Shogun 2 Total War

[Sacha]

Does anyone have this game yet?

It looks incredibly awesome from what I can tell, putting all previous TW installments to shame. Looks like they finally managed to get the AI right too, even on easy difficulty it looks like it puts up quite a fight. No more units standing still under a barrage of arrow/artillery fire, no more blob attacks, no more cavalry charging headlong into a forest of spears, etc. And the units have Japanese voices

Sadly, I'm going to have to invest in a whole new desktop PC before I can even dream of playing this... my laptop can barely manage MTW2 on low graphical settings...

[Ender]

I only played the demo, but Im planning on picking it up as soon as possible. It was tons of fun and what I saw did seem like a pretty hefty improvement over the two TW games Ive played to death in the past (Rome, Medieval II).

[Adriddae]

I'm still stuck on MTW2... The Lord of the rings mod is eating up my time. The other mod that I'd like to play would be the Europa Barbarorum one. That looks like fun.

[Ramiel]

Does anyone have this game yet?

It looks incredibly awesome from what I can tell, putting all previous TW installments to shame. Looks like they finally managed to get the AI right too, even on easy difficulty it looks like it puts up quite a fight. No more units standing still under a barrage of arrow/artillery fire, no more blob attacks, no more cavalry charging headlong into a forest of spears, etc. And the units have Japanese voices

Sadly, I'm going to have to invest in a whole new desktop PC before I can even dream of playing this... my laptop can barely manage MTW2 on low graphical settings...

Easy is very different than the normal Total War you are used to. On Easy I had two different clans make a pronged attack at my two provinces at about turn 4. Needless to say I didnt have the numbers to effectively fight off two large armies in two different provinces at once. I actually had to make peace and offer a hostage with my Long Historical Enemy so I could focus on my Trade Partner turned Enemy. Diplomacy definitely plays a bigger part in the Campaign now. 

I went straight onto normal and was surprised to find three clan armies bearing down and just taking the two provinces I had on turn 2! But now that I have my Japanese Head on, I think I will try another faction on Normal since I have become Shogun of Japan on my Shimazu/Easy Campaign


As for the battles themselves, its a nerdgasm. I have heard people speak of Homing Arrows. I call BS to that. If you watch carefully then you can guess where the arrows are meant to land, and they will always land there. They do NOT change course mid-flight! That said they can be deadly accurate. To me it looks like the AI now calculates where the enemy *Should be* and fires the arrows there. Of course it is not always correct since the enemy AI often moves around to escape the arrows or they might suddenly stop effectively making the arrows fall far far too wide of the mark. (Homing Arrows means they should change flight course and hit them anyway doesnt it, well it doesnt - EVEN ON EASY!).

Also you REALLY need to get your head into the Daiymo headset for Shoggy2. Think nothing of wasting Ashugari units. Sacrifice them so your Samurai can finish the unit off/deliver the killing blow/ or simply sacrifice them so your Samurai doesnt take the casualties. Ashugari are to be wasted utterly. You will always want a few of them to take the brunt of the enemy Bow/Matchlock troops especially. I have found them to be good at holding up the enemy too so you can get your Samurai into a good flanking position, or just from X to Y.

So far, the only really bad thing I have found is that Mastery of the Arts is far far too slow for my liking. But then it could be because I like to 'research all techs' so thats personal bias.

[Sacha]

I always have meatgrinder units in my armies in the RTW (well, RTR mod) and M2TW. In RTR I fight my battles similar to the way the Romans did. Checkerboard formation with hastati up front, principes in the main battle line and triarii as the last line, with velites/slingers/skirmishers peppering the enemy before retreating and mercenary auxilia plugging any gaps. To finish, mercenary cavalry and equites hammering the enemy units that are wavering.

And suffice to say that in my M2TW battles, you really do not want to be a lower tier spearman. They die by the dozens trying to hold down the enemy while my heavy infantry and cavalry smash up the enemy

There's something strangely satisfying about overseeing the battlefield when it is littered with piles of corpses, both your enemy's and your own. Most of my generals develop the sanguinary characteristics... I wonder why

[Fleugs]

I'll (hopefully) be playing it tomorrow afternoon, so I'll let you know. But from the looks of it they made the game more realistic, and less steamrolling (like the other Total War games). I just hope they didn't invest the largest part of their time in the battles, because I like a complex campaign too.

[Sacha]

I've heard people saying the campaign AI is a lot better too. Allied AI factions now do stuff like pronged attacks and such, which I've never seen them do in RTW or MTW2, even on difficult settings.

[squishymaster]

My only question is when you are on the province map is army movement province by province like in Medieval Total War 1 or is it with movement points like in the other game?

[Alpha]

I bought  a copy not long ago. Won't get it for about a week, too bad. Played the demo.

[Ramiel]

I've heard people saying the campaign AI is a lot better too. Allied AI factions now do stuff like pronged attacks and such, which I've never seen them do in RTW or MTW2, even on difficult settings.

Yes they do, they even support your own conquests by sending armies to get other provinces/defend yours.

My only question is when you are on the province map is army movement province by province like in Medieval Total War 1 or is it with movement points like in the other game?

No. MTW1 is the last game in the series that did that.  Rome onwards is done by 'movement points'.

[Peri]

I've heard people saying the campaign AI is a lot better too. Allied AI factions now do stuff like pronged attacks and such, which I've never seen them do in RTW or MTW2, even on difficult settings.

One huge improvement in my opinions are sieges. Be it because of the different design of castles or just because AI is better, it's definitely no longer easy to close your borders just by lightly garrisoning your castles winning even against incredible odds and focusing on your chosen front as you could do in MTW2 even at very hard/very hard. Now every open front is a serious business.

I tried a multiplayer campaign with a friend at very hard and we had to give up. We could literally do nothing besides recruiting and suiciding thousands of ashigaru in the hope to slow down the enemies but losing ground steadily. We started again at hard and we're doing good for the moment, but we're about to get squeezed between 2 huge clans and then it will be a problem.

Diplomacy is definitely not an option and one is truly forced to consider giving peace to a weaker clan just for the sake of not getting to border the ones after them, and things like this.

All in all, I am very satisfied. Played just a couple of days but it's damn amazing.

[Ramiel]

Definitely castle design.

Western thinking = Keep attackers out and kill them.
Japanese thinking = Invite them inside and massacre them.

The problem is, the japanese thinking works! infact, it works too damn well!


Your a very brave player to do Hard or VH on Multi

[Peri]

Definitely castle design.

Western thinking = Keep attackers out and kill them.
Japanese thinking = Invite them inside and massacre them.

The problem is, the japanese thinking works! infact, it works too damn well!

That's right, but too often I noticed that in MTW2 defending a castle or a city was just too easy even with tiny armies, as the attackers would seldom take the time necessary to build all the siege equipment, and attack just with a couple ladders and a couple rams even when their army is insanely huge.

On the other hand in Shogun there is no need for siege weapons, so they can attack the cities right away as soon as they reach them. This, coupled with the fact that the average siege is quite a bloodbath for both sides, makes defense truly a challenge. Everything requires a lot of planning as you must be very careful when leaving cities ungarrisoned or only lightly.

I definitely like it :p

[Sacha]

I don't even bother defending my walls in MTW2. I just block off all streets leading to my town center with spearmen/pikemen, and have some archers behind them. Especially playing as Scotland this tactic works like a charm. I've held down cities with no more than 4-5 units of Scottish pike militia, and some archers.

[Fleugs]

Good game, interesting AI. Although it sometimes makes dumb moves, like criss-crossing it's army (moving units from the right flank to the left and simultaneously vice versa - this is archer party). The interesting thing is that practically everyone fights with the same units, so you have to win on tactics and strategy.

Although I must say that defending a castle can be pretty easy. Just go for archer mayhem so they're a bit softened when they climb (yup, they climb like little monkeys) your walls. Then massacre them as they enter your castle, and meanwhile prepare your cavalry to hammer their routing units. Don't feel overly confident though. The AI has been based on Sun Tzu's logic and that sometimes leads to surprising things, both in the campaign-map mode and the battlemode.

Another cool part is that at a given point, when you are very renown and accordingly own a lot of provinces, practically /everyone/ declares war on you. It's very hard to actually achieve the goals of the campaign when you near this point, because you will face thousands and thousands of samurai charging towards your fortresses.