Am I The Only One ?

**Vladimir** · 09-27-2011, 19:57

The battles are really the weak part of S2. I prefer to autoresolve whenever possible and only fight the close battles.

**Madae** · 09-27-2011, 21:09

That's a weird opinion. I would have thought that most people played TW for the battles. There are far better games (IMO) when it comes to strategy and diplomacy, such as Europa Universalis. I hear that new Sengoku game is pretty interesting when it comes to that, as well.

**Andres** · 09-27-2011, 21:19

It depends. I don't know what it depends from though, might depend on what kind of hairday I'm having or the weather outside, but sometimes, I play almost every single battle and sometimes, I autocalc the entire game. The latter only with MTW because those campaignmaps give that real Risk feeling.

With Shogun II, I mostly follow froggy's approach: only fight the battles that matter myself; autocalc the rest. But I certainly can appreciate playing a MTW game without fighting a single battle myself.

**Cash** · 10-13-2011, 18:37

I enjoy the battles but do not like having to rush the trade nodes. I would rather see the use of local markets, farms, mines and factories for the loot and food needed to support the towns, armies and castles. By the way can anyone tell me what changes I may find in SP only of SG2 in the latest patch? I don't go into Steam any more than I have to. I have had almost every one of the total war games including the first Shogun.

**Shigemasa Oyamada** · 10-16-2011, 08:47

The Battles In S2 aren't that bad, although I do think they could lessen the killing rate. I agree as well that cavalry is too weak, not to mention their pretty rare too since there's only 5 warhorse provinces (The Chosokabe don't even use Awa's). Naginata cavalry like in S1 would be nice, another hybrid between the Yari and Katana cavalry. At any rate, I really do like the campaign, but I too auto-resolve most of the trivial battles. I actually like sieges defenses since they seem almost too easy even when massively outnumbered (Battles you'd normally lose auto-resolving, anyways the heroic last stand in a castle always appeals to me). The RPG element of the characters is good change ( I wish there were more traits line in RTW and MTW2, they give the characters a lot more personality, although they use a bit more depth and variety- I feel like I'm always using the same things every general and the right tree regarding the Bodyguard unit is not very useful since I'm not charging my general into battle constantly.

**Kurisu** · 10-18-2011, 06:50

For those looking to slow the game down in multiple aspects (movement and mortality, as well as campaign pace) I'd recommend giving The Rights of Man (TRoM) a whirl. It's here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=455308

There's a lengthy description, but one of the key concepts is slightly longer recruitment times (basic ashigaru are 2 turns) and slower army travel; that has the effect of thinning the field and making individual battles more decisive. You can't just hurl bodies against the AI without prior planning (the AI also cannot spam stacks of ashigaru). AI Army composition is pretty well balanced. There's a cap on various unit types that's mitigated by the Bushido tree and the availability of AOR units. In general, the roster is expanded with many new types, but they are in limited supply.

For the battles themselves, the rock, paper, scissors relationships are maintained but normalized (so mortality rate is slowed). Along with slightly slower unit speed, that renders battles a more cerebral experience where you have time to actually execute tactical maneuvers and monitor the results. There's several options for movement speed; the default is 30/30 reduction for inf/cav. I like relatively faster cavalry, so I go 20/10. I believe there's a 30/15 along with some others. Battles last longer and chain routing is uncommon except where armies are outclassed.

The rest of the modifications are focused on historical interest and building choices. There's a Bushido tree for ashigaru development to go along with an expanded ashigaru roster (they start as conscripts and evolve towards professional army). A Zen branch is added (along with buildings) to contrast the standard Buddhist line and gives different benefits focused on samurai and Bushido. Also, some of the building chains now have interesting splits that foster more strategic decision making (e.g. markets and stealth chain are mutually exclusive). Small amounts of trade goods are available via farm, market and port options at the cost of reduced static wealth. These all tie in with the Chi tree as well.

That's a bit more involved than just lower mortality rates and such, but the whole thing ties together pretty well IMHO and addresses the desire for a slower, more thoughtful game with greater variety expressed in a number of posts. The mod is continuously developed and very well done. I'm having a great time with it, so I thought I'd recommend

**Vladimir** · 10-18-2011, 19:37

I like how you talk.

**Kurisu** · 10-18-2011, 07:02

Originally Posted by Cash

By the way can anyone tell me what changes I may find in SP only of SG2 in the latest patch? I don't go into Steam any more than I have to. I have had almost every one of the total war games including the first Shogun.

If you mean the big patch of Sept 23rd, new castles, custom maps and bug fixes mostly.

An expandable list is here. SP things are mainly under bug fixes.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=483809

**Cash** · 10-18-2011, 19:27

Ahh, thank You Kurisu. I had seen that before but I thought it was for MP. It would have helped these old eyes if CraigTW had separated the SP from the MP. Just saying. :)