Total War: Shogun 2

[The Brain]

Tried the demo. Seems to suck.

[MadImmortalMan]

The pdox trolls say this game can't be modded. If that's true, I'm out.

[DGuller]

The pdox trolls say this game can't be modded. If that's true, I'm out.

So that means that nobody can finish it?  That sucks.

[Drakken]

The pdox trolls say this game can't be modded. If that's true, I'm out.

Blatantly false.

[JonasSalk]

If people have already modded the demo, I don't think that rumor is true.

[sbr]

Supposedly it is the same engine as Empire and Nappy, so much more difficult to mod, but it can be done.

[Tamas]

Steam links a preview, which looks to be rather fair.

It praises the way the game and interface is rich in theme, but states that there is nothing new to total war fans, and that altough the campaign AI is good at Normal, the battle AI is totally braindead on that level, and only turns on various routines like attempts at flanking on Hard. But, there is no separate changing of campaign and battle difficulty :wtf:
So looks like playing it on at least Hard will be mandatory.

[JonasSalk]

Isn't playing on Hard mandatory for wargamers who are worth a shit anyway?

[DGuller]

It depends.  I'm playing M2TW Stainless Steel mod, and doing it on Hard would be just too tedious.  You get lots and lots of battles as it is, and you're swamped with AI attacking you.  You can't auto-resolve battles, because you're strategically disadvantaged, so you have to manually rape AI armies one by one.  Hundreds of turns with a couple of battles per turn get tiring.

[Tamas]

It depends.  I'm playing M2TW Stainless Steel mod, and doing it on Hard would be just too tedious.  You get lots and lots of battles as it is, and you're swamped with AI attacking you.  You can't auto-resolve battles, because you're strategically disadvantaged, so you have to manually rape AI armies one by one.  Hundreds of turns with a couple of battles per turn get tiring.

[JonasSalk]

Ahh, okay.  How is that SS mod, anyway?  What's the major draw to it?

[DGuller]

Ahh, okay.  How is that SS mod, anyway?  What's the major draw to it?

The draw for me is that in unfucks things that are fucked up in the vanilla, and have never been fixed.  It's also better balanced, and has a number of nifty sub-mods that fix annoying issues (like permanent watchtowers, so that you don't have to spam them yourself).

[Tamas]

 

On Hard, an AI force 1.5 times of mine managed to defeat me while it was on the defense, with me using the standard Total War tactic, ie. leaving a token line, massing on one flank to round up the AI line from the side.
It retreated up a hill (despite being numerically superior), supported the two spears unit which got caught by my attack (and thus could not pull back) with its general (kinda stupid but hey), then took all of his remaining army and rushed my bluff of a line with everything else he got.

So sure, I took it for braindead, but it's still nice.

[Drakken]

On TWCenter, the feedback I get on the Campaign game on higher levels is that it is insanely difficult. Even regulars get beaten to a pulp at Very Hard or Legendary difficulties.

[Tamas]

On TWCenter, the feedback I get on the Campaign game on higher levels is that it is insanely difficult. Even regulars get beaten to a pulp at Very Hard or Legendary difficulties.

I kept restarting usually because while I was busy fighting with my enemy, my ally severed trade ties, let me be too poor to grow further, and then blitzed me with an überstack I could not finance to counter.