Wargaming For the second year in a row, he has not participated in Gamomir , And organizes its own festival in Moscow WGFEST. Despite this, you can still meet representatives of the Belarusian company at the largest gaming exhibition in the CIS. This time the reason was Total War: Arena.
Gameplay trailer for the game.
The wall on the wall
It is difficult to imagine a series Total War Without a global card. The step -by -step construction of their empire and the creation of a huge army for some players were almost the most important and interesting elements of gameplay. Nevertheless, developers from Creative Assembly We decided on the experiment: they removed the “global” component and focused on large -scale battles, focusing on multiplayer.
Fights in Total War: Arena are held in 10 by 10 format, and under the command of each player there are three units. At first it may seem that this is a little: in other parts of the series, the number of formations that you could control every second reached twenty. But this is an illusion: in each detachment there can be up to a hundred units, and on average the number of warriors on the map exceeds three thousand. Therefore, the battles in the "Arena" seem truly global.
So far there is only one mode in the game – 10×10 with two points in which you can play with a group of friends up to three people. But the developers assure that in the future they will please with new types of fights.
Despite the scale of the battles, you don't feel an unnecessary screw in a huge car. The number of players and detachments is selected optimally: you cherish each unit, because it can lead the team to victory. But it will not work to ruin the whole enemy army alone – you have to act together.
Here the main problem Total War: Arena pops up. Any online team games require not only a high level of personal skills of each player separately, but also the coherence of actions. You need to think not only on micro, but also at the macro level. And this is wonderful: nine inexperienced commanders under the leadership of the tenth experienced can easily defeat the disparate enemy. For coordination of combat maneuvers, there is all the necessary arsenal: before and during the battle on the map, you can draw lines indicating certain groups of attacks and points that should be occupied, and orders can be given in text chat.
You should not bag when choosing a place for appearing: another player can block the position that attracted faster.
But now it is obvious that not everyone is ready to play the team. One will begin to swear with a person who showed the initiative, the other simply will not listen to the Timmates, and the third will devote his time to drawing the genitals on a tactical map: a rare game does without such demonstrations of wit.
So far, Arena at the closed stage of the beta test, the level of motivation of the players is naturally higher, so such embarrassment does not happen so often. But with access to open access with Free-to-Play, the game will attract a lot of attention-including from the side of not the most adequate people. How to deal with this is still unclear.
There are not many elements of interaction on the maps. There are towers whose capture shines through the nearby territory, and there are stakes for which, due to simple inattention, you can accidentally cook your detachments and lose half of the personnel.
Stone, scissors, paper, lizard, spock
Suppose you still came across adequate Timmates. During the preparation, everyone chose the best place of appearance, you discussed the action plan and are ready to go into battle. Although the maps are created on the basis of real historical places of ancient battles, their dimensions were adjusted to the needs of the game: it will not be necessary to run to the collision point for several minutes, but the necessary scope for maneuvers remained.
Finally comes the most stressful stage – the battle. Now we need the same microcontrol: where to lead each detachment, whom to attack, and whom to cover, what skills of commanders to use. But the victory over the enemy is ensured not so much by reaction as “reading” the situation and knowledge of the opponent's capabilities.
At any time, the plan compiled by your team (if you had it at all) can go under the tail after the enemy’s sudden attack from the flank. Then you will have to get out and improvise on the go, saving your strength and carefully monitoring their fighting spirit.
So far, the game has three ancient fractions: ancient Rome, ancient Greece and barbarians, and everyone has their own perks and weaknesses. Barbarians, for example, show themselves best in ambushes, but are unlikely to survive in an open fight with well -equipped Romans. At the head of every small army is one of the ten great commanders who have, of course, their unique skills. For example, the cavalry under the command of Alexander of Macedon can be built into the wedge, and Caesar archers are reloading faster.
"Arena" is related to WG projects not only a ten -level pumping system. So, for example, the game does not have Pay-to-Win. All that can be bought for money is skins for units, balanced premium squads, “gold” and booster for accelerated earnings of silver and experience.
Each fraction has a unique branch of detachments, very similar to branches in other projects from WG. As in the games of the series World of , To open new units, you must first improve the experience currently earned in battle. There are 159 detachments in the game: 143 ordinary and 16 premium. As developers assure, they are all perfectly balanced and differ only in game features and the experience earning.
The detachments are divided https://jammy-jack-casino.co.uk/ into five classes – near and distant battle, cavalry, artillery and military dogs – which, in turn, are divided into subclasses with their own characteristics and tactics. Greek spearmen, for example, are good in defense against horse units, but vulnerable to the dogs of barbarians.
Even more screenshots from Total War: Arena
Even more video and Total War: Arena trailers
After in 2016 they announced that Total War: Arena will be published under the Wargaming Alliance brand, the game had to be re-gone through the alpha test stage. However, this cooperation went to the “arena” only to benefit, and not only in technical terms. Now the developers have a clear plan for the development of the project. It is no secret that new factions (Japan are on the way), new modes and clans will come to the game. And, most likely, this year we are waiting for an open stage of testing, at which everyone can get acquainted with the game closer.
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