Speculations

[Prince Cobra]

Alright. Let's start speculating.

As a game system, how close will the STW2 be to the NTW? Or the original STW?

What features do you think it will take from the two games?

[Magyar Khan]

80% NTW everything besides era
20% STW era

[Swoosh So]

Im pretty sure most of the features of NTW will make it back into shogun2, the only one i wonder about is drop in battles as they havent really worked as well as im sure CA hoped BUT!!!! theyre a great feature and one that just needs implimented better so i hope they do stay in! One feature i couldent really care less about is the naval battles i mean really i can play a NTW campaign and just auto resolve those and dont feel that im missing anything - theyre alright but really theyre just s*$te so why bother. I dont think naval battles will add much at all to shogun2 and i dont think seige battles are really going to be much good either. My memory of siege battles in all my totalwar games and campaigns is having the speed on fast forward killing off massive amounts of ai troops that have no chance whatsoever to win the battle - same with bridge battles. I dont know why anyone would think japanese seiges will be good with totalwar? the game never runs well with any sort of impassable terrain even a single building on a map can make the game a joke and in sieges its going to be almost comical yet again. You setup killzones the ai isent intelligent enough to spot them and goes mulling into them each time...

I hope the multiplayer campaigns make it into shogun totalwar as i love them! ofc napoleons era really isent to my liking but with shogun id love any form of multiplayer campaign infact i dont think id ever forgive CA if they dident include a mp campaign now.

SO i hope drop ins and mp campaign stays and i couldent care less about naval battles as id prefer those resources were used elsewhere. I actually hope theres NO NEW GAME MODES and that resources are used on improving what we have now.

A feature i would like to see back in is the old style reinforcements where all troops involved in a battle started on the battle field or at least were on their way, this system in napoleon of dribbling in 1 unit when you lose 1 allowing only ever 20 units in the battle is a joke and a massive step back for totalwar. Let the player have ai controlled reinforcement armies once again! the games just not epic at all without this.. The current system also makes life hard for the ai as you could simply kill off the first army and position to slaughter the reinforcements unit by unit if the ai has 3 armies attacking your one with the current system its easy mode if the ai had 3 armies with the old system they may well overwhelm you.

[Tempiic]

Noo...

Last sunday I played whole day and evening just naval games and had a good time (and winrate, unlike my landgames). And there are only 3 different very similiar maps to pick from :P Then again, I am not sure how naval will be like in S2TW. I think the lack of broadside firing with forward moving will make it a very different game compared to NTW naval, and perhaps more like land games as there will be more of a stone-scissor-paper element in.

If I was bothered with SP campaign, I guess I most likely would agree with you on your reinforcement comment Swoosh. ;)

[Swoosh So]

would you miss naval combat if land battles were good?

[Tempiic]

Actually in NTW, I am enjoying both. It's just that I never did like 1v1's much so far, excluding ntw naval games.

It's more of a question if shogun naval battles will be good. ;) It will be very different for sure.

[Prince Cobra]

I was just thinking that the the Shogun warfare and Napoleonic warfare had many things in common. From the lesser role of cavalry, the draft infantry, the firearms (well, they were certainly better during Napoleon, of course). Yes, if they reduce/even eliminate the cannons in the warfare, it will be OK. Cannons had an insignificant role outside the sieges in Medieval Japan and they were imported, not really produced in Japan.

I also loved the chess-like risk-style map of MTW. I wonder if they will incorporate at least some of its elements in the new Shogun (though I think I know the answer).

[pevergreen]

I also loved the chess-like risk-style map of MTW. I wonder if they will incorporate at least some of its elements in the new Shogun (though I think I know the answer).

The areas you havent explored appear as 2d, thats as far as it goes.

[Prince Cobra]

The areas you havent explored appear as 2d, thats as far as it goes.

Well, that's not very generous and a bit disenchanting (for me, at least), you know. Why such a hatred for the good old play of chess?

Anyway, I hope there will be a good reason to forgive and forget it.

[Swoosh So]

If shogun naval battles are good and produce their own tournaments i will baah like a sheep.

[Phog_of_War]

Help me understand the love some people have for the old STW and MTW style of campaign map.

IMO the 3d campaign map makes more sense and gives a deeper strategic and tactical layer to the game. I mean, in reality I'd rather have a unit plug up a mountain pass and force my enemy into a fight where I have chosen the ground. This didnt translate well in ETW/NTW because of the dismal ammount of maps but it makes sense in my own mind I guess. Rome had it about perfect IIRC with the map tile being pretty damn close to what you would see in battle.

I think the only reason that the original campaign map style worked was because the battle maps, for the most part, were very well suited for fighting.

[drone]

Help me understand the love some people have for the old STW and MTW style of campaign map.

Can't really discuss ETW/NTW, but the campaign map for Rome/Med2 killed the games for me. The tile-to-map thing worked fine, but the AI was unable to manage it's agents/armies on the map, and the non-simultaneous movement made it too exploitable. Spreading everything out also made managing armies, agents, and cities a chore, each turn became a job. It took me a while to figure out a decent way to handle it (the GUI lacked a multi-town management summary screen), but it was still not fun.

But the AI's inability to cope with the map was the main killer. Picking off 1-2 unit stacks over and over again got tedious.

[Phog_of_War]

Understandable. However the old "Risk" style just made things too arbitrary and dumbed down IMO.

I imagine if the CAI would be better able to manage it armies as far as movements (whens the last time you found yourself in an AI pincer movement?)and general army makeup (less 1-3 units "raiding parties"), more people would like the 3D map style.

[Prince Cobra]

I imagine if the CAI would be better able to manage it armies as far as movements (whens the last time you found yourself in an AI pincer movement?)and general army makeup (less 1-3 units "raiding parties"), more people would like the 3D map style.

Yes, that's the main problem. The AI. Yet, they may already have a significant experience with that so let's hope for the best. Graphics are a bit of a background for me but, well, I can't deny that there is somthing quite romantic in the landscape... ~:dreaming and composing a haiku poem:~

Autumn wind blows,
Golden leaves are whirled,
Bare branches left.

[andrewt]

Understandable. However the old "Risk" style just made things too arbitrary and dumbed down IMO.

I imagine if the CAI would be better able to manage it armies as far as movements (whens the last time you found yourself in an AI pincer movement?)and general army makeup (less 1-3 units "raiding parties"), more people would like the 3D map style.

The campaign tile to battle map thing was pretty bad as well. It resulted in flat terrain almost all the time. SW/MW maps had a much better mix of flat ground with usable hills, forests and bridges.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I did not purchase ETW or NTW and so cannot speak to those, and I played M2 for a week before giving it away.

But in RTW, the 3D map did two very bad things for game-play.

First, it insured that most battles would simply be skirmishes that eventually had to lead to a siege, as province resources are held by the local city. On a 2D map, every battle was a fight for the province, and many a campaign came to an early, disastrous end simply because you lost key provinces early (as anyone who played the 1580 Oda campaign in STW can attest to).

Second, it presented more options to the AI than it could possibly handle, and led to much aimless wandering by AI stacks with no clear purpose, and a lot of wasted time on the AI's part, particularly with pathfinding issues. In STW, for instance, it's a guarantee that if you leave a weak province near the front, the AI will find it and attack with overwhelming force.

ZOC issues were never handled correctly, IMO, especially for naval battles. Any incursion, either by sea or land, into a neighbors territory without access rights, should, by all standards, lead to a declaration of war.

I much prefer the 3D map in terms of looks, but the 2D map in terms of gameplay.

[A Nerd]

I too miss the meaningful field battles. All of my battles in my current M2TW game are either getting rid of those annoying rebel stacks that pop up everywere or a siege I always auto resolve at this point due to thier excessive frequency. I have noticed that the S2TW map is 3D, I just hope that the armies on the field are put to some use other than standing around or retreating to a castle.