Shogun: Total War 2 Catch All thread

ahrezmendi wrote:

Doesn't auto resolve frequently cost you more in terms of losses than just playing out the battle and crushing them?

Not necessarily if you have an overwhelming force. The penalty is minimal. At any rate, you can just quicksave before you try it, and if you aren't satisfied with the results, you can fight on the battlefield. If the battle is even, however, you usually won't win when you auto resolve.

Cool, I'll keep that in mind for when I get back to this. I've only done the tutorials so far, and I don't recall if it sets you up with an overwhelming force or not in that. I just recall thinking to myself "hmm, seems like I could've won the battle with fewer losses than what auto resolve did".

ahrezmendi wrote:

Cool, I'll keep that in mind for when I get back to this. I've only done the tutorials so far, and I don't recall if it sets you up with an overwhelming force or not in that. I just recall thinking to myself "hmm, seems like I could've won the battle with fewer losses than what auto resolve did".

The nicest thing about auto resolve when you have a larger force is that it tends to spread your losses throughout the army. This makes it easier to recover because you tend to decimate a couple units when you fight on the battlefield. It's also nice for sea battles because those are just hard when attacking.

Also, and I'm not embarrassed to say this, the computer is much better at siege assaults than I am. It routine only loses a few guys, almost always less than 100 where I always lose 2-3 times more than that, no matter what I do.

Also, on naval battles, I don't so much care about the loses because I just don't like doing them.

Well I have gotten back into playing this after a long break from it and have to say I'm really enjoying it. After stuffing up my Hattori and Shimazu campaigns, I've now started a Mori campaign and about 5 years in, I'm doing surprisingly well. Trying to work out good army composition and long term strategies is a lot of fun and I enjoy it more than the actual fighting parts.

Once I'm done, I'll have to do Rise of the Samurai and then hopefully on the coming mid year steam sale, Fall of the Samurai goes on sale and I'll pick that up.

Well I've now decided to push ahead on both the west and east fronts. It might not be the best idea, but I want to take out the western island of Kyushu so that when Realm Divide hits, I won't have to worry about anyone coming at me from that side. I'm still taking land closer to Kyoto too with my Daimyo and his son with 2 separate armies there. I have 4 full stacks at this point and each is lead by a general (all the Daimyo's sons).

Having 4 of the six trade nodes all stacked with 10 trade ships each has really helped cement my economy. I'm trading with Oda and Takeda and the latter just signed a military alliance with me. Think they're scared They are the two dominant sides on the eastern part and I think they realise that if they don't sign up, they die. I've been pretty ruthless so far and softening up the area first with a Monk/Metsuke/Ninja combo which is working exceptionally well.

The monk was instrumental in getting me my allies land for free. I just incited a revolt, let the rebels take over, then cleaned up with some nice new land without any hit to my honour. Ninjas have been brutal in killing key generals and sabotaging armies to stop them from coming in to help. Even my metsuke was able to bribe some Katana Samurai reinforcements that were heading to help out my enemy. Not any more

Naval battles have been quite rewarding. Think I'm getting the hang of them and I've even been fighting my own sieges and defences. Which is probably why it's taking so long. Autoresolve is great for speedy play, but when you want results, sometimes you just have to do it yourself.

Hopefully have this campaign wrapped up by the end of the weekend.

The Mori are now supreme overlords of Japan. I was successful in pushing west and taking out Kyushu and then a little to the east before realm divide hit. I then invaded the Chosokabe lands and beat the crap out of them. I had two navies patrolling the waters for sneaky backstabbery and then pushed forward. The benefit here was that Oda was my ally and stayed my ally for a little while with some extra funds in his pocket. Having him between me and the rest of my enemy let me push towards Kyoto and take that sucker.

Once Kyoto was held, I pushed forwards and then eventually, Oda turned on me. So I wiped out several of his lands which was enough to put me over the 40 mark. Victory.

Afterwards I kept playing and pushed all the way up and took out the entire of Japan. Even managed a max level ninja, metsuke, monk and general in the process. I know they're only steam achievements, but they're still nice.

I can't beleive I hadn't done this earlier. Up until now I had 15 hours registered with steam. Had the game for maybe 6 months. Now, after a couple of weeks, I've got over 60 hours.

I also took advantage of the 33% off Fall of the Samurai over at Greenmangaming and bought Fall of the Samurai for $13.10. (had $7 credit). I don't get any bonus clan, but seriously, a $30 game for $13.10 Now to decide if I should play Rise of the Samurai first before I get stuck into Fall of the Samurai...

Awesome, BlackSabre! Glad to see it clicked with you, and you're enjoying it as much as I have. At this point, I'm guessing you'll put in well over 100 hours as I have.

I need to have another go at Fall of the Samurai and finally beat a game.

Yeah, looking forward to Fall of the Samurai.... I've got it installed now, just need to do some research so I know what I'm getting in to. Any good web links for unit details that I can browse while I'm at work?

BlackSabre wrote:

Yeah, looking forward to Fall of the Samurai.... I've got it installed now, just need to do some research so I know what I'm getting in to. Any good web links for unit details that I can browse while I'm at work? :D

just trial and error...I am currently in my first year of FOTS...the naval bombardments add much more to having a navy close by your armies...the balance is well done and I am really enjoying it...

So my friend just challenged me to beat the game on legendary difficulty as Hattori... If I do, he'll buy me lunch. Now this is going to be a nightmare...

EDIT: MADNESS!!! I tried it out last night as the Shimazu, thinking that I might have a better chance if I start on the edge. Yeah, not so good. Managed to take the province next to me, build it up and then saw a massive stack of the enemy come towards me and whomp me with my own hat. Then to top it all off, my Ninja couldn't assassinate a teacup. He's useless. Useless I say!

A rethink is required on this one.

I did however decide to check out Fall of the Samurai and wow! That's impressive. Looks a lot different and going to take a while to get used to the new units and see what they all do. But so far, it's pretty awesome.

I've not yet tried a coop campaign so if anyone ever wants to do so on vanilla or ROTS, just let me know.

Double

Really enjoying the new FotS. I've started out as Tosa (where the Chosokabe used to be) and yeah, it's very different but loads of fun. I like the fact that the seasons last for 6 turns and you actually get different bonuses and effects.

Love the balance between modernisation and happiness too. So far, definitely a lot of fun. Also, naval bombardment rocks!

Thought I'd try multiplayer out for a bit and decided to build my typical small army. Went up against a much higher ranked dude and whomped him with my hat.

He went all FotS and I stuck with a simple Shogun 2 army comprised of mostly Yari and Bow Ashigaru with 2 squads of Katana Samaurai. It was a race for the top of the hill and his horses made it there first, but my yari and bow ashigaru came up in force and pushed them back. He tried to be sneaky and push his cavalry behind my bow units, but a simple readjustment and he plowed headfirst into a yari spear wall. My bow units demolished his gun units from afar, and when they got in close, my katana samurai ran in there to clean them up.

All in all, that was a damn fine way to start multiplayer

Oh, and I also beat legendary campaign

How do I join the GWJ Clan. Steam account brianhatch. Thanks.

So they released the other clans as DLC. $5 seems a bit steep for each clan.... may wait for a sale. Are any of them worth getting?

Hoping for a sale on Fall of the Samurai soon...By then I hope the DLC will also be cheaper.

whispa wrote:

Hoping for a sale on Fall of the Samurai soon...By then I hope the DLC will also be cheaper.

I'm hoping for a solid 50-75% off during the summer sale.

I finally finished up a short, normal Fall of the Samurai campaign. It was great fun.

Did anyone play the Fall of the Samurai DLC units that are now on sale? Are any of them worth the extra $2.50? I was thinking about getting the ninja clan, but saw their colors are hot pink.

Hmm, well I picked up all 4 of the extra DLC packs for $5 about 2 weeks ago... wonder if their sale price is still active.... nope, just checked. It's back to $20. In true GWJer style, I haven't tried any of them yet. They all look fairly decent though and it's nice to have all those extra clans on my map now.

BlackSabre wrote:

Hmm, well I picked up all 4 of the extra DLC packs for $5 about 2 weeks ago... wonder if their sale price is still active.... nope, just checked. It's back to $20. In true GWJer style, I haven't tried any of them yet. They all look fairly decent though and it's nice to have all those extra clans on my map now.

So, right now, they're on sale for $12 total. What sale had them total to $5? I suppose I'll keep checking for a better sale than 40% off. I don't need them right now because I'll probably take a little break from Shogun. Even that normal short campaign took me a lot of time.

Edit: Looks like the Tsu faction was given to me when I got the Steam special edition, so I'm only missing 3. Other than that, I believe I have all the DLC content up to date. I'll wait until the 3 new factions are at least 50% off.

It was over at getgames.com. All 4 of them for $4.95. They emailed me the codes, activated in steam and tadah! In hindsight, I probably should have posted the deal here. Next time I will.

So are they done DLCing the "original" Shogun 2? This sure looks tempting.

Kloreep wrote:

So are they done DLCing the "original" Shogun 2? This sure looks tempting.

Most likely, because they moved on to the standalone expansion "Fall of the Samurai", which is in turn getting its own DLC.

Actually, it looks like yet another faction DLC is going to be released next week for the original.

Frankly, I'd just go on and buy the package Kloreep. I'd be surprised if you played the game long enough to go through all the content there. I sure didn't. And Total War seems to be a regular on the Steam weekly/holiday sales, so it won't be long until the DLC is on sale even if you do eventually need to play it.

gewy wrote:

And Total War seems to be a regular on the Steam weekly/holiday sales, so it won't be long until the DLC is on sale even if you do eventually need to play it.

And with the winter sale coming right ahead, I would just wait to see for jumping on all that DLC.

So I picked this game up a while back on a Steam sale, and the talk of Rome 2 made me want to boot it up again. I had only put in an hour previously, but I guess whatever made me quit the game before didn't happen this time because I'm hooked. I've always loved the concept of the TW games but have never been able to finish a campaign. Hopefully this will be the one that does it. Something about the map of Japan seems much more manageable than the previous games.

Yeah, they nailed a manageable scope with Shogun 2.