A pleasant surprise!

[HicRic]

Today I ventured out into the scary, unforgiving world of multiplayer MTW.

Wait, did I say scary and unforgiving?

I was pleasantly surprised

Although there are the usual collection of annoying people you'll find anywhere online (people flooding the chat with "join my game" springs to mind) there are actually some nice guys. I decided to make my first game a simple 1 vs 1 in High on a flat map. A guy joined the game and gave me a good kicking (it was to be expected ). However, not only was he very polite he also gave me some good advice and tips.

The moral of the story? Multiplayer MTW isn't totally full of people who will just insult you and talk down to newbies, etc, which was the general impression I seem to get from some.


My handy tip? I've seen many people (myself included) asking "how do I improve the performance of the game in battles?" I myself have a 450 mhz processor, 512mb of ram, and a 16mb graphics card. I couldn't run a me against the computer battle without some jerking, bad framerate etc. I turned off fauna, turned down resolution, and all of that, and none of it helped much.

My humble computer can now run a game with me and 5 AI opponents with full armies perfectly smoothly. PERFECTLY. It was a real breath of fresh air after the bad framerate I has suffered, especially since there were six armies How did I perform this miracle?

I muted all sounds on the sound option menu.

That's it.

Can anyone tell me why playing sound effects and music takes up such a massive proportion of my computer's power, but generating 6000 men and making them run around on a full 3D map beating each other up is a total breeze?

Well, anyway, there you have it. While the game is a bit "empty" without the sound and music, I find the amazing performance is well worth it. It's really nice to have it running so smoothly now, and I expect I'll be able to take part in the bigger MP battles as well.

Oh, and by the way: those with a modem, do not fear I connect at 28K (yes, 28K) and MP runs exactly the same as SP. So there you have it-no need for speedy connection with MTW (I even use-GASP-AOL)

Well, that's my ramble over with. Time for me to dive back into the MP arena and mess around with amusing army combinations, and watching them fail. But it's much more fun to play a human than an AI.

[The Sword of Cao Cao]

heh, multiplayer MTW sucks. 90% of the people there are complete assholes. first battle I had there was with some racist asswipe. STW multi is a lot better in my opinion.

[Sociopsychoactive]

I disagree Chao.

Multiplayer isn't all that bad, infact it is pretty good. I play almost esclusively Sp, but got into MP recently aswell, and had a very good series of battles against someone who was clearly better at it, who gave me a few pointers, and I even managed to beat them once, and yes, there were a few assholes in there laughing at the noobs, but so what? if you point ut your new then the assholes generally wo;t play against you, so yo get a decent player.

[Colovion]

Hey HicRic do you have onboard sound? or an actual soundcard? because that could be a reason that the sounds were taking up so much processing power.

[bighairyman]

After installing a mod, i can't play MTW online anymore . But my moded single player campaignes kick ass

[HicRic]

I'm fairly sure I have some kind of SoundBlaster card in my machine. I'll have to check, though.

The Sword of Cao Cao, you may well be right. I've wanted to play multi STW for a long time, but could never get it to work.

[Ar7]

I am very glad you liked it. I am a SP player only, i like the continuety of the campaign. I got all the MP i needed since i played counter-strike for about 6 years and now don't feel an urge to play a peaceful relaxing evening game like MTW online.

If turning off the sound helped the performance then you must have an on-board soundcard made into your motherboard. Since it is a part of the motherboard it is sucking a lot of processor power. One site said that buying an actual soundcard will increase PC performance by about 20%.

[HicRic]

I don't think playing MP will take over from SP-I still have many factions and things to play, and am still interested in it. It's just nice to play real people now and then instead of the AI. I've found several really nice people so far that are helping me with the (rather odd) army selection needed to play MP.

[Frankymole]

The moral of the story? Multiplayer MTW isn't totally full of people who will just insult you and talk down to newbies, etc, which was the general impression I seem to get from some.

Must have been a day without any Clan matches....

[Vlad Tzepes]

Hey HicRic do you have onboard sound? or an actual soundcard? because that could be a reason that the sounds were taking up so much processing power.

I had the same problem on a pretty nice configured computer. STW worked fine, MTW was a disaster. Tryed everything, it finally worked out with a sound card, after disabling the onboard sound... (Sorry I know this should be in the tech forum, but I remembered all the frustration while trying : and the joy when I solved the problem )

[HicRic]

It's really odd that I too can run STW fine with sound. I kind of miss it in MTW now, actually, but I can't stand the laggy battles after having played nice, smooth ones.

Frankymole, you might be right. I saw people from clans there and they were playing, but maybe they weren't clan matches. Do those days tend to bring out the nutcases?

(I haven't been playing MP for a couple of weeks now, actually...not so much time to play anymore, and I'm doing an SP Turk game)

[KyodaiSteeleye]

well, if you're turning off the music as a catholic faction, then i can't say you're missing that much - the ewok music really did my head in after a bit, so now i play with the wind whistling, and my troops marching - much more atmospheric....

[HicRic]

I have to do both to get the performance increase-mute all MTW sounds. So I don't even get the wind whistling or troops marching-just eerie, total silence.

It's like a ghost battle. o_0 The dying die without a whisper!

[Lord DeVeau]

Hi HicRic, Cao X 2, & Sociopschoactive (Like the name),
Hey players,...

Lord DeVeau here, and Glad to hear a positive comment regarding the multiplayer game I have yet to try it, though... Sorry Cao Cao had 90% bad time but a few ppeople may dampen anyones day.

A few questions 1. How long does a game take, can you save it or does it run on all the time. And
What is Sp & MP, I don't get the terminology?

Thanks,
Lord DeVeau

Battle on,
Carry on!
And Party ON!!!

[Lord DeVeau]

Hello again HicRic & I should have said the Sword of Cao Cao (sorry),

I had started MTW and I downloaded VI and I couldn't play the three (3) games I had started. They would freeze up adn I purchased the VI pack but have not instaled it yet because I don't want to mess anything else up.

I will evntually get to install it and play the online games and hopefully have good experinces doing it.

Later,
Lord DeVeau

[HicRic]

SP = Single Player
MP = Multiplayer

Multiplayer games can last anything from ten minutes to an hour (for the big ones). They consist soley of fighting battles on the 3D map, there's no campaign map, territories to take, etc. So no, you can't save it, but as they're just battles, there's no need to save them in the middle or anything. You get some money, and you just have to buy the best army you can with it, and fight other human players. As for your freezing problem, that sounds bad. =/ It might actually be worth installing VI and the updated DirectX that comes with it, it might patch or solve your problems. If that doesn't work then try posting in the Apothecary, explaining your problem as clearly as you can.

be warned: the guys playing MP are very good at what they do. I've only won once out of about ten game so far. ;) But the SP game on it's own is really very good.

[CrackedAxe]

Personally, I think they are a great bunch in the lobby, apart from a TINY minority (and these are easily ignored, use the 'ignore' function!). Most are helpful, if you ask politely.
More of you should get into MP, Its the ultimate test of your generalship. Its no good kidding yourself you are Alexander the Great re-incarnated if you've only ever went up against the AI. I think most peeps stay away to prevent such illusions from being battered when I STOMP THEIR ARMIES INTO THE DUST!! .
Hopefully, RTW will bring many more online generals into the field.

[saundersag]

I play quite a lot on the Internet. I find like others that some people are very nice adn help beginners while others are less nice. Howver i have not met an unfriendly or unwelcoming ntw player so if you like playing online and you want to play woth nice people then i suggest you play ntw

[CrackedAxe]

He's right, I've never met an unfriendly NTW player either, but then, there are so few of them to meet!

[jimmyM]

is this through Gamespy? r are there other servers? I have many problems with even registering on gamespy...