I have the possibility to making beta testing of Real Warfare 2 Northern Crusades 1 week before the official release; I'll post during this week videos and screenshots of gameplay experience (with the authorization of Unicorn Studio). 

I start with a introduction of what you will see after have started the game: the main menu is very similar to that of RW1242, with custom, online and lan battles. What change is the main campaign section where you are introduced in the strategic campaign of Teutonic order. This campaign has to be played before in the storyline mode for unlock finally the sandbox mode. 

The first impact after the vocal introduction is with the magnificent strategic map: not only is enormous but has the detail of a tactical map, the rivers and the mountains are real obstacles to your army path, no zones of subdivision like in the strategic map of TW, you control cities,castles and villages for control the ground. NPG players move around all the map managed by the AI, robbers assault villages, merchants move from city to city, armed patrols search bandits, private and official armies move in search of battle and engagements. All of this managed by the AI on a splendid map which displayed Europe from east germany to the gates of Moscow and Kiev; the strategic map is in realtime like in Hegemony, but unlike Hegemony you can observe the time pass and the meteo offects: you can observe the sunset moving your army to east or enter in a fog zone; if you observe from high the map you can find your army covered by the clouds.

We go to the storyline of campaign: you're a young Brother of Teutonic order, just arrived from Outremer, your banner is composed only by 20 knights and 150 militiamen; you must present yourself to grand master of teutonic order, what territories are still very limited (the game start little time after Frederick II gave the permission to order to conquer the pagan lands in Prussia).

The grand master assign you as Komtur the castle of Thorn; at Thorn you will do the first experiences with the administration menu: going to locations as cities,villages or castles you can collect taxes, exchange to markets, manage location garrison, obtain informations, collect mercenaries,upgrade or reinforce your troops, and other things. 

The exchanges in the markets are very importants because your troops, with the time consume foods, and need weapons armours and horses for the upgrades. YOu need also money and you can gain it collecting tax in your territory or selling captured to enemy goods. 

Like all the games with RPG elements the experience is a important factor of game: you have three experience level in the game: PG experience (which permit to gain personal abilities), leadership and army experience (which permit to upgrade and increase your army).

THe storyline campaign is quests based, you receive missions from the grand master and you must follow them for proceed (time and mode at your decision); you can receive also secondary quests like help cities or villages in danger. 

THe fist mission as Komtur is to defeat a prussian robber-noble which raids your territory; you will defeat him in a series of battles and at the end (perhaps) you will capture him; for save his life he will help the Teutonic order to conquest a prussian city, giving you access with a selected force to a secondary gate of city......

In the game is present also a diplomacy and economical panel: the economical panel give you info about economic resources, demands and offers of various locations; the diplomatic panel give you  info about the world where you move: holy Roman Empire,Russians,Scandinavians,Lithuanian,Poland,Mongols and others move, managed by the AI, in this open world, they make alliance and declare wars each others, in the meantime you conduct your missions; in the storyline campaigns you have little diplomatic possibility because this is managed by the grandmaster but in sandbox mode this will have more importance. 

We go to tactical part: the battle engine is the same of RW1242 with the introduction of sieges weapons; for who don't know the engine I can resume telling is similar but far more complex that of MTW2; the battle is managed at single soldier level (similar to cossacks concept of unit formation), with more than 80 factors in battles. Moral and ground are the decisive factors in battle.  The sieges weapons have great range but little precision (and the rocks don't explodes

The AI is very good both on the strategic map and the tactical map: on the strategic map I'm found myself persecuted by a prussian army which continue to try to battle with me. In the tactical map, the AI switch from offensive and defensive  attitude following the situation, it try to take high ground and it has a good pathfinding.

Stay tuned, more news in the next days..,,,

This one keeps tempting me....but just not sure.  Watched some of the videos and didn't see anything that pushed me over the edge.  The one battle video seemed like a piece of cake (just moved one army to attack another army without much difficulty), but I am sure this was just a sample.  I also wonder if these battles are scripted.  meaning, in the one battle where you have to take the gate, will the enemy always attack you like they did in the video or will there be different strategy each time?  If not, might get boring real quick.

But I do love this part of history so that is what is making it tough...

Some have scripted actions and events other not, not underevalutate the AI of this game, with RW1242 I won multiplayer battles against humans in pair with AI; take present the first battles are easy actions because it is the start; in the campaign you will arrive to take part as army corps to historical battles

Images from the testing:

http://www.strategygamesitalia.eu/resources/mappa-strategica-vista-dall-alto-con-le-indicazioni/130

http://www.strategygamesitalia.eu/resources/altra-visuale-della-mappa-strategica-vista-dall-alto-con-le/131

http://www.strategygamesitalia.eu/resources/mappa-strategica-con-la-mappa-riassuntiva-aperta/132

http://www.strategygamesitalia.eu/resources/mappa-strategica-l-esercito-muove-lungo-la-strada/120

http://www.strategygamesitalia.eu/resources/altra-visuale-di-arrivo-al-castello/123

http://www.strategygamesitalia.eu/resources/visuale-sul-campo-di-battaglia-la-mappa-e-bellissima-anche/125

http://www.strategygamesitalia.eu/resources/altra-mappa-di-battaglia-casuale/128

http://www.strategygamesitalia.eu/resources/mappa-strategica-vista-della-costa-del-mar-baltico/129

Other images here http://www.strategygamesitalia.eu/immagini-di-gioco-real-warfare-2-northern-crusades-t2119.html

I like the look of the campaign. But my experience of the tactical battles from the last games puts me on the fence for this one.

The animations seem to skip and even though the graphics seem rudimentary and fantasy like my computer was ground to a halt guaranteed every time.

The videos seem to comfirm that this happens even on your dev computers? That catapult and the men walking seemed to really test the computer.

I love the idea. But the implimentation of past games in the series at least, reminds me of theatre of war. A good game that can be frustrating due to 

performance issues.

Remember I'm capturing and compressing the video during the game itself with ZD soft screen, so this has a impact on the frames and cpu time (i'm not a dev, my computer is a normal computer with XP, and gtx460). Respect the previous games has been implemented a new memory management system, and the game take don't take half of my PC memory (4 giga). The total HD space take is 2,92 giga

Originally Posted By destraex

I like the look of the campaign. But my experience of the tactical battles from the last games puts me on the fence for this one.

The animations seem to skip and even though the graphics seem rudimentary and fantasy like my computer was ground to a halt guaranteed every time.

The videos seem to comfirm that this happens even on your dev computers? That catapult and the men walking seemed to really test the computer.

 

I love the idea. But the implimentation of past games in the series at least, reminds me of theatre of war. A good game that can be frustrating due to 

performance issues.

I am with you...something about the game draws me in, but equally something doesn't look/feel right that is keeping me away from purchasing at the moment. Hopefully there will be a review/demo to help change my mind

Reviews change with the mind and preferences of journalists; I understand your point. Anyway with the game you will have also a free copy of RW1242 with the previews battle campaigns.

Edited: Sorry for inaccurate information about 1C policy: it was my pov not a official information

another video

Keeping an eye on this. I like what I see and hear but haven't played any of the earlier games so I will wait for some feedback before buying.

Thanks!

Originally Posted By destraex

I like the look of the campaign. But my experience of the tactical battles from the last games puts me on the fence for this one.

The animations seem to skip and even though the graphics seem rudimentary and fantasy like my computer was ground to a halt guaranteed every time.

The videos seem to comfirm that this happens even on your dev computers? That catapult and the men walking seemed to really test the computer.

 

I love the idea. But the implimentation of past games in the series at least, reminds me of theatre of war. A good game that can be frustrating due to 

performance issues.

I posted your perplexities to lead programmer of Unicorn, I tell me much depends of settings of the PC: he can obtain good fps also on old laptop depending of settings applied (as I told i registred the video in realtime compriming directly having set the maximum resolution and graphical effects (with antialiasing 4x and anisotropic 16x), the effect was to slow the recording framerate). He understood the problem and he tell me he will write a improved autodetect of configuration for help to set the best configuration for the hardware.

Other images from some sieges equipment http://www.strategygamesitalia.eu/immagini-di-gioco-real-warfare-2-northern-crusades-t2119.html#p18224

I like storyline campaigns, I liked King Arthur and I liked Hegemony, I like this storyline campaign (i want see what will happen with Mongol invasion, I hope to survive to Leignitz). But I understand people like more free play campaign; usually you can play the sandbox only after have terminated the storyline, but in the game will be present a console command for activate immediatly the free mode and also cheats and other things (n th free mode you play as feudal lord with full liberty of diplomatic and political action).

The campaign can appear easy, but playing you start to find how hard can be without a accurate management of your money and force. The dimension of enemy forces grow and grow with the steps of campaign but your money not with the same rate, so you must find other sources of income a part the taxes.  So between two main quests, you can raids villages, kill robbers, ro merchant, robbers same, peasants, etc, or do secondary quests. You must have always money and food for your troops, and more troops and more elite troops you have, more money you need, your army become a logistic hell. I taken too light a battle against the AI and my knights take too much losses (from 40 to 9 knights things much easier you can think), I found myself without the money for reinforce it. The campaign appears easy but is hard if taken in easy mode. So play carefully you tactical battle, you can win battle but you can have no more a army for defend yourself from the a brigand army (if you have sufficient money for pay them for leave you alone).

Burning villages

 

Other battles scenes

Other game info:

As i told the battle AI appears improved respect RW1242, the campaign battles don't appear to be scripted, a part some activation event, but only the starting position of AI troops is pre-determined. The AI in battle works not as a unique entity but for army list: this mean  two separated troops groups of AI have own proper AI routines and act and react following the information and dangers which can be different from those of other groups. In addition being the AI source code written with a script language it can be improved by the modders.

Returning to strategic map, the siege weapons can be purchased in the bigger cities (example Warsaw), the food consume is different if your army is located in a cities (0), camped in the country or in movement. If you finished the food, you start to have more and more penalties.

Pre-purchase on steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/202860/

PS: I deleted the videos because making it in realtime\compressing I fear the people can think the game has bad performance. I'm going to make new ones using the internal video capture of game which permit high res images.

I got this today for an upcoming review, and I have to say it's a lot better than I expected.

The unit detail is outstanding: it shows 15 variables that go into calculating a unit's attack, morale, and ranged attributes in real-time battles. Pretty neat.

The AI is no slouch. I've been flanked by the computer numerous times so far, using the terrain to its advantage.

The campaign is very, very similar to the one in Mount & Blade, where you guide your army around, trade with villages, raise armies, collect taxes, engage bandits, and take on small missions. It works well within the context of the game. I need to investigate trade and diplomacy options further, but it clearly indicates good items to sell or buy, and there is a map that shows where goods are needed and in surplus for easier trading.

Units and heroes can be upgraded with experience, increasing their attack or morale values or changing them into new, higher-level units.

The tactical battles can be quite large, and there are skirmish and multiplayer options for up to six players on randomly generated maps.

About the only downside I've seen so far is that the campaign is difficult: there aren't enough low-level enemies you can feast on early-on, and the higher-level foes will hunt you down. Hopefully, things will get easier as I delve into trade.

^Really...so why didn't you say so!! Looking forward to your full review.

Did the release date get pushed back?  It used to say November 11th, but now it says November 18th.  Is that the real date now or even later?  Also saw the price was reduced a few dollars.

the 18/11 I think will be the definitive release date because it has been announced officially also on the 1C yuplay site

I am increasingly looking forward to this.

GAH!

Originally Posted By JaguarUSF

I got this today for an upcoming review, and I have to say it's a lot better than I expected.

 

The unit detail is outstanding: it shows 15 variables that go into calculating a unit's attack, morale, and ranged attributes in real-time battles. Pretty neat.

The AI is no slouch. I've been flanked by the computer numerous times so far, using the terrain to its advantage.

The campaign is very, very similar to the one in Mount & Blade, where you guide your army around, trade with villages, raise armies, collect taxes, engage bandits, and take on small missions. It works well within the context of the game. I need to investigate trade and diplomacy options further, but it clearly indicates good items to sell or buy, and there is a map that shows where goods are needed and in surplus for easier trading.

Units and heroes can be upgraded with experience, increasing their attack or morale values or changing them into new, higher-level units.

The tactical battles can be quite large, and there are skirmish and multiplayer options for up to six players on randomly generated maps.

About the only downside I've seen so far is that the campaign is difficult: there aren't enough low-level enemies you can feast on early-on, and the higher-level foes will hunt you down. Hopefully, things will get easier as I delve into trade.

Have you played the previous games Jag ?

Personally it all looked good until the actual battles - which happen way too fast and generally descend into a huge mess. There seemed no way to slow it down.

Really hated them - as the premise and looks were great but the battles truly awful RTS mob bash.

Originally Posted By JaguarUSF

I got this today for an upcoming review, and I have to say it's a lot better than I expected.

 

The unit detail is outstanding: it shows 15 variables that go into calculating a unit's attack, morale, and ranged attributes in real-time battles. Pretty neat.

The AI is no slouch. I've been flanked by the computer numerous times so far, using the terrain to its advantage.

The campaign is very, very similar to the one in Mount & Blade, where you guide your army around, trade with villages, raise armies, collect taxes, engage bandits, and take on small missions. It works well within the context of the game. I need to investigate trade and diplomacy options further, but it clearly indicates good items to sell or buy, and there is a map that shows where goods are needed and in surplus for easier trading.

Units and heroes can be upgraded with experience, increasing their attack or morale values or changing them into new, higher-level units.

The tactical battles can be quite large, and there are skirmish and multiplayer options for up to six players on randomly generated maps.

About the only downside I've seen so far is that the campaign is difficult: there aren't enough low-level enemies you can feast on early-on, and the higher-level foes will hunt you down. Hopefully, things will get easier as I delve into trade.

A good tactic is the attack bandits just out from a clash with another army, bandits are usually less strong than patrol, lords and merchants; you can see the relative strenght of a group in the bottom part of hint which appears on the group when you move the cursor on it; also attack enemy peasants and village permit to gain experience and goods. 

Full diplomacy option is avalaible in snadobx campaign which is unblocked at the end of storyline campaign (or if you activate it with a hidden command).

Personally it all looked good until the actual battles - which happen way too fast and generally descend into a huge mess. There seemed no way to slow it down.

 

Really hated them - as the premise and looks were great but the battles truly awful RTS mob bash.

Is a question of training; from my experience (more than 150 battles done in multi) better if forget all you have learn in TW battles (me too I'm a ex-tw player), your army will become a mob if you permit it, secret of victory is to maintain order but it is your job is not automatic. Avoid long lines, organize in "batailles", don't be closed in a angle of map, gain higher places, don't make rapid movements with infantry, have always the last reverse, observe always the morale and fatigue bar of your troops. Cavalry is the queen of battle, but need infantry and missiles support. 

I see this as a buy for me- really looks fun and Jag's review sort of pushes me into the buy crowd.

I don't think my current laptop will run it, so I'll have to wait until my household goods arrive out here next month...but then I'm all over this!