Demo Discussion Thread

[peacemaker]

argh. The demo died on me as soon as I tried to launch it, I guess I'll try to re-download it....

[Belgolas]

To get rid of the banners go into the options menu.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I've figured out what "skirmish" does. When enabled, the unit will avoid physical contact (turning and running automatically). Used it to finish off some brave but foolish American rifles once. They chased my skirmishing light infantry back into some Hessian line.

The AI is gutsy but not (usually) suicidal with charging infantry. I like it. If you aren't paying attention and they sneak up a long rifle on an outnumbered unit (light infantry seem to be targeted particularly) they'll run them right over.

[Polemists]

Greetings all :), I'm not usually on during a friday, but it was a pleasant surprise to return to so much demo activity...and of course...the demo.

To the demo legion.


Know that much like liberty, we have fought and prevailed. We had our opponents in the monarchy (mods), the forces of oppression (slow ca devs) and even our countrymen (fellow orgahs). We prevailed.

Much like the legions of the past though, we have won our battle. It is time to disperse. To enjoy the fruits of our labor.

There shall be other demos though, other foreign fronts. When that time comes we shall rise up again. To fight tyrranny (Slow demo updates) wherever they may appear.

Vive le Liberty, Vive Le Demo


Well i'm still downloading it but tonight I shall be playing it :). I think it was well worth the effort.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Right. I'm now getting an error saying that

The game is currently unavailable. Please try again at a later time.

...whenever I try to launch it. I have already tried redownloading. What gives?

[pevergreen]

Restart steam? If that doesn't work, reboot?

Also you could try launching the actual .exe

Go to your steam folder, steamapps, common, empire total war demo.

[Greyblades]

Greetings all :), I'm not usually on during a friday, but it was a pleasant surprise to return to so much demo activity...and of course...the demo.

To the demo legion.


Know that much like liberty, we have fought and prevailed. We had our opponents in the monarchy (mods), the forces of oppression (slow ca devs) and even our countrymen (fellow orgahs). We prevailed.

Much like the legions of the past though, we have won our battle. It is time to disperse. To enjoy the fruits of our labor.

There shall be other demos though, other foreign fronts. When that time comes we shall rise up again. To fight tyrranny (Slow demo updates) wherever they may appear.

Vive le Liberty, Vive Le Demo


Well i'm still downloading it but tonight I shall be playing it :). I think it was well worth the effort.

Who are you and what have you done with polemists. :P
Huh... i was kinda expecting some thing more... freak out-y

So what are you going to obsess about now the demos out?

[Megas Methuselah]

You're a deserter, Polemists. All you did today was enjoy RL while the rest of us played the demo to death and beyond.

Anyways, after winning my first go at the battle (losses, 471; kills, 800 and some), I decided to go again. Being a big fan of bayonet and cavalry charges, I decided to go for a thorough full-frontal assault across the first ford with all my troops in a charge.

God, it was bloody chaos. I slowly gained ground, and finally advanced to the town hall, fighting in melee the whole way. Me and the AI would just send routed units right back into the fray. Eventually, though, the AI brought in fresh units of Long Riflemen and Minutemen and won the battle through sheer force of numbers.

But it was sooo fun. And like pever said, the soldiers were soooo cuuute!




As for the graphics, I turned off shadows, bloom, grass. Everything else I set to high. The loads were long, but the battles were not laggy. It was ok. I'm going to hope that pever is right, in that the actual game will play out better in terms of performance.

[hoom]

Its fairly common for demos to be using older engine code with debugging code still in place = poor performance.
Also I think the way that CA scripts battles can sometimes have a negative impact on speed.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Alright, turned out it was my firewall - I'd only allowed Empire to connect once, instead of forever. My opinion of the demo is that it is alright - but never try to CTRL + ALT + DEL out of it. Ever. The menu lag is immense.

[quadalpha]

Anyone else have a problem with limbering the horse arty? Once the horses/men/gun got stuck on each other and refuse to do anything.

Your Hessians will be under cannon fire from the very beginning, though moving them forward a bit onto the reverse slope seems to solve that problem. They will still be fired upon, but to no effect, and your horse arty can then get into position on your left. I haven't tried, but it seems that if you don't make a move to either ford, the Americans will quite happily take a pounding while trying to bombard your Hessians.

For those who haven't been to TWC's thread, Jack Lusted says:

- Use groups in the naval battle to make your ships follow the leader.
- Regarding scripts: Brandywine - Main force of AI is under AI control but only held in position, is then released to AI control after different times based on which ford you go to. Lagos - not scriped at all.

Edit:

From the official forums -

c:\Documents and Settings\**your name **\Application Data\The Creative Assembly\EmpireDemo2\scripts\preferences.empire_script.txt

and change the value:

battle_difficulty

I just checked mine, and it seems that the default setting for the demo is "normal" (there's also "easy", "hard", and "vhard").

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Only got through the land tutorial so far. My load times were alright, but my graphics were ranging from passable to terrible, so I'll have to readjust them slightly.