Historical correctness and content questions

Darthvegeta800 · Post by **Darthvegeta800** » Mon Sep 07, 2009 11:36 am

Given the fact I made my Master Thesis on the Black Prince, i'm quite curious about how this game will turn out.
I enjoyed its predecessor though i found it a bit lacking in certain areas.
Now I'm curious, how historically correct will it be? Will the campaigns be longer than those of it's predecessor?

Also the use of Joan of Arc as the opposing commander makes me frown. Why was she chosen? Just because she's a popular and famous (but historically incorrect) figure in the era?

I do like the map idea, just how large will it be? Will it just include France or will Flanders, Navarra etc be included too?
Is the upgrade system similar to that of the Rome predecessor?

Post by **IainMcNeil** » Mon Sep 07, 2009 1:15 pm

There are 2 types of battle. sHistorical ones which did occur and the battles are based on those events and bonus maps. The historicla battles must be fought in sequence. The bonus maps do not need to be completed to progress teh story but can be played in any order, though some are linked in to mini missions. The bonus battles are not historical events but are based on the type of events that did occur.

We have stuck to the history where we can but in places we have to use some creative license for teh benfit of gameplay so you are bound to notice places where events are not exactly as they were hsitorically.

The French do not have Joan of Arc as their leader, but she is present in some battles. She tends to charge off on her own and your job is to try and keep her alive as her loss is a blow to French morale. She is only present in a small number of missions as most of the French missions occur after her death.

The map covers all of France and modern Belgium, parts of Germany, Spain and Britain, though the action si restricted to France/Belgium in general.

Teh upgrade system is much more advance than Great Battles of ROme. Every piece of equipment is modelled individually so you can swicth swords for spears, shields for bucklers, leather tunics for mail. The level fo customization is one you would expect in an RPG with a single character. You can even customise shield patterns and allocate skills. There are only 3 basic units in the game - infantry, cavalry and archers. If you equip them with Spears and large shields and armour you hget heavy spearmen. If you equip them with leather armour, round shields and axes you get light axemen. The combinatiosn are almost infinite. There are 4 armour levels, 5 shields, 20+ weapons, ~100 skills.

There is also a lot of mod support so user campaigsn could appear quite quickly for those intersted in corecting our historical alterations

Darthvegeta800 · Post by **Darthvegeta800** » Mon Sep 07, 2009 5:52 pm

Thanks for the response. THAT is an interpretation of Joan of Arc I can live with! ^^

As for the options, looks great. I presume it's far less likely to end up in a deadend due to bad upgrade choices like in the previous installment?

In any case it looks like it'll be a good game. I hope the nr of battles and bonus battles will be great in number. ^^

Post by **IainMcNeil** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 8:09 am

Dead ends are no longer possible because the bonus missions can often be played multiple times to gain extra skills and gold so if you are finding it tough you just replay a mission you could complete for some more stuff. This allows us to make the historical missions abti tougher as we dont have to worry about someone making a bad choice early in teh game and this makes teh whole game much more interesting. We learned a LOT from GBOR!

Darthvegeta800 · Post by **Darthvegeta800** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 8:13 am

iainmcneil wrote:Dead ends are no longer possible because the bonus missions can often be played multiple times to gain extra skills and gold so if you are finding it tough you just replay a mission you could complete for some more stuff. This allows us to make the historical missions abti tougher as we dont have to worry about someone making a bad choice early in teh game and this makes teh whole game much more interesting. We learned a LOT from GBOR!

That idea I like A LOT. Being able to prolong the campaign to reach that last bit of upgrade you really want to see on your unit.
Good idea!