Gamespot has a developer Q&A (and screenshots) up for Black Hole’s upcoming Warhammer Fantasy RTS. Read the Q&A for the details, but suffice it to say that I really like the sound of what they are doing. The campaign sounds a bit Fantasy General-ish; some limited branching, and you do all of your research and strategic development between missions. Building on the battlefield is limited to stuff that real armies (er… real ork armies) might reasonably be expected to do–repairing structures such as bridges, building simple fortifications or improving existing ones, and so on. There’s no resource gathering or peasant units–resources are strategic objective that you have to seize with your army, and then spend between missions in the tactical metagame. Neat sounding stuff.
Plus, the screens are drop-dead gorgeous. Not just from an engine standpoint (though the engine is impressive-looking–check out the shadows), but great art direction as well. The battlefields have a grim, moody atmosphere that really clicks with the subject matter.
2-3 weeks ago a co-worker of mine brought some UK gaming mag, which had an exclusive preview and featured some more information. I know next to nothing about the Warhammer universe, but I’m really looking forward to this one based on what I’ve seen and read so far.
Wow. That looks fantastic, and I’m very glad to hear they’re seperating the strategic elements out of the tactical module. Sounds like an updated Dark Omen.
[Edit] Damn, that’s not even the best screenshot either.
I like the fact that you won’t have peons to do resource collection, etc.
That was one of the things I liked about Dark Omen, you just get onto the battlefield and fight. If this turns out to be a modernized version of that, I’m on board!
So is it really a Rome Clone? With a strategic map, etc? If it is, that’s totally cool with me. Or is it a linear campaign like Warcraft? That’s cool too.
It’s not a Rome clone–the Q&A indicates that the campaign will have some limited branching (i.e. you might get to choose between missions at certain points), and you do some research and building and the like between missions, but it sounds more like Fantasy General’s Campaign than Rome’s.
Sounds like a mix of the two, strategic map with provinces and cities but they’ve also tied a narrative into it.
The battle map is where you do your fighting and local resource management. You may just show up to fight or you might stick around to fix up the place, put in a few defensive structures, burn a bridge, and leave a garrison behind… The enemy is always moving, so if you stick around on the battle map long enough, the enemy will likely show up, since there are events occurring throughout the campaign while you are in battle. It’s probably best to do what you need to do and get back to the war at large. Putting all of your focus into one region means that you are probably ignoring another problem somewhere else.
From the third page of the Gamespot interview. It appears that building improvements and what not in the provinces will occur in realtime on the battlemap?
I think the choice that the Namco producer brought up was an attention issue, if you take the following mission you won’t be able to command the defense of province x as you’ll be otherwise engaged. Perhaps comparable to taking control of a strike mission in Falcon 4 instead of the scramble intercept? Not clear though :?
I have been wanting something like this ever since Dark Omen. I still replay Dark Omen on occasion, nothing else has ever come close to it for medieval fantasy tactics.
