Demo Discussion Thread

[peacemaker]

man, this demo is killing me. I don't know anything about steam, I just went on "demos" then clicked on Empire, then "Install". I'm sitting at 46 kbps....I'm feeling like the game will be out by the time I get the demo working

[Mailman653]

CPU:Intel Pent 4 3.40GHz
RAM: 3GB
Vid: Nividia 6800
XP 32, SP3

I think I had similiar experiences as everyone else, I tried to change the resolution a few times but ended either with it looking like it froze or just hangs so I just gave up and put all my settings on low plus upgraded my Direct X with the one that came with the demo.

But that aside, I did enjoy it, just have to get used to the controls, which seem identical to M2TW, but I'm still learning all those formation buttons and their functions. At times it seemed it was easier to click a unit and drag it then to click, double line and watch them form somewhere where I don't want them to go.

[Sir Beane]

Just finished the last battle! Execellent! Lost 128 men and killed 780 of the enemy .

To be honest the graphics are fantastic, and so is the feel of the battle. Cavalry are a little too fast and have some odd animations but apart from that it was excellent.

[Mithridates VI Eupator]

Okay, this thing has got me utterly perplexed. I seem to have the same problem as Sir Beane et. al. had but with a twist.

I started downloading at the moment it was in the list, and it seemd to go at a rate of ca 1%/min. When it had gotten to 10% I decided to watch some TV while waiting, and when I got back an hour later, it appeared as if the download was finished and it was updating, flashing "download starting" and "updating 0%" in the status column. Figuring that it was ok, I pressed launch, but was horrified when it said "ready to play in aproximately 7 hours 50 minutes". First I thought it was my comp being to crappy, but apart from my processor being a bit too slow, all other thigs are equal to or above the specs.

When the update had gone to 3%, I tried to pause and restart, but that just pushed the percentage back to 0.
I have been waiting all afternoon, and it still says 3 hours and 59 minutes. Is there anything I can do, or will I just have to sit back and wait? It makes no sense that it should be this slow, as the first 10% took an equal amount of minutes.

[Belgolas]

I am running it at max settings with 8XAA at 1920 x 1200. This game runs smoother then M2TW. Load times are about 20 seconds longer then M2TW. This is one amazing demo. The AI as far as I can tell is improved and I took heavy loses in both battles. The land battle I lost half my men and the navy I lost more then half my ships. Although I spent most of my time in awe of the graphics for naval battles watching my men board. I am dissapointed that you can't have a ship board on each side though.

You can dissable the huge flags or have the flag shown when the mouse is over the unit. That is right in the options menu.

Animations need a lot of work though. Mainly calvary charges but infantry is fine. Boarding animations still need work and it is hard to see whos men are fighting who because both sailers have the same look.

One ship while boarding went partly into another ship.

Water sometimes goes through the ship.

The sound is messed up.

Anyways this is one sweet game so far. I am loving that it runs so smooth compaired to last toal war games.

[Belgolas]

To help download the game double click on the game

[Crazed Rabbit]

Hmm. Mixed impressions, but definitely more promising than RTW's demo.

The graphics - I had almost everything set ultra high and it ran smooth. Also, the unit design is so much better than RTW. The battle maps are also more detailed, which I like.

Fighting the land battle;
It seems the AI is somewhat likely to come in piecemeal fashion.

I was moving my main force (minus my hessians and dragoons, which stayed behind as cannon bait) across the side ford. The Americans moved nearly all their infantry over to the town and set up a goodly ordered line. Their dragoons remained with the cannons, which continued to pound fruitlessly at my hidden-behind-a-hill-Hessians. I sent some skirmishers up ahead to deal with the hidden American infantry in the woods. As I finished dealing with them, my three line infantry units are perhaps halfway between my main force and the main American force. Then the whole American force started to move towards me.

I was worried. I immediately began running my main forces up. But the whole American force stopped moving, and only two units continued. These two units continued the assault alone, but my vanguard force was able to deal with them easily.

That was an unfortunate move by the AI.

So I moved my main army up, including my cannons, and pounded the main AI infantry force for a while. The AI didn't move their cannons or cavalry. Nor did they move their infantry force at all. They just sat their and got pounded on by my cannons.

After I while I got bored and ordered my soldiers in. They fought off the Americans. One unit garrisoned in the town hall. So I brought up my cannons and leveled it, killing all the soldiers inside. They made no attempt to escape.

After that, I moved the Hessians against the main ford, still defended by the cannons. I moved my Hussars against the cannons farther from the ford. As I charged my Hessians into the teeth of the cannons, the AI didn't real do anything with the two dragoon units they had with the cannons - they simply stood around, instead of trying to flank my Hessians.

Anyway, the brave charge of the Hessians drove back the American cannoneers and dragoons.

Overall, it felt like a good TW battle, but the AI needs to avoid piecemeal commitment of its forces.

CR

[Mithridates VI Eupator]

To help download the game double click on the game

What do you mean? Double click on it in the "my games" list in steam? Will that speed it up?

[Greyblades]

I have to say i dont realy like how my ships automatically veer away from eachother even when i am trying to get my ship to board another. It is especially annoying when I try to see what happens when the ships collide.

[ULC]

Yes, I have noticed that the load times are long, so long as Steam is in the background - disabling steam improves the demo's performance considerably.

The controls, although similar to M2TW, took sometime getting used too and I was eventually forced to simply setting them up the old fashioned way. I was able to grasp quickly how to use unit abilities, although there was some minor frustration. Also, although pathfinding seems to be "better", the units really do not seem keen on holding formations well or going somewhere predictable - I had my cavalry all over the place for some reason :freak2:

I found the AI to not be that wonderful at all really. It now responds well to your moves, and is a lot more active, however, it still reeks of stupidity when it has clear tactical advantage - however, at one point I was pleasantly surprised to see the AI use two tactics that caught me utterly off guard.

The first was that after a volley, the US Line, especially the minutemen, would pull back about 30 yards and in good order. This allowed them to hammer me with the riflemen from range, forcing me to walk forward and take the first volley, and quickly falling back again. This may be scripted however, so my hopes are not too high.

The second was pulling troops away from one Flank and covering it with cavalry or riflemen, while using the moved unit to create a inverted star point to hammer one of my flanks. I was surprised to see it quickly move to high ground to take even better advantage of this, and it held it - I could not force them, it would simply morph the formation (ripe for cavalry ) to keep the effect and advantage. Again, this may be scripted, but if it's not then THANK GOD CA GOT THIS RIGHT ! However, I see possible players trying to exploit the AI's newfound stubbornness to their advantage, time will tell....

Needless to say, I lost at Brandywine

I found the Sea Battles merely fluff really. I barely commanded them coherently, watched them pull powerslides, and for the most part look pretty. In fact, the main reason I say it was fluff is that I was able to watch as I took my First Rate and plow right through them to their Admiral, get close for a boarding action (while hammering them with a volley of grapeshot) and watched for almost five minutes as the rest of my fleet went about their business and simply handed the French their back to them, losing only 2 ships to their 5.

However, I do note that the AI did use encircling and dividing techniques to rip apart my ships - I did suffer heavy casualties. In fact, the battles are so pretty I really did not care if I won or lost, I just wanted to watch

No comments on the tutorials - I skipped them entirely.

[Belgolas]

You guys who are experiencing "Not bad" load times:

What do your specs look like?

Single-core systems? Dual core?

I need some info!

Running smooth no crashes max settings load time under a minute. Everything sett to max. 8 x AA 16xAF 1920 x 1200 (got a 30" monitor on the way)

My settings are...
Core i7 920 at 3.6 ghz (stable at 4ghz but am waiting for a better cooler)
Tri SLI GTX 260 core 216 overclocked to the "FTW" settings
12GB of DDR3 at 1600mhz
1TB western digital black (why is black considered performance is wierd, AMD has black edition processors, western digital has black edition hard drive, and XFX has black edition graphics cards)
EVGA X58 (waiting for the EVGA classified)

[knoddy]

yes ima agree with others about the load times, very very long, will try disabling steam next time

very impressed with the game other than that, graphics looked good even on med, i managed to garrison my units in a building hehe fun fun. only major gripe was the load times and just the massive hog it seemed to be for system memory, but that coulda been steam.

Cheers Knoddy

[WarHawk]

very impressed with AI. load times are slow, but hopefully that is steam. everything is smooth once in battlefield, and graphics look very impressive.

one problem i faced was positioning artillery, once unlimbered. couldn't figure it out and my arty was firing into the ground next to it.

[Zenicetus]

The naval game was a huge let down. I expected an arcadish approach but wasn't prepared for what I saw. Overly manoeuvrable ships (and not a little, think handbreak turn manoeuvring) and the French sailed dead into the wind at a fair pace while my man o war were crawling along at what should have been the ideal angle (just to the side of the wind direction) Hope the modders can fix this because it's a mess.

Ugh, that's exactly what I've been afraid of, and griping about, for months. I'm not even downloading the demo until I hear more about the naval battles. So far, it doesn't sound good at all.

[Sisco Americanus]

.

The battles were pretty smooth, with a 0.5 second pause every 20 seconds or so. One thing I couldn't get working were the horse drawn guns - they'd deploy but never fire - half the time the horses seemed to be in front of the guns. I guess I was just unlucky with my placement.

Did you click the Limber/Unlimber icon on the HUD? They won't be able to fire unless you unlimber them; conversely, they won't really be able to move unless you limber them again.

[Rhyfelwyr]

If you try to unlimber them near trees sometimes they just sit there with maybe the guys getting off their horse and getting stuck walking into something.

[Zatoichi]

Yeah I unlimbered them with the button, but they wouldn't fire - first time I did it the horses on one team ran in front of the cannon, the other set of horses correctly ran behind the other cannon, but they wouldn't fire.

I guess what may have happened is that I got the range wrong - maybe their target was too far away, and they couldn't move to it as they were unlimbered?

I'll give it another go tomorrow.

[pyradyn]

Wait wait wait wait wait wait......Where is Polemist? Did he vanish or something?

[Hosakawa Tito]

I tried a different tactic with the land battle. Instead of splitting my force I took my entire army to the undefended ford. The Americans did move their cannon from the main crossing, but did not set up in an advantageous spot. They chose a placement with thick forest, the wooded hill on my right flank but too far back to be effective, moving those 24 pounders to either flank would have been deadly for me. My Highlanders, Light Infantry & Dragoons routed them advancing through the trees for cover to get close for a volley & bayonet charge. My main force just steamrolled their infantry after softening them up with the horse-arty. The husars chased down and eliminated General Washington and the rout was complete.

[Greyblades]

I think Polemist either died of shock or he's too engrossed in the demo to post.

[Necceh]

Played the first land battle, was okay, i'll be honest in that i'm more interested in the whole campaign affair, theres some nice improvements although i think i need to adjust to the tactics for this time period somewhat, i ended up just getting fustrated with my forces not firing and swithcing to a melee charge. Won the battle no problem though.

Gonna go back to Europa Unversails III while i await the release of the game, cheers for the demo CA :).

[Chloe]

Played the land tutorial so far, and I was impressed, The only small thing was that the Spanish did not react when I outflanked them with my general and made a spectacular charge.
No lag for me, runs fine and is a great game.

[Sir Beane]

Played the land tutorial so far, and I was impressed, The only small thing was that the Spanish did not react when I outflanked them with my general and made a spectacular charge.
No lag for me, runs fine and is a great game.

I think the Spaniards in the Tutorial are purposefully programmed to act stupid to make it easier.

[Mailman653]

Has anyone tried unpacking the files yet? I think M2TW uses the same .pack format, but I might be wrong. I'd love to take a peek inside the files.

[TB666]

I usually get 1,4 MB/sec on Steam even when a "hot" game has just been released.
Now it's struggling with 100kb/sec.
What the hell steam ??

[Chloe]

I think the Spaniards in the Tutorial are purposefully programmed to act stupid to make it easier.

Oh, yeah, the scripts!:D
Also, did anyone else notice the building? There were actual soldiers moving around inside it.

[Sir Beane]

Oh, yeah, the scripts!:D
Also, did anyone else notice the building? There were actual soldiers moving around inside it.

I blew it up . There were no soldiers after that . Buildings are garrisonable now (or atleast some seem to be) look out for it in the Battle of Brandywine Creek as well.

[Chloe]

I blew it up . There were no soldiers after that . Buildings are garrisonable now (or atleast some seem to be) look out for it in the Battle of Brandywine Creek as well.

I'm trying it first thing tomorrow morning
And then I will replay the tutorial just so I can blow up the farmhouse

[Ziem]

Oh goodie! Dual screen mode (I have a matrox triple head 2x 24" and 1 x 19" ). Runs smooth on highest settings but I have to say that I'm not that impressed by the graphics itself. Sharper graphs then MTWII, yes , but I dunno...probably I have to get used to it. MTWII battlefields are gloomy and cold just the way I like it...this is too shiney..too arcade...and ofcourse as usual, high speed movement. But hey, its only a demo and I'm sure that the modders will take care of these thingies once the full version is released.

Z.

[ULC]

That's kind of a harsh judgment since all battles available take place in favorable weather conditions.

I will pity the fool who decides to fight the Ruskies in the rain

I just wish it was modifiable - I would soooo setup some battles without scripts to truly test the AI.