Demo Discussion Thread

**Polemists** · 02-21-2009, 11:06

The demo is avaliable, dunno why your upset.

Anyhoo, hey guys when your downloading if it does updating or goes back to 0% just ignore it, if you go into your steam folder and search for Empire total war folder, right click on properties and you should see the number increase.

Mine was still saying 0% even when it went from 0-91mb and then to 138 mb.

So just watch the folder and not the little 0%, I switched my region to another region and it helped alot to, went from like 3kbps to 50 kbps.

Good luck downloading all :)

**Wausser** · 02-21-2009, 11:14

Hmm just played the tutorials, pretty good load time(around 1-1.5 min), only the game crashed during the land battle..

My system: Intel Q8200 @2,33 Ghz, 4 GB Ram, Asus EAH4850 1GB @ Vista Ultimate

**InsaneApache** · 02-21-2009, 11:15

I got it and ran it. It took about 10 minutes loading the opening, it still hadn't finished so I dropped out, turn off all the background programs and tried again. Same result.

So I havn't had chance to play it but, as I suspected, like Greg I'll have to fork out on a new system to run it. Admittedly I'm on an ancient machine but I'm still disapointed.

Another thing that hacked me off was being only able to play it whist online. My connex is a bit dodgy ATM so not a happy chappy here.

**hoom** · 02-21-2009, 11:31

Well I had little issue downloading it in NZ.
No problem with the intro movie.
Auto settings were ok, set most stuff to high for my C2D e6600 @2.9ghz with 2GB DDR2 & Radeon 4870.

Weird flickering of the UI in both tutorials & the Naval Battle (haven't played the land battle), goes away after you change a graphics setting that forces the game to reload the scene.
Could be related to having forced AA & AF in Catalyst Control Centre or maybe being on Win7 x64 Beta?

Game runs ok otherwise even after I bumped everything to max settings.

Lost the naval battle trying to dismast & capture the frenchies

I think I lost a couple of my own ships in there

I believe the delays in loading after changing settings is because they are presumably using dynamically compiled shaders.
There are so many variables that affect shaders (resolution/texture detail/unit detail etc) that it can be best to recompile the code any time that its changed rather than to pre-compile for every possible option.
It means that you have to wait around when you change stuff but enables more effects to be used.
Other games do the same thing eg Battlefield2 takes ages to recompile the shaders when you make minor graphic changes too.

Also its re-loading the scene with the new settings.
In earlier games you couldn't change all settings from within a battle, had to go out to the main menu to make the changes & it would then load the changed effects next battle etc.

**Polemists** · 02-21-2009, 11:49

Another thing that hacked me off was being only able to play it whist online. My connex is a bit dodgy ATM so not a happy chappy here.

Steam does have a offline mode, and empire total war full game can run in the offline mode.

Not sure about demo, but I assume it can run with steam in offline mode, since most demos can.

**Wausser** · 02-21-2009, 11:51

Yeah just beat the crap out of the yanks

**MK_MadMick** · 02-21-2009, 12:00

Not played demo properly yet. Just messed about and admired the graphics which are superb.
I do have a decent PC.
XP32
4 gig of ram
ATI HD 4800
Intel Quad Core CPU.

I think many peeps will need to do some sort of upgrade to make it run smoothly.
Cant wait for game to come out. I just hope and pray it runs smoothly in multiplayer.

**Argent Usher** · 02-21-2009, 12:51

I have only played the tut and the land battle (had some probs with my new steam account and then the european servers were all

but my thanx goes to the east coast).

I can only play with 1200x800 (my TFT screen max) but the autodetect decided ultra settings could be easy handled (

Dual Core; 2 gig; MSI GeForce 7900 GTO; XP) so i tried it out and it was Ok.

Contra:

Scripts or AI (there were some weird things as i moved my troops to the spanish enemy (hidden in the wood) nothing happens no reaction of the AI but i can't make damage)

the lightsources still over saturate colors as in MII (especially red and white)

high variance in the quality of the environment (as example the building are barely ok but the scrambled house

, the grass vegetation goes from really good -> lousy, same with the pieces of damage)

The units moving all as under Amphetamine maybe I'm just too old.

The demo doesn't includes an unpacker Or ???

Pro:

The game is defintiv an improvement in the TW serie an there is the hope to change again all bugs by the dev teams (CA and modders).

Regards A.U.

**CBR** · 02-21-2009, 15:26

For naval combat:

I don't really like the concept of giving destinations instead of a course. If things become a bit hectic you have ships stopping up instead of just continuing as you forget to give them new order.

Wind direction does not seem to be something to worry that much about. It might give different speed but with rather fast paced combat it does not appear to be that important.

In the tutorial my ship did a quick 20+ degree turn to move toward the enemy ship, with furled sails!

A few odd moments with ships ordered to take a hard 90+ degree starboard turn but furling sails and turning a bit to port instead.

Group function is nice though so don't have to give orders to every ship.

So a bit of a beer and pretzel arcade game.

Land combat:

Counter battery seems very effective although the shorter range might have had something to do with it. My 2 horse batteries needed only a few salvos to take out the enemy batteries on my left and center.

Infantry run run rates seem to be very similar to M2TW. Think they run about twice as fast as marching. But with the shorter range of muskets it cuts down on your reaction time. Cavalry seems to have been given a boost or at least the lighter cavalry (hussars and dragoons) They are now close to RTW run speeds.

Maybe it is the demo but fatigue is very low from running. With double speed from running and low fatigue one can easily run twice the musket range without worrying that much about fatigue.

So overall it is still gonna be rather fast paced. The demo might have felt OK but we did not face lots of enemy cavalry nor control a full army.

---------------------------------------

For those not interested in numbers you can stop reading now:

MTW run speed for normal/fast inf - ETW run speed for grenadier/line/light inf*
166/200 meters/minute - 180/200/225 meters/minute

MTW cav run speed for normal/light - ETW run speed for General and horse artillery/dragoons and hussars
333/400 meters minute - 450/600 meters/minute

Reaction time based on missile range versus run speed:

MTW (100 meter range)
Inf 36/30 seconds
Cav 18/15 seconds

ETW (70 meters - I use that as I assume most line inf will have 70 and only light inf will have 80)
Inf 23/21/19 seconds
Cav 9+/7 seconds

Of course there are rifle units that will increase the time by around 70%

*based on demo map so slight elevations can change the result a bit but there should be 3 classes of infantry speed.

CBR

**hoom** · 02-21-2009, 12:39

So my flickering UI was either because of the forced AA or AF, much more sensibly behaving with them off.

I well beat the French in Lagos MkII :D

Swept along their line with all my ships in a group following the lead ship in line astern.
The last in line sank the French lead ship as she was turning to double back, 2 surrendered as we went past & I dove the Namur between the 2nd to last & last French ships, giving them both a good raking broadside with solid shot.
Doubled back with the Namur between the two lines, engaging both & with the rest of the squadron coming round the back of the French line.
The French 2nd line all surrendered pretty quick.
I did get the Namur alongside one but it seems to have managed to surrender before there was any boarding.
That left only one of the first French line in the fight (heading away with full sail) but all my ships were facing the wrong way & I had a good muddle to get them around (the automated pathfinding did pretty well here, it does manage to allow collisions but generally seems to maneuvre the ships out of each others way without looking forced)
A lucky long range broadside with chain shot from the Namur dropped the foes mast in the water & the mere sight of my squadron approaching from various directions caused a surrender.