Am I the only one losing every time? (RotS)

[themoob]

So far I've tried 3 campaigns with the "easy" rated factions... and I keep getting my ass kicked! Not in battles, but on the campaign map. The AI steamrolls my buddies, declare war on me as soon as they can, and manage to field multiple full stacks when I can barely afford one!

This is just on normal/normal!

Is anyone else getting their ass kicked constantly?

[Sylentwolf8]

I'm playing on Hard/Hard as Minamoto, and facing off against Fujiwara and some minor Taira clans to the west, and still doing quite well. This is also while my sister Minamoto clan was wiped out early on. Who are you playing as, and what is your playstyle campaign map wise?

[krisslanza]

Do keep in mind that the AI kind of cheats. In that it probably doesn't have to worry about taxes, income, or recruitment slots.

[Sylentwolf8]

Do keep in mind that the AI kind of cheats. In that it probably doesn't have to worry about taxes, income, or recruitment slots.

The ai is under the same rules as the player, and only cheats so to speak on hard+ difficulties. On easy mode the player is actually the one that has cheats with increased income, less unrest, etc. On normal everything is completely equal.

[themoob]

I've tried the northern Minamoto clan (twice) and the northern Fujiwara clan (forget their exact names). I've tried a different style each time, first I tried focusing on military might, then I tried a mix of economy and military, then I tried focusing on agents... each time my sister clan gets defeated quickly, and the other two major clans surround me and declare war with multiple stacks within 40 turns.

[cloner4000]

ROTS is harder I believe, first the time line is shorter only 100 turns on short versus 120 turns. The starting position is tricky and enemy are more aggressive because of the -40 from different families. I played with Kamakura minamoto on hard and just can't get the upper hand because I have to fight two front war with Fujiwara to the north and taira to the west.

If you find that you don't have enough unit remember to specialize your city. First you want city that focus on commerce only and one or two city that build military unit. For example as Kamakura Minamoto you start off with sagami with the ironsmith so that should be your primary unit producing city. While izu and musashi are good commerce cities. Izu because of the gold mine and Musashi because it got access to port.

For commerce city you want to build trading ports and granary line of market because they give good bonus to wealth growth and that translate to more money. The build clan estate to increase the % of tax you can levy.

On the cities without port you can build schoolhouse, temples as you see fit.

You should get buffer cities that have town watch/militia building that provide a generous defensive units and then provide that cities with a couple archers and one or two units of sword attendent or foot samurai they fight off army twice their size. Remember to upgrade once so you get the walled fort. and just use your main stack to counter one side.

I wouldn't advice you to explore too much early on pick a side and stick with it. The enemy can't declare way on you if they dont know you exist.

Its a balance to try to find trading partners and not overexpose yourself.

[Hartassen]

Playing on legendary as the dark red taira that controls kyto from start I'm doing pretty well. Got starter regions + omi + ise + iga. About to convert yamato in a couple of turns. All towns except my capital of settsu are commerce cities and im raking in about 6k per turn on normal taxes. Currently no enemies. Start was rough tho, the omi vassal betrayed me while I was fighting the Iga clan right after taking kawachi so I had to exempt kawachi + put garrison which put me at a disadvantage vs Iga and then the betrayal of the Omi clan was a lot to handle After that the toki + shiba clans declared war on me and now shiba is dead and toki sued for peace.

I got 3 trade nodes, 1 of the incense and 1 of the chinese texts + the wood one. and I got a trade agreement securing me the iron from fujiawara lands.

All in all, good campaign ^^

[Conanophile]

The settings I think make it impossible to win the game even on easy.
I have found in the last few days, that after first couple of turns easy plays exactly the same as very hard.
What is the point of that ?

[ArcticSoldier]

I lost quite a few campaigns as well.. I can't seem to get a good start as either Fujiwara and get assaulted by several full stacks within 20 turns while barely having half of a full stack of my own .

[Ludicus]

ROTS is harder I believe

Yep.

This is just on normal/normal!
Is anyone else getting their ass kicked

*raises a hand*

[Ethien]

I lost quite a few campaigns as well.. I can't seem to get a good start as either Fujiwara and get assaulted by several full stacks within 20 turns while barely having half of a full stack of my own .

While it's tempting to just build up as Fujiwara and possible, you still need to be proactive in hindering your opponents. If you're not disabling your enemy's capability to produce income and soldiers, then naturally they're going to build up.

Are you utilizing agents? Every agent in Rise of the Samurai is useful and can be used to take provinces, invite revolts, seduce generals, kill generals, or various other means of debilitating enemy forces. If you're not as active with your military, then you have to be very active with your agents. Otherwise as you build up, so will other clans and they'll only grow larger.

[valky]

If your sister clan is beaten quite a lot, just place a small army near the town so you can intervene in the enemy's attack as well. And do the battle manually! You'd be wondered how this simply move turns the tides (usually)
Though this helps only if he has quite some army in there. Did this in the normal campaign very often to help my vassal to survive and even to reduce the enemies armies, so I could wipe him out afterwards

[The AI will often send his general only against your troops and you'd be able to easily kill him = reduced morale for his troops = win]

And don't underestimate the new agents, specially the new Geisha (forgot the name) - it's very helpful to stall the movement of armies.

Besides, I actually thought at the beginning that RotS is fairly easy, cause the starting mini-clans didn't build any greater armies and I could easily capture their towns. But after turn 30+ it became pretty stressful for me as the greater clans became stronger and usually declare war on you.

[boifido]

This is just on normal/normal!

I'm playing on Hard/Hard as Minamoto

Are you able to set the difficulty levels separately in shogun 2? I only get 1 slider when I start a campaign. I'm pretty sure I remember 2 sliders in old total war games. For fun I'd like to have battle difficulties legendary and campaign hard/very hard.


Right now I'm playing on hard and steamrolling everything. And the actual battles are wayyy to easy.

[Ethien]

Are you able to set the difficulty levels separately in shogun 2? I only get 1 slider when I start a campaign. I'm pretty sure I remember 2 sliders in old total war games. For fun I'd like to have battle difficulties legendary and campaign hard/very hard.


Right now I'm playing on hard and steamrolling everything. And the actual battles are wayyy to easy.

Yeah, I see only one slider as well. I'm assuming it's a habit attributed to previous games.

The battles are easy on hard, but I think it's sufficient on the campaign. So if there are two sliders, that would be awesome.

[Conanophile]

I lost quite a few campaigns as well.. I can't seem to get a good start as either Fujiwara and get assaulted by several full stacks within 20 turns while barely having half of a full stack of my own .

Apparently, the AI is programmed to spam Armies (using Create Force command) if the AI isn't doing well.
Or just if it fancies.

[WatcherCA]

Apparently, the AI is programmed to spam Armies (using Create Force command) if the AI isn't doing well.
Or just if it fancies.

No, it doesn't.
The same rules about unit spawning that applied in the original campaign also apply to the Rise of the Samurai campaign (except there is no Ashikaga).
Please see: http://forums.totalwar.com/showthrea...ies-now-sticky

[Altimis]

Apparently, the AI is programmed to spam Armies (using Create Force command) if the AI isn't doing well.
Or just if it fancies.

Its built real armies

on harder difficult, they get recruitment bonus

[Finnbat]

Minamoto, Legendary mode, come on guys...

3 time now try that, but it seems like crazy task.
Last game (which I just ended) the last effort from AI was to attack me with 5 other family.
And was it 7 full stack they dropped on my shores. Well, it took my morale and I shot the machine.

What is frustating is that the diplomats dont get any results. Like that Taira family, they was in war with me all from the beginning and they NEVER wanted to even try a peace period.

When you see that the AI is programmed just to kill you and no mercy for realism, then it sucks me.
Some kind of realism should be made even it is Legendary mode, because why is it there, if it cant never be won ?

Well, I will try it again tonight.

[Becephalus]

Apparently, the AI is programmed to spam Armies (using Create Force command) if the AI isn't doing well.
Or just if it fancies.

The AI does not spawn armies. Rational people have been fighting that rumor since the game came out. I have never once seen in dozens of campaigns one army "spawn" nor have any of the egregious claims you hear about it ever been backed up on video. It is always ignorant newbies surprised by ambushes and other ridiculous stories. "This 1 provinces minor had 1 stack, then I killed it, next turn they had a brand new one, I killed that one...blah blah blah...6 stacks in 6 turns. IMPOSSIBLE OMGZ AI HAX!". You hear lots of stories like that, but there have been zero videos of it. People on the internet make up silly stories all the time, and then players cling to them to explain their losses.



As for the OP. Yes RotS seems a lot harder. I play hard and autoresolve everything. I beat the original campaign on H or VH with every clan and by the last few times could do it nearly every time.

In RotS I have lost badly my first three tries on H. Mostly because I was ramping up my economy too much too early and didn't have a good enough army when the first doom stack attacked me. With manual battles you might salvage that, but with autoresolve it is death.

Going to try a game tonight where I build up my first stack more quickly. Maybe that will help.

[Finnbat]

Like I told in the previous post, I tried that Legendary difficulty setting and it went horribly wrong many times. But now, in the last game I didnt loose totally before the end bells. So actually I am very proud when managed to SURVIVE all the turns and actually my troops were on very good speed at the end turns. I had 16 castle.

Well, maybe the key was when I took (Playing Minamoto (the blue) clan) that very good area on east side.
This can be done in turn 2. Then developed my economy strongly and sended merchant fleets to west.

I suffered long time of Kaira family when they raid my shiplines. I realized too late that I must deal with force against them. And when builded very hard navy fleet (5 large + 5 medium ships) I finally got rid of them and koku started to roll in like never before.

Actually I start to like this Legendary challenge, allthought it sucks when you know the AI can do things with load of cash and load of material. But hey, otherwise they cant manage your monger warmachines, heh.

Next night I will try more agressive style and deal better with trade and protecting the tradelines.
Then I dream to first time win the campaign in Legendary level. And that will be awesome celebration !



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