Demo out on 22 February 2011

[NagaoKagetora]

It's all just so much lipstick on a pig of a battle engine. Insta-routing, poor pacing, super speeds, and unit reaction issues are all back with a vengeance and they've added some new head scratchers as well. (Why are my non-routing cavalry all running in opposite directions?) And as usual in the newer titles, don't bother zooming in to watch the cool animations they worked so hard on, as the battle will be decided before you have a chance to zoom back out. Arcade-ish would be a compliment.

What is really frustrating is that you can tell how much work they put into the details. The armor, animations, landscapes, and a hundred other aspects of the game are brilliant, but they fail to all come together to create an overall enjoyable experience. What is the point of all the special abilities and formations if the battle progresses so fast that you cannot make use of them? Why even bother to incorporate an exhaustion system, when it is practically meaningless to the game? (Changing the default from walk to run is indicative of the role exhaustion now plays in the engine.)

After playing the demo this pretty much nails it for me.

[Nigel]

Battle replay buttons....

Pause..Play..Forward..Fast Forward.

Thanks for checking this out, Jochi, and bringing us the not-so-wellcome news :(

I would have thought it is obvious that players who want to learn the game and work on optimizing their strategy want to use the replays to go over cruical scenes again and again from different sides and agles. This was easily done with the slider bar we had in Shogun 1 and Medieval 1.

Well, I guess someone tried to be economical and wanted to use the same interface buttons for the actual battle and the replays. And of course there is no need for a rewind button in the actual battle, so it was lost for the replays. And then we just did not complain enough about it during NTW so they did not realize they were loosing one of the nicer features of the game.

I hope we can still manage to get this added to their To Do List if not for the release then at least for the patch/update.

[Kagemusha]

Not the day of enemy Nobori bearer:



From my tutorial campaign.The poor enemy fellow got it trough the side of the head, cheek and shoulder, ouch!Even the bushi behind him seems puzzled about the shot.

[Nelson]

Just played the demo. I first played the historical battle and then played through the campaign. To be more precise, I played through the part that worked. It hung up on the "defend your trade route" command and never let me progress further. I was so wholly disinterested that I didn't bother playing through again.

On my first pass through the campaign, after I built my first ship and discovered the nearby trade port I then took the ship I built on a trip down the coast. Subsequently, when the tutorial wanted me to combine my ship with new ones to defend my trade route I could not order it to do anything at all. I was stuck.

I restared but this time left the ship you're told to build right where the tutorial told me to send it on its first voyage. Later, when the trade route needed protecting, I was indeed able to move it to join the new ships and proceed with the campaign.

The castle assault was no cakewalk. In fact, I failed miserably to capture the place. Now, I will say that I did a simple direct assault and never tried to be the least bit clever. I wanted to see how the AI would react to an Ambrose Burnside/John Bell Hood style attack. It chewed me up and spat me out.

I need to play more before weighing in on the battle speed/lethality question. Thus far though I haven't been put off by anything but the siege guns that I couldn't get to fire at the castle...

[Barkhorn1x]

I wanted to see how the AI would react to an Ambrose Burnside/John Bell Hood style attack. It chewed me up and spat me out.

American Civil War humor. Hilarious :)

[Barkhorn1x]

FYI. "Semi-official" confirmation that AA is not in fact implemented in the demo but will be in the release.

The Engine doesn't have AA supported yet, its in the final release so dont worry guys.

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...l=1#post103820

This leaves me (semi) relieved.

[Revolting Friendship]

So maybe there is need for little tweaking old friend?

I believe that's about right.. ;) Let's hope this one is more moddable than ETW.

[Dead Guy]

Hmm, that siege was quite the clusterfark.

I had no idea where to attack, I shot the gate to 100% damage but still couldn't enter through it. Didn't seem to matter since climbing walls seems pretty straight forward while carrying a long spear, and takes about 10 seconds. Wouldn't want generation deficient attention span to quit playing, right?

Guess you can use the bow hero to shoot a bit, they have longer range and can attack where there's no tower? I did get a few opportunities to shoot at yari units inside the walls without getting shot at with samurai archers, regardless.

Eventually I sent my katana samurai up the walls at the gates, they didn't open, the katanas lost against yaris, I think half of them were ashigerus even. The AI had sent his cavalry and at least one unit of yaris out to die before that, before I even reached the walls. Then I sent my yaris up and suddenly the enemy started running out the gates, shattered. I have no idea what happened at that point. Suddenly I won the battle without being anywhere near the keep-thingie.

Some of these games takes a while getting used to, but I can't say I'm impressed after this.

I like how there seems to be a lot of choke points on the map though.

[edyzmedieval]

The demo is nothing impressive. It feels like a reskinned NTW.

I hope for better things in the original.

[Barkhorn1x]

More semi-official bits from the moderator at at the .COM site:

To my knowledge there isn't any released material from the gold version yet as it only went gold a few days ago and the magazines/computer sites tend to run a week or two behind real time.

So...GOLD!


From this page:

As Mark said the demo is like a "lite" version of the full game in order to keep it as small as possible so just because something isn't in the demo doesn't mean it won't be in the full game.

This is why a lot of the graphical features are not included.

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...889#post103889

[CBR]

Seems like run speed is back to RTW levels. Walk is the fastest in any Total War game so far. Unless I did something wrong in the tests I just ran...

[antisocialmunky]

Seems like run speed is back to RTW levels. Walk is the fastest in any Total War game so far. Unless I did something wrong in the tests I just ran...

That pun was pretty terrible right there.

[quadalpha]

Seems like run speed is back to RTW levels. Walk is the fastest in any Total War game so far. Unless I did something wrong in the tests I just ran...

Moving by dragging out a formation defaults to run. Sure that wasn't the reason?

[CBR]

I timed same units for both walk and run so that cannot be the reason. And quite sure I was running at standard 1:1 time too.

[IRONxMortlock]

FYI. "Semi-official" confirmation that AA is not in fact implemented in the demo but will be in the release.
http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...l=1#post103820

This leaves me (semi) relieved.

Really? This leaves me much more concerned. To me it comes across as though the AI is in such a poor state that they couldn't include it in the demo.

[pevergreen]

A big step ahead from what I can see, and while the CAI seemed a bit passive, it didn't perform badly and I suspect it was also limited by the confines of the demo campaign.

Playing the unlocked version of the demo, where the AI does what it wants, it made more sense. I declared on the logical first target (same as the tutorial) they tried to peace me with money, but i gobbled them up, but the green guys (Miyoshi?) declared when I went over the sea and they own nearly the whole of the tiny map now. Need to blitz that to get it even.

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

Haven't had a chance to play the demo yet but I just need to know. Has the unit speeds really gone back to insanity of Rome? If this is the case I think I'll leave it.

[Sjakihata]

Playing the unlocked version of the demo, where the AI does what it wants

How?

[Kagemusha]

How?

Here is the link to the open play mod: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=428223

[ByzantineKnight]

FYI. "Semi-official" confirmation that AA is not in fact implemented in the demo but will be in the release.

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...l=1#post103820

This leaves me (semi) relieved.

Really? This leaves me much more concerned. To me it comes across as though the AI is in such a poor state that they couldn't include it in the demo.

I believe he is is referring to AA, Anti-Aliasing, not the Artificial Intelligence.

If you use the link Kagemusha posted, the mod will allow you to see how the Campaign AI acts by itself. However, if you would like to see the Battle AI in action I believe we have to wait until release.

[Kagemusha]

If you want to try more mods released for the demo, please visit the S2TW modding area and go this thread.I have gathered there the mods released so far: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...s-for-the-demo.

[Barkhorn1x]

I believe he is is referring to AA, Anti-Aliasing, not the Artificial Intelligence.

If you use the link Kagemusha posted, the mod will allow you to see how the Campaign AI acts by itself. However, if you would like to see the Battle AI in action I believe we have to wait until release.

Correct - Anti-Alaising takes care of the jaggies and makes everything look better on higher resolutions.

BTW, using the Camp mod and playing a conservative slow build up of buildings and tech only ensured my clans destruction by the agressive and strong Miyoshi clan. So that is "interesting".

[Kagemusha]

Correct - Anti-Alaising takes care of the jaggies and makes everything look better on higher resolutions.

BTW, using the Camp mod and playing a conservative slow build up of buildings and tech only ensured my clans destruction by the agressive and strong Miyoshi clan. So that is "interesting".

Thats great to hear. I dont remember the last time you could actually loose in TW game in campaign.

[johnhughthom]

The demo is updating on Steam at the minute, perhaps blocking the free play mod?

[Lord Adherbal]

It's all just so much lipstick on a pig of a battle engine. Insta-routing, poor pacing, super speeds, and unit reaction issues are all back with a vengeance and they've added some new head scratchers as well. (Why are my non-routing cavalry all running in opposite directions?) And as usual in the newer titles, don't bother zooming in to watch the cool animations they worked so hard on, as the battle will be decided before you have a chance to zoom back out. Arcade-ish would be a compliment.

What is really frustrating is that you can tell how much work they put into the details. The armor, animations, landscapes, and a hundred other aspects of the game are brilliant, but they fail to all come together to create an overall enjoyable experience. What is the point of all the special abilities and formations if the battle progresses so fast that you cannot make use of them? Why even bother to incorporate an exhaustion system, when it is practically meaningless to the game? (Changing the default from walk to run is indicative of the role exhaustion now plays in the engine.)

Yes it is far more polished and has a nifty dictionary, but the battles themselves are just awful - much worse than Empire and a far cry from the original.

Amen to that

I picked up interest in STW2 this month after noticing my old clan (Aggony) was still active and planning to play STW2. But this demo has crushed that. I lost interest in TW since RTW, and I suppose that's not gonna change.

Considering how many times I hear ppl say RTW was the TW game they enjoyed the most, and half this thread seems to be about whether the game has AA support, it looks like I'm just no longer compatible with the focus of modern total war

[edyzmedieval]

Modern TW is geared towards newcomers. Everything is so changed from the original, and I'm not talking about the 3D engine.

It's a rehashed NTW, seriously. There's so much content used from NTW it's almost a half-new game, not even a new one. I'm not whining, I'm just heavily disappointed at how things have evolved. The original STW was and still is a gem of a game, and this doesn't make it any justice.

And Sekigahara on Hard and Very Hard is not challenging if you take out the morale bonus. The AI made a couple of interesting moves but not enough to surprise me.

[gollum]

Battle pacing seems indeed alarmingly bad. If meaningful morale levels and a working RPS (or there abouts) are in place with too high speeds, the result is that working/sensitive intervals of engine parameters for gameplay (correct match ups, local outnumbering penalties, flanking) don't get a chance to manifest because of the pacing. If everything else is then following this (volley time, casualties per volley etc), then gameplay ends up a farce as everything happens all at once and gameplay degenerates into rush on rush.

I think Panzer Jaeger's point that well cared for particulars don't come together is true, and i am very seriously re-thinking getting this now despite having been resolute to do so.

Will wait awhile and see.

[antisocialmunky]

As long as the engine is bug free enough, tweaking the unit stats so things don't go dead so fast should be pretty easy.

[Lord Adherbal]

As long as the engine is bug free enough, tweaking the unit stats so things don't go dead so fast should be pretty easy.

That's a usual comment, but there are those of us who were hoping to relive the days of STW/MTW multiplayer.

And unit speed is far from the only issue. I spent years modding RTW, only to find out the system of battle mechanics are flawed at its core. It looks like that hasn't changed. They don't need a revolution, they need a devolution.

At least that's my oppinion. I'm afraid the meanstream game industry is no longer compatible with what I look for in a game.

[PanzerJaeger]

That's a usual comment, but there are those of us who were hoping to relive the days of STW/MTW multiplayer.

And unit speed is far from the only issue. I spent years modding RTW, only to find out the system of battle mechanics are flawed at its core. It looks like that hasn't changed. They don't need a revolution, they need a devolution.

At least that's my oppinion. I'm afraid the meanstream game industry is no longer compatible with what I look for in a game.

Indeed. Those of us who enjoy the multiplayer side of the game will be stuck with whatever the vanilla version looks like. MP mod efforts can never get enough takers to support a thriving community. Ladders, avatars, and character evolution are all meaningless if the game's mechanics create battles that just aren't that engaging or enjoyable.

Some short term enjoyability can be created through graphics, but that wears thin very quickly (especially if you cannot zoom in to see them as the game moves too fast). There has to be a level of balance and a system that rewards tactics and ability to induce replayability.

(Off course this is all just the opinion of a admirer of the first engine. Some people think RTW was the height of the series. I know, though, that MP has never recovered.)