Samurai Warfare on an epic scale, thousands of warriors in battle, 8 rival factions, intrigue, assassinations, subterfuge and honour. Realtime battles on a 3D terrain, all controlled with a simple "point and click". Shogun is...Total War.
Coming in Spring 2000
This demo is designed to introduce you to the Shogun: Total War battlefield, just one part of the full Shogun:Total War game. The demo will guide you through a number of tutorials that will introduce you to some of the unit types and teach you some of the skills necessary to become a great Daimyo. You will then be able to put some of those skills into practice in a few small battles.
NOTE: There are 3 different battles in the 'Learn from the past' tutorial. The battle you play is chosen at random so you can play this lesson a number of times to test your skill.
In order to progress through the various lessons, you must complete each of them successfully. This demo does not cover the strategy part of the game - which includes assassinations, espionage, treaties, strategic conquest and technological research.
The game itself is at an 'Alpha' stage and therefore the final gameplay is still getting worked on and will change significantly from the Tutorial test.
Some of the main elements which are not balanced in the demo are as follows:
* Unit balancing, combat statistics and combat calculations for units.
* Tactical effects of Formations and Terrain
* AI
* Speed of units
* The height of the terrain currently doesn't provide the correct strategic advantage other than causing fatigue.
Apart from introducing you to the Shogun:Total War game, we also would like to use this demo as a method of getting both config and gameplay feedback from as many people as possible. Please see below for details.
REQUIREMENTS
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DirectX 7 must be installed to run this game
3D accelerator is required
Pentium II
32MB RAM
Sound Card
170MB free HD space
========ATTENTION 3DFX VOODOO USERS==========
Please run the appropriate shortcut in the Battle Trainer demo that relates to your card. There is a version specifically for Voodoo1 cards and a version for Voodoo2 and 3 card owners.
Owners of other accelerators can run the normal version.
Topics covered in this README file:
1. Key Summary
2. Known Issues
3. Feedback
1. Key Summary
==============================================
(Definitions - LMB is Left Mouse Button. RMB is Right Mouse button. 2X means double click.)
-MOVING THE CAMERA-
+ or - (numpad) Camera tilt
/ or * (numpad) Camera elevation.
1 or 3 (numpad) Pan camera to the left or right
RMB (on terrain) Mouselook - camera will focus on the spot of the landscape that was clicked on.
2X LMB (on unit flag) Centre the camera on that unit.
CTRL + F Accelerated Time (toggle)
-SELECTING UNITS-
LMB (on unit flag) Select Unit
RMB (on unit flag) Popup menu
CTRL + LMB On a unit flag will select more than one unit.
G Press when multiple units are selected to put them in a group. G again to unselect group
CTRL + A Select entire army
ENTER Press to show/hide the formations icons at the top of the screen.
-MOVING UNITS - AFTER SELECTING A UNIT-
LMB (on terrain) March to that location.
2X LMB (on terrain) Quick march to location.
LMB + drag (on terrain) Shape new unit formation in new position.
-COMBAT - AFTER SELECTING A UNIT-
LMB (on enemy unit) Attack unit - close combat weapon
RMB (enemy unit) Fire on unit - long range weapon (unit will march to get in range first).
Note that only some units have a close combat and a long range weapon. Units with long range weapons are not normally skilled at close combat.
-Formation shortcuts-
W form a Wedge
C Close formation
L Loosen the group
X fiX the unit to face in that direction
P hold Position (hold ground while fighting)
S Skirmish mode
F hold Formation (while moving and fighting)
-Changing resolution-
To change the resolution of the battlefield, providing that your 3D accelertor is capable, create a shortcut to the Shogdemo.exe and edit the properties to add the following parameters to the end of the commands in the "target" text box.
[blank] 640x480 (default)
R3 800x600
R4 1024x768
R5 1280x1024
R6 1600x1200
eg. "C:\Program Files\Total War\Shogun Total War - Battle Trainer Test\ShogDemo.Exe" R4
This will run the game in glorious 1024x768.
Please note that if your accelerator cannot handle this resolution, the game will not work and you must change it back to a lower resolution. The default resolution is 640X480.
Also note that the front end menu screens are locked at 640x480 and cannot be changed.
2. Known Issues
==============================================
* Diamond Fire GL 1000 Pro video cards will not run the game proplerly.
* You must have a soundcard in your machine for the game to run.
* Voodoo 2 and Voodoo 3 video cards have some graphical glitches in the menu screens. Please also make sure to use the correct shortcut from the program group.
* Alt+Tab or switching focus from the game in any other way will crash it.
* The game will not run if you do not have a sound card installed.
* Direct Sound - With some sound cards Shogun Total War sound will not run if the wave device is being used by another program at the same time eg. Nullsoft Winamp(c) or Microsoft Windows Media Player(c).
* To play the movie file, please make sure you have the latest version of Microsoft Windows Media Player(c).
* Radar does not incorporate line of sight.
* Camera is not confined to the area controlled by your units.
3. Feedback - Bug reporting and config issues
==============================================
1. Run the IP.EXE file contained in the root directory of the demo or from the START > TOTAL WAR > SHOGUN TOTAL WAR DEMO >SHOGUN TOTAL WAR DEMO shortcut.
2. Enter your name, email address and description of the problem in the dialog box
3. Choose SAVE TO DESKTOP, DO NOT select the EMAIL button as EA UK will not be providing technical support for this demo.
4. Attach the EAconfiginfo.txt file from the desktop to an email and send it to
support@creative-assembly.co.uk
If you have any comments or feedback on the tutorial or about the full SHOGUN: TOTAL WAR game that IS NOT of a technical or bug related nature, please send an email to the same address.
For updates and more information, please visit http://www.totalwar.com
We can't guarantee that we will be able to answer all the emails we recieve as we are all very busy putting the finishing touches on SHOGUN:TOTAL WAR. Have fun playing the demo, look out for the full game early in the new year and remember, "keep your allies close, and you enemies even closer".
