My Patch Suggestions

[Lord Toranoga]

1. MOST IMPORTANTLY IS A SMARTER A.I. !!!! Expert level is too easy for me.
When enemies, especially ronin armies run to a castle to starve to death knowing that no one will come to their aid!
They should fight it out and at least take some of my men with them!
Also the A.I. should train more shinobies and ninjas and keep them for the home defense and kill my emissaries so I cant sneak attack their port provinces! In return they should use emissaries to sneak attack my ports!
Also they should consolidate their weaken units and upgrade them. And spend more Koku on dojo upgrades and mine and farmland upgrades than buying more units.
And keep the best generals leading their armies at all times!
And they should defend and attack bridges the way smart human players do.

2. I would also like to play a campaign online or by e-mail.

3. I think even larger tactical maps would allow for more maneuvering, its too easy to find the enemy, you go forward and there they are. Except for battlefield ninjas, its hard to sneak up on someone. Plus more diverse maps. Like some with 80 percent covered with trees, where Cavalry units would get slaughtered.

4. Even though it wouldn't be realistic historically, a random campaign generator that places you somewhere on the map with random starting forces and many more clans to pick from even if they are fictional.

5. An option to turn off or weaken Geishas! I always have them before the AI does.

6. Tweak the troop stats and or cost. Especially Naginata Cav.



[This message has been edited by Lord Toranoga (edited 11-09-2001).]

[Khan7]

Having larger maps would gain you nothing with the current small scale of the game. I might also add that in reality it is rather difficult to sneak up on your enemy if you are seeking to engage him with a comparably sized force, in fact it's practically impossible to sneak up on him if he is arrayed for battle. And you want 80 percent tree maps? Try 100 percent. There will be plenty such maps to your liking in the map packs available for download at PlanetTotalWar (or are these here also? I can't remember).

Matt

[edRonin]

Lord Toranoga, you make some good suggestions. I especially like the idea of the AI consolidating several weakened units into one full stregnth one.

One suggestion I can make to you if you want harder games is to not use the port bug. The game is much harder when you do not use it.

[Zone]

I'm not so sure about the increased size of maps unless the timer went on for longer as you might run out of time to quikly otherwise.

I definitly think there should be something happening with the reinforcements like chosing which one come on and in which order, perhaps prior to the battle the order can be chosen as chosing during the battle may interupt it's flow. It would also be a new tactical twist trying to figure when you'll need the units before the battle.

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Fight first, then scream 'Doh, why did I forget my Kensi!'

[This message has been edited by Zone (edited 11-09-2001).]

[Lord Toranoga]

I never play with the timer on. That would be very unrealistic.

[Zone]

Fair enough but some people do and it wouldn't be easy to have decent battles if it took half the time to meet in the middle.

The trouble with larger maps I suppose is that people have the timer on for precisly the reason that they don't have lots of spare time or get bored with long battles (although that is impossible I would have thought ) Taking away the small maps would prevent those people from being able to play part of their campaign in a small break which they may want to do.

Fine, make some enormous maps for custom battles but keep the smaller ones for the campaigns

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Fight first, then scream 'Doh, why did I forget my Kensi!'

[BSM_Skkzarg]

If there are further changes to the patch, I doubt they will include much more. However, a note on the timer - the timer is there to simulate a "day" of battle - as during that time large scale battles were not fought at night. That is why the timer is much shorter during winter seasons that it is during summer.

Its not unrealistic, its simply a mechanism simulating the passage of time. Its not perfect, as many times on an attack its simply passes to quickly. But - on others, I have held a province on defense by the clock running out - and sweated every second doing it when massively outnumbered or outmanuevered. Its not a perfect way of simulating time, but it is a good balance.
Qapla!

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BSM_Skkzarg
"A mind is a terrible thing to taste."

[clink]

Having just started playing on line,hm hm,I say bring back so that musketts are inafective in rain.
This will make the defender have to gamble in his decision.
I was shocked the first time when I waited for heavy rain weather conditions,march my army up to the defender,and was pounded.

TeuTonic

[LordTed]

LordTed's suggestion

Make guns 300-350 koku to make them a novelty weapon.

Also makes archers cheaper so we may see more of them in the game

Or reduce the attack power of guns, or incease the reload time, as in 3 ranks in good weather guns can shoot many rounds a minute.

[This message has been edited by LordTed (edited 11-11-2001).]

[Mensageiro]

I couldn't agree more about having an option to turn off Legendary Geishas. And I know, because I use lots of them

[Whitey]

turn off all ranged weapons, Samurai should fight 1 on 1

only allow open order no-dachi!

[Zone]

Quote Originally posted by Mensageiro:
I couldn't agree more about having an option to turn off Legendary Geishas. And I know, because I use lots of them [/QUOTE]

I'm sure I read somewhere that you could turn them off. I can't remember where and I might be thinking of Spies in Startopia. I may have to eat my words



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Fight first, then scream 'Doh, why did I forget my Kensi!'

[Sjakihata]

I would also suggest that there were a button called -"Reload"- so when u oushed it, the selected group would reload. And when they got to place they were ready to fire at once!

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"-Know your self, know your enemy and your victory will be painless.
-Know the weather, know the terrain and your victory will be complete."
-Sun Tzu(Wu), The Art of War.

[tootee]

I would wish that for medium and large map, the deployment areas are spread out appropriately.. you know, even if you use a large map, the deployment areas for the armies are still that of a small map. There's no reason why we can't deploy on the right of the med/large map.

It'll be more fun on med/large in MP then.


--tootee aka goldfish shimazu

[Zone]

Sorry, it was startopia Sry

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Fight first, then scream 'Doh, why did I forget my Kensi!'

[CaPeFeAr]

when players join a game they go into a different screen where they pick sides and wait for others to join... on this screen you shold see the players latency next to their name. this wouldnt be hard to patch and would increase the enjoyment of the game by a factor of 10 or better. better yet... add an option in the host game screen that allows you to limit to players who join to a certin latency or honor level.

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Fearful Ways - The Mori Family

[Baybars' Nemesis]

"Expert level is too easy for me" the man says! Clearly, much as I love this game, I am just rubbish at it. So how do you do it Lord Toranoga? Or have you posted strategy tips somewhere?
(Apologies if necessary, I don't visit fora too often.)

[tootee]

How about.. save and reload, save and reload till you get it right? LOL

--tootee aks goldfish shimazu

[Lord Toranoga]

I am sure there are a lot of players here expert level is still too easy for them.
I never owned the first version of the game but I heard expert level was harder.

I have been playing war games and chess for 30 years! Chess programs from the past decade are the only real challenge to strong players.
I wish I could get a wargame that could play like the top chess programs like "Fritz".

I don't save and reload but during tactical battles I pause the game a lot and give orders.

[This message has been edited by Lord Toranoga (edited 11-13-2001).]

[AMPmortog]

expert in old shogun version was very easy you could move ur armies out of ur main provinces and they would get attacked within 2 turns or more and next turn or so a rebellion army would pop up for u to control and after u win the battle ur the 1st to be controling nodachi along with a few extra units and use it to sweep through provinces easy...but anyways i hope in the patch they add maybe 5v5,6v6,ffa,balance units,allow people to transfer maps online instead of always having to dl them at fan sites or w/e,be able to see what ur allies are picking like in custom battles,share koku with allies,add ai in mutli,if someone drops there allies or ai takes over... so much more but i will stop there

[Baybars' Nemesis]

Ah, so that's it! I love chess (mankind's greatest invention?), but I'm out of practice - getting back into it is perhaps the key to success in Shogun then?
I use the pause key in busy battles too. I think it must be the strategic side I'm weaker on, rather than the battles.

[Khan7]

Well, no offense, really..

But IMHO pausing during the tactical battle at best takes half the fun and challenge out of the game.. and is really kind of a pussy way to play..

Matt

[BakaGaijin]

I wouldn't go that far, Khan, but I do think that the pause button is a crutch for weaker players. A good player needs to think on the fly and give orders in the same manner. Pausing does give you more time to evaluate the situation, and thus may be useful when learning the game, but as a player advances in skill, pausing should no longer be used. It's the only way to get better.

I put it into the same category as Save/Reload, in that respect. I only save when I'm done playing, never just before a harvest or major battle. If you want to be good, you have to learn how to accept your losses and compensate for them to win from a position of disadvantage.

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Disappear into the Darkness!!

[Zone]

I've never used the pause button during the battle (that's not to say I'm a particularly great player) except for when supper has just been cooked as my mum would go mad if it sat around going cold for 15 mins. or so while I finished the battle. I prefer to think 'on the fly' because if you've just set out a long strategy for your battle during pause and the comp. does something unexpected, you have to rearrange it all. It also makes it more exciting and tense which is what comp. games in general are for (partly).

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Fight first, then scream 'Doh, why did I forget my Kensi!'

[This message has been edited by Zone (edited 11-14-2001).]

[Khan7]

BAH! Must make post so that other hidden posts will show up. Forgive me. Either the server or my browser is having trouble.

[BSM_Skkzarg]

Pausing during battle can be dishonorable - or it can be realistic. The reason - the game scale. I often pause - but NOT to examine the tactical situation. I pause only to order my units - which would be done by flags, etc if this was real. Now - if you do not pause - the battles can literally become somewhat of a "clickfest" - something that true tactical grognards DESPISE. Keeping units in proper formation and aspect (to the rest of your troops) plays a very large part in success - and I personally do not think that the speed with which I can drag my mouse cursor should have a large role to play in whether or not my army wins the battle.

Make no mistake - I do not think pausing to examine the tactical situation is right - its a good tool to learn with, but not to use consistently. Use it to keep the "clickfest" out, but only for that, and you strike the right balance.

This is one reason I rarely play online (or lan games).

Qapla!


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BSM_Skkzarg
"A mind is a terrible thing to taste."

[Khan7]

Hmm.. but did you ever stop to think that maybe your orders shouldn't be obeyed as soon as you give them? Or that you shouldn't be able to order a unit in the middle of a charge? Or give it specific missile targets?

C&C is too smooth anyway, forcing yourself to work stictly within realtime helps chop it up a bit (which is good, if you're a grognard). In my personal experience, if you learn how to use the whole interface properly, it really isn't a clickfest.

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-Matt

Visit the Center for the Enrichment of Shogun Total War here.

[BakaGaijin]

I make fewer clicking noises playing Shogun than I ever did with any other wargame. Including a lot of turn-based ones (all that examining the morale of Bob in second platoon to eek out the slightest advantage... true to life, maybe, but it gets old).

And it seems to me that Khan is faking problems just to up his post count.

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Disappear into the Darkness!!

[rshuck]

I would like the ability to record battles for later playback, then hopefully a library of battles could be organised on the web to demonstrate different tactics.

[Khan7]

Ah yes, a battle recorder would be SOO nice..

But alas..

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-Matt

Visit the Center for the Enrichment of Shogun Total War here.