The Gaelic Kingdoms are all about having a certain number of vassals, and the Great Viking Army are about destroying a certain number of factions.We spoke with game director Jack Lusted and community manager James Givens about what else is new in Thrones.Theyve got much denser spacing, the charge distances are a lot shorter, so you get that feeling of a sudden rush of shields against each other.
It means you get battles where these very dense, tightly-packed melee units form a shield for your missile troops, and youre trying to manoeuvre them into as much of a coherent line as possible. Because the shield wall units are quite defensive, if youve just got a pure frontal grinding match, battles can go on for a long time, because there are guys with big shields fighting each other. That means axe infantry for the Vikings, who dont have very strong calvary. Because your axe infantry is often armed with two-handed axes, they dont have shields, and that means theyre quite vulnerable to enemy missiles. Ultimately, were going to try to make feel right for the period, and in this period with shieldwalls, you know you want that feeling of combat dragging on for a while, that grinding between two forces. Theres a reduced selection of ship types, weve got no fire-breathing ships, as there were in Attila for the Eastern Romans, and you dont tend to get much ramming longships werent really built for it. The focus is very much on getting close and boarding, with missile ships providing support. What weve gone for is as large a variety of siege maps as possible, so there are 16 different types of map modelled on various historical settlements. There are ones based on Winchester, Dublin, Dunottar, Birkhead theres a whole variety, and you get very different graphical looks as well as geographic layouts. Theres one which has two rock walls on either side of the entrance, so youve got to fight your way through there, or try and come in from the sea. There is artillery in the game, but its very rare, so most of the time youre brute forcing your sieges you are hacking down the gates, you are using your siege towers to get over them they can be very bloody affairs. And theres quite a bit of manoeuvring in those settlements youre not just down narrow streets, you have room to flank around, and engage in bigger brawls inside the walls. Multiplayer players always find some interesting way to take your balancing and push it very odd ways. Putting yourself up against a human player makes it so much more rewarding when you smash them. For example, we were talking in the presentation about being able to evolve your kingdom, changing it from this faction to the Anglo-Saxons, or to England, you know That feeling of progression, like youre actually the one uniting it. Previously youd just be painting the map your colour, which is fine, but now you get the sense that youre actually evolving as you encompass more of the country youre taking over. I think that is really going to keep people pushing along to unite more and more of the country. Theyre all about controlling the sea, so they have to control a certain number of ports to do it. The kingdom victory conditions vary by faction groups the English are all about owning certain settlements, the Welsh are all about owning certain provinces.
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