Shogun 2: Total War

all castle sieges are easy, i haven't had any problems taking them. they are also easy to defend, i think the AI is just stupid.
 
Re: Trade routes and wars, it's good if you are hurting for cash to make one of your conquered states a vassal instead of taking it over, then you can set up the trade route with your vassal, because they pretty much have to do what you tell them to. You can get decent income from this, plus you still get half the vassal's income, and they manage their own state.
 
Early level castle sieges are easy. Get into the first siege with a castle that has multiple levels and be ready for some pain. Their towers rain down arrows and they can massacre you from the second tier while you try to climb.
 
huxley said:
haha, oh ya, they will rebel and rebel at the most inopportune times.
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Ha, I figured as much, which is why I'd prefer the dependability of being supreme lord and master. My inner dictator loves this game. :p

Thanks all for the tips, hopefully I can salvage this campaign here and get back on the right track.
 
Bought the game late last week and I wasn't sure if it would be worth it... Oh man, it is like crack. Been spending way too much time with it. The era and culture is facinating too.
 
Finally became shogun after a few restarts and defeats. This game is awesome.

The end was really weird, only 3 factions were left after I steam rolled Kyoto. 2 of us had half the map. While the guy on the bottom with that small island just had his island.

I had maybe 6 full stacks at the end with 2-3 stacks more just for navy.

The navy is useful because it will help prevent them from dropping a land army in your unprotected area. I even kept almost an extra full stack way back just in case because I lost that way once.

The key for me this time was to really build up some stacks before I made the push. During that time you can upgrade cities and work on getting allies.
 
Stupac said:
Finally became shogun after a few restarts and defeats. This game is awesome.

/snip.
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First, congrats on becoming shogun. How many hours did it take you?

As for your navy, if you just leave them on each coast (north & south) will they intercept anything trying to hit your flanks?
 
Stupac said:
Finally became shogun after a few restarts and defeats. This game is awesome.

The end was really weird, only 3 factions were left after I steam rolled Kyoto. 2 of us had half the map. While the guy on the bottom with that small island just had his island.

I had maybe 6 full stacks at the end with 2-3 stacks more just for navy.

The navy is useful because it will help prevent them from dropping a land army in your unprotected area. I even kept almost an extra full stack way back just in case because I lost that way once.

The key for me this time was to really build up some stacks before I made the push. During that time you can upgrade cities and work on getting allies.
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Haha...I had the same thing happen to me. Didn't expect a naval drop. With no rearguard large enough, they just blitzed through a bunch of my provinces with minimal defences while it took me several turns to travel back with a full stack to fend them off. A rearguard is as necessary as your avant-guard in this.

As for your navy, if you just leave them on each coast (north & south) will they intercept anything trying to hit your flanks?
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Well, they won't automatically intercept. They're your line of sight so you need to do a quick check yourself. But note that a navy transport tends to always run into the high seas when you have a decent stack of ships to fight them.

all castle sieges are easy, i haven't had any problems taking them. they are also easy to defend, i think the AI is just stupid.
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Cavalry is essentially useless to me in the single player game. The AI just stacks up on Yari ashigaru and even with a full on flank charge, you've barely killed anyone. They need to add lone sword ashigaru into single player imo to even it out a bit.

They also need to fix the defense screens for archers. If I'm in a tight situation, I just use the defense screens which they can't seem to bypass.
 
No love for Tokugawa? In real life he was the one that united the entire country and his family ruled for over 250 years.
 
Dev1ant said:
Cavalry is essentially useless to me in the single player game. The AI just stacks up on Yari ashigaru and even with a full on flank charge, you've barely killed anyone. They need to add lone sword ashigaru into single player imo to even it out a bit.
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Hmm I've found the cavalry I have useful so far, although in limited situations. In a castle siege, while the Yari troops were scaling the walls and otherwise distracted, I charged them out the back and took out their archers. Similarly, I have placed them in stands of trees a bit off from the main army and again go after their archers once they become exposed in the flanks.

And thanks for the trade tips yesterday everyone. :) I was able to get my empire back up and running very nicely. I paid one clan to trade with me and the net result was very positive; kicking someones ass and then demanding trade in exchange for peace also worked well. Until for some reason two of my trading partners went to war with each other, jacking up my trade with each. Sigh.

Anyone think that perhaps the archers are a bit TOO powerful in this game? I remember them being vital in the original Shogun, but in this game they just rip EVERYTHING to shreds. I try to use 2-3 archer units to every 1 melee unit and pretty much just use the melee as a screen for my archers.
 
Hmm... I dunno. I don't have a lot of PvP experience. In my experience in singleplayer though, archers get slaughtered by cav, have an ammo limit which keeps them from being totally broken, and usually I can have 1 infantry unit spread out, charge the archers, and win by a lot. I think they're pretty good how they are right now. They can be very powerful, but they can also be killed pretty easily. I might go for a minor nerf, maybe to accuracy, but I don't think they're too bad.

I think cav is a little weak because they don't seem to be able to charge through and dominate infantry, but they're not armored knights either so that might be more realistic.
 
Andrew_Carr said:
Hmm... I dunno. I don't have a lot of PvP experience. In my experience in singleplayer though, archers get slaughtered by cav, have an ammo limit which keeps them from being totally broken, and usually I can have 1 infantry unit spread out, charge the archers, and win by a lot. I think they're pretty good how they are right now. They can be very powerful, but they can also be killed pretty easily. I might go for a minor nerf, maybe to accuracy, but I don't think they're too bad.

I think cav is a little weak because they don't seem to be able to charge through and dominate infantry, but they're not armored knights either so that might be more realistic.
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Early on, I go for a very infantry based build as I am usually attacking. Archers are pretty good for defense though. I only really find archers essential if I have to fight against other archers. They are also nice for sieges.
 
I dunno, I find archers are my equalizers. I can use them to absolutely decimate higher level troops so that by the time they reach my ashigaru they're at 75% or less troop levels and thoroughly demoralized; most times I've already broken a few units completely before they even get close enough to engage. They also make sure that units that turn and run don't regroup a bit behind the lines and come back...a hail of arrows in the ass makes sure they keep runnin'. :D

I also have the 50% increased arrows art; each battle a unit of archers can consistently kill 200+ units with minimal losses.
 
most battle I start off with archery duels between mine and theirs, they wont charge me until most of their archers are dead
 
Man, playing MP now that it's better at finding games and not hanging.

I have unlocked most units, and the Katana hero unit is fucking BRUTAL.

I literally had a guy raging at me telling me how cheap I was, that i couldn't "play" the game without being cheap because I used two hero units, the bow and katana.

However these u nits are VERY expensive, they also use a Vet slot (and gain exp/lv up) but you only have one. So you can't use more then one and these means you can't use them back to back in games if they die some. My kat hero is vetted twice and costs 1700+.

Meanwhile the guy I was fighting had a TON of yari samurai, nagita, and loan sword/calvary/archers/matchlock. He didn't use many vet units at all (not sure if any) and had almost TWICE as many units as I did. Not to mention hero units are comprimsed of far less individual soldiers then normal units.

So starting out the battle he came close to the trees near the little creek that separated us and saw a couple of my hidden units (my only katana cav and a unit of katana samurai). Once he saw them I just moved them along with my archers and my only loan sword unit out to protect them across from the creek on a small hill. So i had a line of normal ashigaru archers then behind them I had my bow heroes. I sit my general directly behind them (I have the increased morale bonus/inspire, etc).

He had a 4 units of archers compared to my two. However bow archers are so deadly, especially since I had a +5 reload retainer. He brought his archers up and tried to hit mine, but the bow heroes have a loooong line of sight (like the monk archers) and I could hit him first. He focused on my ashigaru and I inspiried my bow heroes and devastated a bow unit, breaking them, then focused both on his others. However the hero unit ( with the reload + inspire) used up a LOT of ammunition and they were out of ammo fairly quickly. so I only had my regular unit left for range.

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/7126/bowhero.jpg

After this he started to come across the river so I charged him with my loan swords and a unit of yari, then sent my katana in behind them. when they connected I sent in from the treeline (where he thought i moved them all out) my vet katana unit and katana hero on his flank. He saw this and threw in his yari cavalry to them. He flanked my last archers with cavalry then i put my yari back to them.

here is a pic of my katana hero coming in, just to show how many more troops he had then I.

http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/9322/katanahero.jpg

He still had his matchlock troop unit, which was firing into his and my melee troops (they do still do friendly fire) so I took my general (my katana cavalry was routed) and charged into them. He brought in his general so I took them out, but by this time my katana units and hero were making short work of all of his yari (which are not high melee dmg, rather good for cavalry) and loan swords (which have low morale and chain route from other ones).

In the end the battlefield looked like this:
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/4880/generald.jpg

After I won the match the guy started raging, talking about how I used no skill and had cheap hero units.

Meanwhile all I can think about is this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAB3VUs2v3c

This is how my fight turned out, he had twice as many units as I and I killed almost twice as many units.
http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/1355/fightstats.jpg
 
One key thing for me is Samurai Archers only. Oherwise I do not really have too much of a use for them.
 
infect0 said:
One key thing for me is Samurai Archers only. Oherwise I do not really have too much of a use for them.
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The problem with bow samurai is the cost. For almost the price of one unit of them you can get two Bow ashigaru, which have more individual soldiers in their unit and can output more arrows in each volley.

I would take three ashigaru over bow samurai anyday. Just have your general inspire one unit, then focus all three of them onto one unit (dont' just let them free fire into different units). You'll route his focused fire unit and then you'll have three while he has one, which is easy pickings.

Bow samurai are nice with with their flaming arrows and if upgraded through vet the whistling arrows. However th eprice of them is just too high compared to ashigaru.

Also another key thing to remember is that when you are fighting range vs range, ALWAYS make sure you have your units in loose formation.
 
Don't the bow samurai also have significantly better accuracy and power though? Ashigaru archers are not good against units with upgraded armor, at least in my experience. I've found that having some bow samurai mixed in helps a lot.

And the more I play, the more the indirect fire ability of the archers is pissing me off. I'm tired of having the AI shoot up a hill and over the castle walls and still be able to hit my troops accurately, when there is no way in hell they'd even know those troops were standing back there. And why can't guys hide in the castle buildings to avoid archer fire?
 
TwistedAegis said:
First, congrats on becoming shogun. How many hours did it take you?

As for your navy, if you just leave them on each coast (north & south) will they intercept anything trying to hit your flanks?
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Thats what I did to become Shogun in my game and then upon my final push last night my GTX 590 ended up dying.. but that's another story.. Game is awesome!
 
Forceman said:
Don't the bow samurai also have significantly better accuracy and power though? Ashigaru archers are not good against units with upgraded armor, at least in my experience. I've found that having some bow samurai mixed in helps a lot.

And the more I play, the more the indirect fire ability of the archers is pissing me off. I'm tired of having the AI shoot up a hill and over the castle walls and still be able to hit my troops accurately, when there is no way in hell they'd even know those troops were standing back there. And why can't guys hide in the castle buildings to avoid archer fire?
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yea you would want to have a couple bow samurai cause A)they have armor so in a close battle you can throw them into the mix and B)their arrows do better against armored units like other samurais and cavalry. Anyone try the Naga and bow monk units? I hear those are really awesome bow units but they have less armor than the ashirgaru. And how do you get hero units? I haven't seen any.
 
stupid bugs.

so the Shogun's ninja stopped my army and got stuck between the castle and army. I couldn't attach the ninja with my own and I had to wait 20 turns to get it unstuck. This wasn't the first time this happened.

The first time I had my monk and rebels between my castle on the 2nd to small island and it took the rebels 60 turns to attack, I couldn't select them to attack.


I have cannons unlocked and so far they suck ass, not worth getting since they shoot in straight lines. trebuchet still better since it can arch over walls and other buildings.
 
So I thought the drop-in feature was pretty neat the first few times I tried it, then a pattern started emerging: 9 times out of 10, the fucks who enable drop-in only do so when they outnumber the AI's stack by at least 2:1... and that's my conservative estimate. I've had the fortune of dropping-in on a siege battle where the AI managed about 1/3 stack of ashigaru yari vs. full-fledged katana/bow samurai defenders. The only time I got a fair fight was against a noob who was equally curious as I.

Second issue I have with these drop-in's is the incredibly annoying game-breaking lag. Once I couldn't even issue orders to my troops for about 10 minutes; I told the dude 4 or 5 times that "my shit's frozen, you better circle around my army," but he was more than happy with moving away from my army to take a defensive position on a hill. What the fuck! F10 - concede. Alt + F4

I just wont play drop-ins anymore. Creative Assembly should auto-calc battles first to determine if they're at all fair before allowing players to enable drop-in. It's just a massive waste of the drop-in guy's time.

Aaaaanyways, does anyone want to try the coop campaign with me? Fellow West coasters perhaps? It would makes thing easier to schedule games if we're in the same time zone, not to mention mitigate lag. :)
 
Wait, a drop in allows someone to bring their own troops? I haven't used it yet, thinkingI would get my ass kicked. But I assumed all it would do is allow a real person to drop in and manage the troops already on the board; how the hell does it work that all of a sudden a different army can be there? :(

Anyway, getting pretty far into my first campaign so far, I chose the 60 provinces for victory campaign to start. I just made the current shogun my vassal...sweet. :cool:
 
Just had my first realm divide. Not too worried since the entire map sans one clan has been at war with me for like 10 years. Going well so far though. I do hate magic enemy stacks that seem to come from nowhere though but I am willing to accept some nonsense on the harder difficults. Also, ninjas are totally awesome in later game. When you can take out 5 enemy farms for 160 gold each and cost them 2000 gold + each turn, it cripples their economy and their people really start getting angry.
 
Been sort of paying attention to this but not been following the thread as I didn't think I'd be getting the game. However, my computer shat its pants and I've had to upgrade to a 2500k which gave me a code for the game on Steam. Worth redeeming or sticking it in the FS/T forum?
 
Jellylesg said:
Been sort of paying attention to this but not been following the thread as I didn't think I'd be getting the game. However, my computer shat its pants and I've had to upgrade to a 2500k which gave me a code for the game on Steam. Worth redeeming or sticking it in the FS/T forum?
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If you like strategy games then this is a no brainer, redeem the code!
 
If I'm new to the Total War games, as in .. never played one before. Is this a good game to start with? I saw some reviews mentioning that it was a friendlier UI, is that true?
 
theNoid said:
If I'm new to the Total War games, as in .. never played one before. Is this a good game to start with? I saw some reviews mentioning that it was a friendlier UI, is that true?
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This is a good place to start, it has all the refinements and polish that comes from developing 10 years of Total War games. Most experienced Total War players also agree that this is the best vanilla game CA has made. Most of the previous entries had problems out of the box that took patches and mods to make enjoyable.
 
theNoid said:
If I'm new to the Total War games, as in .. never played one before. Is this a good game to start with? I saw some reviews mentioning that it was a friendlier UI, is that true?
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Absolutely. The UI is absolutely outstanding both in usability and appearance. There is also an excellent tutorial campaign to play through to help learn the ropes if you choose.

I highly, highly recommend that you go back and read a good economy guide once you've played a bit and know the game well enough to understand what the guide suggesting.

Not everybody likes the TW paradigm, but if you do this is one of if not the best IMO. It's certainly the most polished.
 
theNoid said:
If I'm new to the Total War games, as in .. never played one before. Is this a good game to start with? I saw some reviews mentioning that it was a friendlier UI, is that true?
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UI is friendlier but I wont lie, it takes a while to understand the economics side of the game.
 
Thanks for the replies, I think I might considering taking a leap of faith. I need something new and different and this is both for me and the game seems very interesting to me.
 
Normal AI gets trounced if you have a lot of bow units in sieges. I can literally go in with all bow units except 4 melee units and the AI gets molested every time. Just sits in the castle getting gang raped by Bow Monks. Watching an entire unit of Bow Ashigaru, behind cover, get wiped out in one volley of Bow Monks is satisfying, however.
 
Has anyone had the AI assault your castle, then fail to actually advance and attack? I had a huge force assault my full castle (just below citadel) then sit there WAY out of bow range. I sacrified 2 Yari units to try and draw them in, but only a few units came. I had literally every square inch of wall covered by archers (16 units of ashigaru); I'm not sure if they saw that and said, "F it?" Either way, it was annoying as hell to put the timer to x4 and just sit there, waiting for time to expire.
 
TwistedAegis said:
Has anyone had the AI assault your castle, then fail to actually advance and attack? I had a huge force assault my full castle (just below citadel) then sit there WAY out of bow range. I sacrified 2 Yari units to try and draw them in, but only a few units came. I had literally every square inch of wall covered by archers (16 units of ashigaru); I'm not sure if they saw that and said, "F it?" Either way, it was annoying as hell to put the timer to x4 and just sit there, waiting for time to expire.
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On my keeps they always split into all 4 sides. 1 archer unit and 1 melee unit can cover 3 of the sides easily. Main force comes from the front. They always send in half of their force and they get molested by fire arrows right off the bat. By this time the other walls are fine and I move the archers to the front. Second wave comes, generals dismount and they all get murdered before they can finish the animation.

It's really pretty pathetic. I need to try it on a higher difficulty.
 
Yeah their assault tactics aren't all that great on normal. But I was more wondering if anyone else had happen to them what happened to me - on the campaign map they assault my castle, but then on the actual battle map they just sat there, way back, not doing anything. Wondering if it is a bug, or the AI saw the archers, decided not to assault and wait to see if I would advance out of the castle?
 
TwistedAegis said:
Yeah their assault tactics aren't all that great on normal. But I was more wondering if anyone else had happen to them what happened to me - on the campaign map they assault my castle, but then on the actual battle map they just sat there, way back, not doing anything. Wondering if it is a bug, or the AI saw the archers, decided not to assault and wait to see if I would advance out of the castle?
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I used to see that behavior in Empire - then the next turn they'd attack again and do the same thing, and then again, and again. I think it is a bug.

Has anyone ever seen the AI use a monk to cause a rebellion in your cities? I'm killing the AI I'm fighting now by going around and destabilizing the cities I haven't gotten around to attacking militarily yet, but I have yet to see him do the same, even though he has monks running around everywhere.
 
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