Still loading, everyone else got their copy? 11gigs hardrive required! Any first impressions? What faction are you playing?
Got it yesterday, started playing as the Holy Roman Empire, which is neither Holy, nor Roman: when the campaign starts, you don’t possess the Roman province and the Pope hates you.
I’m doing pretty well on the Empire part, though…
Aw crap! It’s released? Already?
Gah! It’s already too late!
There’s tomorrow…
Anybody know how to check if your video card is capable of running the game? I really want the damn thing… but not if my four year old machine can’t run it.
I know there is a demo floating around out there because I loaded it up.
Try the demo to see if your machine can chug through it.
I was fairly dissapointed with the speed/performance of the demo, and I’ve got a fairly decent gaming rig. It was based off the beta version, though, I think - I know they released a demo based on the gold engine as a reward to people who pre-ordered - I wonder if there’s significant optimization.
I have to wait until next week before I can crush. :mad:
Ah, thank you. I probably won’t be able to run it, but I hope I can…
I checked at the local EB yesterday…its not due here until at least friday. 
I HOPE to have it tomorrow and will be locked away all weekend playing I expect…
-XT
It’s here? It’s Friday!
I get to play?
God I’m a dork.
Just went out and lo! Best Buy had a copy on the shelves! I’m installing it now (took off work a bit early today :)).
Just as an aside, there were a bunch of what looked like homeless people camped out (literally) in the parking lot at Best Buy when I went in. Around 50 or so with little tents, sleeping bags, shopping carts and small portable heaters (nights are starting to get a bit cold here). I went in and even in my euphoric state at having MTWII in my hands I asked what the hell was up. Seems that the Sony Playstation 3 comes out tomorrow night at midnight…and these folks had been camped out for about 3 days waiting to get the first ones.
And I thought I was nuts for taking off a few hours to install MTWII! :smack:
-XT
Yeah, I’ve seen a bunch of news stuff about the queues for PSIII
Well, my first impression of MTWII is…the game is pretty cool. 
I’m playing the English, and it seems a lot easier than I remember the original MTW to be. One thing that puzzles me is the Inquisitor units. Appearently they just wander around randomly and wack your merchants, diplomats and even generals for no appearent reason. And there doesn’t seem to be anything you can do about it.
Other than that bit of wierdness, the game is pretty solid…and the graphics are beautiful. The strategic part of the game is essentially like Rome Total War…you move around the same, and the maps even look the same. The battles seem a bit larger than the Rome tactical battles…and the units look even better than Rome. But this game is definitely an evolution in the game, nothing revolutionary or even new here.
-XT
Yeah, I haven’t read the manual or any message board info about them, the one effective tactic I’ve develped so far is to just run away from him, move my generals or merchants etc. away until the inq changes directions. Maybe building bigger and bigger churches helps somehow?
I haven’t spent much time actually directing battles, but I’ve heard their graphics are supposed to be fairly remarkable, i.e. kill scenes, semi-individualized unis, etc. Maybe on highest graphic settings?
I’m just on the default setting so far…just wanted to jump right in. The tactical battles are beautifully detailed though. Individual armor for each troop, they get dirty and bloody as they fight, and they actually look like they are fighting each other when you zoom in.
-XT
Only been playing this a day or so myself and haven’t seen the inquisitors yet. So assassination doesn’t work on them?
Shame as they are a large part of my fight against the Scots atm after the Pope refused to let me continue the war… The cut scenes for the assassins are quite brilliant and made me chuckle insanely.
Battles have indeed been taken to a new level of realism whilst retaining the same mechanisms as MTW1. Maps are also largely the same with some important differences in the settlements functions, e.g castle or city.
If you like TW, its a must have imo.
Most seem to have great anti-assassination traits, and I haven’t had a really fantastic assassin and an inquisitor present at the same time to check.
It’s a great game. My one complaint was that I was holding Baghdad (I had an army randomly roaming the area left from a Crusade) when the Mongols invaded. :smack:
Just to add one thing I loved about the detail; I had a catapult crew under fire from some archers. The crank guy started cranking down the arm, but was shot. I then had to wait whilst another member of the crew stepped forward to take the original guy’s place. In any other game the catapult would have just fired anyway; I love that a guy actually had to be there to set it up.
I need to upgrade my video card.
Damn you, technology!
Now Medieval 2 and Neverwinter Nights are staring me in the face as I wait for my payment to go to my credit card.
I’m moody.
pout
By the way, xtisme, I was also the English. It was running, but it was slow. It looks pretty friggin’ sweet, though. Many hours of my life are definitely gone, that’s for sure.