Multiplayer Preview

[Maizel]

http://tweakers.net/reviews/1906/1/p...en-tellen.html

Page 1:
Siege battles seem to be more tactical. On every siege map there are a number of flags, which need to be captured by the attacker.

The map the author played had a japanese fort with flags on different levels of the castles. The castles seem to be large, large enough that most of the time, you won;t have enough forces to fully defend every wall, this seems to give the siege battles an element of chance, in regard to placing your troops at the walls your enemy is attacking.

Page 2:
Apparently Shogun 2 will have a full feature co-op campaign. The article states that the game can be played with two players co-operating with each other, and that the player can loan eachother troops.

There will be leaderboards, with different ladders (seabattles, sieges, landbattles etc) The person who scores the most points overall earns the title "Shogun' (one would have to be succesful on all ladders)

You will have an avatar to represent you in the battles. You can change the appearance and the standard your avatar uses in battles, though this does not have any impact on it's efectiveness. Having succes in multiplayer battles unlocks further costumization options.

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You can 'upgrade' your avatar. Winning multiplayer matches will get you experience points which you can spend in something akin of a tech tree. The tech tree has 4 branches: Leadership, Bow Mastery, Physical and Melee Combat. The latter 3 are pretty self explanatory. Leadership gives your units bonusses and gives you abilities like "inspire' which gives your units a temporary morale boost. Max level is level 10, which is enough to max out in 1 tree, though naturally, you can devide between the branches. Oponents can see how you;ve chosen to upgrade your character.

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The game will have 'retainer cards', you can play these 'cards' a limited number of times, the number will depend on the level of your general. You will start with one slot, with a level 10 general having five. Though there are dozens of unique retainers, whicj all give certain units a small benefit (like a retainer that gives your samurai better katanas). There are also retainers that affect your enemies units, like slightly less range for enemy archers.

It says that you can get retainers by Conquering provinces or actions like completing sets of armor for your avatar.

Like in previous game you get to choose your army composition at the start of a multiplayer game. Your budget will depend on your avatar rank. You will be able to costumize your individual units.

As you win batlles you will notice that your individual units can promote to veterans. This does not seem to be hard; With normal play there will always be a unit that has promoted, evenif you've lost. After a unit has promoted, you can name the unit and chance it's appearance.

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To prevent players from using the same promoted units every battle, CA has implemented a 'damage' system. If a 100-man unit, for example, lost 30 men in the last game, you can choose to use it again your very next game, but it will only have 70 men. resting a unit for one multiplayer game will restore it back to health.

Shogun 2 will have support for clans. Clans will be able to get controle over certain provinces on a Multiplayer-canpaignmap. Leaders are able to communicate to their members to attack a province. Wins in that province adds to your clan total. The clan with the highest Total has control over the province.

Whp controls a province does not have any consequences for clanless players. They can still battle in the province, no matter what clan controls it.