Total War: Shogun 2 new video

[Basileos Leandros I]

That was way too easy to climb those walls! And Kieran, sorry brother, play some more Total War :tongue
Here's my impression of the video.

For a start, the eye candy looks all good except I have a couple of points to raise:
- too much room - is that even a castle? a battlefield with walls, that's it
- you cannot garrison the keep - BAD IDEA. sieges in Japan featured fighting to the death in the keep, so why can't we do this since towers can be garrisoned?!
- animations look way too much Hollywood - however they are fluid and that's what's necessary, so a plus on that
- sprites are horrible, as usual - I guess they didn't fix this part since Empire
- snow looks beautiful, same for the whole landscape, I loved it
- the buildings are sketchy at most, they look somewhat amateurish but that's my opinion

And now the AI.
- careful, I like that - they stopped before entering the fire line of the archers
- they flanked, not just throwing all of their troops into one single barrier
- Kieran used the keep to protect himself from the archers, so another plus
- they spread out and act more intelligent, another plus
- still, they don't know how to provide nasty surprises to the player - sure, they can flank, they don't engage as often, but it was still predictable
- pathfinding has been improved


Overall, it looks good, but it still needs a lot of work. I'm worried that it won't go very much past this stage.

[totalwar-zone]

So my conclusion: Battle Report 1 say to me: Buy it.
Battle Report 2 scream to me: stay away!!!

Let's see how CA responds. Is the first video in a long time of which I read more negative criticism than positive.

Nice greet

[emperor77]

Hmm didn't look too bad i think, at least none of the AI units got stuck or anything. Not too happy about scaling walls thing all over again unless that's the definitive way of sieges in feudal Japan as i don't know much about them (any feudal Japanese siege expert wanna comment on this?).

[totalwar-zone]

You dont need a siege expert, its only that Samurai (or other Troops) climbing the wall ...

[emperor77]

I think you misunderstood me. I was wondering if scaling the walls was something that happened regularly during sieges in feudal Japan, as in how realistic are these spidermen in Shogun 2?

[klok]

looks good but where is the radar?

[Deutschland]

Its minimal UI.

[DarkArk]

as in how realistic are these spidermen in Shogun 2?

Actually more realistic than you would think. Look at the other thread discussing it for more answers, but suffice to say this was a common occurrence during Sengoku-era sieges. There's a reason the Japanese never developed heavy siege weapons.

[Erwin Rommel]

How many times do we have to post this pic? Hell there is even one where the much hated and whined ninja ropes are illustrated as well.

[MeenChawitTH]

That capture-able tower (On the outer layers which can turn against defender) seemed serves gameplay purpose pretty well.
Otherwise I would have had all my unit congested in the innermost layer.

Wall-climbing doesn't sounded too bad, considering to have clogged at the gate or the hole otherwise.
But I think, they should have a severe stamina penalties for the climber, and let them open the gate for the remaining.

[Matamoros]

Nice landscapes and snow.

But:
Spider samurais ruin the whole siege because it renders archers totally ineffective.
What about ladders, ram? It may be un-japanish or realistic, but it adds to the gameplay.
Any army can go the whole way to the castle, take a couple of arrows and thats it. Climb the walls, done.
Archers simply don't have the time to make a little massacre.
What the hell? In 10 years couldn't they build a siege engine/mechanics that doesn't bore you to death?
Medieval 2 sieges were even exciting when you compare them with the sieges of Shogun 2.

And the huge banners kill the whole immersion. I know they are practical and informative, but a bit subtler would be better I think. It's pratical when you see them from a distance, no doubt about it, but in close view they are ugly as hell.
As ugly as the ballons in the back. I find it ridiculous, I don't care if they were historically correct, but it's annoying.

There is still time to polish it I think, and I hope it will look better if you set the unit scale to "huge".

[panzerschreck]

How many times do we have to post this pic? Hell there is even one where the much hated and whined ninja ropes are illustrated as well.

on this pic we can see a few soldiers trying with a lot of difficulties to climb but not whole units, hundreds of soldiers! The problem in the video is that the whole unit climb the wall in one minute...So there is no reason anymore to be in a fortress if it's so easy to climb.

[Mr_Cyberpunk]

Funny how this game has Strategic Points in it, we've been asking for that feature since ETW.. and yet this game is the one that gets it. That just makes me angry. That should have been in the previous two games like we all requested. But ah well at least its done.

Was so damn annoyed to see the damn battle timer in the game again.. WHY! you don't need it, if the enemy kills the defenders then the battle is over. God damn it, can they just get rid of that already, its the worst possible thing to do for seiges IMO because it reduces the entire gameplay into one big rush to the center. But I am glad that now finally the AI is branching off to take strategic points- instead of bottlenecking into one area and rushing the center.

Keiran can't play for crap, and his little jokes made me want to punch him. Stop being such a show off douche please- you can do that once you actually learn how to play the game you're supposed to be working on but joking like you don't give a about the game is rather insulting. Could they seriously get a QA tester to demo the game in the future- because at least they "should" know how to play the game properly. You can really tell Keiran doesn't play the games he works on.

Well I feel a little better about this game seeing that video. Though it still looks way too much like ETW.

The whole video I was like "oh god this game is going to need modding so badly", the fact that the general just routs like that is appauling, what happened to the Honor code?! definately unit morale needs tweaking.

I noticed some bad LOD poping going on there too- and the animations don't look very smooth.

[totalwar-zone]

looks good but where is the radar?

Maybe in off Mode?

I think you misunderstood me. I was wondering if scaling the walls was something that happened regularly during sieges in feudal Japan, as in how realistic are these spidermen in Shogun 2?

Ok.

on this pic we can see a few soldiers trying with a lot of difficulties to climb but not whole units, hundreds of soldiers! The problem in the video is that the whole unit climb the wall in one minute...So there is no reason anymore to be in a fortress if it's so easy to climb.

Thats true. troops climb to fast.

[AqwertyBqwerty]

TY!!!!! My only complaints are:

1. No enterable buildings?! The towers are a nice addition, but I want an epic last stand in the keep where the last flag is at the top, and an epic defeat animation when the last soldier is struck down

2. Textures seem to be a little less dramatic then in battle report 1...they still look awesome, and i'm sure it'll change when we play in night battles, but still, the units and the castle as a whole seem a little drab

[COOL-JACK]

[Maizel]

on this pic we can see a few soldiers trying with a lot of difficulties to climb but not whole units, hundreds of soldiers! The problem in the video is that the whole unit climb the wall in one minute...So there is no reason anymore to be in a fortress if it's so easy to climb.

I still dont see the big difference to climbing those walls in S2, and scaling them with ladders in previous games.
Ay medium sized army could build 10 ladders in a turn, and getting up those ladders didn;t take any longer as scaling a wall did in that video.

[bangell99]

I was disappointed that Kieran played so badly on purpose, and was so heavily outnumbered. The commentary annoyed me, too.
However, I was very impressed by the AI's attacks from multiple directions, its handling of archers and awareness of control points.

[hardcore knight]

what about the lagg when they zoom into the big fights..

[Furious Mental]

I hope that scaling walls is not necessarily so ridiculously easy. Surely defending troops should be able to stab the enemy and drop rocks on them when they are trying to climb up.