dissapointed with the Demo somewhat

My thoughts on the Demo.

Navigating around the field is confusing and disorientating, hopefully that will become easier as my familiarity withe the game increases, but the number of times i find myslef "lost" is disconcerting.

i am most annoyed with how hard it can be to fight in the trees unless you zoom in, zooming in costs you overall perspective.


i am also unhappy that battles move along just as fast (if not faster) than mtw, meaning once engaged it it impossible to manage anything,

i was looking forward to the possibility of scanning along the lines and checking what was going on across the field, as you can see in the televison shows based on the RTW engine,

it seems that for TV the game engine was "slowed down",
the "real thing" hurtles along,
no sooner have you commited a unit to the line than it is either victorious, requiring you to give it new orders, or it is beaten and fleeing the field, requiring you to "plug the hole",
except this is happening all acrooss the field and quite literally you dont have the time to be everywhere at once!
coupled with the apparent inability to make units NOT chase routers and i can see a rushers paradise becomming a reality, With people taking a limited number of the fastest and toughest units and online battles lasting a few minutes only at most.

I feel i may have to downgrade my computer in order to slow the game down!!!


I am also unhappy with routing units trying to flee through the units they were just fighting, all of them running for one of a select number of exit points!!
A smart player will quickly identify the "exit points" and position units to annihilate routers, thus eliminate the possibility of them rallying.

I am also confused why a unit that is persuing routers will suddenly rout itself!

I have also attempted to select all and get all my units to attack one target, they do not?? the entire army just stands there with blank looks on their faces !!!

I cannot stress this enough :: I truly hope that the speed of the full game can be adjusted,
right now it is TOOOOO fast on my system (p4 3Gig 512MB, 256Mb video)
Trebia? over and done with in under 5 minutes!

B.

I think the "not getting the overall picture" in the woods is meant to be that way and i like it, cause its confusing to conduct battles in forests...

Having played the demo for quite a while now and having sampled some of the mods I have a few issues that are driving me nuts too.

The use of the right mouse button ~:confused:. I am not skilled at double-clicking with my third finger. I don't ever expect to be either. This means I am hitting CTRL-R many more times that I used to need to in MTW. I sort of understand this as it makes dropping units on top of eachother easier but there was the ALT key to alleviate this problem.

Grouping units makes them unusable. You can't paint them into place and to some degree you can't give them orders. Is there a way around this?

When I double click on a unit in the troop window MTW would scan across to that unit and RTW does the same thing. But in Rome if you move the mouse the slightest bit you stop moving toward that unit and are looking at some meaningless spot on the map. In MTW you would just be dropped there. I hate the new way, it takes too long to wait for the scroll to get there.

Grouping units does create a bit of a problem because they won't stay in formation when you send them to slowly advance against the enemy - they become a mass of jumbled units with the loss of "ALT CLICK" that was so awesome for MTW.

First time i played the demo today and i agree with alot of what Barocca writes, gonna play a little more and see how things go.

You can drag them into a line using the right click. Just make sure they are grouped and you have to put them into a Single Line group formation by hitting Shift 1. I wish they would make that the default group formation.

I REALLY miss being able to Alt or Ctrl click to change/maintain facing. If they decided to scrap those commands it will really make things harder.

The battles are going to be massive chaos. Over at .com when I said the higher speed had reduced the ability to coordinate units, I was told I'd just have to increase my multitasking ability. You're going to have to increase your speed of managing the units by a factor of 2 to recapture the level of control you have in MTW. As far as I can tell you've also lost the ability to rotate units. Have fun redrawing the units when you want to change their orientation.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Puzz3D

The battles are going to be massive chaos. Over at .com when I said the higher speed had reduced the ability to coordinate units, I was told I'd just have to increase my multitasking ability. You're going to have to increase your speed of managing the units by a factor of 2 to recapture the level of control you have in MTW. As far as I can tell you've also lost the ability to rotate units. Have fun redrawing the units when you want to change their orientation.

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This game is sounding more and more like and RTS clickfest. Very disappointing.

I agree with the general tenor of this thread; however..

Changing the facing/rotation of a group is possible, using the "," and "." keys. One rotates a formation clockwise, the other anticlockwise. I have been unable to reproduce the wonderful "move to a new position and resume current facing" command from MTW though, which is a major pain.

I've had mixed success moving groups (either sub groups or my whole army as one group). Sometimes they seem to move to a new position in formation, then randomly decide to wander around.

Another problem is that after using the rotate facing commands sometimes units in a line don't reform in the line: one unit moves so that it overlaps another, leaving a gap on the other side. A thought occured to me today however: perhaps some of the demos suffer from hidden scripting? I'm using descr_??.txt files (or whatever they are called) which don't have scripts in them but perhaps other, as yet unknown, files are affecting unit movement.

Maybe that's a long shot but I'm desperate to give CA the benefit of the doubt. It's hard to believe they can take such great games as S:TW and M:TW, improve on them as I'm sure they have done in 3D graphics and the campaign map and yet mutilate the control interface for battles.

*sacrifices tarred pig to gaming gods*

I've had some good battles with the modded demo. Fun even, some of them. I've confidence that the battles-on-speed problem can be modded, as can the silly fantasy units, but the control interface is the one thing that still worries me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Puzz3D

The battles are going to be massive chaos. Over at .com when I said the higher speed had reduced the ability to coordinate units, I was told I'd just have to increase my multitasking ability. You're going to have to increase your speed of managing the units by a factor of 2 to recapture the level of control you have in MTW. As far as I can tell you've also lost the ability to rotate units. Have fun redrawing the units when you want to change their orientation.

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Who said that? (descriptive terms of reference to the sayers mental capacity and his alleged resemblance to a garishly painted circus performer removed)
I am already at my limit of mouse clicking speed with MTW, now they say i have to be able to increase my speed?

I will buy RTW, but if it remains "battles on speed" then i will rapidly lose interest,
i dont want an acrade style gaming experience, (RTS click fest)
i want to be able to play the game, and that means play the battles as well.

If i cant play the battles then there is no point playing the game,
in which case why would i bother making mods for it.
B.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lord of the Isles

I have been unable to reproduce the wonderful "move to a new position and resume current facing" command from MTW though, which is a major pain.

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ALT-right click will move a unit and preserve it's facing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by King Azzole

I think the "not getting the overall picture" in the woods is meant to be that way and i like it, cause its confusing to conduct battles in forests...

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Yep, in MTW if you're fighting on a big forest is kinda hard to see anything. The new fighting in a forest system seems pretty awsome to me.

I have f$%^ing athritis now just playing the demo. I will buy the game, but I have a bad feeling that it is nothing more than a click fest where your only means of victory will be a massive superior army against the AI, that can survive multiple ignored mistakes or attacks from said AI army. ~:(

I think we need Demo version 2. :sneaky:

:pleased:

agreed master dead moroz

in general most of the items i mentioned are likely to be adjusted in the final release (well hopefully)
and navigating is something we will likely get used to,

but the game speed - too fast,
you dont have a hope in hades of managing your army once engagement starts.


All i can hope for is CA put in some method of adjusting the speed.

If they dont i will begin experiemting with some old fashioned CPU slowdown programs and see if i can come up with a solution once the game is out.

OF COURSE natural lag in online play may solve that problem for us,
it is entirely possible the game is designed to run as fast as possible to negate (as much as possible) the effects of online lag.
just someone forgot about the campaign players?

am going to post this particular comment on dot com (speed too fast),
I have got my flame retardent suit on,
will post the most interesting flames back here for your enjoyment
B.

barocca,

The players who liked the battles in STW or MTW just entered the minority with regard to RTW. If you post at .com that the increased speed of RTW is detrimental to the gameplay, you will be called names and told to shut up. The majority of the posters at .com like the speed in the RTW demo, and don't want battles to take longer than 15 minutes. They come from the world of games like StarCraft, WarCraft and C&C. It appears that Creative Assembly made the right gameplay decisions to appeal to their target market. For all we know, the game has been adjusted to play best in arcade mode with no fatigue, no morale and unlimited ammo.

I think there is a very overly critical view of the demo on these boards, although i do agree with many of the comments made, at the end of the day it is still just the demo and a tiny fraction of wht the full release will be so I wont be getting to hot under the collar until I have played the finished game.

Having said that, I totaly agree on the speed thing, it is difficult to control everything and also doesnt give you time to enjoy the fantastic graphics in full! as far as control and camera issues go, we will just have to adapt as we would playing any other new game.

Yuuki, I feel that the majority of the of people fall with-in two lines, the hard-core people like us you have played from STW and in Multi,... and the people who play only rather superfisial. Those people, (like many of the new people comming to multi from single) THINK they are 'hard-core' but lack the knowledge how to fully group and march their armies,...thus they have no clue what has been taken out of the game; you cant miss what you dont know exisited. The blistfully ignorant are blistfully happy with what they see, and dont miss, what they did not know existed.

I disagree 1dread1lahll.

Many people do know how to control their armies in MTW. But your point does raise an interesting question. Were there too many commands in MTW? I have a couple of terrible memories of trying to left click and drag and my troops ended up spinning on the spot when I moved the mouse, rather than drawing a formation out.

Now I am no fan of the Right-clicking interface, but I do wonder how many commands really were neccessary in MTW.

As for the ALt-click method of army movement, I used that quite a bit and I do think this should be retained.

I shudder to think that CA balanced the Gaulish Swordsmen and Warband with the warcry:

"These guys are kind of weak"

-"Yeah,... hey how about a warcry ability where they scream and shout and gives a bonus?"

"Yea that'll even it out"

~:rolleyes:

elsewhere in the gaming world:

"OMG GUYZZ STIMPAKZ ARE R0x0Rzzz!!!11ONE"

Well I observed without saying much the DEMO .com "discussions", as sometimes you could hardly call them in this way. Was almost funny like veteran STW and MTW players were almost instantly flamed, mostly by newcomers. The Mods cleared most of the mess up, thankfully, but the bad taste remains... ~:(

Both the style of posting and the game taste reminded me very strongly of Blizzard's forums and WIII - this is were this guys mostly come from. I'm glad the CA got more costumers, let's hope that the polite guys of the .com are able to absorbed them somehow and that the poor Mods are able to handle the flood..

Was almost laughing when some guy told Puzz3D to simply double his raction time - I hardly doubt that he had ever played MTW and tried to control 16 units at once...


To come back to the topic: I agree with most of your points, would be a good idea to post togheter a Summary in the com, like the one of Blodrast...

Cheers

OA

Well well, I will take a look at the demo tonight, if it's really that fast, I'll consider not upgrading my system then, which is actually a good thing, money-wise ~:p
I just hope it isn't that awkward to command units as Barocca said it was.... will post my thoughts later...

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If you post at .com that the increased speed of RTW is detrimental to the gameplay, you will be called names and told to shut up. The majority of the posters at .com like the speed in the RTW demo, and don't want battles to take longer than 15 minutes. They come from the world of games like StarCraft, WarCraft and C&C.

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Although there are some exceptions, the .com is overflowing with teen-aged imbeciles and raving fanboys (who incidentally, are usally not veteran STW or MTW players) who foam at the mouth even when constructive criticism is offered. The reaction you received isn't really suprising. Of course if you were flamed over there its just a sign that they couldn't counter any point that you made. When they can't debate your points, they launch into personal attacks out of desperation. It's a shame though that vets of the series have to put up with this nonsense from the newbies.

I couldn't agree more that the increased speed is detrimental to gameplay.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Devastatin Dave

I have f$%^ing athritis now just playing the demo. I will buy the game, but I have a bad feeling that it is nothing more than a click fest where your only means of victory will be a massive superior army against the AI, that can survive multiple ignored mistakes or attacks from said AI army. ~:(

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A click-fest you say? I don't seem to remember doing any more clicking than i have in Shogun or Medeival...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cloudkill

A click-fest you say? I don't seem to remember doing any more clicking that i have in Shogun or Medeival...

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I have been using pause a lot more than before. Sometimes to stave off excessive clicking.

I'm not sure how one could be doing any more clicking... could you give me examples of things you have to click on more often that in the previous games?

to create a simple formation requires more clicking now.. ~:dizzy: well thats what i found

And the .com topic is now closed.

More luck next time barocca.

Louis,

I must say that if your game is too fast with all graphic options on max, you are a lucky b*****d!!!

I have a P4 1,8/256/GeForce4 64MB and it is sloooooow, even with many of the graphic features on low.

I dread the time when 10 000 units hit the battlefield at once. I might be able to gobble a pizza in between mouseclicks.

It looks pretty good ~:)

Fast? yup; seems less like your units fight...more like they meet/auto-resolve/carry out appropriate action

I am a dedicated SP only player. I thought I had gotten pretty good at moving units around; the number of times I had to "pause" the game was a shock to me as well (and there ain't that many things going on in the demo)

I'll have to play it some more and maybe modify some of the control buttons. hehehe but it does look good ~:)

my thread on the speed topic at the com was closed

below is my reply as i typed it, but it did not get posted becaue the thread closed after i typed it,
luckily? i am an old hand at posting and i always copy content before hitting the "post" button.

=== !!! ===
On my system the game runs like a bat out of hades, quite literally,
This is on MY system, which is why i repeatedly mention MY system,
i have a p4_3Gig HT with 512MB ram and 256MB video.
I dont have a DVD or Burner in this machine, they are in a backup PC,
i dont run my internet from this machine either, my internet server is a different machine again.
This machine has almost nothing in the way of services running in the background, i dont even share files.
My Drive is partitioned, with OS exclusively residing on a 10Gig partion.
Add to that Sata drives and a pared down install of XP with minimal overheads and services and i have a machine that almost literally flies.

Perhaps the games internal clock does not allow for super quick machines,
I bet if i were to install RTW on my athlon1G with 256MB ram and a 64MB video, then i would not have a complaint about the speed.

As RTW demo runs on MY system currently I dont have time to check how any unit is faring in battle, because within a second or two of a unit engaging in combat, the unit is either annihliated or victorious.
by the time i look around for another target (assuming the unit wins) the entire battle is over.

The skirmishers, when seen running across the field, would beat the worlds best 100 metere sprinters hands down.
Cavalry? well if we put the RTW Cav into a two mile horse race you had best not be late placing your bets, the race will be over before you can raise your binoculars.

This contrasts MARKEDLY with the TV shows i have seen which were based on the RTW engine.
Had the same speed setting been used for TV the battle segmentof the show would have been over in 5 minutes.
While i fully appreciate we are seeing some un-natural extension of time when the cameras focus on the generals and then switch back to the "action" the Demo runs much faster than the engine shown in those shows.

In FACT the demo runs MUCH faster than the teaser clips we have been shown by CA !!!

All we ask is some means of slowing the engine down for those of us who are not happy with the speed of the game, this will not impact those of you who like the game the way it is,
our request is for a slider to allow us to run slower than the default (current) speed.

Online lag - those who say it has no impact have obviously NOT played any of the previous TW titles online.
Lag is a major factor and impacts online battle speed.
My comments was "perhaps the engine runs so fast to try and compensate for the effect lag will have."
You can sit there and not believe me, thats fine, but when the game is fully released Then you will have the pleasure of seeing first hand that my aseesment of the impact lag will have on a 4v4 with players scattered all over the globe is indeed correct.

I'd like to reiterate one point.

The Demo, on MY system, runs MUCH MUCH faster than what we see in the video teaser clips that CA have released.

=== !!! ===

cheers,
B.

I posted this at .com in another thread, but it's very difficult to have a discussion there, so I repost it here before it drops off of page 20 because it has some objective measurements.


The speed relationships in STW and MTW were:
inf walk x, inf run 1.6x, fast inf run 2.0x, cav run 3.3x, fast cav run 4.0x.

In RTW you have roughly:
inf walk x, inf run 2.5x, fast inf run 3.0x, cav run 4.3x, fast cav run 5.0x

x = 3.72 miles per hour =1.68 meters/sec (RTW x speed measured by CBR).

CBR has made most of the measurements, and they match my own less extensive measurements. MTW was set at 14 frames per second, and I expect RTW is set at the same 14 frames per second. It certainly feels like x is the same in both games. The point is the STW/MTW speeds worked well, so why the change them in RTW? This substantial increase in running speeds has made it more difficult to co-ordinate the units in the heat of battle, reduced ranged unit effectiveness on advancing men and negated some of the local positional superiority gained through maneuver since a supporting unit can come from farther away. It also tends to make the interface more of an impediment to playing the game. The interface gets between the player and what he wants to do on the field. The only place this faster running helps reduce the length of battles is near the end during the mopping up when enemy units are routing off the field. A lot is being sactrificed tactically just to have men run off the field faster.

The absence of xbows and arbalesters is going to be a big factor in shortening the battles. Those units require 15 minutes to use all their ammo, and many players online were fighting two stage ranged duels which would stretch things out even longer than that. If you play MTW in early era, the battles in multiplayer are rarely more than 15 minutes long. The walking speed in RTW is the same as in the earlier games, so you aren't going to gain time there since the maps are even bigger, and you can't run everywhere to save time because of excessive fatigue. The double and triple speed options are what should be used to gain time. That's the purpose of those options. They will speed up everything including the walking and the routing off the field. Of course, that will also speed up the fighting so it's not the same thing as changing the relationship between the fighting speed and the movement speed.

There was an issue with fatigue being rather high on large maps in MTW because the fatigue rates were optimized for the small map size of STW and were not adjusted for MTW. This lead to players resting units for long periods of time to recover fatigue which is another factor that lengthened the battles in MTW. I don't think making units faster is the proper way to address fatigue. If there is a problem with fatigue, the proper thing to do is adjust the fatigue rate.

The pavise units and some of the heavily armored infantry in MTW also march slower (0.67x) which added to the length of battles in MTW. As far as I know, there aren't an units slower than speed x in RTW. Once the battle lines engaged, it wouldn't last more than 5 minutes before one side routed. It's not the melee itself that is the cause of the long battles in MTW. However, the ability to issue orders so as to maneuver units around is substantially affected by the increased running speeds. Given that you'll have 20 units instead of 16, and that the running speeds are increased at least 50%, you're looking at issuing orders around twice as fast as you do in MTW to maintain the same level of control.

As has already been pointed out, the reinforcement system in single player battles is a major factor if not the major factor in causing those battles to stretch into 3 hour ordeals.

As far as the need for increased anticipation at faster speed, that's true in a situation where you are responding to an attack on the unit you are controlling. If however the situation is one of bringing a unit from a distance to support a unit already engaged, faster running speed means you don't need as much anticipation. At slower running speeds, you have to get that supporting unit moving sooner possibly before the primary units even engage. You have to anticipate where the enemy is going because it takes you longer to get places. I'm afraid that too much speed will cause most battles to turn into massive furballs.

To add to this post: we did ask for10% faster cav in MTW v1.0, and longjohn declined to make that adjustment. He used the historical argument that cav didn't run faster than about 15 miles per hour as the reason for not increasing the run speed. In RTW, the cav is 25% faster than in MTW. It's a pretty substantial increase, but might still be within what most players can handle. What I don't really understand is the more than 50% increase in infantry running speed. It's out of proportion to the other speeds in the game which I think will make the tactics less realistic and I'm afraid will push unit management in multiplayer beyond what is possible for most players.

A slight correction on cav run speeds:

Fast cav ran about 6 times faster than inf walk speed.

Other cav was about 4.75 times faster. That was medium cav so maybe heavy cav like Sacred band is same or slightly slower.


CBR

Ok. Thx CBR. Then cav is about 50% faster which is consistent with the infantry speedup. That makes more sense. My measurement of sacred band cav was 4.375x. It would appear that there are 3 cav speeds just as there is in MTW. So, the gameplay in RTW compared to MTW is going to be less time to react, and the ability to come from a greater distance to assist fighting units if you can get those units to fight for as long as they do in MTW.

I've played the demo on 2 occaisions so far.

I agree with EVERYTHING barocca said, plus a WHOLE lot more that I won't bother to mention at this time, except:

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I am also unhappy with routing units trying to flee through the units they were just fighting, all of them running for one of a select number of exit points!!

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which is not to say its not an issue, I was just too dumbfounded with everything else I didn't notice this.

I've got a question, what's with the throwing spears, Javelins or whatever the F they are?

The animation is TOTALLY ridiculous and unrealistic. What's with the increasing and decreasing visual perspective?? As soon as they leave the hands of the throwers and begin their arc of ascent they gradually INCREASE in size and DECREASE as the throwing arc descends; and the *Trailing* animatics is a JOKE!

Also, they must have an army of Goliaths, because the throwing distance, again, is a JOKE! You'd think they were shooting arrows or something.

What the H was wrong with the way they worked in MTW??

I can't get over the feeling that Rome was designed for 10 year olds with "Attention Deficit Disorder" taking Ritalin and Steroids.

Lastly, for the moment, going into a Forest is supposed to supposed to be disorienting, but I can't see Shit through the trees!!! Not a damned thing!

The way Forest worked in STW was the BEST! and the way they worked in MTW was acceptable, but Rome is wholly unacceptable.

Guess what? I'm NOT interested in the ZOOM feature. Way too much emphasis has been put on this feature. It adds ZIP, ZAP, NOTHING, NADA, to gameplay.

Finally, the game is way too fast, the graphics behind the times, the animations are unrealistic, the sound localizations TOTALLY unnecessary, adding NOTHING to *gameplay*, the voice acting is worse than a High School play and the Cut Scenes are annoying as all H. Funny thing is you almost need the Cut Scenes otherwise you'd never know the enemy general was killed, haha.

I feel I'm in a Total War nightmare.

Excuse me, but wasn't one of the CA design tenets, to stick with realism, unless it effected gameplay negatively, or something?

This game isn't going to stand up to the HL2 competition, at least not the battles.

Awww....forgetaboutit.

sorry torangasama, watch the language but i agree with you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ToranagaSama

The way Forest worked in STW was the BEST! and the way they worked in MTW was acceptable, but Rome is wholly unacceptable.

Guess what? I'm NOT interested in the ZOOM feature. Way too much emphasis has been put on this feature. It adds ZIP, ZAP, NOTHING, NADA, to gameplay.

Finally, the game is way too fast, the graphics behind the times, the animations are unrealistic, the sound localizations TOTALLY unnecessary, adding NOTHING to *gameplay*, the voice acting is worse than a High School play and the Cut Scenes are annoying as all H. Funny thing is you almost need the Cut Scenes otherwise you'd never know the enemy general was killed, haha.

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Perhaps if you were interested in the zoom feature then you could see what was going on in the trees.

with the Graphics whacked up to the max the speed was fine on my machine (too fast on default settings) but perhaps im just lucky in that i have a mid end spec machine.

I Like the demo, i was playing it again last night. only prob i do have with it is the flare from arrows but that seems to be an ATI card prob which hopfully will be fixed for the final release.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ToranagaSama

I've got a question, what's with the throwing spears, Javelins? They must have an army of Goliaths, because the throwing distance, again, is a JOKE! You'd think they were shooting arrows or something.

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The range of javelins and archers was no doubt increased because of the increase in the running speed of units.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ToranagaSama

I can't get over the feeling that Rome was designed for 10 year olds with "Attention Deficit Disorder".

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Attention Deficit Disorder has now been linked by scientific experiment to young children watching too many fast changing images such as on TV or in video gaming. As I recall 14 hours per week for 3 year olds increased the chances of developing ADD by 50%. It is believed that the developing brain in these children physiologically adapts to suit the environment of these fast moving images.

Well, I've played the demo a couple of times now, and I have to say the first impression is that it doesn't "feel" like a Total War game. However, I've never played any demo of the prequels before, only the finished games, thus I can't say how much the previous demos differed from the release versions.

I noticed many of the things others mentioned before, the general speed level is too high, and that's not directly connected to the speed of the system, as my system ism't excatly cutting edge, with a athlon 1800+ and a GForce 2 Ti with 64MB. With a medium level of detail, the game wasn't running very fluid, but acceptable, however the action on the field is still too fast, battles are resolved too quickly, on the training mission, the senate army once finished off the Gauls before I even got there with my infantry. The speed increase might be necessary from a gameplay-point-of-view, as the maps are larger and thus maneuvering and overall battle durations increase. I wouldn't mind if they grew longer, but I guess it's a decision made because of possibly many time-consuming battles during a campaign mode and possibly also to reduce battle time in MP...
The voice acting is a bit exaggerated, but I could tolerate that. The graphics might be fine, however in the default view, one is too far away from the action to really have any "benefit" from that, while the zoom feature is practically worthless in a heated battle unless you are using pause a lot, which, let's face it, is quite necessary if you want to maintain some kind of control before the battles tranformed into an all-out chaos once the melee has begun. As for the trees, well, one really has to use pause to manage any fight going on in there...

Maybe I'm just too used to the perspective of the battlefield offered by the prequels, but I still think it was better for deployment and management of one's units in battle. A custom zoom feature would be nice.

Another thing I noticed is the font used for the mouse-over unit info, which is not very readable at resolutions lower than 1024x768, and I liked to use 800x600 for the battle maps. Also the info is sometimes changing too fast to read all of it.

Finally, some purely subjective opinion on the in-battle menu at the bottom of the screen. I find it covers too large of an area, especially with the command buttons as little as they are. Either decrease the menu space or increase the buttons. The kill-ratio bar is too small and should be moved to a more prominent spot, possible over or under the unit selection window. The unit icon graphics look very retro, a full, more plastic image of the unit type rather than the upper torso only would be appreciated, the icons should increase a little in size, and the upgrade symbols should be larger also and should have a more distinct colour.

Perhaps my review was overly critical, I didn't mention things I liked, mainly because I expected them to just be there in the third installment of a great games-series. Also it's still a demo after all, not only designed to attract possible buyers, but also to collect some feedback from the dedicated fanbase which no good software company should neglect
Well, I hope there's still some time for the devs to make changes as well as the the green light from the distributor to apply some suggestions by the veteran fanbase. If the game stays like this, the campaign mode would have to be extraordinarily well done to make me buy the game...

It's sad to see some TW vets like Brutal_DLX so put off by the demo they might not buy the game.

I also found the demo peculiarly uninvolving (played Trebia a couple of times as both sides and found no urge to do more). Maybe it is a reflection of how important the campaign side of TW is to me (I've never played the historical battles nor done MP). But also, like most posters on the org, I just found things happened too fast for me to feel in control. Things deteriorated into a scrummage that was quickly resolved.

That said, it did feel definitely like a Total War game to me - the same issues of correct unit match ups, flank attacks, the important of terrain etc all figured.

My question to Brutal_DLX and others is wouldn't just modding the speed of all units down solve the main problem with the game? (I'm thinking only of SP here). Maybe attack stats would also have to be scaled down to prolong the combat resolution a little? I think I could get used to the camera and the interface - already, I appreciate zooming into the melee and enjoying the nice graphics.

To be honest, when I first ran the Demo I was dissapointed somewhat as well. But I think that most of this is mainly due to the hype and our own familiarity to the originals.

As soon as I was told how to reset the camera back to Total War mode, I found things easier and gradually I began to enjoy the game. It is true speed is an issue, but I was able to adapt to the interface and everything else.

One thing that really did get on my nerves though, was the fact that the Alt-Click formation move does not work properly like it used to. When I pressed the spacebar I saw the destination was aparrantly the same as what my formation was, but somehow when they got there my troops ended up in another formation altogether...

This really irritated me as I had to drag units into place, and given the faster paced nature of the game it takes longer and reduces my ability to react.

The speed would be better if it was toned down, but what mainly bugs me is the overall lack of control I felt when it came to moving my army around in formation. I don't like having to redraw my lines all the time!! ~:pissed:

iirc both of the previous demos were the full tutorials that were in the final game, & as a result they "showed" the final game. i probably would have bought MTW anyway on the strength of my enjoyment of STW, but the demo was not disappointing in any way shape or form. one of the new features of MTW were the castle assualts, & you got to do this in the demo - & it was fun.

i played through the RTW demo once, & although i wouldn't say i disliked what i saw, i am undecided about whether to buy the game (i never thought i would be in this position). yes , the game looks good, but i am sorry, a great looking game is nothing if it doesn't play well - i realise what constitutes good gameplay is down to the individual. i have never liked the historical battles that are part of the game (as trebia will be?) so it is entirely possible normal campaign play will be fine for me.

i know this is only a demo, but i would be very surprised if the final game is radically different from the "feel" that the demo gives. yes, there is no campaign map in the demo, but there wasn't in the previous 2 demos either. you could argue that the campaign map will be so radically different in RTW that there should have been some "demo" of it in the demo.

so far i haven't read anything that (officially) justifies the various speed settings so it is hard to comment on why they are like this or that. but, if the concern was the time it takes to engage the enemy on bigger maps - that is what the time compression is for. the tiring multi-hour slogs in MTW SP had nothing to do with movement, but were due to the AI bringing on ridiculous numbers of re-inforcements after the AI general had left the field. i am not being sarcastic but, i would be very shocked if the increased speed is to accomodate MP players (where there is no time compression?).

i will be reading reviews & the opinions of STW/MTW veterans before i go out & buy this game.

Don Coyote

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Originally Posted by The_Emperor

As soon as I was told how to reset the camera back to Total War mode, I found things easier and gradually I began to enjoy the game. It is true speed is an issue, but I was able to adapt to the interface and everything else.

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Emperor, I missed this - how do you reset the camera? A reference or link would suffice, cheers!

Sorry guys, i love the demo ~:)

It just seems more smooth now to me and although i don't have the kick-ass computer that barroca has it runs fastish and i find myself steadily heading back to using the pause key as i did when i first started playing MTW.

Pause - look around a bit - order a couple of problem units (ie calmed down elephants or a idle unit of cavalry) to do something - unpause and either cry the tears of deafeat or shout something in latin. ~D

I don't know whether modding down the speed would help in achieving more control of one's units. The lack of control without pausing is one of the main reasons why I said it didn't "feel" right for me. I guess it would help, maybe together with the customisable key settings...

In MP, you can't use pause, but I think the majority of the MP veterans won't appreciate such a fast paced game, but I suppose that, in order to play slower battles, all participants would have to use the exact same mod as it is now in MTW, and getting large group of non-clan players to install and use a mod is quite an arduous task, as we have seen in the past. So, I really hope there will be some tweaks before the final release...

And Simon, I'm not really put off that much, more like indifferent. I can't say I was too much into the hype, I rather adopted some kind of wait-and-see attitude, and what I see now just doesn't blow me away. Perhaps that's because the demo is just two battles and it doesn't allow you to see the many other features that will make up the whole game. But I can only comment on what I see, and I don't see improvement in control or any revolutionary new features in battle. (Ok, the elephants are fun ~D)
I guess I'll wait for a review of the final game by some veteran .org patrons before making a decision on whether or not to buy the thing....

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Originally Posted by Simon Appleton

Emperor, I missed this - how do you reset the camera? A reference or link would suffice, cheers!

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Ok, when you start the Trebbia battle press Esc and look around the options. Change anything thats says 'RTS camera mode' to 'total War mode'.

It helps get you back to some level of familiarity with the camera controls, even if you still have the annoying right-click.

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Originally Posted by Puzz3D

The range of javelins and archers was no doubt increased because of the increase in the running speed of units.

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Interesting Puzz, if this be the case, one can only wonder what else is tied to the "running speed".

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Attention Deficit Disorder has now been linked by scientific experiment to young children watching too many fast changing images such as on TV or in video gaming. As I recall 14 hours per week for 3 year olds increased the chances of developing ADD by 50%. It is believed that the developing brain in these children physiologically adapts to suit the environment of these fast moving images.

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Hmmm....

I supposed these people eventually do grow up, learn a skill, and seek employment as productive individuals within society. I just can't comprehend why CA found it necessary to hire so many of them for the Game Design and Art department!!!

~:eek:

That was a joke!

But, just for a moment, sticking with the OT subject,

I don't buy the theory for a second, let alone the use of drugs as a solution. IMO, ADD its just more politically correct physco babble. At best, ADD is a syptom of a self-indulgent society based upon instant and superficial gratification. Change the values of the society for the better, and watch societal effects such as ADD evaporate. At worst, its PC speak for, 'I have spent barely a moment's effort forming and developing my child's mind, and, now, he's an idiot! Admitting this would mean that I, as a parent, have failed miserably, but NO that couldn't be---Doctor, there *must* be something wrong! What do you think I'm paying you for!?' ENTER: Drug and Healthcare Industry (with suprising similarities to the Military Industrial Complex) that will oblige any perceived illness, as long as there's profit in it.

Do you think ADD exists in un-/under- developed Third World countries? Naw, they probably suffer from *Super Intense Focus Disorder*: Stay Focus, Stay Alive.

[End TS diatribe.]

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Originally Posted by Simon Appleton

It's sad to see some TW vets like Brutal_DLX so put off by the demo they might not buy the game.

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How do we spell: W-A-R-E-Z!?

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My question to Brutal_DLX and others is wouldn't just modding the speed of all units down solve the main problem with the game? (I'm thinking only of SP here). Maybe attack stats would also have to be scaled down to prolong the combat resolution a little? I think I could get used to the camera and the interface - already, I appreciate zooming into the melee and enjoying the nice graphics.

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One would think so, but if Puzz' entirely logical theory is correct, then any such modding, may take a good deal of *skilled* play balancing by a Master Modder, such as WesW.

The question then would be whether anyone could/would maintain an interest in the game while Wes or someone did their magic. Too many great games looming on the immediate horizon, imo.

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Originally Posted by King Edward

Perhaps if you were interested in the zoom feature then you could see what was going on in the trees.

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[Eloquent ToranagaSama Flame Omitted, because I can't be bothered.]

Are you always this one dimensonal?

Zooming into the trees is a detrimental exercise for the following reasons:

First, zooming low negates the overview perspective required of sophisticated play in order to manage the battle. Zoom low and you will have absolutely no idea what's going on elsewhere.

Second, Zooming into the Trees is virtually no benefit, as you can ONLY gather the basic location of just a unit or two, at best. Spread your units out in a large stand of trees and you will have NO idea where they all are.

Third, being required to Zoom into the trees in order to locate your units, negates the ability to select more than one unit in a single Zooming effort; and, even if you could it would take TOO much time. Your entire army would be routed by the time you got your act together in the Trees.

I admit, that if one was not a truly sophisticated Shogun/Medieval player then one would probably be at a lost to comprehend what the problem truly is.

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...with the Graphics whacked up to the max the speed was fine on my machine (too fast on default settings) but perhaps im just lucky in that i have a mid end spec machine.

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In case anyone missed it, the above quote is a perfect example of the *Oxymoronic*.

I shudder to speculate, what, in your determination is considered to be "mid end".

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I Like the demo, i was playing it again last night. only prob i do have with it is the flare from arrows but that seems to be an ATI card prob which hopfully will be fixed for the final release.

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:surrender:

While I agree on nearly everything you said, ToranagaSama, your language is a bit harsh and that of a peasant, not that of a Lord. :) Please be not be so hard towards King Edward, seriously.

I fear that especially Rome's Roman factions will play a bit one-dimensional because it is so infantry heavy. But well, I am used to prefer CAVALRY and missile heavy battles from MTW.

The best about Rome is probably that what they funnily did not present: The Campaign system and the campaign map plus all the features tied to it.

While RTW 3D-combat seems to me more like a step backward and having some issues with speed, plus the 3D graphics are not really much better zoomed out, I think that the campaign system will really add to the series!

RTW 3D battles are for me not the real thing, as it is the heart of the game, it is a bit disappointing.

But a MTW / Shogun Remake with the old or better camera controls, no speed issues and stuff, paired with the probably really good campaign map, this makes hope for the future.

I think the expectations for Rome were too high. The graphics have fallen short, as did the Gameplay of the demo. But it might still become a good game, despites the drawbacks.

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Originally Posted by Longasc

... plus the 3D graphics are not really much better zoomed out...

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Yes, that surprised me. After the screenshots and the TV series Time Commanders, I expected RTW to look much better than it does. Zoom in and it does look amazing. Maybe the issue is that to play the game well, you really don't want to be zooming in much. Zoomed out, I may even think STW is the best looking TW game for some reason. RTW looked a little washed out, in terms of colour, although maybe my settings are not the best. I guess people who edit TV series are better than gamers at teasing out nice visuals.

Interestingly, the new RTS "Dawn of War" has the same issue - zoom in and it is even prettier than RTW, but I end up playing zoomed out and don't really appreciate the nice graphics. I suspect such graphics are rather wasted on strategy games (as opposed to shooters and RPGs, where gamers only need to view the area around their character(s)).

"The graphics fallen short" Surely not?!?, that's got to one thing that looks amazing in R:TW. I've been astounded with the battles and level of detail when zoomed in close. I have a high-end computer, so that possibly explains why I think it looks good, as I play with everything on high quality..

"..as did the gameplay of the demo." Again, this is subjective. Possibly in some areas, yes, in other areas I would say no. Waiting for the full game would be advisable before gross judgements are made.

To me, diplomacy remains the one area which could be a potential stumbling block for R:TW. It's a relatively new area of development for the CA team given the basic and often flawed diplomacy experienced in the previous two titles.

ToranagaSama, you don't have to go about being an... Well I prefer not to use the word. Apparently he can control the troops in the trees, and it seems I can too. Yes it is confusing with the closeup, but then I 'just' move the camera around a lot. It never gets to be easy and neither should it be. I will probably never freely fight a large battle in a forest, but forced to do so I'm confident I can manage at least to survive.
I expect MP to stay away from big forests like in MTW and in SP we should be that much tactically better than the AI to cope. All in all not much of a problem.

As I have said in other threads I only dislike the speed (movement and killing) and routing banners. But I have to thank the people who mentioned the formation movement. I simply can't get it to work. I have to drag, then redrag and then drag again. It is very tiring when I know the same maneuver took a simple Ctrl-A and Alt-click. Turning a unit it also crappish, again I have to drag. There must be an easier way.

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Originally Posted by Kraxis

Turning a unit it also crappish, again I have to drag. There must be an easier way.

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Do you mean the pivot commands, , and . ?

I'd be happy if a group of units would move at the same pace. As it is horse outpaces foot in this situation.

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Originally Posted by Nelson

Do you mean the pivot commands, , and . ?

I'd be happy if a group of units would move at the same pace. As it is horse outpaces foot in this situation.

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Congratulations! :balloon2: ~:wave:
You have just succeeded in making me look like a fool that doesn't care to read up on his subject... Rats! ~D

Thanks, but even like that is it really as good as the old turningsystem?

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Originally Posted by 1dread1lahll

Yuuki, I feel that the majority of the of people fall with-in two lines, the hard-core people like us you have played from STW and in Multi,... and the people who play only rather superfisial. Those people, (like many of the new people comming to multi from single) THINK they are 'hard-core' but lack the knowledge how to fully group and march their armies,...thus they have no clue what has been taken out of the game; you cant miss what you dont know exisited. The blistfully ignorant are blistfully happy with what they see, and dont miss, what they did not know existed.

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Excellents points. You're absolutelly right.

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Originally Posted by DonCoyote

iirc both of the previous demos were the full tutorials that were in the final game, & as a result they "showed" the final game. i probably would have bought MTW anyway on the strength of my enjoyment of STW, but the demo was not disappointing in any way shape or form. one of the new features of MTW were the castle assualts, & you got to do this in the demo - & it was fun.

i played through the RTW demo once, & although i wouldn't say i disliked what i saw, i am undecided about whether to buy the game (i never thought i would be in this position). yes , the game looks good, but i am sorry, a great looking game is nothing if it doesn't play well - i realise what constitutes good gameplay is down to the individual.

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This sentence says it all: yes , the game looks good, but i am sorry, a great looking game is nothing if it doesn't play well .

RTW Demo play is ridiculous. The speeds of units are WAY TOO fast. The battles are nothing more than rush games without any tactical finesse.

And for everybody saying that they have to downgrade their system specs, that won't solve anything. The speed problem is within the units itself, not within the framerate that high-spec systems produce. I've played the demo in a Celeron 466 with a GeForce 4 MX440 and it's slooooow. But that doesn't mean that the pace of battles changes in anyway. It continues to be a rush-galore bloody confusing mess. In my system you loose frames, in itself making the control even harder than in high-spec systems.

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Originally Posted by DonCoyote

so far i haven't read anything that (officially) justifies the various speed settings so it is hard to comment on why they are like this or that. but, if the concern was the time it takes to engage the enemy on bigger maps - that is what the time compression is for. the tiring multi-hour slogs in MTW SP had nothing to do with movement, but were due to the AI bringing on ridiculous numbers of re-inforcements after the AI general had left the field. i am not being sarcastic but, i would be very shocked if the increased speed is to accomodate MP players (where there is no time compression?).

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Once again this sentence says it all: but, if the concern was the time it takes to engage the enemy on bigger maps - that is what the time compression is for. the tiring multi-hour slogs in MTW SP had nothing to do with movement, but were due to the AI bringing on ridiculous numbers of re-inforcements after the AI general had left the field.

If RTW needed to reduce the times of battles, it had to make a 4x, 6x or 10x speed slider, to aliviate the times that it takes for reinforcements to reach the front line. In that way, the times that big battles in MTW SP took hours, would be solved or at least aliviated without sacrificing tactical reality. Instead, the ludicrous increase in unit speed makes for battles to be like Buster Keaton movies. Allways in fast forward no matter the speed slider setting.

CA should take into consideration that this game is going the way of the dodo, in terms of immersion, feel and quality. :wall:

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Originally Posted by ToranagaSama

Interesting Puzz, if this be the case, one can only wonder what else is tied to the "running speed".

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Indeed... :thinking:

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Originally Posted by ToranagaSama

Hmmm....

I supposed these people eventually do grow up, learn a skill, and seek employment as productive individuals within society. I just can't comprehend why CA found it necessary to hire so many of them for the Game Design and Art department!!!

~:eek:

That was a joke!

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Truer than you might think... :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by ToranagaSama

I don't buy the theory for a second, let alone the use of drugs as a solution. IMO, ADD its just more politically correct physco babble. At best, ADD is a syptom of a self-indulgent society based upon instant and superficial gratification. Change the values of the society for the better, and watch societal effects such as ADD evaporate. At worst, its PC speak for, 'I have spent barely a moment's effort forming and developing my child's mind, and, now, he's an idiot! Admitting this would mean that I, as a parent, have failed miserably, but NO that couldn't be---Doctor, there *must* be something wrong! What do you think I'm paying you for!?' ENTER: Drug and Healthcare Industry (with suprising similarities to the Military Industrial Complex) that will oblige any perceived illness, as long as there's profit in it.

Do you think ADD exists in un-/under- developed Third World countries? Naw, they probably suffer from *Super Intense Focus Disorder*: Stay Focus, Stay Alive.

---

In many ways, you are correct. There is the tendancy to "invent" medical, health or other related justifications for social problems. Isn't that called "scape-goating"?

I couldn't resist chiming in on this very interesting thread. I was afraid I was the only one concerned w/ the demo, and that any naysaying would launch a duel. :duel:

I agree w/ the speed issue, which highlights my main concern...I felt as though I had no real control. My general was poorly distinguished, and the overview map w/ its crazy arrows was meaningless to me. I'm hoping that this is only because it was my first time playing the game, but afterwards, I didn't get much better, and couldn't believe I won the battle when I did, and the first time I was just too bored to finish it!

I also want to second the font concern, as the "'s" and "i's" seem to run together on my screen. I have to increase the resolution to avoid this?

I read the PC Gamer review, and the reviewer (Bill Harms) championed the new control scheme. Am I missing something? I couldn't control anything. Maybe the Total War controls will alleviate the weird top-down camera mode.

On a superficial level, I could barely distinguish between the unit icons on the lower screen, and the green arrows that highlight a selected unit are corny. Also, routing units have white flags for all factions, which is confusing, not to mention the Carthaginian flag is very similar.

On a positive note, I enjoyed the opening cinematics for Trebia, I, unlike many others, got a kick out of the voiceovers, "Barbarian Mercenaries!," and the elephants are just fun.

I'm afraid that in order to make a quick buck (or pound) CA sold out their admirable product to a, in my opinion, dated understanding of what a strategy gamer desires in his or her product. Psss...RTS's aren't cool anymore.

Okay, that was a bit mean. I'm hiding now.

:surrender: