Total War: Shogun 2

[Emily]

I really think you're overestimating the AI routines in use.

Of course CA is using AI that is brain dead and don't use advanced techniques that are not taught in school, and not written in science articles.

Have you ever player Medieval 2 total war?
If there is such a thing as AI that is brain dead, it is in it.

 

[laclongquan]

One big whoops... whoopsie!

 

[JarlFrank]

CA: "Current consoles not strong enough to cope with TW; next gen will"

I'm looking forward to some shitty console-to-PC port. Not.

"The way people play on console is different to the way that you play on PC," Simpson said. "You don't sit down for four or five hours at a time, generally. It's much smaller play sessions, but we do have some very clever ideas in the pipeline for things we could do to make that happen. That applies not just to console, though - that's more about broadening the appeal of the game in general."

fuuuuuuuu

Broaden the appeal?

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Oh my beloved Total War series... I even enjoyed Empire despite its flaws, and with S2 you showed that you can do a halfway competent AI too... and now... and now...

Please, consoles. Be a flop with your next generation. Be a horrible flop that utterly destroys console gaming. You've already taken our RPGs. AT LEAST LEAVE US OUR STRATEGY GAMES

 

[Mangoose]

Fuck that, give me another CA console beat-em-up game.

 

[Vibalist]

So, how's the new Fall of the Samurai expansion? It certainly looks expansive.
Anyone played it yet?

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I'm on a bit of a Total Decline streak and after playing Rome 2 and Attila I wanted to play a full campaign of vanilla Shogun 2, but goddamn, the loading times make this game literally unplayable for me. What's up with anyway? Any tweaks or mods to fix it? Both R2 and Attila are much better so they obviously fucked something up badly.

And I assume that ninjas having around 5-10% chance to actually succeed at anything regardless of the numbers the game gives you is working as intended?

 

[KoolNoodles]

I'm on a bit of a Total Decline streak and after playing Rome 2 and Attila I wanted to play a full campaign of vanilla Shogun 2, but goddamn, the loading times make this game literally unplayable for me. What's up with anyway? Any tweaks or mods to fix it? Both R2 and Attila are much better so they obviously fucked something up badly.

And I assume that ninjas having around 5-10% chance to actually succeed at anything regardless of the numbers the game gives you is working as intended?

While Shogun2 is decent it got more praise because it followed the shit hole that was ETW(and NTW). I don't remember the load times being that bad, but regardless you should get Fall of the Samurai.

You still get to play around with samurai, but everything else about the game is better. Fixed bugs, mechanics, naval battles, some tweaks to ground battles, naval bombardment, campaign AI is better and the list goes on.

I do believer they also tweaked and streamlined the engine, so load times and such should be better. I remember it being pretty agreeable, at least.

I don't remember the ninjas being bugged, but it was really iffy on them succeeding until they got several promotions.

 

[Endemic]

Takes longer to load than most games but nothing unbearable, certainly nowhere near Call of Juarez levels.

I picked up FOTS and associated DLC very cheap in the Steam winter sale (something like 6.50 all together).

 

[Raghar]

I'm on a bit of a Total Decline streak and after playing Rome 2 and Attila I wanted to play a full campaign of vanilla Shogun 2, but goddamn, the loading times make this game literally unplayable for me. What's up with anyway? Any tweaks or mods to fix it? Both R2 and Attila are much better so they obviously fucked something up badly.

And I assume that ninjas having around 5-10% chance to actually succeed at anything regardless of the numbers the game gives you is working as intended?

That's only you. Pirate version was fast. Dunno if updating GFX increased loading times. (They updated GFX between fist and third game, and slower loading times might be consequence.) Might be just lack of crack.

Ninjas having 1/10 chance means you suck. My ninjas have typically 60-90 chance. Git gut.

 

[Average Manatee]

For load times: Switch to DX9. You'll have to lose MSAA and drop down to MLAA (fairly negligible for a total war game unless you are zooming in to ground level) and you'll lose tesselation (irrelevant if you aren't staring at mountains a mile away from the battlefield) but your load times for everything will drop by like 75%.

For agents: level 1 Agents are basically a joke and a money hole for players (you'll have to find armies with 1 unit in them and attack them over and over to level). If they were any good then the AIs would destroy you with them since they can cheat with money and spam them constantly. As it is there's not much point building Agents unless you have the proper buildings to start them off at level 3, at which point you can handle most things relatively well and completely own in what you specialize in. There's also a kind of rock paper scissors mechanic where each agent had bonuses against another type, but if you have high level guys you can just beat everything.

Pro tip: Best agents are Metsuke. Each rank of town management or whatever its called gives +5% to tax rate (bear in mind the default is 30% IIRC). Get level 1 markets and quickly get the philosophical provinces that start them off at level 3. At that point you can spec them to literally double your town income, giving your best 5 towns tax production of around 12-13 towns (since corruption goes up the more towns you take). Then demolish the philosophical building and build it up the other way to get the all-important teching bonus.

 

[varangos]

Use the rights of man mod,its quite good
Avoid anything made by Darth vader

 

[Great Deceiver]

So I bought this years ago as a part of an incomplete bundle (i.e. ripoff), I have some DLC (fall of the Samurai) but I'm lacking most of the faction packs. Since everything's 75% off during this Steam sale and this is my favourite Total War game (that's not saying much), is it worth forking out like 10 USD for all of the missing DLC?

I play this shit like twice a year and I still think it's by far the best game in the series. It's got a relatively tasteful interface and doesn't make me feel like a retard for playing it (like Rome 2 does).

 

[Raghar]

I paid 12 $ for gold version, so I have all three game and everything with exception of blood pack. You'd need to say what your version is missing. FotS is an expansion, not a DLC.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I bought it as part of 2014's "Total War Master Collection", but that was a shit deal that didn't include a lot of crucial DLC (like Kingdoms for Medieval 2).

Anyway, I'm missing for the base game:

Otomo Clan DLC
Saints and Heroes Unit Pack
Ikko Ikki Clan Pack
Sengoku Jidai Unit Pack
Hattori Clan Pack
Blood DLC

For Fall of the Samurai, I'm missing:

Saga Faction Pack
Obama Faction Pack
Blood DLC

All I'm mising adds up to like 7 USD. I feel like a cretin asking this question, but these days 7 USD is the price of a good game.

 

[Raghar]

Ikko Ikki changes situation in the middle, and Hattori allows to play as Hattori and say nin nin.

Basically you paid for equivalent of original pirate releases, which were somehow superior because original Shogun 2 allowed to pause by space, and it felt MUCH more tactical and comfy. Official game is patched to map something else on space.

Not sure about FotS factions. Played it few times and wanna try Empire instead.

 

[A horse of course]

Wish I could help but I only really played S2 + FoTS vanilla versions or modded. I will say that Shogun 2's biggest flaw (aside from stuff like Realm Divide, which is fixed by mods) was the pathetic lack of variety (less of an issue in FoTS). Stuff like Ikko-Ikki really helps with that.

You can watch videos of the blood effects. They look pretty comical although they're supposed to be a tribute to something or other so I dunno. I personally bought all this shit (plus the Napoleon/Empire unit packs) in last year's sale and haven't yet replayed it.

 

[Fedora Master]

The Ikko Ikki and Otomo are the most distinct factions in SH2. The Hattori get more ambush battles, which is nice but are otherwise the same as any other faction. The Blood DLC is shit and I believe fucks with the performance. The Sengoku and Hero units can be a nice addition but most are only available in the late game, post-Realm Divide so you won't get much use out of them.

 

[Average Manatee]

IIRC:

Ikko Ikki are insanely OP because they get peasants with katanas at a discount. Since Katanas > spears this means your basic, less than dirt-cheap unit shreds literally everything the AI has except for the handful of cavalry they bring (which still kind of get fucked up when outnumbered).

Otomo I didn't really like because guns are lame in SP due to the AI just bum rushing you every time. At most you end up bringing one or two to ambush enemies from trees, but guns are really more of a MP thing.

Hattori are lame, they are actually gimped by a much higher unit cost with the only advantage being they can deploy anywhere on the battlefield. Which really isn't a big advantage unless you specifically like to make a whole game around abusing the AI in specific ways.

The Fall of the Samurai DLC factions don't really add anything of note that I recall. Basically just a new starting location.

Saints and Heroes pack is crap. The "Heroes" have great stats but come in pathetic numbers such that you really don't feel like it does much.

Sengoku Jidai is good. It's basically another unique unit for each faction that makes them more unique and cool, lack of uniqueness being one of the bigger problems with Shogun 2. Long Yari Ashigaru OP as hell.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Thanks for the responses, I bought all of it.

 

[Silva]

Found this. The jap couple played S2's "Ona Hei" in the background to win the 2013 annual figure skating tournament.