So, the demo...

[Thermal]

3/5

Positive

-More Intelligent AI on land
-Great new game feel along with nice unit models
-Garrisoning buildings and destructible buildings evident
-More powerful gunpower than previous games thankfully
-New displayed unit stats, all of which intrigued me
-Fair sea battle graphics

Negative

-Slow download and even slower in game waiting times
-Increasing graphics or increasing any option mostly lead to game crashes, leaving me with disappointing graphics on land battles
-Still rather sluggish AI at sea
-Morale and formations more difficult to judge and access
-While expected as being poor, cavalry are beyond that and are completely useless
-Lack of varied in battle fighting
-Lots of micromanagement needed as units are terribly stupid on there own initiative


Tutorials

I only did the land battle tutorial, the process, while I knew most of it was very nice, a good map to fight the spanish against, it shown building fortification and the potential of the new units

Sea battle


I won my sea battle without losing a single boat! I was amazed at how easy it was, lining up in a row and turning to fire was rather good, but towards the end tiresome as I was chasing a french boat around the map at the slowest of speeds, while the AI acted foolishly, nice visuals though. Looks like I'll be more an admiral than a commander as I did abysmal on the land battle....

Land battle

I failed miserably, the terrain looked so graphically flawed because of my settings too, and I hated the river crossed map, My troops disobeyed and tactics were in short supply, I managed to send my men over the crossing in dribs and drabs and therefore hadn't the power to fight off the unbelievable large horde of the Americans, that once grouped, could take out one of my units in one shot of there packs, more intelligence in my opponent however.


Still going to buy it no doubt, a bit of a mix of thoughts from the demo though.