First impressions thread

[Furunculus]

is this mentioned anywhere in the manual?

[Ituralde]

Yeah, definetly reduced movement during winter. I once just barely made it from halfway to the enemy castle back to my own province in Winter. Next Spring I could walk up to the castle in one turn without any problems. Not sure if there's already some reduction in Autumn too. But you have to plan the campaign seasons, I'm still trying to get used to it.

[crpcarrot]

is this mentioned anywhere in the manual?

i dont know which bit your refering to but the attrition is defintely there as you can see your banner flashing witha skull if you in enemy proovince and you see the numbers depleted. if the movement penalty is there it is only slight thats why its hard knowing if its there.

[Furunculus]

cheers all.

[Barkhorn1x]

is this mentioned anywhere in the manual?

I had a laugh over that. Did everyone see the manual. What a POS - and that is being kind. Of course we do have the handy - and nicely done Encylopeadia but - c'mon - that manaul is a joke.

BTW, the limited edition of Combat Mission Beyond Normandy will feature a steel case and a 200 page printed manual done in the style of 1940's US Army field manual.

So, THAT'S a real manual.

[Risasi]

While quaint and nostalgic, paper manuals are so 1980's. I'm fine with a PDF, as long as it's provided with the game and easily downloaded...

[Barkhorn1x]

While quaint and nostalgic, paper manuals are so 1980's. I'm fine with a PDF, as long as it's provided with the game and easily downloaded...

Yea, I know - and that is just sad.

[Forward Observer]

Whether printed on paper as one would get with a physical disk purchase, or on a PDF file that would come with a downloaded version, this is the shortest and smallest manual to ever come with a Total war game--and at only 14 pages--actually only 12 pages of data---if one does not count the perfunctory welcome and installation page.

As small as it is, I spotted several glaring errors that should have been easily spotted with a single proof reading.
1. They mixed up the keyboard select commands for missile troops and Infantry (melee) . There are probably more, but I wasn't ambitious enough to look.
2. The last paragraph in the naval battles section is about ninjas being able to sabotage gates on fortresses.



It's interesting to note that the original US manual for the first Shogun came in at 54 pages--if one includes the keyboard guide on the back cover.
At the time, many thought this was woefully inadequate--especially for a beginner. Odd that the new manual has less than a fourth of the content of the one that came with the premier version of the game and obviously the most primitive game in the series.

Of course I realize that big manuals are a thing of the past, but it is kind of funny when you think about it. Here Shogun 2 is a supposedly the latest iteration of a complex RTS---obviously a more sophisticated and complex strategical and tactical game, but I've seen "dumb as a brick" FPS games come with more written information.

However, in the developers defense, the game does come with several decent tutorials, a constant audible advisor if one so chooses, and as Barkhorn mentioned--the newest feature--the built in extensive Encyclopedia of facts and data. This is probably the wave of the future, and one must simply get used to it. I started out years ago on combat flight sims that used to come with 180 to 300 page manuals which have also gone the way of the Dodo. Regardless, I have always sort of been a book/manual type of learner, but I'm not too old a dog to still learn new tricks, I guess.

Although I bet even Johannes Gutenberg would be pretty impressed with gadgets like the "Nook" and the "Kindle", I personally will continue to read and enjoy the fruits of the bookbinders craft in the good old fashioned way.

I predict the next TW game will have a either a single sheet of paper or a PDF file for a manual consisting of 2 printed pages: Page one will list warnings and contents--then page 2 will consist of a single sentence that states: "After downloading, or installing from disk, start the game and play it!"


Cheers

[edyzmedieval]

While quaint and nostalgic, paper manuals are so 1980's. I'm fine with a PDF, as long as it's provided with the game and easily downloaded...

Remember those huge manuals games came with in the games 5-6+ years ago? PDF is fine for an extra digital copy, but manuals should still be manuals.

I'm not asking for huge 500 page tomes but come on, 18 page manual that covers almost nothing?

[Centurion1]

as someone said, Shogun by James Clavell is a must read.

[Daveybaby]

I really dont see the need for a manual at all - all of the information you need is built into the game.
All the manual really needs to do is tell you how to install the game.

[Barkhorn1x]

I really dont see the need for a manual at all -...

And, what? You never need to visit the loo?

;)

[Doug-Thompson]

Another first impression -- this might be a pretty good game if I could ever get through all the updates downloading from Steam. I'm typing this now while killing time during uploads.

The next time a Total War game comes out, if I buy it, I'll be sure to wait a month so all the fixes can be in place first. Then maybe I could let the updates load overnight and play it the next morning.

[Servius]

I'm not that impressed.

The Pros:
1) It has 4 seasons per year.
2) The agent movies are back in
3) Each region has 1 town/camp that gives each region something special. This could be a forest, which produces the Wood commodity and reduces the cost of ships built there, to a blacksmith, who can either upgrade the armor or melee weapons of the units produced there.
4) The diplomatic options to request a faction sever trade links or join a war are back.
5) It hasn't crashed yet.
6) If you've just captured the last region of a faction, you can choose to make them a vassal. No more having to negotiate whether someone becomes a Protectorate or not.

The Cons:
1) I feel like the engine is just an upgraded Rome: TW engine. I get this feeling because a) all the faction flags are circles again, b) the infantry accelleration speed and run speed seem really fast (just like in RTW, they moved WAY too fast), c) the hail of arrows still looks a screen of white filaments, just like in RTW, and d) there are no more towns on the camp map. Pre-battle speaches are back in too.
2) The campaign map is ugly. I have a Radeon 5700, Win 7 64-bit, and settings are on ultra, and no season looks particularly nice. I really miss Empire's bright colors. Green grass and blue oceans...Empire's campaign map was beautiful. S2's oceans are almost black and the land looks like the sun never really shines on it.
3) The units in the battle maps also look bad. You can't tell them apart by their armor/clothes anymore, only the flags distinguish them. And because all their armor is black, and the Anti-Aliasing is disabled, and I can't seem to turn off the bloody bloom, it looks like a black mass with way too many white jagged lines accenting everything.
4) The scale is SEVERELY reduced. There are 6 trade nodes in the entire game. There are no more towns, just region capitals (again, just like RTW).
5) After setting the last 4 games in Europe, a contintent with which I am well acquainted with, I'm having trouble caring about S2's campaign map. I know none of the regions by name. Each one seems like just another generic territory. In Empire, I knew almost every region in Europe and the Americas (though India was pretty foreign to me). In Empire, when England and France fought, it felt important, because the rivalry between those two nations is so old and well known, but now none of the factions in S2 carry that same weight.
6) The UI is HUGE, and wherever the UI touches the edge of the screen, you can't use your cursor to move the camera around.

I know several of these are based on my personal preferences, and so may not apply to everyone, but I feel the game is just much smaller and uglier than Empire. You make less money, you can have fewer trading partners, it takes longer to develop units (because you can build fewer in each region), There are only 2 religions, and 1 race, and 6 trade nodes, 10-ship max fleets, and 1 theater... I've already found it hard to get interested in it and have started going back to Empire. Now if I could just get that game to stop crashing before the 30th turn... :-)

[Liberator]

4) The scale is SEVERELY reduced. There are 6 trade nodes in the entire game. There are no more towns, just region capitals (again, just like RTW).

5) After setting the last 4 games in Europe, a contintent with which I am well acquainted with, I'm having trouble caring about S2's campaign map. I know none of the regions by name. Each one seems like just another generic territory. In Empire, I knew almost every region in Europe and the Americas (though India was pretty foreign to me). In Empire, when England and France fought, it felt important, because the rivalry between those two nations is so old and well known, but now none of the factions in S2 carry that same weight.

I know several of these are based on my personal preferences, and so may not apply to everyone, but I feel the game is just much smaller and uglier than Empire. You make less money, you can have fewer trading partners, it takes longer to develop units (because you can build fewer in each region), There are only 2 religions, and 1 race, and 6 trade nodes, 10-ship max fleets, and 1 theater... I've already found it hard to get interested in it and have started going back to Empire. Now if I could just get that game to stop crashing before the 30th turn... :-)

4.) I dont see that scale has be reduced at all. In Empire, there was just one building to recruit all land units except artillery. Now there a much more different recruitment buildings.
And the "towns" in empire didn't really matter so such, did say? In essence, they where just buildings outside the stronghold with a city name. Now there are still buildings outside the stronghold. They just have no name. Who can handle all these japanese names, anyway?
Japan didn't do much trade with the outside world back them, so 6 trade spts are quite justified.

5.) Well, I always enjoyed to learn something new while playing games, in strategy games that was often geografic or historic knowledge. You probably heard of "Fukushima" in the news recently. Well, this province actually exists in Shogun.

I guess it is quite likely that you run out of trading partners at a certain stage of the game, but I think that this just enhances the challenge in the later phases of the game, otherwise, once you would have conquered, say, 25 regions, it would be too easy.
I would have liked to see different buddhist sects, but I can live without them.


My one and only Con is *surprise* *surprise* the AI in battles so far.
1. The AI often does not deploy units reasonably in battles.
In ambushes, it often splits its army, giving the player the possibility to rush at one group, finishing it of, and than turn to the other.
When attacking in seiges, it often splits idiotic, too. Often seen some archers attacking from one side, while the rest of the attacking army attacks from another side. That gives the player the opportunity to kill the archers of with cavalry.

2. Also often in seiges, the attacking AI general does nothing until the battle is lost, than he starts attacking. He dismouts (!) and climbs up the castle walls. Kamikaze.
Eighter he dies fighting in the castle, or he flees. But if he flees, he doesn't mount his horse again. Easy kill for my cavalry.

[antisocialmunky]

On the legendary difficulty and with the hard RPS system, generals actually are really good at taking out defenders on castle walls.

[Daveybaby]

2) The campaign map is ugly. I have a Radeon 5700, Win 7 64-bit, and settings are on ultra, and no season looks particularly nice. I really miss Empire's bright colors. Green grass and blue oceans...Empire's campaign map was beautiful. S2's oceans are almost black and the land looks like the sun never really shines on it.
3) The units in the battle maps also look bad. You can't tell them apart by their armor/clothes anymore, only the flags distinguish them. And because all their armor is black, and the Anti-Aliasing is disabled, and I can't seem to turn off the bloody bloom, it looks like a black mass with way too many white jagged lines accenting everything.

I have to agree, especially on the battlemaps. All of the soldiers look like theyre made of polished metal. I'm assuming this is mostly down to the lack of AA, and will be better after the patch. It's not stopping me from enjoying the game, but i cant believe they released it looking like this.

As for everything else youve listed, i find it pretty interesting, because it amply demonstrates that you cant please all of the people all of the time. All of the things youve listed as good points i couldnt care less about (apart from the crashing of course) and the things youve listed as negatives (scale, setting) are the very reasons most of us are liking the game (and why some disliked empire). Some people just want different things from games, and i guess this one just isnt for you.

[al Roumi]

I'm only about half way through my first campaign and I'm firmly in the happy camp. Credit where credit is due, I applaud CA for the quality of S2. It still has some rough edges but this is leaps and bounds on from Empire's fuddle. I winged quite alot about Empire so I feel I should be vocal about my pleasure from S2.

[LeftEyeNine]

Most of Servius1234's con's are graphical or trivial, no ?

[Monk]

Game arrived late afternoon yesterday, sooner than expected. Had some time with it and a few things I gotta say: Wow.

Chose Date as my first clan. They start divided and in the midst of a minor civil war, marched out to deal with the rebels. When i finally managed to pin them down in a fight I thought i'd try a staple TW tactic of mine. In every 3d total war game I always draw the Ai into wasting its cavalry early on by putting my archers in from of my main line. The AI usually sees the 'unprotected' bowman and charges straight away at them. Of course it's a trap, since as soon as I see them commit I pull my archers b ehind a line of spearman and the Ai will charge head-on to death. However this time was.. different.

The very moment I pulled my bowman backj, the Ai actually canceled it's charge. Not only that it pulled its horsemen back to its mainline, (since they were now in within range of my archers). Its a very minor thing but it really surprised me and set the tone to come. The AI in every engagement I fought was competent. It seemed more focused on outmanouvering me than out-fighting me, almost never staying where originally deployed and seeking better terrain.

A couple things that put me off in the demo were 1.) AI always running to its destinations and tiring itself out, and 2.) suicidal cavalry/general charges. After a few hours with the game I can say that both of those seem to be dealt with, at least to some extent. The Ai protected its general (only throwing him in as a last resort) and conserved its troops energy as it marched. It also held formations incredibly well. Very surprised.

Oh and my first campaign ended in defeat by the way. I managed to capture the Mogami (minor clan next to Date's) province and began to built up for a push to take their last province. When i marched out in the Spring I suddenly found myself starring down a Mogami counter attack that was equal in number to my own force. Only problem? They were loads better quality wise, which almost a fullarmy of samurai. Managed give them one heck of a bloody nose but my forces were mauled in the end.

[LeftEyeNine]

Moar input expected from Monk.

[Monk]

Moar input expected from Monk.

What that wasn't good enough?

Played a little more this morning. AI is hit or miss to be honest. Sometimes it sees through my attempts to be gamey, other times it charges its general in for no reason. Sometimes it's completely conservative with its cavalry, other times it throws it away for no reason. Obviously there's something going on in the AI's 'brain' that makes it think charging a general in some instances is a good thing. And in some it is, but not in the situations it's choosing. Still - the battles are tough enough on their own. Had a knock-down drag out fight with the Takeda over south Shinano and almost won, but the AI bested me yet again.

It's okay I got my revenge a bit later, but I still couldn't turn the tide. The Takeda had vassalized or otherwised conquered much of eastern Honshu, so when their alliance declared war on me, much of my neighbors saw it as the time to strike. Even though I turned back the Takeda alliance (with much bloodshed) I ended up falling to the Hattori, who used the chance to strike at my weakened capital.

As a side note on something a bit random (general speeches). My top guy was a four-star, when he first clashed with Shingen he mocked the Takeda in his speech, making jokes and laughing at their expense. I lost that battle, the second time he faced the Takeda (again, led by Shingen) he wasn't joking around so much. Again, i lost. By the third battle he displayed true respect for the Takeda and warned his men not to take them lightly. This time i finally won. It was an interesting change to see from the general of my army, like the two losses humbled him.

[crpcarrot]

well after the weekend of ignoring my wife , not eating properly and smoking a lot more than usual i'm really enjoying TW2. i agree with previous posters that diffrentiating units is hard, very hard but the run speed is really not an issue for me anyway. re AI i have not seen any crazy behaviour yet but i'm sure i will come up against it on the future.

the drop in battles system would be great if it works properly. it only worked for me twice. once in my campaign game and once when i serached for a drop in. and this is the first time i ever used muntiplayer in any TW game. i think i ahve 50% win ratio from 8 battles.

[Centurion1]

been playing on very hard/ hard (you can change battle difficulty seperately). started with chokosabe because im a turtle and their position is so good on shikoku for that. played 8 battles on land one on the sea. won all of them though i didnt play the naval one it was 3v1 and the enemy only had a trade ship. i have one south indonesian trade node. i have my starting position and my former ovelrords province. im unfortunately allied with the sogo and miyawi ?sp? meaning without stabbing i dont know how to conquer my island. im thinking sogo since they arent married to my daughter.

to be able to play i put all of the settings on the lowest possible and it really doesnt look that bad tbh.

[LeftEyeNine]

Sent a to-be-replenished army of Yari Samurai into Hyuga territory for scouting, got ambushed by, I guess, 210 men which were Ito Yari Ashigaru and Bow Ashigaru. I played the conflict -hard to name this a battle- myself. Bow Ashigaru was climbing a steepness on top of which my men were standing ready in the woods. As I saw them coming, I "rapid-advanced" my men towards them, slaying most and routing the left 40~. Then Yari Ashigaru were left and I charged them as well, killing until only 1 of them could escape the battlefield despite my men being ordered to chase to the last one.

Tactical absurdity of AI or Yari Samurai were too good despite being outnumbered 1 to 3 ?

[al Roumi]

Sent a to-be-replenished army of Yari Samurai into Hyuga territory for scouting, got ambushed by, I guess, 210 men which were Ito Yari Ashigaru and Bow Ashigaru. I played the conflict -hard to name this a battle- myself. Bow Ashigaru was climbing a steepness on top of which my men were standing ready in the woods. As I saw them coming, I "rapid-advanced" my men towards them, slaying most and routing the left 40~. Then Yari Ashigaru were left and I charged them as well, killing until only 1 of them could escape the battlefield despite my men being ordered to chase to the last one.

Tactical absurdity of AI or Yari Samurai were too good despite being outnumbered 1 to 3 ?

Ambushes are double edged IMO. The attacker sets up very close to the defender, potentially losing the benefit of causing ranged damage. Sounds like you were able to focus your forces on parts of the enemy, bit by bit. Also I find that ambushes aren't as murderous as you might think unless the defenders are actually surrounded and overpowered.

I'd say it was a glorious victory to you, but a tactical catastrophe on the behalf of the AI.

[LeftEyeNine]

Hrlm let's attribute this to those troops not having a general then.

Fine by me.

[Red_Russian13]

Been playing about a week now. Shimazu campaign on easy (yes, I said easy).

First let me say, once again, that I despise having to run games through Steam for a multitude of reasons. I presently live in Germany, and I had to purchase the game behind a VPN. Then I had to download behind a VPN, which took almost two entire days. I am not a fan of the whole "you need to be online" in order to play games that I purchase on a CD/DVD. I'm not a fan of the forced patches, which wrecked several Empire: TW games I had going. In closing, I do not like Steam, but I suppose that's the wave of the future...

Pros:
1.) I like this game. A lot.
2.) The campaign feels very immersive, and I hope that if they ever make Rome 2, they do something similar. The RPG aspect is a great addition.
3.) It runs well on my computer even at high settings. Napoleon did not. I find the campaign map and the interface to be beautiful.
4.) The AI seems, to me, to be improved. Both on the campaign map and the battlefield. I'll concede that I'm not as picky as most in this regard, however.
5.) Love the encyclopedia, though it's sometimes a little clunky. Heck of an idea though.
6.) It seems challenging; I suffered some pretty significant set backs when I tried to play blitzkrieg total war as I have in past games. Can anyone say food shortage...?
7.) I can no longer fight an entire stack of units and lose ~100 men. I sometimes will lose 400 or more in a battle I win handily. It's a bummer, but I kinda like it too. Very few lopsided victories.
8.) Agents are utterly awesome. I like the assassinations aspect. In previous games, I have perhaps assassinated 20 agents/generals ever, and this is coming from a guy who's probably dedicated a solid year of his life to Total War games. In this one, I may not kill outright, but I can injure them, which takes them out for a period of time. The success is a mixed bag, however. A good matsuke will imprison half my roster of agents! Good stuff though, and I love the RPG element of this as well.

Cons:
1.) I don't like how the map turns when it zooms into a battle. After that, my angle of view during the rest of an end turn process is different, and I have a hard time orienting myself to the action. It doesn't add anything to the game, and it really throws me off. Surprised this hasn't been mentioned before. It's really my number one gripe.
2.) The tech tree is fantastic, but it sometimes seems to take too long to research stuff. I'm at 1598, and I haven't nearly researched everything.
3.) Contrasting the slowness of number 2, battles seem to go way too fast. I mean seriously. Blink and you'll miss 1/2 of the battle. Yes, I know the katana was deadly, but really? Let's slow it down a bit.
4.) Not intimately familiar with this period of Japanese history and the warfare associated with it, but archers seem unduly powerful. Not that I mind, since I use them a lot... But some of those dudes are like WWI machine gunners, and an entire unit of Shimazu katana samurai will be decimated before they make contact.

Pro/Con Toss-up:
1.) Nanban...You know it. The little musketeers are virtually worthless, but it's neat to play with them. But good lord does Christianity put a hurting on your provinces. I like it to a degree, but I'm not sure why I can't lock those Europeans into their little port and ban the conversion of my people. The conversion bonus a port gets is insane...

All in all, I have to say I'm very pleased. The game seems balanced and immersive. I fell in love with RTW, even vanilla. Then fell in love again with the mods. Medieval 2 was pretty good as well. Empire was playable, but it didn't pull me in (plus it just didn't work for crap on my machine for some reason). Napoleon was pretty interesting sometimes, but I grew tired of it quickly. So I have to say, good job CA. I dig it. A lot.

[Zarky]

4.) Not intimately familiar with this period of Japanese history and the warfare associated with it, but archers seem unduly powerful. Not that I mind, since I use them a lot... But some of those dudes are like WWI machine gunners, and an entire unit of Shimazu katana samurai will be decimated before they make contact.

Pro/Con Toss-up:
1.) Nanban...You know it. The little musketeers are virtually worthless, but it's neat to play with them. But good lord does Christianity put a hurting on your provinces. I like it to a degree, but I'm not sure why I can't lock those Europeans into their little port and ban the conversion of my people. The conversion bonus a port gets is insane...

I absolutely agree with the archer part, especially in castle defense they easily tear any assaulting ashigaru units a new one so fast that they're then easily routed. And if AI comes with an army that is mostly archers, mine can still decimate their melee units effectively and then retreat to a higher level out of range and let towers to their business.
edit: It's gotten so bad I'm actually considering fighting castle battles like they actually did and start deploying outside of my castle.

I just don't see the Nanban trade ports as that big of a deal. Their conversion is easily outdone by a Buddhist temple and a single good monk, if you can't spare that much, should you really be letting the Nanban in? I think insane is overstating it, annoying is more like it.

[Red_Russian13]

I just don't see the Nanban trade ports as that big of a deal. Their conversion is easily outdone by a Buddhist temple and a single good monk, if you can't spare that much, should you really be letting the Nanban in? I think insane is overstating it, annoying is more like it.

Fair enough. I have not done any rigorous scientific studies, but I recall the port getting a 3.5 conversion bonus, and some have also lamented about having to use 3 monks or something to combat it. I cannot remember what a good Buddhist temple gives. I'll have to try it out.