Rise of the Samurai Spotlight and Review by enkidu88

[Legio]

The Rise of the Samurai is Creative Assembly’s newest downloadable content for Shogun 2, taking place 400 years before the events depicted in Shogun 2’s original campaign. Rise of the Samurai covers the turbulent era of the Genpei War. The introduction, once again told through Japanese style artwork, sets out the basics of the situation. Three families have risen to struggle for control of the Chrysanthemum Throne; the Imperial seat of the Emperor of Japan. The Taira seek to usurp power by planting a puppet on the throne, while the Minamoto and Fujiwara build their forces in order to counter such a move. The introduction sets the stage for the epic struggle and total war that you, the player, will have to take up arms to fight.

So the question is: does this DLC live up to the illustrious title Rise of the Samurai?

Following in the tradition of Total War and their expansions, the Rise of the Samurai campaign improves upon Shogun 2 in almost every way. The biggest change that you’ll notice almost immediately is the revamped campaign map. The level of detail is absolutely magnificent, and now you’ll see the changing seasons reflect a lot better off the new map. Huge swaths of forests cover the land still, but many are no longer impenetrable barriers like they used to be. Mountain peaks loom on the horizon a lot more realistically, and the ocean surf rolls across the watery shores. It’s mostly an aesthetic change, but it’s a most welcome one. However, it’s when you dive beneath the surface that you discover greater wonders await in Rise of the Samurai.

Each clan in the game has an allegiance to a certain family, and if they’re friendly towards your choice of belligerent family, you can use your Junsatsushi agent to request an allegiance from towns. Now on the surface this doesn’t seem that big a change from the bribery option from Shogun 2, but while I played through my campaign as the Fukuhara Taira, I found myself using my Junsatsushi to convert smaller clans to my cause. Without even realising it I found that I was using political power as a weapon of war. Suddenly Total War diplomacy that’s taken criticism since Rome: Total War and beyond becomes a key part of your war machine. I was even creating small civil wars in the smaller clans that surrounded me; often times convincing a son or general of a clan to defect with part of his army which I was then free to use to conquer the rest of the province. There’s just something deliciously cathartic in using your enemies troops against him.

You are of course free to conquer these provinces instead, but if you conquer a province not loyal to your family, be prepared to either garrison it heavily for several turns or fight off repeated uprisings. Political unrest seems to be far more powerful than religious unrest used to be in Shogun 2, and can really hamper any audacious plans of launching a blitzkrieg invasion of Japan at the drop of a conical hat.

The Ochi Clan getting ready for their medicine

While you’re building your base of power you’ll also want to research the “new” technologies available. I put new in quotations because in reality what you’re researching are actually the base technologies you know so well from Shogun 2. The new tech trees, Budo and Bunka, eventually lead into Bushido and the Way of Chi where the Shogun 2 main campaign picks up from. It’s an excellent tactic by Creative Assembly to remind us that we’re not just playing a new campaign, but a campaign that would lead into the Sengoku period.

Eventually, however, the time for political wheeling and dealing must come to an end. For me it came shortly after my Taira clan put the two year old infant Prince Antoku on the throne. With this move came a +2% tax bonus and a -25 in diplomatic relations, which quickly dissolved several of my trade agreements with smaller clans and sparked all-out war with the neighboring Minamoto family. Unlike the dreaded Realm Divide event from Shogun 2, however, this doesn’t immediately make the whole of Japan declare war on you but you’ll have a fight on your hands.

Mounted Naginata are to be relied on in RotS

So finally we come to the moment of battle, and they’re much the same as they were in Shogun 2. The uniforms and weapons are extremely authentic and accurate to what is known of the Genpei War era. Gone are your Yari spears and Dachi swords, and only your Samurai carry Katanas. Instead you’ll have to rely on your Naginata and bow armed troops.

...and occasionally a monk with a big stick

Reflecting on the era, the Bow has become a much more potent and important weapon. Your General can fire from horseback now, allowing him to engage the enemy without risking a charge into a wall of angry men ready to re-arrange his face. Your foot Samurai can be used to pelt the advancing enemy with arrows, and then charge in with their swords, doing equally well as archers and melee fighters. Once you get your mounted Samurai, you can truly have a well-armed mobile force, though unfortunately the Shogun 2 limitation of mounted archers only able to fire forward is still present. Indeed, it’s in the battles that a few flaws show up in an otherwise excellent addition.

First of all, the sizes of Samurai units are ridiculously small and doubly so for hero units. At maximum size the Samurai foot unit numbers only 60 men while a unit of Hero Omni Busha on the other hand will feature a whopping 20 women to command. If you tried to make a Samurai or Hero army you could easily find yourself outnumbered by thousands against an enemy army made of Levies and Attendants. Now while I understand that we aren’t supposed to build an army of Samurai, the small unit sizes only magnifies a much larger problem: Morale.

The tragic end of the epic Custom Battle of Generic Field

Troops in Rise of the Samurai seem to be made of people suffering from nervous disorders. When I originally started playing on hard difficulty, my Levy troops seemed to break if an enemy so much as looked at them funny while my Samurai often got overwhelmed by pure weight of numbers and routed not soon afterward. So far I’ve found that only the Attendant units are a capable battle unit, possessing superior morale than the levies while still having enough men to stand their ground against other units. I eventually turned the difficulty down to normal and then easy, just so my levies and Samurai would fight for more than thirty seconds before running. This problem also made me make all my generals take the abilities that grant extra morale, and while that sort of helped, it also assured that most of my generals couldn’t stand up in a fight since I had no points to invest in battle abilities. However, since better morale is just a simple stat alteration away, I have hope that eventually this problem will be either patched or modded out of existence.

Speaking of patches, released alongside Rise of the Samurai was a large patch. Most of these are behind-the-scenes changes, bug fixes, and multiplayer tweaks for the budding online conquerors amongst us. However, two of the changes stand out as outstanding. New castles have been added to the Shogun 2 campaign, and the siege AI has been greatly improved.

Takeda-Date got that tactic from Star Wars didn't they?!

How many times have you attacked a castle with an ally only to see them stand there and watch your troops die? Or worse, send their units in one at a time like sheep to slaughter? Well no longer. This change was noticeable to me while defending a fort from a combined Takeda-Date alliance army. My brave Ikko-Ikki warriors were ready to rout the enemy and annihilate Takeda while waiting for the timer to run out on Date who I assumed would stay immobile as usual. Imagine my surprise as I was caught unawares as two thousand Date warriors stormed over my walls. My poor Ikko Ikki peasants were trapped between a wall of Red and Blue, slowly being crushed like Han Solo in the trash compactor. Luckily the next best thing to the droid that retracts walls from Star Wars is the handy “load game” option. Loading a previous game is of course totally justified in “saving lives” as Takeda, Date and Ikko Ikki dead covered the fort like a grand red carpet.

Siege Battle AI improvements have brought up the slaughter factor quite a bit

The one new castle I've managed to find so far is a cliff-based fortress that features some interesting new tactical options for the defending and attacking faction. Normally I would never send my forces outside the walls, especially when it's a three-tiered Castle, but on this particular map there is an option for the defender to sally forth from the walls safely. The the new castles and siege AI changes definitely adds spice to siege battles.

New tricks and flanking options are abound in siege battles

This secluded North gate borders a small cliff that leads into a thick forest and it’s also isolated from the enemy deployment zones allowing you to send troops out the gate without any fear of Calvary charging them down as they file out. I quickly used this new addition to my advantage, sending out my elite warrior monks to flank through the forest and begin rolling up the enemies flank while my garrison troops held the line in the castle. Of course this new edition could also be used by the attacker, I can imagine using a small force to flank through this forest and attack the isolated gate while the larger diversionary army makes a frontal assault. Since the gate is located on the final tier of castle, it's probably possible to make a lightning strike on the castle flag, perhaps even managing to capture it before the enemy could react. This also forces defenders to leave a small force here to avoid just such an occurrence.

Conclusions?...well in the end Rise of the Samurai is worth every cent of the ten dollars it costs (£5.99 GBP). It offers a new improved campaign, new units and new strategies for victory. Aethsetically especially with the campaign map, there's massive improvements and new musical additions by Shogun 2 music mogul Jeff van Dyck make the DLC a really enjoyable experience. There are some problems with the combat, but they’re mostly simple balancing issues that will either be fixed with a patch or modification in time. Even so the issues are minor and aren't so severe as to eliminate the fantastic fun the campaign has to offer. Treat yourself like a champion samurai, and go get it now.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an emperor to slay!

Enkidu88

[cinemato]

Great Review! I agree!

[Chyeaaaa111]

Definitely worth the price.

[Kraut]

Good review, nicely points out the differences between STW2 main campaing and RotS.

[bangell99]

Well written; only a few mistakes. I didn't see you state any negative points, however.

[Enkidu88]

Well written; only a few mistakes. I didn't see you state any negative points, however.

Was even worse before the editing team fixed it up for me. I only had a day or two to write this.

Only negative point as far I could tell was the morale problem, which I did touch on. Then again some people might have other problems with the game that simply didn't occur to me. What is it that you felt I missed?

[bangell99]

Was even worse before the editing team fixed it up for me. I only had a day or two to write this.

Only negative point as far I could tell was the morale problem, which I did touch on. Then again some people might have other problems with the game that simply didn't occur to me. What is it that you felt I missed?

I don't own the DLC, so there wasn't anything in particular I was thinking of. The review does well to highlight the good points, but if I were trying to decide whether or not to buy ROTS, I'd be searching for what the bad points are too.

[Basileos Leandros I]

Top notch review, highlights the good points of the DLC pack.

Just purchased today

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

Thanks for the nice preview. Low morale is not necessarily a bad thing. TW series battles are shorter than historical battles, with fewer combatants than most well known battles but much higher proportions of casualties than in probably most battles. Some English Civil War battles, for example, were decided after only a 100 or so men died on one side. If low morale means the computer player's army may manage to survive a battle and fight another day, by routing, or if it actually has the effect of lowering casualties through a kind of quasi-random retreat, it could make the game more challenging. I prefer 100 times a computer player's army surviving a battle with lighter casualties, whatever it takes, than the AI giving the computer player free cash.

[Auggie]

I believe FOTS is a good buy. You get an interesting new time period, special features and loads of new units to boot. I myself am buying this game right now.