[Game] Shogun 2: Total War

[Oldih]

It's been long time since I last time actually played Shogun but even with some of the problems I always wondered why there wasn't more (decent) games based on the period.

But somehow knowing the last few TW games it might be good idea to be more reserved about it.

 

[Yoshiro]

It's not pure fantasy, but it has classical japanese myth built right in along side your normal total war era mainstream.

It would be like MTW having Knights of the Round knights as "heroes" on the battlefield.

 

[dogbadger]

i dunno how ppl who keep up with the TW series have time to play anything else.
I still havnt got rounfd to playing what i thought was a 'modern' one (MTW2) and this will be the third since.

I didnt really get into MTW but i was playing it on a poor laptop.
I also have rome + barbarian somewhere and wanted to get back into one so was wondering-
which TW is the best of the series according to fans on this forum?
I would like it to be medieval2 i guess as this is prob my favourite setting...

 

[Yoshiro]

I'm split between Rome/Medi 2. But I also really like the guns in Napoleon. I hope they explore that route further with an American Civil War era.

 

[dogbadger]

I'm split between Rome/Medi 2. But I also really like the guns in Napoleon. I hope they explore that route further with an American Civil War era.

cool as i have them anyway. i hear rome is a bit more of an easy introduction to TW but some ppl question it's accuracy ( though i hear there are mods)
mw2 is supposed to be heavier going - but great once you know what your doing.
Only thing that bothers me is ppl saying the AI has got worse since medieval.
i played MTW and didnt get on with it - but to be fair i was runnig it on a crappy laptop.

 

[SiC-Disaster]

I preferred Rome over Medieval 2.
First of all i like the era better, but everything about the game is better to me: music, atmosphere, especially general speeches were extremely lacking in med2.
But most importantly, the ways battles played out in Rome is vastly superior to Medieval 2. As an example, archers are effective and a serious threat in Rome, but in Med2 units often can take ridiculous amounts of arrows before dying, and this is something that has always pissed me off.
Horsemen seem more effective in Rome too, because they kind of keep moving while in a fight, as opposed to Rome and Empire AND Napoleon where once horses collide with infantry, they stand still.
That means that if you do not break the infantry at that specific moment, be prepared to lose your horsemen to even the simplest of blokes.

As to the Shogun 2 preview at IGN:
[url]http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/109/1093664p1.html[/URL]

"The scale is also different in terms of the presentation of the story. Empire was a game about a global war. Shogun 2 is about eight warring fiefdoms. So if Shogun 2 won't have the epic geographic scale of Empire, it will have to compensate by emphasizing character and story."
- This is not for me. I havent played any of the shorter storybased campaigns from Empire or Napoleon for any extended period of time because they feel too restricted. This seems to continue for Shogun 2 with no where else to turn if i want a more open experience.

"One particularly novel development is the introduction of hero units. These are warriors who have perfected a fighting art and can carve their way through enemy armies without much trouble at all. Based on mythologized historical figures like the warrior monk Benkei, hero units are a nearly unstoppable force on the battlefield, capable of holding bridge crossings against entire armies, or smashing through a battle line to engage the enemy general. You can counter heroes with the right tactics, such as filling them full of arrows, or by having your own hero units engage them in duels."
- So much fail. Cant. Breathe. Are we still talking about a TW game here, or about Joe Average RTS?

 

[Fedorov]

So if Shogun 2 won't have the epic geographic scale of Empire, it will have to compensate by emphasizing character and story."

This is a Total War... story and characters will never compensate for the loss of my global domination megalomaniac blood thirst

=P




Leave the good characters and stories for RPGs

 

[EvilAmericanMan]

I know that my favorite TW was Rome. I played that one, Medieval 2 (which I hate) and Empire. Empire I played probably a little less than Rome. I just don't have in interest in either one however anymore. Empire chugged a little bit on the campaign map a bit anyway. And Napoleon didn't look like the kind of thing I wanted and hearing how limited it is compared to Empire, I'm glad I didn't bother. And once I read the hero unit thing in the IGN preview that is up, I got a little better idea of them and they aren't as bad as the posts in this thread make it out to be. I mean really people, can we make a judgment on the game after we have more than like 2-3 lines of info on the hero units? Seriously. This is like the Civ V forums and the people freaking out about 1 unit per hex when all that we know about it is that 1 unit is the max amount of units allowed per hex.

 

[Bluehawk]

I think the name applied well to the original because although you could use diplomacy for a while, you'd have to outright destroy your rivals eventually. There can be only one Shogun, and so long as one other faction remains, the game will drag on.

Shogun isn't as cool as Emperor of the world damn world though.

 

[skittlesareyum47]

YouTube - Shogun 2: Total War - Announcement Trailer (HD)


wow, i think most of us thought it would be 1. WW or 2.WW

I think you are relatively alone on that, I don't think many people really expected them to go any later than the early 1800's.

 

[Fedorov]

Shogun isn't as cool as Emperor of the world damn world though.

Yup, I would unify Japan...

...then attack Russia, Alaska, Mexico, France... how awesome was in empire to disembark in a continent and spread your empire like a virus =)

(lol imagine a samurai army attacking France... can't get more awesome than that)

 

[PNV]

I'm not sure if I am looking forward to this. I remember how much I was looking forward to Medieval II: Total War, and Empire: Total War as well, but I can't help but notice the new direction Creative Assembly and SEGA are taking the series. I feel like the success of DLC has given them the impression that working on rich content for the initial release of the game is not important because it can be released later for a profit. If it weren't for the modding community, I would have little interest in playing Empire or Napoleon again.

 

[Rak]

I hope they redo all the AI code properly this time. No buy for me if this game also has broken AI. I wasted my good 25$ on ETW and barely played it because of the stupid AI.

 

[dogbadger]

I hope they redo all the AI code properly this time. No buy for me if this game also has broken AI. I wasted my good 25$ on ETW and barely played it because of the stupid AI.

is this the battle AI or the strategic/diplomacy AI (or both) - i've heard that battle AI actually got worse after medieval 1 and stayed pretty poor.

 

[husbert]

they said that ai is based on tsun zu (sth like that ^^) and there is no really much unit variation


spear beats cavalry
cavalry beats bow
boiw beats sword
sword beats spear

very easy to code a good ai for this

 

[[TW]DrGuppy]

I can't say I'm looking forward to this at all. Rome and Medieval II were both fairly moddable, but that trend quickly started to go downhill with the release of Empire, and now Napoleon barely has any real mods (and still no uniform editor as promised...). Vanilla total war games have rarely been worth the purchase for me, but with the additional mods from the community I always got my moneys worth, and then some.

If Shogun II continues the trend of DLC over moddability, I won't touch it with a ten-foot pole. That's just how I see it.

 

[NoxNoctum]

Damn Guppy, nice to see you got hired! Hope to see a Leningrad II

 

[dogbadger]

in general do mods tend to carry forward to the newer releases in the series? eg there was a RTW mod that had more realistic units i think - did this get made for MTW2 or later?
i think the LOTR mod was on rome before mtw2....
but phaps if empire onward are less mod freindly then that's where they stop.

That reinforces my opinion that rome and/or med2 are the definitive TWs to own - there was much exciement for empire's release but since it's seemed to wane.
shame

 

[PNV]

Medieval II has Stainless Steel, which did a similar job to the game as Europa Barbarorum did for Rome. There is no definitive mod for Empire, which is very frustrating, as I have ended up with 30 different mods in my folder to finally get a rewarding experience.

 

[Shadrach]

If you want a epic and realistic experience in M2TW, try Deus Lo Vult:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=309

Or Broken Crescent for a middle east setting:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=346

Or for an Asian setting (when its out):
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=1026

I tried SS but the map was way too small for me and not enough depth after playing the *huge* maps of the above mods.

The music of ShogunTW was awesome, still remember it, and hope for more of the same, not the typical "asian-sounding" orchestral theme with strings and sh*t so common in other games.