Who joined in the Total War multiplayer the earliest?

[Shaka_Khan]

We have an interesting thread on who is the oldest in this forum. This reminds me of another question: who entered the Total War foyer the earliest?

I don't think I rank high in this category, because I joined during the heydays of the Shogun Warlord Edition. I started playing before Warlord Edition appeared, but at that time, I didn't play the multi-player with the original Shogun Total War.

I wonder who joined in early, because I believe those would be the best players of all the Total War series. Hmm.......

[Shaka_Khan]

I'd like to add that when I joined in the spring of 2001, there were already lots of players in the foyer.

I clearly remember RageKrast, HiPlnzDrifta and the FrozenChicken Clan because they were talkative; AMP Mortog, the Elites, the MagyarKhans, the Aggonies and the Hattoris because they were always there; the DarkAngels for their explicit words; and LoviaAthena and CaptiveGirl for being flamed at constantly.

Btw- I wonder who discovered the importance of the flanking tactic? The Shogun tutorial doesn't mention this tactic. I played Medieval without doing the tutorial, so I don't know whether it mentioned flanking or not. I don't think Rome did but I don't remember. I learned about flanking when someone explained it to another player, which was a few months after I registered for the Warlord Edition multiplayer. Almost every beginner in multi-player already knows which army is stronger than which, and knows about height advantage. Being an expert in this game depends on knowing about the flanking tactic. If you look at the beginners, you'll notice that they'll usually charge with at least 90% of their army at one of your army units head on. Doing this leaves their armies open to a flank attack. I think that's how everyone played during the early times of the first Total War. A player who knew about the flanking tactic early would've ranked at the top very quickly.

[Tomisama]

I wonder who joined in early, because I believe those would be the best players of all the Total War series. Hmm.......

Not the best, just the oldest

I believe I was playing Shogun multiplayer as Tomisama, before the first patch

[Togakure]

The importance of flanking was hyped in the Strategy Guide released with Shogun, but you had to buy it separately. It was referring to SP, but of course it transfered to MP, in a big way. Then again, flanking has ever been a key tactic in real-world combat strategy. Even in single combat, oblique attacks tend to be more effective than frontal assaults, etc.

I didn't come online until well after the glory days of Shogun were over. The group that was still playing in 2003 was great, however, though I missed not ever meeting some of the "legendary" characters. AMP put up with me as a partner for a couple of games, but I've never even seen Magyar Khan or his Cham. I did get to play with several of the Mizus; those were some very fine games.

[Tomisama]

Ahhh the good old days

When Magyar Khan ruled multiplayer.

We were so enamored with his prowess were we, that a Hall of Fame was erected, and we voted him the champion of champions, Best Player in all of Total War.

A special and much belated thanks to SonicKnights and BeoWolf (if I have their names correct), for making the first Hall of Fame happen.

It was a glorious thing!

Possibly all of theses folks are now gone, but never forgotten…

[7Bear7Bottom]

When Magyar Khan ruled multiplayer

No comment....


I was LordConcord in the early day of Shogun before the patch, *stretches memory*, I remember many characters. Of course some have interesting versions of multiplayer history in Shogun. As a ronin during those days, Kenchikuka Clan, Aggony of Pain Clan, Insane Clan, 7Bear7 Clan, Shinkage, Chaos Gate, No Fear Itos, and Clan Tsuchiya were the most dominate clans of the era IMO.

Most of these clans skipped the the very flawed Mongals version and stayed with shogun Original until the release of MTW. Unfortunalty the server was discontinued for Shogun, by this time MTW was in it's first year and the days of Shogun era was over.

I try to stay away naming anyone in particular, as we all have our good memories and game replays that made Shogun so fun.

My 2 cents.

[Puzz3D]

I knew about the game and the org forum a year before the game was released, and bought it when it came out in June, 2000. I started playing STW online on Oct 1, 2000. The established top players had been playing for several months already. One thing I remember is AnnieP always going up against the top players. She was fearless and I'm sure learned a lot that way. The top clans as I recall were the Wolves, Fear, Chain, Rage, Elite and maybe Kenchikuka. My first game was against a player who's name I can't quite recall, but he was good and, as the defender, he monk rushed me in heavy rain and fog. I never saw him coming. Toward the end of Oct, I joined the Akai Ken Clan (Red Blade), but when the members realized the clan had been established by an ex-Chaos member as a base from which to harrass them, the entire membership quit and formed Clan Takiyama at the end of Nov, 2000. I never did break into the top 100 by honor rating, but I did win a 5 round 2v2 elimination tournament run by Elmark in Feb, 2001. My partner, with whom I had only played once before that night, was the player who went on to form the RTK clan. Without a doubt, the best player I ever saw was RageExe, but Magyar, AMP and Paolai were also right up there, and LordTed was the undiputed king of 1000 koku games. In early Oct, 2000, Paolai was kind enough to help me analyze a battle after I lost to him which encouraged me to stick with online play. There were many very good players at the time. The overall level of play was very high, and it was very competitive.

STW was drawing over 100 players on weekends around the beginning of 2001. You could play 3 battles per hour which set an exciting pace for a playing session of several hours. As I recall, Magyar had 10,000 online battles played by this time. WE/MI ruined the whole thing with CA making several errors in the stats, since LongJohn wasn't with them at the time, which destroyed the balance in MP, and which the community beta team assigned to rebalance the game for CA was not able to correct. MTW recovered somewhat with LongJohn's return, but didn't fully recapture the balanced gameplay of STW v1.12, and the battles tended to be too long. Potentially, MTW/VI MP can offer superior gameplay to STW by way of the modding capabilities provided and removal of battlefield upgrades in MP, but that large community of outstanding players is now dispersed across many games.