First impressions thread

[AggonyDuck]

We will most likely see a lot more as last night most players didn't have it installed yet and I have a feeling most will play a SP campaign to get acquainted with the game before trying MP.

[Kocmoc]

We will most likely see a lot more as last night most players didn't have it installed yet and I have a feeling most will play a SP campaign to get acquainted with the game before trying MP.

Sure, we will see more, but its already an indicator. We could see it with many other games, where the people did camp the shop, went home, installed the game and went online the same night. So, 40 is a pretty low number, especially after the declaration of "MP-focus".

What peaks we will see?

[Lemur]

Managed to play a few turns this morning. Runs smooth on my Core2Duo machine, so apparently two cores are enough to make it happy. Only real gripe so far: hard to see the range of your armies. It's all shaded and strange, and I have a hard time telling when my units will run out of movement in a turn. Maybe I just need to get used to the new graphics or something like that ...

[Furunculus]

gah! my disk hasn't arrived in the work post today.

[Daveybaby]

Disk? Post? How... quaint.

A few turns in.

So far: quite impressed.
* The game as a 'mood piece' is absolutely fantastic, great art and audio - it really feels like a coherent whole. Much more so than any other of the TW series since the original shogun.
* AI seems competent so far (on hard), both in campaign and battle. Quickly exploits opportunities such as unprotected archers or empty castles. Hasnt done anything noticably stupid yet.
* Pretty responsive. Seems less of a machine killer than ETW was (although this may be partly due to it not letting me use AA).
* Really liking the province upgrade paths, and the general/daimyo skill trees etc.

A few annoyances:
* Enormous load times! Just been playing medieval 2, and in comparison i keep thinking S2 has crashed. In reality it's probably similar to ETW, but even so, it's a pretty long wait.
* Mouse scrolling on the campaign map feels very... clunky and unresponsive. There's a significant delay between your mouse hitting the edge of the screen and it starting to scroll, that wasnt there in any previous TW games. Can't initiate mouse scrolling where there's a UI element at the edge of the screen, i.e. most of the way along the bottom - *very* annoying.
* Cant zoom out nearly far enough (IMO) on the campaign map. Can barely see more than 1 province at a time, not ideal for grand strategic planning.
* Dont like the mist effect that occurs when you zoom out.
* Anti-aliasing disabled? Uh?

[GeneralHankerchief]

After about an hour of gameplay, I quite like it. Easily the most beautiful game I've ever played. My laptop can run it pretty well, as long as things aren't on the highest settings, and so far the campaign seems fine. My only gripe is that the battles go far too fast, and this is even coming from a guy whose introduction to the series was Rome. My archers are lucky if they can get three volleys off before I have to send them scurrying behind the lines.

All in all though, looking forward to my GPA steadily dropping over the rest of the semester as I keep diving into the game.

[knoddy]

well off to a good start when i went to pickup my game today. the fire alarm was going off at the shopping center so i cudnt get in and pickup my game!!!! the gaming gods were hating me this morning :P got it eventaully tho and really enjoying it :D

Played a little bit in my Date campaign, really liking it so far. on hard difficulty i smashed the rebels and took a province from my nearbye enemies. the battle AI does seem improved. i tried to lure the rebel general into charging my yari spears in spearwall but at teh last minute they veered off and smashed my other unit of yari in the back :S my suprieror swordsmen won the day tho.

i do feel the battle was over quickly but it was quite a mismatch with rebel yari vs katana samurai. the second battle i fought was a seige and again pitted yari vs katana, but the unit of retainer samurai put up quite a fight despite being severly outnumbered.

im enjoying the campaign i like the fact that u have a limited number of buildings per town. this makes u choose wether to have towns be troop builders, or econimic/agent builders. similar to empire but better design.

really pleased so far!

[Samurai Waki]

Maybe I just need to get used to the new graphics or something like that ...

I've been having a hard time adjusting my eyes to the graphics as well... lack of AA stains my eyes

Other than that, I've thoroughly enjoyed it. Finally a return to something resembling Total War!

[Monk]

Impressive...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

http://i54.tinypic.com/2rqyts6.jpg

[Jack Lusted]

- no separate difficulty for battles and campaign

You can change the battle difficulty once in a campaign through the game settings menu.

[IRONxMortlock]

You can change the battle difficulty once in a campaign through the game settings menu.

Thanks for that. So if I wanted a normal campaign and hard battles I would start a campaign on normal and then adjust battle difficulty in game settings?

[Jambo]

You can change the battle difficulty once in a campaign through the game settings menu.

Hmm, wow, that's interesting! So it is possible to get a VH campaign and normal battle difficulty after all? Although perhaps from my initial failings with Oda at H I should be rethinking where I start.

[antisocialmunky]

You can change the battle difficulty once in a campaign through the game settings menu.

You sir are awesome.

Also, make it more obvious. I've seen tons of people complaining about wanting easier campaign and even that one reviewer didn't know it.