Demo Impressions

[Kongamato]

In the advanced video options there is an option I haven't used yet called "disable syncronized animations". It has to be turned on, and might be a solution to the men walking in sync. I bet it eats the CPU and wont work in MP.

The cavalry seems to have a nice turning arc when moving. It helps when hitting the enemy rear. I wonder if it automatically hits the open end of a unit when it's engaged something else already.

The new controls make the box selector more readily available. I've used it very often in conjunction with line drags of several units and the run command, producing a quick "fan out" effect from a tight bunch of units. It seems more people are going to be using this move in the future.

[crazyviking03]

I am very happy to see the elephants as they are aswell. I also like the 'kill amoch elephants' button, as this is a good thing to have. I was happy to see that the legion advanced in proper formation in the battle, but i wonder if this was not just scripted for the demo, i hope the AI will normaly do this. Over all it was alittle short but enough to wet my appetite. My only real problem is that with Trebia, they start you with the legion so close, I feel rushed and feel like I have no time to plan and am just scrambling my units, when it is actualy us who are supposed to be surprising the Romans.

[Steppe Merc]

Agreed, Crazy, that battle was very rushed. And the unit names were very sad. Barbarian Mercanaries? Barbarian Mercanary Cavalry? Wow. And the fact that the advisor for the Carthiginians was a Roman was... odd to say the least.

[Lazul]

Just crushed the romans... and... wow, this game will be the best in years to come.
But my computer sucks like nothing ells... and im buying a new graphic card

Still, things are called Barbarian, pisses me of but i can live with it hehe.

Im going to try it now again and test the different options and stuff...

over all 4 of 5

[Lonewarrior]

Have you guys tried playing the historical battle in expert, is pretty cool and very, very challenging

[Sjakihata]

When you use high anti-aliasing it looks very good, Im glad my pc can handle it :)

And a lot of my archers have a cold.

[CBR]

I have used the "disable syncronized animations" and works fine so far. I have a gf4 TI4800 and running it at 1280x1024 with all set to max details but no AA.

I think gameplay is a bit too fast. Didnt feel like I had much time for details when the fighting starts..

Have to get used to using right click for moving and attacking. Sometimes it felt a bit difficult to hit an enemy unit because it was in a bit scattered/loose formation.

Music is great though


CBR

[frogbeastegg]

I shall copy and paste the comments I made to a few other people who asked for my opinion:

How is the demo? Well...it was very...it felt...meh, for lack of a better description. No awe, no interest, no tug, no "I've got to play this!". None of the feelings shogun inspired, not even the bewildered disappointment of the MTW demo. It wasn't bad, it just didn't make me feel anything.

The voice acting quite frankly Stinks with a capital s. I have heard worse but not much worse. The Roman advisor sounds like he has a bad fake Australian accent! The units tell you their names when you select them and that drives you crackers after a few minutes. They also repeat their orders back when you give them, if I never hear "charge!!" again I will die happy ;)

I tried customising the camera controls but the changes wouldn't work. The TW style of camera controls is far superior to the FPS set also included in the options screen. Take my advice and leave them on TW. The FPS set sounded closest to my custom binds from MTW but oh gosh, no! They made me feel sick, it was impossible to just turn on the spot, the zoom was funny...terrible. Thankfully the TW settings are good.

The graphics, I set everything to max and didn't have any slowdown but I also found the graphics to be under whelming unless zoomed right in close on a unit. Blurry is the word when looking to the distance.

General overall interface etc...not bad but could use improvement. You have to use the tool tip to find out how fatigued your units are; I hate that. Valour was much clearer as a number, working out valour feels like a maths lesson now as you count up the different coloured chevrons. The icons for weapon/armour upgrades are a bit small, the ammo bar for archers is rather indistinct. The advisor drives me crazy and is distracting but I think we will be able to turn him off. Hope so. I miss some of the information from MTW, such as what is affecting morale. I also miss the brief explanations of how a unit’s battle is going, “Winning easily” is better than “Can only lose this fight is something goes wrong”. They swapped the orders from left to right mouse button, confusing.

I won the proper battle on default difficulty without breaking a sweat; kind of easy really.

The music was boring and I tuned it out mentally within minutes. That is a devastating blow, as I still play the battle music of the other TWs in media player.

In the tutorial they made the same mistake of telling you double click charges when doesn't; it *runs*. Agh! :tears hair out: This is the third time in a row! You would think CA would get it right...

Now aside from all that complaining I will play it again and it has not discouraged me from getting the game when it comes out....but nor has it made me change my mind on my opinion that I will win a couple campaigns then shelve it. Pity.

[Steppe Merc]

Don't worry Froggy... mabye when some of the mods come out it will renew your intrest. One thing about the units is that they seemed all on speed... The triarri zipped along, and was a bit difficult to keep up with them.