E3 Preview

**Ibn-Khaldun** · 06-16-2010, 09:50

At least we know the release date:

Originally Posted by from the Interview

The game will launch next year.

**hoom** · 06-16-2010, 11:37

Some interesting stuff there.
DX11, tessellation & up to 300 dynamic lights, with surfaces being affected by weather eg going shiny wet in rain.

On the down side they talk about fire arrows as research. Research seems a wrong concept in this period.
I take that as we can expect a campaign map with other Empire type gameplay too & that is disappointing.

**darius_d** · 06-16-2010, 12:14

yaaawn. wake me up when they say something beyond graphics, like AI or "character pogression".

**Gregoshi** · 06-16-2010, 13:09

Originally Posted by darius_d

yaaawn. wake me up when they say something beyond graphics, like AI or "character pogression".

The last several sentences addressed AI issues. They discussed both campaign AI (passive faction issues) and battle AI (improved situation recognition and "thinking" alternative tactics in unclear situations).

I agree with hoom on the fire arrow "research". "Hmmm, what if we lit up the arrows before we fire them?" "Brilliant idea Q-ito! The daimyo's koku has been well spent!"

I'd like to have heard a little more detail on the battle demo. "...our first company's morale flagged and eventually broke..." Does "eventually" mean seconds (like RTW) or tens of seconds (STW/MTW)? It sounded like a rather short demo, but did it feel like STW or RTW?

Interesting things in the E3 preview. I will be interested to hear impressions from several different sources to get a better overall feel of the game at this early stage.

**Nobunaga** · 06-16-2010, 13:58

I really hope that CA can deliver this time around ... Failing will affect CA's reputation greatly.

**Alexander the Pretty Good** · 06-26-2010, 19:10

Originally Posted by Nobunaga

I really hope that CA can deliver this time around ... Failing will affect CA's reputation greatly.

I doubt it. Enough people keep coming back for more no matter what they do...

**darius_d** · 06-16-2010, 15:23

Originally Posted by Gregoshi

The last several sentences addressed AI issues. They discussed both campaign AI (passive faction issues) and battle AI (improved situation recognition and "thinking" alternative tactics in unclear situations).

You're right. I think they have a challenge to match battle quality (in terms of challenge) to be on par with Shogun 1. At least they have all the code and parameters.

**Barkhorn1x** · 06-16-2010, 16:28

Originally Posted by Gregoshi

I will be interested to hear impressions from several different sources to get a better overall feel of the game at this early stage.

This demo sounds exactly like the IGN preview - so they must have been watching the same one. And this may indicate that they were watching a scripted presentation. Not that this really means anything at this early stage. Perhaps later build demos will allow the reviewers to comment on the similarities/differences between STW and STW2. But we know these gaming sites are much too fan boish and overawed by eye candy to give anyone a decent overview of what is truly important - game play.

I am cautiously optomistic here as at least CA is saying the right things:
- More tightly focused
- Less units, more differentiation
- Deeper cultural presentation
- Improved Strat and Tac AI ***

***Caveat = CA has said this for every game since RTW - and have really failed to deliver. Can we trust them this time?

**Gregoshi** · 06-16-2010, 16:50

Originally Posted by Barkhorn1x

***Caveat = CA has said this for every game since RTW - and have really failed to deliver. Can we trust them this time?

Here's hoping the smaller scope and tighter focus will allow them a better chance of delivering. With the other games their feature technology outstriped their ability to keep the AI up to the task.

Regarding the demo, even if it is the same demo, each review will take away something different. So hopefully between them all we may get a clearer picture.

**andrewt** · 06-16-2010, 21:19

I think the biggest improvement CA can make to the campaign AI is to make the player feel as just another faction in the campaign. In previous games, it's just too obvious that it's the player versus all the AI. I believe CA had something hard coded where the player must always be in a war with at least one AI faction at any given time. If the player isn't, one AI faction (even allies), would have a huge probability of declaring war.