New information about sequel to Take Command Manassas

[Burning Bridges]

The game is in development for some time now, but now it's official:

29 DECEMBER 2008 - The Development Team at NorbSoftDev is proud to announce their upcoming Civil War title, War3DII: Gettysburg.

In production for over 2 years, the team is finally able to state with confidence that the game will ship in 2009.

W3DGB is the next generation of Civil War combat command simulations. Taking lessons learned from their last ground breaking Civil War engine, the Team at NSD has gone beyond themselves to fill in the final features to make this the premier 19th Century Combat Simulation. Not only will the player be able to test themselves against the award winning AI, online play will now make this one of the best strategic and tactical internet game challenges to date. The list of features includes:

* Multiplayer online combat in several modes, including:
o Standard opposite sides.
o Cooperative play versus the AI.
o Play embedded within historical battle scenarios.
* Real time combat command of a brigade, division, or corps in the most intense battle of the Civil War.
* Four highly accurate historical battlefield maps and two general purpose battle maps.
* Extensively researched historical order of battle for each day of the battle.
* Twenty historical or alternate history single player scenarios covering crucial actions on all three days of the battle including:
o The Iron Brigade at McPherson's Ridge.
o Vincent's Brigade on Little Round Top.
o The Peach Orchard fight.
o Night battles on Culp's Hill.
o The Pickett - Pettigrew - Trimble grand attack.
* Random play mode to generate battles of brigade, division, or corps size on any of the included maps.
* Extensive option set to tailor the game experience to the players’ preference and to allow good game performance on a wide range of systems.
* Carefully modeled rifles, carbines, and muskets as well as smoothbore and rifled artillery.
* A full set of infantry and artillery tutorials to get you started.

Take Charge of some of the premier Generals that shaped America. See if your strategy can hand Lee the victory that was pulled from his grasp. Can you as Longstreet take out the Union left flank? Or will you stand as Chamberlain on Little Round Top and order “FIX BAYONETS!” Do you have what it takes to prove that Pickett's Charge could have resulted in anything besides the mass slaughter of Longstreet's Corps? Can you do better than history or have all the great Generals passed away with that bygone era?

Find out in 2009 when you and your Army buddies are forced to part ways and face each other across the battlefield at Gettysburg!

I don't know about you but I'm really looking forward to this!

Along with the (official) announcement they have unveiled an official site where you can see new screenshots as well as a video:

http://w3dgb.norbsoftware.com/

and here

http://www.norbsoftware.com/Portal/inde ... 6&Itemid=2

Some random screenshots:

 

[Gold]

Hell yes, I will be getting this. I still remember how awesome Sid Meier's Gettysburg was.

 

[DiverNB]

looks pretty good, but any actual improvements to singplayer over Take Command: 2nd Mannassass? (SP sorry)

 

[Panthera]

I have a MASSIVE nerd boner over this game.

And yes, it's going to have a lot of new features, Diver. It's a new engine that's being coded. Madminute Games fell apart, and the existing code and design was on shaky legal ground. So, besides the obvious graphical improvements, the underlying simulation is being redone, and if you look closely, the units operate by companies, even though it controls by regiments. That means a lot less weirdness when an entire regiment wheels, or engages in melee. Really, it's just overall going to be a slicker, more advanced game, with hopefully even more modability.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I think norb said that regiments are still the smallest unit (on his forums people speculating about companies too).

From what I gather, the new game will be more or less TC2M v2.0. Same formula - i.e. again no strategic layer - but hopefully many detail improvements.

 

[Panthera]

Yes, the Regiment is still the smallest unit that you can click on and control, but if you look at the images it's clear that the regiments have company components.

 

[LCJr.]

Aside from graphics what makes these games better than say Sid Meier's ACW games?

 

[DiverNB]

Take Command 2 is probably my favorite Civil War game

Easy to control, but a lot of depth. Stamina, Morale, how charges effect morale, different cannon ammo type, etc.

Been a while since I played SM so I don't know it had those things

 

[LCJr.]

If I remember right morale and fatigue are lumped together as "stress". Charges increased stress quite a bit. Cannon firepower was done automatically i.e. switching to grape at close range.

 

[Panthera]

Aside from graphics what makes these games better than say Sid Meier's ACW games?

There are a number of differences. The simulation is a bit less abstract. The more detailed 3d maps mean line of sight is calculated more accurately with respect to the actual battle. Under the hood, every man gets a shot (as I understand it) and the width of the regiment is affected by the number of men in it.

The BIGGEST gameplay difference, though, is the AI and the focus upon it. Playing at the brigade level, or to some degree the divisonal level, feels a whole lot like a more advanced and detailed Gettysburg. Controlling a whole corp or army is a whole other world. By that point, you pretty much depend on the AI personalities of your division commanders. You can send them orders to change their stance (which are issued by little animated couriers running around the battlefield) and give them movement orders, but micromanagement is a losing battle. It's like playing a whole other strategic game. As well, brigades and divisions can use 'road movement', which makes them line up and march along a road to speed up movement. This makes control and use of the road network VERY important.

The good friendly AI also makes low-command scenarios more interesting, because you can control a single brigade or division in a scenario that contains a much, much larger force around you, and you can see exactly where you are in the bigger picture of the battle.

 

[Panthera]

http://www.madminutegames.com/downloads.htm

There's a demo here. The brigade tutorial from the original is what hooked me on the series, but the second is really just better so I suggest just giving that a go.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

I just bought 2nd manassas from gamersgate. Hadnt mucht time to fool around with it yet, but it looks mighty awesome indeed.


You always seemed like a douche to me, Global Explorer, but your taste in strategy games is much appreciated.