First Impressions?

[Graphic]

I already thought of that. The provinces in the objectives are vaguely in the vicinity of Kyoto and Edo but certainly not in a place to directly protect or threathen both cities. Conquering and holding isolated provinces with little strategical value just seems illogical. Or are these victory conditions grounded in historical reality?

You can meet the victory conditions by just having an ally control the required provinces now. The Imperial/Shogun faction needs to achieve hegemony over Japan, not your clan specifically.

[Peasant Phill]

You can meet the victory conditions by just having an ally control the required provinces now. The Imperial/Shogun faction needs to achieve hegemony over Japan, not your clan specifically.

Oh, OK. That seems more logical.

BTW, I've checked again and it was definetly not Edo and Tokyo in the victory conditions.

[TargetSlayer]

Appreciate the feedback by others. I especially enjoyed the detailed comments by Madae. Mine will be brief.

I cannot believe the hours I have enjoyed with this expansion already. I really didn't enjoy Shogun 2, although I did find the RotS more engaging. With Empire and Napoleon I didn't expect to enjoy ranged contests as much as I did, but now with Shogun I am back enjoying rifles and cannons along with Gatling guns. I also enjoy the naval battles again. In Shogun they were a disappointment to me after Empire/Napoleon.

With regards to gameplay, I appreciate that the game no longer penalizes you when developing/expanding your settlements. While some care is needed at the beginning, I have nearly fully developed all my older settlements without too much difficulty. On my second play through I will probably specialize more.

I do find you have to play almost every naval battle or be prepared to lose an Ironclad or two needlessly. Also, I find that the AI sends a lot of small fleets to harass your harbours, fair enough though tiring to chase them all down. Can't seem to contain them.

On Normal the battles seem too easy with a modern army possessing say 4 cannons and a couple Gatling guns, but I suppose it should be. Not a big complaint as I shamefully just like expanding my empire slowly, micro-managing everything to death. Strong opposition is counter productive to all this business.

I also find the agents a bit too powerful, and I am disappointed that my strong agents cannot thwart the actions of the opposition better than they seem to be doing. Pushing the frontline further east has resulted in a tonne of enemy agents killing a lot of my agents and generals. Next time I will endeavour to bring a lot more developed agents to the front. Geishas don't seem that useful to me. Foreign army trainers and your police agents are however very useful, at least to my gameplay style.

Anyway, this was supposed to be short. Playing every night at the moment and enjoying the game. With some tweaks it should be better.

[Madae]

With regards to gameplay, I appreciate that the game no longer penalizes you when developing/expanding your settlements. While some care is needed at the beginning, I have nearly fully developed all my older settlements without too much difficulty. On my second play through I will probably specialize more.

Yeah, the game definitely allows for more freedom and less micromanagement in that department. I'm ambivalent either way (having a food limit or not), but it's a relief not having to worry about it altogether.

I do find you have to play almost every naval battle or be prepared to lose an Ironclad or two needlessly. Also, I find that the AI sends a lot of small fleets to harass your harbours, fair enough though tiring to chase them all down. Can't seem to contain them.

I definitely noticed this as well. Sometimes I just can't bother to waste my time trying to destroy a single ship, even though I know there is a possibility I will cost myself a lot of men and cannons on a ship or two, and maybe even lose it. My only beef with the navy battles is that they are a lot slower than Empire, and ships seem a lot more unwieldy - you can definitely see and feel the difference between a smaller, lighter ship and a larger, heavier one.

On Normal the battles seem too easy with a modern army possessing say 4 cannons and a couple Gatling guns, but I suppose it should be. Not a big complaint as I shamefully just like expanding my empire slowly, micro-managing everything to death. Strong opposition is counter productive to all this business.

Another solid point - battles are pretty easy in this game when you carry a lot of artillery with you. However, if the AI utilized artillery more often, especially the later types, it would be a lot more difficult. I've fought a few battles where I was on the attacking end and was forced to march into their artillery - all I had were gatlings, so they had to be moved closer and I couldn't "persuade" the enemy to charge me since I was bombarding them with cannons. Unfortunately, even their wooden cannons were enough to take out both of my gatlings before they even got within range, and I took heavy losses before I even set up my line in front of them. I was able to win the battle since my troops were a lot more experienced and were better types, but I can see how the game would be a lot different if the AI carried more artillery.

I also find the agents a bit too powerful, and I am disappointed that my strong agents cannot thwart the actions of the opposition better than they seem to be doing. Pushing the frontline further east has resulted in a tonne of enemy agents killing a lot of my agents and generals. Next time I will endeavour to bring a lot more developed agents to the front. Geishas don't seem that useful to me. Foreign army trainers and your police agents are however very useful, at least to my gameplay style.

Like I said before, Geisha have a wonderful level 6 ability to increase your income across all provinces by 10% - that is a nice bonus, though I'm not sure if it stacks with multiple geisha. They're definitely not as evil as they were in vanilla (in regards to cutting everyone down in front of them through assassinations), but they still provide a lot of good bonuses. The morale bonus from Inspire Army is great, and the ability to "sabotage" an army is a nice addition. You can effectively use them and Ishen Ishi to cover all the abilities of a Shinobi, with the added bonus of increased morale when attached to an army. I didn't do the enchant thing much, but I can see how that would be effective too if you were really hard up for generals - AI is never in short supply.

I haven't had much trouble with assassinations on my agents. A few made attempts, but all my agents were maxed level and couldn't touch me. I utilized Ishen Ishi more than anything and took out everything in front of me with them anyway. Being able to assassinate, convert and create rebellions was an awesome benefit.

[Graphic]

Oh, OK. That seems more logical.

BTW, I've checked again and it was definetly not Edo and Tokyo in the victory conditions.

It names them by province not city. Tokyo (or Edo) is in Musashi, Kyoto is in Yamashiro.

[Peasant Phill]

It names them by province not city. Tokyo (or Edo) is in Musashi, Kyoto is in Yamashiro.

Oh, OK.
Nevermind then.

[andrewt]

My biggest first impression is that a lot of the borders of the provinces changed. On the main four islands that was there previously in Shogun 2 and RoTS, I only noticed 2 provinces that are new. However, the borders of just about every province has moved.

I didn't have time to actually play the game and mostly just looked at the tech trees and stats. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the highest tier buildings seem terrible this time around. I think the last gold mine upgrade, for example, is 10000 for a measly 300 additional wealth.

I started a game with Saga but am wondering about the unique units other factions have. Are there any limits to units like Tosa Riflemen and the Red/White/Black Hat infantry and so on?

[Madae]

My biggest first impression is that a lot of the borders of the provinces changed. On the main four islands that was there previously in Shogun 2 and RoTS, I only noticed 2 provinces that are new. However, the borders of just about every province has moved.

The map does seem slightly larger, not just in land mass, but more as if it is "zoomed in" more. There are several new, one province islands though, along with a Kyushu-esque (without a land route to the mainland) island on the other side of the map near the Date starting point.

I didn't have time to actually play the game and mostly just looked at the tech trees and stats. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the highest tier buildings seem terrible this time around. I think the last gold mine upgrade, for example, is 10000 for a measly 300 additional wealth.

I'm going off memory here, but I believe the primary "money-making" upgrade was 1700 -> 2100 or so. Still, you gotta look at it from the long term. Without a gold mine, a province really doesn't make crap to begin with. I had a town with a gold mine making 11,000+ a turn by itself, compared to the 1800 my fully developed capitol was making. There are also several different bonuses that lower the cost of constructing buildings.

I don't agree that "all high-tier buildings" are terrible. Gatlings come from the highest tier artilerry range, Imperial/Shogunate Guard troops from the highest tier infatry buildings, many craft buildings have two routes to develop (better single province, or bonuses faction-wide), etc etc. If you want to upgrade a town completely, you'll probably need a max level police station to keep public order up vs. modernisation.

I started a game with Saga but am wondering about the unique units other factions have. Are there any limits to units like Tosa Riflemen and the Red/White/Black Hat infantry and so on?

There are unique units for each faction, but probably not the ones you're looking for. Tosa did have one - I remember seeing them running around with some - but I was playing Satsuma, and only noticed that I had some "bear-head" infantry that were not quite as good as the second-best (compared to Imperial Guard) Imperial Infantry.

[andrewt]

The map does seem slightly larger, not just in land mass, but more as if it is "zoomed in" more. There are several new, one province islands though, along with a Kyushu-esque (without a land route to the mainland) island on the other side of the map near the Date starting point.

That would be Hokkaido, the second largest island in Japan.

I'm going off memory here, but I believe the primary "money-making" upgrade was 1700 -> 2100 or so. Still, you gotta look at it from the long term. Without a gold mine, a province really doesn't make crap to begin with. I had a town with a gold mine making 11,000+ a turn by itself, compared to the 1800 my fully developed capitol was making. There are also several different bonuses that lower the cost of constructing buildings.

I don't agree that "all high-tier buildings" are terrible. Gatlings come from the highest tier artilerry range, Imperial/Shogunate Guard troops from the highest tier infatry buildings, many craft buildings have two routes to develop (better single province, or bonuses faction-wide), etc etc. If you want to upgrade a town completely, you'll probably need a max level police station to keep public order up vs. modernisation.

I was talking more about the economic buildings rather than the military ones. Some previous CA games like Rome and Medieval 2 were notorious in that the first tier buildings like ports and markets gave huge bonuses but upgrading them were very expensive while providing marginal benefit. At first glance, I found some of the highest tier economic buildings to be very expensive while not looking like they provided much in the way of benefits. Of course, I don't have a game that is far enough yet to build them.

I was wondering if there's something to be said for only building the first 2-3 tiers of mines, factories or other buildings.

There are unique units for each faction, but probably not the ones you're looking for. Tosa did have one - I remember seeing them running around with some - but I was playing Satsuma, and only noticed that I had some "bear-head" infantry that were not quite as good as the second-best (compared to Imperial Guard) Imperial Infantry.

The bear heads come much earlier, though, no? Or at least, that's my theory on what CA intended for them to be upon looking at the tech tree. Tosa does have a unique light infantry unit that's better than the regular sharpshooters.