So, the demo...

[Megas Methuselah]

What did you guys think of it? Give it a rating out of 5 stars, and state the reasons for your rating.

[pyradyn]

I gave it 3 Starts. I think it is good but is a bit lagy. I do not like Historical battles though, little to motivate me to win or try to keep most my army alive. I like it when the battle means something to my campaign. If I lose this battle I do not have an army to stop this force....I must win!!!!

[A Very Super Market]

I give it 0 pizzas out of 5 pizzas, because my download is taking so long.

[pevergreen]

5 Stars

Reasoning:

OMG ITS EMPIRE TOTAL WAR OMGOMGOMGOMGOGOMGOGMOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOGMOMGOMGOMGOM GOGMOMGOMG
[/FANBOY]

1. Melee charging is SO COOL
2. Cannons don't wtfpwn you.
3. I gave it 5/5 and I haven't even played naval yet!
4. I like the coding they use for Historical Battles
5. ITS SOO GOOD.

[Megas Methuselah]

5 stars!

I loved charging my entire army into melee, then keeping my grenadiers back to toss grenades into the whole mob. God, it was glorious!

[A Very Super Market]

Good lord, your men must hate you so much

[PseRamesses]

So far I´m a happy camper. My 3yo PC is a bit sluggish though.
But on monday my new QuadPro will arrive so I´m firing up
for the big release in March.

[cannon_fodder]

3/5

The naval combat tutorial is the most frustrating I've ever experienced in a game. You're prevented from operating controls for much of the beginning of it, it often takes a long time for it to acknowledge a completed action, and it got stuck on the first attack order (no matter how many times I ordered the attack, I was still prompted to do so, despite the fact that the order clearly went through). It's pretty much broken. My first attempt at the sea combat historical battle went poorly towards the beginning as my units did not behave as expected. Too early to judge though, I'll need to try it again.

Land combat didn't disappoint. I like the new default camera control scheme, IMO it's the best of the series so far. The pace of combat and movement is reasonable, and the interface remains functional, though an unfortunate amount of micromanagement is necessary to ensure the combat efficiency of your troops. Cannons seem a bit overpowered, but I think that's just because the Americans have so many deployed in that battle (I would never attack across a river with so little artillery). Cavalry are extremely good at dying. Even if you only send them on perfectly legitimate attacks on enemy flanks and rears, they seem to suffer immense casualties all the time. Don't think I'll be using melee-only light cavalry in the game. If memory serves, the AI is better than in Shogun. It reacted sensibly to every one of my actions (it still lost, of course; it's not as smart as a person). No single unit or ability seems considerably overpowered, including the grenadiers' grenades.

The graphics, including the framerate, are impressive. My only complaint there are the sprites used for distant trees: the color of the bark is vastly different than on the 3D ones, making the boundary and transitions unconvincing. Load times are the worst I've experienced in a PC game. Textures and sounds are the only game resources that are large enough to induce large load times, and the difference between M2TW's load times and ETW's cannot be fully explained by those resources. So maybe it'll improve in the final game.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I had to decide between a 3 and a 4. I voted 4 because I still want to play it a lot even though it's the same scenarios over and over again.

[Polemists]

Well I think you have to judge it for what it is, I mean this is tw, if you remeber demos of the past they weren't going to do custom battles, mp, or campaign map and I think most of us expected that.

All said it's a fair bit for a demo, and the game is out in one week anyhoo.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

The MTW demo was fantastic. I played and replayed it many times. I think ETW's demo is the next best one (haven't played Shoggy's though).

[knoddy]

4/5 load times were horrible even on my decent rig, while hte graphics were good i just dont like this period of warfare, theres something alot less tactical feeling about 2 lines standing opposite blowing each other away, i much prefer the action from the earlier games, the ai seems a little better tho :)

Cheers Knoddy

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

3/5

The naval combat tutorial is the most frustrating I've ever experienced in a game. You're prevented from operating controls for much of the beginning of it, it often takes a long time for it to acknowledge a completed action, and it got stuck on the first attack order (no matter how many times I ordered the attack, I was still prompted to do so, despite the fact that the order clearly went through). It's pretty much broken.

This.

I also lost the first naval battle, but that was my own fault due to how much time it took me to find out how the ships moved and fired effectively. I lost almost all of my ships, and then came close to winning with only two remaining - so I think I'll have a good victory next time.

Land battles were excellent, once I tweaked the graphics settings a little bit it no longer looked like a cross between M2:TW on low and M:TW from a distance. The graphics were fairly impressive on high, and CA really deserve bonus points for the following:

The framerate was excellent.

Load time were not as long as others were complaining, maybe a minute and a half maximum, but it did take a while to get back to the menu sometimes - also about a minute. For the record, my specs are:

Windows XP Pro
2 GB RAM
nVidia 8800GTS, Superclocked
E6600 Dual Core
700W PSU

[Wartz]

4 stars. Amazing except for the annoyingly long loadtimes

[The historian]

I give it 3 stars for the problems with the installation i faced started at 3 pm and finished at 11 pm due to the fact that the download kept stooping got up to 1 meg then down and stop, start, stop, etc aaaaaah... well you know what i mean.
Played the tutorial seemed to easy so when i started the battle though maybe I'm just that good, so i charged though the defended forge towards the the canons with al lmy cavalry cavalry and placed the artilery in suport got slaughtered evidently, went to the other crossing with the general got him killed fast lost light infantry and grenadiers in a last charge vs guns so i thought well that was stupid the AI will surely whipe the floor with me now you'd think, i'd lost all cav the general the artilery the grenadiers and the lgiht infantry and the ai had lost 30 me, wrong!! i crossed at the other river crossing with the remainder of the infantry and held of the AI cavalry with one of the hessian's, the AI came in the same nice stupid fashio of one on one so ai cavalry all dead
advanced with the infantry to the town hall and there i placed myself defensively vs the ai not exactly in front but on the hill in the forest, what dii it do next it went around with almost all of it's infantry to attack from the rear and they came one by one till i killed them all and them charged the guns.
So the AI is the same as MTW and RTW , that is that's why i say 3 stars The AI outnumbered me 3 to 1 i lost the general the cavalry the guns and it somehow manged to lose.Other then the ai it's what i expected so i'm pleased with it wait for the game:D

[miniwally]

I give it 3 stars for the problems with the installation i faced started at 3 pm and finished at 11 pm due to the fact that the download kept stooping got up to 1 meg then down and stop, start, stop, etc aaaaaah... well you know what i mean.
Played the tutorial seemed to easy so when i started the battle though maybe I'm just that good, so i charged though the defended forge towards the the canons with al lmy cavalry cavalry and placed the artilery in suport got slaughtered evidently, went to the other crossing with the general got him killed fast lost light infantry and grenadiers in a last charge vs guns so i thought well that was stupid the AI will surely whipe the floor with me now you'd think, i'd lost all cav the general the artilery the grenadiers and the lgiht infantry and the ai had lost 30 me, wrong!! i crossed at the other river crossing with the remainder of the infantry and held of the AI cavalry with one of the hessian's, the AI came in the same nice stupid fashio of one on one so ai cavalry all dead
advanced with the infantry to the town hall and there i placed myself defensively vs the ai not exactly in front but on the hill in the forest, what dii it do next it went around with almost all of it's infantry to attack from the rear and they came one by one till i killed them all and them charged the guns.
So the AI is the same as MTW and RTW , that is that's why i say 3 stars The AI outnumbered me 3 to 1 i lost the general the cavalry the guns and it somehow manged to lose.Other then the ai it's what i expected so i'm pleased with it wait for the game:D

I thought they started from scratch with the AI i have definitely seen some improvements

[Sir Beane]

I give it 3 stars for the problems with the installation i faced started at 3 pm and finished at 11 pm due to the fact that the download kept stooping got up to 1 meg then down and stop, start, stop, etc aaaaaah... well you know what i mean.
Played the tutorial seemed to easy so when i started the battle though maybe I'm just that good, so i charged though the defended forge towards the the canons with al lmy cavalry cavalry and placed the artilery in suport got slaughtered evidently, went to the other crossing with the general got him killed fast lost light infantry and grenadiers in a last charge vs guns so i thought well that was stupid the AI will surely whipe the floor with me now you'd think, i'd lost all cav the general the artilery the grenadiers and the lgiht infantry and the ai had lost 30 me, wrong!! i crossed at the other river crossing with the remainder of the infantry and held of the AI cavalry with one of the hessian's, the AI came in the same nice stupid fashio of one on one so ai cavalry all dead
advanced with the infantry to the town hall and there i placed myself defensively vs the ai not exactly in front but on the hill in the forest, what dii it do next it went around with almost all of it's infantry to attack from the rear and they came one by one till i killed them all and them charged the guns.
So the AI is the same as MTW and RTW , that is that's why i say 3 stars The AI outnumbered me 3 to 1 i lost the general the cavalry the guns and it somehow manged to lose.Other then the ai it's what i expected so i'm pleased with it wait for the game:D

To be fair to the AI its infantry is on average is much poorer than the player's. And cavalry are pretty much worthless in that paticular battle, as they are nowhere near as powerful as in Medieval 2. The fact it is scripted probably doesn't help it either.

It would be better to wait for the actual game before condemning it, during the demo battle there brief moments were it behaved much more intelligently than the RTW or M2TW AI ever did. I think it will be better.

[Thermal]

I can't wait till mine downloads, been 3 hours, I only just realized i was downloading from germany, only on 8%, after 3 hours! moving to east coast america through advice and its already at 46% after 20 mins

[Sir Beane]

I can't wait till mine downloads, been 3 hours, I only just realized i was downloading from germany, only on 8%, after 3 hours! moving to east coast america through advice and its already at 46% after 20 mins

That East Coast server is truly a savior. I don't know how it manages it but it is getting excellent speed. I'm using it now to nab the demo for my laptop and it is twice as fast as UK/Ireland.

[The historian]

Maybe i was a little harsh with the AI, i did use better tactics to win after my initial rash approach charged weak points, used reserves, high ground and forests and othertried and tested MTW and RTW tactics. Maybe i was to harsh but this is what i see as shortcomings of the AI:
Coming at me 2 3 units at a time allowing me to destroy them one by one instead of using it's overwhelming numerical superiority to crush me; charging its general into a square; not using the artillery properly by moving it instead of having it fire at maximum range over a wooded hillside.
I'll admit ambushes were good and the AI dismounted it's cavalry and charged the square after a first unsuccessful charge, the artillery changed to grape shot as i charged and moved down the frirst wave, The AI did do some interesting things.

[IlDuce]

I'd say a solid 4. The tutorials seem much more bland and small scale than before. I have fond memories of R:TW where you actually saw a big battle occuring.

The AI seems to have improved though. I found myself almost being caught out on a few occasions by it. Maybe it's because I'm pants at micromanagement though. Either way it's nice to see that while I was concentrating on coordinating my main attack some little buggers manage to get on my flank and slow things down a bit.

The naval combat I wasn't great at which might have deterred me. But then I remembered my first battle in a TW game and remembered how overwhelmed I was then. Naval combat requires a different strategy and feel than the battles we're used to but over time I'm sure they'll win me over.

Would liked to have seen a basic campaign map tutorial, even if there was no freedom. Just to see the new features in action. I always like to use diplomacy to augment my evil plans so I would liked to have seen that.

All that being said our thirst for a hands on of the game was quenched, though I fear it's only whetted my appetite more.

[Dayve]

I'll give the demo 3/5. I'm really enjoying it, well, most of it. There are a hell of a lot of missing sounds, most importantly the sound of marching feet and galloping horses. The music is dreadful and doesn't fit with this period whatsoever, had to turn it off.

I took a point off for naval battles. They were way too overhyped for what they are... which is nothing more than click on your ship, right click on the enemy ship. They look good, but with tactics playing no part whatsoever in naval battles i see me auto-calcing them after the first day or two of playing. Make a good game graphics most definitely do not, as far as navy battles are concerned.

The animations are kind of silly... soldiers and cavalry just don't look angry when they fight in melee, they look like they're dancing and lightly, ever so softly touching each other with feathers... not screaming, hacking, slashing, stabbing, bludgeoning, beating to death with rifle butts like i imagined it would be.

Still, i know it's going to be the best game to come out in years (for me) and i'll play it every single day until the next TW game comes out after it because i know it's going to be amazing despite the few things that personally aren't to my taste.

I know i'll rate the full game 5/5 though. Even if it turns out to be horrendously bad, (it won't) i will still rate it 100% if for no other reason than CA finally put in a command that will let you move your soldiers forward in order without completely mangling their formation. Seriously, you should have seen that this feature was necessary in the beta stages of Shogun, why has it taken a decade?

[Daevyll]

I took a point off for naval battles. They were way too overhyped for what they are... which is nothing more than click on your ship, right click on the enemy ship.

Try taking direct control of one or more ships. Navigating, manually firing broadsides etc, I had a great time playing with it. Reminded me of Pirates!, which is no bad thing :)

[Dayve]

Try taking direct control of one or more ships. Navigating, manually firing broadsides etc, I had a great time playing with it. Reminded me of Pirates!, which is no bad thing :)

Oh they're lovely looking no doubt and fun the first couple of times... i mean graphically they're perfect, it's just... after 3 or 4 battles, they stop being fun, they become boring. Like i would put them under AI control and watch the battles because they're so nice looking, but i wouldn't play them.

[Bob the Insane]

Oh they're lovely looking no doubt and fun the first couple of times... i mean graphically they're perfect, it's just... after 3 or 4 battles, they stop being fun, they become boring. Like i would put them under AI control and watch the battles because they're so nice looking, but i wouldn't play them.

Well the battle in the demo is a little biased towards the player...

You have one 1st rate, one 2nd rate, two 3rd rates and two 4th rates, they have six 3rd rates and one 4th rate in two groups with only four 3rd rates close to you are the start... As long as you dont mess up you should win everytime...