New screenshot (21 April)

[Furious Mental]

http://www.totalwar.com/community/images/MTW2_15.jpg

Looks like some French pikemen (and archers? some of them seem to have quivers of arrows) under bombardment by English bowmen. You can pretty clearly see what the stakes look like. Interestingly the English are also firing fire arrows. Does this mean units will have more than one "special function?" I sure hope so.

[Dutch_guy]

Well maybe the stakes can only be placed at the beginning of a battle, and not moved during the battle itself.

Other than that, good to finally see some pikemen, in stead of the usual bling bling swordsmen ~:)

:balloon2:

[Lord Adherbal]

interesting how some of the pikemen have quivers. Just eye candy or is this unit a pikemen/archer combo ? maybe a special ability of some kind ?
My guess would be eye candy though, because I doubt the skin/model variations can actualy have different functions in the unit. But it's still weird they give pikemen quivers.

[hellenes]

2 handed pikemen :jawdrop:
There is light at the end of the tunnel...

Hellenes

[Divine Wind]

Is it just me or do the unit flags look a bit crap? :inquisitive:

[GiantMonkeyMan]

i think they look better than the RTW ones... they look more 'formal' and simple

and that shot is great... this is actually getting me a little more exited :laugh4:

[Dooz]

Oo la la, me likey. Looks like a nice battle goin's on.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

2 handed pikemen :jawdrop:
There is light at the end of the tunnel...

Hellenes

For you and me yes...:book:

[Leet Eriksson]

Lets hope those flaming arrows don't turn into napalm bombs and burn troops to crisp on first contact..

[Servius]

Yeah, I gotta say I like this one. Maybe those quivers are to hold a few throwing spears like the Hastati had? I don't know much about French spear infantry.

I agree that the flags look better than RTWs too. Aren't English flags white with red crosses though? The cross of St. Thomas. I know the classic coat of arms is red with gold lions. Creative liscence I guess.

[Martok]

It actually looks like a few French archers are interspersed among their pikemen, but it's hard to tell for sure. Either way, I liked this screenshot. Oh, and the flaming arrows were a nice touch. ~D

[Ignoramus]

The golden leopards on the red backround is the flag of Anjou. The Plantagenats (sp?) came from Anjou, so that's why they used it.

[Furious Mental]

Actually I don't think they would be archers. Maybe the thing on their back if for carrying the pike around in.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Nice shot indeed! As I said before I'm pretty sure the graphics won't disappoint me in MTW2. Did anyone else notice how smoothly the trees and troops and blurred in the distance? The terrain also seems to have more slopes and features that make the combat more interesting.

[Vlad The Impala]

- Being able to move the stakes during battle sounds pretty absurd to me, they are basically treetrunks that are dug into the ground! o_O
- I don't think the men with the 'quivers' are archers, they do seem to be carrying pikes, but that's quite hard to tell this way
- I also don't think Pikemen carried throwing spears, but I have no historical knowledge/evidence to back that up.

Nice looking screenie, the smoke surrounding the pikemen looks very nice as well!

[Watchman]

Pikes were carried in hand, or not at all. The damn things were five-six meters long, ferchrissakes. Amongst the many reasons they didn't go beyond that was apparently unacceptable degree of vibration on march...

I'm also pretty sure javelins and medieval pikemen don't really fit too well into the same period, save for a couple of regional exceptions. I'm under the impression some lighter infantry and cavalry used them until surprisingly late periods, as well as heavy-infantry spearmen at least until early 1100s (just take a look at the Bayeux Tapestry) and famously the Almughavars, but no pikeman ever. Those guys had their hands quite full enough with their pointy flagpoles and maintaining unit drill.

Infantry also usually tended to carry their javelins in hand, although I'm sure there were exceptions.

[Furious Mental]

"Pikes were carried in hand, or not at all. The damn things were five-six meters long, ferchrissakes."

Err well I was actually thinking they could sling the tube thing around the front of the torso to put some of the weight on their shoulders, while still grasping the pike in their hands. I do not see what would be so difficult about that.

[ivoignob]

That's not a quiver. That's a bazooka. Don't you notice? :no:

[Watchman]

"Pikes were carried in hand, or not at all. The damn things were five-six meters long, ferchrissakes."

Err well I was actually thinking they could sling the tube thing around the front of the torso to put some of the weight on their shoulders, while still grasping the pike in their hands. I do not see what would be so difficult about that.If that worked, no few generations of pikemen would've done it. They didn't. That tells me everything I need to know about this particular subject. Regardless of the time and the place, they always carried them by hand naturally enough leaning on the shoulder whenever possible.

Mind you, cavalrymen could carry their spear/lances by a clever system of two small loops, the lower of which was simply stood on in the stirrups and the upper of which went around the shoulder/upper arm of the same side. But that obviously doesn't work too well for an infantryman...

[Leet Eriksson]

I do believe its their unit generator probably mucking up the values and adding the quivers to these soldiers as part of "every soldier looks different" thingamajig, they probably will fix it real quick.

[DthB4Dishonor]

I think those are just archers that are standing behind the pikemen. I dont think those are pike/archer hybrid units.

-Formerly known as: RTKPaul

[Orda Khan]

Regardless of whether they are archers or pikemen (I think they are pikes) what are back quivers doing on any unit? They did not use them

.......Orda

p.s. How are you keeping DthB4Dishonor? Not seen you in ages

[A.Saturnus]

It's quivers. No idea why pikemen would have them, I guess it's a bug like faisal suggested (note that not all have them).
The terrain does look pretty good. Unlike in ROME it just looks... real.

[Myrddraal]

I think it would be a nice touch if the pikes held vertically were held at a slight angle or wavered slightly as they run. In rome, the ranks of parallel lines looked a little odd. Very good tho :smile:

[Furious Mental]

"They didn't."

Err yeah I know that. I was just trying to think of some explanation for why the pikemen in the screenshots would have those things. I think it should be clear enough now that CA is not averse to putting in something ahistorical, which might include an idea that had proved unworkable when actually tried.

[Watchman]

Regardless of whether you fry it or cook it or plate it with gold, turd remains turd. I don't see much point in trying to explain what, by what whe have to judge with, can only be assumed to be a flat out brain fart, for CA.

I've mentioned it before, but you really gotta wonder at some of these promo screenshots. I mean, many look downright stupid; some have honest-to-Dog graphics glitches. But these are supposed to, like, impress people, right ?

Now don't get me wrong, I quite like CA and their games. But there are times when filing the divorce papers crosses my mind... :balloon2:

[econ21]

But these are supposed to, like, impress people, right ?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I rather like this screenshot - it gives a sense of a battle.

Please avoid scatological critiques of CA efforts. I'm not sure you'd take kindly to your professional work being likened to turds.

[Ludens]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I rather like this screenshot - it gives a sense of a battle.

Please avoid scatological critiques of CA efforts. I'm not sure you'd take kindly to your professional work being likened to turds.
Agreed. Overall the pictures are beautifull. Yes, there are many small flaws, but if you take every picture apart like we do here you always find those.

[Watchman]

"If you see a whole thing - it seems that it's always beautiful. Planets, lives... But up close, a world's all dirt and rocks."
- Ursula K. Le Guin, quoted in the worldbuilding section of GURPS Space

Maybe I'm just pedantic, but skewed details tend to ruin much of the whole picture for me. The Devil's in the details and all that.

But what bugs me about this new string of promo pics is not so much the buggered details as such, but rather how they're wrong. I mean, I'm willing to let some, ah, artistic license slide as long as the end product's good; after all I could live with the RTW Mummy Returns Eggies without major troubles. But the faults in the pics published are not only often quite glaring, they're downright disquieting. Like now those pikemen with who-knows-what weird quiver-things on their backs. What am I supposed to make out of them ? Am I perhaps supposed to laugh at some inside joke ? If this stuff isn't side effects from early version numbers and as of yet rough edges in the model generator (or whatever it now was), it starts giving severe misgivings of the attitude the makers have to their job. Most of it is so simple after all; medieval pikemen with quivers on their back would strike anyone as odd, so why do they have them in the first place ? One can be forgiven for assuming the makers are doing some background research, and at least make an effort to avoid severe flags of disbelief - so what is one to think of such blatant weirdness ? :shame:

I'd be quite willing to believe they're running tests on the graphics engine thingy, but in that case I'd severely wonder at just what criteria exactly they use to pick these promo pics... Surely there are ones that don't make you blink in confusion and disbelief ?

[Duke John]

Some of the pikemen are indeed were quivers with arrows on their back. Look at the 2 guys a bit right of the centre. There are 2 pikes around that can only belong to those 2. One of them has a quiver.

If it was an unit with both pikes and bows then all of the soldiers would have quivers so the only logical explanation is that it is indeed a fault and that some men are using the torso parts of archers.

[Lord Adherbal]

should we start on a bug report already ? ~;)

[Duke John]

How good is a game if the players want a patch based on promotional screenshots? :wink:

[edwardusbenedictus]

I agree CA has over looked this and Hope they'll fix it b4 the release the game and Not work it out on a patch!!!!

[Ultras DVSC]

I think this screen was captured during a historical battle, by name at Crécy. The extremely wide fighting line (almost 2 km!), the slope which wasn't too favourable to the French, the pales sticking out from the ground (their aim was to inhibit the French knights from rushing the longbowmen) all prove that.

[x-dANGEr]

Lets hope those flaming arrows don't turn into napalm bombs and burn troops to crisp on first contact..
And, I hope they don't result in lag while they're igniting.

I really don't bother looking so deep in a screen shot. After all, I won't be looking closely in the battle anyway, I'll be commanding, from a high zoom, that I may not see these flaws, that propably will be fixed.

[Watchman]

I think this screen was captured during a historical battle, by name at Crécy. The extremely wide fighting line (almost 2 km!), the slope which wasn't too favourable to the French, the pales sticking out from the ground (their aim was to inhibit the French knights from rushing the longbowmen) all prove that.Except that was the sort of deployement the English adopted whenever they could. And pikes in practice weren't in offensive use outside the Swiss for the entire Hundred Years' War.

Wide front lines were the norm for major field battles - when you deploy tens of thousands of men and horses for battles, the frontage obviously tends to end pretty impressive. Anyway, as the English were habitually starkly outnumbered in the more famous battles (and not all that rarely in the smaller ones) they would attempt to force battle in conditions and terrain that forced the French to advance division by division, instead of the entire line abreast (so much as that now was really doable with feudal S-and-C anyway). That's basic tactics for countering numerical advantage really.

[Ciaran]

And, I hope they don't result in lag while they're igniting.

I really don't bother looking so deep in a screen shot. After all, I won't be looking closely in the battle anyway, I'll be commanding, from a high zoom, that I may not see these flaws, that propably will be fixed.

Basically, I agree, most of the time you won´t notice glitches like that, or at least I wouldn´t, but it´s just that bit of polish. And it´s not as if that´s new, even in MTW I there was the odd weapon placement (compare vanilla MTW with the Middle Earth mod, especially in case of the cavalry and you´ll see what I mean).

[cannon_fodder]

The screenshot looks kinda dull to me. And those pike heads are uuuugly. But it's good to finally see some pikemen, as someone else said.

[hsimoorb]

Meh, I was hoping that fire arrows would just drop off the face of the earth and never plauge the Total War series ever again...but, there they are.

[Lord Adherbal]

now if they could light things on fire that would make them interesting. And I mean dry grass in the middle of a hot summer, or wooden buildings - NOT metal clad soldiers.

[Dutch_guy]

Adherbal']now if they could light things on fire that would make them interesting. And I mean dry grass in the middle of a hot summer, or wooden buildings - NOT metal clad soldiers.

Such a feature would be great !

However I don't see this happening really, I imagine it would take quite some time to implement this and rid it of the bugs it would most certainly have.

:balloon2:

[Spino]

I'm not one to go lightly on historical accuracy but you fellows obsessed with the presence of quivers on the backs of those pikemen need to keep in mind that the game is still in the alpha stages and is a long way from going beta. Crude, incomplete & placeholder graphics, sounds, etc., are the norm for pre-beta builds.

I would sooner see people campaigning like mad for improved AI & a return of the Glorious Achievments campaign objectives than nitpicking 3D models & textures, both of which can easily be rectified via modding.

[Duke John]

What do you mean with easily? How big is the chance that CA gives us a model importer/exporter soon after the release. Most likely we will be waiting months until we can change a model.

And even then, CA is contantly speaking about how wonderful the game looks like and not how well the AI fights. I think it serves them right if we tell them how much glaring mistakes there still are. It does say something about how polished the AI or the game mechanics might be, especially when looking back at the mess of R:TW. I mean the graphics are supposed to be the primary selling point of M2:TW, if they can't get that right, what does that tell us about the other content?

[Orda Khan]

Yep, CA chose to improve RTW/BI by sticking that terrible red square on the Hun generals. That was some improvement :laugh4:

.......Orda

[Spino]

What do you mean with easily? How big is the chance that CA gives us a model importer/exporter soon after the release. Most likely we will be waiting months until we can change a model.

And even then, CA is contantly speaking about how wonderful the game looks like and not how well the AI fights. I think it serves them right if we tell them how much glaring mistakes there still are. It does say something about how polished the AI or the game mechanics might be, especially when looking back at the mess of R:TW. I mean the graphics are supposed to be the primary selling point of M2:TW, if they can't get that right, what does that tell us about the other content?

As I recall the ability to mod the 3D graphics & textures in Rome happened rather quickly, so quickly in fact that the relevant files were identified & converted for use with 3D modeling apps soon after the game was released. Let's not even count the sheer number of graphics mods that followed. On the other hand modding the AI in Rome went only as far as changing the formations & formation priorities in the relevant text file (which helped somewhat but not nearly enough to cure the AI of it's brainless habits) and this was due to the diligent efforts of one person (Darthmod) and his personal crusade in making the AI put up a better fight. So comparatively speaking changing graphics/3D models = easy, changing gameplay/AI = hard if not impossible. If Medieval 2 is going to win back many of the disgruntled, disilllusioned hardcore TW fans it needs to not only be superior to Rome in terms of AI & gameplay but files related to those categories need to be far more moddable than any previous installment of the series.

CA is talking about how good the game will look because that's what helps sells games. Medieval sold over one million copies in its entire run, Rome sold well over one million copies in a fraction of the time. Why? Because it looked phenomenal in pre-release screenshots & movies. The fact that some pikemen in a screenshot taken from an alpha-build of Medieval 2 is sporting some incorrect gear will probably be lost on the average gamer and to my eyes, seems to be a strange thing to get upset over because it's a safe bet to say errors like that won't be present in the retail release!

If Medieval 2 winds up looking 100% historically accurate and yet is as unchallenging and dull as Rome would you be happier about plunking down your $50 for it?!? Modders vastly improved the look of Rome after it was released so I don't see the logic in getting worked up over how Medieval 2 is going to look when it hits the shelves.

I don't know about the rest of you but I'm far more concerned with how this goose is going to taste when its served, not how good it looks sitting on my plate.

[Duke John]

On the other hand modding the AI in Rome went only as far as changing the formations & formation priorities in the relevant text file (which helped somewhat but not nearly enough to cure the AI of it's brainless habits) and this was due to the diligent efforts of one person (Darthmod) and his personal crusade in making the AI put up a better fight. So comparatively speaking changing graphics/3D models = easy, changing gameplay/AI = hard if not impossible.
Very few modders are looking at the AI, because so many are still busy with the graphics. It is easy if you have the skills and the tool, but that doesn't mean that it is a piece of cake to fix hundreds of flaws made by CA. That takes alot of time, just look at how long EB or any other great mods are taking to finish. Darth Vader did make any graphical changes, or he took them from other mods/modders, that is why he was able to focus on AI, it was the only thing he had attention for.