Looking at some of the kit ideas like the Captain, Mercenary, etc... it seems like there might be an aspect of this game that incorporates henchmen or armies. (There was another KIT idea that was a front-line fighter desgined to breach enemy shield walls, etc)

I would love to see that, but I'm wondering how hard that would be to implement.

Any ideas?

I agree with you on this, it seems the evidence is mounting on IWD2 becoming a glorious bloodbath! Not only in the kits either:
The storyline settles around a rampaging horde of Orcs and the great unwashed, that sort of gives a big clue.
IWD 1 was pretty manic in most aswell...at least compared to BG it was.

However i don't think anything extra will be implemented, i would liek to see some better AI for the larger hordes, so that maybe they have some sort of order and formation instead of a free for all. However to be honest i don't think anything new will be included.

worg riders as new enemies sound very cool
You can kick them from their saddles and now you have to fight the worg and the rider seperately :)

it would be cool, and difficult, to confront a group of orcs with a shield wall, flanking archers, and a courie of worg riders coming downhill at your party! (drooling at the possibilities)

On the Worg thing ... I read somewhere that it was considered 1 construct, so that the goblin & worg would live & die together as one creature.

Mathetais, it's a hack & slash game, not a strategy game. There won't be anything as complicated as that, and you won't have your own army either. 6 NPCs tops.

As for the worg riders... The latest words is that they can be separated.

Yes it would be nice commanding armys breaching enemy walls formations and ambushes and.....I'm starting to turn this game into Stronghold lol.A good ole hack and slash 6npc party will be nice though.....I think.

Mass combat is awesome.

It's really cool to see your party of six Jedi Knights (all wielding dual-bladed killswords...err, lightsabers) dance their way though an entire army.

The circus has cotton-candy-on-a-stick.
Lord of the Rings had ripe-meat-off-the-bone.

Iwd2 will have orc-on-a-stick.

I also think it'll mainly be hack'n'slash crpg rather than a real time strategy game. However, the outstanding feature in IWD are the partly lengthy fights against large numbers of enemies.
It would definitely be a challenge to give them a neat AI to keep the fights difficult and demanding. I think fighting a six char party vs a large number of smart, maybe even organised, enemies is definitely a challenge.

Smarter organized enemies are always funner(and harder)I think the person who posted this topic was hoping for something like what they did in the kind of unpopular Soulbringer game(anyone remember it)in a few spots in that game you had 6 or 7 people you couldnt control fighting a dozen or so enemies and you were hacking along side of them and you moved from small gathering of enemies to small gatherings and those few places in the game were fun.I would hope for something like that in this game but it really....when I think about, just doesn't fit.

~Edit~
Now that I think about it one of the reasons I thought Ultima Online was so popular cause you could have 20 or so friends battling it out in a PvP battle with anouther small army.And you had horses maybe thats what some of the people here want....I dunno I'm just an idiot.....

[This message has been edited by cirian16 (edited February 24, 2002).]

Yeah it would be cool if you could fight organised Armies. But then that would be a different game. If you want a game like that then send an e-mail full of ideas to Sierra or Firefly. I am quite happy with a mildly improved version of the origional.
I think if we changed it to much then it would no longer contain the uniqueness that makes this series of games so outstanding.

Mass combat is a blast! When I started playing Ultima Online (many moons ago) that was one of the few things that kept me coming back - the assaults by monsters on the towns. It was fun holding bridges against them, and fighting alongside the othe rplayers in the town.

Too bad all the PK-ing soured it on me!

I agree, mass combat is cool. That's the reason why the fights vs. Yaga-Shura and vs. the horde in Watcher's Keep in BG-2 ToB are among my favourites. It's a challenge to fight against a huge number of enemies and a orcs and goblins invasion would make this pretty likely.

[This message has been edited by Ragusa (edited March 08, 2002).]