Your thoughts on Shogun 2.

**Benzo** · January 09, 2011, 01:30 PM

I've watched all the videos and looked at all the latest news for the game. And therefore i have created a topic to get others people's views on this.

In my opinion the game looks very clean. The graphics look almost life like and the actual sword movement is exceptional.

Watching the battle reports shows us the variety of battlefields. With rainstorms in the middle of the night to a beautiful summers day.

When I saw the first battle report the first thing that captured my eyes was the fire. I noticed some units carried lanterns and the castle in the background was also lit up.

Another thing that captured my eyes was the fire arrows. About 3 units fired these arrows and pretty much destroyed a unit of charging cavalry. This is a great feature as archers used to be good but it would take them ages to take out a unit of cavalry, and the fire arrows were not so much different to the normal arrows.

As i watched the second battle report the AI really caught my attention. No more stupid AI doing the same thing over and over again using the same set up day in day out. And watching the report really shows us we will need to use skilled tactics to pull of a victory.

The naval battles also look very pleasant as we can now see coastlines. We can now navigate around land but its a shame CA haven't found a way to link land to sea. Looks like we might have to wait till we can deploy are army out of are ships. As i have always wanted to rush a beach like on Achilles and Saving Private Ryan.

All in all i can't wait for this game. I think it is going to knock all the other Total wars away.

**TW Junkie** · January 09, 2011, 07:50 PM

I think it will fall short of providing the experience I've always wanted from a sequel to the first Shogun being that it was one of my favorite games of all time. BUT I still think it will be pretty cool, and will provide a few hours of fun here and there.

**Mikelus Trento** · January 10, 2011, 10:41 AM

Originally Posted by TW Junkie

I think it will fall short of providing the experience I've always wanted from a sequel to the first Shogun being that it was one of my favorite games of all time. BUT I still think it will be pretty cool, and will provide a few hours of fun here and there.

Ditto.

The venue is not one that interests me the most, but I surely did like the first one.

**zachattack** · January 09, 2011, 08:04 PM

I am very happy because it's swords and shields instead of gunpowder.

The animation and battle looks VERY fluid and crisp, coming from Rome Total War. I really like the way the game looks.

The new siege mechanics compared to RTW and MTW look very unique and interesting.

I'm also half Japanese so of course I find the whole culture very interesting.

I think this game will be a big hit, and I'll forgive CA for their fails that were E:TW and N:TW.

**PrimerX** · January 09, 2011, 11:47 PM

I worry about the AI which has always been a very weak point with Creative Assembly.

I also am not happy with the lack of support of the modding community. After Rome and MTW2 modding, it went downhill pretty hard. Vanilla is NEVER as good as something like Stainless Steel or Total Realism.

This will be the first TW game I will not buy on release. I will await the reviews in particular on the traditionally woeful AI and diplomacy that has hurt these games in the past.

I wish CA luck though. Hope they can pull of a good product.

**Mr_Inu** · January 10, 2011, 02:32 AM

Originally Posted by PrimerX

This will be the first TW game I will not buy on release. I will await the reviews in particular on the traditionally woeful AI and diplomacy that has hurt these games in the past.

Same here. May pick it up after good reviews and during a sale. But Napoleon already looked polished and everything, and I hardly ever played that.

**RazorbackII** · January 10, 2011, 01:04 AM

I think I will reserve my judgement on AI until the release. I'm not expecting miracles though, but I think it is more simple for CA with swords and archers than gunpowder units. To be fair, I bet the era of Nappy and Empire were very difficult and a massive undertaking.

I'm not fussed about naval landing battles. If they have a system where you have the naval battle and then you win, and instantly select, proceed to land battle, it could just skip to the ships on the coast with the units ready for deployment on an awaiting army. Personally, I don't see how this is different from it all happening seamlessly. If anything, it is less messing about/opportunities for the AI to snipe you as you come off the boats.

I wish there were more modding capabilities though.

What I like the look of most if the role playing element. Building up agents with tech trees will make us very much more connected to our empire and probably give us a more, 'I do not want to lose this guy

' kind of emotion rather than, ah well, time to make another. Same for online, looking good. BUt I will not buy at launch, but mainly due to PC arrangements. I can't play it on this laptop

**Benzo** · January 10, 2011, 01:50 AM

My laptops a good one. I think i can play it on this.

**Elyrioth** · January 10, 2011, 04:08 AM

Pre-ordered, though I am thinking of revising this.
Not cos I think there will be issues. NTW was the best release to date from a quality perspective.
I pre-order from Play and while they seem to get to UK on the day of release I have to wait 4-5 days after release to get it.
Think this time I will buy from a store on teh day of release

**clibinarium** · January 10, 2011, 07:13 AM

On the subject of the AI; I was wondering the other day what people compare the AI with. There are very few games that are like TW games, so which are the useful comparitors? I suppose the EU series provides a good match in terms of campaign AI, I don't have the game so I don't know how they compare, but I know TW has had weaknesses in diplomacy etc in the past.

With battle AI it's a bit harder; what other game would you compare it to, and is that game better in BAI? There are lots of complaints to be heard on the forum, but realistically are CA behind others working in the genre, or is it that people expect the AI to match them?

**Elyrioth** · January 10, 2011, 07:21 AM

EU III is good like the campaign, AI is better on that but still has issues, no battles though.
Only real game in the TW style was Imperial Glory. It had some great inovative additions to the campaign. Loved the deplomacy, it had naval battles too, before TW did. But the AI was attrocious, also no moral system. So that made cheap crappy troops the order of the day. They would never run away.

CA certainly improved with NTW. As they are going back to the familiar CC type battles we can hope for another improvement again.

**Abspara** · January 10, 2011, 10:07 AM

The game looks pretty and I'm sure it will have nice box art.

**Greve Af Göteborg** · January 10, 2011, 10:21 AM

^sniff sniff, I smell sarcasm

Anyway IMO the gameplay looks good so far.

**JackDionne** · January 10, 2011, 10:27 AM

I am looking foreword to it as well because I like the time frame with sword and shield.

I am hoping they listen this time to the TW online community and give us back the lobby for the online custom battles. It will send the wrong message out to the fan base if they don’t.

I am keeping my fingers crossed and trying to be patient while we wait.

**Abspara** · January 10, 2011, 12:36 PM

Originally Posted by Greve Af Göteborg

^sniff sniff, I smell sarcasm

Anyway IMO the gameplay looks good so far.

Oh no, i've never been more serious. I'm quite confident the box art will be appealing

**Greve Af Göteborg** · January 10, 2011, 01:01 PM

Originally Posted by Abspara

Oh no, i've never been more serious. I'm quite confident the box art will be appealing

Hehe, so what do you think the gameplay will be like?

**Wundai** · January 11, 2011, 12:16 PM

Originally Posted by Greve Af Göteborg

Hehe, so what do you think the gameplay will be like?

Like a statue of Jesus pointing with a big smile, laughing at the army of teppo units in front of him...pointing at his heart, thinking they stand a chance.