IGN preview

[scorillo]

Where are the gunmen ? I saw all the screenshots and units presented so far and no gunmen....that means no fire guns in MTW2 ? I saw some cannons though...but no gunmen

I want to hear some fire shots in MTW2 !!

Medieval armies had many flags and banners...in mtw2 are quite missing...better CA fix that...and add more flags

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I have not tried Chivalry TW (is it MP focussed?), but morale is a tricky issue to balance. I suspect morale was a little low in RTW. Without command stars, enemies did seem to dissolve rather quickly. Mind you, a similar thing could happen in MTW. Often zero command star armies of mine would chain rout a few seconds after a heavy cavalry charge, much to my chagrin. Because the AI is inevitably handicapped compared to a human player, I think bolstering morale is important to get a decent challenge. If it is too easy for a flank attack or other human trick to cause a chain rout, the battles become walkovers.

Chiv was originally MP focused, though it's expanding (and apparently expecting a release sometime maybe this month) and I found it to be quite interesting for morale.

Morale was reduced. But I found that to be a pro instead of a con, in light of other changes and tweaks. Because all the units had fairly low morale (except for the rare elites) you had to make your moves carefully. An engagement that wasn't fully support was doomed to failure. Small things in RTW like line cohesion became vital - if a unit was exposed and you applied even slight pressure it could rout.

The combat and movement was slower as well, making tactical moves even more deliberate. It was harder to speed that cav unit across the field for emergency flanking. Flanking also became more difficult as it requires exposing the flanking unit to some degree.

And since it was MP-focused, purchasing morale upgrades became a quite important key to victory. All-in-all, keeping your army together added to the tension and the intensity made it more enjoyable than RTW vanilla.

However, it worked mostly in MP. There wasn't a campaign so I can't really say how well the AI handled the changes, and I haven't played in a while.

One striking feature of the TW series has been how subtle morale is - it is influenced by so many modifiers, it's rather impressive as a simulation.

Agreed. And it does make it hard for CA to keep the AI challenging.

[Rodion Romanovich]

As Puzz3D pointed out, it looks like the main complaints on RTW have been listened to and that MTW2 will improve on all these factors and do what the fans want. I must say this preview has raised my hopes quite a bit

[screwtype]

Good to hear they are getting rid of the notorious insta-routs. But exactly how much longer are the battles going to be? Since they got it so very wrong in RTW, I have to wonder whether they're going to get it right this time. But at least they're acknowledging the problem. And I guess any lengthening of melee time will be an improvement of sorts.

I couldn't be bothered looking at all the screen shots. But I did notice that in one, the horsemen are all riding with their spears at different angles. I'm pleased about this, because the previous shots I've seen with all the spears uncannily at exactly the same angle looked pretty weird. It also indicates that some of the graphics glitches we've seen in the early screenshots are being worked on.