Quote:
Originally Posted by Miracle
Hmm in one of my games, the yanks actually did attack the Hessians(+ general, Hussars and light infantry) I left at the starting position, with IIRC 3 line infantry
Printable View
Quote:
Originally Posted by Miracle
Hmm in one of my games, the yanks actually did attack the Hessians(+ general, Hussars and light infantry) I left at the starting position, with IIRC 3 line infantry
Yeah! I finally figured out what was wrong and was able to play the demo. Its awesome!! Can't wait till it comes out. I was hesitant after hearing all the negatives about it but after playing I found out it was awesome so that relaxes me until it comes out.
Personally, I didn't have too much trouble with loading times, they're hardly any worse than what I was used to with RTW 1.5 + EB. :shrug: I do run the full graphics though, that might have something to do with it.
I miss the arrow keys, and I'm not entirely sure why all key-functions should be grouped under the left-hand-side of the keyboard. Oh well, you can probably re-assign hotkeys anyway.
downloading now.
my speed is an average of 190 kb/s.
i feel lucky, from what im reading on the official TW forums, where averate is like 75.
right now im at 412 kb/s.
from what i hear, the idea of doing that is to promote better form for playing computer game. i read a study in the NY Times that you have less of a chance of getting Carpel Tunnel if the keys for moving are on the left side.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios
So far.... meh.
Certainly there seems to be a lot of Imperial Glory in there.
Looks like lots of good modding potential though.
hmmm.it doesn't let me switch to high or very high on the settings mode thing. The options are just low and medium...:inquisitive:
Well.... maybe you just can't handle it? You can just change the settings manually...
I wasn't going to download the demo, but I finally broke down and I just started it about 10 minutes ago. Is the demo worth it overall? I'd like to know before I download the entire thing. Thanks :2thumbsup:
the options for manually switching graphics are greyed out or just not there, i figure my comp probably cant handle it anyway. Is there a way to play as the americans in the demo? cuz that would be cool\
The demo is most certainly worth the time, btw
Thanks peacemaker for your reply! I'm 25% into it after about 10-20 minutes of downloading. I'll post back when I have a chance to play.
When the options are cranked up to the max you get some very nice looking vegetation. The game play itself... I guess it's just no quite my cup of tea (or I just need to spend a day or so fiddling with custom battles to see if there's something hidden which will turn my opinion 180 degrees): like Oudysseos, I see that it can be awesome but on the whole I was kind of underwhelmed. :shrug: Nice landscape though. :yes:
That was my initial impression as well and I thought, this is a TW game, it's really a whole other level not just a prettier version of IG. After playing the game while longer the game has lots of potential and demo/hardware issues aside, I'm still looking forward to the game next month. :yes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios
I have obtained and played the download of the demo of Empire total war. now where do I criticize it?
I sort of liked it. I was dissapointed for the first 10 minutes, but in the end I sort of fell in love with it. You just gotta get used to this kind of warefare; it's a big change from EB.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios
Here. :bow:Quote:
Originally Posted by Ibrahim
Modding the demo:Quote:
Originally Posted by peacemaker
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=651
Ive been wondering where the Mod the demo threads were hiding. Some people even got Austria in there, facinateing.
I just played the land tutorial and land battle part of the demo. I had 2-3 minute wait times, without disabling steam's online connection. Didn't experience any lag during battle or tutorial. I liked the size and span of the battlefields. Tutorial artillery seemed to fare better than my battle's artillery did, which was annoying. AI had a blonde moment where one of their units placed stakes when I crossed the ford, which is fine. The problem was that the stakes they placed were placed in such a way that they were totally useless against my cavalry. The stakes later killed a ton of the American cavalry. What the heck?
gah modding is too complicated for lazy people like me. That's why i have my faithful internet aides who go and do it all for me:smash: and even if it's too complicated then(complicated for me is anything beyond clicking "install" then "next" then "next" then "finish". I'm so lazy that way:laugh4:
Each time I start the demo, it resets my graphic options :( Have to change them again every time, and then endure the long wait while it adjusts :(
Anyone else having this problem?
nope. Also my load times are closer to 30 seconds.Quote:
Originally Posted by Roy1991
i have played the demo and i have passed judgment:
the land battles:
a bit flawed. units dont react as well as id like them to. graphics are a bit flawed. one instance is the famous "zoom out and the color of the hats change" problem.
sea battles:
very nice. i liked it, and played the battle over and over. water and graphics looks nice.
the graphics in this game are reallly nice, even on the lower settings it still looks decent. One thing I really don't like is how the scroll wheel makes the camera move up and down vertically, not zoom in as in m2 and rome. It's also annoying how when fully zoomed in, the camera is soooooo slow to move around. I also miss the thing where you can double click on some point somewhere and the camera will zoom to that spot. It's too bad, really, how the camera controls became clunky. I figure i'll get used to it though.
IMHO, the first thing that needs to be modded is how the files are organized. the purpose of course is to speed this stuff up.
there has to be some way of speeding things up. either that or CA figures out a way of doing this.
Seconded!Quote:
Originally Posted by peacemaker
Is it just me or do the cavalry move at incredible speeds. So fast that they were out-running their running animation. You can't even keep up with them at ground level with the camera.
well at ground level the camera was unbearably slow, i couldnt even catch infantry...its kind of wierd and will take a while to get used to
On Medium it all looked and worked crappy but when I clicked it low it worked pheniominally better.
Also low and medium look almost identical to me, so i'll be keeping it on low :).
Looked good and was fun. :2thumbsup:
I had a huge awesome linebattle. I lined up almost all my infantry across a huge plain so there was at least two or three rows of guys and the opponent AI mimicked me and we had a sweet battle (which I ultimately won :2thumbsup:) cant wait for the game!
I normally get in trouble because i'm to busy watching land animations to remeber I have another 2-3 battles on other sides of the maps going on at same time haha :laugh4:
I was so used to the old mtw2 idea of one line, one battle.
My load times can be from 2-3 minutes. Probally because I have everything set on Very High. Loading times aside, it all still runs very smoothly on my comp when playing. I have noticed a slight bit of lag when in close combat though.
For everyone who has trouble with the loading times, try unpacking the files (http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=227839)
Loading times dropped from over 3 minutes to less than 30 seconds after doing this.
My load time is about a minute, sometimes less, but again I did it on low. Higher settings, longer load times I guess.
My load time is on average 45 seconds. And I have the graphics set to high :2thumbsup:. I think it's having a powerful dual core that helps.Quote:
Originally Posted by Polemists
Yea duo core is Nice, i have a duo core laptop, I don't have the graphics to do high, but it seems to cut down the load times a fair bit.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Megas Methuselah
Me too - I cannot wait to get my hands on the full version as the fixes and the addition of the Camp. level will be nirvana. :2thumbsup:
I hated it to start with, felt very arcady and too fast paced, although they must have done osmething to make the maps look a lot bigger and rivers look beautifull. The naval battles are absolutely great, although if they improved the scale of the ships it would be great. I can imagine massive ships where you can zoom into the cannons and such. That would be superb.
Try hitting "Insert" for a 1st person view.Quote:
Originally Posted by KipDan
I knew that but I still feel the scale of the ships could be made bigger.
Well I finally downloaded and was pleasantly surprised. P4 2.8 single 7600 GT most of the graphics set to high and had good game flow. Slow on the start and end but the game play it self flowed.
Still trying to get used to the controls but I liked what I saw and I think that is close enough to the Napoleonic Era you will get. The artillery can be powerful.
Like I mentioned the controls were quirky with the zoom but I will get the feel. It was a bit fast at times but I can see the potential especially with the help of our mod community in the Org.
Looking forward to the release. :2thumbsup:
I've only given the demo a quick go so far, but I'm enjoying it. I'm gonna need to get some more books do some learning. It was the same with Shogun and RTW though, so I look forward to it :)
As with others, I got lost in micro on the sea battle the first couple times trying to manage all the broadsides and ship positioning individually. I figured that can't be how it's done, so I just grouped them, clicked on the other side of the enemy and observed. They did a much better job on their own, and with them grouped they all just follow each other in line. Much easier.
I was disappointed that there doesn't seem to be any wind and that the ships can just go in any direction. Feels a bit silly sailing in neat circles around the enemy. Pirates! did a reasonable job of accessible sea battles with wind IIRC. It made the battles more tactical when you could get the advantage from being upwind, as well as having to tack etc.
One thing I did notice is that when enemy ships were fleeing they would still fire on my ships, while my ships that were fleeing would stop firing. I've also had ships just sink all of a sudden when not being fired upon for ages. I'm guessing there is some random element to whether a ship sinks when it has hull damage.
I haven't had the terrible load times that many are reporting. 20-30 seconds tops for me, so maybe I got lucky there. Either that or it's a cpu dependent problem (decompressing assets perhaps). I've got an E8400 and the people with longer loading seem to have slower cpu's.
New battle tactics, sea battles. Totally different vibe to swords and arrows. I'm anticipating this more highly than I did RTW or M1/2 :)
Load time in any game or any aplication has to do with mainly hard drive speed, cpu and ram. The most important one for load times is the hard drive. If you are on a laptop it will take longer because your hard drive is slower.
I disagree, my laptop is a 200gb 7200rpm.
It depends on speed of your laptop.
I have a duo core and have only a minute or less load times. All depends on speed, memory and configuration of your system, whether desktop or laptop.
Though yes a laptop and desktop of same speed the desktop does load faster usually.
Despite that, my laptop is better than the common, cheap desktops employed by most Orgahs. Thus, I experience fast loading times, and am proud to flaunt it. :snobby:
Are we comparing the size of our hardware now? :tongue:Quote:
Originally Posted by Megas Methuselah
I tried a couple more naval battles and I'm getting a little better. I managed to capture two ships, one of them was the admiral's flagship, without losing any of my ships.
So, finally got the demo to download properly. My thoughts:
Tried Brandywine twice so far. First time I went straight for the defended crossing, sniped the artillery with my light infantry, and sent my heavies straight across to slug it out with the enemy foot. A close battle, and my infantry took heavy losses, but eventually I ground the Americans down and they retreated and reformed a line around the farmhouse when their general was killed by musket fire. I brought up my horse artillery on the flank of my line and started firing; this seemed to cause the remaining enemy infantry to mount a last-ditch attack rather than sit there under fire. The enemy infantry seemed a bit too willing to expose their flanks to enfilading fire from my line. After a final siege and shootout at the farmhouse, the last American unit routed, giving me a close victory. The second time I did it "properly", taking the undefended crossing and approaching the enemy farmhouse from the other side giving a much more decisive victory.
Load times seem quite long, but not quite as interminable as some people seem to be finding (I set all settings to minimum before starting since my graphics card barely scrapes past the minimum spec). Having watched some of the videos I'm relieved to see cavalry don't seem all that effective against line infantry except from the flanks, and that a close-range volley really will decimate a cavalry charge. Some enemy behaviour seems odd; in the second battle, the Americans sensibly sent their light infantry to waylay me at the crossing, deploying stakes, but bizarrely did so facing the wrong way, thus promptly getting slaughtered by my cavalry. Artillery deployment is giving me headaches; in both battles one of my horse artillery seemed to get "stuck" with one gun limbered, the other not, thus being unable to move or fire. The American artillery didn't move at all throughout the battle, possibly 'cause it was always in range to fire at my men (though fairly ineffectually); would have been nice to see it integrate with the infantry a bit better and redeploy once the direction of the battle had shifted. Battlefield is pleasingly huge, and the enemy seemed to make good use of hills and woods to ambush my flanks.
On the naval battle, I apparently am somewhat of a landlubber since on my first two attempts I was soundly beaten, though I won quite convincingly the third time. The tactic I found finally worked was to group my whole fleet and rush to try to head off the French line. My flagship passed in front of the lead French ship and my others either passed between the first and second ship and turned to starboard or turned just before the French line to fire on it from the port side (ha! Get me with my fancy naval terminology!) Concentrating broadsides from all my ships on the lead French ship was enough to sink it, a tactic repeated on each of the following ships, eventually leading to victory without the loss of any of my ships, much to my surprise.
I find it hard to pin down what I did differently the third time, except that my ships seemed to manage to physically block the progress of the French column, preventing them from landing successive broadsides on my flagship as they had done previously. Pathfinding seems a bit off, in all three battles I found the encounter seemed to result in both fleets getting snarled up in a big confused mess, although perhaps this is supposed to happen. Regarding ammunition, I stuck to roundshot on my successful attempt, tried grape and chain previously with little effect. I suspect the latter two are best used when your fleet is at a clear advantage, to maximise chances of capturing enemy ships without sinking them, while roundshot is better when you simply want to make sure you win the battle. For targeting, I found it more effective to simply give ships movement orders and let them worry about firing rather than ordering them to target specific ships, the latter seems to result in them wheeling about to fire both broadsides alternately.
The damage system, of both sides of the ship having a separate health bar, seems a little odd; I can't quite figure out whether it is better to double-up on a ship, so that the crew cannot return fire against both sides at once, or to simply concentrate all fire on a single side to drop its health as fast as possible. Similarly, I can't quite figure out if raking fire is as effective as it should be, since it seems to result in both more shots missing due to the smaller target, and to the damage being shared out between both sides rather than on a single one. Others thoughts/observations on this would be welcome. Weather gauge (being upwind of the enemy, giving an edge in mobility) seems to be helpful, but not essential. There seems to be an option to set the amount of sail each of your ships carries; has anyone found a reason to have this set at anything other than full sail at all times? Ships look very pretty, even on lowest settings, but then we already knew this.
Both battles were fun, although I can see naval tactics are going to take some getting used to. Land battle was definitely good apart from the eccentric artillery behaviour, I struggle to see why so many people seem to be of the opinion that encounters based primarily on ranged combat would ruin the series. In short, I saw no reason not to buy the game; I may even buy it and attempt to make do with my weedy graphics card for a while while I look for a decent upgrade.
I'd love to talk about the demo... it's got a nice mouse...
I've downloaded steam and the demo but it crashes on the opening thing with like SEGA copyright and Bink~:mecry: :feedback:
It seems like you aren't alone. Many people have this problem and no one yet has found a way to fix it.Quote:
Originally Posted by The New Che Guevara
The demo was very good, a nice appetizer.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO... oh well... back to the medieval times for me:egypt:Quote:
Originally Posted by Sir Beane
Yes. Yes, the demo was very good. Awesome, in fact. Especially the grenadiers... :wiseguy:
Just played through the demo a few times, this is what I noticed:
The little cadre of officer, flag carrier, drummer and/or bugler that lead every unit. These guys look great especially the flag carrier! (scenes from so many movies come to mind). The modding potential for this is huge. I love watching the officer pull out his pistol to put some lead downrange. The animations are also good fun to watch, and are neither too generic (RTW) or too slow (M2TW). The cavalry animations in particular are vastly improved over M2TW. I noticed a few glitches here and there, especially in a bayonet charge, but I'm not concerned, I think it will be fixed in a patch. Remember the first version of the M2TW demo where every other soldier was doing that spin attack? The uniforms look great and accurate as far as I can tell, and there's not a single neon turquoise or hot pink pajama to be found among them. Some of the uniforms in the past have had more pastels than an episode of Miami Vice. Overall I thought the demo was excellent, it looks like Empire is going to be a great addition to the series. I can't wait to play the full campaign, as I always find the historical battles to be sort of meh. They just don't have the same sense of epicness that you get from leading the same troops on the campaign map as on the battle map.
What are your best demo scores?
The Historical Battles Competition is collecting winning scores for both demos (take a picture if you can).
This is just for fun, and to practice making entries into what will be a monthly Org badge competition, after game release.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=279
:charge:
Why do Cannons have unlimited ammunition? Is that intentional?
Yes. Theory is that battles in this period didn't last long enough for the artillery to use up their supply.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoring
I agree with most in that the loading times are certainly on the long side, however I was impressed with the demo. It ran smoothly, looked great and was very atmospheric. I really enjoyed the ranged style game.
The land battle was fun but I didn't find it that challenging. The AI did seem to have a habit of foolishly throwing one or two units into the fray against my whole army though.
Navy battle was good too once I learnt that you can make grouped units operate and move as a formation. With formation the sea battle is way too easy. You start with a strong fleet and in a perfect position. Aggressive skippers need just steer all ships straight ahead. With the weather gauge you can "cross the T" of the first French fleet. Once all ships in the line have fired, do a 180. This will bring guns to bear on both fleets. Then just sail up and down keeping the weather gauge and the French get massacred. Done it twice now without getting even close a losing a ship.
I usually stick away from pre-orders however after playing this demo I just knew that I'd buying this game at some point so I ordered it right there and then. I was expecting Steam to pre-load it however it looks like it's waiting till release so that's pretty much going to guarantee its a turd fight on release day.:no:
Well thats because you spent more money then they did. No nid to say my PC is better then your because all you need to do is spend more and you get more. Plus laptops are more expensive and slower for the same price of a desktop every time. There hasn't been a single generation of hardware for laptops that beats desktops. Infact laptops are lagging really far behind in graphics cards compared to a desktop. A 1000 laptop will perform the same as a $600 desktop. A $3000 laptop will perform the same as a $1500 desktop.Quote:
Originally Posted by Megas Methuselah
Anyways this is far off topic.
Only a few days till the game :)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not to get too off topic but I tend to agree.
My own laptop is rather cheap, but then again I needed it for travel, not gaming. So now I game what I can on it. Yet I know if I was home and gaming I'd go out and spend on a desktop.
If you look on most store sites you are going to pay premium dollar to go from 256 graphics card to 512, and your going to pay extremely high to go from duo, to quad.
i7 is out now and I can assure you that in maybe 3 months a new line of desktops will be out with it.
Not saying you don't have to spend 2-3k on a desktop to keep a pc that will last you 2-3 years, but I am saying that 2-3k will go alot farther on a desktop.
Back to topic, I loved demo but really want game....this last day of Feb is soooo long.
Laptops cost more because parts have to be made smaller and more energy efficient. They also have to be better at disappating heat. All that adds up to more expensive parts if you want them in a laptop rather than a PC.Quote:
Originally Posted by Polemists
Empire Total War in 3 more days!
How are you going to celebrate? I'll be celebrating by playing the game non-stop for as long as I can without collapsing :2thumbsup:.
Anyone having the problem that units become sprites when you zoom out to much, no matter what setting i have it on the units turn very ugly from distance, like a blob of pixels moving across the screen. Its not something i have ever encountered in MTW2.
Is it something to do with my graphical settings or is the demo not optimized enough?
I've had that. It simply takes less memory to remember a sprite than a 3d unit. RAM probably.
It happens in Med 2 as well, but the sprites are better so it isnt as noticable. Sprites are much easier to do from a distance than 3D, it helps stop lag when zoomed out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Explodingcannonballfromhell
Hopefully the draw distance is a bit better in the full version then.
something I'm glad about is that now units load their weapons BEFORE enemies get in range. That helps a ton now...
I just played a naval battle when one of my ships was caught on fire and I guess it reached where the store the gun powder and it went up in a big explosion ripping it in 2. Nice! Too bad the enemy wasn't boarding it haha.
The blowing up ship graphics is nice, I saw it on medium, and enjoyed it immensely.
Well where I live it's now March 1, do to delivery i don't get the game till March 7. So 6 more days for me, 2 or 3 more days for rest of you.
(Regular edition March 3
Special and Collector March 4)
The ship explosion effects are fantastic on ultra. As are the air shockwave effects when cannons fire. :2thumbsup:Quote:
Originally Posted by Polemists
Mine has those specs, so some hope for me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Husar
Those are my settings and I run it on medium sometimes and low other times.
I find that on low generally the animations seem to work better, and look more fluid. The downside of course it the zoomed in graphics look different. Still zooming out looks the same on medium and low so as campaign goes on i'll probably just stay on low.
It does work though, but like others have said, your better off with a 512 graphics card and a quad if you can afford it.
Laptops just arn't made for gaming.
Did anyone notice that the shortcut keys for wheel right and move forward overlap?