I am a huge fan the Total War series and with ETW we finally get ship engagements we can control. Here are some pics I took from the navel section from the demo.
There is a tutural as well and I recommend if you try the demo you do both tuturals.
You can issue individual orders to your ships or make groups of ships. In the screen shots below you can see I choose to make two groups out of my fleet. You start with the advantage of being up wind of the French. Statistically the French have slightly faster ships and out gun your side in sure numbers of cannon. From the first pic i was able to "cross the T" of the lead eliment of the French fleet. I raked the lead frigate (length wise) with 150 cannon (from my ship of the line) that basically crippled her. The French realised I had the advantage and did a sequence turn to get her ships to fire on my 1st group.
From the second pic you can see my second group races down wind effectively bracketing the French lead eliments. This way ALL my ships can concentrate with their maximum firepower to knock out french guns, punch holes beneth the water lines, damage masts and rigging, and shock and awe their crews into surrender.
The 3rd pic shows what the French see from their point of view as my first group crosses the T under. The seas are rough so the shots and can sometimes fall short or long depending on the roll of the ship when firing. You can do this manually or let the AI calculate this for you.
The wind shifts favorably from E to S so I order my first group to turn into the French. With my lead ship (where my admiral commands) I send him down the shoot between to groups of French Frigates. Both my ships of the line fire their broad sides (starboard and Port) with devistating effects. 1 French frigate explodes sends out a hail of flames and wooden splinters. There is no chance of her crew surviving and I believe all were lost. A 2nd French ship looses her centre mast and promptly catches fire and her crew abandon ship.
The final pic shows the French "boxed in" with my ship effectively making a horse shoe ring around them. I ajust this ring depending on how often the wind changes direction. 1 Of my frigates is sunk under some well aimed and co-ordinated French fire from 4 of their ships. Crippled and listing to 1 side the ship abandon ship and I watch as she rolls over and sinks.
As I order my ships to continually manouver you can see men climbing up the rigging to set sails, sharp shooters fireing when in range, men reloading the cannons and running out the guns. Your captain waving and giving orders, the details are truely amazing.
With the French admiral killed the rest of the French fleet looses heart. 1 Ship surrenders and the remaining flee. The battle is won and they certainly know not to challenge my admiral in these waters.
I did play the land battle but forgot to take pics
You don't get a lot of time to view the slender of this game as you are very busy giving orders, viewing the battlefield, and working out a strategy. This game will keep any RTS gamer busy for months with the massive campaigns and user created battles.