Naval Warfare in Rome 2

[CybrSlydr]

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/08/...fare-in-rome-2

For the next major entry in Creative Assembly’s Total Wars series, not all the changes are going to be related to land battles. Sure, regions of land can be captured without having to take over cities and there’ll be new and modified systems for upgrading units and AI behavior, but quite a bit will shift with the naval portion of the game as well, making it a more significant part of play.

In Rome 2 ships will be active participants in coastal land battles. Ships will actually land at beaches so soldiers can disembark, and can be outfitted with siege equipment to knock down city walls. “That’s a really big deal for us,” said lead designer James Russell. “You’ve got to choose where to land, it creates some interesting defensive points. Does the defender attack you while you’re landing? There’s all sorts of interesting gameplay choices there.”

A naval unit will also consist of multiple ships instead of just one. “Because ancient world battles weren’t fought with eight ships, they were fought with larger fleets, so you’re going to have several ships in each unit. That really changes the gameplay. It makes them feel a little bit more like land battles in terms of being able to block. You have all these spatial dynamics going on like your land battles. All these ships are generally oar-driven, so what that means is you can turn on the spot, it means the attack is more focused on boarding and ramming attacking, although you still have ranged attacks.”