Demo impressions and discussion (everyone please post here)

[SpencerH]

In the README it says that the processor must support SSE2

Some semprons support sse2 so dont give up yet. Find out what sempron you have or use one of the programs mentioned earlier in the thread.

I would think you need more RAM though. What OS are you running?

[player1]

A lot of people will surely be disappointed (and annoyed) by this, myself included. I have never heard of any software, and surely not a game, that requires SSE2 to run.

Yes, there is, Adobe CS2!

Although, it's a professional software, so CPU upgrade is not so big issue if you can afford such software.

But for video game?!?

[SpencerH]

Its a SEGA-Intel conspiracy I tell ya!

[Kourutsu]

go to the ati website (google ati or something) go to drivers (possibly support) download the latest cataclyst drivers, have fun.

Damn... did I get the Media Center edition of Windows XP? My DxDiag file is calling it 'Windows XP Professional'. But I have Media Center on my computer!

I cannot afford to mess up my computer now, not when I have waited so long for this game.

[econ21]

So it appears running speed has been reduced by around 20%

Belatedly coming back on this - it is interesting that the major realism mods (EB and RTR) cut movement speeds by 20% from RTW.

If, as you say, BI was 10% slower than RTW and M2TW 20% is slower than BI, this means that units may run slower in M2TW than in the realism mods.

[Kourutsu]

Alright, everything is going smooth now.

Played Agincourt, no lag at all on medium settings.

I just want to discuss the fighting sequences now. First off, a majority of them are awesome. And very realistic, IE the Zweihanders pushing down their visors and blocking attacks. But there are a few that are just a little out there. Such as the dismounted knights with pole-arms hopping into the air, and then pulling a 360 degree and slamming their weapons into the enemy.

Now, I'm no expert. But I find it hard to beleive that a man adorned in full plate armor can pull off such a move.

[CrownOfSwords]

Which issue of PC Gamer is the demo in? I just went and looked at the november issue and I didn't see anything about MTW2, where did you guys get that issue by subscription or from store?

[Bob the Insane]

Which issue of PC Gamer is the demo in? I just went and looked at the november issue and I didn't see anything about MTW2, where did you guys get that issue by subscription or from store?

It is the December issue, #155... You know how they release the issues a month before, November's in October, December's in November (or even late October)... It is so they can get a Christmas edition in and have 13 issues a year...

Actually if you look in the bottom right of the last page of the November edition (#154) if gives a not so subtle hint about MTW in the next issue...

Now, I'm no expert. But I find it hard to beleive that a man adorned in full plate armor can pull off such a move.

Well whether he can or not does not add up to whether it would be a good idea or not...

Maybe showing off in a dueling situation (like the re-enactors they copied the animations off) it's okay but in a large melee I would not want to be turning my back on the enemy...

But still, small beans really when everthing looks so much smoother and less mechanical...

I have been spoiled by RTW, see the enemy coming and rushing your men into a good formation just does not seem to cut it here, you need to keep your guys in good order and perpare in advance.

[CrownOfSwords]

yeah i figured that out finally, is it possible to get these issues in the store yet or is it just be subscription?

[CBR]

Belatedly coming back on this - it is interesting that the major realism mods (EB and RTR) cut movement speeds by 20% from RTW.

If, as you say, BI was 10% slower than RTW and M2TW 20% is slower than BI, this means that units may run slower in M2TW than in the realism mods.

Yeah most mods did a reduction of 20-30% IIRC

RTW heavy infantry had a running speed of around 275-280 meters/minute(m/min) so mods who reduced the movement modifier to 0.8 would then have them running at around 220 m/min. The 0.7 would give a speed of around 195 m/min.

Personally I used 0.7 even for BI mods which as about 175 m/min


CBR

[legion commander167]

im downloading now i can't wait to play it i can run rome on high great with out any lag can i run the demo on medium or high?

[Mars]

well, once i said....to controll the speed u need skill and this fact didnt changed!

Look at STW, now that was speed, noone complained these days. Anyway, the speed isnt what makes the game good or bad. Its also not the "blob" stuff some spoke about.

Im more interested how long units last, how the fatique is, killratio of missles, this cav thingy scares me a lot... just to call a few.

Puzz ofc worry about speed :P

Some ideas are not bad, like static money, and also the limit of the units isnt that bad, at least they try to work aroudn the balance. That its impossible to balance all these units isnt something new, but its a first step.

I saw that they work on a ladder...



So far so good, the problem is still the same, its SEGA i have my doubts that they will make the game too complex, so i bet the moral and penalty system will be dumbed down like the last TW versions.

Mars

[R'as al Ghul]

Assuming the 3d Gamers download is the real deal it still says:

The processor must support SSE2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSE2

At first glance the whole readme is the same.


R'as

Archer posted this on TWC:

According to some semi-official statements, the demo - which is featured in the PC Gamer magazine disk and distributed illegaly around the net, might not be the "official" demo, which suppose to come out in the very near feature.

So please, do not base anything on this demo - regardless of how you gotten it -

That includes the recent threads about the compatibility with certain CPU-s and systems.

Once we have the official web-release of the demo, we will know it for sure.

Until then, DO NOT make your conclusion about the final product, based on this "special edition" demo.

Thanks!

[Bob the Insane]

Anyone else taken the opportunity to switch the camera to unrestricted and simply taken a wander over the battlefields ignoring the actual battle?

It is pretty sweet, I wonder if the campaign battlefields will have this much detail in them?

I think they are a little bigger than RTW but I am unsure because there is so many little hills and trees and building it is hard to compare them by eye...

[DisruptorX]

Well, my impression of the demo is:

Graphics are great, framerate terrible. I'll have to turn the settings down a bit, or hopefully the final product will be optimized more. Either way, looks good.

Troops seem to move at a realistic rate. No more schools of fish style movement, from what I've seen. Looks like defense will be a good tactic, jugding from this, foot archers seem easier to use than in Rome, where they were run down rather quickly.

The Demo levels are pre-made battles with scripted enemies, though, so its hard to say what the AI is like. I never have liked the historical battles, but as a demo its not too bad.

Oh, and the option to disable the damn starcraft UI from Rome is actually in the menu now! No more text-file editing to get rid of it. I hate huge UIs and developers' fetish for them, and they make no sense. Does anyone who plays RTS games not use hotkeys?

Kind of odd that the first demo battle in "Medieval": Total War 2 takes place in 1525, but hey, I'm not complaining. Muskets and Zweihanders are awesome. Very Happy I actually defeated a unit with my muskets, something I've never done in MTW. I now love muskets. Killed the french king in a hail of shot. There are going to be some awesome Renaissance battles in the full version if its anything like demo.

Sluggish commands are back, and doubling clicking doesn't always register, but overall thumbs up.

[Mount Suribachi]

Oh, and the option to disable the damn starcraft UI from Rome is actually in the menu now! No more text-file editing to get rid of it. I hate huge UIs and developers' fetish for them, and they make no sense. Does anyone who plays RTS games not use hotkeys?

Um, me? And I've been playing Shogun from day 1

[Kwartjuh]

The demo is great! I really think that CA listened to the community with this game. Its not to fast, nor to slow. And if you think it is a little fast, you can set it to slower in the settings.

I dont have a state-of-the-art computer, but i can run it mostly on medium / heavy. Only shadows are lowest, and grass is low. The rest looks AMAZING!

[Mars]

well, i dont care about eyecandy....great grafix doesnt keep u playing a game for a good time. this jsut hold a few days, than u can take it off.

Nah, the demo doesnt allow u much to say aobut the game yet, the "battles" u can fight, dont give u a good impression especially as u cant test much. the computer follow a static order...

U also cant test any of the promised changes. Its much better than RTW, but its too early to fall in love and hype something.
I did read the blog of pala, he used the word "balance" quite a lot, this make me worry, as i saw what he understand or mean with "balance". I truly hope that the balance doesnt mean, that we are down to a static ammount of cash and this 1/3 for unitclasses only.

it needs more than this!

One real insteresting question is, they did use the untis/stats from SP for MP or they finally did manage to really balance it a bit?

what about fatique?

How much is the moralsystem dumped down?

...

Mars

[Zatoichi]

Well, as my home PC isn't up to snuff thanks to being based on an Athlon 2700+ I've not had the chance to try the demo.

However, it's a slow day at work, so I'm busy downloading from 3dgamers with the intention of trying it on one of the MESH computers our IT team bought a few months back to act as my team's servers! AMD 64 4400 and an NVidia 6600LE card should enable me to get some idea of how the game plays - just have to wait until 5:30 when everyone has gone home!

[|Heerbann|_Di3Hard]

well, i dont care about eyecandy....great grafix doesnt keep u playing a game for a good time. this jsut hold a few days, than u can take all the crap off.

1000% agree. I wanna fight good online battles. There isn't time to zoom into battles. TW isn't a FPS.

Nah, the demo doesnt allow u much to say aobut the game yet, the "battles" u can fight, dont give u a good impression especially as u cant test much. the computer follow a static order...

We need a custom battle demo. 3vs3 with AI.

One real insteresting question is, they did use the untis/stats from SP for MP or they finally did manage to really balance it a bit?

what about fatique?

How much is the moralsystem dumped down?

In the next blog he wants to write about.

[Puzz3D]

well, once i said....to controll the speed u need skill and this fact didnt changed!

Look at STW, now that was speed, noone complained these days.

RTW movement speed was 50% faster than STW, and you have 25% more units to control. In addition to that, units routed on contact in RTW. M2TW movement speed is now reduced almost all the way back to STW speeds.

[Kourutsu]

I just remembered.

~ Brings up Medieval Shell.

40% Larger elephants once more!

[spong]

I just dloaded and played the demo and I really enjoyed it, though I have to say I'm glad there's some time left before the release because I have one problem with it and thats that the combat animations are no where near as nicely synchronised as we have seen in the trailers and videos, I have frequently watched as soldiers would do a scripted attack against thin air, attacks that from the previews are supposed to stick into people going nowhere near them, finishing manevers against fallen troops being performed against invisible soldiers on the ground in completely the opposite direction. I find this very confusing as, either they have it working properly and caught it for the vids, and this is just a really unrefined version in the demo, or its as is and someone who made the video spent ages initiating melees and watching very carefully to capture the one-off perfect moves.

Anyone else got any thoughts on this?

[Tamur]

Downloaded via fileplanet last night and played once through each of the battles & the tutorial. The first thing I did in each of the battles was pause and just look around the battlefields.

The vegetation is truly phenomenal; Agincourt town and the manor are both very well done. I love the variety of troops, this is such an improvement over RTW.

The landscape has such rich variation, it's quite impressive, especially at Agincourt. If the battle hadn't been so scripted, I would have marched my army over to take advantage of the cliffs off to the left, some really nice terrain over in that area. In fact, the variety of terrain is so much better than RTW, judging from only these two battles, that I'm wondering if terrain will once again be installed at a tactical factor in battles? We'll see how the random terrain generation does throwing interesting combinations together, but I'm hopeful.

As has been said, the battles play out at a decent pace, except for the 2 seconds it takes for the cavalry to be slaughtered at Agincourt. I was surprised and gratified that I actually had to flank the French to get them to rout.

[maestro]

Dunno why everyone's getting in a tiz about this being an "illegal demo" unless you have it fro US PC Gamer or whatever. I just logged into Fileplanet and I'm downloading it legally at over 300kb/s

God bless Fileplanet and their reasonably priced Founders Club subscription for 50 quid a year

[Lusted]

My first impression of the demo:

WOW.

The graphics are amazing, combat feels much better than RTW, and the combat speeds and kill speeds are much nicer. And, i find this surprising, i do not have the urge to mod it, im really happy with it as it is.

[spong]

I just read on TWC that in the medieval2.preference.cfg file in the demo folder - you can edit out the green markers, banners etc. as you could in Rome, also found out myself by playing around that you can set the unit size to 160 like it was on huge setting in Rome.

I'm finding the game runs fine, I have an AMD Athlon 64bit 3200+ 2ghz, 1 gig of DDR RAM, ATI Radeon x850 XT Platinum Edition graphics card - I've got the unit setting on huge through the .cfg file, unit detail on highest, no anti-aliasing, 1280x1024 (default monitor res), shader 2, building detail low, textures, shadows, vegetation, grass and effects all medium, bloom and reflections turned on.

Looks as good as the screenies and no loss of framerate.

I agree with Lusted that it seems really nice and I don't feel the need for mods, apart from what I mentioned earlier with the combat animations being a bit crazy but CA can still fix that I think.

[Tempiic]

Its hard to test out whether or not having overlapping units gives a penalty with the scripted games.

But I think it might be, however I am far from sure.

With agincourt, if you have your front line of dismounted foot all cluttered together, it seems the french first infantry wave is on its way to finish these 3 units untill their 2nd cav charges in and their own whole group routs. Your own casualty rate seems to be much higher than if you use the plain line deployment as it is as start)

If you change nothing in the battle line from start and just watches, the English only start getting into problems during the 2nd french infantry wave.

However, with the high valour units of the english and a semi-cluttered french infantry wall, it is hard to be completely certain.


(Finding out whether battlefield upgrades happen during the battle or actually after the battle, is a hopeless case with all your high valour units)

Funny Fact: I've seen many many times dismounted knights being stabbed in the head, throat, chest or back when they try to do their whirling hammer attack. Jay!

[Ulstan]

"Such as the dismounted knights with pole-arms hopping into the air, and then pulling a 360 degree and slamming their weapons into the enemy.

Now, I'm no expert. But I find it hard to beleive that a man adorned in full plate armor can pull off such a move"

I believe they were fully capable of such a move (ignoring the hollywood myth that knights in full plate armor were clumsy beasts who could hardly even move) but question whether it would have been the wisest maneuver to pull off in a full scale melee.

Oh well, if there's one unit that can get away with a ridiculously 'for show' killing move it's knights :p

[Tempiic]

I also noticed AI cav switching from lances to swords during melee.