Total War: Shogun 2, Your Thoughts please

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Just picked this game up for 8 bucks through Gamestop's DD platform (don't make this a flame war thread on DD platforms) and downloaded it (through Steam, but thats for another topic at some point).
What I want to know is those of you who are into the Total War series is how you like it and if you mod it, and if yes what mods do you prefer?
I've played Medieval: Total War and have the Westeros mod for it (which i feel is super awesome).
Also side note, have any of you messed with the TeD modding kit that comes with Shogun 2?

Captcha: how interesting
Lord Inglip, are you trying to say "cool story bro"?

 

[LetalisK]

Honestly, it bored me. Each faction has their little perks, but there is much less to differentiate each faction than with other games in the series like Empire and Medieval 2. This battle, same as the last.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Honestly, it bored me. Each faction has their little perks, but there is much less to differentiate each faction than with other games in the series like Empire and Medieval 2. This battle, same as the last.

Same here. Everything about it left me cold. Lacked all the complexity and character that made Medieval 2 and Rome so memorable. Pretty game, runs beautifully, has no soul.

 

[The Knightly Gamer]

Im going to have to disagree with the other posters. I think S:TW 2 was really good. Now yes the factions have the "same units" but that means your tactics must be better if you want to win you just cant over power your enemies with your nation "super unit". Also the general's skill tree is great. No more random traits for you generals. I think your going to get as much fun as you are open to the time period.

 

[Lokoloshe]

Im going to have to disagree with the other posters. I think S:TW 2 was really good. Now yes the factions have the "same units" but that means your tactics must be better if you want to win you just cant over power your enemies with your nation "super unit". Also the general's skill tree is grea. No more random traits for you generals. I think your going to get as much fun as you are open to the time period.

Completely agree. I'm not too fond of the naval battles though so I'd generally built huge navies and auto-resolve. I've been playing the Total War series since the original Shogun so I may be biased by a bit of nostalgia but as the saying goes, sometimes less is more.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Eh... twas OK.

Gameplay was nothing big, here's a battle, there's a battle, story wasn't particularly engaging, a bit of RP'ing and character trait choices. However, looked absolutely stunning...

Then I went back to Napoleon: Total War... yes, I know... the heresy...(!)

 

[idarkphoenixi]

They simplified it a lot to appeal to a wider audience. I'm not saying that was a terrible move but there was little to no unit variety between factions. Each faction simply had a slightly better version of what everyone else had but nothing so exclusive that it sets them apart from the rest.

Other that that I didn't have too many problems. Other than the ridiculous load times of course, seriously it takes me like 5minutes to load a simple battle and I have a good pc on medium specs.

 

[kingthrall]

I refused to buy shogun 2 simply because it was a step backwars in total war games.

I mean its just Japan so you have limited more or less the same army types with a few variants. They really should of done a Mongolian total war or at least an asia total war but just Japan annoys me.

I was also annoyed that they never bothered to fix empire total war and the Darthmod had to do all the work just to get the infantry and cavalry fighting reasonably well which is unacceptable.

 

[Iyon]

I'll have to agree with most of the other posters and say I quickly got bored of it. I really enjoyed it though and had some pretty epic battles.

Though it's been a while since I played it I swear sometimes I can still hear, "Our men are running from the battlefield! Shameful display!"

 

[The Madman]

It's good, not my favourite but good nonetheless. As it's only Japan involved this time there much less unit diversity or sense of scale than you might get from a game like Medieval 2, Rome or Empire but if you've a fondness for the Japanese style and setting there's more than enough to keep you entertained.

The game is absolutely gorgeous as well. The in-game graphics, UI, art style, music, and everything else involved in the presentation side of things is top-notch. And perhaps because there's less diversity the battles are smooth and entertaining as well right from the start. Probably the least buggy Total War game to date.

Don't know anything about mods however. Sadly the last really heavily moddable game in the Total War series was Medieval 2, every game since then has gotten steadily less and less modder friendly.

 

[Ryotknife]

I will let you know if i ever make it past turn 10........

every game starts in two possible ways. Either 3 AI immediately declar war against me and march an army 5 times bigger than mine within the first few turns, or i actually manage to take one or two AI out after rush building an army (and then concentrate on economy) only to have one of the conquered AI neighbors declare war against me fielding an army vastly greater than i could ever possibly support despite the fact that the AI has ONE territory and i have a greater economy.

 

[Kargathia]

As more posters have noted: the campaign mode lacks diversity. To date I've spent a lot less time on Shogun's campaign than on any previous campaign mode.

This, however, was in my opinion more than compensated by that the multiplayer is downright excellent, and remarkably balanced. Having to manage your army and veterans between battles - and thus slowly building your perfect setup - adds a lot of depth to the game, and makes for some truly interesting battles.
Sadly it also makes the campaign even less interesting, as the AI - despite drastic improvements - still fights very predictably.

 

[Ryotknife]

I will let you know if i ever make it past turn 10........

every game starts in two possible ways. Either 3 AI immediately declar war against me and march an army 5 times bigger than mine within the first few turns, or i actually manage to take one or two AI out after rush building an army (and then concentrate on economy) only to have one of the conquered AI neighbors declare war against me fielding an army vastly greater than i could ever possibly support despite the fact that the AI has ONE territory and i have a greater economy.

Which Clan are you playing as?

The Lower Left Clan

My friend recently got the game and wanted to play coop multiplayer. So im like...sure! Well apparently you have to create an avatar and fight in battles in order to unlock stuff or something for your army. Dunno, the whole system is confusing. ANYWAYS, my friend does some mock battles and says "oh, you just fight the AI, and once you win you can unlock units/upgrades/abilities/something."

cool, i thought. So i start one. AI opponent? LOL NOPE. Like a freakin grandmaster human opponent with a blackbelt in shogun 2 with an army of units in awesome armor while i have the equivalent of PEASANTS.

After 2 tries against opponents that have played for hundreds of hours (whereas my friend got 5 AI opponents in a row) im like, NOPE!

that game is a bigger jerk than demon souls.

 

[NightHawk21]

I think its pretty fun so far. I'm in my first run of the game (a couple turns after the realm divide), and its fun. I can only really compare it to FoTS since that's the only other TW campaign I got around to playing so far, but its fun. I will say though that compared to FoTS sieges are absolutely flipped. While in FoTS I could hold my caste with like 3 gun levies against well over 400 dudes, in Shogun 2 its gets close even if I'm a little outnumbered. Its the opposite for attack sieges though. Whereas in FoTS I would lose a couple units to their wall gun infantry, in Shogun 2 I can take most castles by just ordering my 14+ archer units to rain down into the castle and decimate everyone.

 

[tsb247]

I have had noting but enjoyable experiences with it. Then again, I mainly play co-op with friends. I haven't played for a month or so though since work has been getting in the way of my game time.

 

[Darkmantle]

Honestly, I got bored with it really fast, there's jut not as much flavour as say Rome or medieval, very little differentiates the factions it seems.

 

[SckizoBoy]

What.

The story of a Total War game wasn't particularly engaging? What? What the hell did you expect it to be?

Perhaps it would be better worded that unlike the other titles, S2:TW didn't have enough to hold my attention or grant sufficient anticipation to the latter stages of the game sufficiently.

Yes, I realise that the TW titles are a pseudo-open-world series with no ostensible story, thus the gamer creates a great deal more of it than in other games, but as it has a basis in historical fact, and having prior knowledge of much of the surrounding background material, the ability to play with a great deal of historical fidelity (or flagrantly ignore it) in R:TW (modded of course, the vanilla is actually quite infuriating in this sense) and N:TW was much of the reason I enjoyed them so much and continue to play them. It's the intellectual investment.

As for M2:TW, there was a greater connection with the characters, missions I sent them on, their approach to captured cities, prisoners etc. left me mindful of what they should get up to i.e. the emotional investment (however wussy that may come across as) or perhaps the RPG elements. There was neither of these things in S2:TW for me and the fact that the historicity didn't interest me at all made it all the worse, but at least it was better than E:TW (I knew a lot of the historical background but it was all out the window before the game even started which debatably pissed me off more than the shitty gameplay).

 

[Jandau]

When it comes to mechanics, interface and all that, it's the most polished Total War game ever. However, the complete lack of unit variety means that the game gets boring quickly. It's a good game, there's just not much variety to it.

The one good thing about it is that it shows how CA learned from their previous mistakes (especially Empire and Napoleon) and is able to make a solid, polished product. It makes me giddy to think of the upcoming Rome 2 game, with all the polish of Shogun 2 and the variety of the original Rome...

 

[Blunderboy]

I liked it, but not as much as Rome or Med 2. Though that might be due to being more interested in those periods of history than I am in feudal Japan.
I did like the way that diplomacy and research worked, and I really like the little pop ups where you decide whether to invest in towns or farms etc.

 

[Bostur]

The only Total War game that really grabbed me was Napoleon, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

I thought Shogun 2 was very pretty, and with the best UI in the series. It also has issues making it almost unplayable. The Diplomacy is rubbish in the same way as in Empire. All the AI factions team up on the player. It also has a lot of naval action, which doesn't work in the TW series. Loads of siege warfare with too many units and too little room. Generally a boring campaign map mostly made up of narrow pathways.

Decent tactical battles, but I think it is too fast paced. It's hard to do much maneuvering besides throwing everything you have into the fray. The battles lose a lot of the feel when playing in slow-motion because there's no sound.