Who's still playing?

[gollum]

Indeed cogre,
in the original game (STW v1.0 to v1.12) factions die for good once killed and teh AI treats his Daimyos as just another general's unit, which makes it easy for them to be killed. This was compensated to a certain extent by a less forgiving economic game as well as the AI bonuses for the harder difficulty (the AI can spend infrastructure money he does not have), especially if you play as the southern clans (Shimazu. Mori and to a certain extent Oda)and have to face any clan coming from the northern rich land. In STW/MI though (with the expansion) there are faction re-appearances just like in MTW.

The AI in STW was good, but in MTW it was slightly better - most notably in flanking with cavalry. One thing however that helped the AI in STW was the pretty strong RPS gameplay and the few, well balanced types of units, as well as teh inability to disengage engaged units, which meant that you had to be careful how you match your units. The AI is pretty good at match ups. In MTW units and most notably cavalry that is helped by virtue of its mobility can disengage which somewhat hurts the importance of match ups (you can correct bad ones).

MTW had many ups over STW too though - the campaign game is more looked after and the battle engine has many improvements. It also has more flavor and more scope for role-playing.

[Brandy Blue]

I've heard that MI also made it possible for the AI to take advantage of the port bug, though I've never seen it happen.

[gollum]

Yes, i've seen the AI do port raids in MI. It was in a Shimazu camp. and the mori landed in Chikugo at the first 2-3 years of teh camp. essentially they tried to rush me. They got their emmissary there and suddenly landed out of nowhere - it was a bit of a surprise.

[cogre]

bummer i was never able to find mi , only have stw 1.12. that sounds like a fun ai adaption

[gollum]

There is now the "Gold" version in dvd-rom (Warlord's edition i think its called) cogre, available pretty cheaply that has STW/MI.

The expansion also introduces certain unbalances in the orignal units and their stats, most notably the guns are increased 300% in power (from power=4 to power=16) which means they can stop cav charges while they were not intended to do so and can't in the original, but thankfully their stats can be modified in a txt file.

Here is a veteran player's suggestion how to do so:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...old-unit-stats...

[cogre]

yeah , money is tight at the moment. however i plan on keeping this rig for as long as i can to enjoy the best games ever. i want to play with the gunpowder stops a cav charge. that sounds fun , unless, of course, one is on the recieving end

[gollum]

Its fun at first but wears off pretty quickly imo - but of course each to his own. You can mod the arquebusiers to bekillers in MTW though ;)