Shogun 2 : Total War

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

I have it on Steam, so it's not exactly difficult to reinstall it and set things back up again if I'm so inclined. I've not tried running a mod on a steam game before, but I can't imagine it's too difficult. Not to derail, but if you don't mind dropping a couple of quick recommendations, that would be fantastic, as I did have high hopes for the game when it was released and I need a strategy game to fill the void until Civ5 gets good.

DarthMod is pretty solid. Tons of fixes and improvements, without implementing a thousand different grognards' bullshit. It even comes in an optional stripped-down version if the full package has too many additions for your liking (for example, while I think the full package is generally great, I'm personally a little annoyed by the inclusion of a lot of specific named historical regiments - I prefer to create my own "alt-historical" regiments by re-naming units which perform well and gain their own history over the course of campaigns).

One of the best things about DarthMod is the naval combat tweaks and fixes. It's not that the naval combat of DarthMod is especially fantastic, it's just depressingly ignored by 90% of the modding community. Most of the well-known hardcore grognard mods are concerned almost exclusively with land combat and campaign overhauls, and very few do much with the naval combat. So if you like naval combat, DarthMod's a good bet.

[Steel]

I installed this and I've been playing for a couple of hours.

First impressions are actually pretty good. AI seems to behave fairly rationally to me, attacking/defending/going for peace/tribute when appropriate, although we'll see if that lasts to the endgame...

There has been a massive improvement to several areas of the interface. Lots of useful data is now groupes together and you can get useful information about neighbouring provinces much more easily. Also the terrible system for building improvements in your provinces is now gone, so you dont have to click around a dozen shitty little villages, you click the castle and upgrade them from there, along with your town buildings. The villages are still physically separate so the raiding aspect is kept as well.

Tactical battles dont seem too different or much improved. The ai seems to be able to hold their force together etc but I havent seen much inspirational work done by it. Battles seem to be a bit brief once forces actually meet, but that might just be down to using the shitty starting troops which are made of tissue paper. I dont think thats the whole reason though, so some modding may be required...

I also have an annoying graphical glitch where on the campaign map if i fly directly over a flag then my entire screen is filled with a horrible mess. Performance doesnt seem as smooth as Empire for the same level of graphical detail either. Probably should have waited a few months for the patches.

Anyone else been playing some more in the last week?

[xthetenth]

MP campaign got broken so no. Issues with desynchs and the like and no patience to find a good save. Muy frustrating, was having a good time being a total dick to the AI and the game's economic system.

[Metahive]

Battles seem to be a bit brief once forces actually meet, but that might just be down to using the shitty starting troops which are made of tissue paper.

It's indeed so, Ashigaru troops have awfully low morale when there's no general holding their hand. There was once a full stack of mostly Ashigaru barreling towards one of my underdefended provinces. I managed to assassinate the generals (they most often send them in with more than one) and in the battle my much smaller force routed the entire stack after a brief struggle. Unfortunately I had no cavalry to run them down so the stack remained mostly intact within my borders and raided the shit out of my farms until I did the honorable thing and bribed them with a metsuke to defect.

[AniThyng]

tune realm divide so it takes place later and doesnt make your vassals and loyalest allies go into permanant war with you and i can set aside the other complaints

[open_sketchbook]

Battles seem to be a bit brief once forces actually meet, but that might just be down to using the shitty starting troops which are made of tissue paper.

It's indeed so, Ashigaru troops have awfully low morale when there's no general holding their hand. There was once a full stack of mostly Ashigaru barreling towards one of my underdefended provinces. I managed to assassinate the generals (they most often send them in with more than one) and in the battle my much smaller force routed the entire stack after a brief struggle. Unfortunately I had no cavalry to run them down so the stack remained mostly intact within my borders and raided the shit out of my farms until I did the honorable thing and bribed them with a metsuke to defect.

On the flip side, Ashigaru are great troops if you got a General with them; the training time and upkeep are low, and it's easy to make up for their lack of skill with numbers considering how much faster and cheaper they can be had. With two generals accompanying a force, you can spread the leadership over the whole group. and when a unit is getting savaged by samurai you tag them out and move a new group in. I basically just keep two units of samurai (katana and yari) on hand to personally murder enemy commanders, and let the little guys do the fighting. Yeah, they get utterly mauled every time, but the enemy's expensive force does little better and I can easily have two full stacks marching early on, taking turns. The only downside is that it's commander-intensive; guys that could be home managing are busy babysitting the spearmen.

Also, I cannot get calvary to do meaningful damage because units I actually want dead, like high level samurai, are basically immune to them and care nothing for being flanked. I've taken to just having a unit or two around to finish off running samurai so they don't come back; even if you beat the shit out of an army, it's not likely to scatter, so it's vital to have something around to mop up elite units.

[Metahive]

I found unless you play as one of the western clans, who have easy access to the trade routes, you can't really afford all-Samurai stacks anyway until late in the game. My first playthrough was as the Date, the northernmost clan, and I foolishly spammed Samurai early on which caused me to be short on money for much of the game and it became worse after I triggered Realm Divide (yeah, don't explain that mechanic in the manual or anything, CA, let people run blindly into that snag) which disrupted all my trade. Since I also neglected my agents (they weren't all that important in Napleon and Empire) and therefore had enemy ninjas constantly sabotaging my provinces it's a wonder I ended up victoriously in the end.
All in all I find the game rather enjoyable, had not one CTD so far and the AI is reacting somewhat more intelligent (e.g., if you outnumber them they'll rush to a higher position and camp). Major demerits though for shipping the game with an incomplete graphics engine . FFS, I've majorly upgraded two months ago, I want to enjoy that next-gen graphics!!

[open_sketchbook]

I think Realm Divide was supposed to come as a bit of a shock, and essentially exist to punish people for doing the sort of reckless, balls-to-the-wall expansion conquests other Total War games encouraged. If you go slowly and build up your holding, Realm Divide is just a storm to be weathered, particularly if you do a lot of raiding to knock the other clans down a peg.

Speaking of, raiding is stupid potent in this game. I decided to give it a shot and put together a few calvary stacks, and just went nuts over my rival's lands. Their armies dried up almost immediately, rebels appeared everywhere, and I waltzed in and took the provinces with minimal resistance a few turns later.

[AniThyng]

I think Realm Divide was supposed to come as a bit of a shock, and essentially exist to punish people for doing the sort of reckless, balls-to-the-wall expansion conquests other Total War games encouraged. If you go slowly and build up your holding, Realm Divide is just a storm to be weathered, particularly if you do a lot of raiding to knock the other clans down a peg.

Speaking of, raiding is stupid potent in this game. I decided to give it a shot and put together a few calvary stacks, and just went nuts over my rival's lands. Their armies dried up almost immediately, rebels appeared everywhere, and I waltzed in and took the provinces with minimal resistance a few turns later.

While I agree with the intent of it (it's easy to overextend yourself and then suddenly find yourself in a horrible position when RD hits), but the way it is implemented now is too harsh - with the absurd diplo penalty, it ruins all the careful diplomacy you do in the first half - if they tuned it so your enemies and perhaps the 2nd and 3rd most powerful clans after you gang up on you BUT makes your friends and vassals (which would logically be weaker 2nd tier clans and the 1 province upstarts) side with you more (as the winning team) THEN we have a perfect civil war slugout.

2nd and 3rd ranked clans, even if your friends should gang up on you as they ALSO have a shot at the shogunate and don't want you grabbing it.

Everyone else, who never had a realistic shot at it should then be forced to pick a side - yours, or theirs.

As it is right now, everyone just makes peace with each other and goes for you 100% which is stupid and totally breaks immersion.

Oh. yeah, the new replenishment mechanics have merit, but the fact that they replenish as 0 xp dilutes all your experienced units without you having a choice in the matter, and ruins the trill of nursing a battered army (or a harderned core with expendable ashigaru meatshields). As it is now you might as well just keep on feeding fresh units to the meatgrinder because they'll never get more then 2 chevrons and will lose them shortly due to xp dilation.

Speaking of graphics, I totally miss MTW's blood effects. Those were suitably atmospheric without crossing any extreme gore concerns.

[Metahive]

Realm Divide is actually the same mechanic as the Roman Civil War mechanic in RTW. Only since there are no non-japanese factions here everyone is ending up as your enemy. On my second playthrough I properly "prepared" by converting to Christianity, in itself a rather arduous process but with lots of advantages later on, and then sending out missionaries and ninjas to destabilize the other clans before I snagged Kyoto and triggered it.

It's also an incredibly satisfying sight to see a horde of Samurais charging at your lines getting shot to pieces by lines of matchlock Ashigaru, heavy enemy cavalry getting pummeled with cannonballs and the puny japanese ships slaughtered by galleons. Praise the Lord.

Speaking of, raiding is stupid potent in this game. I decided to give it a shot and put together a few calvary stacks, and just went nuts over my rival's lands. Their armies dried up almost immediately, rebels appeared everywhere, and I waltzed in and took the provinces with minimal resistance a few turns later.

Yeah, food shortages have a rather radical effect now. Most of the other players I know suffered a nasty wakeup call when they improved their castles too soon and build too many markets. I find it also good that unconventional warfare has been made such a powerful option now, in the other TW titles agents presented more a chore than anything IMO, particularly before ETW when you had to send embassies manually to contact other players and they were prone to develop annoying and disadvantageous traits.

[AniThyng]

Well yeah it's the same mechanic. At least though as you pointed out, it does sort of make sense in the Rome context since the other 2 factions have a good reason to go against you.

In Shoguns case it makes zero sense for your vassals and lesser allies (if you've treated them well) to favor current shoganate over you, the soon to be next shogun.

[Psychic_Sandwich]

So, I'm actually genuinely impressed with the campaign AI; it actually uses diplomacy, it doesn't backstab you 100% of the time even if doing so is suicide (unless it's meant to, like I think the Imagawa are with the Hojo; they always backstab you on turn three), and it seems to actually have an appreciation of it's strategic position; clans that are completely overmatched will come to you begging for an alliance and offering money if you aren't involved in a war or alliance web of your own, for example.

The battle AI on the other hand, I would best describe as erratic. Sometimes it can be just as impressive as the campaign AI; it tried to use a nearby ford to flank me out of my position defending a bridge while keeping my defenders pinned by threatening an attack in one battle, for example, although I'd covered the ford as well so they lost. Likewise, some of the time, it displays a sensible response to superior enemy archery, that is, it charges everything in an attempt to get into melee as quickly as possible. Other times, though, it just sits there and lets you kill things until you run out of arrows, or sticks it's troops in a single extended line and refuses to move them as you smash it's centre and kill it's general, causing all the unengaged troops to flee. It's really bloody annoying, actually, because there clearly is the capability in this AI to fight well, it just doesn't always apply it. It's like the AI just turns itself off in half or more of the battles.

[The Yosemite Bear]

I'm going to enjoy this game now that electricity has been restored...

[Steel]

Archery is a bit ridiculous in this game. I had a unit of samurai approaching a castle and a unit of bow ashigaru wiped 80% of them out in 2 volleys.

The really stupid thing is how accurate the archers are. They can all aim exactly for one indivual - he looks horribly pincushioned afterwards with over 100 arrows in him.

They can also perfectly lead charging cavalry no matter what the deflection.

On top of that, they can do it over castle walls! So if the enemy are inside a small castle, they're just going to be wiped out by arrow fire over the walls by troops nobody can see.

I know archers have to be very deadly as they can fire maybe 2 volleys nornally before the enemy is on them as move speed is so fast compared to range and in the original medieval and shogun they were rather inneffective on a per shot basis, but this might be a sign that troops shouldnt move as fast and combat should take a bit longer so that archers dont have to be a machine gun to be effective with melee.

Also, has anyone had a battle that took longer than 15 minutes? No matter how many troops are around it always seems that things are over rather quickly.