edit: Watched it. I have to say, I'm a bit iffy about it for now. Some nice ideas so far (really liking the extra options on the battlefield, like setting it on fire) but the execution seems to leave a bit to be desired. In my mind there's just no way this game releases this year and it isn't a complete disaster at launch. I know showing work-in-progress is always going to be rough but if this is what they're marketing they're simply nowhere near this year for a release. It just looks like someone half-assedly modded the game into Troy, rather than this being a professional production by the actual studio.
Shamelessly copying a summary from reddit:
Campaign:
- Full historical confirm. And as the staff told IGN, this is a main line title, not a saga - whatever that means.
- 5 resources economy of Troy.
- A number of settlements is marked as "Pillar of civilization" and if they get damaged, the level of map-wide civilization meter will drop, causing the campaign map to look gloomier, barbarian faction getting stronger and natural disaster occur more frequently.
- You can opt to worship any god from the 3 culture's pantheon, but there will be some limit.
- The map will consist of part of Anatolia, Canaan, Upper Egypt, Lower Egypt, all the way up to Nubia & Kush. The number of settlement seems to be pretty good, I can't find the screenshot but it shows the south end part of the map absolutely stacked.
- On occupying certain key settlement in Egypt or Anatolia, you'll get a shoot becoming the Pharaoh or the Great King of Hitite respectively, this can be done even if you are not of that culture. You will need to build up "legitimacy" to actually claim the title, usually by taking more lands and certain monuments, or introduce your rivals to the business side of your kopesh.
- It seems factions of the same cultures will have mostly similar units with uniques for each faction. They however have access to regional unit of their starting position, and some more units are unlocked by any factions as they climb their way to Pharaoh/Great King
- Some sort of "mercenary" is also mentioned.
Battle:
- Matched animation back in the menu.
- You can now A-move your unit.
- Your unit can now slowly move back when facing the enemies.
- Armor will now be lowered during the course of battle, even faster if you send enough clubmen at it.
- No ass-ladder. You had siege tower, ram, siege ladder and can sap the wall, pretty standard historical package tbh. Can't stab gate with spear anymore btw. Tower shoots machine gun but had to be manned to fire.
- The weight class of infantry & chariot from Troy is there.
- The fire from Attila and 3K. It can spread in settlement by will damage the building and public order afterward.
- Weather can change the terrain in battle field, plus other effect. So far, we had:
Rain causing mud to appear and a few other things,
Extreme heat cause mud to disappear and affect the exhaustion of unit, especially heavy armoured troops;
Sand storm reduce speed, charge, cause damage, reduce range & reload and cause sand to appear. Apparently it can kill the entire army if you just afk in sandstorm for 60 minutes
Thunderstorm reduce accuracy, reload, range, morale...
Fog reduce vision, this will also prompt an defending AI army into moving forward trying to find the player's army instead of keep staying put.
I may have missed a few.
- Battle field is promised to be large enough to manoeuvre large amount of chariots which had higher entity count compare to their counterpart in other TW to begin with.
- Weight class and may be even culture of the troops will interact differently with terrain. The culture affecting performance in certain terrain dated back to Medieval 2 and earlier btw, just want to say I'm glad to see it back.
- According to Zerkovic, battle is a bit slower compare to recent games and more inline with historical titles
- Unit have stance like "Advance" that is used to physically push the enemy back. Or "hold" stand ground. Or Spearwall FORMATION. Apparently some of them are a bit buggy as of now.
- Wall now had to be go up through certain stair case like the old times - create another choke point you can defend, instead of having them everywhere like in recent tiles.
- Unit are not color coded by factions, which I mean is historical accurate (no the Roman does not wear red green or blue depend on their loyalty) but a massive minus in term of aesthetic, to paraphrase Zerkovic: "Shirtless men in head gear fighting shirtless men in different head gear, flanked by oh more shirtless men, I can't even see which unit are mine."
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