Total War - Shogun 2

[BYU 14]

Steam has the demo out on this and I gave it a whirl yesterday, looks like it will be much better than the last 2 Total War releases. I wish my CPU was a bit more high end, because the game looks beautiful.

AI seems solid in the short amount of time I have played, though I did notice some minor tracking problems. Haven't had a chance to delve into much of the diplomatic stuff, but from the looks of it the Leaders personalities are deeper and have more of an effect on gameplay.

Haven't tried the Naval battles yet, hopefully they have improved over empire.

[MrBug708]

Better than Empire huh?

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by MrBug708

Better than Empire huh?

I think so, that was a buggy release and I never could get into it much. Or did you mean the Naval battles?

[gstelmack]

I'm having too much fun playing King Arthur as a return to the roots of the Total War series. I might try the demo for this maybe, but they had killed off the fun of fighting the battles out yourselves with Medieval 2 and Empire, and the strategy portion became overcomplicated; I never could quite figure out the economic model that actually let me build the army I needed to both keep cities happy AND mount the offensive expeditions necessary to win the game.

[-apoc-]

I will wait a year until modders and patches finally fix all the fatal flaws in the game. My god empire war so bad in that regard and CA just did nothing.

[Groundhog]

I also played the demo last night. I've been waiting for this game for a long, long time, and it looks and played pretty solid. The campaign mode tutorial/demo in particular is longer and more detailed than I expected. Consider me cautiously optimistic.

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by Groundhog

I also played the demo last night. I've been waiting for this game for a long, long time, and it looks and played pretty solid. The campaign mode tutorial/demo in particular is longer and more detailed than I expected. Consider me cautiously optimistic.

Sounds like we pretty much agree, I have high hopes for this as well.

[Groundhog]

I managed to win the Battle of Sekigahara on my 2nd attempt. Quite a fight. I wonder what the conditions (if any) are of the Kobayakawa assisting you rather than turning on you. Probably to do with how well you are faring after a certain amount of time.

One half of my forces, on the west plain, was completely decimated by the Tokugawa forces, who then had the Kobayakawa join them and march on my remaining force on the NW mountain slope. Stupidly they attacked the Shimazu clan who had earlier refused to charge due to my general insulting them by not dismounting when addressing them (nice touch, taken from actual history), and the Shimazu basically routed the Tokugawa forces despite taking heavy losses, but I still had the formidable Kobayakawa naginata troops marching on me. I pulled my troops higher up the hill, hid my two cavalry units in the forests on the flanks, and rained arrows down on the Kobayakawa, and then when they reach my spear units, crashed into their rear with my cavalry for the surprise victory! Most fun I've had in a Total War game battle.

I haven't played Total War since, I think, Rome, so maybe some of these things have been in the latest titles, but I love the skill trees and retainers for your commanders, the ability to assign titles to your commanders, exchange family members as hostages to reinforce alliances, etc. etc. The campaign mode looks amazing to be honest.

[Groundhog]

FYI now available for download on Steam. I kicked off the d/l an hour ago but now I'm stuck at freaking work.

[Apathetic Lurker]

Ree-fuckin-diculous!!!!!

Demo worked like a charm. Bought the damned thing and went to install it. It only installed in the location it wanted. Ok, I can sort of deal with that. What do I get for my cash? A blue screen of death......sigh....

And people wonder why i'm gravitating back to boardgames in my old age....

[BYU 14]

Not a good start, did you get the steam version or DVD?

[Apathetic Lurker]

I got the dvd version but I heard that for some the steam version installs instead of the dvd even if you have the dvd version.

My drivers are up to date too so I have no clue whats going on........

You would think that if the demo works perfectly the game would too.

[Groundhog]

That sucks.

I got the Steam version and was able to play OK. I had one CTD however, but I'd saved right before it. It happened during one of those vids that plays whenever you build a unit for the first time. Need to check if you can disable those, because they get old fast.

I had a quick play around with the Shimazu last night before starting a proper game with the Chosokabe, deciding to focus on commerce and trade (ie. concentrating solely on that tech tree). So far so good, 3/5 Shikoku provinces taken, and I'm raking in more gold than I can spend. Of course, now I'm up against the Miyoshi for total control of Shikoku and they are quite powerful, so things are about to get interesting...

[Apathetic Lurker]

sigh..I'd be thrilled with one ctd during gameplay at this point.... They keep yakking about updating your drivers over there but many have and the same problem occurs...I can't figure out how a demo works while the game doesnt.I mean the demo didnt come out a year ago so they couldnt have changed too much....

Last time for this crap.....Next time i'm waiting 3 or so months before buying.At least if it doesnt work i'm not out 55 bucksd....

[Groundhog]

Any luck yet AL?

I haven't had as much time to play as I'd like, but I'm pretty happy with this release. I do have a few issues with the AI however, especially during sieges.

Last night my castle was attached by Christian Rebels and I hadn't had a chance to repair the castle gates yet. Despite this, the rebels still scaled my walls (and were decimated by my archers) and didn't even make an effort to enter via the gates.

I haven't really defended a siege against a proper army that wasn't 90% ashigaru, but it also seems relatively easy to defend the walls. My archers generally are able to, if not completely defend, stand their own well enough until I can get some spearmen in to assist on the walls. This may change against a proper AI force with some samurai.

I also defeated one clan, made them my vassal, and then a few turns later noticed that they'd been gobbled up by another clan without me getting any notification (other than that the clan had vanished). Surely in that situation they should've declared war on me as well, given it was my vassal.