Thing you would change?

[Wasp]

The title says it all; what would be the things you'd change in Shogun if you had the chance?

For me, I'd limit the amount of 'special' units such as the Kensai, Battlefield Ninja and Geisha (definitely just one Kensai, maybe include historical figures here such as Musashi). I'd also personify the generals some more with portraits and more 'stats', so you could have a cavalry/flanking expert or something similar. Makes for a more diverse tactical game I think, because you'd have to find the right general for the right army.

Well, what would you do?

[LittleGrizzly]

Its hard to want to change anything limiting those 3 units is a good idea though, i would leave the battles and have a more advanced stratergy map with more diplomacy and have the ai work with or against the player in alliances more effective

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I always thought it would be neat if you entered the battlefield on the other side if you attacked the province from that side.

Vices and Virtues were a neat idea too, some of them anyway.

Castle attacks could have been more fleshed out.

Can't think of anything else at the mo, besides a brilliant and agressive AI.

[Martok]

I would simply second both Wasp and Sasaki: Get rid of Kensai and Battlefield Ninja, nerf the Geishas (or eliminated them entirely), and improve the AI even more. (Not that I'm complaining about the AI overall -- Shogun has one of the best I've ever seen -- but it can always be better.)

[Wasp]

I always thought it would be neat if you entered the battlefield on the other side if you attacked the province from that side.

Vices and Virtues were a neat idea too, some of them anyway.

Castle attacks could have been more fleshed out.

Can't think of anything else at the mo, besides a brilliant and agressive AI.

I can agree on the province idea, it's a very logical thing to have, in my opinion.

Perhaps the rebels could use a bit more personality and diplomacy (that you could participate in small alliances with them; to attack a common foe, or to negotiate a cease-fire for x years).


@ Martok: What would you like to improve concerning the AI? Better tactical skills?

[Puzz3D]

I always thought it would be neat if you entered the battlefield on the other side if you attacked the province from that side.

Samurai Warlords for MTW/VI v2.01 has this. In fact, your army will enter the map from either of 4 directions: north, south, east or west depending on the direction it entered the province on the strategic map. However, provinces are not assigned a single map. They are, possibly randomly, assigned a map from a set of maps that represent the type of terrain of the border between the two provinces. What I did for Samurai Warlords was take the original 64 maps from STW and assign them to sets that represented the terrain type of the borders.

[Puzz3D]

I would simply second both Wasp and Sasaki: Get rid of Kensai and Battlefield Ninja, nerf the Geishas (or eliminated them entirely), and improve the AI even more. (Not that I'm complaining about the AI overall -- Shogun has one of the best I've ever seen -- but it can always be better.)

The Geisha is removed in Samurai Warlords. The Kensai and Battlefield Ninja are still in, but can be removed. The AI is improved over STW by fixing the suicide general, and by making cavalry move to the flanks to carry out flanking attacks on the enemy army. There is one bug where the AI will pile up units one on top of another when under ranged attack. It doesn't happen very often, but it does happen.

[TosaInu]

Hello,

Things to change in STW? It's the vanilla TW title I enjoyed most, but there's room for improvement.

For MP:
-Better server support.
-Acces to unitstats, including the hardwired parts and support to play those (a bit like the eras in MTW).
-Allow to receive missing files from host (only small files, will be transferred in seconds).
-Get rid of the 500 maps limit.
-Allow larger maps.
-Get rid of Benny Hill code.
-Allow only one competitive account per CD key: the ladder was a nice thing, but destroyed by cheating.
-Support MP battles by using ADF/BDF files <=> support for MP campaigns running on servers.
-PHP scripts to help administrate MP campagins.
-Open the hardware upgrade to larger MP games using larger and or more units. For example 10V10 games.
-Do not show enemy armies until everyone is deployed (like MTW VI).
-Remove battlefield upgrades.
-Limit the amount of upgrades that swamp the combatsystem.
-Make the upgrades class specific.
-Start purchase of units at honour 0.
-Remove units routing to one fixed exit point.
-Remove routing units outrunning a (tired) horse.
-Adjust the redzoning.
-Allow custom deployment zones.
-Allow sharing team money.
-Allow selecting weather by host.

For SP:
-The one map per province is a bit limiting. It's quite an annoyance that you always end up on the same riverbank, especially when attacking that province using two armies at the same time from east and west.
-More turns per year. Four is a minimum, but Japan is not a huge continent, 12 tpy would be nice.
-No Takeda in the west.
-Optionally a few extra clans.
-Diplomacy could be a bit better.
-Stacking of special agents (having more than 10 shinobi in a province isn't rare).
-Decide which unit a heir should be in.

Modding:
-The already mentioned access to unitstats, but also buildings. It being like the one in MTW VI would be a good start. Would still need a more flexible projectile stat (and support for multiple), option to mod the behaviour of projectiles (get rid of them being shot into vacuum). Allow to mod the combatbonusses like flanking, backstabbed, under fire, fatigue and so on.
-Allow larger maps: red zone for scenery, orange zone allows walk through but not camping and green zone in the center is the playing field.
-Description file for the campaign map to allow editing incomes etc (MTW VI).
-Better scripting support for bdf and bdf files (MTW VI).
-Better support for branched historical campaigns.
-Control units from both teams (and scripting how they should act) to test custom battles and custom stats.
-Support for mods and total conversions to run in one install and proper management for that.

[Wasp]

-Decide which unit a heir should be in.

I believe you can do that already, although a bit clumsy. Once a heir becomes 'unassigned' (when he becomes 16), he'll appear in the first unit built (the following turn, of course). You'll just have to micromanage it a bit, but it works.

Or do you mean something in place of this?

For the rest, excellent points regarding singleplayer. I haven't played multiplayer, so I can't comment on those properly, but those look very logically too.

[TosaInu]

I believe you can do that already, although a bit clumsy. Once a heir becomes 'unassigned' (when he becomes 16), he'll appear in the first unit built (the following turn, of course). You'll just have to micromanage it a bit, but it works.

Yes, that's how it works. It would be nice when it automatically ends in a bodyguard unit (other tw titles do that). I don't want it in a peasant units (happened more than once), but not in a shock unit either (I tend to throw those into danger first).

[Martok]

@ Martok: What would you like to improve concerning the AI? Better tactical skills?

I was thinking mainly of the "suicide general" phenomenon and the fact that cavalry isn't the greatest at flanking attacks (which Puzz pretty much outlined in his previous post). Making the AI better able to attack river provinces would've really helped as well, although I admit I'm not really sure how that could be accomplished -- even though I'm no programmer, I have a feeling that would be pretty difficult to code.


Incidentally, I thought of a couple other things I wouldn't mind seeing changed in STW. Tosa has mentioned one of them already, which is that heirs don't automatically appear with their own bodyguard unit.

The other thing Shogun could've done better is how reinforcements are handled; since unlike in Medieval and the other Total War games, your reinforcements don't necessarily appear on the same side of the map as your starting army. Also, having a pre-battle setup screen similar to Viking Invasion's (where you could organize in what order reinforcement units would appear) would've been nice as well.