Takeda 2

[phred]

Just saw this at the wargamer

http://www.wargamer.com/news/news.asp?nid=1446#

Did anyone ever play the first Takeda game?

[RZST]

lmao, i was just about to post this one too.
anyways, i havent tried the first one but i heard it was damn good.

i cant wait for this one to come out though =) doesnt look as nice as rtw but itll do as stw2 XD

heres official site btw:
http://www.ezgame.com/Takeda2

[frogbeastegg]

I remember the original; I thought it might be a good companion to STW but all the reviews I saw were terrible so I avoided it. This sequel could be interesting; the screenshots look a lot like good old STW to me, but with fewer men per unit.

[TosaInu]

Hello,

I played the demo of Takeda 1, it had nice bits but wasn't good enough for me then to play as there was STW. Takeda 2 looks very good at first glance. I'll give it a serious try.

[Ii Naomasa]

I was one of the defenders of Takeda here back when it and S:TW came out. In terms of pure fun, it couldn't compare to S:TW, but in many ways it was more realistic. I've never gotten around to completing a full, really successful campaign (just too much going on at the time and I'd always hit a battle where I was outnumbered and just pretty much screwed and hence fall to a poor branch of the campaign tree).

One of the big things people disliked was that you couldn't control the battles in as much detail as you could S:TW. To me, that was both realistic and added a challenge. You couldn't micromanage and you had to rely on officers to manage things a bit. This not only gave a good 'chain of command' feel, but also made all your worthwhile lieutenants as precious as your favorite Total War generals.

The emphasis on the namesake clan I think disappointed some as the only campaign you could play would always feature the same main characters. As someone who had been studying the Takeda before the games release, this didn't bother me.

The graphics are acceptable enough, although hardly exciting and sometimes the AI was questionable (although the more realistic way the battles played out often kept the enemy general from charging into the thick of things).

I think the main problem was that Takeda was probably closer to the hardcore turn based computer wargames of old than Total War. The TW series has really opened up the wargame/strategy genre to a wide audience, the price being that it's a little more closer to RTS (which old school computer wargamers wouldn't even consider strategy games). I'm hardly one of those, but I did occasionally have fun back in the day with the SSG/SST produced games, so I'm probably more used to how Takeda played.

Overall, Takeda was a good independently developed game (and hence, I cannot fault anything that could be related to a low budget, whereas others will criticize it as if it was built with part of the EA treasury). The campaign could be more dynamic and strategic (basically, you made choices regarding troop types and 'choose your own adventure' style options whether to attack a certain province or wait and the game would pick a battle scenario depending on who you attacked/got attacked by and how long you waited before attacking/getting attacked), but I had fun. Still, I will never try to argue that Takeda had anything over S:TW short of a bit more realism, both historically and how battles played out.

[phred]

here's a nice preview of Takeda 2. Reading it makes me want to dust off STW and start playing.
I'll be interested to see the reviews when it comes out.

http://www.escmag.com/v5/reviews/review.cfm?rv=461


There are some videos at the game's website
http://www.ezgame.com/Takeda2/home.htm

[Alrowan]

heh i actually got accepted for the beta to Takeda 2, but they were fairly amatuerish about the whole thing, and it turned out they would only mail the game, and wernt going to mail it to Aus, so no beta for me in the end ^_^

[nokhor]

i was interested but i believe the developer was not distributing to the north american market. at least not for the last couple of games they've developed. does anyone know if that has changed? and i think i couldn't d/l the games either.

[edyzmedieval]

I played Takeda 1 and I think it was much more difficult than STW. You only focused on military, and the economics part was left out.

Battles were much harder in the game. Can't wait for Takeda 2!!!!!

[Aurelian]

I think that Takeda was a cruelly overlooked little gem. It was pure battlefield simulation... there were no real strategic choices to be made... but the game led you through a series of well-designed battle scenarios. I always thought that the Takeda system cried out for somebody to take its essentials and drop them into a well-designed strategic game.

A few details:

Formations were much more important than in TW. Before battle you chose one of 16 army level formations such as "the Dragon", "the Snake", "the Spear", etc. Choosing the right formation could be critical as each implied a drastically different strategy. Reorganizing your formation during battle was sometimes possible, but risky. The scale of the battlefield was smaller and closer than in TW.

Within the overall army formation, your forces were composed of 12 divisions, each composed of four battalions that were arrayed in a chosen tactical formation (line, concave crescent, converse crescent, diamond, or wedge) that strongly effected the combat capabilities of the unit. Each division could be composed of spearmen, swordsmen, archers, cavalry, or musketeers.

Unit leadership was important and introduced a RPG note to the system, as you tried to utilize your best generals for key roles during the battle, and hoped that they would improve over time (much like TW).

One of my favorite touches was a 'war drum' key that you could beat at tense moments during the battle to provide temporary morale bonuses for your troops.

Overall, the game was a great battle simulation and gave you a very realistic amount of control over the situation. Planning your formation, and which leader took which role was key. Unlike the sometimes overly long battles of TW, with their straggling reinforcements (that I love anyway), Takeda battles were sharp and had a definite objective. When the enemy general's standard on the other side of the battlefield fell, his army would flee the field.

The only real downside to Takeda was its replay value. Unlike TW's infinite replayability, Takeda took you once or twice through a series of set-piece battles. Still, it's worth playing if you can get a cheap copy somewhere.

Since it looks as if Takeda 2 has introduced a strategic system to the excellent combat model, I'll certainly try it out.