IGN Faction Feature: Holy Roman Empire

**the_mango55** · 10-13-2006, 05:09

http://pc.ign.com/articles/738/738809p2.html

Looks good, but I'm left wondering the difference between the Zweihanders and the Forlorn Hope.

Originally Posted by Zweihander

Literally meaning two hander's, in German, in reference to the grip needed to wield their massive swords. Zweihanders are very heavily armoured foot troops who can cut a bloody swathe through nearly all infantry they will encounter. This unit is deployed by the Holy Roman Empire and often forms the vanguard when assaulting enemy battle lines.

Originally Posted by Forlorn Hope

The 'Verlorene Haufe' or Forlorn Hope as they are known, are comprised of prisoners and volunteers desperate for glory. Their job is to lead the first and usually fatal charge used to break up enemy pike formations. Forlorn Hope are heavily armoured and wield massive Zweihanders. These units are vicious assault troops who can chop a man into bloody pieces.

Sounds like almost the exact same unit. :hmmm:

**buujin** · 10-13-2006, 05:34

Gah! 3/4 of the dismounted knights and 4/5 of the mounted ones wield maces.

One mace unit is enough, sheesh

**Censor** · 10-13-2006, 05:42

But maces were the preferred weapon for combat! It's so much harder to cut through armor with a blade!

That aside a bit of variety would be nice, for that you get two different Zweihander units! Ausgezeichnet!

**Darth Nihilus** · 10-13-2006, 05:50

Words cannot express how badly I want to play as this faction.....

**Comrade Alexeo** · 10-13-2006, 06:02

Itz time, kommaradden!

Iz time to create...

Virst Reich!

Jawohl!

**Furious Mental** · 10-13-2006, 06:34

If you look at screenshots elsewhere you'll find that the Forlorn Hope wear only a half-armour compared to the full plate of the Zweihanders. I think the Forlorn Hope are probably alot faster on the battlefield.

Overall looks tasty. However when they say "shooting circle" in relation to the Reiters they had better be talking about a caracole and not a frikken cantabrian circle.

**big_steveo** · 10-18-2006, 03:16

Does anyone know where Teutonic knights will fit into M2TW? Are there even going to be Teutonic Order units i nthe game, or will the fall under something like "imperial dismounted knights"? I'm assuming if a Teutonic unit was in the game it would be under HRE, although I'm not that educated in medieval history.

**Furious Mental** · 10-18-2006, 04:07

"Gah! In the video the units look less detailed than the ones in RTW. It just shows all of that lovely shading that you see on screenshots is post-processed."

No it doesn't. It shows that IGN doesn't bother to turn up the settings when they do their media. I have a computer that is a couple of years old but I can still get better detail than is shown in their videos.

Unit detail appears to do basically nothing. Turn up the texture setting and you should notice a huge improvement, inc normal mapping on the highest setting.

**ByzantineKnight** · 10-18-2006, 04:10

Ok thanks!!

**monkian** · 10-18-2006, 11:52

I thought the Serpentine was a multi barralled 'organ gun'

**Furious Mental** · 10-18-2006, 14:05

Na but they do have a couple of those sorts of things. One is called the ribauld. It looks to have 9 large gun barrels. There's another one in screenshots which has lots of small gun barrels. Don't know what it's called.

I am wondering if maybe the Forlorn Hope have two hitpoints so they can get through spear walls.