So what would you like to see in S2TW?

[Subotan]

My list:

1. Please Please PLEASE focus on the diplomatic AI. This is the single most important reason why I did not enjoy E:TW, and why I did not buy N:TW. I'm aware that it's hardly a piece of cake to make a good stategic AI, and I'm not expecting to be playing against a group of computerised Bismarcks, but when compared to Paradox Games, Civilisation, Galactic Civilisations 2 etc., the diplomatic AI stands out as the primary flaw of the TW series. IMHO, this should recieve more attention than the tactical AI.

2. Trade routes where one of the things I really liked in E:TW, and I hope to see a similar mechanism implemented again in Shogun II. It'd be cool to have a little fleet of Red Seal ships zipping around to Korea, China, the Phillipines, Indonesia, other domains, etc. There should however be advantages, like higher public order, from restricting trade and imposing an isolationist policy.

3. Resist the temptation to achievement spam. I generally dislike getting achievements for things I was going to do anyway (E.g. You finished the tutorial! Have an achievement!), but if they can be used to indicate different styles of play (E.g. Win a battle of 1,000 men without entering into hand to hand combat) or amazing successes (Win a battle when outnumbered ten to one) then they add to the game.

4. The region level system for E:TW felt like Paradox's "state and province" system in Victoria taken to the extreme. Although I very much liked the idea of controlling the territory around cities as well as the cities themselves, it always felt odd to capture Paris and suddenly control the whole of France. I'm guessing this won't be as much of a problem though in SII:TW, as you will be working on the domain level.

5. Oh, and of course, please let us mod it!

[Sp00n]

It seems to me that most of my battles in ETW are very similar and thus not as memorable this in contrast to a lot of battles in MTW (I joined the TW train just after STW)

I agree purely from a battlefield variation point of view ETW and NTW's battles play out in a similar way almost every time its a gunpowder era unfortunately. Good News though if they get it right again Shogun's battles don't play out the same.

As much as I like ETW and NTW they are dominated by gun warfare which I personally never thought makes the most varied battlefield experience. I always found them like playing Shogun with only muskets and weak cav in other words just using 2 units.

[andrewt]

I completely agree that more then 20 units per faction would mean entering the realm of fantasy.

Maybe they're doing it the Rome/Medieval 2/Empire way. They would give each faction "unique" units that are just reskinned versions of other factions' units with no or completely negligible differences in stats. I still get a kick out of Medieval 2's unique "French" units in the English version, which is just them giving French names to common Western European units.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Well, I would like:

Minimal or no diplomacy
Minimal or no economy stuff
Focus on warfare

What shogun had, and the other games lacked, was that the campaign was won on the battlefield. Start as takeda, play a few turns, Kai is invaded...you lose, tough luck, decent chance that the game is over. Start as Oda, if you are good enough at tactics to take out the warrior monk ronin right off the bat without building up an army, you get a big head start. I commonly fought every battle I could with my daimyo in order to get him up to rank 4 or 6, same with other chosen generals.

Also, keep the tech tree tiny. The most pernicious thing about medieval was that not only did they add tons of pointless micromanagement stuff, it took hours and hours to reach even the midpoint of the tech tree. In MI:

11 turns--> yari cavalry or cavalry archers
13 turns--> warrior monks

Starting from an empty province. It makes the game "go and fight" instead of "sit and wait".

[LittleGrizzly]

If it can recreate the multiplayer experience of STW even partially my wildest dreams will be fufilled (depending on Ms Alba also)

So i guess

1) Multiplayer chatroom
2) Totomi like maps which don't offer much advantage either way
3) Terrian needs to count for something, like it did earlier in the series
4) Either have the units and armys balanced already or make a seperate stat for MP
5) Less useless units, maybe this could be something seperate between SP and MP, have less near clones for MP, it just makes balance harder.


Would also be nice for a few single player things like better diplomatic and battlefield AI. Lastly some way to still present the player a challenge once he has become the strongest power, making allies work together more effectively could help with this, make a few medium powers able to work together and take on a much larger power, could also be fun when the player is a smaller kingdom working with the AI.

Although MP is what ill buy the game for, good mp is enough for me to buy the game just good SP and I probably won't... although i do love Shogun!

[Kagemusha]

Maybe when a player would be able to control Kyoto he would be declared Shogun or Kanrei, which would give all the other Clans only option of submitting or declaring war to that Clan.I think that could create a nice challence?

[LittleGrizzly]

Maybe when a player would be able to control Kyoto he would be declared Shogun or Kanrei, which would give all the other Clans only option of submitting or declaring war to that Clan.I think that could create a nice challence?

yeah that would be cool, back in STW it was pretty meaningless but it could be made to force the hands of some of the remaining larger clans

[General Malaise]

Maybe they're doing it the Rome/Medieval 2/Empire way. They would give each faction "unique" units that are just reskinned versions of other factions' units with no or completely negligible differences in stats. I still get a kick out of Medieval 2's unique "French" units in the English version, which is just them giving French names to common Western European units.

Reskins are pretty lame though. Best way to do it would be to drop the preconfigured, static unit model altogether and allow component customisation. This would retain historical accuracy, tactical "tightness" and variety all at once I'd say. In other words, it'd work something like this:

CLASS PRIMARY WEAPON SECONDARY WEAPON (OPTIONAL) ARMOR MOUNT
Ashigaru Teppo same options as former None None
Samurai Yumi (hankyu) Light Yes
Sohei Yumi (daikyu) Medium?
(Nagae "pike") Yari Heavy
(shorter) Yari
Nodachi
Katana
Naginata (and/or nagamaki)
Kanabo

Adding secondary weapons and heavier armors would affect speed and stamina as well as cost/upkeep. Of course you could build the swordsmith/armoury/drill dojo to boost other stats as well. Not every weapon would be available to every class though and maybe not every primary and secondary weapon combination (couldn't really carry a long spear and a short spear for instance). and some weapons should be limited to certain classes (nodachi for samurai, kanabo for sohei I'd say). All of this is probably a waste of time to suggest though since they're almost certainly going to stick with the old model of standardized units.


EDIT: I see the forum formatting messed up my chart but I'm sure you all get the idea anyway.

[IceTorque]

1.) Risk style map. (fight, retreat to castle, abandon province, this style map also makes for a much more challenging game)
2.) Hand crafted battle maps. (no more generic crap that all look so similar)
3.) Throne room, populated with characters that can be interacted with. (advisors, generals, spys, and geishas)
4.) Very large armies. (as large as is possible)
5.) Armies that form and hold a battle line, and protect their flanks (and hide a few units in the trees to surprise me, just like the original shogun)
6.) Nerf Geishas

Actually, I would be happy with an exact copy of the original game just with updated graphics and larger armies.

[ichi]

A balanced multi-player that has a good rock/paper/scissors and an improved diplomatic UI for single.

Ha, who am I kidding, if they just repackaged the original I'd not only buy it I'd prolly play it too much. After MTW I just lost interest 'cause the bells and whistles overwhelmed the simple beauty of origami birds.

I haven't posted here in almost five years. I see a few of the old pros still around. Wonder if S2TW will bring back many of the originals?

/bow @ Gregoshi san, site looks great, hope you have been well

[Gregoshi]

ichi!! It has been way too long since you last graced our forums. I am well and hope the same holds true with you. Glad to see you here and hope it isn't another five years before you return again.

I hear you about the bells and whistles ichi. I remember playing RTW and one night in mid-game it hit me - I just wasn't having any fun playing it. That was quite a shock because TW games are supposed to be awesome. A lot of what wasn't fun about it was bells and whistle stuff. What is funny is that much of it was things on our wish lists for the next TW game(s) after STW. Be careful what you wish for because you may get it! But to the point, while STW single player definitely needs a boost, CA needs to find balance between too much and too little in the campaign features department. Enough to maintain the challenge and fun factors, but not too much to introduce tedium into the game - or at least switches to turn features on/off if practical.

Between the Org's 10th anniversary celebration and the S2TW announcement, many old friends (and foes ) have come out of the dark, hidden corners of the internet. I love it!

[Kagemusha]

I think it was after some years HOF awards that you disappeared Ichi?Great to see you back and great to see so many other old timers returning to the forum!

[Monk]

A balanced multi-player that has a good rock/paper/scissors and an improved diplomatic UI for single.

Ha, who am I kidding, if they just repackaged the original I'd not only buy it I'd prolly play it too much. After MTW I just lost interest 'cause the bells and whistles overwhelmed the simple beauty of origami birds.

I haven't posted here in almost five years. I see a few of the old pros still around. Wonder if S2TW will bring back many of the originals?

/bow @ Gregoshi san, site looks great, hope you have been well

Welcome back, Ichi.

[mountaingoat]

Reskins are pretty lame though. Best way to do it would be to drop the preconfigured, static unit model altogether and allow component customisation. This would retain historical accuracy, tactical "tightness" and variety all at once I'd say. In other words, it'd work something like this:

CLASS PRIMARY WEAPON SECONDARY WEAPON (OPTIONAL) ARMOR MOUNT
Ashigaru Teppo same options as former None None
Samurai Yumi (hankyu) Light Yes
Sohei Yumi (daikyu) Medium?
(Nagae "pike") Yari Heavy
(shorter) Yari
Nodachi
Katana
Naginata (and/or nagamaki)
Kanabo

Adding secondary weapons and heavier armors would affect speed and stamina as well as cost/upkeep. Of course you could build the swordsmith/armoury/drill dojo to boost other stats as well. Not every weapon would be available to every class though and maybe not every primary and secondary weapon combination (couldn't really carry a long spear and a short spear for instance). and some weapons should be limited to certain classes (nodachi for samurai, kanabo for sohei I'd say). All of this is probably a waste of time to suggest though since they're almost certainly going to stick with the old model of standardized units.


EDIT: I see the forum formatting messed up my chart but I'm sure you all get the idea anyway.

i like this idea .. i wonder how this could grow or at least fit into stw2 ... i mean .. there is still room for "static" type units .. or maybe there isn't .... no doubt we would like to have multiple weapon types for certain units (with seperate animations) and even make them "static" .. but i like this idea of being able to customise the layout of certain units or maybe all units ..hmmmmm

[Kagemusha]

I think one nice feature would be for the missile troops being able to plant large wooden shields or pavises to the ground like they were used on many occasions.In other words,things like these:

[caravel]

Well, I would like:

Minimal or no diplomacy
Minimal or no economy stuff
Focus on warfare

What shogun had, and the other games lacked, was that the campaign was won on the battlefield. Start as takeda, play a few turns, Kai is invaded...you lose, tough luck, decent chance that the game is over. Start as Oda, if you are good enough at tactics to take out the warrior monk ronin right off the bat without building up an army, you get a big head start. I commonly fought every battle I could with my daimyo in order to get him up to rank 4 or 6, same with other chosen generals.

Also, keep the tech tree tiny. The most pernicious thing about medieval was that not only did they add tons of pointless micromanagement stuff, it took hours and hours to reach even the midpoint of the tech tree. In MI:

11 turns--> yari cavalry or cavalry archers
13 turns--> warrior monks

Starting from an empty province. It makes the game "go and fight" instead of "sit and wait".

This.

The focus needs to shift back to warfare - which is the TW games' strongpoint. Diplomacy worked best in the older games when it was simplistic and functional. It did not detract from the main thrust of the game. The risk campaign map was ideal for this purpose also. While I am fully aware that CA won't bring it back, I still see the risk map as the better model - and the ideal map for the TW games.

[Gorky]

first of all i like all the development in empire and napoleon:
- good strategic map
i like that in one province there are many economic center, and we can be able destroy, the province economy without a direct attack
but i see in napoleon and empire: the easier way is the same (attack the province center) - maybe we have grater distances on a province, we can use better this features
- close up non warrior character spy/assassin
it would be great, that gentleman and spy, has more function: gentleman make provinces happier, and give moral in an army, and spy demoralize enemy, and lover corruption in own cities, and lower the unrest... (and it would be even more grater, they can ad our army special abilities during the combats

-i like the graphical advance the city's looks at the strategic map, but i am sorry about the sea treading simbol stay very simple
(it would be great that we can build a special harbour, which has many advantages: defence towers, upgrade missionary center, police, secret agency, embassy, ad small fortress: we dont need to explore whole new provices its enough one harbour city - may sometime randomly (depend on happiness) attacked by natives from land and see

so and that what i like to see in next tw:
- harbor hase defences from see (towers), and if we want to capture one harbour we have to fight at near the coast, and fight against, grond defences, and ships simultaneously
- ships, has cargo bay (one ship can only transport limited numbers of unit)
- ships - on board army is look like army in a bulding - this soildiers go up deck and shot/fight with the enemy (capture ship) - of course with limited number can fight at the same time - depend on ship kind - , but dead soldiers replaceble from cargo...
- smaller ships can be able to go up wider rivers (and can go nearer the beach)

- rivers can be use as road (trading, and transpoting faster)
- trading roads can be attacked like see trading routes (we can't be able to see where is exactly, but we can see that somebody is robed our traders)
- bandits and rebels appear more often (depend on happiness and unrest, and number of town guard) and they can made more unrest
- some building has monthly wages - police/ town guard/tax collectors etc. where is civil servant is working, but it would be great adnvantage to you, more specialized armored citizens, it can be kill bandits like spy can be executed, and so on...
- the town fight looks terrible to me at empire, and napoleon: it would be grate, that it looks like more like a town: specialized man fight outside the town, and at square if they need more space for formation, but armored citisens can be able to make baricade inside the town (like army man can be on the field)
- there would be more building and tipe of building: more garden, squeare, road, statue, street: like medieval tw II
- there are be more building, and more depend on each other: gold mine - jewel shop, iron mine - armor upgrade, and so on...

-and i hope in shogun tw 2 we will have the posibility to capture korea... or china:-) (at least in accessory)

[General Malaise]

Also, keep the tech tree tiny.

Personally, and this may be heretical, I'd rather tech trees (at least as we know them) be gone entirely. Techtrees in strat games are the equivalent of levels in RPG games. Metagame contrivances there to keep you grinding to gain in power. They might make sense in Civilization and Empire Earth type games, but in a game whose period is less than a century there is no reason to have tech be changing that much at all (how is it a daimyo wouldn't be able to draft yari calvary at the start of the game already, without needing to build up some tech things?). I'd prefer whether or not drafting "high level" units or agents be based on a tactical considerations like perhaps having many elite units could make one prone to civil war as powerful warrior classes often took opportunity to revolt against their masters or drafting high level agents running the risk of them similarly turning against you, or just simple upkeep/use-value ratios, rather than who can rush to build building A the fastest and pump out unilaterally superior troops.

EDIT: To clarify further by providing another example: say, instead of simply building a "Legendary Swordsmith" to get "+1 to weapons", you'd first have to have a legendary swordsmith in one of your provinces in the first place (sort of like the legendary swordsmen event from the original) which you'd have to achieve by a mix of population level, contentment/happiness level, and economic strength/wealth. Perhaps also a faction honor or "kingdom power" type thing (for anyone who has played KoH) which would incline superior artisans or samurai to move to your lands.

[Gregoshi]

I'm liking your idea General (Sir!).

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I like it to. Maybe leave the economic type improvements (port, mine, farmland). But the "build a fortress and then a famous horse dojo to get heavy cavalry" did seem a bit silly.

The armor and weapon improvements could be available for a price when building a unit--makes sense, no? Less expensive in the right province.

Of course, they will leave it all in. Because "features" are what sells (even to us here, if we didn't know better). But of course, the tangible features remove other features from existence--the tactical and strategic features that you can't put on the box, but that make the game great.

[Tony Furze]

Surprised to see Battle AI on some of the lists. If the Battle AI is at least as good as the original, that would be a bonus. I've only played on Normal difficulty and found the AI opponent as wily and unpredictable as a human opponent.

Also non-Japanese units would be a plus.

Trimming up the campaign aspect. Leave the rest as it is.

[Sol Invictus]

I am sure that the Teppo units will be able to construct some sort of defensive barrier. I very rarely used them in the original game because their melee ability was so poor. I also wouldn't mind seeing the Tech Tree disapear for this title because the short time period makes it pointless. The original system was fine with the ability to train most of the units from turn one and to increase their effectiveness by building better training facilities.

[antisocialmunky]

I wouldn't mind a more strategically indepth map with more economic targets and stuff. Maybe treat them like actual small towns and have garrison untis pop up in them they are invaded.

Really, a better AI and more ambience.

[Vlad The Impaler]

- online campaign
- better diplomacy
- unit development like in civ (develop special abilities, traits or retinues kinda stuff for units; for example, if a unit will fight mainly in mountain area they will receive a trait or a commander which is specialized in mountain warfare and boost their abilities in such areas; this kind of system can apply to units too, making them more valuable;
- an easy to mod game: STW II should gather all the good stuff of the previous games; melee or guns, the tactical engine should be the best and suitable for all kind of modding, from Assyria to XVIII century; Napoleon is other thing and belong to modernity, such as American civil war; also the map and the faction/units/provinces slots should allow modders to tackle a lot of periods of history;
- more complicated provinces: being the ruler of the center of a province doesn't mean that you rule all the province; at the edge of the province, various monks monasteries, samurai peasants small clans or ninja villages will not be so willing to follow you; these entities should posses some economical power or wonders (temples, mines) which will make you interested in bringing them under your rule; feudal Japan was a net of clans, small or big.
actually all the historical periods covered by TW games (except NTW & ETW) were a sum of such autonomies, centralized states appeared only later;
- more facilities for online gaming as being the main way to strenghten a community;

[seienchin]

Poor CA... So many fans, so many opinions. They have to dissapoint people. I hope it wont be me.^^
I would love to see mixed units and units who dont react like they should. Forcing you to plan before the battle.

[Gorky]

technikal trees: more crosses - one development depend on more other:
you can use diferent ways (to develope more efecient martial arts or, the christian ways: more effective guns)

special unites need not only knowledge, they need special places (provinces - with sacred palces)

bulding develompment, need not only local basic, they need more provinces (like: to build a chatedral you need at least 4 chatolic temple)

one development has positive and negative effect:
example:
chatolic way: lower moral, abilities to traditonal warriors, good for trade
traditinal way: good for low unrest, poor trade, special unites at special places (like german berserkers, RTW)

more upgrade possibiliti, and more building
village and small town has the posibility to build wooden wall
(make the wooden wall harder to upgrade to stone wall, at rome and medieval, it was realy fast)

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Poor CA... So many fans, so many opinions. They have to dissapoint people. I hope it wont be me.^^
I would love to see mixed units and units who dont react like they should. Forcing you to plan before the battle.

Yes, it's amazing the people who want exactly the opposite what made shogun a good game. Hopefully CA will make a solid tactical battle game with none of the frills.

[Gregoshi]

Yes, it's amazing the people who want exactly the opposite what made shogun a good game. Hopefully CA will make a solid tactical battle game with none of the frills.

Indeed. However, the campaign does need some improvement - perhaps more throne room activity/action and just enough tweaking to clan mechanics to make the AI clans more competetive strategically. With daimyos and their families getting wiped out too easily in STW, fighting an endless ocean of rebels at end game wasn't fun. A titanic showdown with a major rival clan would be awesome. If you recall, the STW campaign was so shallow that after the first couple of months, the SP forum was all but dead. There just wasn't a lot to discuss about the nuances of the economy/diplomacy etc. However, being swamped with a million decisions before going into battle isn't the answer and isn't what I want either. Simplistic complexity - how's that sound? But I think one of the overriding measures is how well the AI can handle itself. If the AI can't handle a "feature" well, then it will just be a source of frustration to the players.

[seienchin]

Well just as I said before, if CA would go a more realistiv way I would love to see mixed units etc. etc.
But on other hand I love the simple plain challenging style of shogun. It was in my opinion the best TW Game, because of its balance.
When I played it 2weeks ago I was shocked, that my heavy cavallery didnt just wipe everybody from the battlefield like in all other TW games including every mod. Shogun was just incredible fun to play, because of its balancing and risk style canpain map. SOOOOOOOO Epic and exotic. :)

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Indeed. However, the campaign does need some improvement - perhaps more throne room activity/action and just enough tweaking to clan mechanics to make the AI clans more competetive strategically. With daimyos and their families getting wiped out too easily in STW, fighting an endless ocean of rebels at end game wasn't fun. A titanic showdown with a major rival clan would be awesome. If you recall, the STW campaign was so shallow that after the first couple of months, the SP forum was all but dead. There just wasn't a lot to discuss about the nuances of the economy/diplomacy etc. However, being swamped with a million decisions before going into battle isn't the answer and isn't what I want either. Simplistic complexity - how's that sound? But I think one of the overriding measures is how well the AI can handle itself. If the AI can't handle a "feature" well, then it will just be a source of frustration to the players.

Ah, but discussion of the shogun campaign portion has been the most consistent feature of the forum. We've had consistent campaign stories for a long time. I played it again myself when I saw the shogun 2 announcement, had a lot of fun as takeda with some custom rules (max 8 units for my armies, no "smart campaign start").