What do you expect/want to see in FotS

[Peasant Phill]

Now that the release date is coming quickly, what are you hoping for that FotS will include?

For me I hope it captures the atmosphere of the period it portrays and that it's noticible in all/most aspects.
Secondly, I hope the AI can handle all the new units like torpedo boats and can also counter them.

[Graphic]

I'm hoping for an ability to switch the unit voices back to Japanese from the terrible Engrish heard in one of the gameplay videos.

Sounds like I'm joking but not really. I don't know how long I'll be able to take hearing "at da daburrr" from my guys.

[Vladimir]

Good battles? I could write a few haikus between each TWS load time and felt really disappointed by the, movement, feel, and interface of the battles. The strategic map was simple which made it work and diplomacy, etc on the strategic side are impressive. I expect naval combat to be the highlight of this game but expect the field battles, especially sieges, to be a letdown.

I'm still excited though. What I really want is to see how CA model and represent this dynamic time in Japanese history.

[frogbeastegg]

Good AI. First, foremost, and always. Since I'm not interested in the setting or gun-based battles, this is the clincher for me. I can overlook a lot of things if a game has smart AI.

My other main hope is that it manages to do a good job in capturing the feeling of a dramatically changing world. I find watching the world sprint towards modernity strangely addictive in Victoria II, despite hating the setting. I don't expect the same level of social and economic depth from FotS, obviously, yet I think the game should be able to portray the rapid shift in technology levels, ideas, and social structure. One of the previews mentioned social tension and resistance to change and I hope that means something more engaging than rebel stacks spawning.

After that ... just give me a worthy continuation of Shogun 2. Tight design, meaningful strategic choices, atmosphere.

Faster load times would be a bonus.

[Graphic]

Faster load times would be a bonus.

Definitely. I can deal with the current load times getting in and out of battle, but the minute-and-a-half sitting on the splash screen is brutal.

[Marshall Louis-Nicolas Davout]

The historical accuracy. They must at least retain some , what else... I hope the trains can move as they are supposed to, the AI should be bloody excellent, and more changes to dipolmacy, for me, this has been the weakest of all Total war, it should be so refined that you can use your allies armies as well. And reinforcements should come in full strength.

[SalmonSoil]

it should be so refined that you can use your allies armies as well.

I completely agree with this. Either you should be able to have some degree of control of allied armies or they should greatly improve the AI's teamwork capabilities both in and out of battle. Also, when a battle involves multiple factions their armies should deploy together at least some of the time. There should also be some way to coordinate wars with your allies on the strategic map. Some sort of 'war room'. This would be pretty appropriate for FotS seeing as it involves two factions composed of multiple clans fighting together, and most of the major battles of the Boshin War involved numerous factions. Of course this stuff seems kind of hard to implement and I guess they would have announced it by now if they intended to.

Also some historical accuracy would be nice.

[frogbeastegg]

it should be so refined that you can use your allies armies as well. And reinforcements should come in full strength.

Yes, it would be very nice to be able to give some basic instructions to your AI controlled ally. Simple ones like "Hold position" or "be aggressive" so that you can coordinate a bit. It's a bit of a pain to set up with a nice defensive position, only to watch your ally go full-on banzai.

Likewise, it would be nice to have a little more control over reinforcements, such as giving some indication of where you want them to enter on a small deployment zone.

[Vladimir]

Yes, it would be very nice to be able to give some basic instructions to your AI controlled ally. Simple ones like "Hold position" or "be aggressive" so that you can coordinate a bit. It's a bit of a pain to set up with a nice defensive position, only to watch your ally go full-on banzai.

Likewise, it would be nice to have a little more control over reinforcements, such as giving some indication of where you want them to enter on a small deployment zone.

Yes. The game went backwards in this regard and I really miss this feature.

[Graphic]

Kingdoms-style reinforcements are back in case you guys didn't know.

[Peasant Phill]

Kingdoms-style reinforcements are back in case you guys didn't know.

Which is what exactly?

[Graphic]

Which is what exactly?

If you you have another stack of reinforcements, they enter the battle with you as an entire separate army instead of just a trickle when your own units start dying. I don't know if FotS has the same controls, but in Kingdoms you could give your reinforcement army basic commands like wait here, attack here, do what you want, etc.

So you can have 40 v 40 battles instead of just 20 v 20.

[Peasant Phill]

If you you have another stack of reinforcements, they enter the battle with you as an entire separate army instead of just a trickle when your own units start dying. I don't know if FotS has the same controls, but in Kingdoms you could give your reinforcement army basic commands like wait here, attack here, do what you want, etc.

So you can have 40 v 40 battles instead of just 20 v 20.

Great.

I wonder why they took that out?

[Vladimir]

Kingdoms-style reinforcements are back in case you guys didn't know.

Good. Removing that feature diminished the value of Oda.

[andrewt]

I'm hoping for an ability to switch the unit voices back to Japanese from the terrible Engrish heard in one of the gameplay videos.

Sounds like I'm joking but not really. I don't know how long I'll be able to take hearing "at da daburrr" from my guys.

I thoroughly enjoyed Shogun 1's heavily, somewhat comedic, Japanese-accented English.

I'm hoping for better naval battles and more field instead of siege battles.

I also want better optimization. I have a new, good video card but there's still no reason this game takes up more system resources than FPS games.

[Marshall Louis-Nicolas Davout]

Yes Froggbeastegg and Salmonsoil. I hate it when they come as one unit after the other, also the dioplamcy must be improved.

[Andres]

If you you have another stack of reinforcements, they enter the battle with you as an entire separate army instead of just a trickle when your own units start dying. I don't know if FotS has the same controls, but in Kingdoms you could give your reinforcement army basic commands like wait here, attack here, do what you want, etc.

So you can have 40 v 40 battles instead of just 20 v 20.

Sounds excellent

[Voigtkampf]

What do I hope to see in FotS:

More random maps as well as better designed maps. I hated the fact that every single of my siege battles was always the same map. Come on, seriously!?

[I]More realistic combat[./I] I just couldn't get too friendly with the insane speed of the S2 troop's movements. Not that it isn't realistic; it is insane. I play Starcraft 2 MP for my twitch thrills. With S2, I want to use my brains, not to break APM records in micromanagement.

Would love to see the game to be more mod-friendly. But that is highly improbable. I hope that one day CA may grab a page from the Skyrim book, but I am not holding my breath. But it would make me luv CA long, long time, baby.

Decent AI, better diplomacy, more diversity in gameplay when using different factions. Sounds straightforward, right?

[easytarget]

What I'd like to see is actually rather modest, I'd be quite happy if they'd simply fix some, not all, of the known and identified/confirmed bugs listed in their own tech forum.