Okay, I’m going to have to backtrack a couple of turns in my campaign. I got a little bored of peaceful building and decided to attack another clan. That quickly filled up that fame gauge on the clan screen. Turns out that’s kind of a big deal. The current shogun decided I was getting a little too big for my britches, and denounced me. All of the other clans promptly declared war on me. I want to finish exploring the masteries before diving into my first campaign’s endgame.
Plus, I have more than enough income to support several more strike forces. I want to see how warrior monk archers compare to samurai archers. A 16.7% longer range probably isn’t a huge deal in field battles, but it could be huge for castle assaults.
I went bushido far enough to get a bow mastery for a Chosokabe mission first, then went chi mastery for a while. After gaining the ability to build the best farms (and getting monasteries along the way), I switched back to bushido; by then I could afford to build big castles in my territory for a hefty bushido mastery bonus.
Lost my first campaign. I ended up taking Kyoto, but I only had 36 provinces in the end. About the time I had half of the main island everyone decided to declare war on me at the same time. My allies, neutrals, everyone. So, I went from about 7k per turn to negative 2k instantly. Luckily I had over a 100k reserves, but with allies attacking forts I thought were behind the lines, and with the damn AI using deep strike landings in my rear area, it took me too long to re-establish the front and grind forward again. I just ran out of time (you only have until the end of 1600 to capture a list of provinces, including Kyoto which you have to hold for a year and 40 total territories).
It was pretty fun though. I have to say that with a tier two fortress, 4-6 archers, 2-4 spearmen and whatever garrison troops you get I was able to hold just about every defensive attack the computer could throw at me. It just doesn’t seem to understand how to spread the defense and simultaneously attack from multiple directions. It does pretty good if you only have the tier 1 fort, but anything higher than that and it can take the outer works, but then sort of flails around getting shot up and eventually destroyed.
That sounds a lot like Papal behaviour. Please, please tell me the Shogun is not as colossally annoying as the fucking Pope. “Cease this pointless war” ? Screw you, they attacked me, I’m just taking my shit back you pompous bastard ! Keep this up and you’re not getting your yearly bribe, mister !
You realize geishas were in the original, right ? They were ridiculously overpowered too - I once wiped out two powerful clans in a row and in a couple years, just by hunting down the heirline and hanging them all from the rafters with shamisen strings. Good times.
Anyway, I assume they do the same thing now as they did then: assassinations that hardly ever fail, and if they do you just lost a turn rather than your geisha as happens 90% of the time when ninjas bungle up their kill. In the first Shogun they also had much higher success percentages than ninjas of equivalent skill level - an 8 star general wasn’t absolutely safe even from a newborn geisha, and since they could only die to another geisha they gained experience like crazy anyway.
I have to admit I was becoming disenchanted with the Total War series. The games were fine but it felt like I’d played them to death before I even picked them up (I have the same problem with the X2: The Threat series of games).
I’m having a blast with Shogun though. I don’t know if is the art style or if they’ve just fixed a lot of the annoying crap they had added in some of the games but I’m enjoying this as much as the original Medieval Total War.
Just completed my Legendary playthrough. That was brutal I think I’m going to bump it down to normal from now on.
It’s way way less intrusive. You’ll get messages as your fame gauge fills up that the Shogun is concerned at the power you’re amassing, and when the gauge fills he orders everyone to kill you (by that point you should in fact be a credible threat to him). Before then he pretty much gives you free reign. The only exception was a (random?) event in which the Shogun demanded tribute from each clan. You could choose to pay 2,000 koku or to defy him; I assume the latter choice fills up your gauge.
Yeah…he periodically hits you up for donations though, so it’s good to make sure you have some cash on hand. Otherwise, if you diss him enough he turns against you…and I noticed when he finally thought I was threatening enough and went to war with me, even my allies went along. Next game I play I’m definitely going to have more field armies and possibly some cannon fodder garrison armies tagging along, so that when I take a castle I can break off parts of the cannon fodder army to garrison while I move on to the next objective. That’s where I bogged down in the end of the last game. I only had 2 field armies because I was only fighting a couple of clans, and I thought my rear was secure so it was very lightly defended. When everyone went to war with me I got hurt pretty badly initially, especially when two different clans landed full stacks on some of my best provinces behind the lines.
Research the stuff in the tech line on the far right…it will also help with your food. Build a harbor immediately and then build a bunch of trade ships. Send one off to each of the trade spots and if no one is there take it. Once you have trade ships there, build more and stack…each additional ship brings in like 50-100 gold. It adds up. (once you have some real money, build some sort of warship and send them to your trade stacks or someone will eventually come along and destroy them). Use diplomacy to trade with other clans, even if you have to pay initially to get it set up. Build everything that increases your income (while watching your food situation…some buildings, especially forts require food).
That’s about it. I haven’t had much issue with gold (until literally everyone turned on me at once). Food was a bigger problem. Sometimes when I was capturing enemy territories that had larger forts in them (and only the first tier agriculture…the computer so cheats in this game :p) I would drop to 5 or 6 food, which is dangerously low to me (after my first disastrous game where I was always in the negative).
Yeah, thought they give you less warning that the campaign is about to end. I got the only warning that time was running out in 1599 (and sadly I hadn’t saved in a lot while, so going back would be a pain at this point).
I just wrapped up my Chosokabe campaign; the map is big enough that the Date campaign I just started may be on mostly new territory :). A few things that would have been handy to know:
-If you’re wondering like I did why you can’t recruit Great Guard cavalry, it’s because you have to be Shogun to do so; it’s also a unique unit.
-Most general/agent skills have multiple ranks. I didn’t realize this until most of the way through my campaign.
-Use your Daimyo for as much fighting as possible; the more you do, the more honor he’ll accumulate, which translates into clan-wide bonuses to public order and loyalty.
-Reconsider hunkering down for a period of peaceful building and research unless you control a province or two with the philosophical tradition specialty.
-I’m not sure, but it looks like Nanban trading ports won’t upgrade to Nanban quarters if you aggressively suppress the spread of Christianity.
I caved, played most of yesterday and… man, it’s *hard *! I’ve been playing TW games since day one, and I’m getting my ass handed to me on a regular basis on the strat map. They really managed to capture how the first one played: move units one way, your other neighbour stabs you in the back. Keep home and consolidate, someone overtakes you. Playing any clan besides Shimazu, Date or Chosokabe and you’re really just trying to hang in there by the skin of your teeth.
As for battles, I get way more losses than I’m used to… and more than the autoresolve which is a little vexing :). Still getting used to just how fast units zip around, and how fast the kill rates are. My usual wall of archers doesn’t work when they only have the time to fire 3 or 4 volleys before they’re cut to ribbons in 3 seconds.
I gotta say though, I’m really not a fan of the Warcraft3 style special abilities. Lot more micro than is needed, which is compounded by how fast the action is.
Is there a way to get more scouting going on, barring agents ? I’m really missing my watch tower network. I have no idea how my neighbours are doing, so it’s always a surprise when they send a full stack my way. See above re: getting my ass handed to me
Ninjas are really the answer here. When I hit 5 or 6 territories, I usually have at least 2 Sake Dens pumping out ninjas to be used to scout. I’m experimenting with monks and metsuke, but right now, ninjas are working out the best for me. If you have one to spare, keep it near your enemy’s field stack. Being able to at least attempt sabotaging their army has let me ambush more armies than you could shake a dead cat at.
I’ve been alternating my tax levels: high for one turn, normal for the next. Because it takes two turns for a rebel army to form, I can rake in a bit more dough with no insurrection.
Man, I remember the Koei games on the Nintendo Enterteinment System, where, you could jack up the taxes, take the hit on the happiness for that turn, then decreases the taxes by one point, garner some happiness, give a couple hundred units of rice, and rake in the cash.
They don’t just “show up” as I’ve seen. You can build Nanban (European trade) ports and get gunpwder from there - but it takes some time and is expensive. Later on, you can develop your own gunpowder infrastructure, which is better but takes a lot of high-level buildings. You can get your units faster from Nanban ports by.
Nanban ports is the way you get to Christianity, I think. It starts getting Christian people and you can then convert. This can be useful, but if you do so make sure you’ve got a couple archer units in every castle, and try to have a free slot in as many as possible to build up Chapels for conversion. It won’t take too long to settle things down ocne you get rolling, and that gives you much faster Chi teching, as well as other bonuses.
Yeah, but if you build your own you can get Samurai Musketmen, which like the Samurai Archers are better able to fight if it comes to melee (they also get a few additional abilities like a rapid fire by ranks option which is nice). They are great defensive units. I wish they had something like the stakes available to certain archer units in TW:M2 though, since they are still really susceptible to cavalry.
Been playing a Date campaign. A little slow moving at the moment, I put down the rebellion then confidentially strode into the neighbouring Mas…something clan territory, swatting aside a few minor armies and hoping to starve the defenders of their castle into submission, Medieval 2 style - only to find that entire garrison of the castle had marched out to meet us! I held on by the skin of my teeth only to find myself in the middle of enemy territory in winter.
An advisor then popped up to inform me that an ominous skull shape over my army was a sign of attrition - I thought I’d caught plague from somewhere. First thought - awesome! Campaign seasons! Second though - shit! I gotta get out of here! Like Napoleon in 1812 I limped out of the snowy lands for resupply, with enemies hot on our trail.
A few things I don’t like;
Chasing enemy armies around the campaign map like Benny Hill. Stand and fight, you cowards! Ties up way too much time chasing the enemy around Date hinterlands.
Restocking. Should be an option to do it all at once like prior games; it’s too slow - especially general’s bodyguard units. After taking a beating it breaks flow to have to sit on your arse for a few turns whilst your army has a breather.
Other than that, no complaints. How have you guys been developing generals? I’ve put points into Strategist and Poet (early tech upgrades seem a good idea). However, my general is my only cav unit so I’m thinking perhaps I should have put more points into the warrior side of things.
They were ridiculously overpowered too - I once wiped out two powerful clans in a row and in a couple years, just by hunting down the heirline and hanging them all from the rafters with shamisen strings. Good times.