Last week I was able to take a look at some of the features of Shogun 2, and ask a few questions of Kieran from CA. Some of this has already been mentioned in a few other places. I should also note that the game is still early in its development process, this was not an extended play session like the last time when they invited me to take a look at NTW. It was a show and tell session where they showed off some of the new features and answered a few questions. Some of these screen shots you have seen posted on other sites, some of them you havent.
Sea Battles
Sea battles are handled differently than they are on NTW. The first thing is that you can actually use the coastline and sail up rivers and inlets during battle. They are also somewhat tied into land battles, now you can fight a sea battle and then if you win immediately land your troops and fight a land battle. No more waiting an extra turn to get into the land battle. I am not sure if that has been specifically mentioned before yet or not, but its pretty cool. The way the water looks has also been redone. Its hard to tell from screen shots and lo-res videos, but it looks great in game.
Land Battles
The GUI for battles has been reworked, and I understand its still a work in progress. Its a lot cleaner now, and takes up a lot less space on the screen. In the shot below notice the round generals icon on the bottom left. Clicking that extends or contracts the unit bar. It rolls up inside the generals control bar kind of like a ticker tape so its completely out of the way. The radar map and unit info cards have been changed as well.
You will also notice that this is a night battle in the rain. You can actually see the rain hit individual soldiers and then move and shimmer down their body. The water system has been completely reworked and is much more realistic, as has the light system for torches. In addition the other elements on the battle screen such as trees and bushes have been changed, they are now fully rendered 3D models.
Another cool feature is the ability to look from an individual soldiers eyes on the battlefield. In other TW games you can zoom down until you are right over the unit, but now you can actually look out the eyes of a soldier, and switch soldiers by using the mouse wheel. If you have your unit spread out in a big line, you can go all the way down the line and see what each individual soldier sees, including the back of their horses head.
Ninja and hero units have been discussed before as well, but I will throw out a few things. Ninja units can be moved around the entire permiter of the battle without beeing seen, and only when they actually engage will the enemy know they are there. Kieran and I talked about the hero units for a while, and he told me that they are pretty task specific. They are designed to be used against specific unit types, and will do well against those units, but not well at all against other unit types.
The battle AI has been changed, and will be changed even more as they test things. As I said earlier its still early in the development process and things are still being worked on.
For more of an RPG element to the game, you can now choose a path for your generals and have a bit more control over how they develope rather than the old Vices and Virtues system. I dont have any shots of this.
Generals speeches are back, and in a big way. There are now a lot more variables that go into how a speech is written and what comes out in game.
Campaign Map
As you might have seen in some of the magazine articles, there is once again a 2D element to the campaign map. The Fog of War is now in 2D and looks like an old map, the part of the world that you actually have knowledge of is rendered in 3D. It actually looks pretty cool. The GUI on the campaign side has been completely reworked as well, and again is still under development.
Below are most of the screen shots I have. When I get more I will post more.
Enjoy.
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