I want to get into this game

[Incendio]

I finally decided to start with Shogun 2 Total War. I have all DLC except blood DLC but I am more interested in Fall of the Samurai, being strongly interested in the history of late 19th century, known as victorian era. So I started with the tutorials but I don't know anything about the periods of history covered in this game, including Shogun 2 base game and Shogun 2 Fall of the Samurai DLC. How can I learn about the context of Shogun 2?

[alhoon]

Read books is the simplest and most time consuming way.
Watching good and realistic films that depict the era is an approach that I consider it works, whatever the naysayers say.

[Incendio]

Which films would you recommend me for both periods the base game and Fall of the Samurai DLC?

[Collateral_dmg]

Check out the Shogunate youtube channel, he has a lot of videos about the Sengoku period. Not sure about the Boshin war, but there should be plenty of stuff online. As for films, The Last Samurai is a classic about the Boshin war. It has it's flaws but it's a good movie imo.

[0riflamme]

You don't get into Shogun 2, this game gets into you.

Which films would you recommend me for both periods the base game and Fall of the Samurai DLC?

Also, Shinsengumi for Boshin War, and The Revolutionary for the Sengoku-Edo period.

The Revolutionary is a pointed and political movie, the setting and props aren't the lead characters here, but you've probably seen Kurosawa's movies.

Ah, for Genpei intrigue watch Yoshitsune.

[Grognardius]

Here's a compilation of movie excerpts from the Sengoku period:

Here's a compilation of movie excerpts from the Sengoku period:

That didn't work. Not allowed to edit posts yet. Here's a direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0vx...annel=jerryluo

[Flinn]

I've edited your previous post

In order to get the youtube video, you only need to embed the code within the [YOUTUBE][/YOUTUBE] tags; for the video above it is D0vxxFF-Q5E, for instance

[Septentrionalis]

I'll take the liberty of hijacking this thread in case someone still wants to talk about getting into Shogun 2. I have recently started playing this, and it looks promising (very high production value!) but a little confusing.

There is a lot of tutorial commentary in the beginning; almost to the point of annoyance. Clicking on anything will lauch a long explanation. However, the player gets very little instruction on what to do exactly.

The game tells me that I need to establish foreign trade, but not how. I guess I need to build a ship and take it to one of those anchor icons on the map. I keep getting some kinds of missions but do not really know how to do them or where to follow up on my progress.

Am I supposed to be able to get some agents for exploration, or is marching my army into another faction's area and cause a war to break out the only way to learn about my surroundings? I also don't seem to have any indication of how far my units can move, so it is a bit of a trial and error.

The encyclopedia is a great feature, and it looks like I will be doing some interesting reading. The game is also beautiful, but unfortunately I cannot do 4K because the user interface does not work very well in that. As an individual observation, I noticed that foggy weather makes battles just about as unbearable to the player as it would make running a battle in real life!

[Alwyn]

You're right, you establish foreign trade by taking trade ships to one of the anchor icons on the edge of the map. You'll probably need warships to defend the trade ships. Sometimes the enemy sends fleets against you repeatedly, so it's helpful to have a port nearby - to repair your warships and return them quickly to defend your trade fleet.

You don't have to move an army into a region to see it, it's possible to agents for exploration. I explain how I use agents in a 10th anniversary review of Shogun 2.

[Septentrionalis]

I explain how I use agents in a 10th anniversary review of Shogun 2.

Many thanks for that! That was just what I needed. I left a comment in your review but I'll rant here a bit because I did not want to introduce negativity in the comments.

I may have to look into modding because that sort of cataclysmic event I should prepare for all throughout the game and while watching out for the time limit is not really what I look forward as a pastime. Another thing that is close to becoming a deal breaker is unit movement.

I hate the fact that I don't get to see the extent of my movement in one turn and have to keep saving just to prevent some weird pathfinding issues or movement stopping before the intended target. Another thing is the absolute feeling of having lead weights tied to my feet. I cannot necessarily get from Satsuma to Higo before winter if I leave in the beginning of spring. I checked on the map and the distance is some 180 kilometers. By that calculation, my armies move less than 700 meters a day. That's about the stroll I have to take to get to my neighbourhood store for a sixpack and back home. Takes about ten or fifteen minutes.

[Alwyn]

You're welcome, thanks for commenting! Yes, Realm Divide is a really major event and I struggled with it even when I knew it was coming (particularly the swarms of agents), so Makanyane's idea of using a 'no agents' mod sounds good to me.

You make a good point about the speed of army movement. If you'd like to mod the game for faster movement on the campaign map, this thread may be helpful - Vragos's idea of adding Movement_Points_All_Land effect to campaign_difficult_handicap_tables sounds like a good solution, as explained here:

Hm, and you made entries for all difficulty levels? you need something like this:

1 True Movement Points All 100
0 True Movement Points All 100
-1 True Movement Points All 100
-2 True Movement Points All 100
-3 True Movement Points All 100

To make it trigger for all difficulties.

and if you want the computer to get the bonuses too you need:

-1 False Movement Points All 100
0 False Movement Points All 100
1 False Movement Points All 100
2 False Movement Points All 100
3 False Movement Points All 100

Vragos made a series of mods to do this; unfortunately the download links have disappeared. If anyone creates a new movement mod and wants to share it on TWC, I suggest releasing is on TWC Downloads, to avoid the problem of the disappearing download links (which happens when we attach mod files to a post on a thread.)

[Septentrionalis]

Thanks again Alwyn! I wonder how negatively changing the movement allowance or employing a no agent mod will affect AI? I mean is the AI dynamic enough to make full use of the the movement allowance? Or to recruit something else besides agents if they are no longer available?

It is kind of sad there is no intermediate alternative to having complete agent mayhem or none at all. EBII mod (2.3) was great in the sense that I encountered a couple of factions launching waves and waves of agents and forcing me to do the same to counter until I could beat them on the battlefield, but not all factions were engaging in agent warfare all the time. And the agents were not effective enough to ruin an entire faction's economy or to kill off generals all the time. Just effective enough to be a hindrance if nothing was done about them.

I haven't studied the use of agents in real warfare that much, but I don't recall any conflict being decided over people just waltzing into enemy compounds to take out the generals or the like. Of course, taking out generals, if it was feasible, would not even be that effective. A well-organized army has a number of high-ranking, capable officers ready to take over if one individual dies. It is the troops and the weapons that count the most.