Hello everyone!

After 1800 hours of my multiplayer experience in Shogun 2 I decided to I write my first post here - my own opinion about several things I would like to change in the whole MP community.

My point of view is very different from the rest of community, but purpose of this text is to inspire people who wants to be inspired. By no mean I am forcing anyone to agree with me, but I will speak from the hearth as I feel. Any constructive critique or polemization is welcomed in replies.

I have spent lot of time reading, but especially thinking over "Art of War" and "Book of Five Rings" books. I've studied (and still studying) them very deeply and with Shogun 2 I practiced my understanding of the books. Based on my understanding of these books, I now try to describe what I see other people are doing wrong.

1) People enforce rules in their room
My personal opinion is that warfare should have no rules. The reason behind this is that by stating rules, you are limiting people's strategies they can use (not so challenging, I like challenges), but well, you have right to demand rules as a host. But what I think is more important that by enforcing rules, you reveal your weaknesses. For example if someone says: "No art", "No bows", "No cav", "Maximum 4 cav units" etc it is very clear to me that either he has some troubles to deal with those, or he has predetermined strategy. Both of these are exploitable weaknesses and it is not wise to reveal them to the enemy. Next important thing about this topic is that host cannot guarantee that he (and all other players) will obey the rule(s) by other means than "honest word". From the position of army's general, with goal to defeat the enemy, it is foolish to give enemy free advantage and to trust your enemy's words. Another advantage you give enemy by that is, that once you accept the rule, assuming you will follow it, then you become predictable more than if enemy didn't know whether you take it or not. Because of these reasons, I always tell to such people that "I do not obey any rules.", waiting for a kick (sometimes they change their oppinion). It earned me the reputation of arrogant idiot, but I win more often and that's all I care about :) But never allow your enemy to control you like this, unless you can use it to deceive him or you are sure you win it anyways. Also good thing about this is that lot of simple-minded people will read that as "Doesn't obey? Ah, he cannot play without artillery", but thinking like that is easy trap to fall in when it's done on purpose. Consider carefully. For me it means that if I don't take artilelry and find a way how to neutralize theirs (ambush, being out of range, being protected by terrain, human shield, baiting artillery shots with mobile units and wasting all their ammo), then I have advantage of 2000 koku (price of their artillery), it's all about using right counter-strategy.

2) People use favourite build and rush too much
Lot of people overlook the importance of spending some time in lobby room, they use their favourite build despite of they play with different people everytime. For example the situation is: There is room for 2 vs 2... 3 players are already inside, unpatiently waiting for the last one to come. He comesand immediately they mark as ready, while shouting: "Ready up, go go go". Not only this is disrespectful, but again morality is not my point. Revealing that you are not patient publicly is dangerous. It means that you cannot withstand "camping", "hit & run" and other waiting tactics and perceptive and clever opponent will exploit this against you. But it also shows more critical mistake - that you haven't adapted your army build relative to your opponent. If your enemy does it, but you do not, then you automatically gave free strategic advantage to your enemy. Of course you cannot know what he takes, but there are ways how to improve the consideration. First way is to judge whether you are facing FOTS or Shogun enemy. Then experience from previous battles with same people comes into play. If you cannot determine what enemy has, there is workaround - you can infect his mind and tell him what to take. For example in one battle I asked publicly: "Is cavalry spam allowed?" and I got answer "If you feel like it will help you, be free to take it.". However my real purpose was to deceive enemy to take lot of spears so I can beat them easily with swords and it worked! I started the battle hidden in the woods and enemy confident with spears approached it without any caution, then swords stormed out of the forest and enemy was defeated. I encourage all players to take psychology and deception as important part of the game.

I have more ideas and opinions, but first I'll wait how this is received within the community, and then I'll decide whether to continue or not.

Cheers, see you on the battlefield!