Beautiful (Magical) Simplicity

[A Nerd]

Wasn't STW such a wonderful game? The battles were always different, sometimes spreading all over the map! Plenty of field battles...more fun that seiges...which seems to be lacking in the current rendition! I'm not an AI expert, but I've noticed (been playing a mori campaign as of late), that I lose more battles than I do in MTW2. The theatre, with all it sharp shiny instruments and the beautiful warrior mentality of the Japanese at that time. The map was navigable, agents simple yet fun (geishas are kind of annoying...but occasionallly my samurais do get lonely...I only raise geisha to keep generals company, not kill them)! I like the clan colors and the way the flags would wave in the breeze...rebels raised armies and built stuff, tried to take poorly defended territories as well! Ah yes...I dream of a remake! I could go on, but I just wanted to say this. I had SO much fun playing this game (and still do) that I wanted to say something about it. Wanted to add a topic to the sword dojo too because there hadn't seemed to be one in a while...hee hee!

[Martok]

Welcome to the Org, A Nerd!


Yep, Shogun definitely remains one of the great PC strategy games, and will always be so.

The game is well-balanced (although I agree that the Geisha are overpowered), the AI is indeed superb (there's a reason battles are harder to win than in Rome or Medieval 2), and the atmosphere is second-to-none. I have yet to play a game that achieves the same immersion factor as this great title.

[A Nerd]

Glad you agree! Thanks for the greeting! Nothing like my ND's cutting a hole in the asigaru and YS's to cut up those damned archers and let MY YS's take down the general....Though, wouldn';t it be good if the enemy clans didn;t die out so sooon....last province they have the AI generel goes kamakaze and the clan falls...you mop up the rest of his former empire against those lame-o (sometimes) rebel commanders...but still...love the game!!!!!!!!!!

[Wasp]

Isn't that Bushido, when a brave samurai sees the lost cause and is determined to end his life with dignity? (a.k.a. torpedoing himself into the enemy ranks?)

Shingen's general, Yamamoto Kansuke, is somewhat famous for doing that after his strategy against Uesugi Kenshin failed. So I guess it's realistic after all!

But indeed, a great game. I just finished an Uesugi campaign and am going to try my hand at the historical battles once again

[LittleGrizzly]

I considered myself something of an expert at stw, was fairly good on the mp circut but those historical battles were insane!!

I think it was WE i played it on, but i paticularly remember one of the battles... it was a castle siege (player was attacker) and the computer had a unit of 3 or 4 kensai!!!! i don't think i ever managed to complete that battle, i fought really well sometimes but it was never enough!!

STW/MI/WE was probably my favourite of the total wars, i don't think there is much doubt that the AI handled best in this one, i think it was down to the fact that is was a fairly simple system, so there was much less the AI to try and do, just mainly match up the units correctly.. spears/swords/cav. a nice simple rock paper scissors system which somewhat lost its way as the series progressed (or regressed should i say...)

[Whitey]

Shogun was immense!



I remember the days of the EA server...Monk rushes versus arquebusiers, roaming yari cavalry, and all the rest of it.

...head soup, anyone?


LittleGrizzly, wasn't it satisfying to launch that timely yari cavalry into those samurai archers who had just been decimating your monks?

Every unit had an enemy, every unit dominated against something, but the rock-paper-scissors wasn't strong enough to make it unbreakable (I remember on the servers for a while, some people had a fetish for high-honour yari ashigaru...I pulled my horse archers back to a safe distance and laughed, but only after they unexpectedly destroyed my monks!)

[LittleGrizzly]

...head soup, anyone?

Gah! Krast! :)

LittleGrizzly, wasn't it satisfying to launch that timely yari cavalry into those samurai archers who had just been decimating your monks?

yes it really was the game, powerful range weapons, useful spears, cav arcs actually worth thier salt if you could control them, the good ol' days...

(I remember on the servers for a while, some people had a fetish for high-honour yari ashigaru...I pulled my horse archers back to a safe distance and laughed, but only after they unexpectedly destroyed my monks!)

lol yes those damn super ashi, at first i was happy seeing the enemy using ashi, aren't they useless i thought to myself... minutes later they had decimated my 'superior' infantry, then it was just a state of confusion until i heard the whispers... ashi.... honour 7.... killing machines...

[Whitey]

Aah...makes me want to fire up Shogun again... (bloody XP! If it ran at all, We'd have no problems at all with multiplayer 4v4 battles with maximum armies now!!! It would be amazing!)

How well does the Shogun mod work for (fer Rome, I think?) I played the mod for Medieval (I), and that was pretty good...

...There's part of me that just wants the old days back though, you guys are right, there really was something about the honour in those old days...you won or lost with dignity...(guilty secret, no piss-ripping, please, or if you do - we'll have to settle it on the battlefield) that silver face mask on the red background as the game loaded, I actually used to bow when I saw it before every multiplayer battle, it just 'felt' right.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Beautiful (Magical) Simplicity 

Agreed. Just finished several campaigns using the starting date of 1580. I always hated that starting point because of the geisha, until I remembered the modified building stats that "discouraged" the building of geisha houses.

The only faction I ever played from the 1580 date was Oda........arguably the most difficult campaign in SP. My usual port-raiding technique to destroy geisha houses (I don't use them myself) is quite difficult to pull off in that campaign as Oda is under relentless pressure from a combined Takeda/Tokugawa alliance on one side, and often a Mori/Shimazu alliance from the other, and there's rarely time (or koku) to go hunting for geisha houses.

My latest several were Hojo (arguably the easiest clan to play) just to get back into form (on expert setting), then Oda (for old times sake) and the last one just finished yesterday......Takeda. That one surprised me with it's difficulty level as I was constantly fighting off alliances; first Hojo/Uesugi; then Mori/Uesugi; and finally Shimazu/Uesugi.

Why did Uesugi hang around so long you might ask? Well, the AI kept using a technique that I totally disagree with: that of acquiring your ally's lands when he dies. Every time I had Uesugi on the ropes, he'd form an alliance with the next daimyo encroaching on my lands (and every, and I mean EVERY attempt to assassinate his diplomats was doomed.......even using mid-level ninja) and when that clan was destroyed he'd acquire ALL of their lands, not just some as is the usual course.

So I finally broke my long-standing rule of no-geisha when the last clan other than the two of us went down and he acquired almost all of southern Japan (first from Mori, then all of Shimazu's lands) and now had just quadrupled the number of his standing armies (There's only so much one can do against multiple-stack invasions of Shinano despite muskets and defending in high mountain terrain, and when the invading numbers began to climb above four thousand, I decided more drastic measures were needed.)

I didn't send her against any heirs or Kenshin himself, but took out any general with more than two stars to make my battles a bit easier.......I figured the land acquisition is cheesy, so fight cheese with cheese.

I then embarked on a campaign to kill the two remaining Uesugi heirs (on the battlefield, of course) and then Kenshin himself before I simply got overrun by the inevitable hordes...........and it worked. I had to catch him with a port-raiding force after he'd retreated from several battles, but I finally cornered him..........and the Shogunate was mine

So.........to bring a long-winded post to a conclusion, even though I've played many, many campaigns with every clan, in nearly every starting point, the AI always seems to come up with some new way to outsmart you....in this case using alliances to increase my main antagonists holdings even though I was beating him handily on the battlefield........and forcing me to do something I promised myself never to do.....use geisha. Without them my battles would've been against higher honour generals and thus more costly.

And attrition warfare was definitely in the AI's favor due to a much higher koku income amd more numerous armies. Imagine the AI from RTW coming up with that one

[Drisos]

Nice Thread.

STW/MI/WE was probably my favourite of the total wars, i don't think there is much doubt that the AI handled best in this one, i think it was down to the fact that is was a fairly simple system, so there was much less the AI to try and do, just mainly match up the units correctly.. spears/swords/cav. a nice simple rock paper scissors system which somewhat lost its way as the series progressed (or regressed should i say...)

So true!

Aah...makes me want to fire up Shogun again... (bloody XP! If it ran at all, We'd have no problems at all with multiplayer 4v4 battles with maximum armies now!!! It would be amazing!)

Yeah. DAMN that XP. I have it now too and Shogun works, (Though far from optimal) but it stopped so many from playing Multiplayer a few years back. It was so frustrating.

~

[Martok]

Hey Drisos; welcome back (again)! Glad you to hear you were able to get STW running once more, even if it isn't under optimal conditions.

[Drisos]

Hi there.