Men of War II News

n RTS with an all-timer of a name, the original Men of War launched in 2009 and was very decent indeed (with a standalone expansion, Assault Squad, we rated highly). But those men just didn't get enough war the first time around: The sequel Men of War 2 has been in development for several years at Best Way, and was supposed to release this month...
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Greetings, Commanders,

After carefully analyzing your feedback, that we’ve gathered throughout public playtests, and running some additional QA rounds, we’ve made a tough decision to postpone the release of Men of War II to next year.

At this point, Men of War II is content and feature complete and includes 3 narrative and 2 historical campaigns, Conquest and Raid dynamic campaigns, each playable in 4 variations of competing nations, 15 PvP and 8 PvE multiplayer modes with over 20 maps and more. The dev team has been working tirelessly, but it’s a lot of content and features to polish, especially given that BestWay employees have to deal with difficult conditions in their home country of Ukraine. We simply need more time to fix bugs before we release the game. Thank you so much for understanding and for your continuous support of Men of War II !

Maxim Kamensky, Producer of Men of War II at Best Way, explains:
“We loved working with our dedicated community of fans during multiple Playtests and we gathered immense amounts of data and feedback. In fact, we received so many great suggestions we decided to implement, that the original schedule did not allow us to iron out all the bugs and issues in time for the September release. We feel that our fans deserve to receive a game in a completely polished and bug-free state and ask them for just a little more patience to allow us to deliver such a high quality product.”

We at FULQRUM Publishing would like to thank you all for taking part in the playtests, and for all the valuable feedback that you’ve shared.

In the meantime, we cordially invite you to join the official Men of War II Discord server if you'd like to be among the first to learn all news and chat with us, we always try to answer all questions we can there (or here in the Steam Discussions as well).

We will see you on the battlefield soon.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1128860/Men_of_War_II

Greetings Commanders!

We want to thank everyone who has participated in the Final Open Beta so far - it looks like most people were having a lot of fun with the game, and we have gathered a lot of extremely useful feedback as well. We very much appreciate all the well-meaning criticism and suggestions, and rest assured, we will keep working on improving the game until release and beyond.

The Open Beta was officially scheduled to end today, but we have decided to keep the playtest publicly available until tomorrow, August 15, 7 pm CEST / 6 pm BST / 10 am PT / 01 pm ET.

We hope you will take up the opportunity for extra playtime and will keep enjoying the game! But we implore you, please, once you have played the Beta, share your thoughts on it with us. The best way to do that is via this questionnaire (especially if you have been playing since the start of the Beta), but feel free to post here in the comments or in Steam discussions, or come join the official Men of War II Discord server where you can not just chat with our team and other fans of the game, but also find team-mates for multiplayer matches or try to take on the Fulqrum Publishing team throughout the Final Beta.

We look forward to seeing you on the battlefield during the remainder of the Open Beta, the extended playtest, and later this year on full release! Remember to add the game to your wishlists!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1128860/Men_of_War_II/

Greetings Commanders,

The Final Beta for Men of War II now receives a small, but important update. The most important change concerns the Classic match setup mode - all units' Command Points costs have been lowered, and Manpower generation in a match will continue for longer, meaning it should be possible to field more units and keep your battles more dynamic throughout a match.

We are looking for as much feedback about the Classic mode as we can get - if you have played the pre-update version, please fill in this questionnaire after you have tried the updated one. We will also appreciate any opinions or suggestions you share with us here in Steam Discussions, or even better, on the official Men of War II Discord server!

The update causes a short downtime, but the Beta will be playable again in ~30-60 minutes. We hope you understand, as besides the rebalancing of the Classic mode, the update also fixes several reported issues:

[h3]Update Changelog:[/h3]

• Rebalancing the Classic mode
  
• Fixed an issue with unit details not displaying when editing a battalion
  
• Fixed possible sound distortion/noises in particular cases
  
• Fixed issue with missing localization on first game start
  
• Fixed several issues with multiplayer lobby localization
  
• Added missing localization to the "hide UI" button
  

Greetings, Commanders!
The time has come and Men of War II is back with the third and final time to get hands on with the game, prior to its release. But giving you the opportunity to enjoy the game is not the only reason we are running the Beta - we need to learn what you think of the latest changes, so we can polish and tweak the game before its full launch.

We cannot stress this enough - your feedback from the first Multiplayer Tech Test in March and the subsequent Open Beta in May has been absolutely invaluable, and in this Final Open Beta, we would especially like to learn what you think about the two big features developers prepared solely based on your suggestions and comments - a new Match Setup Mode, called "Classic", and a new setting, dubbed "Realism".

We read all your feedback and each and every single player can have an impact on the final version of the game. We hope the changes implemented throughout the 3 playtests have proven our dedication to making Men of War II as enjoyable for our fans as possible.

Therefore we implore you, please, once you have played the Beta, share your thoughts with us here in the comments or Steam discussions, or come join the official Men of War II Discord server where you can not only chat with our team and other fans of the game, but also find team-mates for multiplayer matches or try to take on the Fulqrum Publishing team throughout the Final Beta.

And now, without further ado, let us introduce the biggest new features this Beta brings - both available through the custom lobby:


The "Match Setup Mode" is used to switch between "PvP" (the standard Men of War II playstyle, where you can choose from a wide selection of battalions), "Combined Arms" (which we introduced in the previous Open Beta, where each nation has a single battalion you can heavily customize) and now, "Classic" - which has been highly requested by the community and is reminiscent of the previous Men of War games.

Match Setup Mode selection in the Lobby Settings menu

When starting a "Classic" match, you will not be asked to select a battalion, just the nation whose army you want to play. This is similar to Combined Arms, however, there is nothing to customize before the match starts here. Once in the game, you will have all units from your nation's army available through a selection menu on the right-hand side of the screen.



You are not limited by timed echelons in calling in units either, however, each unit type has its own individual timer (so you cannot call in heavy tanks right from the start of the match, for example), and you cannot call in units without any limitations, as each of them costs a certain amount of "Manpower", which you regenerate at different paces throughout the match.

[h2]Important note about the "Classic" Match Setup[/h2]
A crucial fact to remember about the "Classic" setup - the main reason for this Final Beta is for us to get your feedback on it. Developers will be changing its balancing before the final release based on your comments and suggestions. In fact, there are already 2 versions prepared and will be switched on Saturday (we will inform you here and on Discord ahead of time). It would be extremely appreciated if you played both and share your opinion with us using this form - filling it out won't take long and it will help us immensely!



We have introduced a whole new category in the Lobby, and that is "Game Settings" - which can now be switched between "Competitive" (the experience you are familiar with from previous Men of War II playtests) and the newly added setting called "Realism".

Game Settings selection in the Lobby Settings menu

This affects many gameplay features, some noticeable outright (such as different indicators on units), some more subtle (such as the inability to see if your unit has been fully detected after firing), and some major changes such as each unit having a different maximum firing range. When playing with the Realism setting turned on, even heavy artillery has to move closer to the front and will not be able to fire across the whole map.

The full list of effects when switching to the "Realism" setting:

• Removed health bars for vehicles.
  
• Changes in weapon settings - changed damage and range, higher chance of critical hits.
  
• New vehicle destruction system.
  
• Increased unit repair time.
  
• Added a more realistic vision system for units, allowing them to physically hide behind objects.
  
• The average range of vision has been increased.
  
• Removed some indicators and tooltips in the interface.
  
• Adjusted dynamic characteristics of all vehicles.
  

And last but not least, even though we have previously said there will be no new content available in the Final Beta besides these two features, we decided to give you a little bit extra anyway - one more map has been made available, so everyone, feel free to visit the Suburb!



Join the test now by clicking “Request Access” on Men of War II Steam page and the "Men of War II Playtest" will be added to your library, which you can install and run immediately. If you have already participated in the Multiplayer Tech Test and/or the Open Beta, you already have it in your library and can simply install (or update) it and play.

To sum up, here is the full list of content available in the Final Beta:

[h2]Final Beta Content:[/h2]
[h3]2x Game Settings[/h3]

• Competitive
  
• Realism
  

[h3]3x PvP Match Setup Mode[/h3]

• PvP (typical Men of War II experience using the battalion system)
  
• Combined Arms (single customizable battalion for each nation)
  
• Classic (all units from the player’s nation available in a match)
  

[h3]4x PvP Game Mode[/h3]

• Front Line
  
• Assault Zones
  
• Combat
  
• Incursion - only available in PvP match setup (“Battalions”)
  

[h3]1x PvE Game Mode[/h3]

• Line Defense (listed in the lobby menu as "Special Battle Mode")
  

[h3]8x Maps[/h3]

• Airfield
  
• Bazerville
  
• Borovaya River
  
• Carpathians
  
• The Coast
  
• Farmland
  
• Winter March
  
• Suburb
  

[h3]3x Single Player / Co-op Missions[/h3]

• Ambush
  
• Battle of Coisson
  
• Towards Freedom
  

[h2]Changes & Fixes:[/h2]

• A new enhanced lighting engine with new skyboxes and better quality of existing content.
  
• Bunkers, pillboxes and observation towers can now be built as defensive structures on all maps.
  
• Additional match settings in the lobby: players can choose the weather and time of day for each battle.
  
• Added medical transport for each nation and a Soviet self-propelled heavy howitzer SU-152.
  
• New animations for various units and situations, such as artillery reloading and infantry dying in water.
  
• New buildings added to maps, including a supply depot, infirmary, fuel station, etc.
  
• New models for artillery shells, grenades and bombs.
  
• Various new sound effects.
  
• Improved pathfinding for vehicles.
  
• Balancing and refinement to single-player missions and multiplayer modes.
  
• Performance improvements.
  
• Bug fixes, general polish and small tweaks.
  

Make sure you wishlist the game, and we look forward to seeing you on the battlefield, commanders!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1128860/Men_of_War_II/