By Jim Rossignol on September 14th, 2009 at 2:06 pm.
Today on Obscure Russian Strategy Watch we’ve got a blinder in the form of Real Warfare: 1242. It’s a kind of Medieval: Total Russian Bloom, in which blurrily-lit real-time soldiers do strategy in each others pauldrons, unto death. Awesomely the game is based entirely on the life and times of one of Rus’ most splendid medieval heroes, Alexander Nevsky, who famously thrashed European invaders and negotiated a useful not-getting-pasted pact with The Golden Horde. The 1c announcement explains: “The player’s goal is to direct Alexander Nevsky through meticulously recreated historic battlegrounds and achieve the greatest of victories by repelling the attacks of Teutonic and Swedish knights, bringing Lithuania to peace and eliminating every single invader in 1242.” The first video of the game in motion is buried beneath the rich earth of this post.
14/09/2009 at 14:17 Lobotomist says:
Lovely. Hope its at least as good as Medieval:Total war
14/09/2009 at 14:36 HexagonalBolts says:
looks identical, even down to the big flags in the middle of troops and the style of the maps – I just hope the path finding is better!
14/09/2009 at 14:44 Daniel Rivas says:
Is there any word on whether there’s something similar to the Total War campaign map, or if it’s just real time battles?
14/09/2009 at 14:58 Rosti says:
How long ’til the first “historically accurate” giant enemy crab mod, then?
Looks rather neat though. Will be watching with beady eyes. And hey, ’42.
14/09/2009 at 15:00 SirDorius says:
Looks nice. We need more Total War clones
14/09/2009 at 15:29 Karry says:
Eh…”real” warfare they say…armies in that trailer are too frickin huge to be realistically historical. Not to mention that ridiculously pointless castle in the beginning.
14/09/2009 at 15:39 We Fly Spitfires says:
Total War, Russian Style? If it’s got the ability to imbreed a la Medieval: Total War then sign me up!
14/09/2009 at 16:04 Hodge says:
MY EYES! THE BURNING!
This is from the King’s Bounty guys, right? Colour me interested.
14/09/2009 at 16:08 Jim Rossignol says:
This is not the King’s Bounty team.
14/09/2009 at 16:09 Pijama says:
ROSSIYAAAAAAAAAA
Alexander Nevsky was so damn awesome that even the soviets used his name on their medals.
…and he is a freaking saint. He must have threatened to kick Stalin’s arse from beyond the grave. xD
14/09/2009 at 16:32 Numbair says:
This looks very, very similar to XIII century (which I did not play though). Is there any word on a campaign , turn based mapsy part.
14/09/2009 at 16:47 Dreamhacker says:
Wow, I’ve got to try this. It’s going to be interesting to see how the medieval swedes are portrayed, considering I have a genetic connection to them…
Would be kind of funny if they were shown as over-the-top evil scumbags :P
14/09/2009 at 17:00 Derf says:
The video is awful. It looks identical to Medieval 2.
14/09/2009 at 17:08 Nimic says:
@Karry
Too large? Not sure what you’re on about. A few thousand men on each side seems about right to me.
14/09/2009 at 17:56 Dr.Danger says:
This is a continuation of the XIII century series Death or Glory and Russich. Very underrated game and far superior to Total War in a tactical sense. There is no campaign map or economy just great battles.
14/09/2009 at 18:02 Brass Gerbil says:
Easy, Jim. If your prose gets any more purple you’ll have to make a dinosaur suit out of it.
14/09/2009 at 18:27 Wooly says:
Derf says:
“The video is awful. It looks identical to Medieval 2.”
HUH? How is that a bad thing? As far as I’m concerned, we *need* more Medieval 2 clones!
Btw, concerning the XIII series, the gold edition of it was just released on Steam recently. DRM-free as well, if I recall correctly. I recently bought it, but haven’t gotten around to playing it yet.
14/09/2009 at 18:28 Magnus says:
@Karry:
Battles could often number in thousands of men, with certain battles thought to have involved tens of thousands.
As demonstrated by these two battles which took place in 1241.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mohi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Legnica
I think Europes population was fairly bouyant at this time (which would mean plenty of footsoldiers available), but would suffer greatly from the mongol invasion (again, as shown in those two links!).
14/09/2009 at 19:41 unclelou says:
Battles could often number in thousands of men, with certain battles thought to have involved tens of thousands.
Exactly – judging the video by comparing the armies to the Total War games, that’s 2000 men at best per side on display here. Which is tiny.
14/09/2009 at 19:42 unclelou says:
And different era, I know (namely Empire’s era), but there were more than 500.000 men in the battle at Leipzig in 1813. 500.000! That makes even Empire’s largest battles look like a tiny skirmish.
14/09/2009 at 20:17 Karry says:
“Battles could often number in thousands of men, with certain battles thought to have involved tens of thousands.
As demonstrated by these two battles which took place in 1241.”
And what those battles have to do with Russia ? When European knights from various orders attacked Russia – they had at times from 50 to 200 knights, and every knight had servants, squires, and so on. I suppose if you throw everyone together and just count the heads – maybe there’ll be several thousands, but thats not how it was in reality.
14/09/2009 at 20:25 Noc says:
This looks suspiciously brightly colored for something with the word “Real” in the title. Realism is brown, guys! Like obv.
14/09/2009 at 20:52 Guy says:
Not realistic? What’s not realistic is horses charging straight into men [1:27] -basic physics and experiments show us that a horse charging into a man usually kills the horse too. Or the godlike command and control element. etc.
Anyway, looks rather fun and, hey!, chivalry! Awesome. All those pretty colours.
14/09/2009 at 20:58 Subject 706 says:
@Karry
“When European knights from various orders attacked Russia – they had at times from 50 to 200 knights”
Plus a rather large amount of men-at-arms and other levies. At the “Battle of the Ice” in 1240, the crusader force was about 4000 strong, but most were (as in most medieval european armies) not knights. The situation was the same for the russians they faced. Nevskys force was about 5000 men, most were novgorodian militia. So what are you on about??
14/09/2009 at 22:10 damien says:
i was asking around in RPS/steam the other night about XIII century. it’s focus on tactical decisions, unit mentalities / morale and very tight / ruthless AI sounded very interesting to me.
considering how little i’ve played empire:tw, xiii century and this 1242 sequel might be up my alley.
14/09/2009 at 22:48 Javier-de-Ass says:
yeah, definitely check out XIII Century Death or Glory (and this). it’s way too hard for me, but I still love it.
14/09/2009 at 22:48 sinister agent says:
“repelling the attacks of Teutonic and Swedish knights, bringing Lithuania to peace and eliminating every single invader in 1242.”
I’m in two minds about how fun this could be. Every single invader? What if there’s one hiding in a ditch under a dead horse? You’d have to start all over again. Dedication is great and all, but let’s not be unreasonable about this.
14/09/2009 at 23:08 Dorian Cornelius Jasper says:
Fewer Dune 2 derivatives, more Total War clones. That’s how it oughta be.
15/09/2009 at 02:22 Fumarole says:
Fewer Dune 2 derivatives, more Total War clones. That’s how it oughta be.
Wise words, there.
15/09/2009 at 04:52 Mixmastermind says:
Ah Nevsky, pretty much the only Nobleman in Eastern Europe who didn’t die horribly as the Mongols invaded.
15/09/2009 at 05:04 Vinraith says:
@Dorian
Agreed, though I’d prefer that the TW clones retain the turn based strategic map.
15/09/2009 at 06:18 LostSoviet says:
@ Pijama
Nevsky was an incredibly convenient historical hero. Teutonic Knights were foreign, German invaders. Who was Stalin up against in 1941-45?
15/09/2009 at 09:54 Guy says:
Yes but Nevsky was a rather inconventient hero during the 1939-41 Hitler-Stalin Pact. The Soviet film about Nevsky was suppressed when made in 1938 and only released in 1941.
Whilst I’m all for TW clones I’d rather like them to shake up the formula a bit. Theres a lot more that can be done with TW than the TW team actually do.
15/09/2009 at 12:35 tigershuffle says:
Looks interesting.
Im still waiting for the game that has Mount & Blade solo player in a Total War battle / universe! Just been able to command an organised rabble in a toe to toe battle. Now that would be cool.
Devs…….get back to work!!!
16/09/2009 at 05:41 LostSoviet says:
@ Guy
Check out “Icebreaker” by Viktor Suvorov. The guy has a curiously well-supported theory of Stalin angling to start a war with the Germans and Hitler beating him to the Blitzkrieg punch. “German-defeating” Nevsky fits right into the propaganda machine, pact or no pact – which, Suvorov claims, Stalin himself referred to as “tricking the Devil himself.”
@ tigershuffle
Maybe if M&B Warband does well, the little world will keep expanding. Yesterday, single player. Today, team deathmatch. Tomorrow, MMO with large-scale battles? One can only hope… and buy the games ;)