First look: Warrior Kings: Battles

Empire Interactive has today released the first gameplay information on Warrior Kings: Battles--the sequel to Warrior Kings , which was released in April. The game is set in the Europe-inspired universe of Orbis, and it will allow players to command huge offensive and defensive armies using a new advanced control system that will purportedly do away with the frantic mouse clicking normally associated with games in the genre.

Although it's not yet known if developer Black Cactus will rectify one of the major shortcomings of Warrior Kings by including a skirmish mode in which players can challenge the game's AI, a lot of time has clearly been spent ensuring that the multiplayer mode is even stronger this time around. In addition to the standard skirmish mode, Warrior Kings: Battles will include a new "valhalla" mode in which players spend a number of resource points building their army before a game and then head straight into battle once the game starts. In this mode, any units killed will respawn after a certain amount of time, thus preventing players from having to leave the scene of a battle to train new units back at their base.

The other feature that Black Cactus is clearly devoting a lot of time to is the artificial intelligence of the generals in the game. As we 2880567reported back in September, each general will have his own personality and be capable of probing players' defenses for weaknesses while building and maintaining his own armies and economies.

Warrior Kings: Battles is scheduled for release in North America and Europe in February 2003. For more information, check out our Warrior Kings of the game.