First impressions thread

[Dead Guy]

I agree with pretty much all your points, Red Russian13.

The zoom'n'twist thing is pretty annoying, even in your turn when, for example, an enemy fleet withdraws, and you don't get to see where to because you're looking at your fleet.

Not too bothered by not being able to complete the tech-tree though. I actually think that's a pretty good thing. I like choices and consequences in games. Instead of being done with tech and converting all your schools to textile mills ~100 turns from the end, you actually have to choose which arts you want to pursue in each campaign.

[Gregoshi]

Not too bothered by not being able to complete the tech-tree though. I actually think that's a pretty good thing. I like choices and consequences in games. Instead of being done with tech and converting all your schools to textile mills ~100 turns from the end, you actually have to choose which arts you want to pursue in each campaign.

Exactly. I like all the choices the game throws at you. I'll sit there and aggonize over such decisions.

[Zarky]

Fair enough. I have not done any rigorous scientific studies, but I recall the port getting a 3.5 conversion bonus, and some have also lamented about having to use 3 monks or something to combat it. I cannot remember what a good Buddhist temple gives. I'll have to try it out.

If you own a holy site, which are hard to come by starting as Kyushu-clan (closest in Mori starting province) and build Pilgrim hostel, that gives you 3 star monks available to recruit from that province. That +being a Buddhist clan +beginning level temple combined give 4 to conversion.

It's true that you need 3 monks to fight the conversion, if you have 3 1-star monks.

[Red_Russian13]

I agree with pretty much all your points, Red Russian13.

Not too bothered by not being able to complete the tech-tree though. I actually think that's a pretty good thing. I like choices and consequences in games. Instead of being done with tech and converting all your schools to textile mills ~100 turns from the end, you actually have to choose which arts you want to pursue in each campaign.

Thanks, Dead Guy.

I'm sort of torn about the tech tree. I guess I figure if I dedicate time and energy to it, I should be able to get most of the tech. But like Gregoshi said, it's neat to sort of mull your options. Definitely makes it more challenging.

[quadalpha]

I remember reading somewhere that "not being able to research all the tech" was a design feature.

[ByzantineKnight]

Just as a heads up, Steam has an offline mode that you can use. It won't patch the game or require an internet connection. Not nearly as convenient as a CD copy with downloadable patches but workable.

[therother]

I like the arts tree as well, balances the game somewhat as the player doesn't rush ahead tech-wise. I've found if you dedicate monk and general skill points to the chi arts and capture/build libraries, you can get most of them, especially if you don't care about some arts until later in the game when your rate bonuses are much larger than at the start of the game.

The Nanban Quarter is a bit of a pain, 6% conversion per turn in the province plus 3% in all neighbouring provinces. That's a lot, given you only have a limited number of monks, and I'd rather be using them to incite and demoralise than counter conversion. Seems like Sado is the ideal place to build it, with a temple and a decent monk! You do get the Nanban trade ship which, whilst not as powerful as the Black Ship, still packs a mighty punch versus standard Japanese vessels. And if you have access to the famous temple (or the temple complex with a good monk and alternate his province), it's not so much of a problem.

As an aside, can't you turn off auto-updating? I seem to recall a steam option somewhere to do that. I've not had a problem with it, but I suppose I tend to not shut the game down that much.

[seireikhaan]

Start numero uno, with shimazu. Recruit couple of turns, take army to next province over, lay siege. General from fow pops in and tries to relieve, get a battle against 1100 or so with my 800. AI does some idiot things with its cavalry and I win handily with only about 175 casualties. Next turn, occupy near empty castle. Wait a bit, recruit a bit, heal a bit. 6 turns later, send army to east, thinking it was last enemy province. March out. Get popup saying guys north are backstabbing me. Meanwhile, old enemy's general with about 2000 troops pops in through FoW north of me through a passage in mountains I didn't know he had access to. He has one turn to get to my more or less defenseless capital, I have 3 to get there with my army.... Rage quit, start over.

Try numero dose, again with Shimazu. Same beginning as last, up through occupying first castle. I probe a bit east this time for enemies afterwards, but don't make a comittment, end up beating a few randoms down. Given a bit of time, and a more reasonably well defended castle, I venture eastward to take enemy's castle. Along the way, enemy commander with their army(waiting in the same passage as last time) decides to try and beat me to their castle. I reach it first, take it with no effort against a single unit. He burns a village on the way to a siege defense, where I thwart him somewhat soundly, though I took some casualties. Next turn, Shoni declare war on me with their ally, the dudes north of me, on the turn they both decide to send armies(about 1200 and 1800 each), ending easily 1 turn away from the capital, which has about 800, mostly ashigaru, units. .....

Might try a hand at that tomorrow.

edit: oh right, game quality. Well, AI's been kinda idiotic with its cavalry thus far, but was decidedly impressive in coordinating two factions to get their armies at me in a "timely" fashion. Game's pretty. I dl's a mod to reduce unit speed, so its a bit better paced than I recall the demo being. Ashigarus route fast for my taste, however. Need a slight morale boost or something. Maybe its more reasonable later in game though. Favorable so far, I guess.

[Rothe]

Pros:
- Shogun theme, I loved the book "Shogun" and the time period is nice for variety of troop types etc.
- Improved AI: for me, the AI is a bit improved, although it is not a big jump forward from ETW
- Tech tree: I like the split and the fact that you probably can't research everything. Also, you can't just go with bushido or chi and forget about the other side.
- Generals: I like the XP system (Also see agents). It is really nice to be able to customize the generals.
- Agents: I like the RP side of the agents, and the fact that they added ways to hamper agents without killing them is nice. It makes it possible for the agents to develop without getting killed before they get to be good at anything.
- Unit variety: Just a starting observation that might change, but it seems the units are varied enough
- RPS: RPS seems to work for most of the units. Heavy infantry seems to break that a bit, being good enough vs. spears and cavalry at the same time.
- Visuals: Looks really nice, but still plays ok with Ultra detail on my 2 years old PC.

Cons:
- Bugs: I get a CTD when I start my second battle in a "session" of play. No idea why. I have to save a lot.
- Twisting camera on the campaign map. I don't enjoy it too much.
- Campaign AI attacks fortified towns too easily. AI should not attack towns without superior troops, especially it if lacks a back up army to defend its nearest castle. The fact is that the fortifications make the battles really lopsided, especially if the defender has missile troops.
- Suicidal generals: Not as bad as in earlier TW's, but the enemy generals still often charge in. It seems that they notice a weak position to exploit with a charge, but the player can reinforce it quickly and disengaging is not something I've seen the AI do ever.

Not sure yet:
- Naval combat: I have to admit I have not tried it even once. I autoresolve it always. Perhaps I try it later when I have more time, now I prefer to use it on the land battles.
- Diplomacy and the realm divide. I suspect I will grow to like the divide, as it gives the game some stages when you need to rush and others where you need to stop and gather strength. I can see why some don't like it, but I think might be a good thing to not be able to grow too powerful before the AI turns on you en masse.

[Shaka_Khan]

How are the graphics. Can someone post a screenshot?

[A Nerd]

Here you go shaka! :)

Screen shot thread.

[Daveybaby]

As an aside, can't you turn off auto-updating? I seem to recall a steam option somewhere to do that. I've not had a problem with it, but I suppose I tend to not shut the game down that much.

Yeah, but it's very complicated to do. You have to right click on the game and untick the 'always keep this game up to date' option.
AAAAARGGGHH!!!! DAMN YOU STEEEAAAAMM!!!!



It amazes me that people can complain about this stuff like it's ruining their entire life, yet they havent even bothered to check if it can be turned off.

[LeftEyeNine]

@Yaseikhan

Have taken my 5th attempt at Shimazu campaign a few days ago (the previous 4 were disastrous/locked) and it's still ongoing, so I thought I may show off and brag over some battle scars of mine.

The con-Quest of Osumi; IT'S A TARP.

Make good friends with Sagara (to the north of you, Higo province). Obtain a military passage and penetrate Ito province of Hyuga via the very same passage through the valley in Higo.You may need to bulk up some 1500 men first, I can't recall exactly. There you'll find the main Ito army roaming, some troops seperately etc. Once you conquer the province, Osumi below is child's play. It's almost like "buy one get one free".

The developments on the island are COMPLETELY random. In 3 out of my 5 games, Shino was the evil acting quite expansionist and treacherous. However in one, Sagara, quite the dependable one if you secure his alliance first, captured Hyuga before me as I was meddling with Osumi, bulking an army etc. I was locked away from progression, no real income to build an army to push through. I captured Higo later on but that was it; Sagara and Shino had both more might than me. I just couldn't move my main army which I couldn't support with new troops due to costs incurring. As soon as I lifted my finger, either, thanks to Higo province's geographical exposure to almost the "whole world", I was either pressed back by Sagara from Bungo and even Hyuga or from the north by Shino. Desperatequit.

In my 5th attempt I have 13 provinces now, all of Kyushu and the western-end provinces of the Honshu island such as Nagato, Suo, Aki etc.

Of course you may not want to copy another one's strategy. After all each take at the game yields somewhat different results, Kyushu was a league of nations before I went medieval-Japan on them, for instance.

Last words: Your real enemy is the dependable Sagara to the north. They are highly likely to screw you up/lock you away from progress. Remain allies until you've captured what they would before you. That will give you enough power to deal with Shino already.

Osu !

[LeftEyeNine]

Oh and if the island have visitors landing on the east part, let them clash. I conquered easily what was divided already. I remember finishing off 3 clan existences in 2 turns once; so feeble were they.

[Khisanth Magus]

- Suicidal generals: Not as bad as in earlier TW's, but the enemy generals still often charge in. It seems that they notice a weak position to exploit with a charge, but the player can reinforce it quickly and disengaging is not something I've seen the AI do ever.

This is something I've also noticed quite a bit. The enemy general will see what seems to be a weakness in my line and charge in, at which point I just disengage a unit of spearmen or 2 to swarm the general and kill him almost effortlessly.

Overall I'm really enjoying Shogun 2. Other than a few AI glitches here and there, particularly in sieges, I'm really enjoying it, more than I have enjoyed a TW game in quite a while(one time the enemy army attacked my castle. They had me way outmatched, but thanks to how unbalanced siege warfare is in this game in favor of the defenders, I trounced his attacking units thoroughly. However, his general just sat out there on his horses without moving the entire time. As my defenders had been so depleted I wasn't sure I could defeat the general in an even battle out in the field, I had to sit there and wait for the battle timer to expire).

Speaking of which, however...I do kind of wish that defending wasn't quite so one sided, particularly when I'm defending. I can usually overwhelm the computer with rather minimal casualties when attacking, but I don't think I've lost a single siege defence, even when there was barely anything more in the castle than the retainers that come with it. There really is no good way until you get to the second level of siege tech for the attacker to even out the fight(short of overwhelming archers), and I have yet to see the AI have even fire bombers, let alone anything more advanced.

Which also brings up another point. I think archers are a bit too powerful in this game. It is most obvious in castle defence, when most of the attacking units don't even reach the walls if I actually have the castle manned, they usually rout from just archer fire alone. On the field cavalry can sometimes even things up, but as with seige equipment, I have yet to see the computer field anything but light cavalry, even when I know they are capable of fielding more(I took over a province from the Hojo clan that could make both katana and archer cavalry, yet they never made either). Light cavarly are too easy to shred with even one unit of the basic yari unit.

[Dexter]

Hello there Total War players, gamers, whatever you are called today ...
I have not been active for a long time, yet i do lurk in the "shades / shadows" from time to time.

I am glad to see that most of you have discovered, shared there views of this game, i had, rather have the opportunity to play it as well, yet time is not my friend.

So far i can cope with most of it's Empire likeness, even though it bugs me, specially on the battle map where the old alt and ctrl commands are gone, or i have not discovered the "new" and "improved" method of giving command to my units, but i still do manage.

Another thing that hit me was how fast battles have become ... i used to play battles for 25-40 minutes, changing formations, luring etc, but now once the "move" phase is over all is decided in 15-20 seconds witch did leave me TT_TT for the "old Shogun". What is the deal with this speed ???

Alas, toss all that aside, even the rock, paper scissors explanations, fantasy elements, one thing that i can not, will not forgive is the movement of the gold mines of Kai to Izu.

I do emphasize that i'm no expert on Japan (any era) but even my limited knowledge, and all maps do show that Kai (the historically province) does have 2 of them, or at least 2 that where used by the Takeda. I could go on explaining how this affected the Takeda tax laws and so on ... but even you can search for that on the web.

Please not that my "native" tongue is not English, and it is certainly possible i used some not exactly adequate words to express my thoughts, neither did i check this text for orthographic errors. Sorry ...

This post is long enough, so i shall leave it as it is for now.
I's a game, i know, worthy to be called the successor of Shogun ... well .. we shall see ...

[tigger of kai]

Hey guys, anyone seen any good printable flowcharts like there have been for the previous games? The in-game encyclopedia is great, but I'd like to keep one for quick reference, especially for the buildings.

[HopAlongBunny]

Installed and updated.

Have only done the first couple of tutorials :p Controls don't seem too different, but I'll probably have to see if I can customize a lil

Graphics are purty! That won't sustain interest through a campaign but it is nice :)

Now I need to see how long it takes to lose my first S2 campaign!