Same engine as ntw.

Shogun 2 runs on the same engine as ntw while this will be good in terms of the game having a good solid feel when it comes out i wonder how this will transfer to a melee based game. Lets look at the problems the engine has in particular with melee.

Banana Runs: when charging a unit in melee often your own unit will run off in a banana shaped charge even if directly in front of the target unit.

1v1 Fighting: Amp pointed out to me that units only fight 1v1, as far as im aware this is the first totalwar game to do this, if you actually zoom in you see 5 men standing around doing nothing while others just fight 1v1. This could be a really bad thing for a melee based game, did i say could? will be.

Buggy Ui: In ntw square 1 unit switch to another unit of the same type and it will show that its squared already even though its not? :o

Run!: This is one of my biggest gripes with ntw, i find myself more and more having to babysit my units pressing run 15 times till i realise the units running. It doesent show immediatly. Run toggle is fine and well but we need a HARDCORE run button it does nothing else just says oi you! RUN!

Cav: NTW has square formation and cav are VERY versatile in the game, i can charge 4 different units with the same cav getting 4 charge bonuses in around 25 seconds or so. This gives cav the potential in stw to be very overpowered especially if there is a lancer type unit. Countering cav with spears is a different ball game than easily countering with square. and your going to see sword armies etc in shogun2 which will be very vulnerable to this kind of tactic. I hope that they make the yari cav a unit thats weak against infantry and good against cav as a counter unit to cav heavy armies again, and that heavy cav is again too expensive to be spammed.

I have surely missed some stuff, anyone else can think of other stuff which may not translate to a melee game so well?

Not sure how bad it is in these recent games but some men in a unit standing around while others fight is not a new thing. I remember seeing this in MTW and I'm almost sure in STW as well. Maybe it's more noticeable now but you would quite often see guys in rear ranks or left/right side of a unit that were just standing.
Shogun mod for VI is all I have on the PC now and I just ran a battle to check. I must add these units were not on 'hold formation' either.

Yeah I can't say if I remember or not how bad it was in the other TWs, but in NTW when you zoom in it's clear as day. I'm a bit shocked to not see anyone else bringing this up here or any of the other sites I looked at. This would seem to me like a pretty big deal esp in a more melee game like STW2.

I don't remember in STW if units stood there never striking or took turns striking a soldier that was surrounded. I can understand soldiers in the back of course not striking because they aren't next to an enemy soldier. I'm talking when it's more of a 2v1 and up situation and if anyone can confirm this... I don't have my STW copy anymore (broke the cd ). :(

Oh don't get me wrong, it was there but not as bad as M2TW (my last TW purchase) where they introduced the individual 'killer moves' and it's another reason I dislike the 3D zoom in, 'wow look how cool this little guy is' approach. I loved the -ian feature for viewing replays. Find a location at one flank, high up and watch the whole battle unfold. Now that was what I would call awesome.

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Originally Posted by Orda Khan

I loved the -ian feature for viewing replays. Find a location at one flank, high up and watch the whole battle unfold. Now that was what I would call awesome.

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That can still be done in NTW by changing the default camera setting in the preference.script.

With Shogun 2 are focus on battles is definitely making sure they play smoothly and with all systems working properly.

Whilst the matched anims are only 1v1, the combat calculations are not. The game knows how many attackers are available when a man makes an attack and if there are multiple attackers the kill chance is greatly increased. So the anim may be 1v1, but the combat system is not.

Yari Cav are going to be the anti-cav cavalry, and different cavalry units will vary in their effectiveness against non-spear infantry.

Thanks for stopping by Jack and good to hear that.

Thats good to know jack and has allayed some fears i had about shogun2, also great to hear that the yari cavalry will make a return in the role that made it such a well balanced unit in shogun1, the problems i always saw with cav in totalwar games mostly came from the cost of the units, this was not such a big issue in shogun 1 as we had our anti cav unit that was FASTER (this was an important factor) than any other cav and heavy cav were just too expensive to field in large numbers, the problems start with cheap cav.

The unit size also. Never liked the reduced size cav units, they remind me of a few ponies in a field.

I wonder what role the katana cavalry will have and if it will be similar to the role of the naginta cav from the first expansion, cant really see a role apart from that for them and if naginta cav are included again would make 2 very similar units which CA stated they were going to try to avoid in shogun2.

That's good to know cause it looks very misleading especially if the soldier lives for awhile, but whatever works because we don't play zoomed in anyway (camerafreedom for the win). I just hope when I play STW2 I don't have to mouse over so many units all the time just to know what they are...in NTW some you can tell apart, but many look alike, but probably won't be the case since their are less units in STW2. In STW I could be zoomed out and take one look at my enemy or enemies and know right away what all the units are and in NTW you can tell which are line,light,snipers, and cav, but not easily which unit it is exactly.

Now if they just fix the controls it will make the game more enjoyable without having to double check or the waiting to issue a command before you can move on to something else.

I want to draw a line and my unit runs into that formation and not have to wait before I can hit the R key because if you hit it to fast before the line drawin command reponds your unit will walk. I want to single click a move order and have my unit run and not have to worry about a double click not working because you didn't time your double click right. I want to single click run way points around the backs of my enemies. :) All this could be done easily with a run toggle that acts for all units that you click on and every unit will run and when it's off you can use the R and double clicking for running. When action gets hot you can't be double checking to make sure units are running and waiting to hit R before moving on to something else.... every second counts. Who likes double clicking and hitting R over a hundred times during a match anyway?

Box formation what the heck? If one soldier from a enemy unit makes contact with a unit of yours that has a square ability they won't be able to square... no matter how spread out that enemy unit is or how big your unit is. A unit that is given the square command should try and get into square formation no matter if it made enemy contact or not and when more enemy soldiers make contact with that unit than of course the less it can square and less bonus it has. None of this flashing on and off square option when an enemy unit keeps touching ever so slightly one of yours. It's also annoying having to double click a unit into square formation when it's not in square formation yet, but the toggle shows it is. Also you need to make sure you units come out of square formation the way they were before going into square... they sometimes will have their flanks or backs to the enemy even when the unit hasn't even made contact with an enemy unit to force it's numbers down or change it's position some. You can select multiple units hit square and hit square again and not all will come back out of square formation. If a unit is on the move and you hit square that unit should stop right there and square and not keep moving to its destination before going into a square formation. In the end I hope they don't have a square formation in STW2 probably won't, but if they do I hope it's fixed.

Fire at will... you can hold F to take it off and go to melee and click on an enemy unit, but if the game lags you have to wait before issuing the attack command. I think in STW even if the game lagged you could hold alt and it'd switch to melee and you could double click on an enemy unit and not have to wait. I like as an option to be able to tell which unit is toggled off of fire at will like next to the units moral above the unit or at the very lest on the unit card.

So lets eliminate the double checking and the waiting before issuing commands to make the battles much more easy flowing with the controls. :)

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Originally Posted by AMP

Fire at will... you can hold F to take it off and go to melee and click on an enemy unit, but if the game lags you have to wait before issuing the attack command. I think in STW even if the game lagged you could hold alt and it'd switch to melee and you could double click on an enemy unit and not have to wait. I like as an option to be able to tell which unit is toggled off of fire at will like next to the units moral above the unit or at the very lest on the unit card.

So lets eliminate the double checking and the waiting before issuing commands to make the battles much more easy flowing with the controls. :)

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Lots of things I agree with, especially the run command timing is a pesk that often gets me in bad positions. ;)

However, why do you turn fire at will off in order to go to melee? I tend to leave it on and use that melee/non-melee toggle instead to give the attack order. Just curious. :)

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Originally Posted by Tempiic

Lots of things I agree with, especially the run command timing is a pesk that often gets me in bad positions. ;)

However, why do you turn fire at will off in order to go to melee? I tend to leave it on and use that melee/non-melee toggle instead to give the attack order. Just curious. :)

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Sorry what I meant was that units that can shoot which all have the fire at will option you have to toggle melee on and if the game lags you have to wait before you can issue the attack command. F is the melee toggle and it would be nice to just hold F and it shows the swords where you can click to attack en enemy unit with no waiting for it toggle on. That way even if the game lags you can just quickly order the attack command and move on to ordering other units because you don't have to wait for it to toggle on first. It's just like waiting slightly more to hit R when the game lags some. In STW you could just hold alt and it switched to the swords (melee attack) without the toggling it on and you could issue your attack command right away. The game can't register back to back commands only one at a time with the units which is extremely annoying with some lag.

Ah yes. I think I am quite agreeable (is that a word?) this week.

same engine as ntw has me believing this will be the same old drunks on skates and slow response times....how about dumbing up the game instead of dumbing it down...as far as lm concerned gameplay has been on a downward spiral since Viking and imagine shogun 2 will be the last for many if the dumbing down of the game continues
howabout finding a server that doesn't drop us a dozen times a day.....how about our lobby back and maybe ban features so lm not kicking folks all day trying to get a game...how about giveing us a game thats finished when it hits the shelfs..dont know why we even bother because all we ever get is lipservice and broken promises...just looking at thier track record over the last 10 years has me skeptical at best

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Originally Posted by CanCritter

same engine as ntw has me believing this will be the same old drunks on skates and slow response times....how about dumbing up the game instead of dumbing it down...as far as lm concerned gameplay has been on a downward spiral since Viking and imagine shogun 2 will be the last for many if the dumbing down of the game continues
howabout finding a server that doesn't drop us a dozen times a day.....how about our lobby back and maybe ban features so lm not kicking folks all day trying to get a game...how about giveing us a game thats finished when it hits the shelfs..dont know why we even bother because all we ever get is lipservice and broken promises...just looking at thier track record over the last 10 years has me skeptical at best

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Sever fix will be a blessing mate.... :skull:



We can always pray,right?

Many important points. Gameplay in NTW is a mess, its made for huge misslefights, where units usually dont get into melee.
If you play without much melee you can have fun, the only problem you meet are the movement bugs (which wont be fixed anyway). If you play with some more melee, than you need the map for its, else your doomed.

Rushing is very hard, you need a good lagfree moment to get at least 70% of your units running. Since you have to check each single command you give, you waste insane time, time you mostly dont have.
To bring up the terrible ui and the crap controlling is valid. With the current system ( its the same engine...) we wont have much fun in S2, thats for sure.

What brings me back to the question, Who is betatesting such a game? This must be noticed, this zoo obvious. This said, they did know about the bugs and brought it life.
Im very dissapointed, tons of nice pics and lots of promises once again, but after 10 years most people wake up and realize, that it needs more than some nice words.


Koc