Demo feedback

Imperial Glory is an interesting addition to the turn based strategy game. Lot's of mods to enhance the gameplay.

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Lt.Phoenix
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Post by Lt.Phoenix »

May I remind you of my favorite battle? At the Battle of the Chateauguay a force of 400 Canadians defeated an invading US army of 3500. I just love this one :).
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Post by @m »

This is all far drifting away from the original topic no :)
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Post by ArchdukeMagyar »

Lt.Phoenix wrote:May I remind you of my favorite battle? At the Battle of the Chateauguay a force of 400 Canadians defeated an invading US army of 3500. I just love this one :).
BRITISH NOT CANADIANS, ARRGGG
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Post by ArchdukeMagyar »

jrdrums wrote:America may not have the largest army, but we have a larger army, airforce, and navy than anyone in Europe. European countries do not come cloes to our size.

American military in most definatly not inferior. I would love to know how you know or came to that conclusion! America's army is one of the best and anyone who denys it does not know anything about the US.

As for our cultrue, HOW IN HELLS NAME CAN YOU SAY WE ARE CULTURALY INFERIOR? We have people from every nation which makes it impossible for us to be culturally inferior. And we may not have a good as schooling as other places, but I would love to see another gov't do what America's has with so many people in this country. We are one of the largest countries; we overshadow Europe with almost Alaska alone. Rhode Island is the size of Great Britain and has a larger population.

America is one of the best places to live. i don't see Mexicans trying to flee into Britain :lol:! But seriously, so many people want to live in America because we are free, happy, and well on our way to a good future in America.
There is not American culture. The european/asian/african cultures of those immigrants are quite something else.
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Post by ArchdukeMagyar »

jrdrums wrote:America is the most racist country? How do you come to that conclusion?

We have a larger everything than you. Get over it. And there is no way to tell who's forces are more well trained. Both British and Americas have made friendly fire mistakes. And the population dislikes both of us. I just recently saw them buring a British and American flag. So nothing you say is true here.
They prefer the British by quite a way actually, plus, you don't have a larger brain that's for sure. Otherwise you wouldn't be posting such incorrect twoddle.
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Post by ArchdukeMagyar »

jrdrums wrote:America is the most racist country? How do you come to that conclusion?
.
Jim Crow, Slavery until the 1860s, affirmative action (which is racism against the white majority), the KKK..the list is endless. America has an exceptionally racist past.
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Post by Lt.Phoenix »

Wrong, they were Canadians. Just like Austrians were still referred to as Austrians during the Napoleonic Wars.
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Post by Lt.Phoenix »

Rome really, or, Egypt I guess.
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Post by ArchdukeMagyar »

Lt.Phoenix wrote:Wrong, they were Canadians. Just like Austrians were still referred to as Austrians during the Napoleonic Wars.
I know people who would be offended by that statement, namely my Hungarian ancestors in the Austro-Hungarian army. Indeed, my ancestors were at Liepzig and Auscherlitz but that's besides the point. Canadians were no more 'canadians' than australians at the time were australians. Almost entirely first or second generation British immigrants, they were fiercely loyal to the crown. Again, you overlook the obvious point that the majority of the soldiers involved on the side of the Empire were British. Your point was immaterial.
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Post by Lt.Phoenix »

Yes, we were loyal to the crown, a lot of our laws went through Britain, but we were a seperate entity. The soldiers that fought for Canada were Canadian, and known to be so throughout all of Britain anyways. It wasn't a british unit that burned down the white house, and I think you should pick up a book before trying to falsify Canadian history. Again, I find your ability to make useless posts, especially after the conversation is finished, astounding.
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Post by ToXiC_WoLf »

Yo people, shouldn't we like, knock off this hardcore arguing and get back on topic to the Demo? And who cares if America's racist, you can't tell me we're the only racist nation in the world. And besides, who some respect for other peoples cultures Archduke, you don't see me bashing Hungary. And once again Lt. Phoenix, bravo, bravo.
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Post by saddletank »

Here's my take after first playing the demo through twice last night.

Things I like about the demo

1. Graphics are superb, terrain and texturing are great, 3D models excellent. Perhaps in the middle of a battle the miller and his family would take cover or leave the mill so having turning sails is anachronistic but I can live with it.

2. Being able to put men in buildings for defence is great. I have not yet assaulted a building but I hope it is very hard to clear men out, particularly if it’s a solidly built building like a church. You only have to read accounts of battles like Ligny to realise that shifting defenders out of villages was extremely difficult.

3. Musket and cannon smoke good. But more of it please, and it disperses too soon.

4. Density of formations (closeness of ranks and files) is acceptable.

5. Sounds are fine, no problems with them. At least we don’t have American voices responding when we select British troops :)

6. Camera tilt option is good – getting down close to the troops is great.

7. Generally the look of the whole game is excellent.

8. Movement speeds of artillery and infantry is good(ish), but see the discussion about game balance below (item 13).

9. Animated cows and sheep. Lovely. Very cute. More please. Oh, and can we shoot them too?

Hmmm… now the problems

1. Movement speed of cavalry is much too fast. Cavalry would walk almost all the time in order to prevent the horses being blown. Cavalry walking in formation do not actually move that much faster than infantry in formation. The option to move faster (trot or canter) to a certain point if the need arises would be best, so the ‘charge’ move option to any selected place on the terrain would help. That would then require a fatigue system to be implemented, I’m not sure if it is at the moment.

2. Changing formations speed is much too fast. While infantry would practice forming square quickly the units in the game do this just too quickly. Slow these down by around 50% I think.

3. Artillery movement seems to get confused when reaching a location. It seems the guns don’t have enough room between them for the horse team to turn, etc. I’d like to see the guns spaced further apart to cure this and because in reality guns were spaced quite far apart, about 10 yards between guns. About double the current spacing would work. Oh, and as it stands the horses are towing the guns backwards, given that you'd need a more complex unlimbering animation could the horses pull the guns the right way round please? The demo gives each gun a rudimentary limber so we are part way there already.

4. Artillery range is too short. Waay too short. The infantry musket range feels long by comparison. If we keep the existing musket range then artillery range needs to be trebled for it to remain consistent. More inaccuracy at long range as well please.

5. I do not like roundshot from field guns exploding when it lands. Guns should fire solid ball please that bounces along the ground and rolls for quite some distance (unless the ground is wet or if the balls are landing on an uphill slope when they would bounce and roll less).

6. Artillery needs a canister ammunition for ranges of around 400yards and under. Artillery canister had a longer effective range than infantry muskets so it should not be practical for an infantry line to stand a couple hundred yards from a gun battery and kill it by musket fire. They would be decimated by the artillery canister first, in almost all cases.

7. Artillery moves too slowly when threatened. Gunners could, and did, pull their guns out of harms way if infantry approached by rapidly retreating, albeit in some disorder. In the game guns can’t run. They should be able to ‘run’ a short distance. So generally artillery in the demo is too weak.

8. No units should fire from behind friends unless they are on higher ground, in the upper floors of buildings, etc.

9. Units need the ability to withdraw from melee if the player wishes.

10. The game needs a morale system – units fighting to the death is totally unrealistic.

11. Some AI pathing needs looking at – I ordered one of my cavalry regiments to cross the river by clicking among the trees on the far bank and the unit ignored the bridge right next to it and waded through the river. A unit would use a bridge unless told otherwise. Likewise I ordered a gun battery across the river and it began to move but went hundreds of yards away upriver to a place it could cross. A simple “We cannot get the guns across here, sir” response and refusal to move would be better.

12. I think it would be better if rivers were only fordable at certain points and the bank texture showed where this was possible. Crossing units over a river is currently a bit of a lottery, not realistic.

13. Infantry and artillery reload too fast. This is all about game balance and involves the ranges at which the weapons are effective and how fast units move. As it currently stands musket range is too long in relation to an infantry move that’s too slow and reload time that’s too short which means infantry get blown away on an approach. There are accounts of French infantry ‘advancing rapidly’ and ‘approaching so rapidly we had no time to fire a second volley’ etc. The three elements of range/move speed/reload time need examining again. Basically three shots a minute for the first one or two minutes was excellent from average infantry and two shots a minute thereafter. Artillery could keep up two shots a minute for about 10 minutes when it would drop to about one shot a minute (gunners tired fast, repositioning the gun after every shot’s recoil was hard work).

14. Formations: The AI forms lines of unequal length. I only noticed this with the cavalry, the infantry seemed OK. The AI should be able to divide the number of men in the unit by the number of lines it’s forming and form the correct frontage. I’d like to see British infantry form correctly in lines two ranks deep, other nations in three. I’d like to see hollow squares, with the faces facing outward rather than just a square column formation. Only the Russians used the solid square and then the outer three/four ranks on all sides faced out. Currently it looks like a square’s men all face forward.

15. Bigger units please. 100-140 man infantry companies, 80-120 man cavalry squadrons and 6-8 gun batteries would be great.

16. More uniform and flag accuracy please. Ah, I see the modders have already begun to tackle this one.

17. The camera controls are very odd and not consistent with other games. Cursor keys moving forward/back and tracking/panning left/right. Mousewheel to zoom the view and right click, hold and move mouse to rotate all work for me. Having different systems in different games gets very confusing if like me you have several games on the go at once. I hope the full game will allow key remapping to let a player to use his personal preferences.

18. The game seems to use generic cannon models. In reality British, French, Austrian, etc guns were of distinct design and paint colour. More accuracy please. I could not tell any tactical difference between the howitzer and the field gun in the demo.

19. In a prolonged infantry duel at long range I noticed men moving from one part of the formation along the line to replace a lost man at another part of the unit. Please don’t do this, it didn’t happen. As losses mounted men would simply move in on the centre so that a units frontage gradually shortened. Unless they were in square when the whole formation would slowly contract so that each face became shorter.

20. Infantry seem to cause too many casualties at long range compared to very short range. Musketry duels at over 100-150 yards should last for ages, only 1 or 2 men per volley being casualties at that range. I would like to see the option to make your infantry and artillery hold their fire until point blank. Or just a toggle ‘fire at will’ on and off would be OK. Certainly I’d like my line to hold its fire until the approaching enemy got within 30 yards, then give them one huge blast and charge in with the old cold steel. The game doesn’t seem to allow such tactics at present.

21. I’d like to have a general and his staff unit representing the player. Not allowed in combat, but would give a morale bonus to units close by and could rally routing troops. Something like subordinate commanders as well would be nice, representing division or corps commanders they could be attached to any unit in their division/corps and would raise it’s morale. They could become a casualty though. This system would help encourage a move toward more realistic higher formations, so you wouldn’t think of moving one battalion of a brigade over there, but send the whole brigade over there, etc.

22. I can see the game has been given a fast tempo for online play. For single player could a set of speed sliders be introduced that would alter move speeds, formation change speeds, reloading speed, and so on. And a pause button to allow orders to be issued while paused please.

Think that's it for now, but I'll probably think of more stuff after I play again tonight.

Unfortunately I cannot post this at the Eidos forum, my login request was weeks ago and I still haven't been given permission to post. If anyone here can post there, please feel free to copy and paste this whole post onto their forums. Thanks.

Martin
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Post by @m »

I notified the admins and asked them to have a look at your account.
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Post by saddletank »

Thanks, much appreciated.
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Post by @m »

Got a message back that you're registered now.
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Post by saddletank »

Many thanks, you've been very helpful.
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Post by damxam »

1) The graphics are decent but nothing impressive in this day and age. RTW is miles ahead in this department. They're between RTW and MTW.
2) Controls: terrible... it gets very hard to get a unit to move to the correct
place especially when you've got a few units in close proximity
3) Did I miss the "loose formation" option or does it not exist? True, line
infantry did usually move in close rank but they were trained to move apart to
advance under heavy
fire/bombardment. And the light infantry should definitely be able to spread
very far indeed.
4)It felt like it ws too easy for my cannons to fire over my own troops
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Post by Dutch Soldier »

damxam wrote:1) The graphics are decent but nothing impressive in this day and age. RTW is miles ahead in this department. They're between RTW and MTW.
I agree, the grapichs arent so good as RTW. But, it is that the devolpers, i think, want to have a big public. So people with a pentium 3 and 1 ghz can also play the game. If the devs want to make a pc game for better machine's, than the havent a lott of costumers. Because not everyone have a strong pc. But still, a lott of people have a pc better than 1, 7 ghz or something. I have a 3 ghz. It will be cool if there will come a Napoleonic War game with grapichs that are 10 times better than RTW. And that you need a minimum of 2 ghz. But than they lose a lot of costumers......
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Post by Sappy White »

Very nice game, it just has some balancing issues.

1 - Artillery is slaughtered way too fast, once they are in melee combat there is no way to save them :?

2 - The constant changing of formations, I don't like that the infantry have to turn the whole formation in order to shoot that enemy that went just a little bit to the left. :evil:

3 - How is it that infantry can, in the middle of a charge with cavalry right behind them with sabres ready to kill, go into square formation at lightning speed and thus still manage to get my cavalry? :x

4 - I'd like an auto fire option for the artillery, managing your troops AND switching over to artillery to have them fire at the enemy again gets tiresome and stressfull.

Q : Will the full version also contain fatigue effects? (Troops getting tired)
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Post by Dutch Soldier »

Oke, my Beste game in the battle of Hannover , playing the english is:
Only 9 kills :p One battery unit and a couple of cavarlymen. This is my record so fare.

Image
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Post by TAFNsick »

Holy!! :shock:

Well done dude!! Remember: as the finishing touch, God created the Dutch! :D
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Post by Dutch Soldier »

It is just training :p Play the demo a couple times and you know what the best tactic is. Maybe i was lucky or God helped me :p But afterall it is a EASY Battle, that explains a lott.
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Post by langmann »

ArchdukeMagyar wrote:
jrdrums wrote:America is the most racist country? How do you come to that conclusion?
.
Jim Crow, Slavery until the 1860s, affirmative action (which is racism against the white majority), the KKK..the list is endless. America has an exceptionally racist past.
What a complete load. :roll: :roll: :roll:

So does Germany, Canada, the UK, Spain, Italy, Ottomans and current Turkey, China, Japan, Iraq etc etc. The number of examples are likely infinite. I don't think any country or people has a monopoly on morality.

That being said I feel much safer about myself in the US than I do in a lot of other places I have been in this world.

Man you need to re-evaluate your knowledge, you just seem like a real hateful person. Its hard to believe you have a MA degree when you don't even know what the term 'standard of living' means. If you did you'd know that the US is second in the world in terms of Standard of Living/capita w/ with Poland not even in the top 25. Not that standard of living is a definitive marker of a particular person's well being.
Last edited by langmann on Sun May 01, 2005 9:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by langmann »

saddletank wrote:10. The game needs a morale system – units fighting to the death is totally unrealistic.

Martin
I agree with much of what you have said, but the no morale system really irritates me. Its so unrealisitic its bothersome.

Overall based upon the demo I give the combat portion of this game a 2/10 ranking with a game like RTW at a 7.5/10.

I hope that the strategic element of this game is better... so far it has been a complete letdown for myself.
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Post by TAFNsick »

I agree they could have bring out a better demo, langmann. It would be nice if you would be able to configure the battle yourself, so you can decide what units you want to have on the map (which is possible in the full game.)
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