First FOTS campaign impression - "Half Baked" at best

[StukaJr]

So I've had mixed feelings about my first Shogunate Jozai campaign in FOTS - I sense that there is a lot to look towards, only to be mighty disappointed when you finally get it... Dedicated modding community makes these games a lot more enjoyable and fun, kind of making me wonder what volunteer playtesters have that professionals don't... I'm not thumping my chest with a history book, as most of my complaints are game mechanic related.

- Typical Campaign imbalance - true since Empire, got better in S2, now back to "Normal is too easy, giant leap in challenge on Hard with nothing in between"... Challenge pretty much disappears towards the end, with occasional wtf moments - once the tactic/cheat is made to beat AI, it works all too well.

- As a TROM player, I quite enjoy "get a very limited number of advanced units early as a preview/bonus" vs Base Game's approach of making you wait 30+ turns to still end up with army that's only mildly different from the enemies... Going through the same checkmarks to obtain the same results just makes factions moot.

- Some bugs persist since Empire - my "favorite" one is how AI artillery becomes impervious to projectiles when in travel mode... Almost a year passes and there is official fix for castle with missing gates/walls...

- FOTS shipped with a lot of new toys and genre innovations, but I found myself struggling to use them...
*Primitive weapons vs Modern tech - why build Gatling Guns when enemy wooden cannons will take
them out with precision of 20th century mortars?
*Upgraded castles with Gatling guns never got sieged (had to sally, bombard or bribe). Don't know
what they look like on battle map... Three full strength stacks were also too chicken to find out
*Railroads were a good idea, but kinda painful to use... Why can't my units stay on the train? Never
mind that the cost/time of upgrade make it a very long walk for a rather short swim...
*Naval battles end faster than it takes to load them.
*Revolts are way too cheap and "metsuke" actions are way too cheap, while Ninja actions are way
expensive and Geishas are now just useless... Sabotage an of elite troops army or buy it for 50%
more and disband trash units is no brainer
*Foreign Veteran can kill a general/damiyo yet never died in my campaign... I guess every general
thought it was a friendly tussle with the gaijin and brought his foam sword.
*AI is just atrocious... If you saw one behavior, you will see it over and over again. I would have
loved if AI missed the bombardment flare at least once or did not end every siege by sending their
Generals/Damiyo climbing up a wall.

^^ You can summarize all of that by a single big gripe that some things work too well and make a game too easy, while balanced game just fails from the start.

[Humble Warrior]

I`m still running this, but i agree some things are strangely too easy. It`s true that Foreign generals have a ridiculous sabotage and assassinate ability. Geishas are still useful, but barely - I and the AI geisha play tennis with Foreigners, changing their allegiance every turn.

It would be nice if armies did sometimes not notice the flare, but you can use that against them.

However, after a dodgy start, nothing happened in my Campaign for ages. I chose to turtle and not attack. By the time a Faction went to war I had 500000+ and almost all buildings and improvements- on Legendary!

So, I dunno, it seems too easy to me. But i`m still testing, I`m not one to play 75% of a game then assume I know it all.

[priam11]

My first impression after a 1st normal campaign with very hard battles was... well.. easy over all.

At the beginning I was so limited by money rather than the enemy. Once I got the cash going, I was unstoppable. Battles became rather mundane. Create a long firing line backed by only 2 units of Armstrong guns and watch the carnage. If the enemy had artillery it was those crappy wooden cannons. I found that no enemy army matched mine in advancement. I was disappointed in that.

Nor was there any naval challenge as the game progressed. Ships were spread out and not in well protected fleets. Naval battles took longer to get into range than the actual battle itself. Accuracy is way too high. One simply cannot miss. It seems a bit redundant and misplaced that experience will improve fleets moral (I get that) but melee stats as well. The party is over before anyone can think of even boarding a vessel so who cares if I have great melee crews.

Perhaps an increase in difficulty for the campaign will improve the challenge. I would hope to see a higher advancement in the armies and navies I face, instead of just more of them in numbers.

But that being said, I am more interested in this setting than the original S2.

[MJWilliams]

However, after a dodgy start, nothing happened in my Campaign for ages. I chose to turtle and not attack. By the time a Faction went to war I had 500000+ and almost all buildings and improvements- on Legendary!

I also found this to be a real downer on the campaign experience. I must have spent 3 to 4 hours of fiddling about with my army setups, getting a decent economy going and roaming my agents around, without the AI putting any pressure on me what so ever. This is also on Legendary and a huge surprise compared to the endless siege defenses and feeling of constant struggle in the Sengoku Jidai campaign.

I can understand the reticence of an AI clan to attack you if you're already well allied/well prepared to counter them, but the whole thing just got rather boring. The Ishin Shishi/Shinsengumi feel far more powerful than they should be, inciting revolts and bribing is so ridiculously easy (95% in an ally's province that shares your allegiance) that martial conflict can almost be totally avoided. Again, not necessarily a bad thing to have that choice, but the whole thing can be done at a snail's pace without any real AI incursions.

Overall I enjoyed figuring out the new implementations and units more than I actually did the campaign proper.

[Szlachta]

Just doesn't add enough new for me. The multiplayer is nice, but the singleplayer is half baked.

[Bolkonsky]

Moved from General Discussion to Player Reviews

[Enomine]

I didn't play Shogun 2 but I've found myself bored very quickly with FOTS. Factions are all basically the same with different colours, research tree is limited and there is a terrible lack of unit diversity. Not to mention the poor AI and questionable design decisions like bows out ranging rifles and being outright superior in sieges (which are a pain to even play to begin with). I've since gone back to ETW with darthmod. I wish CA would give Empire the support it deserves and update the mechanics a bit like they did to shogun 2 with FOTS.

[wolfbane751]

I didn't play Shogun 2 but I've found myself bored very quickly with FOTS. Factions are all basically the same with different colours, research tree is limited and there is a terrible lack of unit diversity. Not to mention the poor AI .

its a game about a civil war in japan with .....japanese factions/units?. the research tree isnt limited but meh its good enough for me, and again unit diversity? your really complaining about unit diversity in a game about a civil war in one nation?...... and plus the AI is probably the best AI out of all total war games empires AI sucks in comparison to this AI.

[StukaJr]

I'm in my second Campaign (Satsuma) on Hard and Emperial Vanguard - 20 provinces captured and Shogunate has no more than 8 provinces left! Enemy Provinces are so far away that I'm starting to declare on Imperial / raise rebellions with the neighbors - it's cheeseball, really!

I had one surprise where decently strong neighbor declared Shogunate, but other than that the Campaign has been dull! My navies roam the sea, looking for stuff to fight and have to resort to bombardments...

It's incredibly annoying - I have all the toys and nothing to use them on!

[oqvist]

On my first FOTS campaign now. So far this campaign has surely been a bit more interesting then my Shogun 2 vanilla campaign. I guess I would have to run several but I get sea invasions now which I never got in Shogun 2. I got AI that I asked for trade agreement later coming back offering trade agreement if I went to war with his arch nemesis. I have grouped fleets attacking my harbours and actually being a real pain. I never had to build any navy at all in Shogun 2 and in that you had trade nodes that would be easy targets...

Also having access to so many agents at start I found myself actually using them. I often feel I can´t afford to use them early on needing to spend all on building up so I get any income but it was plausible spending the money on sabotaguing the enemy settlements, armies rather then use the money to build your own. Expensive but you save a bit on up keep and well it´s easier to dictate how things will work out if you know what is happening around you.

I got so lucky that I have my ally protecting the entrance to Kyushu and then I have all my enemies on the island next to me. Planning a massive strike there now that I managed to fight back the naval invasions from Saga that I took Nagisaki from that at some point obviously had invaded a province on the estern island

So far the AI simply behaves a bit better. The battle side of things is also improved. Partly due to cannons and muskets but the main thing is the speed is taken down a bit so you can play more proper without having to paus and just making a melee mess of it all. As for siege battles I haven´t really got a hang on those. I need to be in a superior position to get a sure win on those. I suppose you should just flood one front and hope for the best or you will just get to owned by the archers if you don´t have artillery or something? So far they have all been the same but I admit it´s been a lot of auto resolve on those.

But as mentioned it start out tough but you quickly become stronger then any other faction unless you gamble to high and get overrun. Prior to ETW they always made sure you had one super faction. But anyway in all total war titles you start weak and once you pass the first face you know you can´t loose so this is nothing new.

Will see how it goes but so considerably better then vanilla. Not sure if I am a fan of so many different but similar agents. When to use ishis, when to use shinobis etc etc.

[oqvist]

Got the victory conditions. Haven´t seen or done it all but this has surely been my most solid total war campaign ever. I have played them all from medieval however I generally do one beafy campaign and then I am done with that iteration. So I guess I am no Total war veteran that way.

the AI behaviour here has been the best I have seen. Small factions avoid messing with me knowing their own good it seems. Even ask for peace when they understand they are on the loosing side of things. Virtually no back stabbing! Played honourable with no looting and honoured my agreements and all that. Usually that doesn´t matter for a dime you will get those destitute one nation countries which has military access and what not backstab you anyway thinking they can win????

This is also pretty much the first one where I had allies that come for aid/trying to snatch provinces from me. Coshu saved themselves by getting me to join war against Tsuwani in exchange for a trade agreement they didn´t allow me the turn before.

On the battle side of things I do feel it´s a bit improved. I felt really comfortable with artillery/line infantry. As for a defensive battle can it get easier? Yet for whatever reason I would enter a defensive battle with perfect conditions and only getting close or costly victories... Maybe it´s the hard difficulty in combination to no canister shot but they would somehow be able to walk/run straight on. Despite me thinking I got a lot of hits in be able to overrun and cause real problems more then one time. Would have to run on normal but they seem more sure about what they are going for and prioritizing melee a bit more then in ETW/NTW.

Anyway the combat is great fun instead of the total drag of the battles in vanilla Shogun 2. Cannons, musquets plus a bit more manageable pace goes a long way. Now it´s chaos in a good rather then bad way.
In my campaign I never really got to use units higher then line infantry so generally I didn´t have much of an edge that way.