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ok. got the game, installed just fine. no problems. played the campaign tutorial and looked briefly at the map editor and registered online and went into multi. i was on the satellite so didnt actually play a multi game.
the campaign tutorial is pretty brief and just goes into the very basic movement and building aspects, which all of the vets shld already know from previous total wars.
here's a preliminary review of what i've see so far. first off, have a LARGE amount of free harddrive space. this sucker is BIG. 1714 megs and no custom or 'short' installs. it's a full install or nothing.
the lead movie is the same as the demo.
there are 373 maps included with the game.
in the editor on 'lush' i saw 181 textures.
the editor also includes sound effects, wind, the sea and so forth.
multi has NO separate chat rooms. it's just the foyer.
the hosting options are:
season
architecture (style of)
game type (only last man standing currently)
time limit (up to 60 minutes)
terrain; lush, temperate, arid, desert
server name (you name your game)
password (or not)
max playing (up to 8)
attacker florins
defender florins
map listing
and one really cool thing is that in stw/we/mi we had a .tga showing one screen shot of a map. in mtw you get a continous scrolling map of the entire thing as the map display. VERY nice touch. am curious how map makers are going to make their own on this one.
and that's about as far as i've gotten.
oh, one thing, when you register your cd key, it's apparently case sensitive, so use upper and lower case characters as necessary. and if yer wondering where your cd key is listed, it's behind the fold out tray for the 2nd cd in the case.
a couple folks were complaining about the log in procedure, particularly with gamespy. i already have a gamespy account, so all i had to do was start the game, hit multi, enter my email addy, the name i wanted and my password and i was in. remember, you'll need the gamespy arcade and a gamespy account to log into the game, plus an in-game name and pw. you do these separately thru the menu system.
that's all i've got at the moment. heading into the campaign shortly, so i'll post more later on.
it's looking pretty good so far, but i'm mostly skimming through the various aspects of the overall. the only complaints so far are with multi; no chat rooms and only 'last man standing' games. perhaps the x-pack will add in more of this later on.
K.
target,
admittedly, not many of the other game types were played after the first week of release. but, we did occaisionally play koth games, usually at my request. i LOVED that style of play. a capture the flag style would also be nice, but i wasnt a fan of the assasinate the general or halve the enemy or capture the honjin. but koth was a hoot :)
yeah, wasnt real sure when i posted that, gil, if it was right, about the arcade. i already had it installed so figured it had just auto-detected it on my machine. thanks for the clarification.
if, by chance, you did opt for a capture the flag mode, i'd prefer not going the capture the honjin mode, but rather have just one flag per team. this would have been particularly good in something like the mongol game where horses were so prevalent and fast. i can easily see a bright red or white flag being placed on the field by each team leader, hiding them in nasty locations and so on on one's own side and then with 4 armies each, trying to defend and find and capture the flags. as the flag is 'captured' you simply erase the one on the ground and change the banner of the capturing unit and stick up one of those banners announcing the fact to both sides. you could even add an option for death as permanent or death as reinforcements like koth games.
so, forget those folks with little imagination and just make it for me. but make it playable in single player custom battles so that when i cant talk anyone into it in multi, i can at least knock heads with the AI ;)
K.
k. here's a feature i dont recall seeing in the previous games... of course i'm lucky if i remember my name from day to day, but there's this option in the main menu called 'quick battle'. i tried it out and was instantly taken to the field of battle on a hillyinland.02 map, and given an army of spanish troops. my opponent was the almohads (or something like that). i didnt get to choose the faction or the army. the computer just picked everything and sent me to go fight.
this is kind of cool. it's great for when you just dont wanna think about it all; ya just wanna kill something. apparently it's a totally random selection from the custom battles but everything is set up for you, as if you were just a peon in some nation and your leader said, 'here, go fight.'
i didnt count noses or anything but it seemed fairly balanced tween the 2 sides. i had some armored cav, arq's, cav archers, infantry and so did the opponent. neither started with a great map advantage, though i was on the higher ground, but i was also the attacker, so that didnt much matter.
the enemy didnt just blindly rush me and when i moved, he countered as the defender. at one point i made a move out of a valley to try and get a downhill rush. instead of standing firm or backing up, the ai decided that if i didnt want the other high ground on the other side of the valley, that he'd be just fine there, so he moved. ok, that one surprised me. wouldnt surprise me against a human player, but did that the ai did it. i then had to try and hit his tail as he was going up and also try and cut him off, which put me at somewhat of a disadvantage. i sent in my cav archers to harry his backside and distract and confuse, and it worked a bit, but he also turned, and already having the higher postion, began to harras my cav. i pulled the cav back, while sending my other units higher up the hill to block and managed to also flank some of his weaker units in the rear with my knights. i sent 2 or 3 of those units running, but my main body was in disarray and the ai took advantage of it by rushing. i was now split and dis-ordered and had to pull back and regroup and lost 2 units in doing so, but managed to re-organize and get my knights back in play. the ai seeing what i was doing, did pretty much the same thing and we both squared up against each other on the side of the hill we'd both been positioning for. it was still fairly even, but i had a slight missle advantage, so i brought them up and began driving his units off one by one. i also had managed to get my mounted knights up higher on the hill and in an almost flanking position and this was just too much for the ai. he finally began to really break down and finally ran, game over.
the ai seemed MUCH smarter than we/mi. i like the morale where it's currently set. units can recover quicker than before if they get sent running. and the back and forth play is much more interesting than earlier games.
there is also an addition to the cursor display that i dont remember in the demo. there is a lot more information being given about various units as you move the cursor over each unit. for me, this is a very good feature. i know almost nothing about these units of this period and i'm sure others are in the same boat. this cursor info thing gives you a quick synopsis about any unit, its strengths and weaknesses. but, i can see where this might get annoying down the line as i no longer need it due to being more savvy as i learn who is who and what is what, so an option to turn this off might be good.
target, gil, do you know if this can be turned off in a file for those that dont want it there? like i say, i currently like it a lot, but i can see where it might become 'in the way' later on.
the one or two things that did raise question marks in my mind about this battle, were that one or two units seemed to do some back and forth dancing when ordered to attack an opponent. they'd go forward, turn around, move a few steps back, turn again, and go forward again. not sure what that was all about. it was a cav archer of mine in particular that i noticed doing this, so he ..might.. have been starting to attack but was also in skirmish and moving away from something coming at him...not sure, but it was odd little dance at times. i noticed one or two ai units doing this also, but i think they were ground troops, not cav.
ALL units seem much better at disengaging now, which i like, but you have to remember to set their settings so that they dont rush back in as soon as they get out.
and, lo and behold, as advertised, at the end of the battle i was offered to save the recording! i couldnt help it, i saved it. it was my first win in mtw :)
K.
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