Beta Testing

**Bar Kochba** · 05-24-2006, 23:23

love those fire lances hehe love burning all those indian elaphants!!

**mike007** · 05-25-2006, 02:35

Sweet, thanks for the info Gertgregoor! Im starting ot get so jealous, it seams like everyones playing here but me ;(

I was expecting to hear about alot more ctd's as well, seeing as they have changed so much of the original game. Well done to the BL team!

Moral is easily fixed.

just a few more Q's

Hows the campaign map look?

Also have you assulted any cities as yet? how was it?

Are all factions present in the beta so far?

i see you like the master monks, does this mean monks are playable?

thanks again for the info, cant wait for more!

**IPoseTheQuestionYouReturnTheAnswer** · 05-25-2006, 03:23

The campaign map looks excellent. Lots of varied terrain, although there's some wild looking hills that will be fixed soon.

City assaults are pretty much the same. I haven't had any assaults on cities with stone walls yet, since stone walls are now at the top of the tech tree. It's always interesting, though, to attack an enemy city full of guys,a nd send some copper dragons through the front gate and push everyone out of the way. Firelancers are also EXTREMELY useful against bunched up groups of enemies in city assaults, I've had a couple Firelancer units rack up a few hundred kills.

All the factions are present.

Yes, the Monks are playable, but they are clearly not supposed to be. Most of their units are superunits that have extremely high stats and sort of unbalance things, though I suppose that's the point since they're Monks. Also, they lack many essential unit types. For instance, the Monks have no siege weapons.

**Moros** · 05-25-2006, 12:06

yup I must agree with Ipose...
The campaign map looks great, some minor random hills need a bit of fixing but for the rest it's really good. I realy love the new ground textures. Well the monks aren't supposed to be playable tough you play with them as custom battles. The few ctd's and looking how ready things are I must say, WOW!

**mike007** · 05-26-2006, 00:55

Awsome preview guys!~ those dragons & fire lances sound like allot of fun!

Have you had a chance to play with the demond army?

How about those 10 ft tall devil monsters? are they as uber as they look?

Does a campaign game play like normal or does it feel different?

I guess my last & most important question is do you think its close to an open release?

thanks againf or the previews, the games looking great!

**IPoseTheQuestionYouReturnTheAnswer** · 05-26-2006, 22:43

Yeah, the Demons are the only faction I've used in the campaign. They're actually very...different from most of the factions. They have MANY different units, but each unit only serves a specific purpose and can't do anything else very well. Most of their units are for support, and you really need to be coordinated for your army to come together and win without taking a ton of losses. It's hard, but fun - kind of takes you back to the old Shogun TW days when every unit, no matter how crappy it is, was useful for something.

The Hanyas? Those are the 10 ft tall monsters, and they just so happen to be my favorite unit. These guys are so big that they don't even need to swing their weapons, just walking around knocks guys out of their way. They're a ton of fun to watch, but won't last long unless backed up. They are usually the infantry unit that gets the most kills in my battles.

yeah, the campaign is definately different. Most of the factions have very advanced starting armies, so you're up against armored heavy cavalry and hordes of horse archers right form the get-go, and it's very challenging since you can't retrain your advanced units for a while, until you get the requirements for them. The start of the campaign is basically trying to remove as many elite units from the enemy's possession as possible while keeping as many of yours alive as possible, I've found.

Hmm, I'm not sure if it's close. I'd probably be able to give a better answer when a patch arrives.