New to Shogun 2, a question and possibly a rant

[I_damian]

Greetings all. I bought Shogun 2 back in April and it became the first game that would not run at all on my almost 6-year old gaming rig, even with all graphical options set to off or as low as possible. So, here I am 3 or 4 months later with a fantasical new rig that plays the game with all the settings on ultra, including unit size and AA and shadows and everything, and after trying out each faction to get a feel for them and their starting positions I settled down to play a campaign, and so begins the experience.

My question is: what bonuses does the AI get on the various difficulty settings? I notice there is only one slider now where there used to be 2, one for campaign and one for battles. Has one been removed or is it just in a different place?

And my possible rant - I say possible because so far the longest I've played is 8 turns so this may be a coincidence or something I did wrong and not necessarily part of the game - why the hell did half the world declare war on me? The clan I chose, I can't remember their name but they start on that little "continent" down in the bottom-left of the map separated from the rest of the mainland by the sea. All I did was conquer two provinces from the neighbours you start at war with, then I made trading agreements with everybody I could and built up my little empire with buildings and trade ships. All of a sudden in one turn about 6 different clans declared war on me. The 3 I was trading with declared war, and 4 more who I had only just "discovered".

Did I cause this by rapid expansion (conquering 2 provinces in about 4 turns)? I didn't loot them, preaceful occupation. Or... I shudder at the thought... Have CA just copy/pasted Empire's AI over in to Shogun 2? If so, that just means if I have a neighbour, we're going to war, no matter the relationship. Repeat until either I am defeated or I own the world. Which is it?

Cheers. :bow:

[knoddy]

im not sure what bonuses exactly the ai gets on teh different levels but i beleive its similar to previous TW games where their armies get large bonuses and they get economic ones and stuff like that.

For some reason they changed it to one slider but if u go into options on ur campaign map u can change the battle difficulty. If your after a real challenge there is a legendary difficulty which is apparantly extremely difficult.

as for your possible rant. im not sure tbh. im guessin your playing the shimazu. the ai is greatly improved from previous TW titles. alliances actually stick and people dont declare on you for no reason (for the most part, im not saying its perfect)

as for your current situation, IIRC in my shimazu camp, most of the minor clans on your island hate you. i remember fighting the people you start at war with then once i killed them off the other minor clans on the island declared on me. I dont think its too much to worry about early on. capture the sea trade points for extra money build up your economy and just ride out the storm. chances are half the ones that declared are not even in a position to attack you.

Cheers Knoddy

[econ21]

What difficulty were you playing at? I tried Shimazu on normal and fell asleep, as things were so placid (after taking their starter island). On higher campaign difficulties, I suspect it is like other TW games - the AI is biased against you. Your experience may be a little extreme - perhaps you stirred up a perfect storm and the AI factions had made alliances that cast you as the outsider? I suspect at higher difficulties, STW2 has something like the "shark feeding frenzy" of the Civ AI - you may get dogpiled by other factions if you get into a war where the odds are against you. Strongly garrisoning any provinces with a land (or bridge) border may help deter declarations of war, as might cultivating a close ally (the bow specialists on that smaller island are a good choice) - that's particularly useful to keep some trade going after realm divide.

I would persvere with it - the AI in STW2 is the best we've seen in TW for a long while, maybe the best ever. Start with normal if you have not already, as unlike most other TW games you can lose even on normal.

[I_damian]

Thanks for the replies. I was playing on hard, not vh or leg, just hard, I guess it's because all the people on the starting island hate Shimazu, even though I did ally with some of them and they broke them within a couple of turns.

[NightwindKing]

Been playing a Shimazu campaign on Hard, and Im on about turn 45.

So far I've got two close allies, and last turn one of them betrayed me for no explicable reason (I'm being bottled-up by Hojo at the crossing to Kanto...so, not really a threat to Yamada). Was forced to ally with another really weak clan just to intimidate Hojo more. Jerks.

So far I've not found it placid at all...I've got constant rebellions from the *&#$ Nanban trade port in the northern province, constant Wokou attacks along the south coast, the Black Ship just demolished one of my fleets, and Hojo has three full-stack armies bearing down on my one and a half.

So. I symapthize :-(