Is Shogun 2: Total War any good?

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Plague_Injected

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Thinking of grabbing this from Amazon, where it is $7.50. I absolutely LOVED the original Shogun, and have enjoyed the other TWs but I've heard that Shogun 2 has some unfair/dodgy enemy AI on the campaign map. Was that patched, or just untrue, or still present? And is the game any good?

Feedback is much appreciated, like a full santa sack.
 
if you are into turn based games its good.. has a lot more depth then Civ 5. but i only played it a few times after 150 hours of Civ 5 i'm quite sick of turn based strategy games now..
 
Avid fan of all the TW games, so keep that in mind.

I just recently bought it and haven't experienced any of the issues you mentioned, but since I was a bit late to the party, they might have experienced those issues earlier.

As to whether it is good, I like it. I sat on the fence for awhile since I didn't enjoy the original Shogun alot. (Mainly due to the time period). However, I really like this one. They made some improvements to the diplomatic element. Your actions resonate a bit more in the game. The price is very reasonable to me and the DLC is pretty cheap too. So my vote is yes buy it.
 
Totally worth every penny. I got mine for free with my video card, but after playing it, I would have gladly bought it for the $50 price tag it had originally.
 
Yes, it is a great game. If you already like TW, it's a magnificent entry into the series. The one caveat is the clans play a little bit more similarly than they do in the other games, but OTOH the level of polish is off the charts compared to previous games. It looks, sounds, and plays great. I didn't even have any technical or balance problems at launch...though to be fair I don't play at harder difficulties.

By the way, I bought the blood DLC and first expansion on Steam yesterday, and when I fired Shogun 2 up for the first time in a while to see if they were working, I noticed the menu was changed to a snowman winter theme apparently based on the fact its close to Christmas. I thought that was a cool easter egg...I wonder if it does something similar at other times.
 
My only real quip with the vanilla game is the magic spawning of enemy stacks in areas outside your view. I do not believe it was patched out but there was a mod that stopped it from happening.

Get all the DLC from Amazon too as they are super cheap and all qualify for the $5 in January promo.
 
It's one of my favorite TW games. I have played them all, and this is by far one of my favorites. Plus I love the time period/culture as well, so it was a no brainer for me.
 
PanzerBoxb said:
My only real quip with the vanilla game is the magic spawning of enemy stacks in areas outside your view. I do not believe it was patched out but there was a mod that stopped it from happening.

Get all the DLC from Amazon too as they are super cheap and all qualify for the $5 in January promo.
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Yeah, that nearly ruined the game for me. Not sure if it was patched or not. Hard to plan for enemies with scouting if they magically appear off the side of the map. Anyway, other than that it is a great game. I prefer Europe though to be honest and I greatly await another TW game as good as this set in Medieval Europe or Rome. I did hate Napolean TW though, I just dont care for the time period in general and forts are infinitely less cool than castles.
 
Great game. The only thing that I really disliked was the enemy AI when besieging castles/forts - there was absolutely no ability for them to sally out of said castle/fort, even if they outnumbered you 10:1. If they were all cavalry/infantry stuck in there, they could have 500 troops and just sit there while your 50 archers decimated them. :( Was that ever fixed, I beat it once soon after release and haven't gone back yet.
 
Yeah, I remember tweaks being released early on that fixed most the issues people complained about. I played it through once early on and didn't notice any of them (one was half of Japan turning against you near the end and making victory really difficult, which I think was fixed in the official version).

I think what they did with multiplayer is cool and creative and I hope they make more progress on it in the next game. Could be really really cool if improved on.

Overall a pretty solid game that had some minor issues at launch. I mostly just play sieges now, but the AI is kinda dumb there (sometimes allies don't attack with all units, enemy won't rush out and massacre you on the field, etc. )
 
Andrew_Carr said:
Yeah, I remember tweaks being released early on that fixed most the issues people complained about. I played it through once early on and didn't notice any of them (one was half of Japan turning against you near the end and making victory really difficult, which I think was fixed in the official version).
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Was that really an issue? I think that was kind of cool actually - once you get overly powerful, the clans realize that only by banding together can they beat you. I thought it was a nice touch, too bad they got rid of that, seems like it would be easy mode after that point, that was one of the few difficult parts. :(
 
Like I said, I didn't really notice it. But a lot of other people said it made the game impossible or w/e. Not sure what they were playing.
 
I can vouche for the game being difficult on max difficulty when the ream divide happens, but I thought it was good that way.
 
thanks for the tip, just bought the game... looking forward to the online features (online campaign ftw)
 
This seems like a stupid question but I can't figure it out... I bought Shogun 2 during the Steam sale 2 or so weeks ago. I thought I bought all the extra DLC too, but when I go to the DLC store now, it shows the following with an option to add to my cart. How can I verify if I already bought them? I can't tell by looking through the Shogun 2 folders...

- Ikko Ikki Clan Pack
- Sengoku Jidai Unit Pack
- Rise of the Samurai Campaign
- The Hattori Clan Pack
- Blood Pack DLC

(Though I bought the game a while ago, I haven't played it at all yet).
 
Right-click it, go to properties, and you should see a DLC tab.
 
great game but seems to be pretty hardware demanding. can anyone else comment on this?
 
dcho said:
great game but seems to be pretty hardware demanding. can anyone else comment on this?
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For me, it seemed to run a tad better than Empire on the same hardware. It's definitely not significantly worse. I was able to max it out @ 1920 with very few hiccups on the rig in my signature.
 
enlightenedby42 said:
For me, it seemed to run a tad better than Empire on the same hardware. It's definitely not significantly worse. I was able to max it out @ 1920 with very few hiccups on the rig in my signature.
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hmm. Whats maxing it out? I'm trying to check all settings (shader model 5, dx11) ultra everything at 2560x1600 on 580's (1.5gb) in SLI on a 2600k at 4.3 but average around 50 fps. Can you PM me back?
 
dcho said:
hmm. Whats maxing it out? I'm trying to check all settings (shader model 5, dx11) ultra everything at 2560x1600 on 580's (1.5gb) in SLI on a 2600k at 4.3 but average around 50 fps. Can you PM me back?
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I tried to benchmark at 1920x1200 with max settings and was flat told I didn't have the muscle. Dialed AA down to 2x and I think AS to 4x and benched again, think I got 32 fps. Need a better video card. >.<
 
dcho said:
hmm. Whats maxing it out? I'm trying to check all settings (shader model 5, dx11) ultra everything at 2560x1600 on 580's (1.5gb) in SLI on a 2600k at 4.3 but average around 50 fps. Can you PM me back?
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That's a higher res than mine, and my GPU doesn't support DX11 or SM5. Everything else was at ultra.

With the SLI setup and DX11 I rather imagine there are a few more variables at play. I haven't played much since a few months after the game came out, so I don't think I have real experience with the newest version either.
 
I played it quite a bit more with the DLC. This game is good, but the restricted land mass can really make it frustrating at times. I prefer to play as the tougher factions but some of the situations are very tough. Also, they can rename this game from Shogun 2 to "Control the expensive trade ports". I got really bored when I found my strategy was the same everytime; Rush trade ships for incense and spices and hope get as many trade agreements as possible.

Overall, I still had a lot of fun with the game but I eagerly await another Rome Total War or Medieval Total War.
 
So...this is apparently the first game I've ever run across that will bring my rig to its knees if the settings are maxed out. I'm talking 20 FPS on the overland map.
 
I play this game maxed out on my rig and no real issues. But yeah the campaign map is a little laggy, but that's not really important for this type of game, as long as the battles are 40+ fps I am happy as a clam. Only technical issue I have is the extreme loading times. This has always been the case with Total War games though, so I am not surprised at all lol. Minor issue from an outstanding game and series.
 
you2 said:
Is there anyway to speed up the load time?
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That's what I would like to know as well. They're almost unbearably long, even on SSD.

The low framerates, I can deal with by dialing the settings back and picking "Ultra" settings instead of fully maxed out -- that gives me 70+ fps. The incredibly long load times, I can't find a solution to. The game just seems poorly optimized. It doesn't look all that much better than the previous games in the series.
 
The game is an absolute improvement over Empire. Empire's campaign map lags so badly for me that it's unplayable.

However, I don't really like the style of Shogun for whatever reason and have not put much time into it. I still liek Rome and MEdieval II the best.
 
I think it's sort of the curse of the Total War series. Every one has had sorta long load times during battles for me. Granted Rome is a lot easier now because my system is a lot faster than what it was when I first played it. But to me its always been slow load times with TW games. Like i had said in my previous post, its a small price to pay for an outstanding series of games.

@J W: I was in the same boat when I first played the demo. I thought it was rock solid, but couldn't get used to the various Japanese-themed icons and whatnot because they were not familiar to me after playing all of the previous TW games (except the first Shogun which I never bought for some reason even though I am fascinated by Japanese history). But I bought the game anyways, and after playing it for quite a while, I am thoroughly used to everything. Take a chance with it, you will probably like it a lot more after playing it for a bit longer.
 
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