Preview in German PCGames magazine!
I'm just sorry for all of you people living in... wherever you live where your magazines don't give you M2: TW goodness whenever you go to buy them, like it's the case in Germany.
Just picked up the PCGames and they visitied CA in the UK to play some Medieval 2: Total War and they made an 8 page long article about it, so if you can get that magazine go out and grab it!
Let's just skip all the yadda-yadda about new graphics and everything they're babbling about and go right for the important stuff: The AI! Yes, you read correct there mate, some info on the AI. Well at least the battlefield AI seems to have greatly improved accordinge to the reviewers and they gave some examples:
-Knights use woods as cover to outflank some Longbowmen and avoiding their stakes
-The enemy starting fake attacks to lure you into his own missile range
-The enemy withdraws coherently to the inner defense system of a castle, if it has multiple defenses.
There's also a video on the DVD where they interview Mark Sutherns who explains them stuff about M2:TW and points out that AI has been improved. At the end they talk with Mike Simpson, who makes a point of stating that one aspect of the game that can always be improved is the AI and that it is an importat aspect that is very dear to him and he is happy that because of the serial character of Total War you have a total of 7 years experience with the AI. He also says that M2:TW comes pretty close to perfection this time around, while saying that there's always room for improvement until you have reached true virtual reality. Sounds good, I think!
Concerning new information, it's basically just small things:
For example they show a big campaign map shot in the magazine with the mini-map uncovered and judging from the positions of the factions it looks like the starting positions of every faction. You can even see across to America and where the Aztecs are at. As has been speculated about other screenshots the blob left of the UK is indeed Florida, south of it is the Yucatan peninsula with some Aztecs on them and further south is the eastern-most tip of Brazil, in-between those areas seems to be water.
In the video you can see how infantry navigates through stakes that are deployed on the battlefied. You see how a princess with a max charm rating marries an enemy general, who immediatelly switches sides. You also see one merchant destroying another merchant and occupying his resource.
The discovery of America will be some kind of World event where the game tells you to watch the Atlantic a little bit more closely. You can then build certain structures that allow you to build ocean-faring vessels, which will be highly expensive but will eventually bring you to the New World.
Event movies are now available for everything: Assasination, Sabotage, Marriage, Cardinal gets elected as Pope. The Pope will be giving out missions by the way as will your Noble Council you don't have to complete those missions thouhg, but they don't say anything about penalties which might or might not exist.
Another screenshot shows a unit of pikemen with the first row knealing down while the back rows are pointing their pikes over their comrades heads. Don't wanna charge into that.
Edit: One thing I forgot is that you can ransom back all of your prisoners. When the battle is over you get a scroll that shows you how many prisoners you captured and how much money you can ransom them for. At the bottom there is a total and you get three decisions: Free them! Ransom them! Kill them! Those options will definetly affect your Chivalry/Dread rating.
Well, that pretty much wraps it up. The interview with Mike Simpson where he talks about the whole Total War series is highly interesting I think, besides the information on M2:TW. So once again, if you can get a copy of PCGames magazin, go out and get it!
Cheers!
Ituralde
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Originally Posted by The Stranger
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