Well today I went to the community event at Sega America in San Francisco. We were greeted by Kieran Bridgen from CA and Julian Mehlfeld from Sega. They ran us through 2 of the 7 tutorials, namely the basic land battle and the naval battle tutorials. I wish we would have had more time to look at the siege tutorial but alas no. I hope some of the other TWCers who attended had a chance to look at it. These were basic tutorials and their scope wasn’t large enough to highlight any clear AI attributes since there were only 2-3 enemy units at a time. That said I had a blast and this made my desire to pre-order the game even greater after seeing some of the things they are implementing. If they spent as much time on the AI as everything else this should be the best TW game yet. I hope I didn’t miss anything of what I saw so here it goes…
今天我参观了位于旧金山的世嘉（美国）公司总部。CA的Kieran Bridgen和世嘉的Julian Mehlfeld接待了我们。官方演示了两段（共七段）教学关——陆战和海战。我希望会看到攻城战，但很可惜没有。只能希望别的玩家能看到了。这只是基本的教学关，每次也就2-3个敌方单位，所以很难突出AI的特点。当看到他们演示的内容后，我产生了更强烈的冲动预购这款游戏。如果他们再花点时间在AI设计上，这可能就是全战系列中最好的一作。我希望没有遗漏我所见到的，那么就让我们开始吧…
Basic Land Battle Tutorial
基本陆战指南
You start off with a single spear ashigaru unit. The advisor runs you through the usual point and click commands and then has you form a spear square to defend against a cavalry attack. The spears have two special abilities, square and shield wall. Forming the square allows you to handily beat the enemy cavalry unit and they route off the board. From there you gain command of a bow ashigaru unit and must beat back a single attacking samurai block. The bowmen have two special abilities as well, flaming arrows (deals more damage) and whistle arrows (big moral hit) which are on cool down timers. You have to get use to using them at the right moment for greatest effect. As the samurai unit rushes forward they are greeted with some flaming arrow love and eventually are so demoralized that the spear unit breaks them almost instantly. From there you gain command of a cavalry unit and are faced with two attacking bow ashigaru enemies. Send in the cavalry and you can easily break them. The cavalry do have special formation but I didn’t bother using one.
开始你将会控制一队长枪足轻。顾问将指导你一步步进行操作，点击指令组成方阵抵御一队骑兵的突击。长枪足轻有两个特殊技能——枪阵和盾墙。枪阵模式有助于巧妙抵消敌方骑兵突击，胜利之后结束控制。接下来，你将指挥一队弓箭手用来击退一队武士的封锁。弓箭手也有两个特殊技能，火箭（附加伤害）和 鸣镝（士气打击），每次使用后要过段时间才能再次使用。你必须选择最佳时机使其发挥最大威力。敌方武士在火箭猛烈的攻击下很快崩溃，余下的让长枪足轻迅速消灭。接着你会获得一队骑兵并对付2队弓箭手，派遣骑兵冲锋就能轻松解决他们了。骑兵有一种特殊阵型，但我用不着了。
Overall my impression is that the commands have remained relatively unchanged, besides the addition of a simpler shift click waypoint command that should help to manage units planning to take advantage of a flanking attack. The layout of the UI and the commands will be very familiar to TW veterans. While we were playing at 70% graphic quality I can safely say that the battlefields and unit details were simply awesome, even at that level, and should be breathtaking on ultra settings. The individual soldier graphics looked spot on.
You can see the full bow animation as the bow ashigaru unleashed volleys of death as well as seeing individual soldiers go through elaborate death animations. Also they have found a way to get the physics engine to incorporate persistent arrows. After a few volleys there are arrows sticking out of everything!
总体来说，操作上给我的印象是没有太大的变化，但是加入一个按shift键设定行军路线的指令(simpler shift click waypoint)，可以预先设定行军计划来完成侧翼攻击。用户界面和指令操作对于全战老玩家来说非常熟悉。当我们打开70%的物理特效时，画面令人惊叹，开到最大效果则更加出色。每个士兵的特效都很完美！
你可以看到从弓箭上弦到发射直到杀死对方这一系列完整的动作。他们利用物理引擎让中箭者身上的残留箭矢显得更加真实。在几轮弓箭过后，所有的一切都插满了箭！
Naval Battle Tutorial
海战指南
The tutorial starts with a single boat that you must navigate with the usual point and click commands. We are given the task to navigate around a burning enemy ship that has run afoul of some floating explosive mines…that’s right I said mines! From what Kieran said we will be able to use these mines in our battle to defend against enemy ships. That means you’ll have to pay attention to where your ships are at all times. Your next task is to navigate to a friendly ship that has been disabled out at sea. Land plays a big part in sea battles and you’ll have to navigate around these islands or run the risk of running aground. I imagine these variables will demand a bit more strategic thinking then was involved in Empire sea battles. Once arriving at your sister ship you are given command of it and must initiate repairs. This as I imagine was the case with Nap will mean that the boat will be dead in the water till repairs are completed. At this point you are given command of a 3rd larger ship and are attacked by an enemy fleet. Send in the big guy to board one of their ships and you can use the other two to pickoff his smaller vessels with volleys of bow fire. I did notice that the boarding animation seemed a bit odd but Kieran explained the difficulties with getting it to work correctly (work in progress). There is the option of using fire arrows to set the enemy ships alight but I only noticed it on the smaller craft we were given. Overall I was impressed to see that the naval combat will play out a bit differently and I feel boardings and chock points will play a larger part in our
strategies.
教程一开始的时候会给你一条小船来完成接下来的操作。我们首先被要求航行到一条碰上水雷的燃烧敌船附近…是真的我说的就是是水雷！Kieran 说我们可以用水雷来封锁敌船。这就意味着你必须时刻注意你的船。接下来要行驶到一条在海上抛锚的友方船附近。陆地在海战中占了很大比例，你必须绕着那些岛跑而且会有搁浅的风险。我想这些变化的影响更多的会体现在帝国海战上。当到达姊妹船旁是接到下一步指示：修复并指挥这条船。我原想这不是个什么大问题，但这条船在我修好它之前完全不能移动。然后你会得到第三条更大的船，这是一条被敌舰围困的大船。把这个大家伙搭上敌方一条船进行接舷战，用另外两艘船发射火箭以牵制敌方其他小船。我注意到接舷战的动画有些古怪，Kieran解释说，修复这个问题比较困难（已经在进行中了）。有一个选项可发射火箭使敌船起火，但只有我们的小船有这个功能。总体来说海战向我们展示了令人印象深刻的新要素，我想接舷战和撞击将在海战中扮演更重要的角色。