RTW demo conclusions: a full summary

[Spino]

I wholeheartedly agree with everything Blodrast has written. Well done!

I would also add a few things to his list.

5. User Interface

Compressed time - Time compression is handled poorly. First of all there are not enough 'notches' for compressed time. I guess I miss MTW's time compression slider too much. I see in the descr_shortcuts.txt file that there are hotkey slots for the time compression; pause, play, ffwd & ultraffwd. Great, but there's no way to set them from within the game! A few more compression speeds would also be welcome: Pause/1X/2X/4X/8X/16X

6. Game aspect/balance

Rally Feature- Forcing you to select your general before rallying the troops is a major pain in the ass. Pausing in SP battles to do this is fine but in MP games things are way too hectic, especially if you're in the middle of a tricky maneuver. Based upon the entries in the descr_shortcuts.txt file I see there is NO Rally hotkey! Rally has become a specialized function of a general unit. Please bring back the MTW method where you could use the Rally feature simply by selecting all your troops and then hitting the button or using the hotkey. Yes, I suppose you could macro your general and use the Rally function that way but with a 20 unit limit I can see people shying away from giving the commander an entire slot.

7. (Potential) Bugs

Mouse control/speed - The mouse controls are way too sluggish and insensitive for a time critical game like this. I've been playing the demo on a friend's rig (Athlon XP 3000 & Radeon 9200 128meg) and while the framerate is fine the mouse controls are not. Even when I pause the game and change the camera view to an empty portion of the map the mouse moves painfully slow. As a result selecting and controlling units, especially those in battle, becomes needlessly challenging. I can only imagine the pain this will cause in large battles, especially MP ones! My friend has an optical mouse that moves the cursor like a teflon coated bullet in other games so it's not the mouse or its scanning rate. PLEASE give us sliders for mouse sensitivity and mouse movement filters!!!