I really suck at this game - how about a hand?

[BURNO70]

Firstly, as backgroud, I've been playing Total War games since the original Shogun. I had a hiatus from them between Napoleon and Empire as I wasn't keen on these periods in history and, more importantly - I was finding the game too easy!

I bought Shogun 2 the day it came out. I reckon I've started between 30-50 new campaigns - all on normal, and have completed the game only once - with Shimazu, perhaps the easiest faction.

Reading other peoples campaign posts they make it sound easy, "I completed xxxx clan first attempt on legendary" etc - what am I missing here? Am I the only one getting my a$$ kicked in this game? I've read a tonne of posts, I understand the economy system yet my campaigns usually go 2 ways. I get about 3 territories then try to balance between building my economy and spamming units so I'm not an easy target when another clan will stroll in with 1 or 2 full stacks and kick my arse. If I trim building in favour of spamming units - whether just ashigaru or mixing in katana's my economy will be unsustainable then I'm stuck. If I don't create enough armies then sooner or later another clan declares war and takes my territories. If I manage to survive the first 15 years I tend to grow in bursts - taking 1 or 2 territories at a time then building up the economy again. Although ultimately the same thing happens - or multiple clans will declare war on me and gang bang me!

I have to add that I get the diplomacy system and try to ally where possible to minimize attacks but sooner or later allies tend to turn on me.

Love this game, but I'm obviously missing something.

Any help would be appreciated.

[sparklymark]

Ill just post the lessons i learned when i was finding it hard at first.

For your economy you always want to build food upgrades and research the chi path to terraced farming early. This will give you excess rice. Dont take away from your rice surplus by building unecessary castle upgrades or a rice exchange. The basic market is the best economic building.

Trade ports are important to open up trade with people by sea. If you can capture a "trade node" early it is beneficial so a harbour on turn 1 is a good build often to go about getting these.

Its good to isolate enemys with alliances and dont declare on people with many alliances. Ive invaded across seas before to avoid activating a web of alliances from my land neighbours.

For troop compensation , use some of your clans special samurai if it is good. However you want to build alot of ashiguru until you have atleast one 20 stack main army. You can then start pimping this out with samurai later. Ashiguru are your best friend. Use a high ratio of spears to bows 3:1 in favour of spears at first. Cause bows can be hard to use to give them maximum time shooting. Spears will do a decent job if just keep them together and get them fighting.

For the techs the first 3 bushido are good to get early. The farm techs and the 5% tax rate one are good along with buddhist temples.

For campaign strategy id be steadily aggressive with no real defensive stacks. Saying that if you think theyll attack you castle go in it and fight a defensive battle to eliminate them.

Tactically stay in forests cause cpu archer is a killer and then its just variations on the hammer and anvil tactic really

Also katana samurai own.

[Gen. Sherman]

In addition to previosly mentioned tips here's a few early game pointers that may help you.

-Train and dismiss units as needed. If you're going to sit for a while and build an army, train units with the lowest upkeeps first.

-Put metsuke in your most profitable towns, they increase tax rates!

-Destroy enemies' farms and other outlying buildings as much as possible. Destroying an enemies farms every turn really screws them over quickly.

-Appoint a governor for finance and building construction asap. These make a big difference.

-As soon as you can make boats scan the coast line, find new clans, and secure trade points early on. Put at least 4 trade ships on each trade point, that's my magic # at least.

-Pay very close attention to each province's specialty, this has a huge bearing on what you want to build there.

-tea ceremony is a tech I usually get pretty quickly for an early diplomatic boost to your campaign. I also really like fire arrows because if you command your bow kobaya in battle fire arrows make a huge difference in naval. Heaven and Earth is also a very nice tech once your war machine is on the move.

Good luck, hope there's something here that helps

[BURNO70]

Thanks Sherman and Mark, I do most of these suggestions already. I've been thinking about it and maybe its more a question of timing. I do try and get samurai's in early - maybe I should stick to spamming ashi's and rely on numbers for the early stages. I'll give it a go and see how I get on - I may be back.

Thanks again.

[g4m3m4st3r]

@BURNO70: i am also addicted to TW series, played all of the games so far and i always pick the VH/VH difficulty. I think i can share with you some of my own experience:

1. Battle:
- for a long time TW player shogun 2 BAI is easy, i doubt u will have any difficulties to win unless against a force >=2x yours, just pick where and when to fight carefully and most of the time you will win.
- if you play with drop-in it will be much more difficult but also more interesting.
- on VH/VH i always have to fight against larger stacks with better troops/experience/upgrades/etc so i tend to fight only bridges/sieges/ambushes with trees/night raid for less casualities. Bridges have shallow crossings and in sieges atkers can deploy troops surrounding you so u should check the field and deploy carefully to avoid the enemies backstabbing
- stack combination: 1 general, min 6 bows, min 2 cavalries, rest katanas/yaris ( against different clans you may want to change the number i.e vs chosokabe more cav, vs ikko more bows/katanas)
- against BAI it always chases your nearest troop/tends to pick on generals with cavalries-bows so use 1-2 troops as decoys to lure them around and routing them in small numbers is the best method to win
- pay attention to the troop count: green at front, only use yellow/red as backup or to chase routing enemies
- use troop skills/move general around in the back of fighting line to increase the troop stats

2. Economy:
- check financial tab, never make more troops than what you can afford to pay keeping with tax per turn, use trade income for building/diplomacy/saving
- sell military access 5 turn/1000 koku as often as you can
- after battle if stack size drops too much consider to merge them if they dont have much exp/upgrades, else try to fill some full ones to move on, keep the remaining tiny stacks for garrison
- focus on farming in fertile/very fertile, upgrade at least to trading port for trade routes, build ninja den+market for all the supporting provinces to get extra income+happiness
- try to take provinces with specialties to get more income (especially gold)
- road trade: get agreement with all clans who friendly/allies/you dont intend to atk soon
- sea trade: with far away+big clans, try to get as many trade spots as soon as you can
- pick 2-3 provinces to make them centre for economy: i.e with gold specialties+trading port+max market chain buildings+ 2-3 metsukes
- use agents wisely ( put them in castles to boost happiness and reduce garrison number/ use only free abilities or sabotage farms to level up...)

3. Diplomacy:
- in shogun 2 to win on VH/VH - legendary it is all about how you handle diplomacy so you should check the diplomacy windows AT THE BEGINNING OF EVERY TURN, spend kokus on diplomacy prior above anything else
- always try to fight you+allies vs 1 or at least 1vs1 and finish it as quick as you can, never go into long wars or where you may end up 1 vs many as it will make your relationship with other clans drop to red very quickly. ( some common factors that are negative: trade with enemies, allied with enemies, broken agreement, marriage with enemies)
- pick your partners carefully, in trading or as ally coz if you dont you may end up with alot of broken agreements soon or in worst case you may pick the losing side in a war
- avoid sea trading with small clans as if they lose their porting provinces you will have to break the trade agreements
- avoid making ally with small/easy to vanish clans
- avoid allying more than 2 clans as they may clash with each other sooner than you expect or sometimes they both turn against you
- avoid making allies surround each other as the one being surrounded will turn against you
- avoid vassaling clans with strats defensive, pick ones with aggressive so they can actually help you
- should always check your relationship status with surrounding clans, try to keep at least 2 sides green ALWAYS
- should always keep your neighbours busy with at least 1 enemy
- avoid calling allies in a sure-win war, only ask them when really necessary
- help your allies if you can to make that front more safe
- never loot/ drop food <0 to keep your daimyo honor high
- MOST IMPORTANT: check the stats of surrounding clans, never let one become mighty/terrific unless your are one, if one become strong (holding 4+ provinces) you should plan to isolate them and weaken them by any means (agents, diplomacy-ask other clans to break agreements with them or even war). If one clan becomes too strong they will either conquer all in their way and turn on you.

4. Campaign map strategy:
- Focus on 1 by 1 side but try to get 2-3 sides on the sea as soon as you can
- Use 1 unit ashiyaru as a decoy to distract enemies (keep it within the enemies 1-turn-movement-range) in case you are not ready/fewer in number
- Try to move your whole force as one or at least 2-3 stacks together to make it a sure-win most of the time
- Mass both yari+bow ashiyarus, samurai only 1 type: katanas/no-daichis or yari/katana samurais, monk only bow monk. (depends on clan)
- Specialize provinces into: troop centre, economy centre and supporting provinces for agents ( most of the time 2-3 troop centres, 1-2 economy centres, rest supporting)
- Use agents to scout and keep the fog off around your area as much as you can as the AI can cheat under fog (instant troops+upgrade exp)

That might be a lot of things so i will use Uesugi campaign as an example:
- Uesugi: a tricky one with diplomacy, the analysis
+ East: mogami - friendly, at war with honma/date/haka for a long time -> the areas here are all large, much work to move around, no worth specialties at start, hard to take/keep against date+haka or worst even honma/saotaki
+ North: honma - friendly, never turns on you unless you become feeble -> takes alot of time to travel by sea to take+investment to actualy make good profit, safe place but will lose the chance to win on mainland
+ West: jinbo - hostile at first but can make peace and become friends easily, can hold off ikko/ane for a while -> go here means go against crazy ikko with their spreading religion and eventually against hattori/takeda
+ South: takeda-hojo-imagawa trio - normal at start but will turn hostile in 4/5 turns if not handle correctly, which makes the campaign tricky -> looks dangerous/impossible but actually the best way as if you go any other way you will end up dealing with them sooner or later, if you let the trio ally together and declare war on you you are finished despite whatever way you expand
=> my sure-win strategy is to focus on south, avoid the crazy ikko/hattori/oda at early stage, divide the ultimate trio by diplomacy, pick on hojo 1st for their gold mine+armory, use takeda as shield against west forces (ikko/oda/hattori), always ready to sacrifice echigo coz that province no good at all, here the steps:
+Turn 1: trade with mogami+ashina, defeat rebel (try to keep it 2 battles to gain a lvl2 general), recruit 1 bow 1 yari ashiyaru 1 monk, build farm+road, research chi->essence for a free monk unit
+Turn 2: ask for peace+trade with jinbo, sell military access to mogami+ashina for 5 turn/1000 kokus, sell to marauchi for 20 turns/2000 kokus, move monk down south, recruit 1 bow 1 yari ashi, updgrading lair but NOT UPGRADE CASTLE AS IT IS NOT WORTH, keep the 1 food for happiness bonus later
+Turn 3: most of the time now marauchi gets wiped out by takeda so here is the crucial time that decides the flow of the game: if marauchi not destroyed yet, sell access infinite/1000 kokus else ask takeda for ally, sell access 20 turn/4000 kokus, ask takeda to break ally with imagawa for 3000 kokus, break trade with hojo for infinite access THEN DECLARE WAR ON HOJO AND ASK TAKEDA TO JOIN. Thats the setup of what will become the eternal friendship of kenshin+shingen. Keep selling access to other nearby clans for 10 turn/ 1000 kokus, keep recruiting troops, moving monk down
+Turn 4,5,6: move ALL TROOPS down south through yama. Normally takeda will declare war on ane/kiso by turn 4 but in a rare case they declare war on yama, if so break vassal with yama, keep selling access, recruiting troops. REMEBER ONLY ALLY WITH TAKEDA, NO MARRIAGE AT THE MOMENT. If you want you can recruit 1 bow boat now to secure the iron trade spot above Date provinces but i personally dont as its not worth and avoid conflict with haka/honma. And keep moving the newly recruited troops down south each turn, you will need as many troops as possible. If you have to break vassal with yama you will have to take Kozuke castle on your way down south but that will be a nice bonus to your own good as more recruiting slot+boost to chi art, easy battle.
+By turn 7 u will reach Musashi, small garrison force as Hojo-Takeda at war, most of the troops will be at Sagami, you should be able to win the battle easily with not much casualty especially as Hojo will have alot of bomb throwing - weak troops imo. If you move the monk right there should be only 5-6 units there else you may have to fight a defending bridge battle in the province but still fairly easy to win. Destroy whatever building there to get a slot for ninja den, extra happiness+small income+ninja to scout
+Turn 8 grouping troops together, no tax on Musashi, get all the troops to atk Sagami. If no big loss in turn 7 you should be able to take Sagami this turn. If in turn 7 you lose a number then you can wait for takeda troops/your own reinforcement from echigo but i prefer fight my own w/o takeda.
+If you wait for takeda then by turn 9-10 they will come with big number (1-2 full stacks), just check the diplomacy tab if takeda doesnt take more than 3 provinces they will come help you, if they take 4 then they dont. Time the reinforcement force and siege sagami then fight the battle yourselves to use takeda force as baits and minimize your loss. Once you take Sagami destroy w/e buildings there to build ninja den again. You will need ninja as many as you can to scout and avoid AI cheating under fog in early game. AFTER TAKING SAGAMI DECLARE WAR ON IMAGAWA and remember to check your relationship with others. If needed spend some kokus on the east clans to keep them stay still but most of the time they will be happy watching you kill off Hojo. AGAIN NO TRADE WITH ANY ELSE EXCEPT: JINBO, ASHINA, MOGAMI, YAMA, TAKEDA and NO ALLY EXCEPT: TAKEDA, YAMA. You dont want to be dragged into war against Ikko or Date/Haka untill you finish Hojo
+By turn 12/13 you should have taken Izu and ended Hojo. Build Izu into your 1st economy centry with ninja den+market+trading port+gold mine. Takeda should now be busy fighting Imagawa/Ane/Ikko for you while you are at peace with every one. REMEMBER to keep recruiting troops from every province you have until you cant afford to pay the upkeep with your tax income. Once Izu falls into your hands you should demand the Satoki to break alliance/trade with Satomi by offering mil access.
+By turn 15 you can have at least 1,5-2 full stacks bow/yari yashi in musashi. Declare war on Satomi and rush all their provinces Shimosa and Kazura. Build temple+ninja den here and put monks into castles to get extra happiness so you dont have to keep garrison.
+If the Ashina have not died yet you can easily declare war on Satoki and finish them in 3-4 turns. If they are already dead you will have to do more work but its still pretty easy, except that you have to gather your whole force together or else you will lose a lot of troops as they have extra accuracy bows.
+Once the order in Sagami is stable you can replace the ninja den with sword/spear dojo and recruit 2/3x armored foot samurai units. From Hitachi you can get 2x extra accuracy bow samurai units in order to strengthen your force and go against Ashina/Haka/Date.
+REMEMBER TO CHECK the diplomacy and keep your relationship with Takeda green, avoid fighting against ikko if they take over Etchu. Most of the time Takeda will take Etchu from Jinbo and defend Echigo for you but if Ikko takes it you should be able to defend Echigo with 6-7 units of yashi, if worst Ikko sends a full stack then abandon Echigo and regroup your forces at Kozuke to defend Ikko, lets Takeda or Date take Echigo from Ikko so they may clash with each other.
+If you dont keep Takeda in place they may turn red on you then you can always make alliance with Date, ask them for marriage and use Date troops to fight off Takeda while you use ur monks to take Date's land from revolts.
+Sado is tempting but only take it once Mogami is dead and Date at war with Honma/Haka so you dont risk going war against Haka too soon as Honma+Haka always ally with each others.
+Once you finish off Date just support Takeda from behind with attribute each turn and build up your economy/art/force from behind the war line. You may have to defend Izu/Sagami and Echigo but they are pretty easy when you have some armored samurais+ accuracy upgraded bow.
+If Takeda ever gets to 8-10 provinces you should stop your "peace time" and plan out to backstab them or defend against them. Take Kai 1st as Takeda always builds up its capital and you can instantly recruit awesome horses from there. In case Takeda gets beaten by Oda/Hattori then keep alliance with Takeda to weaken the stronger 1st then take on Takeda later.
+Onwards its piece of cake for Uesugi: 2 gold mines as economy centre, 1 province for horse, armoury, accuracy, art boost, all near frontline so can support/defend easily, then with their higher rate monks just keep inciting revolts then use invincible monk warriors to defeat enemies on the battlefield and you will become shogun.


Here are a list of my strategies in early stage:
+ West clans (Shimazu/Mori/Chosokabe): focus on trade nodes, mass yashi with kokus from trade, beat all the guys on the west in the 1st 20-25 turns then stay peace for 20-30 turns then go east with samurais/monks/matchlocks
+ Middle clans (Hattori/Oda/Ikko): focus on farming+yashi, take Kyoto as soon as you can to get an unbeatable def point, then use it as a shield to def then focus either west/east depends on your play style
+ East clans (Hojo/Takeda/Uesugi): focus on Hojo provinces, take them as soon as you can as those are the most benefit area in the east, easy to def, most income, with armory to boost
+ Date: just take your time and finish the enemies 1 by 1: Mogami-> Haka->Uesugi->Honma->.... (most boring one for me)

Diplomacy is the key to win so spend more time on it and you wont have to fight a lot, just auto-resolve is enough even on legendary.

[Adreno]

Burno also limit the amount of cities that can recruit samurai.. i tend to stick to like 1 in 5 cities that can recruit elite units, all the others are for economic purposes.. a blacksmith province is perfect for sword and spear infantry, a fletchers province is good for recruiting archers, a temple province is good for recruiting monks, a warhorse province is good for recruiting cavalry.. i dont bother with any other places to have recruitment centers.. if i capture cities that do i usually demolish the stuff.

[oqvist]

Seems to be some really good tips here. It sounds like Shogun 2 is a lot more challenging then the previous TW titles? I recently played medieval 2/ETW/NTW campaigns and particularly the two latter was really easy. I have never ever been close to fail a TW campaign. Played them all except original Shogun on medium or hard settings.

This realms divide I suppose it´s only a real problem if you run VH/VH? Hard/medium you should be able to win even if you fail with diplomacy? NTW campaigns is the only one where I felt I could have any kind of control on how things would pan out so hope diplomacy work similar in Shogun 2

[daniu]

It sounds like Shogun 2 is a lot more challenging then the previous TW titles?

Yeah, especially the economic system takes some getting used to when coming from the earlier (basically pre-ETW) titles.

This realms divide I suppose it´s only a real problem if you run VH/VH?

Well mostly it's a problem if it hits you unprepared, even in the easier settings. It will always slow you down a few turns because you'll need to fend off some attack waves, but after those you're usually fine if you didn't get overrun.

OP (and other ofc), if you're interested in watching a campaign, I put up a Let's Play of my Mori N/N going Christian campaign a while ago on my Youtube channel with all battles played out as Dropins (i.e., against human opponents). The first few videos probably drag out a little, but later I edited out my undecided moments so they should have pretty few lengths. Maybe it helps to watch how I manage the economy and look at my priorities between recruitment and buildings.

[oqvist]

Started a Shimazu campaign on hard... And boy the start is indead tough. I took the first province with 700 dead 1400 defeated but after that completly stuck. I tried marching ahead but when I noticed he was approaching me with a bit stronger army I decided to retreat and make a defensive battle. Took many turns and when I won that battle another shogunate took that province so half my army again died for nothing. Then I was about to put the army after some recuperation on a boat but then the neighbours decide to backstab me. Now having a full army. March on my capital and I win a bit of a pyrrhic victory with an inferior force. Trying to blitz to their province just to be greated with just enough to set me back further. Now if the pirates that started to show up manage to get my trade ships I am doomed. Or if any shogunate whatsoever decide to declare on me. I went from moderate to weak status already :p... I also got Shoni now that have like 6 provinces already as a neighbour. And I got some penalty for broken agreements when the sardi guys or what it was just backstabbed me. Why would I get penalty for that?

Maybe I should stop here and start a campaign on normal lol Things seem to have to go your way a bit in the beginning. Fog of war is more annoying then I ever encountered in a TW title before. You can´t even be sure where armies you defeated in the first run retreat to!

[oqvist]

I started a new campaign on medium. Boy what a difference. Wise from my first playthrough I went straight for Shoni after Iko. Up to five provinces and just about able to get another one from Shone to consolidate the Island with Sagara as ally.

One thing I don´t understand is why nobody wants to trade with me. I don´t make much money to bribe with. 500 gold is never enough and some rejected 2000. Do you have to build up the trade before any clan gets interested. It´s not like there is any rich clans out there yet. I have built markets and upgraded farms and roads. Three trade harbours three trade nodes captured and only Sagarra to trade with.
Making 3500 per turn but not much left with army upkeep with my crappy yaris.

[Ban_Stjepan]

Firstly, as backgroud, I've been playing Total War games since the original Shogun. I had a hiatus from them between Napoleon and Empire as I wasn't keen on these periods in history and, more importantly - I was finding the game too easy!

I bought Shogun 2 the day it came out. I reckon I've started between 30-50 new campaigns - all on normal, and have completed the game only once - with Shimazu, perhaps the easiest faction.

Reading other peoples campaign posts they make it sound easy, "I completed xxxx clan first attempt on legendary" etc - what am I missing here? Am I the only one getting my a$$ kicked in this game? I've read a tonne of posts, I understand the economy system yet my campaigns usually go 2 ways. I get about 3 territories then try to balance between building my economy and spamming units so I'm not an easy target when another clan will stroll in with 1 or 2 full stacks and kick my arse. If I trim building in favour of spamming units - whether just ashigaru or mixing in katana's my economy will be unsustainable then I'm stuck. If I don't create enough armies then sooner or later another clan declares war and takes my territories. If I manage to survive the first 15 years I tend to grow in bursts - taking 1 or 2 territories at a time then building up the economy again. Although ultimately the same thing happens - or multiple clans will declare war on me and gang bang me!

I have to add that I get the diplomacy system and try to ally where possible to minimize attacks but sooner or later allies tend to turn on me.

Love this game, but I'm obviously missing something.

Any help would be appreciated.

You doing nothing wrong, simply this game is sucks! I m playing TW games since old Shogun TW (which was the best game ever in TW serial) but this Shogun2 is the worst game from this serial. TW team almost always make some stupidity like idiotic uprisings in Rome TW, inquisitor (who kill your king) and rebel armies which appear from nowhere in Medieval 2 TW to spoil your pleasure of playing this game, but number of stupid things rich highest level in this Shogun 2. AI in this game is almost retarded, diplomacy is horrible, top of stupidity is AI units which jumping from one side of map to other making some amphibious attacks deep in your territory which couldn t be possible even in modern warfare. I finished campaign with Mori, lost with Uesugi and Date, now I m playing with Date again, have 20 provinces and whole world vs me and I don t know would I have patient to finish this or simply remove this game from my PC. Pity because graphic and 3D battles are awesome but strategic part of game is simply failure.

[Himster]

Firstly, as backgroud, I've been playing Total War games since the original Shogun. I had a hiatus from them between Napoleon and Empire as I wasn't keen on these periods in history and, more importantly - I was finding the game too easy!

I bought Shogun 2 the day it came out. I reckon I've started between 30-50 new campaigns - all on normal, and have completed the game only once - with Shimazu, perhaps the easiest faction.

Reading other peoples campaign posts they make it sound easy, "I completed xxxx clan first attempt on legendary" etc - what am I missing here? Am I the only one getting my a$$ kicked in this game? I've read a tonne of posts, I understand the economy system yet my campaigns usually go 2 ways. I get about 3 territories then try to balance between building my economy and spamming units so I'm not an easy target when another clan will stroll in with 1 or 2 full stacks and kick my arse. If I trim building in favour of spamming units - whether just ashigaru or mixing in katana's my economy will be unsustainable then I'm stuck. If I don't create enough armies then sooner or later another clan declares war and takes my territories. If I manage to survive the first 15 years I tend to grow in bursts - taking 1 or 2 territories at a time then building up the economy again. Although ultimately the same thing happens - or multiple clans will declare war on me and gang bang me!

I have to add that I get the diplomacy system and try to ally where possible to minimize attacks but sooner or later allies tend to turn on me.

Love this game, but I'm obviously missing something.

Any help would be appreciated.

The darthmod makes the game more balanced and it has many options so you can easily customize your gaming experience.
The main problem most people have in the game is their honour, they don't keep track of it. In the game it's the most important thing, never loot, never break trade-agreements and never betray an ally and try not to start and unprovoked war, if you do any of these rival clans will attack and/or betray you. Make vassals where possible and choose your allies carefully. Don't feel pressured to declare wars, build your economy and armies (the sinews of war are infinite monies) clans will attack you or one of your allies sooner or later.

[oqvist]

In my campaign I never looted any provinces. I never backstabbed any ally but on that realm divide all that I hadn´t an alliance with declared war instantly lol. And I had -46 at worst and trading relationships with them all. It took a while for me to get these trade agreements though. Anyway I don´t think I have a big problem. I was surprised I didn´t loose much trade at all. Maybe it´s fine as long as you have one vassal to trade with lol but oh boy how booring this is. the combat just don´t work. At best it´s semi organized chaos unless you cheat and paus every half second or so trying to orient the troops somehow.

When the battles are so bad it get tiresome in the long run. At the moment spamming ships like crazy trying to get all those army crossings. I defeated the black ship but it seem to bug out because I never got the ship. Wonder how they could do so wrong. I am no super critical gamer or anything. Have to go back to Medieval 2 and see if I still think it work as well as it did some 3 months ago lol