Yes, you have to activate your game key (retail/digital buy) at steam.
I just got it. It cost me about ~27 euro. Tonight first struggle with friend in co-op campaign
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[Game] Shogun 2: Total War
- Thread starter husbert
- Start date
Yes, you have to activate your game key (retail/digital buy) at steam.
I just got it. It cost me about ~27 euro. Tonight first struggle with friend in co-op campaign
First campign playing as oda, my clan was destroyed within ten turns. You can't **** around at the start of the cmapign like you could with empire.
Started a second campign as the oda clan and have invested everything into making a huge army simply to fend off everyone tryin to kill me. After forming an allience with someone or other to secure my western borders i am now at war with everyone to my east and north. Fun game is fun.
Started a second campign as the oda clan and have invested everything into making a huge army simply to fend off everyone tryin to kill me. After forming an allience with someone or other to secure my western borders i am now at war with everyone to my east and north. Fun game is fun.
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Do the alliances hold this time? Are you playing on VH/VH? Sounds great if you can get destroyed atleast the AI is agressive.
Going to get the game, but the price will drop so soon I think I'll wait a month or two when the first patches will arrive with DX10/11 support.
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Wait for mods to come out before buying it. I have learned with the Total War series, the mods that come out for the games are way better than the vanilla game.
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I'm guessing the price drop will not be any greater than $10 (current price you can pay on Amazon) for the next 2-4 months. So not a bad deal.
I skipped Empire and only moderately liked Medieval and Rome. I like the setting, style, and tightness of focus on this one though. Might buy soon.
I skipped Empire and only moderately liked Medieval and Rome. I like the setting, style, and tightness of focus on this one though. Might buy soon.
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If you want WW1 & 2 game go and get men of war: assault squad or something like that.... And pretty much everyone know thats its going to be shogun 2 total war, next is Rome 2 Total war.
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I'm still playing Third Age: Total War (awesome mod)
I'll probably get this one once I get a capable computer.
Edit:
Oh, someone downvoted this? I wonder who is the sad person who got offended by this comment. Is it Third Age that haunts you in your dreams at night? Or is it that you think that having an outdated computer is some kind of contagious virus?
I'll probably get this one once I get a capable computer.
Edit:
Oh, someone downvoted this? I wonder who is the sad person who got offended by this comment. Is it Third Age that haunts you in your dreams at night? Or is it that you think that having an outdated computer is some kind of contagious virus?
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Well, i've been playing Shogun a lot the past few days, according to Steam at least 29 hours since i got the game on Wednesday.
I'm having a blast so far.
I tried several Legendary campaigns, first as the Shimazu, got raped, then the Date. Also got raped. Then i tried Oda because that clan seems to get wiped out first turn every single time, and i wondered if i could do any better with it on Legendary. I did, and managed for quite some time too, but then everything went to ****.
So now i'm on my fourth Legendary campaign with the Uesugi, and see how far that goes before everything goes horribly bad again.
But i'm also playing a lot of multiplayer lately.
I started a co-op campaign with a friend, fighting AI together while sharing army units while talking over skype. Usually i get the archers or the cavalry while he manages the infantry of his or my own army.
The real innovation in MP comes from the avatar conquest mode, and it is awesome fun.
Previous total war games never managed to get me online because many times it felt pointless to play it: there is no city at risk, no long-term plans at stake, just a quick battle where i dont care what goes wrong, if i lose, or how many men i lose.
However, Avatar Conquest adds several cool things. First of all there is ofcourse the persistant Avatar, your general. You can customise his appearance, invest points in a massive skilltree which is different from the regular campaign skill-trees. For example you can make your general a ranged unit, giving the bodyguard and himself bow and arrow, improve his melee abilities, or extra command possibilities for the army (stand and fight, for example).
Unlocking certain skills also count as traits, like 'Superior Swordsman' etc.
By attaining achievements extra armourpieces can also be unlocked, and there are several armour sets, some of them historical armours from existing generals. Once you complete a set, you can unlock a retainer that belongs to it.
Because of this, online generals are now much more personal and similar to the generals usually found in the single player part instead of the simple nameless faces from previous Total War's online battles.
The retainers work pretty much like a card game, where you can only pick two on the lower levels, on the fourth level you can pick a third, etc.
You have to pick your retainers pretty carefully according to the army you bring. For example, i bring 3 bow ashigaru most of the time, and usually my melee infantry consists of mainly yari ashigaru. For this i could select a retainer that allows +2 accuracy for archer units, and a retainer that adds +1 morale to all ashigaru units, making them stand a bit longer in a fight with samurai.
There are many, MANY armour sets and retainers to choose from, and afaik you can also see what retainers your opponent brings but im not sure about that. I havent done that myself yet.
Then there are the veteran units. Sometimes one of your unit excels during combat, and in these cases you can chose to keep this unit. When you do, they continue to level up during usage, and these units also have their own skill trees. Archers for example can get a bonus for piercing armour, better melee attack, better morale etc. But adding these bonuses also increases the costs to field them. Which leads to a choice: more untrained units, or less units with better training?
All of these things can add up quite nicely. Right now i have a retainer that improves the melee skill of cavalry units, while my veteran yari cavalry unit got a bonus for its charge. This combination makes them pretty powerful, and can give the edge in winning a cav on cav battle which otherwise might have been lost. But they are more expensive to use. The amount of veteran units you can have is limited though, and after each battle they have to replenish if they took too many casualties. Basically they have to sit out a battle, and afterwards they will be back to full strength.
You can also change the appearance of these veteran units, and give them their own colours to further increase their uniqueness.
The campaign map itself resembles that of Shogun 1, with a 2d map and provinces you cant move your armies around freely in. It is very similar to Shogun and Medieval 1.
Each province holds a special something: either a unit unlock, a piece of armour, or a special retainer.
You move your avatar army to the province you would like to unlock, and then try to find a matchmade battle. If you win, the province is yours.
All of this adds a LOT of incentive to play online, and i think it's save to say that if you ignore the online mode you are missing half of the game, even though the single player part obviously also is very, very expansive.
After a while though i imagine every player having unlocked every province in the avatar conquest mode, since there are about 65 of them i believe.
That's no biggie because though you have unlocked them, a 'ronin general' cannot control the province. At least that is what i read, and im not sure what good it actually does to control the province yet.
But what i do know so far is that in order to actively control a province, you have to join a clan. Each clan can fight over territories for a set period of time. After that time has run out, the game will check what clan had the most victories in each province, and the clan with the most wins will get awarded control of the province. Again, im not sure what use that has yet, but it adds some incentive to keep playing even after you unlocked all the provinces yourself.
Fighting in clan battles also unlocks clan tokens, which you can save up.
Clan tokens are used to reset your avatar skill tree if you are unhappy with the choices you made, but also allows you to unlock special abilities on veteran units.
I forgot to mention, each veteran units has two skill trees: a regular one, and a skill tree which can only be unlocked with clan tokens.
In general i am having an absolute blast in both single player and online modes. All of these traits, units, skills etc leads to some very fresh gameplay and add a lot of depth.
But there are some bugs. I have experienced several crashes to the desktop, but not too many. Just once, here and there.
The most grievous bug occurs online while trying to find a matchmade battle. Sometimes the game will say you found an opponent and it is setting up the match, but then it will keep hanging there and you cant cancel while it is setting up a match. That means you are essentially stuck, and you have to alt-tab and shut down shogun 2 manually.
What's worse is that the game thinks you backed out of a fight, and hence awards you the 'dishonourable coward' trait. A lot of people had to 'back out of fights' this way and have it, though they never quit during an actual battle.
I'm having a blast so far.
I tried several Legendary campaigns, first as the Shimazu, got raped, then the Date. Also got raped. Then i tried Oda because that clan seems to get wiped out first turn every single time, and i wondered if i could do any better with it on Legendary. I did, and managed for quite some time too, but then everything went to ****.
So now i'm on my fourth Legendary campaign with the Uesugi, and see how far that goes before everything goes horribly bad again.
But i'm also playing a lot of multiplayer lately.
I started a co-op campaign with a friend, fighting AI together while sharing army units while talking over skype. Usually i get the archers or the cavalry while he manages the infantry of his or my own army.
The real innovation in MP comes from the avatar conquest mode, and it is awesome fun.
Previous total war games never managed to get me online because many times it felt pointless to play it: there is no city at risk, no long-term plans at stake, just a quick battle where i dont care what goes wrong, if i lose, or how many men i lose.
However, Avatar Conquest adds several cool things. First of all there is ofcourse the persistant Avatar, your general. You can customise his appearance, invest points in a massive skilltree which is different from the regular campaign skill-trees. For example you can make your general a ranged unit, giving the bodyguard and himself bow and arrow, improve his melee abilities, or extra command possibilities for the army (stand and fight, for example).
Unlocking certain skills also count as traits, like 'Superior Swordsman' etc.
By attaining achievements extra armourpieces can also be unlocked, and there are several armour sets, some of them historical armours from existing generals. Once you complete a set, you can unlock a retainer that belongs to it.
Because of this, online generals are now much more personal and similar to the generals usually found in the single player part instead of the simple nameless faces from previous Total War's online battles.
The retainers work pretty much like a card game, where you can only pick two on the lower levels, on the fourth level you can pick a third, etc.
You have to pick your retainers pretty carefully according to the army you bring. For example, i bring 3 bow ashigaru most of the time, and usually my melee infantry consists of mainly yari ashigaru. For this i could select a retainer that allows +2 accuracy for archer units, and a retainer that adds +1 morale to all ashigaru units, making them stand a bit longer in a fight with samurai.
There are many, MANY armour sets and retainers to choose from, and afaik you can also see what retainers your opponent brings but im not sure about that. I havent done that myself yet.
Then there are the veteran units. Sometimes one of your unit excels during combat, and in these cases you can chose to keep this unit. When you do, they continue to level up during usage, and these units also have their own skill trees. Archers for example can get a bonus for piercing armour, better melee attack, better morale etc. But adding these bonuses also increases the costs to field them. Which leads to a choice: more untrained units, or less units with better training?
All of these things can add up quite nicely. Right now i have a retainer that improves the melee skill of cavalry units, while my veteran yari cavalry unit got a bonus for its charge. This combination makes them pretty powerful, and can give the edge in winning a cav on cav battle which otherwise might have been lost. But they are more expensive to use. The amount of veteran units you can have is limited though, and after each battle they have to replenish if they took too many casualties. Basically they have to sit out a battle, and afterwards they will be back to full strength.
You can also change the appearance of these veteran units, and give them their own colours to further increase their uniqueness.
The campaign map itself resembles that of Shogun 1, with a 2d map and provinces you cant move your armies around freely in. It is very similar to Shogun and Medieval 1.
Each province holds a special something: either a unit unlock, a piece of armour, or a special retainer.
You move your avatar army to the province you would like to unlock, and then try to find a matchmade battle. If you win, the province is yours.
All of this adds a LOT of incentive to play online, and i think it's save to say that if you ignore the online mode you are missing half of the game, even though the single player part obviously also is very, very expansive.
After a while though i imagine every player having unlocked every province in the avatar conquest mode, since there are about 65 of them i believe.
That's no biggie because though you have unlocked them, a 'ronin general' cannot control the province. At least that is what i read, and im not sure what good it actually does to control the province yet.
But what i do know so far is that in order to actively control a province, you have to join a clan. Each clan can fight over territories for a set period of time. After that time has run out, the game will check what clan had the most victories in each province, and the clan with the most wins will get awarded control of the province. Again, im not sure what use that has yet, but it adds some incentive to keep playing even after you unlocked all the provinces yourself.
Fighting in clan battles also unlocks clan tokens, which you can save up.
Clan tokens are used to reset your avatar skill tree if you are unhappy with the choices you made, but also allows you to unlock special abilities on veteran units.
I forgot to mention, each veteran units has two skill trees: a regular one, and a skill tree which can only be unlocked with clan tokens.
In general i am having an absolute blast in both single player and online modes. All of these traits, units, skills etc leads to some very fresh gameplay and add a lot of depth.
But there are some bugs. I have experienced several crashes to the desktop, but not too many. Just once, here and there.
The most grievous bug occurs online while trying to find a matchmade battle. Sometimes the game will say you found an opponent and it is setting up the match, but then it will keep hanging there and you cant cancel while it is setting up a match. That means you are essentially stuck, and you have to alt-tab and shut down shogun 2 manually.
What's worse is that the game thinks you backed out of a fight, and hence awards you the 'dishonourable coward' trait. A lot of people had to 'back out of fights' this way and have it, though they never quit during an actual battle.
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I've heard that anti-aliasing does not work and is going to be patched in the coming weeks. Is this true?
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Hehe well the funny thing is, i'm still using the PC i had when i bought Empire.
Then came Napoleon and i was like damn, that is one hell of a graphical improvement! I'm pretty certain im not going to be able to run it! But run it i did, and quite nicely as well.
This time around i was quite certain as well that i was gonna get a crappy performance but while playing with most stuff set to low and medium, the performance is actually pretty good and much like it was in Napoleon.
The engine is still the same though, so i guess it is at least a very scaleable engine because it can look absolutely drop-dead gorgeous at the highest settings. Even now i cant complain that it looks too ugly, though it isnt by far as goodlooking as it could be.
I'd say if you were able to run Empire and Napoleon pretty well, you should be good to go with Shogun 2 as well.
@PNV, i do believe that that is what's going to happen.
CA are working on a patch right now that adds the Directx11 features, and i suppose that is going to include AA as well.
Then came Napoleon and i was like damn, that is one hell of a graphical improvement! I'm pretty certain im not going to be able to run it! But run it i did, and quite nicely as well.
This time around i was quite certain as well that i was gonna get a crappy performance but while playing with most stuff set to low and medium, the performance is actually pretty good and much like it was in Napoleon.
The engine is still the same though, so i guess it is at least a very scaleable engine because it can look absolutely drop-dead gorgeous at the highest settings. Even now i cant complain that it looks too ugly, though it isnt by far as goodlooking as it could be.
I'd say if you were able to run Empire and Napoleon pretty well, you should be good to go with Shogun 2 as well.
@PNV, i do believe that that is what's going to happen.
CA are working on a patch right now that adds the Directx11 features, and i suppose that is going to include AA as well.
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I was able to run Empire and Napoleon until I had to downgrade to my old graphics card (because the newer one died), and then the world map was completely unplayable. Yes, tried Shogun demo and had the same problem.
I did a partition format yesterday and now is playable in low/med settings. I suppose it helped cleaning some drivers/directx/whatever conflict that was causing the problem.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to Shogun 2, looks pretty cool, but as I haven't finished Napoleon (With 6 hours played, I can't even say I started it). I'll finish that one first (after Third Age).
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After first 2 days I've spent about 11 hours total with that game, where ~9h is coop campaign and 2h is Avatar's conquest.
1st impression: Wow, total blast. Campaign is great, I really enjoyed playing with friend and sharing units with him. Now I'm checking Avatar's conquest and one idea comes to my mind: What do you think about Red Orchestra fanbase clan in Shogun 2 game? Shogun 2 uses steamworks clan feature which allows to create clan easily based on actual steamgroups.
About graphic and lack of AA/DX11, I hope it to see patch really soon.
2nd impression: Well, AI likes to cheat in campaign. I had situation where single-province clan started with 20+ units army. How? I think AI is beyond player's economy rules. However AI in the battles is challenging and sometimes likes to surprise (in good way!).
Very annoying is possibility to flee from naval battles w/o any losses and it ends with chasing enemies small fleets thru entire ocean.
Also avatar's idea is very interesting and complex. Reminds me RPG character progress which I like in that kind of games.
@Rak, yes drop-in battles drops you to somebody campaigns battles. Cool feature but very imbalanced and usually isn't funny. Especially when you get 1 generals unit and nothing more against hundreds...
1st impression: Wow, total blast. Campaign is great, I really enjoyed playing with friend and sharing units with him. Now I'm checking Avatar's conquest and one idea comes to my mind: What do you think about Red Orchestra fanbase clan in Shogun 2 game? Shogun 2 uses steamworks clan feature which allows to create clan easily based on actual steamgroups.
About graphic and lack of AA/DX11, I hope it to see patch really soon.
2nd impression: Well, AI likes to cheat in campaign. I had situation where single-province clan started with 20+ units army. How? I think AI is beyond player's economy rules. However AI in the battles is challenging and sometimes likes to surprise (in good way!).
Very annoying is possibility to flee from naval battles w/o any losses and it ends with chasing enemies small fleets thru entire ocean.
Also avatar's idea is very interesting and complex. Reminds me RPG character progress which I like in that kind of games.
@Rak, yes drop-in battles drops you to somebody campaigns battles. Cool feature but very imbalanced and usually isn't funny. Especially when you get 1 generals unit and nothing more against hundreds...
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I did try dropin battles in Napoleon and they were pretty cool, but i havent had a chance to try them out in Shogun 2 yet.
You can tick a box when creating a new campaign that makes the game search for a drop-in battle from a different player continously but i think there is a bug in the system because i havent been invited to join a drop-in battle yet during the sp campaign, and i cant seem to find one either through the matchmaking system. Either a bug, or people are too scared to try it because they already are struggling against the AI.
Especially on Legendary mode is not a place where i would want to invite another player since that only comes with one quicksave each time you fight and when the fight is finished, or with beginning new turns.
In other news, last night i had the most heroic victory i have ever had, in ANY TW game EVER.
It was an online battle vs another player. I brought 4 yari ashigaru units, 2 of them veterans, 4 archer units, 1 of them a veteran, 2 loansword ashigaru and 2 katana samurai, 1 of the samurai units being a veteran, and finally 4 yari cavalry units, of which 2 were veteran soldiers.
He brought just 2 yari ashigaru to protect both of his flanks, while the main body of his army consisted of loansword ashigaru with a few katana samurai in between and a No-Dachi samurai unit in the middle, while he had 4 bow samurai units in front of his army.
Since sword units outclass spear units, and he had more soldires than i had, i was up **** creek.
A direct assault would be suicide and most of my troops would have died before even reaching the enemy, and if they did manage to get there they would have died very quickly.
Not only had he superior troops and numbers, he was also camping the high ground, which made me fight uphill which further increased the odds against me.
So instead of fighting a head-on battle, i decided to try and kill his general before rushing in my troops, with the katana sumarai up front.
At this point, looking at my army, i am sure he was completely convinced of his victory as he had the upper hand. He occupied a hill, so i had to fight up. And his troops were superior to mine, and also outnumbering my forces. I think he decided to take it easy and lay back as i smashed my troops against his battleline.
Well, i wasnt going to let that happen without a proper fight.
So, i put my veteran cav on my left flank and hid them in the forest, while i put my inexperienced cav on the right flank.
The forest on my left flank ran all away across the battlefield and around his army, though his army was camped right next to the treeline so i would have to hurry there. I would distract him with my cavalry on the right and my main army i would park right in front of his army so my archers could skirmish with his.
After a while my main army was closing, so i decided to put some further pressure on him by moving my two cav units on the far right flank of his army to try and draw some troops to that side, hoping to open his left flank for my veteran cav.
Well, that kind of worked because he moved all of his hidden cavalry units toward them, though his yari ashigaru didnt budge. A fierce melee ensued and i managed to kill off two of the three cav units, while the third was pretty battered (i guess the result of my wedge formation against his regular formation on the initial charge).
While that was happening, i moved my main army into skirmishing range, so he was occupied on two fronts. Neither of our melee troops moved.
Meanwhile my veteran cav managed to get behind his yari infantry on the left flank and skirting them very closely, but they didnt get caught so i immediately charged his general in the centre of his army before that would happen.
In the resulting fight i killed his General. When that happened, some of his archers were already fairly decimated while mine were pretty intact (i had them in a loose formation while his werent), and they were starting to panic. When is general died and my melee infantry moving in fast to kill them off, they started to rout. Which caused more bow units to rout.
After finishing off the general i quickly charged my veteran cav downhill and into a group of loansword ashigaru. Which then caused several loan sword ashigaru to rout, and before i even knew it his ENTIRE army ran away without even trying to fight! It was the biggest chain reaction i have ever seen.
My melee forces werent even that close to come into contact, but the sight of my samurai charging up hill must have scared the bejesus out of them after losing their general. Result: HEROIC VICTORY!
Hell, it happened at 3 in the night. Right now it's 13:00 and i'm STILL excited about my victory there
You can tick a box when creating a new campaign that makes the game search for a drop-in battle from a different player continously but i think there is a bug in the system because i havent been invited to join a drop-in battle yet during the sp campaign, and i cant seem to find one either through the matchmaking system. Either a bug, or people are too scared to try it because they already are struggling against the AI.
Especially on Legendary mode is not a place where i would want to invite another player since that only comes with one quicksave each time you fight and when the fight is finished, or with beginning new turns.
In other news, last night i had the most heroic victory i have ever had, in ANY TW game EVER.
It was an online battle vs another player. I brought 4 yari ashigaru units, 2 of them veterans, 4 archer units, 1 of them a veteran, 2 loansword ashigaru and 2 katana samurai, 1 of the samurai units being a veteran, and finally 4 yari cavalry units, of which 2 were veteran soldiers.
He brought just 2 yari ashigaru to protect both of his flanks, while the main body of his army consisted of loansword ashigaru with a few katana samurai in between and a No-Dachi samurai unit in the middle, while he had 4 bow samurai units in front of his army.
Since sword units outclass spear units, and he had more soldires than i had, i was up **** creek.
A direct assault would be suicide and most of my troops would have died before even reaching the enemy, and if they did manage to get there they would have died very quickly.
Not only had he superior troops and numbers, he was also camping the high ground, which made me fight uphill which further increased the odds against me.
So instead of fighting a head-on battle, i decided to try and kill his general before rushing in my troops, with the katana sumarai up front.
At this point, looking at my army, i am sure he was completely convinced of his victory as he had the upper hand. He occupied a hill, so i had to fight up. And his troops were superior to mine, and also outnumbering my forces. I think he decided to take it easy and lay back as i smashed my troops against his battleline.
Well, i wasnt going to let that happen without a proper fight.
So, i put my veteran cav on my left flank and hid them in the forest, while i put my inexperienced cav on the right flank.
The forest on my left flank ran all away across the battlefield and around his army, though his army was camped right next to the treeline so i would have to hurry there. I would distract him with my cavalry on the right and my main army i would park right in front of his army so my archers could skirmish with his.
After a while my main army was closing, so i decided to put some further pressure on him by moving my two cav units on the far right flank of his army to try and draw some troops to that side, hoping to open his left flank for my veteran cav.
Well, that kind of worked because he moved all of his hidden cavalry units toward them, though his yari ashigaru didnt budge. A fierce melee ensued and i managed to kill off two of the three cav units, while the third was pretty battered (i guess the result of my wedge formation against his regular formation on the initial charge).
While that was happening, i moved my main army into skirmishing range, so he was occupied on two fronts. Neither of our melee troops moved.
Meanwhile my veteran cav managed to get behind his yari infantry on the left flank and skirting them very closely, but they didnt get caught so i immediately charged his general in the centre of his army before that would happen.
In the resulting fight i killed his General. When that happened, some of his archers were already fairly decimated while mine were pretty intact (i had them in a loose formation while his werent), and they were starting to panic. When is general died and my melee infantry moving in fast to kill them off, they started to rout. Which caused more bow units to rout.
After finishing off the general i quickly charged my veteran cav downhill and into a group of loansword ashigaru. Which then caused several loan sword ashigaru to rout, and before i even knew it his ENTIRE army ran away without even trying to fight! It was the biggest chain reaction i have ever seen.
My melee forces werent even that close to come into contact, but the sight of my samurai charging up hill must have scared the bejesus out of them after losing their general. Result: HEROIC VICTORY!
Hell, it happened at 3 in the night. Right now it's 13:00 and i'm STILL excited about my victory there
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*bump* How many regions?
What kind of gunpowder units are there? What kind of artillery?
What are your guesses for the Add-On/DLC? Maybe they will do Korea?
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*bump* How many regions?
What kind of gunpowder units are there? What kind of artillery?
What are your guesses for the Add-On/DLC? Maybe they will do Korea?
I don't have the game yet, but I read the review, and as of yet there is only 2 real artillery units: Stationary Mangonels and European Canon. But, unlike European seiges, they are far more infantry-based, so artillery isn't really a big deal.
As for the rest, I have no clue
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