My impressions of S2

So there it is friends,

I finally got around to playing Shogun 2. I played the tutorial for a little bit, then started a Legendary/Domination campaign with the Chosokibe clan. I chose them because they're isolated, archer friendly and an island nation - ie. they are S2's England, and I love me some England.

Since I haven't played Shogun before I decided to give the Tutorial a go, but i found nothing too impressive there. The campaign started promising, but I was soon forced to read froggy's guide to at least get an idea of what buildings to get when, since everything is so radically different from M2TW and reading anything in-game is murder on the eyes. That's the first negative thing I will say:

The in-game typeface is ridiculously small and illegible. At 1080p on my semi-pro design worthy monitor I can't read anything unless I want to bleed from my eye sockets. I only got trough because of froggy's excellent guide, otherwise I would not have bothered.

The second thing I noticed, and what had thrown me off the game before, was that the campaign map lags severely when one tries to scroll with the mouse. I had to go all Quake-like and use the WASD keys to navigate on my campaign map. What's next - hold Ctrl so your spies can sneak into cities? I also do not need a 3D campaign map, the isometric view from M2TW worked just fine for a turn-based strategy game. I have no great urge to rotate my map from all directions and to look up my Samurai's kimono as he slashes a katana at some rebels. All this rotating a camera and whoosh-ing up and down is slowing down gameplay. I also don't like the calipgraphy map. Don't get me wrong - it's good as far as design goes and it would have made one helluva loading screen or diplomatic screen map, but replacing the fog of war with this just breaks my immersion completely.

Now on to the game itself. Considering myself a solid TW player and one who has stomped the AI countless times, I decided that I see what this Legendary business is all about. First battle with some rebels. Everything is going as planned when suddenly.

"MY LAAAWD, OUR GENERAR IS IN GRAVU DANGERUI!"

At first I was like

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

who the hell cares?! I've killed 1200 men with a solo General's Bodyguard unit in Stainless Steel, what is this guy talking about?
https://encrypted-tbn0.google.com/im...cmkKf9R_LsC2zz

but then

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And then a unit of yari cav charges my daimyo and reduces him to shishkebab. I was like
http://www.reactionface.info/sites/d...1947429116.jpg

So obviously the battle mechanics take a little getting used to, mainly because my Samurai GB unit gives the false impression that he can take more hits than an eight year old armoured in cardboard. Anyway, I had to lead a grand total of two battles. The first rebel stack, and then the assault on Iwa province (I think), the one to the north. From there on, and since I recruited two full stacks i have never had to lead another battle again and the AR always won with 0 to 300 casualties per battle

I understand that they tried to make the autoresolve more balanced (unlike in M2TW where heavy infantry stomped archers and cav in AR) but the results it gives are so damn good I never bothered with a loading screen and then 5-10 minute battle. And on legendary, even if there is no save allowed, I've yet to blunder in any major way, except where AR cost me my first daimyo because I was impatient and assaulted with a depleted GB unit. I think AR in this game favors the number of units on the field way too much. I have two stacks to the enemy's one, but losing only 300 men across the board is too little. If 10 000 fight 20 000 you don't expect them to win but you don't expect the enemy to walk away with all but 0.5% of their army as casualites.

The replenishing system in S2TW is also quite unrealistic and IMO a downgrade of the classical retraining method. I can just camp on the edge of the border and those 300 men I lost will come back next turn, and I can march on and conquer.

The AI spends way too much gold on navies but it doesn't do amphibious assaults. So it sacrifices a good portion of its income to have the option of battling the (overpowered) wacky pirates or to go and harass my trade and resource nodes. In the mean time I've debarked with 2 and a half stacks and am raping my way across its lands, and even as the clan is losing provinces at a blistering pace, the AI still does not switch to land units nor does it disband the useless Japanese floating buckets.

Now, on to the buildings and city development. RTW had it right with population as a resource I think. Want to spam stacks off of that city? It better have sufficient growth otherwise you'd run out of men. M2TW simplified it and had armies appear magically because the army draft fairy said so. So Nottingham can spew longbowmen at three units per turn yet it still gains 800 population per season.

Here things are even worse. Not only is population not a resource, it doesn't even account for city growth or size! You like this here backwater hamlet that has a wooden outhouse and a dirt path for infrastructure? Good! Please provide us with sackloads of gold and you can turn it into a size 5 metropolis complete with a ton of military structures, academies, 3 slots per season of training and whatever else you can cram in there. In short, allowing the player to grow castle size just with gold is a bad way to change the system IMO.

The restricted space for building and the specialized cities I sort of like. You can make a cav or archer or infantry specific recruitment center, as well as one for warrior monks for example. But not allowing the retraining to gain smith/camp/whatever bonuses to be applied to one's existing stacks takes the joy of doing this. Since the economy was changed and gold actually matters in S2 (a good thing IMO, though it does restrict the epicness of having the option of moving 20 fullstacks at your enemy) even if you make all the best structures and can recruit max armour Naginata Samurai or max accuracy Bow Samurai, you don't actually get to play with your new toys all that much. Why?

Well because you already have 3 fullstacks of Ashigaru who have gained so much experience, you don't have the funds to make shiny new samurai stacks nor is there any great need to so so when the 3 Ashigaru armies splatter everything in autoresolve anyway.

Realm divide is coming soon, and I'm hoping some challenge will present itself and I'm forced to lead my battles or replace my dirt farmer armies with actual samurai for whose' training I've spent 30 thousand gold.

Oh, and naval battles are annoying since the AI spams so many ships and I'm thinking Christianity makes sense to splatter the enemy floating coffins if nothing else.

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Originally Posted by Myth

The AI spends way too much gold on navies but it doesn't do amphibious assaults. So it sacrifices a good portion of its income to have the option of battling the (overpowered) wacky pirates or to go and harass my trade and resource nodes. In the mean time I've debarked with 2 and a half stacks and am raping my way across its lands, and even as the clan is losing provinces at a blistering pace, the AI still does not switch to land units nor does it disband the useless Japanese floating buckets.

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I think I've seen it twice where the AI did amphibious assaults (well as amphibious as you can considering when you land you can't move anywhere)... and both times it was after the realm divide and I was on the far west island for my capital. I wasn't anywhere near the island at the time.

A few points have changed since release. The ai spended much less gold on navies, so they had more stacks on land. One time one ai had 6-7 Stacks(with experinced units and many ronins) at the front, you won't find similar Situations now. Autoresolve also has been changed, so it's easier. You could have a 3:2 calculated sthrengh on the field. Now its a cheap win, earlier it was a devasting defeat (only on legendary).
You won't find a challange at realm divide. Earlier it was interresting, but now it could count as a big battle, when the ai comes with 2 stacks.
And btw, now you can have up to 40 units on the battlefield(earlier it was 20), so it's much easier now.

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Originally Posted by Myth

started a Legendary/Domination campaign with the Chosokibe clan. I chose them because they're isolated, archer friendly and an island nation - ie. they are S2's England, and I love me some England.

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Yeah, they're the easiest faction in the game.

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reading anything in-game is murder on the eyes.

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No idea what you're talking about.

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The in-game typeface is ridiculously small and illegible. At 1080p on my semi-pro design worthy monitor I can't read anything unless I want to bleed from my eye sockets. I only got trough because of froggy's excellent guide, otherwise I would not have bothered.

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Must be faulty hardware on your end. I read everything just dandy.

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The second thing I noticed, and what had thrown me off the game before, was that the campaign map lags severely when one tries to scroll with the mouse. I had to go all Quake-like and use the WASD keys to navigate on my campaign map.

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That kinda bothered me as well, but not to the extent that I've ever complained about it. I just use the mouse-wheel click + drag, or click on a sport on the minimap.

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I also do not need a 3D campaign map, the isometric view from M2TW worked just fine for a turn-based strategy game. I have no great urge to rotate my map from all directions and to look up my Samurai's kimono as he slashes a katana at some rebels.

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Again, I agree. The 2D map of M1 and S1 was perfectly fine for the needs of a turn-based strat game and I have never, ever used the rotate function, in my game it may as well not even exist for it serves no purpose whatsoever. That doesn't mean the 3D ones of all subsequent games is worse in any way though. I don't see how it's slowing down gameplay unless you're playing the game on an Amiga 5000. If you have the graphics set at a level realistic to your hardware then you shouldn't be having any problems. Also it looks fantastic, even more fantastic in Fall of the Samurai.

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Now on to the game itself. Considering myself a solid TW player and one who has stomped the AI countless times, I decided that I see what this Legendary business is all about. First battle with some rebels. Everything is going as planned when suddenly.

"MY LAAAWD, OUR GENERAR IS IN GRAVU DANGERUI!"

At first I was like who the hell cares?! I've killed 1200 men with a solo General's Bodyguard unit in Stainless Steel, what is this guy talking about? And then a unit of yari cav charges my daimyo and reduces him to shishkebab.

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As it would in real life. I played Stainless Steel a LOT, mostly as the Byzantine Empire, and their general units are absolutely lethal, but pretty much everybody agrees - even the developers of the mod - that this is highly unrealistic. I'm thinking it was done because the AI always suicide charged its generals right at the start of the battle, so it was their way of trying to make them last a bit longer.

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So obviously the battle mechanics take a little getting used to, mainly because my Samurai GB unit gives the false impression that he can take more hits than an eight year old armoured in cardboard.

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It's realistic! The general is for inspiring troops and directing the battle. Plus your enemies are all armed either with yari or katana. One is deadly against horses and the other is deadly against... everything. Your general can still smash enemy archers though, just make sure they don't get a volley off at him as he's charging. He can also run down routers quite well.

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Anyway, I had to lead a grand total of two battles. The first rebel stack, and then the assault on Iwa province (I think), the one to the north. From there on, and since I recruited two full stacks i have never had to lead another battle again and the AR always won with 0 to 300 casualties per battle

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CA have always had a problem with the auto-resolve. If you want to exploit something in such a manner then at least have the decency not to complain that your exploiting of it is having the desired effect.

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The replenishing system in S2TW is also quite unrealistic and IMO a downgrade of the classical retraining method. I can just camp on the edge of the border and those 300 men I lost will come back next turn, and I can march on and conquer.

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How is it unrealistic? If your army is in a province you own then reinforcements trickle back to it each turn. The army is recruiting fresh troops to replace the dead. It's more realistic than ever! Why would you have to march an entire unit back to a city to have it replenished when you can just send a runner with instructions to send replacements? Or look at it another way - the army is in your territory marching through towns and villages asking young men if they want to join.

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The AI spends way too much gold on navies but it doesn't do amphibious assaults.

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My last campaign as the Hojo, where the Oda landed a full stack of Yari Samurai, by boat, in my capital province on turn 7 would like a word with you.

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So it sacrifices a good portion of its income to have the option of battling the (overpowered) wacky pirates or to go and harass my trade and resource nodes.

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I find the AI quite efficient at using its fleets to seriously hamper my progress. I've played campaigns on hard and even medium as mainland factions like the Oda who live right along the center of the map and the AI have absolutely destroyed me by persistently raiding and blocking my trade routes. I've had campaigns where I've actually had to call off an invasion and try to make peace with my neighbours because my income is negative due to AI blockading ports and my army is being forcibly disbanded bit-by-bit to the point where I no longer have enough soldiers left to win.

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Now, on to the buildings and city development. RTW had it right with population as a resource I think. Want to spam stacks off of that city? It better have sufficient growth otherwise you'd run out of men.

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Never in years of playing RTW did I ever run out of population to recruit soldiers from. Never. I also never needed to spam stacks because one full stack of Roman troops was enough to conquer the entire world without ever taking a single casualty in battle. You want to talk about easy TW games? Start with Rome. The city management was worthless. Open planner, que up 15 buildings and forget about it. Trade? Forget about it, done automatically. Squalor? forget about it, if it gets too high the plague will kill everyone and make the city 10x more prosperous AFTER it than it was before it. Unrest? Just remove troops, give it to another faction by diplomacy and instantly retake it and exterminate the population. Rome was probably the worst game in the TW franchise but it had the best mods.

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Here things are even worse. Not only is population not a resource, it doesn't even account for city growth or size! You like this here backwater hamlet that has a wooden outhouse and a dirt path for infrastructure? Good! Please provide us with sackloads of gold and you can turn it into a size 5 metropolis complete with a ton of military structures, academies, 3 slots per season of training and whatever else you can cram in there. In short, allowing the player to grow castle size just with gold is a bad way to change the system IMO.

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It's not just with castle size, you have to take food surplus in to account. That one castle represents the entire region.

Bah, it's 5:30am and I'm falling asleep.

I assure you my hardware is well beyond what is needed for a TW game, the typeface is small and a simple google search will tell you others are complaining as well. I'm sure there are harder factions, and I think I'll try the "warrior monks" one next (forgot the name). But seriously, that thing where the AI had a fullstack of Yari Samurai on turn 7 is not possible. I'm no Shogun 2 expert but don't Samurai units require 2 seasons to recruit? Even if you have one extra slot per province form an event you got at turn 1 and you have two provinces, that's still a maximum of 5 units per 10 turns. Unless they start with 10 units, but that'd just be silly.

The AR mechanic is broken and I refuse to accept your logic "it's clearly imbalanced so don't use it and stop complaining". I use it because it saves time, I don't have a lot of hours to put into gaming. I'd rather avoid as many loading screens and rearanging troops and then a 2 minute march on the fastest speed, then breaking enemy morale, mopping up the retreating stacks etc. That's 10 minutes I'd rather not spend unless me personally leading the battle meant the difference between victory and defeat.

RTW was too easy but not because your units never died, it was because the economy got too out of control too quickly if you knew which provinces to take. Egypt disagrees with your one stack that never takes casualties.

You don't run out of population to recruit in the big cities but it does slow down province growth, especially in the less fertile and poor barbarian provinces. Have you given factions like Scythia or Numidia a try? Making two full stacks out of their basic provinces sets them back to the stone age.

The retraining method is not realistic. You can't outfit and recruit raw peasants into a unit of 4 exp bowmen. Getting the necessary muscles and training to be an effective archer takes years. It's especially absurd for monks and samurai - camping in the countryside makes them magically replenish? That does not make sense. Returning to a city and spending money on retraining does make sense and it worked just fine for older TW titles, this was an unecessary change. Like the removal of hotseat, modding, forts, watchtowers and the addition of skill trees for generals.

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Originally Posted by Myth

But seriously, that thing where the AI had a fullstack of Yari Samurai on turn 7 is not possible.

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You can get bigger problems, especially when you play Oda and have bad luck. The ikko-ikki likes to attack the center of the map and they often have some strong stacks.

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Originally Posted by Myth

The retraining method is not realistic. You can't outfit and recruit raw peasants into a unit of 4 exp bowmen. Getting the necessary muscles and training to be an effective archer takes years. It's especially absurd for monks and samurai - camping in the countryside makes them magically replenish? That does not make sense. Returning to a city and spending money on retraining does make sense and it worked just fine for older TW titles, this was an unecessary change. Like the removal of hotseat, modding, forts, watchtowers and the addition of skill trees for generals.

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Replenishing costs exp and decimated units still costs as much as a full unit.

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Originally Posted by Myth

that thing where the AI had a fullstack of Yari Samurai on turn 7 is not possible.

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I know it's impossible. That's why I won't ever be playing as the Hojo on hard again.

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Originally Posted by Myth

that thing where the AI had a fullstack of Yari Samurai on turn 7 is not possible.

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I know it's impossible. That's why I won't ever be playing as the Hojo on hard again.

RE:- unit replenishment - I actually prefer the new system - it means you can't replenish veteran units in one turn, and if you have a costly battle, you're progress is impeded for a long time (esp' if you're not based in a high-end castle) whilst your units recover numbers. Replenishment should of course be a function of money and time, but on balance time seems to work better. Also means that the AI doesn't turn up with 20 unit armies, half the units of which have 5 men in them, like it used to. Agree that not being able to upgrade veteran units with armour and weapon upgrades is irritating though.

RE:- castle improvement - well, actually you could build a fortress next to a village if you wanted to, and ship in the blacksmiths etc. to make them work - infrastructure isn't necessarily dependant on high population. Plus time taken to build all those upgrades means you've got a probably got a fairly well developed region by the time you get them anyway. Food is a bit wacko though, as you can build high end farms in a barren region and get just as much food excess as doing the same in a fertile one - just less income.