IGN preview

[Martok]

Linky



The preview takes a more in-depth look at the game's naval aspect, particularly its importance to trade. It also reveals a bit more info about Empire's political and diplomatic portions as well.

[rajpoot]

All right! I'm loving this, I just hope that the flow of updates continues thick and fast this way

Btw, this thing has put me on tenterhooks again, we see a ship being blown to bits as the cannon balls hit the powder magzine. Agreed it's the end of the battle, and the outcome is almost decided, but still what are the chances that the ship has to explode?! I really hope this bit was just in favour of the preview, to show off how good it looks and not a regular occurrence.
Furthermore, the formations still seem to be looking a bit too rigid........? I mean it all looks great, just a bit too mechanical to be true.

[pevergreen]

The practical benefit of this approach is that you can now recruit armies by simply selecting your generals and ordering new troops. "You're not spending your time assembling armies and then marching them to the place you want to be," James explains. "You just say, I want them to be here." The orders are automatically assigned to nearby provinces and once the troops are trained, they'll march to wherever the general is stationed.



Yes! Finally an explanation on how thats going to work!

[PBI]

Nice stuff. A couple of the bits that caught my eye:

And in case you're worried that wily enemy players can sneak by your squadrons on their own turn, each fleet in this game projects a rather large zone of control and will have the option to intercept passing ships and engage them in battle.

Excellent, I was worried about how it would be possible to stop a one-turn naval invasion across the English Channel; so hopefully just having a fleet in one of the Channel ports should be enough to intercept an invasion.

You can even order artillery to fire on a fixed point on the map to discourage enemies from crossing a specific chokepoint or approaching a key objective.

Good, should hopefully make artillery more useful and less likely to spend the whole battle trying to turn to target a unit of cavalry.

or even slightly after our period like Waterloo

Bit odd, I thought the timeframe was 1700-1820, i.e. including Waterloo?

So if your army is fighting near a farm or a mine, the tactical map will reflect that with appropriate structures and backdrops.

Very nice.

[CBR]

And here is new E3 preview:

Hmm rocket ships...

More land battle details coming at Leipzig. Will CA be able to deliver or will they suffer a similar fate as Napoleon did 195 years ago?


CBR

[The_Doctor]

From the E3 preview:

First, in addition to the grand campaign, the game will include a Road to Independence campaign that lets players take charge of America from the founding of Jamestown to the victory at Yorktown.

I like the sounds of this.

[Martok]

And here is new E3 preview:

Hmm rocket ships...

....And steamships, which seems a tad anachronistic. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall that steam-powered warships didn't really come into being until the late 19th century (and at the very least, they certainly weren't common until then).


This greatly cheered me, however:

They also mentioned that the campaign AI will now advise the tactical AI about how important a battle is. So if an enemy is fighting while retreating on the strategic map, they might tell the tactical AI to fight a delaying action, preserving as many of their troops as possible. If the battle takes place just adjacent to the enemy capital, the campaign AI will tell the tactical AI to go all out and fight to the very last man.

Now *that* is something I've wanted to see in strategy games for a long time now -- an AI that is able (at least to a degree) to combine its strategic/tactical priorities! It's always frustrated me when the AI goes down in flames fighting over an insignificant city/world, yet abandons its capital with almost nary a fight. This is welcome news indeed.

[rajpoot]

....And steamships, which seems a tad anachronistic. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall that steam-powered warships didn't really come into being until the late 19th century (and at the very least, they certainly weren't common until then).

I'm not supporting but this is expected, any way you look at it. For one, they need to have content, number two, the very first date on the latest calender sets the invention of the 'steam engine' in 1698 :P as will be the case with primitive sort of machine guns I think. Another calender set the first patented 'machine gun' somewhere in 1700s.

[CBR]

....And steamships, which seems a tad anachronistic. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall that steam-powered warships didn't really come into being until the late 19th century (and at the very least, they certainly weren't common until then).

There were steamships in use by mid 19th century. But with that reasoning we can expect breach loader rifles too I guess.

From the preview on naval combat and the fantasy(rocket) units it seems more like some fast paced naval fun than hardcore wargaming but could we have expected otherwise?


CBR

[SwordsMaster]

Heh, I guess it's always easier for modders to remove fantasy content than to add it in anew.