Shogun II Total War

[Ossie The Great]

I would love a Shogun TW 2 all though i think the closest we will get to it is Ran No Jadai

[TosaInu]

You can shoot when you want to in the original STW engine as well.

A better implementation perhaps?

A better implementation of firing while moving would be nice too (at the moment mounted missiles fire what they think to be a target, not what the player wants to be the target).

[Marcus Orentius]

Since when could you shoot when you wanted in RTW?

@Nobunaga: Since they have a new engine to wrok on, I do reckon AI will improve. RTW and M2TW were equally as crap as each other because they were on the same engine.

[Drisos]

I both yearn for and fear "Shogun 2." I would definitely buy it. I would even pay more for it than I would normally pay for a game. If it was good, I would certainly spend way too much time playing it. I fear this, and of course, I fear that it would not stand up to its original. It would break my gaming heart to see the shibumi of Shogun replaced by a garish, commercialized new release. Because of this fear, I find myself thinking it would be better to let things be. I still play Shogun SP. I will play it for as long as it will run on the platform of the day. I consider it a personal treasure, my favorite computer game ever.

Aaaah.. great post!! I must agree.

Not atm, but soon again I'll play Shogun sp now and then.. Still my no1 as well.

I must say, at times, I terribly miss the superb times I had playing shogun MP. Best MP community I was in, ever. Plus, the best game ever.. what could you ask more. Such a loss that this is really history now..

Also in that interview James Russell, lead designer, says:

"We will have a fire button. It's a sort of override tool so you can time your shot when you want to. And timing is critical. Let off muskets too early, and you won't do enough damage. Let off your muskets too late in the face of a cavalry charge, and you've got every chance of being crushed by a flying dead horse."

Flying Dead Horses?


BTW, I have news for James Russell and the new fire button feature. You can shoot when you want to in the original STW engine as well.

So true.

We must admit though, the dead horses in stw did not fly. ah well.. I like a bit realism anyway.

Hilarious post, Puzz. Good stuff.

[TosaInu]

Since when could you shoot when you wanted in RTW?

Hello Marcus Orentius,

I'm not sure about RTW, BI, Alexander or M2TW, played the old titles starting at STW much more.

It's not intuitive and maybe close to an exploit. But you could toggle the fire at will button for missileunits and they'll immediately fire (requires micromanagement and timing). You can't tell them what to fire, if you do that they'll start to reload (again).

What happens is that the unit is idle for some time (time required to reload ~30 seconds) and is pre-charged. When you toggle FAW, they aim and fire.

It would be nice if they improved the feature, just like the fire while moving (player can decide what is shot at while the unit moves or is pre-charged).

[Noir]

Originally posted by Marcus Orentius
Since when could you shoot when you wanted in RTW?

TosaInu answered the technicallity of that. As he says you keep the FAW button @off and at the appropriate time toggled it at on, then the selected unit(s) will fire at a range of your choosing a devastating volley.

I just wanted to add that this is very effective for massed archers (that can deal horrible casualties with concentrated fire into precious enemy units such as HC) and obvioulsy crossbows and guns; the latter can virtually rout anything on the spot most of the time.

Good sense of timing is needed to achieve results, however they are rewarding.

Apparently SP players are less tuned with that; in MP i've seen it used frequently and with skill.

RTW/BI/M2TW retained the FAW button and the player can still control/time his volleys if he wishes so.

Noir

[Marcus Orentius]

I'll try that when i get the chance, thanks.

[Togakure]

No more than two row deployment, skirmish off.

[JP Vieira]

naval campaigns...would love it

[uk_john]

While your waiting for Shogun II, why not go retro and find and play a grreat ggame I have had on my hard drive for 15 years(!). It's a game called Sword of the Samurai and is your typical RPG/Strategy/Simulation game that Microprose came out with in the 90's - with Civilization being the best known one!

Sword of the Samurai has you playing a young Samurai with dreams of becoming Dyamo of Japan. It takes place over 300 years, so one of the things you have to do is get a wife and have sons - if you don't the game dies when you do! (Ring any bells?!) You have a large map you can travel over visiting other Samurai castles, meeting bandits for some real time pausable strategy and you have the diplomatic shenanigans that we all love in the TW series!

Of course, being a 15 year old game means you will get 256 VGA graphics and midi sounds, but the gameplay is superb and the tactical strategy engine was written by none other than Sid Meier!!

You'll probably find it cheap on ebay or even maybe on abandonware sites. Make a point to get the manual though, pdf or otherwise, as a) it's a good read, and b) it really helps with the nuances of the game!

[redlunatic]

I would honestly just like CA, SEGA SoldOut Software - anyone at this point to simply take note of all the glitches people have had with this game and fix it.

One patch - no more CTD, flickering then I am happy. As is - I have yet to play the game without glitches and CTD.

Also, they should add in one small faction - Tokugawa. My two cents though.

[uk_john]

I would honestly just like CA, SEGA SoldOut Software - anyone at this point to simply take note of all the glitches people have had with this game and fix it.

One patch - no more CTD, flickering then I am happy. As is - I have yet to play the game without glitches and CTD.

Also, they should add in one small faction - Tokugawa. My two cents though.

I'll have to dig out my Shogun game and see how it runs on my PC, as I have upgraded twice since playing it! If it has glitches, it will because of our modern PC's and developers have rarely released a patch to deal with updated hardware! :)

[Dunhill]

I think the open-source/ development team path may be the way to go for STWII.

One of the developers from Mad Minute Games is doing something along these lines to create a multiplayer version of the Take Command series (the tactical game I'm playing instead of TW now).

Have a look a the website:

http://www.norbsoftware.com/Portal/i...tpage&Itemid=1

He's gathering useful modders and programmers and such to help him out and giving them a stake in the game. No deadlines at the moment.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out. Think of being able to change code for STWII as required.

[caravel]

I think the open-source/ development team path may be the way to go for STWII.

There is a definite market for such games for Linux also. Many Linux gamers don't al play FPS games out of choice, they do so because there's not really much else. SEGA/CA are never going to touch any market apart from Windows / DirectX / 10 years and up, because they are currently trying to hit the biggest markets and have ceased to innovate in gameplay terms so multi platform is out of the window start. We can only hope that some kind of TW open source clone project is started up (I would have called it "openWar" if that name had already not been taken by another project or something of that sort) - but it's unlikely.

[dshodaw]

Personally, I think Shogun is the best of the Total War series. I think they should do to Shogun what they did to Medieval. Make the game with some new features and better graphics.... I would buy it...


Just my opinion...

Exactly. But with out the Empire TW crap. Just Shogun upgraded to Med 2 TW level, without the whole online account crap. Just the good old, single player campaign and battles, and the old multiplayer options. Med 2 rocked! The formula was perfect, and they messed up by changing it for Empire TW. But Shogun was the best setting for TW, and they should honor the game that started it all!

[caravel]

Welcome to the .org dshodaw

Well this is an old thread. I suspect many have now given up on the notion of there ever being a Shogun II - I know I have. Though personally I don't really want a Shogun II as I know it would never be as good as the original.

[Wilbo]

I'm sure they will do a Shogun II one day.

All I want is a gently massaged Shogun 1 - upgraded resolution and full compliance with modern operating systems.

[Martok]

Well this is an old thread. I suspect many have now given up on the notion of there ever being a Shogun II - I know I have. Though personally I don't really want a Shogun II as I know it would never be as good as the original.

All I want is a gently massaged Shogun 1 - upgraded resolution and full compliance with modern operating systems.

Get the units properly balanced, eliminate fantasy/overpowered units (Geisha, Kensai, Battlefield Ninja, etc.), perhaps add a few more clans to the original seven, and *maybe* upgrade the visuals (if it's deemed absolutely necessary), and I'll be happy. Nothing else need be done IMHO.

[caravel]

Get the units properly balanced, eliminate fantasy/overpowered units (Geisha, Kensai, Battlefield Ninja, etc.), perhaps add a few more clans to the original seven, and *maybe* upgrade the visuals (if it's deemed absolutely necessary), and I'll be happy. Nothing else need be done IMHO.

Call me cynical, but I doubt very much that CA would ever do STW again. I also seriously do not believe that CA will ever do an asian based TW game of any kind again either. They are now fully aware that their current market is firmly routed in western European military history. Expect more Romans, Knights and Redcoats...

The closest you'll ever get is the Battles of Asia mod for RTW or the Ran no Jidai mod if it's ever finished. For now it's good old STW or the excellent Samurai Warlords mod for MTW.

[Martok]

Oh, I have no illusions in that regard either; I long ago gave up any hope that CA would develop Shogun 2. I was merely stating what I'd personally like to see in this hypothetical sequel, regardless of the (im)possibility of it actually being made.


Truth be told, at this point, I honestly hope CA *never* does Shogun 2. Given the direction they've taken the series, I very much doubt we'd like the result anyway. Best to simply play the original when the mood strikes, and otherwise leave sleeping dogs lie.

[caravel]

Truth be told, at this point, I honestly hope CA *never* does Shogun 2. Given the direction they've taken the series, I very much doubt we'd like the result anyway. Best to simply play the original when the mood strikes, and otherwise leave sleeping dogs lie.

Agreed, on the same note, resurrecting MTW should have been a good move for the CA, but the end result was pretty shoddy (I've never seen a game so buggy and heavily patched either). The next game we have to look forward to is whatever is based on the current ETW incarnation of the TW game engine(s). They can't really come any further forward in time, so I assume they'll go backwards again? I'd place my bets on R2TW. Much more likely than any further sequels such as M3TW.

[Karl08]

CA naturally seeks to satisfy the demand. They likely made M2TW because they felt they hadn't tapped the market completely after the first one, and with a new engine with RTW they must have felt they could drill even deeper into the reserves, as it were. I don't think we'll be seeing more of medieval Europe in a while, as the demand is more than sated for now. ETW is an attempt at reaching more audiences who might like the TW genre, and I shouldn't be surprised if their next attempt leans toward different cultures. A Chinese Total War game is, in my eyes, an inevitability if TW installments keep getting made. Perhaps something African, or Mesopotamian. I feel they will get around to Japan once more in the future, and they naturally will if they think there's a big enough market for it.

There is definitely room for improvement on STW - but not all that much, in my personal opinion. CA seem to throw in more and more micro-management for each game, though, which is a huge draw-back, in my eyes, for a game where the battles are the main selling point. In M2TW, each game year feels like it takes an actual year to finish; it's more tedious than anything. In STW, the pace on the campaign map felt just right, and the next battle was just right around the corner.

Another drawback with all the micro-management is that you get so caught up in that bit that you don't even want the battles anymore. It hasn't quite come to that point yet (for me, anyway), though M2 is the latest TW game I have and can't comment on Empire. But anyone who played X-COM knows what I'm talking about: at first you're thinking, "great, a ufo! Battle!" But after a while the research and base development become the interesting bits, and then it's "oh great, another ufo. Let's see if I can shoot it down over the ocean so I don't have to do the UFO assault."

If they do another Shogun, it should either be with a different focus (eg. strategy rather than tactics, but then it wouldn't be a TW game), or with different features (eg. a new way of imagining the tech tree, simplified campaign map etc.)

Oh, and get artists who can actually draw (as in on a piece of paper) swords. That kind of bugged me in STW, though the background illustrations did contribute a lot to atmosphere.

[gollum]

Good post Karl08. To which swords you refer to?

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I agree...the more they added to the strategy game the more it became an inferior EUII.

Medieval would have been great if it was the "The hundred years war". Rome if it was "rome vs carthage".

The game just doesn't work on a large scale--you aren't going to have "total war" for 400 years in which scotland takes over all of europe for some unknown reason.

[gollum]

Originally posted by Sasaki Kojiro
agree...the more they added to the strategy game the more it became an inferior EUII.

Medieval would have been great if it was the "The hundred years war". Rome if it was "rome vs carthage".

The game just doesn't work on a large scale--you aren't going to have "total war" for 400 years in which scotland takes over all of europe for some unknown reason.

Indeed, there were endless such scenarios in the medieval period (some of which were touched) The hundred year's war; The Reconquista; The Teutonic Wars; the Crusader Kingdom Wars; Byzantino-Turkish wars, SiculoNorman-Byzantine wars; Italian City States wars and much more such in antiquity.

The so-called Grand Campaigns are beyond historical plausibility, because they are indeed far from the scale set where the TotalWar model works best (that was designed around the campaign of Shogun by definition/necessity).

As Karl08 says tedium in the campaign map rose quickly as the series evolved, to the point that for ETW they had to simplify a lot in order to prevent the micromanaging details to be overwhelming since so much of the globe is included - on the other hand this feels wrong, because it ends up portraying France the same way Yamashiro was portrayed in STW.

CA simply scaled up or down the basic set-up of the STW campaign in order to make a game in a particular historical setting irrespective of how well this would feel and function. Its awkward at best and really bad for the gameplay.

[caravel]

Personally I think the franchise is too far gone to improve. A transition back to the risk style campaign map would be the first good move, though it would have fans of the new campaign map style up in arms...

To cut a long story short, it really doesn't matter to SEGA/CA what a few old time players think of the newer games. When a new TW title is a released, a whole new generation of potential customers has matured worldwide. At the end of the day magazine reviews and screenshots will do the selling.

Clearly SEGA/CA do not want hardcore gamers, they do not want MP and they certainly don't want modifications.

I quite honestly cannot ever see "S2TW" becoming a reality. The games have been clearly centred upon Europe since MTW with an emphasis on bigger maps and more units. S2TW would be a much smaller map and significantly less units.

[caravel]

Off topic posts have been split off to this thread..

[caravel]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6dB9dF8RQ8

1:09 - 1:13

This is how I'd always seen the campaign map developing, aesthetically at least.

[gollum]

Nice, instead it developed into this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7CclVneVpw

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I really think the size of the map and the tech tree were the main problem with medieval. I started playing a campaign as the welsh in the viking campaign and it's working out very well. Without the giant map and the endless tech tree, the focus is on fighting and conquering.

Played about 45 turns (11 years shogun time). Just have the scots, picts, irish and vikings left (though they seem to have faded after I killed three of their heirs in one battle). One improvement over shogun is that I don't have a massively superior army yet (no monks or heavy cav type troops). Though that just might be because I don't know the tech tree