Post your opinions on the demo here!

[Starforge]

I didn't read through all 10 pages of this so apologies if anything is repeated.

Played through the Demo till it booted me due to time limit / turn limit (I guess.) A few observations (playing as Rome):

The barbarian factions did nothing. No expansion, barely any troops and no real fighting amongst themselves. The 10/50 restriction on expansion is going to make trying to play one problematic (unless I'm missing something.)

Money was a little tight until I demanded tribute from the Averni (and a few others.) Since they were stuck in 1 province (each) and I didn't feel like taking the BB for annexing I went for tribute. 8-20 per month in gold! Far beyond their income (hell, or mine for that matter.) WAD? I realise it eventually runs out but that in itself seems like an exploit (since you get an auto CB on the country that stops paying.)

Does culture / religion spread to the islands? Everywhere but disconnected provinces had no trouble converting.

Character system was fine but never gave that CK feel of nurturing a bloodline. I did have a female character assigned to one of the research spots (bug or WAD?) Daughter of one of the characters I believe.

Trade system / resource management was well done (and thank God no CoT's .) Music added the appropriate flavor. Interface took a little while to get used to but wasn't bad.

Only odd thing that happened was in regards to the Alliance I had with Massilia (kept it the whole game.) At some point, even though I was still allied, the game no longer allowed me to move troops into or through his territory without manually asking for access (which worked.) Minor issue but /shrug.

Core2Quad with an NVidia 8800. Ran smooth, no CTD's or hardware issues. It seems a bit EU3ish for my personal tastes but I'm sure someone will work on some mods to change the flavor.

 

[fudd_bopo]

Just played my first demo campaign as the romans and I really like this game so far.

No problems or CtD's at all.

 

[crazy canuck]

Played through as the Romans. When the demo time expired I was frustrated which is a good sign.

I like the colonization method and the fact that it can sure make the barbarians mad.

The interface was easy to use but I have a couple of suggested improvements:

1) the pause indicator appears right in the way of the popupscreens when assigning new govenors (and some others) so that those screens have to be manually moved. It would be nice if that orientation could be changed.

2) The alert button for trades appears for provinces that you occupy but not control. Since it does not appear that you can trade from a province you merely occupy this should be changed.

I like the new method of trade and the fact that the player needs to think a bit about which province should acquire which commodity.

I dont like the way in which battles are resolved. Defeated armies are way too resilient. A defeated army should not be able to retreat to fight another day so easily.

Graphics are very nice. Best looking game you guys have produced.

 

[Phax]

first impression: it takes waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to long to start up.

edit: second impression: but im suprised that the graphics are that good, and that the game still runs smoothly.

 

[unmerged(67893)]

Nah, wasnt satisfied with the demo. Did a brainstorming on it and discovered what it needs...

Europa Universalis: Rome needs alot of "Swedish meatballs (svenske kjøttboller"

 

[EBroegger]

I downloaded the demo from gamespot, installed it but then when i tried to start the demo an error came up telling me that some d3dx9_35.dll file was not found so the game wouldnt start.

 

[King]

I downloaded the demo from gamespot, installed it but then when i tried to start the demo an error came up telling me that some d3dx9_35.dll file was not found so the game wouldnt start.

You probably don't have DirectX9c installed on your machine. See the sticky at the top for more information.

 

[EBroegger]

You probably don't have DirectX9c installed on your machine. See the sticky at the top for more information.

Ok thanks. i'll try installing it, i just thought that i had it as i was able to play eu3.

 

[King]

Ok thanks. i'll try installing it, i just thought that i had it as i was able to play eu3.

No I am afraid EU3 only used DirectX 9.

 

[Searry]

After playing the Carthago, and winning the war, i have to tell you, that the AI is very bad! When do you guys learn to do it right?

 

[berhaven]

Just one word...
... addicting.

Some humble suggestions (maybe they're included in the full game):
I'd get rid of the ever retreating army as happened in many previous games of the series (I think the unit with 0 or so morale obliget to fight against superior enemies should just surrender and be enslaved or slaughtered, as it actually happened most of the times).

I'd work on AI, as usual

I'd add something at the end like in EU3

I'd rather play the full game asap

 

[Alexander Seil]

I didn't read through all 10 pages of this so apologies if anything is repeated.

Played through the Demo till it booted me due to time limit / turn limit (I guess.) A few observations (playing as Rome):

The barbarian factions did nothing. No expansion, barely any troops and no real fighting amongst themselves. The 10/50 restriction on expansion is going to make trying to play one problematic (unless I'm missing something.)

I'd be concerned if they did something. I don't think they're supposed to, otherwise we'd have a Gallic Empire to challenge Rome in 50 years of gameplay.

 

[Kazmir]

Please, oh please, it's unplayable at the moment. I really do need space bar for pause.
Other than that haven't had much time to see through all the details, had some warfare with Carthage and looks promising, although the troop animation looks rather ugly, not that it matters.

Would have hoped for more provinces and factions but as there's these provincial control systems, which I still need to find out how they work, I guess the amount is just fine.

 

[Bodhisattvas]

Really good Can't say yet if its more fun then EU3 buts untill now its....fun.
Only the Punic war bothers me. I want to play a small faction

 

[NimaFoulaam]

I have played now about a hour and need to say: Cool game.

Two UI features which should be in:
1) spacebar pausing (already said by many)
2) units should be able to embark like in Hoi directly (I do not know what the reasons are that the feature had not been implemented in EU3 and now in Rome)

 

[unmerged(11531)]

Please, oh please, it's unplayable at the moment. I really do need space bar for pause.

There is a solution. There is a little free program on the web called Autohotkey. It lets you run little scripts that re-configure your keyboard however you want. Once you have the program, create and run a script with the following text:

#Usehook
SPACE::Send, {PAUSE}​

That's it. If you find the spacebar is sometimes unresponsive while running the script, change the script to say:

#Usehook
SetKeyDelay,20,20
SPACE::Send, {PAUSE}​

For Paradox games, I usually assign the pause function to the middle mouse button (which would read: MButton::Send, {PAUSE})

For me, the biggest UI issue in the demo is the conflict between the "pause" indicator and the info screens. As someone has pointed out, you have to drag some screens away from the "pause" indicator in order to read them. If they put the pause indicator on the bottom of the screen it would be no problem.

 

[comagoosie]

My review after 45 minutes of gameplay.

The bad
-characters have too many wrinkles, it is as if all of them had to much unnatural tanning.
-characters look unrealistic. While EU3 faces looked much better
-the ledger. You cannot flip through the pages continuously. If you get to an end of a section you must click a new one. Also pages from the ledger of NA are not implemented which is a disappointment. The graphs are also an eye sore.
-the starting forcelimit for Rome is ridiculous. I went over by 12 and that was just being on the defensive. While on the other hand my manpower never dropped below 120k. What's wrong with this picture!
-diplomacy is so much harder. Now you have to go to the diplomacy screen to make an action. Unlike EU3 where you could just click on any province to negotiate.
-The AI doesn't gather their fleet together and instead separate them throughout Mediterranean, which is easy pickings for my two good sized fleets.
-Colonization. It seems too stark of a change from EU3, so give me a minute.
-there were no rebellion despite my 13% revolt risk for quite some time
-there is seemingly nothing implemented from NA!!!!
-The pause display!! How annoying.

the good
-dynasty screen. It is very easy to view one's history and attributes.
-multiple units types.
-Having it character oriented.
-trade routes. They are very easy to manage.
-Having characters that can be used for multiple things. One can a general and then switch to admiral.
-graphics.

 

[Dr. Zoidberg]

F11 Screenshot button. Great feature or the greatest feature? (..It wasn't in NA, right?)

 

[Kazmir]

F11 Screenshot button. Great feature or the greatest feature? (..It wasn't in NA, right?)

It was and is.

 

[comagoosie]

One more thing...

you can't rename individual units!!!