News:

And we're back!

Main Menu

Total War: Shogun 2

Started by JonasSalk, March 06, 2011, 03:05:51 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Viking

I caved and bought it.... not too bad.

My quick advice for noobs,

- keep an eye on your food production, castles cost food to maintain, if you run out of food (like I did, running at -8) rebellions will destroy you. And if they don't destroy you they raze your farms and capture towns producing more farms meaning you are in perpetual catastrophy.

- specialize your towns. Having four towns each with spear, sword, bow and stable dojos gives you mediocre quality, having four towns each with one of the dojos, a relevant encampment, a buddhist monastary, and either ninja house or market gives a stronger culture, economy and army quality without limiting ability to produce an army. Only loss is replenishment rate, which is partially (or completely) compensated by having an encampment.

- limit the ambitions of underlings (and heirs) any general with 4 or more in command stars will get the trait "Delusions of Grandeur" which inevetably leads to seppuku and if the general has an heir to possible revolt. If you have a non daymio general on 3 stars, send him home. Or even better, get a general to 3 stars, then make him comissioner of something in the home province. He can always raise an army to counter an unexpected threat. Get your heir to 3 stars and then either suicide your daimyo or have the heir wait for his time.

- garrison your towns with both melee and archer units in sufficient numbers. 3 ashigaru spearmen and 3 ashigaru archers with the retainer contingent can hold off an AI army with a general and up to 15 ashigaru units inside a fort played sensibly. Do not autoresolve defending sieges unless you are outnumbered 5-1.   

- cultivate your monks, they can give cumulative tech bonuses. Also plan your Daimyo skill set, keep focused on one tree, go for all the military skills as they get progressively more expensive to aquire.

- money is pretty tight in this game, so try to monopolize trade and the ashigarus are quite decent. The spear wall trait makes the spearmen useful in holding the line while the more agressive and powerful units outflank, the ashigarus archers are also not much worse than the samurai archers.
First Maxim - "There are only two amounts, too few and enough."
First Corollary - "You cannot have too many soldiers, only too few supplies."
Second Maxim - "Be willing to exchange a bad idea for a good one."
Second Corollary - "You can only be wrong or agree with me."

A terrorist which starts a slaughter quoting Locke, Burke and Mill has completely missed the point.
The fact remains that the only person or group to applaud the Norway massacre are random Islamists.

Norgy

My only real gripe is the sameness of the factions.
Then again, no flaming pigs, wardogs or Immortals are all good.

JonasSalk

Yeah, adding "hero" units always pissed me off, or magic powers, like the Dwoowids in R:TW.
Yuman

Viking

I'm playing on hard now.. my armies are almost pure ashigaru. My economy means that I cannot upgrade my cities to build better units. I can get a spear samurai here and there from my capital province. But mainly any non ashigaru and spear samurai units come from buildings built by the AI. I am constantly so stretched that I need 10 more ashigaru much much much more than I need that that level 3 citadel.
First Maxim - "There are only two amounts, too few and enough."
First Corollary - "You cannot have too many soldiers, only too few supplies."
Second Maxim - "Be willing to exchange a bad idea for a good one."
Second Corollary - "You can only be wrong or agree with me."

A terrorist which starts a slaughter quoting Locke, Burke and Mill has completely missed the point.
The fact remains that the only person or group to applaud the Norway massacre are random Islamists.

JonasSalk

Wow, so they made the game semi-realistic in that you cannot magically afford 100,000-man professional armies in the 1600s?

Also: game is down to $33 on Amazon now.  A few more weeks and I might buy it.
Yuman

Lettow77

 Bought shogun 2 despite the high cost and past experiences. I'd enjoy it, and I want nice things.
It can't be helped...We'll have to use 'that'

JonasSalk

How mew did you pay for it?
Yuman

Viking

Quote from: JonasSalk on March 30, 2011, 11:40:39 AM
How mew did you pay for it?

C$33,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

which, when sold to recycling, will fund the purchase of one copy of Shogun 2 TW.
First Maxim - "There are only two amounts, too few and enough."
First Corollary - "You cannot have too many soldiers, only too few supplies."
Second Maxim - "Be willing to exchange a bad idea for a good one."
Second Corollary - "You can only be wrong or agree with me."

A terrorist which starts a slaughter quoting Locke, Burke and Mill has completely missed the point.
The fact remains that the only person or group to applaud the Norway massacre are random Islamists.

Viking

I'm playing Shogun 2 Realism
DL: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/downloads.php?do=file&id=3239
Discussion: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=437766

Works fine, making the samurai units smaller and nigh on invelnerable to ashigaru as long as they are not massivly outnumbered. Ashigaru bowmen are nerfed by increased armour values and their lack of ap rating, making arquebusquiers very dangerous to the badly outnumbered samurai. I now build the trade ports where I have monastaries to keep unrest down.

Seeing my single unit of warrior monks, make the war cry and break three units of ashigaru spearmen (60 vs 3x180)  is just sweet. Replacing those monks after they get massacred by arquebusquiers at range is harder.

The game is more rock - paper -scissors than before and enemy composition becomes much much more relevant. Dealing with AP Samurai Archers and Matchlock Ashigaru is a completely different task from dealing with yumi (bow) ashigaru or even the AP but unarmored Yumi Monks.
First Maxim - "There are only two amounts, too few and enough."
First Corollary - "You cannot have too many soldiers, only too few supplies."
Second Maxim - "Be willing to exchange a bad idea for a good one."
Second Corollary - "You can only be wrong or agree with me."

A terrorist which starts a slaughter quoting Locke, Burke and Mill has completely missed the point.
The fact remains that the only person or group to applaud the Norway massacre are random Islamists.

JonasSalk

Yeah, I remember warrior monks pwning everything but Christian soldiers in the first Shogun.  Good to see that there's already a nice mod out for it.
Yuman

Viking

Right now I'm playing an Oda campaign on Hard and focussing on ashigaru. I'm gonna limit my castles to level two and just build a market and encampment (either archery or armour) to mass produce ashigaru. I'm beelining for max level markets and farmland which will allow me to spam them.

My gut feeling is that I just broke the game with that strategy. Higher level markets are real money spinners (provided you have enough food).
First Maxim - "There are only two amounts, too few and enough."
First Corollary - "You cannot have too many soldiers, only too few supplies."
Second Maxim - "Be willing to exchange a bad idea for a good one."
Second Corollary - "You can only be wrong or agree with me."

A terrorist which starts a slaughter quoting Locke, Burke and Mill has completely missed the point.
The fact remains that the only person or group to applaud the Norway massacre are random Islamists.

JonasSalk

The problem with focusing overwhelmingly on your economy is that you have inferior troops (Ashigari) while the enemy will be fielding more advanced troops. Perhaps this can be overcome with sheer numbers, but the TW games have rarely seen a mass horde of peasants beat a smaller professional army of advanced soldiers.
Yuman

Viking

#72
Quote from: JonasSalk on March 31, 2011, 11:27:24 PM
The problem with focusing overwhelmingly on your economy is that you have inferior troops (Ashigari) while the enemy will be fielding more advanced troops. Perhaps this can be overcome with sheer numbers, but the TW games have rarely seen a mass horde of peasants beat a smaller professional army of advanced soldiers.

Comparing the Oda Ashigaru to the Yari Samurai.

Attack 5 vs 6
Charge 1 vs 15
Defense 4 vs 8
Armor 2 vs 5
Morale 4 vs 10
Price 200 vs 700

The Samurai is superior, yes, but as you can see it costs 3.5 times as much. Obviously, when faced with a full price enemy army I'll have to hide behind walls. But, then again, I'll have a few more full card ashigaru armies running about doing useful stuff.

Edit: I autoresolved the assault on Kyoto with four full stacks with 12,440 against 5,500 defender on turn 91. I have patience, but not that much.
First Maxim - "There are only two amounts, too few and enough."
First Corollary - "You cannot have too many soldiers, only too few supplies."
Second Maxim - "Be willing to exchange a bad idea for a good one."
Second Corollary - "You can only be wrong or agree with me."

A terrorist which starts a slaughter quoting Locke, Burke and Mill has completely missed the point.
The fact remains that the only person or group to applaud the Norway massacre are random Islamists.

Lettow77

 Playing the multiplayer. After two days I am 3-2 for naval battles and 21-10 for land battles. I joined a clan, Kawaii Desu Desu, and will strive tirelessly for it.

I am already an Old Master though. over half my defeats were yesterday; today's defeats have with one exception been to much higher ranked players I was automatched against who fielded units I can't even build. I am: above the curve.
It can't be helped...We'll have to use 'that'

MadBurgerMaker

#74
Goddammit.  wtf.  I remembered that I had purchased NTW a little while back when it was on sale for $7 or so on Steam and decided to fire it up.  Playing the Italy campaign, I got fed up with a little stack of Austrians running around Torino and cornered them with one of my main armies (Duroc).  In the ensuing battle, my artillery absolutely slaughtered them before they could even get into musket range, so while they were fleeing in a panic, I got all :smugface: and sent the light cavalry after them. 

Yeah. 

These fucking morons, despite being told to use the melee attack, charge up to them in a big mass and unload their carbines into each other multiple times while I just stared in shock.  Result: 130 casualties among four experienced cavalry units (from 38 or whatever each to 18, 11, 8, 13 ffs) that now have to be slowly replenished instead of the zero that it should have been.  They shot the hell out of each other.  Whatever.  Napoleon marches on Trient Klagenfurt as I type.

How does unit reinforcement work in Shogun?  Do they regain troops over time automatically, or is there a button you push?