Total War: Shogun 2 - Art of War
Latest version: 1.0.4 - 14.April.2012
1.0.4 is compatible with the latest patch. Also note that Art of War only alters content for the original Shogun 2 campaign.
Download
Art of War - Downloads - Total War Center Forums (twcenter.net)
Do not play multiplayer with the modification activated, deactivate it first via the Start Menu shortcut.
Upgrade instructions from previous version: Just run the installer and install as normal, it takes care of the upgrade automatically, you don't have to do anything!
ChangeLog
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Overview
Art of War is a complete overhaul modification to Creative Assembly's excellent Total War: Shogun 2. Without radically altering the original game Art of War aims to further improve gameplay and polish the Shogun 2 campaign. This includes new units available for recruitment, complete overhaul of unit balance, new buildings and improved economy balance, new technologies and updated and improved encyclopedia files. Additionally Art of War puts tremendous focus on delivering a challenging campaign experience for the player. Legendary difficulty now truly bears the weight of the word.
- Easy to install - Available as a complete installer, which when uninstalled leaves no trace and restores your game to its pre-installed state.
- Stays true to the original game - The primary focus is placed upon improving and polishing the original Shogun campaign instead of radically altering it.
- Balance overhaul - Units, buildings, technologies and the Campaign AI (CAI) have been tweaked and balanced to provide a challenging experience for the player.
- New content - The modification introduces new units available for recruitment, new buildings and new technologies.
- Updated and improved Encyclopedia - All changes to units, buildings and technologies have been updated and is reflected in the encyclopedia (English only).
Extended Feature ListFeedback
New Units:
- Naginata Ashigaru is now available for recruitment for all clans.
- Katana Ashigaru is now available for recruitment for all clans.
- Long Yari Ashigaru is now available for recruitment for all clans.
- Katana Ronin is now available for recruitment for all clans (Ronin Training Grounds).
- Bow Ronin is now available for recruitment for all clans (Ronin Training Grounds).
- Yari Ronin is now available for recruitment for all clans (Ronin Training Grounds).
New Buildings:
- Rice Trader
- Luxurious Markets
- Gomen-kabu
- Katon-no-jutsu Dojo
- Mokuton-no-jutsu Dojo
- Suiton-no-jutsu Dojo
- Doton-no-jutsu Dojo
- Ronin Training Grounds
New Technologies
Visual Changes
- Yari Ashigaru is now equipped with the short (cheap-looking) yari.
- Yari Samurai is now equipped with the trident (expensive-looking) yari.
- Yari Ashigaru and Long Yari Ashigaru now always fights with their yari and not with their katana sidearm.
- The General's Bodyguards no longer wear the Horo on their backs.
- The General now wears a Horo instead. This serves two purposes; 1. Looks better and 2. Enables easy identification of your general.
Main Balance Concepts
- Land units no longer receive experience bonuses (veterancy) from buildings and technologies. All unit experience must now be earned on the battlefield.
- Rock-Paper-Scissors counter system remains, but has been softened. All unit classes have their place.
- Yari Ashigaru are well-rounded and cheap fighters, they have a decent charge and a small bonus versus cavalry but will lose to Katana Ashigaru in a prolonged melee.
- Long Yari Ashigaru are poor melee fighters (long cumbersome pike) but has a large bonus versus cavalry. Their long yari also gives them a fearsome charge.
- Katana Ashigaru has a virtually non-existent charge but excel in melee combat versus Yari units. (Stats wise an equal-stat Katana unit will easily beat another equal-stat Yari unit due to hidden bonuses or something to do with their attack animations).
- Yari, Long Yari, Bow and Katana Ashigaru can be recruited from all castles.
- Ashigaru units get reduced upgrades from buildings and technologies compared to their Samurai counterparts. This prevents Ashigaru becoming stronger and stronger relative to Samurai in the late game. In the vanilla game there was virtually no point in recruiting quality units in the mid to late game. Ashigaru units are still useful however, especially if mixed with quality units.
- Economy buildings have been changed, it should no longer be a disadvantage to upgrade the Market chain in terms of growth. There are two building paths you can take with the Market chain. Immediate access to increased wealth and the ability to recruit Metsuke agents (Rice Trader) or focus on town growth both local and across all of your provinces (Rice Exchange).
- Castle home regions no longer start with an additional recruitment slot. Castle upgrades now provide additional recruitment points in a linear fashion.
- Starting regions no longer start with a default building. You can now always choose your first building to construct without having to disassemble the one already built by default.
- Prestige gain (Realm Divide) has been slightly changed. You now have a bit more "time" before Realm Divide hits (there's no timer, it depends no prestige level and prestige will be gained and lost by conquering provinces, famous battles, improving infrastructure and daimyo honour).
There are many, many changes that will not be documented here. All unit, building and technology changes can be viewed in the encyclopedia, however.
Difficulty Levels
- Easy difficulty is now the baseline difficulty where neither the AI nor the player has any economic bonuses. For normal and above the AI gets increased levels of economic bonuses.
- Note that on Very Hard and Legendary the AI gets an additional free recruitment slot for both land and naval recruitment (same as vanilla really).
Campaign AI
- Fine tuned AI recruitment and building construction policies for better amry compositions *work in progress*
- Fine tuned the AI technology research choices. *work in progress*
- Reduced aspects of the CAI that enables it to virtually cheat. The goal is to eliminate AI cheating and simply scale up the AI bonuses instead. *work in progress*
Future Plans
Development priority is as follows:
- Unit stats and cost/upkeep balance.
- Building stats and cost balance.
- Technology stats and research time balance.
- Campaign AI improvements.
- New units.
- New buildings.
- New technologies.
- Making additional clans playable.
All user feedback is welcome! If you feel the mod is great, awesome! If you feel it bloody stinks for whatever reason, that's fine. You are free to speak your mind here.
Unit, building and technology balance suggestions are encouraged. However, if you as an example feel a certain unit is overpowered or underpowered, please provide custom battle examples that can be reproduced and add some basic mathematical calculations to support your arguments. Posts that rely on the "I feel" argument without any real data to back it up won't be taken very seriously.