PDA

View Full Version : A Shimazu Campaign Diary



Jack Lusted
02-17-2011, 20:08
Hi everyone, I thought I'd drop a link to a thread I've got on the official forums detailing my playthrough of a Shimazu campaign. I am also answering questions and there are more campaign updates on the last page.

You can find it here (http://forums.totalwar.com/showthread.php/7450-A-Shimazu-Campaign-Diary)

Gregoshi
02-17-2011, 21:11
Thanks for the link Jack. Nice write up.

I'm afraid we are going to have to deduct some honour points for playing "gamey" to save your capital. Tsk tsk. Though it wouldn't have been much of a campaign write-up if you hadn't. ~:pat:

Lemur
02-17-2011, 23:30
Liking the screenies. I don't suppose you could fire up Fraps (http://www.fraps.com/) and give us a short video of the campaign map? Not even if we begged and wheedled? How about if we stare at you adoringly with big anime eyes?

Barkhorn1x
02-18-2011, 02:18
Good reading - great amount of details given.

gollum
02-18-2011, 04:36
How about if we stare at you adoringly with big anime eyes?

If with big twinkling anime eyes? :)

Thanks Jack for this nice write up. The setting certainly suits the TW format - all out war right from the start without having to secretly nag to yourself how come you got half of Eastern Europe in 10 turns.

Patiently awating for the game itself.

One question; you mentioned at some point that you disbanded your early armies to make financial room. Can the AI do teh same?
And if the answer is no, why do you guys still include this in your games? It just gives a 1up financial versatility to the player and takes out a level of management as the player does not have to live with his recruiting choices, financially speaking, as the AI does.

aimlesswanderer
02-18-2011, 09:24
Looking good, but man, do I ever hope it's actually way better than ETW when I finally get my hands on it!

Kagemusha
02-18-2011, 14:15
Thanks for posting this Jack! Lots of good information coming straight from the diary and the answers you have given to various questions from the Com members. One question if i may. How many years have passed in your campaign from what you have posted so far?

Ituralde
02-18-2011, 16:13
In the summary screen he posted you can see that he is 47 turns into the game. Divided by four gives 12 years!

Link to the summary screen:
https://imageshack.us/f/37/shimazu6.jpg/

Kagemusha
02-18-2011, 16:22
In the summary screen he posted you can see that he is 47 turns into the game. Divided by four gives 12 years!

Link to the summary screen:
https://imageshack.us/f/37/shimazu6.jpg/

Thanks Ituralde!:bow: I missed that screen completely.

Cecil XIX
02-21-2011, 01:17
By far the most impressive part of this preview is the multiple choice events you can get. There's a lot of possibility in those. I wonder if you can make them triggered based on certain conditions, and what the limits are on the different kind of consequences they can dish out. Could they have more than two options? It's underreported, once we get the game we might find that it's under-used, but this could easy be Shogun 2's biggest new feature.

Aradan
02-21-2011, 23:01
Judging from the diary, the AI is still as braindead as it was in previous titles. Leaving its capital undefended on the start-map or rushing into uphill melee while having numerical and missile superiority aren't exactly signs of even basic improvement, to give but two examples.

The comments I found most entertaining were these two:

"Some of the guys at the office lost some campaigns, so we slightly penaltised the AI on Normal difficulty".

No kidding, someone lost? That is surely a sing of a bad game that won't sell much, let's quickly screw the AI in some way that makes perfect sense, like halving its income and battle stats so that 8 year-olds will never lose a battle or, God forbid, a campaign. And if some people want a really great AI, we'll give +20 to all its units and triple its income and turn it into a real genius.


And the other one about Jack winning that first battle (where he was outnumbered and out-matched missile-wise), because "he knows exactly how the game works".

So, a missile-heavy army that rushes to melee against a melee-heavy enemy that waits at the top of a hill is the result of a great AI that just got outmatched by an expert of the game who put his knowledge of the battle mechanics to good use. Right.



For the record, the game does look very aesthetically pleasing. If only aesthetics was what matters in a strategy game! I really hope the series will again someday have a title where winning is not compulsory and some strategy/tactis are actually required.

pevergreen
02-21-2011, 23:32
No kidding, someone lost? That is surely a sing of a bad game that won't sell much, let's quickly screw the AI in some way that makes perfect sense, like halving its income and battle stats so that 8 year-olds will never lose a battle or, God forbid, a campaign. And if some people want a really great AI, we'll give +20 to all its units and triple its income and turn it into a real genius.

I don't think they should have, but I feel obliged to point out the penalties are only on the campaign, normal battle difficulty is balanced.

xploring
03-01-2011, 02:32
http://forums.totalwar.com/showthread.php/7450-A-Shimazu-Campaign-Diary?p=110821&viewfull=1#post110821

New updates from Jack yesterday, in case anyone still following missed it

Monk
03-01-2011, 19:15
http://forums.totalwar.com/showthread.php/7450-A-Shimazu-Campaign-Diary?p=110821&viewfull=1#post110821

New updates from Jack yesterday, in case anyone still following missed it

And here I thought he was done updating! Yeah!

Thanks for the heads up xploring. ~D

edit: Holy ******* there are some big powers in his game. The Mori are getting frightening. Ugh! I shouldn't be reading this. It's gonna make waiting that much harder.

knoddy
03-02-2011, 21:31
just thought i would post another example to the random events that can happen, while playing the free campaign i got a surplus harvest event where i had the choice to either distribute it which helped growth and happiness or horde it which protects against starvation for 10 turns or something, i choose to distribute it then had a shortage of food 3 turns later haha!

im liking these random events speciall some of the ones jack has shown in his game. they add a bit of flavour.

xploring
03-03-2011, 11:36
...

xploring
03-04-2011, 11:45
New campaign updates

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthread.php/7450-A-Shimazu-Campaign-Diary?p=113553&viewfull=1#post113553

And another:

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthread.php/7450-A-Shimazu-Campaign-Diary?p=114149#post114149

xploring
03-07-2011, 12:11
Final updates:

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthread.php/7450-A-Shimazu-Campaign-Diary-(now-complete)?p=115700&viewfull=1#post115700

Zarky
03-08-2011, 13:03
Final updates:

http://forums.totalwar.com/showthread.php/7450-A-Shimazu-Campaign-Diary-(now-complete)?p=115700&viewfull=1#post115700

That one answered my worries about naval landings: The army was large but very late in game (+100 turns) delivered by a (relatively) strong fleet. Though the location was far off, it was mainly because at that point it was basically everyone vs. Shimazus.
I'm rather pleased with the campaign diary and can't wait to get my hands on the actual game...

knoddy
03-08-2011, 20:48
That one answered my worries about naval landings: The army was large but very late in game (+100 turns) delivered by a (relatively) strong fleet. Though the location was far off, it was mainly because at that point it was basically everyone vs. Shimazus.
I'm rather pleased with the campaign diary and can't wait to get my hands on the actual game...

Yes it seems like they may have finally nailed naval invasions. the look like how they shud be, big fleets, big armies, long way behind your lines making it tough to deal with.

im very excited having read the diary seems like his camp was quite challenging and fun. 6 days to go :O fun fun

edit: one that remains to be seen is if some random faction who is not at war with u will declare just to land a massive army miles behind your line :S

Zarky
03-09-2011, 06:04
edit: one that remains to be seen is if some random faction who is not at war with u will declare just to land a massive army miles behind your line :S
Indeed that is the final worry but I believe it's more of a diplomatic issue.

My plan essentially is to send a ship around the map discovering clans early in game and then choose the biggest far away clan or few smaller ones as my allies. AI should be smart enough now to understand that declaring war on player should cause war with players allies as well.

knoddy
03-09-2011, 10:11
yea hopefully they dont just declare on you for nothing like previous tw's. i understand and like that there is different factors that effect your relations with others like religion and war with allies and stuff like that but i used to hate it when factions on the other side of the map declare on u. there shud be a factor in the calculations to stop them declaring on you if they are nowhere near your land!

aimlesswanderer
03-10-2011, 13:30
yea hopefully they dont just declare on you for nothing like previous tw's. i understand and like that there is different factors that effect your relations with others like religion and war with allies and stuff like that but i used to hate it when factions on the other side of the map declare on u. there shud be a factor in the calculations to stop them declaring on you if they are nowhere near your land!

Unless the AI really is fantastic (one can hope), one of the easiest ways to make the game harder on the highest difficulties (along with extra $, boosted stats, etc for AI) is to have more AIs at war with you. Though I agree that it shouldn't be totally random, as in previous games. But on the hardest difficulty, I think you should expect that random factions may declare war for no apparent reason.

Zarky
03-10-2011, 14:16
Unless the AI really is fantastic (one can hope), one of the easiest ways to make the game harder on the highest difficulties (along with extra $, boosted stats, etc for AI) is to have more AIs at war with you. Though I agree that it shouldn't be totally random, as in previous games. But on the hardest difficulty, I think you should expect that random factions may declare war for no apparent reason.

My problem with the random DoWs (in Empire at least) is because AI declares war without the intention/capability of actually invading me. They then end up sending tiny armies mostly capable of raiding buildings and then dying soon after.
I don't mind being hated by every other nation/clan in the game, but I'd like them to mean it when they express their hate :laugh4:
So AI should wait until it can actually do something. Unless of course they are pulled into war by their allies whom they don't want to lose/piss off.

knoddy
03-10-2011, 21:34
i agree the AI should not declare if it has no capacity to actually invade. otherwise it just ends up getting its but kicked. i dont agree that it makes it harder if on harder difficulties if all the ai clans/factions declare on you when they cant invade it doesnt make it harder just makes it more annoying haha.usually they invade with like stacks of 3-4 units. i havnt had a decent fight from teh AI since Medieval 1. gone are the days where you would face 10+ full stacks when fighting the AI.

aimlesswanderer
03-12-2011, 04:17
My problem with the random DoWs (in Empire at least) is because AI declares war without the intention/capability of actually invading me. They then end up sending tiny armies mostly capable of raiding buildings and then dying soon after.
I don't mind being hated by every other nation/clan in the game, but I'd like them to mean it when they express their hate :laugh4:
So AI should wait until it can actually do something. Unless of course they are pulled into war by their allies whom they don't want to lose/piss off.

True, I couldn't play ETW for very long as the constant stream of 2 unit stacks which attacked in exactly the same place and got massacred the same each turn pissed me off. Autocalc meant I lost ridiculous numbers of troops, so had to fight it myself each time. That's why I played ETW the least of any TW game by many hundreds of hours. I am reeeeeally hoping that STW2 isn't so annoying.

But if the AI can do something useful, I don't mind more DoWs. If the STW2 AI sends 2 unit stacks each turn, I am not sure if I will ever buy a TW game again until someone has modded it.