holding the line. I decided to play on normal because on easy the elephants just ran amok. all was gonig fins until I made a misguided decision about how to hold the line till the cav came. I decided that my barbarian swordsmen woulkd go to the flank and help the cav beat back any roman inf that may attempt to slow tehm, when battle started i ended up dawing a couple of units away with my Numidians and the rest just hit my battleline. My barbarians were too far away to help and were mobving towards the cav who were fighting a roadblock in the form of a unit of principles.
Running out of units i had to throw my cretian archers and skirmishers into the melee and about 10 s after that my elephants. The link was buckling as there were so many romans haking at it but someone with the help of my Gen the line held until the cav arrived in spectacualr fashion and roued the enitre army.
WOW...... i wish the demo was longer though.
that's cool, almost sounds like the real battle, except your middle should have broken ~:p
Mine didn't... ~;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Sjakihata
Look, when I compare the voice acting of WarCraft III with the voice acting of this demo, I get the distinct urge to cry...Quote:
Originally Posted by King Azzole
Anyway, I just managed to kill approx. 1350 Romans in turn for 250 Carthaginians... felt pretty good. In essence I tried a Cannae, but this time with a stationary center. My elephants broke apart the triarii on the left (my left) and kept them busy on the right, while my heavy cavalry (including Hannibal) charged into the rear of any Roman formation engaged with my mercenaries or poeni.
However, it went a bit quickly, and I got the impression that keeping the full view is quite hard, but I guess that's just plain a fact that I need to get used to it again (last time I played a battle in a TW game was 4-5 months ago ~D ), but it still seems to me that the pace is faster than in previous games. However, it's not so much so that it'll turn into a frustation, because for a general it was very hard to keep the overview intact in those days. At one point I feared my frontline would be swept away because masses of Romans had engaged my poeni and barbarians, but a few charges in wedge formation helped that. Even going to the triarii didn't help the Romans ~D
I think this game is shaping up very nicely. Pair this to the ton of new stragetical options and the trusted quality of a TW campaign, and I think we have a new classic in the make. Fixing the voice-acting and other stuff that does not help immersion (historical stuff, mainly...), and we would have the greatest game since Pac-Man! ~:0
~Wiz