Demo out on 22 February 2011

[Barkhorn1x]

E:TW release was a nightmare.

Yes, I do remember that being the case and I will NEVER purchase an on-line version again. SOOO much easier to buy the discs, load 'em up and activate on Steam.

Well, we will see how big the rush is in 2 hours.

[Vlad The Impaler]

Yes, I do remember that being the case and I will NEVER purchase an on-line version again. SOOO much easier to buy the discs, load 'em up and activate on Steam.

Not to mention that you can always download them from Steam if you don't want to use the discs so buying discs has to sources of the game;)

[Lemur]

Demo should be out about now, does not appear to be. Also, the main Total War page appears to be down.

[samu]

503 Service Unavailable
No server is available to handle this request.



so I think it is online now^^

[Barkhorn1x]

Info. on the demo.

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...2-Demo-details

[Lemur]

My bad, I was watching the "demo" page on Steam. It's available from the Shogun 2 page instead. I expect they'll list it on the demo page eventually.

[samu]

Could someone please be so kind to give me a direct download link? I can't reach totalwar.com :(

[Monsieur Alphonse]

You have to download from Steam. It is on the Shogun 2 page. Just click on the grey button: download the demo.

[Barkhorn1x]

Downloading now!

[Lemur]

Here are the details:

Hi Everyone,

As all of you on this forum know there is a demo of Total War: Shogun 2 being released today. It’s quite unlike any demo we have released previously. This demo will be giving a snippet of campaign gameplay. It's a big piece, but a snippet none-the-less. Its great fun and the testers have certainly been enjoying it.

Rather than using, as we usually do, just one historical battle and a single tutorial battle, we're basing this demo on the campaign and battle tutorials. The campaign tutorial handholds the player through the first few turns of a campaign game, serves up three tutorial battles of increasing complexity, and then lets go of the player's hand, leaving them free to explore a mini-campaign.

To cut the size of the download down to something even remotely acceptable for a demo, we have had to make all battles, apart from the three tutorial battles and one big historical battle, auto-resolved battles. We did this because the data files involved in creating the battlefields are very large. The demo version of the game for example is approximately 5GB while the full version of the game is approximately 15GB.

For this reason players won't really get the full on Total War experience, but we hope it gives a much better impression of what the game is about than a single stand-alone battle does. For those of you looking to test drive the battles a little, we’ve included the historical battle of Sekigahara, so you can get a feel for the type of warfare Shogun 2 offers. The full game obviously offers a huge amount more.

That’s ultimately the point. This is just a taster of the final game; in every aspect what you’re seeing is the smallest example, so we’d urge you to keep that in mind as you play.

As many of you know for those of you that wanted to get a fuller, hands on, experience of the game we’ve been running community events worldwide.

There is an event going on in the US today that members of all the forum communities were invited to: http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...-Get-Involved! . And this one for an upcoming UK event at CA: http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...ty-event-at-CA. We are also looking at other events for other countries.

So as you can see we are doing our very best to explore as many means as possible to give people an idea of the depth and quality of Total War: Shogun 2, the demo is just a tiny piece, experience it as that.

Thank you for your time and enjoy the demo!

The Total War Development Team

[samu]

found it on Steam, thanks!

[NagaoKagetora]

W00t currently at 15% completed. Not to shabby for 5 mins of dl time given the size of the demo.

[Lemur]

Demo is now listed on the Steam demo page as well.

[Peasant Phill]

Downloading it as we speak.

[Cecil XIX]

Campaign tutorial campaign tutorial why am i stuck in class harglebarglyapdojasdfawepopzucip.

[Kagemusha]

Downloading.

[ByzantineKnight]

"4,500 Mb of 5,950 Mb. 15 min remaining!"

I can't wait!!

[Kagemusha]

I still have to wait more then an hour.Cant wait to start reading the first impressions, nevermind trying it myself.

EDIT: Download finished installing.

[Barkhorn1x]

Less than 1 Gig to go but bit rate slowing down over the past 1/2 hour.

[Cecil XIX]

After the opening cinema, there's a small movie built into the main menu. It's running at 4 fps on my computer. Also, settings default to 'Classic Total War Camera'. I don't know if this is a change from Napoleon, but I could swear that wasn't always the case. Finally: There's an encyclopedia! I'll check it out before I start playing.

[Kagemusha]

Ok.I am playing. I will post updates and pics here as i try the demo.Here is the mainmenu:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Here is the map with playable clans in the full campaign from the encyclopedia:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Starting screen of the historical battle of Sekigahara:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Going to try the battle next...

Wretched Kobayakawa! Like in history our western army got backstabbed in the heat of the battle.A pic from the slaughter from my headquarters area:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

On other location of the battlefield i still was able to push the Tokugawa on the run.Interesting feature here is that there are wounded enemies who definetely are not fighting anymore:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Oh,no you are not taking my position you scum!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

With the remnants of my army im moving to the open with the Shimazu as when you cant flee all you can do is to attack!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And the end in the hands of Kobayakawa traitors. See the nice gravestone appeared on the generals portrait.:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[pdoan8]

I have to install Steam to DL. Is there a non-Steam version? If not, then I will wait. I will probably buy the game anyway, with or without playing the demo. Just hope that the retail box won't need Steam.

[Lemur]

Is there a non-Steam version?

No.

Just hope that the retail box won't need Steam.

It will. And I, for one, welcome our new Valve overlords. Every TW title since Empire has required Steam. Surely this is not news?

Managed to play a little bit of the campaign. I'll wait for some non-work time when I can really concentrate before giving impressions.

[Nigel]

From the screenshots, the Battle Replay button seems to be active in the demo. If this is true, I have a question to those who already have the demo: can we now rewind during a replay or is it like in NTW, that the replays only run forward with no chance of rewinding and looking at crucial moments several times from different angles ?

[Cecil XIX]

The encyclopedia is huge, and fully-functioning. You can access it at any time, even during battle. It also functions as an in-game manual. If anyone has any questions about the game feel free to ask, I or someone else with the demo can probably find an answer.

[pdoan8]

It will. And I, for one, welcome our new Valve overlords. Every TW title since Empire has required Steam. Surely this is not news?

For multiplayer, I guess. That's suck a bit for me. My company provided laptop can run STW2, but Steam will surely be blocked by the security software. I really don't want to carry 2 laptops every where I go.

By the way, I don't have any TW games that come after Kingdoms. Don't have the XPack for Rome either (but I have 2 copies of Rome, which I played the least).

[TosaInu]

Just started downloading this after some server work: 760 kbs. it has the campaign in the demo

[Kagemusha]

Quick few impressions. Love the artwork and music.There are even music from the original STW in the game. The atmosphere is great.Tomorrow after some playing i can say more about other things.

[Cecil XIX]

I had a nasty moment in the second tutorial battle when the enemy army charged my position before I was in formation, perhaps because I had let my cavalry get too far forward chasing some routers (The Tutorial placed a few units way ahead of the main army for educational purposes). I was actually pretty worried for a moment, but I think I had more soldiers (tutorial battles exist independently of what you have in the campaign, so it's harder to tell) and I was able to get my soldiers around there's and flank them. Good thing too, if I hadn't gotten my Daimyo there in time, their cavalry might have routed mine and turned my left flank. Pretty encouraging!

EDIT: Also, apparently all cavalry function like Dragoons have previously and can mount/dismount at any time. Nice to know that feature is here to stay, you'd think they would have added that in Rome since they were half-way there in Medieval I!

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Remind me a lot of NTW. .