Demo Discussion Thread

[Belgolas]

I replayed the land battle 2 more times. Ist I bunched up all my men including my cannon infantry(by dismounting and then putting them in melee mode). Then charged at the enemy in one be melee ball of men. I got owned :). (this was just for fun)

Second time I sent all my men to the left side. Eventually met there entire force by the town hall building and had a good fire fight. Although the stupid AI didn't move their cannons so I had all my cavalry flant and take out the cannons one by one. In the end I only lost 300 men and only 1 unit routed. The AI did place spikes infront of my cavalry at one point killing a bunch.

[Barkhorn1x]

What a PAINFULL download process!!!! Really, why do I go away and everything looks good at 30% and I come back after 90 more minutes to "updating" and no % at all??

I restart and now I am "updating" at 1%. This is my first experience with Steam and guess what,

I pre-ordered a digital d/l - a taste of things to come? NOT HAPPY!!

[Greyblades]

MTWII battlefields are gloomy and cold just the way I like it...this is too shiney..too arcade

Im just thankfull that CA didnt use next-gen "Realistic" colours in this.

[TB666]

Im just thankfull that CA didnt use next-gen "Realistic" colours in this.

Yeah, it's nice to see color these days instead of the grayish/brown that you see in games these days.

Anyway played the demo and loved it.
The new engine is beautiful on both land and see.
The battles were a bit easy but they were scripted so not a good indication of anything really.
But the land battles were the most fun I thought.
Seeing men march into a shower of cannon balls and musket fire and then unload a volley into the peasants was a lovely thing to see.
Did notice the AI pointing out stakes and setting up ambushes(not sure if that was scripted or not).
Oh and don't use your general as a fighting unit.
He could hardly handle a arty crew.

[jumpyg1258]

Hi everyone, decided to register today after watching this board for a while now waiting for the game to come out. The reason why I am posting is to display my huge disappointment in the demo for this game. You would think that after the delays in the release date for this game, that they could at least release a demo that was somewhat playable. I've never seen a game with a longer load screen in my life. You can your screen res, thats a 2 minute wait. Want V-Sync off, thats another 2 minutes. Then when you get into the game you get a screen like this...

And yes after getting this the first time I decided to update my drivers and that made no difference. It is not like I have a crappy machine either since the game recommended the Ultra settings.

Intel C2D 6750
ATI Radeon 4850 Toxic
2gb DDR2 1066Mhz

Anywho this demo gave me the worst first impression I think I have ever had with a game and I am right now regretting pre-ordering this game big time!

[TB666]

The demo is playable, easily.
However the problem isn't with the demo but with your hardware.

[jumpyg1258]

The demo is playable, easily.
However the problem isn't with the demo but with your hardware.

Sure, thats why I have no problems with any other games...

[Greyblades]

huh i havent seen that happen before in a RTS/TBS.
Maybe the download/install messed up?

[TB666]

Sure, thats why I have no problems with any other games...

It's only a game problem if it happens on everyone, it does not happen on my computer and I have seen screenshots that are fine also.
And your screenshot clearly indicates a graphical card problem since I have seen that type of thing happen on my older computers with other games and the problem was always traced back to my graphic card.
So you have to wait and see if ATI will fix it with a update or get a card that don't have the problem.

[ConnMon]

Sure, thats why I have no problems with any other games...

That depends on which games you play. Your computer might be able to handle WoW, but that doesnt mean that Empire will run smoothly. You might also be skimming bare minimum or something of that sort. I'd check all of your computer stats and compare that with Empire's minimum requirements. Good luck.

[NagatsukaShumi]

MASSIVELY disappointed by the demo, I just cannot play it on my PC, it takes an age to load, even on low graphics its sluggish and obviously the soldiers then just look terrible.

Looks like its time to look into the possibility of a new computer if I have a chance of playing ETW, gutting really. 2GB Ram and other decent enough specs I presumed would be enough to get it onto medium but evidently not unless the actual game is alot more PC friendly!

I say this as a TW vet, I honestly may have to miss the release date for the first time ever, which is gutting.

[Greyblades]

Mayby its overheating. Has your computer been running quieter recently?

[scipiosgoblin]

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.

I'll tell you what happens. My First Rate T-bones the French Flagship. It gets stuck and repeatedly raked by the French until it sinks.

Meanwhile the rest of my force is routed by the French fleet. I was still learning the controls. The second time I won, losing only two ships, and one of those right at the end before the last French ship surrendered.

[NagatsukaShumi]

Mayby its overheating. Has your computer been running quieter recently?

Mine?

Well it runs EUIII and Footy Manager (with numerous nations selected) fine enough, and MTWII on full with no problems. If anything its been louder!

I was planning on paying off the rest of what I ower for this one and getting another, but heard a new Microsoft OS is in the works and figured I should wait for that.

[Greyblades]

Hmm I still think I would appreciate it better if i saw it in person.
Oh and i won without losing any ships second try beat that!
^^And no i was talking to the new guy.

[jumpyg1258]

Mayby its overheating. Has your computer been running quieter recently?

I have the fan set to 100% and I even tried under clocking the video card to see if heat was the issue. Still had the same problem with this demo.

[Ziem]

Im just thankfull that CA didnt use next-gen "Realistic" colours in this.

Heheheh...colours would splash out of your screen right into your face!! :) :) Anyways I find it too unrealistic. But as I said before, this only the demo.

Z.

[ConnMon]

I'm not even bothering with the demo. I need to upgrade my computer, and I think that's why a lot of people are having bad experiences. That and the load time.
Steam -->

[jumpyg1258]

Another curious thing about this demo is that this graphical glitch only occurs down near the battlefield and not when I am looking from above.

[pevergreen]

Bad luck I guess.

On another note, 14% done in a few minutes

[scipiosgoblin]

I disabled Steam. That helped a lot. Meaning that I could run the game. For some reason the Land battle tutorial will not run, but the sea battle tutorial and both of the battles run just fine.

I played Brandywine first. I decided that I had no respect for the upstart American Army so I would frontal assault over the primary ford. I sent one unit of Guards and all of the cavalry to overwatch the other ford, just in case they got sneaky.

I moved all of my remaining infantry up to the ford in two ranks per unit. I set the light infantry to skirmish and edged them to the river. The horse artillery flanked the infantry on either side. I pushed the highlanders across first. The Americans tried their best to push them back with a unit of line infantry and two of minutemen. I reinforced with guards and line infantry and pushed the rebels back to make a beach head for the rest of my army.

I moved everyone over creating a large crescent. My light infantry and two line units attacked the cannon to my left and routed them. I then moved my infantry into column and adavnced into the hill overlooking the town hall. I brought the cavalry and overwatch guard unit across the other ford to encircle the rebels.

They had garrisoned the town hall. I began to move forward on a broad front when for some reason my general just had to see what was going on at the town hall. (clicked in the wrong place and didn't realize it.) Some long riflemen ended his career quite rapidly.

Even with this tragic blow, I was able to break the flank of the rebel force. At the same time I sent two units of infantry to take the town hall. (one in either door.) I soon got a message that the town hall was captured. My cavalry arrived and charged the rear of the rebel force and routed the last two remaining units.

All in all a good fight.

The AI performed pretty well, though it could have more vigorously defended the crossing with some reserves. With the frontal assault I expected to get beaten, but Highlanders are good shock troops and will take a pounding and keep on fighting.

By the time I reached the town hall, I had defeated all of the AI's cannon and all but 4 units of its infantry. It did the best it could under the circumstances.

I was just happy to be able to play on the lowest settings.

SG

[Ziem]

Intel C2D 6750
ATI Radeon 4850 Toxic
2gb DDR2 1066Mhz

Anywho this demo gave me the worst first impression I think I have ever had with a game and I am right now regretting pre-ordering this game big time!

Ah, the infamous ATI cards. I Never ever saw a game where people didn't complain about their ATI graph card. So, toptip, get rid of that ATI thingie and get an NVIDIA card. Personally I've always had NVIDIA cards and never had problems.

Hope it helps....


Z.

[Haxorsist]

I've found out that I'm a terrible Admiral. I tried the naval battle three times and never won. I kept sending my ships in the wrong direction and letting the French cross the T.

I did spank the Americans at the Brandywine though, so it's not all bad. I only used half my force. I just sent them the alternative route over the undefended ford, and killed off their reserve. Then I attacked them from the back taking out the artillery first. The AI didn't respond to my attacking the arty, which was disappointing.

[Mongoose]

Sure, thats why I have no problems with any other games...

I also have a Radeon card, though not the same version, and the demo doesn't work for me either. I've seen people on other forums with Radeon cars having issues too, so I'm pretty certain that it is the card.

[Belgolas]

Hi everyone, decided to register today after watching this board for a while now waiting for the game to come out. The reason why I am posting is to display my huge disappointment in the demo for this game. You would think that after the delays in the release date for this game, that they could at least release a demo that was somewhat playable. I've never seen a game with a longer load screen in my life. You can your screen res, thats a 2 minute wait. Want V-Sync off, thats another 2 minutes. Then when you get into the game you get a screen like this...

And yes after getting this the first time I decided to update my drivers and that made no difference. It is not like I have a crappy machine either since the game recommended the Ultra settings.

Intel C2D 6750
ATI Radeon 4850 Toxic
2gb DDR2 1066Mhz

Anywho this demo gave me the worst first impression I think I have ever had with a game and I am right now regretting pre-ordering this game big time!

This is most definitely not the games fault. This is called artifacting and is usually due to heat. Although sometimes it is when you do a bad driver install. You said that you tried the latest drivers. Try uninstalling all the drivers then use a driver cleaning app like CCleaner. Then install the latest drivers. If you still have a problem then do that process again and revert to an older driver. I noticed I would get that a lot on my old 4870 X2. It can also mean a bad overclock on the CPU or Ram.

Anyways welcome to PC gaming where artifacting is common.

[Nelson]

Smoke trails on bullets and cannon shots were altogether nonexistent. I find them distracting and annoying. M:TW2 got them right. I guess they are there to remind players who is shooting at what but I would rather do without them. I hope we can turn them off somehow just like the big flags and green arrows.

[Greyblades]

Ooh the ai are sneaky.
In the brandywine battle I had a arty duel going on, to decide wherther i was going to attack from the front or the rear, over the clearing west(i think) of the main ford and I had sent 2 guard units and one grenadier to the "back passage". Next thing I know a bunch of minute men has ambushed my troops, and thats not the sneaky part, while I was beating off the ambush 2 units of dragoons tore away form the ford while I was preoccupied went through a gap in my battle line and wiped out my artillery. Without battery support I quickly lost the battle in a near defeat.
I have to say i am starting to warm to the AI's abilities.

[ThePianist]

First Impression of the Demo:

It is really fantastic. The land battle is what Imperial Glory should have been. Land battle is good with plenty of good terrain features and hills, valleys and gullies to position soldiers, hiding them from enemy fire and using the terrain for surprise ambushes, especially in wooded areas, which should be abundant in all battle fields of Europe and the United States. However it's also a demo so probably only a portion of the features are shown. The thrill of having soldiers go on a bayonet charge is exhilarating, though I wish it was as dramatic as in Glory (the movie). Since all soldiers can fire, to do a successful cavalry charge without any rider dying feels like quite an accomplishment, and the cavalry looks all the more fearsome when they do arrive. Maybe it's because the uniform look so much more familiar compared to medieval and antique ones. It is much closer to the "real people" of present times, whereas the ancient and medieval world feels more distant. Even with max graphics set at Medium, it is possible to tell that the graphics are very refined.

A drummer beats drums when soldiers go on marching, that is exceedingly good. I wish there were fifes, but drums is a background sound that you can listen to over and over again, but a fife melody would perhaps sound repetitive after a thousand listenings. Still it would be great if there were fife sounds when you zoom in on the unit (but not audible when you are not zoomed it). I like the charge trumpet when a bayonet charge is ordered.

Some distinguishing features are the extra flag beneath the national flag, which makes it really exciting. It means there can be regimental flags. Also the little flag is square for infantry, triangular for cavalry and concave pentagonal for artillery. That is so awesome. The artillery also has exceedingly great range and that is something very exciting as well. I am glad it is compensated by being inaccurate, however repeated firing would definitely take down whatever you are firing at. I hid a unit of horse-drawn artillery behind a hill and some enemy artillery kept firing at it and eventually destroyed the unit. Another great feature is the ability to do indirect fire. I put the other horse-drawn artillery on the reverse side of the hill and had them fire upslope. Some shots hit the ground but others were able to make it over the hilltop and then unto the target. That is very exciting.

In land battle each unit has a drawn field-of-fire in the shape of a section of a circle deployed in front of them. When ordered to move, each unit also has an arrow pointing to where they are going. Overall this make everything look precise like the map diagrams seen in the intro video.

I am also so glad the intro video did not have a speech about "control" and "power", etc.

For some reason I think the devs spent more time and energy on the sea battle aspect since much of the European empires from 1700+ were made by naval power, so the sea battle is exceptionally good: the interface of curved arrows, the ability to fire broadsides from left and right, the ability to disable sails and to board the enemy ship. The water is beautiful, such that I wish I was on that ship sailing (but not in combat).

Now, compared to the intro video, which is how I imagine the game, the sea battles (even with max graphics set on Medium, definitely live out to the expectation, every bit of it. Every bit. It's utterly éblouissant.) The land battles lack one thing: the land does not crater when cannonballs hit the ground, the way the water would burst upon the sea when cannonballs hit the water. I suppose the difference would be that the land needs a crater to stay there afterwards whereas the sea doesn't. Maybe it's visible on graphics higher than Medium? Another odd thing is, the British line infantry, even when deployed in two lines, only the first line would fire, the second line stands idle. In comparison, even the Spanish militia can fire from all ranks and file, not just the most forward line. Maybe because it's before Napoleon invented the "first line fire, second line aim, third line reload, and then cycle"? Or maybe they acquire that skill after leveling up? Other than that cratering and the line infantry detail, every other detail is well-done. The soldiers have so many different postures that it does not look like a game unit, but like a snapshot of real life. The smoke caused by the firing of muskets is impressive. The difficulty of the cavalry in charging into the forest as opposed to on the open plain, is realistically portrayed. Actually one more request: the building in the tutorial scenario, after collapsing due to artillery fire, it just became a mound of earth (as if it was pulverized into powder). Could the collapsed buildings graphic look more like the ones on Company of Heroes?

And the atmosphere is really well made. The menu has breathtaking view of background animation, huge armies moving on the field and lining up to fire. The menu music is so much better done than, say, that Vegas game. It is cinematic and gracious and epic and idyllic at the same time, evoking the life during the time/era when people were expected to be gentlemen, even with the imperial wars going on. The user interface look like the hardcover of 18th century textbooks or perhaps wooden furniture from the Victorian era, and that is exceedingly good. It is not a major detail like the actions on screen, but cumulative little details like that (plus music) actually contribute more than major details. The menu selection of the unit, especially the munition-category buttons of the artillery and the ships look like buttons made of cast metal, and that is also excellent design. I enjoy reading the unit descriptions as always (would help the preservation of vision if font was a bit larger).

My computer might be falling behind in speed, because it takes 10 second just to make the main menu appear after a battle is won. It also takes 20-30 or 30+ seconds to load a battle. Even the EB mod, with lots of extra scripting, loads faster than that. I might have difficulty campaigning at that speed.

Overall, I expect this to be the best RTS game of 2009. I have seen nothing of the campaign map yet, but I can't think of anyone else who can make something this good with this epic of a scale.

[scipiosgoblin]

Smoke trails on bullets and cannon shots were altogether nonexistent. I find them distracting and annoying. M:TW2 got them right. I guess they are there to remind players who is shooting at what but I would rather do without them. I hope we can turn them off somehow just like the big flags and green arrows.

You could always play the game on the lowest settings. I don't see smoke trails at all. ;P

Just kidding. I'm really envious of everyone who can play this on the high settings. At least I'll have something to look forward to.

SG

[seireikhaan]

Erh...

Seems a tad wonky...