First Impressions

[BroskiDerpman]

Play Shogun 2 with the UAI mod...


Waiting for Gold when CA finishes the beta finally. Then the game to me will be somewhat bearable, hopefully.

[ReluctantSamurai]

@Broski....play Shogun 1 with the 1.02 patch installed. Then prepare to get your ass kicked
@Bramborough

Thank you for that analysis. As one who has a love/hate relationship with micromanagement, it's good to see some 'nuts & bolts' commentary on how the game works

[Myth]

I'm getting the game and then I suspect I'll spend an entire afternoon at work writing an in-depth, diehard geek, TW bread and fed review. BTW @ReluctantSamurai why haven't you obtained Rome 2 yet?

[ArcturUs]

@Bramborough Nice review. Regarding garrison armies, I would advise you to not park armies in the cities unless they are vulnerable to attack(borders). You can increase public order by other means, such as edicts, lower taxation, etc. I play the Julia campaign, and actually right now I have only one army in all of Italy(which I will be using for the invasion of Gaul in a few turns), even the cities to the north like Velathari and Ariminum are quite unguarded, as I haven't gone into war with Helvetti tribes in the north yet. So you need not park an army in every city that you capture.

One thing I discovered is that the cash flow at the start of the campaign is quite low so you will have to watch where you are spending that money. But as you progress through the turns and capture more cities, get trade agreements etc, your income increases considerably.

[ReluctantSamurai]

BTW @ReluctantSamurai why haven't you obtained Rome 2 yet?

I NEVER buy any game upon release (and this includes Paradox, Bioware, etc.)
I don't like Steam telling me what I can or can't do............

[Bramborough]

@Bramborough Nice review. Regarding garrison armies, I would advise you to not park armies in the cities unless they are vulnerable to attack(borders). You can increase public order by other means, such as edicts, lower taxation, etc. I play the Julia campaign, and actually right now I have only one army in all of Italy(which I will be using for the invasion of Gaul in a few turns), even the cities to the north like Velathari and Ariminum are quite unguarded, as I haven't gone into war with Helvetti tribes in the north yet. So you need not park an army in every city that you capture.

Totally agree. And indeed, in my more "settled" provinces such as Italia, Cisalpina, Magna Grecia etc, I maintain zero military presence. My comment pertains more to recently conquered provinces, while dealing with the cultural differences and slowly decaying unrest. This typically takes around 10-15 turns to resolve (and yes, I know dignitaries help..I use 'em). During this "assimilation period", however, I feel like I have to keep my field armies parked in these settlements until they cross back into the "green" for public order. Lends a rather "start-stop" dynamic to the ongoing Roman juggernaut.

[Lord of the Isles]

Lends a rather "start-stop" dynamic to the ongoing Roman juggernaut.

Very true. I particularly noticed the assimilation problem when launching a war against Thrace (IIRC). A 4 region province and I sent 3 armies against 3 of the regions in one turn. Forgetting that the -25 one-off hit to public order in the province would be cumulative. Thankfully my characters and the armies just kept public order to -97 at the end of turn and I was able to build it up to about -70 so I could finish off the last region 4 or so turns later. Then I had to wait some more turns till public order came down enough to let my armies leave to go rampaging elsewhere.

But I quite like it as a slight brake on expansion. In fact, while there are numerous big problems with the game, I like the whole region/province mechanism and how CA have done faction management and the economy (though not the tech tree). Some tradeoffs to decide on every so often but not impossible to build an empire. And about the right amount of micromanagement.

[quadalpha]

Also, letting public order go all the way down to -100 isn't catastrophic. All it does it spawn a smallish rebel army that gets reinforced every turn until you take it out.

[andrewt]

Also, letting public order go all the way down to -100 isn't catastrophic. All it does it spawn a smallish rebel army that gets reinforced every turn until you take it out.

I prefer blitzing provinces and getting public order go all the way down to -100. In fact, I sometimes put one of my armies to raiding stance to help it along. It spawns a 4-unit rebel army. Each turn, the province gets a +20 modifier while the rebel army gets 4 more units. I believe this happens until -20. The moment the rebel army spawns, I can park an army in the settlement it spawned close to. That frees up the rest of my armies. I kill the rebel army once happiness hits -20.

[ArcturUs]

Totally agree. And indeed, in my more "settled" provinces such as Italia, Cisalpina, Magna Grecia etc, I maintain zero military presence. My comment pertains more to recently conquered provinces, while dealing with the cultural differences and slowly decaying unrest. This typically takes around 10-15 turns to resolve (and yes, I know dignitaries help..I use 'em). During this "assimilation period", however, I feel like I have to keep my field armies parked in these settlements until they cross back into the "green" for public order. Lends a rather "start-stop" dynamic to the ongoing Roman juggernaut.

Ya when you capture new regions it is a bit of a problem. But even then I usually park my conquering army for just a single turn(by which the one turn political instability will be over) and move on to the next settlement. Like quadalpha mentioned even if it does get to -100, it just spawns a rebel army which you can defeat relatively easily, in most cases. What I do is, if I notice that the settlement is going to rebel soon I'll keep my conquering army just on the borders of the settlement so that I can take care of the rebel army when it spawns. One good thing when you beat a rebel army is that it restores public order and the people will know who their true masters are

Another thing I noticed is that factions that were destroyed previously can make a comeback if their previously owned territories rebel. I noticed this when I destroyed Libya, but after a few turns one of the towns that I captured from them rebelled and a Libyan army spawned. Although I did decimate them in the very next turn

[BroskiDerpman]

@Broski....play Shogun 1 with the 1.02 patch installed. Then prepare to get your ass kicked
@Bramborough

Thank you for that analysis. As one who has a love/hate relationship with micromanagement, it's good to see some 'nuts & bolts' commentary on how the game works

Once I got used to the ui I rampaged through Japan till the game derped out on me and I had to uninstall the game.

[ShadesPanther]

Apparently civil war is linked to the ambition of your generals. If it is too "high" it can trigger it.
What is "too high" is unclear though

[BroskiDerpman]

I wonder if civil war and rebelling generals are hard to deal with, if not sad Panda is sad.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Once I got used to the ui I rampaged through Japan till the game derped out on me and I had to uninstall the game

Are we talking Shoggie I or II here? cuz no player I've ever know could rampage anywhere through Japan in the original on expert setting

[nearchos]

Are we talking Shoggie I or II here? cuz no player I've ever know could rampage anywhere through Japan in the original on expert setting

Or any other setting exept very easy.....

[Bramborough]

I wonder if civil war and rebelling generals are hard to deal with, if not sad Panda is sad.

From the Roman perspective (not sure what happens with other factions): One of your regions (single region, not a whole province) remains Roman, but rebels against YOU. This region is treated as a newly arising faction called "Senate Loyalists". In my case it happened to be Sardinia, just across the sea from Italia & Sicily. I'm guessing that the civil war faction will probably always spawn in an older region in or near Italia, rather than out on the fringe somewhere. And this does break up province cohesion, so it negates any edict you had, and may affect recruitment, depending on what buildings are in the rebelling town. For example, my most advanced fleet recruitment port was in Sardinia, so I didn't have access to recruit these vessels until after I retook that town.

In my case, I didn't lose control of any of my army/fleets (although I suspect this might happen if there's one actually stationed in the affected region). I did, however, lose all my Cornelii and Julii general/admirals, and had to replace them. The "Other Houses" general/admirals stayed loyal. So...six armies and four fleets (all 12 units each) insta-spawned in Sardinia, and proceeded to fan out toward Corsica, Sicily, and Magna Grecia from there. And they're all Roman troops, with access to the same level of units (in this case, legionaries with a sprinkling of veteran legionaries among them, with accompanying velites and equites). I did, however, have access to praetorians and 1st cohorts, but did not see any among the opposing legions.

So anyhoo, 6 armies and 4 fleets of Roman troops rampaging around the home provinces, yeah, it was a pain in the butt to deal with, and took quite a few turns to contain. I had enough power to do so, but had to call a lot of legions home so it took some travel time. Meanwhile, they ate up 3 provinces (Sardinia, Corsica, Lilybaeum) and *should* have taken Syracuse (not sure how/why they didn't, they were a step ahead of me and could've done so). They also landed a couple of legions in Italia, but by then my guys were closing in on them. In general, my sense is that the Campaign AI roughly marches toward Rome, although not necessarily in a straight line (thank goodness). And yes, you do have to deal with unrest and conquest public order penalties all over again when you retake those settlements (at least there's not a cultural assimilation though).

I don't remember exactly when it started, I'd say it took me 8-10 turns to get legions home, retake provinces, etc. As I type now, the civil war is still technically going on, but there's only a couple of small beat-up fleets I need to chase down and eliminate. I assume that once they're gone, the "Senate Loyalist" faction is eliminated and that's that. I don't know yet if there's some other event triggered like an internal peace treaty, or establishing the Empire (vice Republic) or whatever.

So bottom line, is it "hard" to deal with? Not necessarily, but harder than any other faction, I'd say. Derails your ongoing plans, takes time, causes some chaos on your core provinces, etc. The battle AI isn't really any smarter than for any other faction, but they are Roman troops, your units don't possess any inherent qualitative advantage over them, so they can't be taken lightly.

[BroskiDerpman]

Sounds interesting but if you could beat them even with your legions marching all the way back (Perhaps it's possible to keep any reserve legions?) them I'm sure the rebellion could get destroyed and be considered a minor set back.

Though it seems quite fun to be able to fight Romans with Romans.

1 duty to me just seems to little, perhaps CA should've given more to the rebels so they start of already well developed and you'd be in even bigger trouble.

[nearchos]

From the Roman perspective (not sure what happens with other factions): One of your regions (single region, not a whole province) remains Roman, but rebels against YOU. This region is treated as a newly arising faction called "Senate Loyalists". In my case it happened to be Sardinia, just across the sea from Italia & Sicily. I'm guessing that the civil war faction will probably always spawn in an older region in or near Italia, rather than out on the fringe somewhere. And this does break up province cohesion, so it negates any edict you had, and may affect recruitment, depending on what buildings are in the rebelling town. For example, my most advanced fleet recruitment port was in Sardinia, so I didn't have access to recruit these vessels until after I retook that town.

In my case, I didn't lose control of any of my army/fleets (although I suspect this might happen if there's one actually stationed in the affected region). I did, however, lose all my Cornelii and Julii general/admirals, and had to replace them. The "Other Houses" general/admirals stayed loyal. So...six armies and four fleets (all 12 units each) insta-spawned in Sardinia, and proceeded to fan out toward Corsica, Sicily, and Magna Grecia from there. And they're all Roman troops, with access to the same level of units (in this case, legionaries with a sprinkling of veteran legionaries among them, with accompanying velites and equites). I did, however, have access to praetorians and 1st cohorts, but did not see any among the opposing legions.

So anyhoo, 6 armies and 4 fleets of Roman troops rampaging around the home provinces, yeah, it was a pain in the butt to deal with, and took quite a few turns to contain. I had enough power to do so, but had to call a lot of legions home so it took some travel time. Meanwhile, they ate up 3 provinces (Sardinia, Corsica, Lilybaeum) and *should* have taken Syracuse (not sure how/why they didn't, they were a step ahead of me and could've done so). They also landed a couple of legions in Italia, but by then my guys were closing in on them. In general, my sense is that the Campaign AI roughly marches toward Rome, although not necessarily in a straight line (thank goodness). And yes, you do have to deal with unrest and conquest public order penalties all over again when you retake those settlements (at least there's not a cultural assimilation though).

I don't remember exactly when it started, I'd say it took me 8-10 turns to get legions home, retake provinces, etc. As I type now, the civil war is still technically going on, but there's only a couple of small beat-up fleets I need to chase down and eliminate. I assume that once they're gone, the "Senate Loyalist" faction is eliminated and that's that. I don't know yet if there's some other event triggered like an internal peace treaty, or establishing the Empire (vice Republic) or whatever.

So bottom line, is it "hard" to deal with? Not necessarily, but harder than any other faction, I'd say. Derails your ongoing plans, takes time, causes some chaos on your core provinces, etc. The battle AI isn't really any smarter than for any other faction, but they are Roman troops, your units don't possess any inherent qualitative advantage over them, so they can't be taken lightly.

In my campaign as Macedon, the Macedonian nobles emerged at my homeprovince of Pella, with 9 20 unit stacks and 6 20 ship fleets, all prime units.

It took me also 9 or 10 turns, to destroy them, by marching half my armies all the way from the caspian sea, ( thank god the chorasmii acepted the peace proposal), and a lot of fighting, where i lost a full stack army.

Well in the end i think its fun and interesting aspect, if only i could understand the mevhanics of the civil war, so far i believe it just hapens in some turn of the game no matter what.