Cu'Roi's Review

**dmcheatw** · March 29, 2011, 06:42 PM

I'll give my 2 cents about the MP experience in shogun. let me preface this by saying that i have a couple thousand hours played between ETW and NTW, and 100 hours right now on shogun. I'm mainly posting this to all those guys who think i just bash CA for the sake of bashing them. I like to think i bash them when they deserve bashing and praise them when they deserve praise.

For the first time since the debacle of ETW i see progress and have hope for the series. basically they have reached the point where they left off with their old engine in this installment, and everything they have experimented on in NTW and ETW i see brought back in shogun but refined and applied better (spear squares, walking while invisible, unit caps, fire by rank, etc.)

on the downside there are a lot of bugs still (even from the perspective of a casual player). gamebreaking ones in MP, like regional (not global) servers making it impossible for some people to get games due to insufficient amounts of people and games not visible in the game list even among people who are friends on steam. also, none of the leaderboards or stat tracking systems are reliable for the time being (even after patch 1 which was advertised as fixing that) reporting impossible stats and contradicting themselves. Matchmaking is dicey for 1 v 1s and is totally broken for parties of 3 more more players. 2 v 2 match making works reliably but isn't bug free either.

on the plus side, this is by far the most realistic morale system TW has ever implemented - and it was already pretty darn good. Role-playing for your general adds a new dimension and variety of gameplay (and it actually circumvents the conflicting goals of making MP balanced vs. adding variety and flavor to each faction). Units now have clearly defined and actually useful roles in contrast to their previous 2 titles. For example light dragoons in ETW 1.0v-1.3v could fulfill all the roles of scouting, ambushing, covering retreats, charges, and holding up in sustained melee against cav and inf, and were as fast as light cav, thus making all other cav types useless. But in this game many more specialized units seem to be useful. for the first time sieges make sense, with attackers getting double the funds defenders get. The dynamic between smaller more powerful armies (think france in NTW) with larger weaker armies (spain in NTW) is more relevant than ever and presents even more strategic choices in army building.

All in all, with regard to MP, this game is solid, but will still cause a lot of frustration until it gets patched totally (which could take as long as 1 year worst case). It's worth 50 bucks now, but assuming they get the major bugs patched in a month or two, it will be a must-get game for any fan of the franchise.

And now I will make a prediction. IF, IF, the creative assembly announces a release date for 2013 (as opposed to march 2012) for RTW2, the game will be phenomenal.

UPDATE: Nearly 3 months after release, I want to back track and say the game is borderline garbage for MP. the main thing that my review hinged on was productive and timely patching to make an expectedly buggy release a proper game. It was reasonable to expect that the patching process would progress quickly and proficiently (unlike in ETW for example where truly ground breaking features were being coded into a new engine) because there are no revolutionary changes between this instalment and the last, just comparatively simple and minor additions to the base game that many many other games have already provided a model for (sure the setting is totally different as are the skins and graphics, but aside from the last thing this is little more than modding/artwork).

Time has proven that in reality patching has been infrequent and underwhelming. Critical things like random skill point resets have not been addressed, and new critical bugs like avatar resets have been created as a by-product of patching. Server stability has actually decreased since release, and things like alt-f4 are no closer to being solved and quite possibly even worse than on release as well. the last patch made nice inroads into addressing game balance, but it also broke the fundamental fairness of avatar mode by allowing bugged veterans and randomly kicking people from their clans, resetting their clan skill upgrades with no refunds, to name 2 examples. When you consider the fundamental fairness of the game has been broken by those examples alone, it essentially means that balance tweaks are pointless in a game that is marketed as having a comprehensive ranking system - you're game must be fair and the rules consistent before you begin to adjust balance issues... CA remains uncommunicative with the community but they have hinted that their next title is going to be released in March of next year, rather than waiting until 2013. This is not confirmed, but if it's true that signals the death knell for any chance of any meaningful improvements and polish in the next TW instalment. All in all, when the situation is viewed exhaustively, it's clear that the S2TW was again crippled by bugs that permanently and irrevocably damaged the health and longevity of the game, and by all accounts the owners of the franchise are now shifting their focus to DLC, an expansion, and their next title. There will still be patches, but even if they fix everything, the patches are now no longer timely, and the damage has largely already been done.

**VersionLangley** · March 29, 2011, 07:51 PM

The example you gave for the light dragoon OP fits quite well with yari cav m8. How often do you see light/katana/yabusame cav in a 10k/14k match?
-They fast as light cav to chase off yabusame.
-Good charge
-cheaper than katana cav but win handedly vs katana cav. The video for unlocking katana cav somehow said that they are good vs other cav units but they fair badly versus all
-cheaper than a double light but also win despite being sandwich by 2 light. 1 Light cav is 3/4 size of a yari.

Originally Posted by dmcheatw

It's worth 50 bucks now, but assuming they get the major bugs patched in a month or two, it will be a must-get game for any fan of the franchise.

...not sure if i agree with this m8. The regional/language restriction, fail MM for 3v3 like you stated above, and countless other gameplay bugs making the game 1 dimentional. Check out the stickied bugs thread. For those of us (i'm assuming you as well) who bought the game purely for MP experience, it definitely not worth the price of a minty released game.

Patience is a virtue, patience is a virtue, patience is a virtue, patience is a virtue,

Originally Posted by dmcheatw

And now I will make a prediction. IF, IF, the creative assembly announces a release date for 2013 (as opposed to march 2012) for RTW2, the game will be phenomenal.

err..which game will be phenomenal? They better not start a new project until this TW:S2 is fixed

**dmcheatw** · March 29, 2011, 08:29 PM

hah fair enough. with regard to cavalry, i see it like this: light cav is fastest and so can do recon, chase and be chased, and cover retreats. yari are lancers but are even worse in melee than lancers of old (lancers in NTW would defeat superior cav so long as you had a numerical advantage so you could take turns charging with them, in this game you can't really do that as the yaris will route before they can be called on to do a repeat charge) and slower than light cav. katana cav is slower still but is good in sustained melee against other cav units where yari and lights fail, and great guard cav embodies the best of all worlds (except for speed) but you have to pay for a unit that can both fight in melee and charge well. archer cav is harassment cav but isn't as fast as light cav, which is a major difference from past horse archers (and LDs) in total war games. oh and also in this game HA really have to be used as HA they don't double as light cav because they take too many deaths if they are forced to charge IMO.

i agree yari cav is most versatile (and my favorite for sure) but they are no ETW LDs. and they're no NTW lancers either. they are lancers with an even more narrow role than in the past.

patience is a virtue to be sure and except for TW games i do not buy games until i get a price reduction, which is also around the time they get patched to completion usually.

yeah i frown on starting on rome 2 as well, but really i am convinced that this has been their end game for awhile and everything they have done to this point is actually slowly building towards rome2. in a way, ever since they started on the warscape engine they have been working on rome 2.

**Achilleslastand** · March 30, 2011, 02:03 AM

Was it difficult getting on creative assemblys payroll CuRoi?

**Lucullus** · March 30, 2011, 02:50 AM

And now I will make a prediction. IF, IF, the creative assembly announces a release date for 2013 (as opposed to march 2012) for RTW2, the game will be phenomenal.

I wouldn`t bet on this one. CA normaly uses one engine for 2 full releases and 2 add-ons which would make the add-on or the stand alone add-on of s2tw the last one for warscape and the next full release the first on the next engine. If you look back on the (mp) release state of rtw and etw I don`t have as much confidence as you have. However there is a chance they will use this engine for a longer time to save development costs.

**dmcheatw** · March 30, 2011, 02:54 AM

@ achilles - haha well don't get me wrong my friend, CA is still little more than con artists and their PR front-man is a pathological liar, and they took everyone for a ride with ETW for sure. but despite all this i still see rays of hope though.

@ luc - yeah i'm banking on them using warscape for the next 2-3 titles actually, but if they decide to go with a new engine then yeah my hope will fade fast.

**Smart3** · March 30, 2011, 04:13 AM

Originally Posted by dmcheatw

I'll give my 2 cents about the MP experience in shogun. let me preface this by saying that i have a couple thousand hours played between ETW and NTW, and 100 hours right now on shogun. I'm mainly posting this to all those guys who think i just bash CA for the sake of bashing them. I like to think i bash them when they deserve bashing and praise them when they deserve praise.

For the first time since the debacle of ETW i see progress and have hope for the series. basically they have reached the point where they left off with their old engine in this installment, and everything they have experimented on in NTW and ETW i see brought back in shogun but refined and applied better (spear squares, walking while invisible, unit caps, fire by rank, etc.)

on the downside there are a lot of bugs still (even from the perspective of a casual player). gamebreaking ones in MP, like regional (not global) servers making it impossible for some people to get games due to insufficient amounts of people and games not visible in the game list even among people who are friends on steam. also, none of the leaderboards or stat tracking systems are reliable for the time being (even after patch 1 which was advertised as fixing that) reporting impossible stats and contradicting themselves. Matchmaking is dicey for 1 v 1s and is totally broken for parties of 3 more more players. 2 v 2 match making works reliably but isn't bug free either.

on the plus side, this is by far the most realistic morale system TW has ever implemented - and it was already pretty darn good. Role-playing for your general adds a new dimension and variety of gameplay (and it actually circumvents the conflicting goals of making MP balanced vs. adding variety and flavor to each faction). Units now have clearly defined and actually useful roles in contrast to their previous 2 titles. For example light dragoons in ETW 1.0v-1.3v could fulfill all the roles of scouting, ambushing, covering retreats, charges, and holding up in sustained melee against cav and inf, and were as fast as light cav, thus making all other cav types useless. But in this game many more specialized units seem to be useful. for the first time sieges make sense, with attackers getting double the funds defenders get. The dynamic between smaller more powerful armies (think france in NTW) with larger weaker armies (spain in NTW) is more relevant than ever and presents even more strategic choices in army building.

All in all, with regard to MP, this game is solid, but will still cause a lot of frustration until it gets patched totally (which could take as long as 1 year worst case). It's worth 50 bucks now, but assuming they get the major bugs patched in a month or two, it will be a must-get game for any fan of the franchise.

And now I will make a prediction. IF, IF, the creative assembly announces a release date for 2013 (as opposed to march 2012) for RTW2, the game will be phenomenal.

Hey we just played a few hours ago.
--- (TTC) Smart

**Abe86** · March 30, 2011, 06:49 AM

Yep, I think that's a fair review. I agree entirely.

I do think that after a period of time some imbalances will pop up, especially considering the new retainer, general skills and veteran unit skill features. I'm curious as to how CA will handle this (best case scenario Blizzard-like frequent patching and balancing).

**dmcheatw** · March 30, 2011, 03:15 PM

Originally Posted by Smart3

Hey we just played a few hours ago.
--- (TTC) Smart

haha cool, i remember that game, good fun!

@abe - yeah i agree there are/will be some imbalances, and i definately don't know the capabilities of all the units yet. avatar campaign is different than classic battles, and so some of the units abilities i don't fully appreciate. i think they will probably choose to make balances adjustments along the way with this game, like they did in ETW and NTW. it's good that they try to nerf OP units, but it also can be frustrating for someone who tries to learn every detail about the game only to have it all changed up on them in 2 months! but that's the way it goes i suppose.

**dmcheatw** · June 02, 2011, 05:47 PM

bump

**Emperor Arcturus Mengsk** · June 02, 2011, 07:00 PM

I agree with your review but like my posts about the client and how horrible it is, I think it's going on deaf ears, we get a lot of promises, a lot of patches that supposedly fix stuff, yet everysingle patch that came out so far claiming to have fixed something, is proven a lie after a while, for example the AI Reinforcement bug was fixed, but it wasn't,

I really love TW series but the people making it have come to love our money more than the series I think

**SuicideNooch** · June 02, 2011, 10:43 PM

I'm glad I got my copy free as a promotion when I ordered all the parts for my new pc........

**dmcheatw** · June 03, 2011, 01:15 PM

and one last thing, since avatar battles are broken and they won't fix them, not being able to see classic battles in the game lobby is actually a big deal.

**Lucullus** · June 04, 2011, 12:30 AM

Originally Posted by dmcheatw

and one last thing, since avatar battles are broken and they won't fix them, not being able to see classic battles in the game lobby is actually a big deal.

+1

**Haru** · June 04, 2011, 02:18 AM

There was a tournament for one not to long ago- Oh wait...

**dmcheatw** · June 04, 2011, 02:45 AM

^nobody ever said an avatar competiton didn't favor those who played avatar mode. In fact I would have told you classic was the best mode to compare the skill of two players.

the main thing that is not fair about it is random retainer drops, DLC, and overall quality of veterans. DLC is banned, veterans are capped, and of the random drop retainers, only 2-3 are worthwhile.

of course we say at the sign up page it is strongly recommended that you be level 10, for obvious reasons.

**dmcheatw** · June 04, 2011, 02:50 AM

and yeah if you are going to break avatar (from the perspective of the ladder and match making), then lucullus' complaint about classic battles becomes critical, as players have no recourse to the classic battle option if they cannot see the games in the first place.

**Lucullus** · June 04, 2011, 03:08 AM

the main thing that is not fair about it is random retainer drops, DLC, and overall quality of veterans.

Please add:

- clan specialisation
- random avatar deletion bug

Imho avatar mode and ranks are a curse for MP in the long run. Like Kronos said on another forum, nobody seems to play for fun anymore. They all care for leaderboards, ranks and stats. I have never seen so many people dropping from gamesetup in any previous games. They see 10 stars and quit immidiately. If you dont play among your clan or with friends it can take an eternity to get a game started. And in the long run, once the matchmaking doesnt work anymore due to a smaller pool of players, avatar mode with its army quality differences will certainly turn off a lot of new players thus Shogun MP will not revitalize like previous games. Shogun had a great start, many more players tried MP than ETW or NTW and even RTW/M2TW players who skipped gunpowder era were into it for a while. But now, not even 3 months later the joy and euphoria has cooled down much quicker among many players than in previous games even though they had massive problems like etw. but then again I tend to think that many who prefer avatar mode are not that much interested in the longlivity of MP, at least not over the date of the next expansion/installment of TW and move happily on.

**dmcheatw** · June 04, 2011, 03:51 AM

well clan specialization resets are new and we couldn't anticipate those. avatar reset has been fixed prior to sign-ups, but yes players who would have otherwise played didn't sign up as it was pointless to play avatar mode with a deleted avatar. but yes point taken.