Shogun 2 Total War silly questions

[Ludens]

A valid point, but this seems actually be the case with R:TW - four years after it's release - which evidently has a fairly thriving fan/modding community with major projects both announced and released. On the other hand - are eg. the 'hardcore' EB I players really statistically representative?

I doubt it. EB has been downloaded 10.000 times, but most of those probably played the mod for a month or two and then moved on. How many actually played the mod for longer than a year? I also wonder if the popularity of R:TW mods has something to do with dissatisfaction about the way the series is going. Every new instalment has ambitious new features, yet the developers can't get the basics right: balancing and A.I.

That's quite a critical point - I completely agree with you that such an 'analysis', if based on rather shaky, probably unrealistic assumptions about expected profits shouldn't be taken very seriously - but this article, focusing on console games,as well as the second half of this article could possibly clear up the issue - and the underlying economical/PR concepts - a bit (insofar as these aspects are transferable to PC strategy games...).

Interesting. I admit I am out of depth here too.

What if DLC should rather be seen as instrument of an medial 'image policy', creating the illusion of 'customers/fanbase support' in an desperate attempt to reestablish the endangered 'qualitative superiority' of SEGA/Activision?

Possible, although it would be akin to solving a problem by denying it. Then again, corporations aren't always rational about threads towards their position, as Activision's boss has proved.

EDIT: A rather interesting and critical blog entry about 'Sun Tzu as an AI Design Guide?'

I quite agree. Sun Tzu's work is not innovative: it is timeless because he wrote down the basic principles of strategy. For that matter: the A.I. of the original Shogun was based on Sun Tzu. Did CA forget about him in the games they made in between? Or are they just attempting to restore the fanbase's faith in their ability to produce a strong A.I. opponent?

[darius_d]

Well, I think that modding-friendly games will win eventually. There are two economic reasons behind that.

First - development costs and brand loyalty. Simply, it is too costly for developers to do all the job by themselves, something will be neglected. Workload is expensive and they never have a chance to beat community about that. Empire and Napoleon - two buggy unmoddable titles couldn't prove it better. Instead, they should create a solid platform on which community could add up as they wish.

Second - the business model. The coming future is dramatically changing, apparently everything is going into the cloud, especially for pc (note shogun 2 will be released on pc only).
Sooner or later buying CD will be replaced, perhaps by subscriptions. So this should be a good news for modding-friendly games. Subscription model seems to suit best to attract huge crowds willing to play their favorite era for a long period of time, as RTW proved.

So, if we talk about Shogun 2 I hope they are aware of some great mods created by the community.
But first of all, I hope they noticed competition - like Takeda 3 by Magitech. Technically, it's annoyingly outdated, flawed and unpolished but conceptually much superior game than CA titles.

[geala]

Just a personal note on game selling economy: the only reason I bought M2:TW Kingdoms was that I heard it will be needed for EB II. At least a small financial aid to the developers by a mod.
And I also later bought E:TW because I like the timeframe and I expected mods. I'm not sure I will buy S2:TW cause the setting is not very interesting for me and modding may be not possible. Let's wait and see.

[Omegoa]

Just a personal note on game selling economy: the only reason I bought M2:TW Kingdoms was that I heard it will be needed for EB II. At least a small financial aid to the developers by a mod.
And I also later bought E:TW because I like the timeframe and I expected mods. I'm not sure I will buy S2:TW cause the setting is not very interesting for me and modding may be not possible. Let's wait and see.

At the same time, though, I'm not going to bother with S2:TW or even R2. Why? 'Cause I'll be too busy playing EB2!

[Satyros]

I still haven't bought ETW .

I've finished - vanilla- MTW2 with every nation on vh/vh ( and I must admit it was a better experience than the -vanilla- RTW one ) .

I still prefer EB .

I am currently obsessed with Paradox games , especially EUIII .

After that I don't know if I'll be able to go back to "new-generation-TW-non-A.I."

Shame they alienate the modding community , such a shame .

Even more so if they finally get to release a decent A.I. , at last .

Satyros

P.S. : Not knowing where this would be appropriately posted , I'll say it here :

Keep up the good work guys ( and gals - ? - ) ! Thank you for your time and effort . Υγεία .

[Skullheadhq]

I've finished - vanilla- MTW2 with every nation on vh/vh ( and I must admit it was a better experience than the -vanilla- RTW one )

It was a little bit easy, I reconstructed WWI with the HRE and blitzed Russia within notime but had lots of fun slaughtering Frenchies at 'Verdun'. But I liked RTW vanilla way better, just landing with the Pharaohs army in Gaul at the beginning was wonderful.[

I am currently obsessed with Paradox games , especially EUIII .

Huh, me too, I preordered Victoria 2 today.

[SillySirius]

M:TW2 was the last CA game i bought and will buy.

I've gone back to playing FPS's,for the most part,as i prefer the realism where i have to faceshoot a guy 6 times to put them down.