As mentioned in the speculation thread before, PCG UK (the first one, fyi) have done published a 6 page preview of Shogun 2. Sadly, there are no screenshots
I will now post some information and a couple of quotes what were in the article.
- Release: "2011"
- The Year is not 1530. The Year is 1540.
- Four Turns per year
- Winter city side, crystal bits of snowflakes all around my head in the wind.
- Kieran: "Direct assault on the Emperor is forbidden because he's God's representative on earth, but you can still control the emperor as puppet much like people did with the papacy in Medieval Europe, by saying, "I'm clearly the military force here, and if you designate my as Shogun - the armed protector of all Japan - then I will become the sword for your heavenly vision. Shogun 2 is about becoming that powerful".
- 'Some of the questions I asked would elicit not an answer, but a smirk and a knowing look between them' Actually, I think that had more to do with the 94% review PC Gamer gave Empire than Shogun 2. I mean, I'd be pretty damn smug.
- Japanese castles are multi-staged mazes of walls and courtyards. Two letters and a word: A, I, Pathfinding. Hope they get this right.
- Historical Battle: Battle of Kawagoe
- I had no illusions that I'd ever find a glimpse of summer heat wave in your eyes.
- Night battles are something they're currently working on to try and make work. If they can't, it seems it won't be in the final game. Kieran: "It absolutely has to earn it's place in the design". Good. No feature is better than a broken feature, guys.
- You can choose the skills your characters develop, instead of having them appear based on actions. I suspect some people won't like this, but I think it's a good idea.
- You did what you did to me, now it's history I see.
- Hero units will have particular generic skills, like being good against cavalry or swordsmen.
- Hero units aren't the lame IGN suggested, but they have special abilities which seem to do stuff like buffing friendly units, debuffing enemy ones or doing types of damage. No one has said "RPG elements" yet, but they might so watch out for that.
- Mike Simpson: "It's one of our key objectives to make sure that no one mentions AI ever again in a bad light, because we've had enough of that." Yeah, so does that mean you've hired more than one person to do the AI this time? Also, acta non verba, guys.
- Here's my comeback on the road again.
- "Japanese ships typically fell into two categories, sheds on water and castles on water".
- Naval battles, which seem to be almost or entirely coastal, and featuring oar powered ships will resemble land battles more closely.
- There will be a stronger difference between regions in Shogun 2. This is a bit of a reference to the original shogun, where certain provinces produced a specific type of unit with more chevrons, and you could only build blacksmiths to upgrade troops in provinces with certain resources.
- Napoleon's supply lines will "not necessarily" be in Shogun 2.
- PCG's guesses about what are the 9 clans: Otomo, Mori, Urakami, Myoshi, Takeda, Uesugi, Hojo, Date. This is on a boxout map thingy.
- Things will happen while they can.
- The same boxout says the game is over when the Emperor crowns you Japan's protector. I dunno if that's PC Gamers guess or not. Personally, I hope they steal Solium Infernum's prestige system for that, because I think it would work well in the context.
- I will wait here for my man tonight.
- Japanese terrain is 'weird' apparently, so expect more spectacular and varied battlefields.
- "A major multi-player innovation is in the works which we haven't nailed down yet"
- It's easy when you're big in Japan.