Americans, how is Kingdoms?

[Lorenzo_H]

Seeing as you Americans got it today, and perhaps have had a few hours to play it, how is it?

[Aquitaine]

Downloading it from D2D now. Will let you know tonight -- it's over 7 gigs!

[Vuk]

I pre-ordered it from amazon, so I won't get it for a while. :P Pre-ordering it turned out cheaper than getting it from WalMart, which is why I did it. :P

Vuk

[Bob the Insane]

Just checked out Best Buy and Gamestop, not in yet... Hopefully tomorrow...

As a brit living in the states I have noted that while release dates are often slightly earlier they are often not as reliable and, I guess due to the size of the place, it is often the luck of the draw whether your shop gets it in on time...

[Kraggenmor]

The stores I've called around here are all saying that it shipped today and so should be in tomorrow.

I'm pretty eager for it but, I think either way -download or buy the box - I still won't be able to play it til tomorrow.

Come to think of it; the way M2 consumed my time after I got it for Christmas, it might be better if I wait til Friday. It's a three day weekend here in the States. ;)

[antisocialmunky]

I havent' seen it ANYWHERE... Just found out that it should have been released today even though I'm waiting for a MT2W:GOLD Edition with M2 and Kingdoms.

[Doug-Thompson]

Just had a talk with the guys at the local Gamestop. They hate the way companies make a big deal about the release date — because the first units don't ship until the next day. So the downloaders will have the first crack at it.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

There is a guy at TWC (avatar Antioch) who has posted the first screenies. He bought the game in Sweden.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=117983&page=5

[Ferret]

Thanks Alphonse

[Proletariat]

Any positive experiences with buying it via download? I'd like to play it now, because I'm impatient, but I also like having the discs. If there aren't any considerable draw backs, I might just download it tonight, but the only other time I've bought a game via download, it only allowed three activations of the game. That's pretty lame since I know I'll inevitably screw up game files while tweaking things and I'd like as many installs as I need.

[edyzmedieval]

Swedes and Norwegians always get TW games first.

[The Teacher]

not wanting to sound like a troll.... *deep breath* but please can only people with screenies post here.

*ducks to avoid irony of death*

*lurks*

[Aquitaine]

Direct2Drive only allows some number of activations but if you're like me and frequently reformat/reinstall/rebuild then you just email them and whine about it and they give you pretty much an unlimited number of re-activations each time you ask.

Just installing now (had to go out for a while) and don't know how much time I'll have to play it, but hopefully I'll be able to post some impressions and screenshots.

[Patricius]

Direct to Drive is not useful for me sadly, as Windows is installed on an old and tiny hard disk and I am too lazy to move it.

[Ice]

Any positive experiences with buying it via download? I'd like to play it now, because I'm impatient, but I also like having the discs. If there aren't any considerable draw backs, I might just download it tonight, but the only other time I've bought a game via download, it only allowed three activations of the game. That's pretty lame since I know I'll inevitably screw up game files while tweaking things and I'd like as many installs as I need.

Don't download it. I downloaded MTWII and it was a pain in the ass for support and getting stuff to work.

Edit: I did use steam though.

[Gorm]

ARRGH! My pre-order with Amazon here in the US says it is in stock on Sept. 2 and deliver between Sept. 11 and 17.

[andrewt]

I preorder my games through Gamestop because there's one within walking distance, probably a bit over a mile from my house. The "release date" is always the "ship date" and I get games the next day.

And I'm surprised how little this game was talked about the previous week, it seems people forgot today is ship date. Didn't see any new threads here until this one and didn't see any of the game sites have any new article about it.

[Benandorf]

Don't download it. I downloaded MTWII and it was a pain in the ass for support and getting stuff to work.

Edit: I did use steam though.

I actually had an opposite experience with M2:TW over Steam. In fact, I've liked it so much (no scrounging around to find disks and constantly changing them out of my only CD/DVD Drive, YAY!) I plan to get RTW:Complete and Kingdoms from there.

I say that disks are annoying, if you have a fast internet the best way to go would be downloading it.

[phonicsmonkey]

I would have used Steam but for reasons unknown M2TW was unavailable over Steam to persons living in Australia

[Rhedd]

I actually had an opposite experience with M2:TW over Steam. In fact, I've liked it so much (no scrounging around to find disks and constantly changing them out of my only CD/DVD Drive, YAY!) I plan to get RTW:Complete and Kingdoms from there..

That's good to hear, because as I understand it, a retail boxed version of Kingdoms won't recognize the fact that you own the Steam version of M2TW, and a Steam version of Kingdoms won't play nice with a retail box of M2TW.

I'm sorry, but you couldn't pay me to buy things off of Steam. It's full of peculiarities.

[Slaists]

Downloaded the whole log (7 GB) last nite and had a shot at a Jerusalem campaign for an hour before heading to bed way too late.

Here is the first thing that jumped at me: passive strategic AI all over... Egyptians, being at war with me, had 5 stacks wandering around my provinces around Jerusalem for 10 turns and not attacking anything... with the manpower they had there they should have been able to seriously threaten at least one of my cities/castles there, but nada...

[_Tristan_]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Downloaded the whole log (7 GB) last nite and had a shot at a Jerusalem campaign for an hour before heading to bed way too late.

Here is the first thing that jumped at me: passive strategic AI all over... Egyptians, being at war with me, had 5 stacks wandering around my provinces around Jerusalem for 10 turns and not attacking anything... with the manpower they had there they should have been able to seriously threaten at least one of my cities/castles there, but nada...

It's bad news if it is confirmed... A big let down...

[FactionHeir]

Considering how "patch" 1.3 (you know, the one which doesn't fix anything but just makes the two games compatible with each other) makes no actual difference from 1.2, I wouldn't be surprised if the exact same bugs exist in Kingdoms as in vanilla M2TW.

[PseRamesses]

Swedes and Norwegians always get TW games first.

Yup, I´m drooling over my copy right now. Just home from work and installing as I post, he he!

[_Tristan_]

Considering how "patch" 1.3 (you know, the one which doesn't fix anything but just makes the two games compatible with each other) makes no actual difference from 1.2, I wouldn't be surprised if the exact same bugs exist in Kingdoms as in vanilla M2TW.

Yes, but Kingdoms AFAIK includes some of the work done by Lusted (notably rebalancing units) and I would have thought that his taking part would have given some results in other fields of the game...

[FactionHeir]

The kingdoms rebalance does not directly apply to the grand campaign however, as the same unit in kingdoms may have different stats between campaigns.

[_Tristan_]

The kingdoms rebalance does not directly apply to the grand campaign however, as the same unit in kingdoms may have different stats between campaigns.

Yes but as stated by Pserameses, it was playing on of the mini-campaigns that he encountered strat-AI problems... So it might negate all the fun the rebalancing could have created...

[alpaca]

Yes, but Kingdoms AFAIK includes some of the work done by Lusted (notably rebalancing units) and I would have thought that his taking part would have given some results in other fields of the game...

The units were rebalanced by Palamedes, not by Lusted. The balance was partly tested in Lusted's mod to get more feedback on it pre-release.

As for the passive AI: What did you expect? I expected it to be exactly the same as in M2TW

[FactionHeir]

The units were rebalanced by Palamedes, not by Lusted. The balance was partly tested in Lusted's mod to get more feedback on it pre-release.

As for the passive AI: What did you expect? I expected it to be exactly the same as in M2TW

What he said.
A few more units (and their graphical models, effects) and the campaign maps.

[Slaists]

The kingdoms rebalance does not directly apply to the grand campaign however, as the same unit in kingdoms may have different stats between campaigns.

there is a CA (developed in house) mod featured on twcenter site that retrofits kingdom campaign unit balance and many features to the main campaign.