Over the years we've taken several close looks at the sequel to Black & White (see our most recent preview), so this time around when we sat down with Peter Molyneux to take a look at his strategy/God game.
Molyneux started the demo by busting out some massive armies. Recruiting in Black & White 2 is easy: you simply drag a flag from your barracks and plant it on the ground. Afterwards, you select an army size by drawing a large or small circle. Gradually, villagers will gather at the flag, dress up in their culture-specific army uniforms, and form up in a battle line. You can choose who to recruit by the way you position your flag, so if you plant it in a field of farmers those guys will be the first to set down their shovels and rush to join the military.
Interestingly, if your city has many different cultures living within it, your army will consist of mixed units. For example, our city had a large Norse community living there because they'd recently defected, so the army that formed around our flag was a mix of our own Greco-Roman soldiers and Vikings dressed in fur. Rawr!
One of the most important factors for any army is experience. If your guys have been soldiers for a long time and they've fought in several battles, then they'll be way better in combat than your freshly-recruited farmer: They'll have better equipment, they'll move faster, they'll stay in formation longer and everything.
Combat is a matter of simply dragging a "leash" around, telling your troops where to go. You have Godlike powers, but only within your range of influence (an area around your home city), so soldiers are one of the few ways to project your power beyond your walls. Watching armies clash is amazing. The engine can render thousands of individual guys, so things get pretty brutal on the battlefield.
POST 20 May 2005
