Shogun 2 Total war

[Path]

It's not as bad as it used to be, though; in Empire I used to sell off land on the first turn to avoid having half the world declare war on me. In Shogun 2 the AI will generally honour alliances, as long as you understand the mechanics to keep it happy.

ie. Constant tribute? That's pretty much the only thing that works in the earlier versions.

The main exploit in Empire (it didn't work quite as well in Napoleon due to the way the game was setup, but there was rarely a need for it) was to offer military access to another faction. The AI valued military access so highly that it would never voluntarily break the agreement, i.e. declare war on you. Need a secure border? Give them military access and you're set to go. Experienced players generally avoided using this since it destroyed what little challenge the game had to offer, but many were happy to exploit it.

[Sosseres]

Sigh, I just can't get multiplayer to work. :/ Any suggestions? I can connect to the multiplayer area, join a MM game lobby (most of the time). Then it won't go further due to a crash or desync.

oh it also gets stuck on Opponent found, arranging battle. Forcing me to restart the game, which takes like a minute. Kind of frustrating.

edit, yes I have the ports open.

edit 2, managed to play 1 game. Lost horribly, even though I had the better unit composition, probably because he started on the side with the melee bonus objective.

edit 3, I now almost never get a lobby. But I do find an opponent. Getting stuck here sucks. Oh but if opponent gets lobby he can force start, nice, except I only got my general and nothing else (my army value was above 5k it seems)...

edit 4, I managed to play a couple of games. Opponent force started and I got swept in. Sucks when all I have is my general due to incorrectly configured armies though. Try taking a castle with only the general. Hard even if opponent doesn't have units.

edit 5, I now forswear multiplayer until they patch it or a work around to load the lobby is around.

[AceHigh]

Finally got to play the game.

There is one thing that struck me: This game's biggest strength is also it's biggest weakness: lack of faction diversity. It doesn't matter what clan you chose, the units are identical while some clans get a stat boost on specific units. After all it's all Japan and pretty much a civil war. However it is the game's biggest strength, because balancing must have been a piece of cake for the developers.

The gameplay was good, AI is more or less competent, the graphics are improving with each game. So it's a good game. However it still failed to captivate me the same way Rome: Total war did. I seek the diversity of army units between different factions, and that is the part where "Rome" and "Medieval" settings really shined.

Maybe in the future they will release some expansion where you can fight other real states like Korean and Chinese? That would be more interesting, although I know that at that time Koreans bitch slapped Japanese in naval warfare with their turtle ships, but maybe you could get a "what if" dynamic campaign or something.

It's almost like the history is fucking with us by first fascinating us with the age of samurai, cool looking katanas and all other shit like that, just to later punch us in the face with the fact that (with the exception of Korean war) they never tried to conquer their neighbours.

[Sosseres]

Finally got to play the game.

There is one thing that struck me: This game's biggest strength is also it's biggest weakness: lack of faction diversity. It doesn't matter what clan you chose, the units are identical while some clans get a stat boost on specific units. After all it's all Japan and pretty much a civil war. However it is the game's biggest strength, because balancing must have been a piece of cake for the developers.

The gameplay was good, AI is more or less competent, the graphics are improving with each game. So it's a good game. However it still failed to captivate me the same way Rome: Total war did. I seek the diversity of army units between different factions, and that is the part where "Rome" and "Medieval" settings really shined.

Maybe in the future they will release some expansion where you can fight other real states like Korean and Chinese? That would be more interesting, although I know that at that time Koreans bitch slapped Japanese in naval warfare with their turtle ships, but maybe you could get a "what if" dynamic campaign or something.

It's almost like the history is fucking with us by first fascinating us with the age of samurai, cool looking katanas and all other shit like that, just to later punch us in the face with the fact that (with the exception of Korean war) they never tried to conquer their neighbours.

The first shogun game got an expansion. So they could do the same for this. Mongol Invasion. A quite realistic scenario. Though maybe calling it a prequel would be better?

They could also expand it with a sequel of the Korean invasion. Both are viable since they already have most of the Japanese art and units done.


As for the factions being the same. Some are inherently stronger due to their bonuses or position. There is a reason there is a difficulty stated on each of the clans. ^^ Having stronger archers is worth more than having stronger cavalry for example.

A better example would be to compare a bonus such as # Can recruit superior siege units (I didn't build a single one in the campaign) vs # Can recruit superior ashigaru (the main part of any army). This is an overall trend where they tried to set a flair to the clans by making them good at various things, while some things are simply better to be good at.

[Path]

The Imjin War would make a good expansion, but it's unlikely to happen due to the publisher's stance (SEGA doesn't seem enthusiastic about a war between Korea and Japan—I rather doubt that Koreans would care, but who knows). I'd love a Three Kingdoms expansion that did away with Japan entirely (most of what would be needed for this is already in the game), mostly because CA will never make a game based on the era, so the only hope is some form of expansion.

[AceHigh]

Yes, I believe I pointed that out, my point is that archers of one clan is stronger than the other because of a stat boost, while in other total war games it makes more sense that a Bretonian longbowman is stronger than a Saxon archer, because his bow has almost the same length as it's wielder's height.

I even tried to spot a slight difference that might occur between a superior Date no-dachi warrior and a generic equivalent, but no, the only thing that sets them apart is the flag that is apparently sticking out of their spine.

It's not that I am asking for a lot of eye candy, but to compare it to other games, imagine if in a shooter instead of one army using M-16 against another using Ak-47, both would use AK-47, but one army cleaned them better, so they have a slightly better range.

PS: Siege weapons? So far my troops are climbing those walls with a better proficiency than monkeys, why would anyone need siege weapons  

The Imjin War would make a good expansion, but it's unlikely to happen due to the publisher's stance (SEGA doesn't seem enthusiastic about a war between Korea and Japan—I rather doubt that Koreans would care, but who knows). I'd love a Three Kingdoms expansion that did away with Japan entirely (most of what would be needed for this is already in the game), mostly because CA will never make a game based on the era, so the only hope is some form of expansion.

I'd love to see 3 kingdoms setting. I also believe there is more room for troop diversity in that setting.

EDIT:

Oh I almost forgot to mention one thing that has always been excellent in all Total War games. Music. I noticed it at once in Shogun 2, I don't know how Jeff van Dyck does it, but he always makes music very fitting for the set atmosphere in the game. Even after not playing some of the games for several years, I still remember the awesome soundtracks from them.

[newy]

Total War: Shogun 2 - The Fall of the Samurai

[AceHigh]

Japanophiles will rage at this expansion pack because it gives them a harsh history lesson about how inferior samurai were in comparison to the western technology and not even the katana (apparently the most powerful weapon in the world) could save them.


The rest of us might have a divided opinion on machine guns, I am one of those that claim that it doesn't really fit well into the game mechanics, Total War should stay away from machine guns.

[newy]

The rest of us might have a divided opinion on machine guns, I am one of those that claim that it doesn't really fit well into the game mechanics, Total War should stay away from machine guns.

Let me expand on that. I didn't really like Empire much (well, I didn't really play it much) because the majority of units were range ones. I like it more that the majority is melee and only a few range ones and they clash in CQC.
I have yet to form an opinion about the machine guns. They are probably to be used like the cannons in vanilla Shogun 2. You need a straight view to use them.