Demo Discussion Thread

[Zenicetus]

played the naval battle, got my ass handed to me, but it was really good, the only thing i didnt like was the men jumping onto the enemy ship, not because they were jumping just cos they were jumping like 10 feet in the air lol. looked a bit weird, to all the people who thought it was arcady i dunno wot there problem is, YES it is a little unrealistic, but i found the turning circles not all that small.

The problem for some of us, isn't that the turning circles are small. It's that there's a concept of turning circles at all! Turning circles are for jet fighter pilots, not square-rigged ships.

Some may prefer the way this is being done, and that's fine. Everyone has a right to an opinion. Others like me, are lamenting the loss of tactical challenge. It's bumper car combat, not the slow, stately motions of ships under sail, constrained by the wind to move only in certain ways. We may differ in our views of whether this is fun or not. However, from what I've seen so far, I don't think it's debatable that naval battles are being presented as an arcade game, at a different level of realism compared to the land battles. It will be interesting to see if any of the major game review sites pick up on this.

[scipiosgoblin]

The problem for some of us, isn't that the turning circles are small. It's that there's a concept of turning circles at all! Turning circles are for jet fighter pilots, not square-rigged ships.

Some may prefer the way this is being done, and that's fine. Everyone has a right to an opinion. Others like me, are lamenting the loss of tactical challenge. It's bumper car combat, not the slow, stately motions of ships under sail, constrained by the wind to move only in certain ways.

While I agree that wind should play a major part in naval battles of the period, I think CA did what it had to do to allow more people to play the game. I am an avid sailor and see the wind vector diagram in my head whenever I am at sea, but most people don't have any concept of how sails actually work. There are several people on this forum who are obvious exceptions. We are not average gamers however.

I guess my point is CA made a game that is simple for the mass of gamers. Our modding community will surely fix the arcade game issue with square-rigged ships. I look forward to playing that mod. Until then, I am happy that we have naval combat.

SG

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Blah! You and your demo!
Since I can't run this ETW demo then I reinstalled Imperial Glory and blasted a French ship into oblivion! I feel much better now!

[quadalpha]

Would be nice to have some kind of indicator for land reloading, eh?

[Sir Beane]

I think the turning circles and fast ships were necessary to allow CA to market the game to the masses. I'm confident mods will fix many of the problems that have been spotted.

Naval combat is rather rushed and confusing due to the oddly turning ships and fast movement however. I can only imagine how bad it will be with twenty ships a side.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

While I agree that wind should play a major part in naval battles of the period, I think CA did what it had to do to allow more people to play the game. I am an avid sailor and see the wind vector diagram in my head whenever I am at sea, but most people don't have any concept of how sails actually work. There are several people on this forum who are obvious exceptions. We are not average gamers however.

I guess my point is CA made a game that is simple for the mass of gamers. Our modding community will surely fix the arcade game issue with square-rigged ships. I look forward to playing that mod. Until then, I am happy that we have naval combat.

SG

I'm starting to hate how modders are starting to become CA's 'get out of jail free' card. Most likely not everything can be modded. Stuff like manoeuvrability and ship speed probably can be. But the physics of sailing? That sounds like something hardcoded to me.
And I didn't expect a fully realistic sailing sim. Even I wouldn't want one. But, have CA overshot their mark?

As it stands now, a player can pretty much ignore wind altogether. I don't mind that ships can sail against the wind, I expected it. But do they have to sail dead against the wind seemingly just as fast as a ship running before the wind? I haven't found any point to gaining the weathergage at all, which should be the tactical alpha and omega in the age of sail. That's a BIG issue, when the no.1 tactic doesn't really work.

Another big issue for me is the exaggerated speed and manoeuvring changing the feel of a battle in to something more akin to Messerschmitts and Spitfires circling each other over the Channel, instead of careful manoeuvring of massive SOL. It just feels wrong. Modders hopefully can remedy this. Sure hope so, as I had my hands full in the demo battle, which was relatively tiny. 20v20? I think I'd get computer rage!

Another thing I don't like much is the anchoring. It's too easy and fast and once stopped you keep full manoeuvrability. This has allowed me to try a very gamey thing. Stop your lead ship. Then "park" the next ship close to it, and the next. And since their nice and stopped and you can rotate them in place, you can quickly put together a massive amount of guns and be done with manoeuvring altogether. Not a tactic that caught on much during the time, except among fleets caught in actual anchorages.
Not sure how I would like it changed though. Players probably need be able to stop and turn for playability's sake. But the way it is now does not promote realistic tactics. Some sort of middle ground would be nice.


Another thing, which thankfully isn't a fundamental difference of opinion about how naval battles should play, is an issue mentioned by CBR: Ships stopping at their destination. In a naval "furball" it's altogether too easy to let a ship come to a halt because you lost track of it. Especially if you are viewing the actiono from close or moderate ranges where it might be tricky to give an order to a ship that tells it to sail far away, due to where the camera is looking.
I would prefer it that ships would sail on, so I don't have to keep herding them in a hectic, confusing action. And more importantly that way, if I lose track of a ships orders for a bit, at least it'll be sailing away from battle instead of sitting motionless in the thick of it.


With all that, I have to admit it is slowly growing on me. I'm willing to go so far as saying it beats auto-calc, something my 1st impression wasn't quite so willing to concede. It's kinda fun. Dreadfully lightweight in places, but fun.

Oh, and kudos to whomever coded the AI for the boarding order. Admirable job! A ship tasked with boarding an enemy ship does a rather effective job chasing down and getting side to side with the intended victim. I tried to throw the boarding AI some curveballs by giving it some really hard to reach ships at inconvenient angles but it quickly chases it's prey down in a convincing and effective manner every time. Kudos, kudos, kudos!

[Zenicetus]

While I agree that wind should play a major part in naval battles of the period, I think CA did what it had to do to allow more people to play the game.

I'm not sure I buy that argument, because they don't treat the land battles like this. Gamers have to learn terrain effects, flanking tactics, the pros and cons of different formations, and how to use cavalry and artillery. You can just grab your entire army and throw it at the enemy, but it's more fun and more rewarding to explore the use of historical tactics, because that's the tool kit the game gives you. The land battles in TW are a reasonable balance between ease of gameplay, eye candy, and enough historical realism to make it worth playing instead of yet another WWII or sci-fi RTS game.

And if that's the strength and selling point of the TW series, then why does CA expect gamers to handle a different level of challenge at sea? It's like the naval battles were designed by an entirely different team, under different assumptions about the audience.

I guess my point is CA made a game that is simple for the mass of gamers. Our modding community will surely fix the arcade game issue with square-rigged ships. I look forward to playing that mod. Until then, I am happy that we have naval combat.
SG

The problem with looking to the modders for a solution is the AI, which is likely to be buried deeper in the code. In the naval battle demo, we're not seeing the AI act as if it knows where the wind is, and how to use it. So even if more realistic wind an maneuver was modded in, what would the AI do with it? If it's at a level that can't be touched by modders (and I don't think we've ever seen major changes in the AI from the mod community in previous TW games), then realistic sailing would just become a player exploit. We'd know how to sail, and the AI wouldn't. We'd blast 'em to smithereens as we stay upwind and they try to reach us, floundering dead in the water because they're no longer driving bumper cars.

Maybe I'm wrong, and the modders can fix this. If not, I sure hope there's a decent auto-calc for naval battles, so they're just optional eye candy and we can focus on the land battles. That's something we won't find out about, until the game is released and we can get some reports from people playing the campaign.

[Sir Beane]

Has anyone else noticed how smoothly and intelligently units respond to orders? There is much less chaos, confusion and unnecessary movement when units respond to formation changes or target changes than used to be the case.

The whole process of commanding troops feels much more fluid than it used to.

[Megas Methuselah]

The scum of the earth is well-disciplined.

[knoddy]

I'll tinker around some more with options to see if I can find a balance later. It's probably my single-core that's doing it, all you guys reporting nice load times seem to be running dual/quad cores. Ah well. The battles run great and I can live with 1-3 min loads.

nope, im running a dual core amd 4200 and i get 5 minute loading time for the game and 3-4 minute for battles. and 1-2 minute at end of battles. i shamelessly blame steam because i hate it. i hope that faq that was quoted the other day about u not needing steam for a retail bought version was correct.

The problem for some of us, isn't that the turning circles are small. It's that there's a concept of turning circles at all! Turning circles are for jet fighter pilots, not square-rigged ships.

Some may prefer the way this is being done, and that's fine. Everyone has a right to an opinion. Others like me, are lamenting the loss of tactical challenge. It's bumper car combat, not the slow, stately motions of ships under sail, constrained by the wind to move only in certain ways.

i can see where this is coming from, but i can also see where CA is coming from, to ALOT of people i think realistic naval battles would have been very annoying slow paced and boring. while i can see why your disappointed i can understand why CA did what they did, and despite the battles being not historically realistic, i still found them quite fun, and had some great features, including men jumping over board when the ship was sinkin :) or on fire.

also land battles have never been that historically accurate, crushing defeats with thousands dead were not common place. they increase the kill rate and casualties to appease the masses with blood and violence, reminds me bit of ancient Rome :P

finally does any1 know what the wind strength was in the demo? i paid attention to the direction but not the strength, and is it possible the wind strength was non existent and thats why the ships sailed so effectively against it? just a thought.

and as for turning circles, im not much of a sailor at all, but ships could turn could they not? i found the turning circles quite a nice big arc and not violent quick turns. in my attempt at the naval battle i sailed my line past theirs then began turning back with my lead ships and it took a nice big arc to spin round, i still dont see the major issue with the turning or was it just that i didnt exploit tiny turning circles at all? like i said not a sailor so enlighten me pls :)


@ the guy with the graphics problem, had this a few years back with KOTOR 2 never really fixed it, i can only suggest changing graphics options updating drivers etc.


@ the guy who said go Nvidia - go to any gamin forums u will find people having trouble with both brands. no one is perfect. my first card was a nvidia and i had constant problems with it. since then ive gone ati and never had any issues cept for some easily fixed over heating problems with my XT1650. go to any GPU tech forums and u will find threads asking which is better, stories of people who have changed from 1 to the other and never had problems, etc etc.


boo for all day at work, i wanna try and win the naval battle. mine first attempt was close, i think i lost cos i was just enjoying it and not being very tactical :P

Cheers Knoddy

[Roy1991]

Ahh just experienced one of those 'movie moments' in the naval battle
My first rate and a French second or third rate (not sure) approached eachother from opposite sites, and then while they were alongside, both fired a full broadside simultaneously

[hoom]

and as for turning circles, im not much of a sailor at all, but ships could turn could they not? i found the turning circles quite a nice big arc and not violent quick turns. in my attempt at the naval battle i sailed my line past theirs then began turning back with my lead ships and it took a nice big arc to spin round, i still dont see the major issue with the turning or was it just that i didnt exploit tiny turning circles at all? like i said not a sailor so enlighten me pls :)

They seemed to turn nice & slowly when in a group, but selected individually they turn very quickly.
Or at least the frigate in the Tutorial does.

[bloodshed]

I gave up on downloading the demo. The first time it took 6 hours and ended up not working. Then I uninstalled it and tried to install it again, 6 hours later I click and it says This game is currently unavailable. So I give up and ill just wait for the full game which hopefully I wont have any problems. Thank goodness I didnt preorder it from steam it would take me forever and end up not working. I hope most of these problems people are reporting about arnt in the full game or I think that would be a huge mistake by CA to release an unfinished games that barely anyone can play without any problems. Cant wait for the full game.

Unless someone has an idea on how to fix the This game is currently unavailable thing that doesnt involve re downloading it.

[Alexander the Adequate]

Am I the only one who thought that the background clips for the Empire main menu resemble a main menu screen for a DVD movie war epic? All those flashes of men slo-mo raising their rifles to fire...but then it fades away to other guys preparing to fire? The similarities are really strong.

[scipiosgoblin]

The problem with looking to the modders for a solution is the AI, which is likely to be buried deeper in the code. In the naval battle demo, we're not seeing the AI act as if it knows where the wind is, and how to use it. So even if more realistic wind an maneuver was modded in, what would the AI do with it? If it's at a level that can't be touched by modders (and I don't think we've ever seen major changes in the AI from the mod community in previous TW games), then realistic sailing would just become a player exploit. We'd know how to sail, and the AI wouldn't. We'd blast 'em to smithereens as we stay upwind and they try to reach us, floundering dead in the water because they're no longer driving bumper cars.

Maybe I'm wrong, and the modders can fix this. If not, I sure hope there's a decent auto-calc for naval battles, so they're just optional eye candy and we can focus on the land battles. That's something we won't find out about, until the game is released and we can get some reports from people playing the campaign.

IIRC I saw a Ca interview or post where they said the programmers had the ships working closer to a correct physics model and they removed it because it wasn't "fun." I'm hoping they just commented out the code and left it in place so the modders just have to take the comment marker out.

If that is the case then the AI would obviously know how to use the wind effectively (at least for an AI). IIRC the problem was the friendly AI would tack for you to get you to the destination you chose causing the ships to turn in unexpected directions. I think the players could figure this out. How steep the learning curve would be is probably what CA was worried about.

SG

[Polemists]

I don't know what will happen with Naval combat, some people love it as is, some don't. I'm not sure the devs would leave in a code they deemed wasn't to be used in the game. If they did the mods can handle it, if not they may add something in a expansion where it has a check box that says something like "realistic wind"

In the end, I think you can never make anyone happy, alot of people seem to find naval combat fun tho as is, so that's all I looked for fun, not perfect just fun

[scipiosgoblin]

In the end, I think you can never make anyone happy, alot of people seem to find naval combat fun tho as is, so that's all I looked for fun, not perfect just fun

I completely agree. It is fun. I think the majority of people would find a realistic wind geometry problem for one ship difficult and for a fleet impossible. I used to do that for a living so I think of the fleet problem as mildly interesting. For one ship a piffle.

I think the way it works now is just fine for the game. If someone comes up with a mod for a realistic wind, then I will take it, because it will be more fun for me. But I'm deleriously happy that I can take sailing ships to war in ETW.

[Crazed Rabbit]

I decided to fight the land battle and charge right up the mouth of the American guns on the defended ford.

Surprisingly, I won. Lost a lot of men, though (almost 700). It was really close, and the AI might have won had it moved the hidden long rifle men who were hidden, guarding the other bridge. But they only came after I drove back the main force completely.

Also, at the end of the battle I had my general chasing the other general, who happened to run through a line of stakes set up earlier in the game. My general's cav lost five of seven horsemen as they tried to follow.

CR