I really can't play this game

[Drakarys1402]

I am one of those people who isn't looking for a mega challenge. On previous total war games I have played hard and even very hard campaigns out of curiosity (won the hard ones, lost the very hard one). So I am relatively competent in the campaign and in battle. But with Shogun 2 I've only ever won twice on easy and either stuck or lose every other time. For a few simple reasons...

1-No money: This is admittedly like every TW game since Empire but since the AI has no such limits it really exacerbates everything else that works against you and for me makes the game unenjoyable.

2-Everybody hates you from the beginning of the game for no reason regardless of the honour or actions of your daimyo. This makes alliances impossible to form and as noted above the game clearly wants you to use allies/vassals to cover vulnerable flanks to compensate. This is impossible if diplomacy is broken and people refuse to ally with you and will always betray you after a few turns regardless of your behaviour.

3-Realm Divide happens far too early. I can understand once I have half of japan and I am shogun, But 30 turns in when I have 15 provinces? If every faction sends one full banner army to fight you then they will win as you can't defend everywhere and will most likely overwhelm you anyway.

4-You cannot out produce or out-tech the AI. Due to the economy and the fact that once you have researched katana samurai you have access to your full roster to all intents and purposes. So everybody has the exact same army and its impossible to get any advantage. Its just a question of who has the most samurai in his army.

5- The AI obsesses about attacking my capital. Which would cripple me by killing my daimyo as well as ruining my economy but of course the AI doesn't suffer these penalties at all if I try and do the same.

6-I can't use any of the tactics I used in previous total war games.

-Hammer and anvil does not work anymore because the AI always brings a lot of cavalry to the table and forces you to fight costly cavalry flank battles. Because battles are so much quicker now and only last a few minutes this means even if you win those depleted cavalry units won't get there in time and your main line takes far higher casualties.

-Arrow fire is pointless except in siege. I once saw an enemy horse army get across a bridge before I could loose a single volley. Units are far too fast in this game. You can't just turtle with longbows like you could in medieval.

-Isolating and destroying lone units piecemeal is impossible. Not only does the AI deploy in tight compact formations that just rush you like orks out of 40k but because units are so fast now its easy for them to reinforce eachother before you can rout or destroy them.

-The AI obsesses about killing your general. Never mind how they can pick him out in the battle but they will do anything and I mean anything to get him. They will send units of cavalry around your army, they will direct all their arrow fire at him and they will even forget that they are assaulting the walls to get him. Add to this that generals are unlike in Rome and Med shockingly easy to kill and it just gives the AI another advantage.

-Battles are so fast that it is impossible to micro-manage to the extent that was possible on previous total war titles. The AI is in your face straight away and 2 minutes later 2000 men are dead either side. So its impossible to send katana infantry at spears or other things to get bonuses. It reminds me of starcraft 2 multiplayer where you have to be 100% focused or else you will lose.

-The result in sum is that every battle becomes a brutal meatgrinder in which the guy with the most and experienced samurai wins. This is boring and because in realm divide the combined AI armies vastly outnumber you means they force you to fight in a way you are guaranteed to lose. If every battle you lose a thousand men because the AI fights to the death then you will lose.

7- Sorry, rebel armies get full stacks instantly?

8- How does me taking plunder from a wooden castle in the middle of nowhere make people revolt?

9- Faction wide civil order penalties.

10- Easy mode should be easy. Not like playing Rome on Very Hard. Honestly, the battles are as hard as Rome on VH. If I want a challenge I'll look for it and the AI in this isn't smart its just programmed to have advantages and forces you to fight in a way where you will lose in the context of the campaign restrictions on your armies. If I want pointlessly hard for its own sake I would paly StarCraft multiplayer.

11- After a 135 hours playing it I kind of should have gotten better at it.

[BroskiDerpman]

My apologies. Got a little too mad perhaps...

[Drakarys1402]

I am not playing it on hard. If I wanted a challenge I would play a human opponent or I would play tetris until I lost.

Its not. Its way faster. You can lose half a unit in a few seconds. In Rome 1 a unit of hastate would not be cut to ribbons in a head on fight with a unit of the same class. On Rome 1 you could micro manage. On Rome 1 an entire army could not cross a bridge before you loose a single volley of arrows. On Rome 1 the enemy got penalised for dispersing his units so I could overwhelm them before they could reinforce. Everything is sped up and on crack until I can't make sense of it. Battles are much, much shorter. They clearly wanted the game to be much more arcade like.

The tech bonuses are pretty poor aside from the economical ones. Once you have katana samurai you don't really need anything else. Its not like in Empire where there were major bonuses down the line to your army in special ammunition and first rank second rank.

If the AI has no cavalry and if he puts his full army into the assault then you can hammer and anvil even with light cavalry. Which they don't ever do. Most of the game they have 2 or 3 generals with some samurai/light cavalry. I don't want to lose 3/4 of my cavalry in a meat grinder hacking through them to actually hammer and anvil. Plus the AI just rushes his ashigaru and yari samurai in after 3 seconds of combat. You can't overwhelm and rout units like you could in Rome and even medieval. Once I did get some yari lancers behind an army at full strength but the AI simply disengaged from my main line (without causing a rout obviously) and swamped my cavalry. Plus those bow units refused to rout when I charged them with lancers and in seconds cut the unit down before my main line could join the fight.

The AI is not good. It simply reacts very crudely to your every move and sometimes outright cheats. Like it not suffering any economic or faction civil order penalties and always knowing exactly where your hidden units are. I've seen a single territory support a full banner army in early game. The amount of times I've had hidden cavalry units far away from the main battle line have wandering enemy cavalry looking through them is ridiculous. Whats the point of hiding if the enemy always detects you. You can beat the AI but only if I hand over half my army in casualties. Again, the AI "strategy" only amounts to a massive infantry charge with a lot of cavalry on the sides. That's the same thing they've done in every total war game ever made. The AI is not smarter its simply programmed to swarm anything behind its lines and zerg rush your general as well. Those are the only two differences. Its the silly sped up units and unbreakable morale and far higher casualties I take that make it so much harder to play.

Dude. It is easy mode. Meant to warm people up to the game so they can take on bigger challenges. I should not lose half or 3/4 of my army and have whole units wiped out when the AI tactic is to charge in a huge blob at me . If lancers charge sword units they should cut the bastards down. This was when I actually did outflank an enemy army with two yari lancers. If the AI does it to me I lose the whole unit. But me they just bounce off and I have all the samurai killed. This is not just Rome. On Med 2. Empire. Napoleon. They were all much much easier. On easy I could play any of those and only lose a hundred guys and kill 2000 on a good day. On Shogun on a good day I'll lose a thousand guys and kill the enbemy army. Then coz its realm divide and the AI cheats with its economy I'll have another army attack before that one can replenish. It is not an easy game. It is a hundred times harder than all other TW games.

Generals are useless. You can never enter CC without your general instantly being killed. Those bonuses do nothing. Your troops never rally and the inspire button does nothing near as I can tell beyond a little symbol.

You think diplomacy not working is a good thing?


edit: As far as the battles go I can table people on Fall of the Samurai because of gun lines and artillery. The only problem is that your infantry do not have bayonets and can't form square like in empire so you have to make sure all your artillery is used to kill enemy cavalry. The campaign itself is just a matter of fiddly logistics and balancing happiness with modernity.

[BroskiDerpman]

mhmmm My apologies.

[BroskiDerpman]

Also in all TW games the ai cheats, in Shogun 2 the ai gets less bonuses. The ai in TW was never good so as long as you think and prepare you can win the campaign on easy.

[Sp4]

Wanting the game to be easier is bad when the game is easy on H/H.

Battles play out differently from vanilla Rome and combat is actually a little slower.

What you say of the ai simply shows that the ai is better than Rome 1 which is a good thing. All you said are compliments to the game essentially for providing a good challenge then a waltz through like Rome 1.

Boost up tech speed by focusing on one tree and your gen can boost Bushido tech speed. (Monks can boost Chi)

Hammer and anvils work wonderfully, archers are ok but in MP I prefer some matchlocks. You can also make tons of money if you do everything right.

Also generals are much more important than Rome vanilla.

In summarization you need to get better by reading guides, watching lets plays, or watching MP footage.

The AI isn't really 'better' it just cheats. Magical full stacks of samurai that appear out of nowhere supported by one province, armies that have more generals than you will ever have in an entire campaign.. that sort of stuff. It's not exactly challenging, just kind of frustrating and boring.

[BroskiDerpman]

Which is what I said: The ai cheats.

Which is boring but it is quite easy to beat the game.

[Drakarys1402]

Oh a frontal charge would be easy. The AI goes for the extreme flank so it puts four horse units against or behind my army if it can. Usually I am backed up though so they slm into the side. I don't like taking too many units from the main gunline. It doesn't lose me a game it just means the flank unit gets mauled. Plus, second unit? The map rarely accomodates for me being able to set up two lines of guns that can shoot. Same reason I rarely used guns on Med 2; very circumstantial weapon.

The AI throws a huge proportion of his army at my flankers: either when they are hiding in woods or when they arrive. Generals, archers, even units from the main line to come and swamp my cavalry. Because of this hammer and anvil does not work.

The game forces you to expand early in the game. Simply taking provinces makes people hate you. What is the point of having a full rank honour daimyo (+20) and chi arts of +10 diplomacy if you get -60 for taking provinces; not to mention other weird things like Not respected -20 despite me giving them money. No back stabbing. No breaking of treaties. All legit wars in which I help my allies (who hate me for helping them in their wars and doing well). But apparently everyone in Japan including my allies who benefit from me winning want me dead. Tha is broken diplomacy.

Kite?

The only reason I won in my Oda campaign was by avoiding major battles entirely and playing every siege so he would lose tons of soldiers while I lost next to nothing and had my real army take all his provinces methodically.

[BroskiDerpman]

Kite i.e, when in battlemap keep on running away from the enemy and weaken them. Then you engage.

Watch some online battle commentaries and you'll then have a fresh take on battles in SP.

A good Realm divide system in FoTS. Makes more sense in that dlc.

[Drakarys1402]

Only horse archers can do that though surely? N they are expensive and difficult to recruit.

[faker01]

1-No money: This is admittedly like every TW game since Empire but since the AI has no such limits it really exacerbates everything else that works against you and for me makes the game unenjoyable.

build units -> conquer -> get more money -> build more units
Building something else will take much longer before you get more then you invested.

This makes alliances impossible to form and as noted above the game clearly wants you to use allies/vassals to cover vulnerable flanks to compensate.

You don't need allies. If you want them for money or time for other problems: make sure they will break the alliance and prepare yourself.
vulnerable flanks are no problem when you are busy with conquering, you get enough money for further units.

3-Realm Divide happens far too early. I can understand once I have half of japan and I am shogun, But 30 turns in when I have 15 provinces? If every faction sends one full banner army to fight you then they will win as you can't defend everywhere and will most likely overwhelm you anyway.

ATTACK
You can't withstand opponents with 2x as many units + much more reinforcements for long while defending, but attacking works well in some areas.
In my 2nd funiest game I attacked an area with about 70 units of the enemys with about 30 of my units (yari ashigaru only, what else xD), it took about 16 turns before I got local superiority. Note, that I don't use bait-tactics, I use my splitted army tactics.

4-You cannot out produce or out-tech the AI. Due to the economy and the fact that once you have researched katana samurai you have access to your full roster to all intents and purposes. So everybody has the exact same army and its impossible to get any advantage. Its just a question of who has the most samurai in his army.

Yari ashigaru are best for sp. They are cheap, replaceable, flexible and benefit much more from bonuses from exp and generals. Many units are depleted in a battle? no problem, use them as garrison and fill up the stack with fresh recruits.

-Hammer and anvil does not work anymore because the AI always brings a lot of cavalry to the table and forces you to fight costly cavalry flank battles. Because battles are so much quicker now and only last a few minutes this means even if you win those depleted cavalry units won't get there in time and your main line takes far higher casualties.

Flank with yari ashigaru, it works well.

-Battles are so fast that it is impossible to micro-manage to the extent that was possible on previous total war titles. The AI is in your face straight away and 2 minutes later 2000 men are dead either side. So its impossible to send katana infantry at spears or other things to get bonuses. It reminds me of starcraft 2 multiplayer where you have to be 100% focused or else you will lose.

I'd say for most units you need about 100 apm to play with them well, but with yari ashigaru about 200 apm and with katana cavalry about 300 apm.
Note that in normal mode you can slow it down. Note2 that the game doesn't support high apm, so when the computer is slowly the game ignores some actions.