Total War Series, Shogun, Medieval, Rome, Empire, Napoleon, etc... Options

[SubRosa]

Here is a topic for the Total War games by the Creative Assembly. I own Shogun 1, Medieval 1 & 2, and Rome 1. I never played much of Shogun 1. In fact when I first tried the demo for it many years ago when it first came out, I was go creamed by the AI. It wasn't until I tried Rome years later that I was able to get the knack of playing a TW game. I never liked Real Time Strategy games, because you can never control all of your units. But I found that by pausing constantly I was able to make it essentially a turn-based game. After that I got really good. Especially in RTW.

In fact, I created the Amazon Total War mod for RTW. When I finally got burned out on RTW and stopped updating it, other people even picked up the torch and went on with it. It was my first foray into modding games, and was very rewarding. I put Amazon Total War up on Dropbox for anyone who wants to try it out, since I don't think my old versions are still around on the web anymore. This version requires the Barbarian Invasion expansion, as it uses the BI executable to make use of new things added by it, like night battles.


Here is a map of all the regions in Rome Total War

A map of Barbarian Invasion

An Amazon Total War map

A Medieval 2 Total War map


Froggbeastegg has an excellent guide to Rome Total War and Barbarian Invasion here. There is even a link to a pdf version of it on the same page.

Froggbeastegg has another guide for MTW1


In any case, I bought Shogun 2 a few days ago. Which makes it the most recent TW game I own. So far I am liking it. Though some of the changes are taking a while to get used to. I miss having the population of every province clearly listed, and being able to change my tax rate for each individual province, and being able to replace my losses in one turn.

I can see why they got rid of a lot of these old things. By the mid-game of RTW you spend more time administering your empire than actually going around conquering. By the late game it takes forever to get through one turn because of the micro-managing required. Obviously the Creative Assembly worked on finding ways to streamline all the management overhead, which is a good thing in general.

One thing I really miss in Shogun 2 is a proper manual though. The other games all came with an in-depth manual that told you exactly what everything did, what every little symbol on the maps meant, and so forth. The manual for this game is really shallow, and doesn't explain any of the real nuts and bolts of the interface. Some things I have figured out on my own, some I had to do forum searches to find out. Playing the past TW games helps of course. But there are changes with every game, and Shogun 2 is several generations ahead of my last TW experience with M2TW.

On the plus side, the graphics are incredible compared to RTW or M2TW, and it runs flawless even on Ultra settings. It is really nice to finally be able to fight out my sea battles on the tactical map as well. I am having a lot of fun with the Japanese setting too. I stared a Shimazu campaign, but gave up after a day when I got over-extended. I started again two days ago, and have concentrated on my economy first, and conquering second. Now I am the sole ruler of Kyushu. The latter half of the conquest was really difficult because my main rivals - the Otomo - were Christian. That make keeping order in every province I took from them a struggle. I have been knocking down all the Christian buildings, and construction Buddhist temples in their places, recruiting monks, and even a secret policeman (metsuke) to keep a lid on things.

Right now I am taking a breather to rebuild my army's losses and getting my economy back on track after the rebuilding. I have a ninja out scouting my neighbors to see who I should strike next. There is a land bridge to Honshu which I could take next. That would put me into the lands of the Ouchi clan, and the Amako after them. However, my ninja discovered an army of the Chosokabe clan that crossed over from their island of Shikoku into Honshu and took one of the Ouchi's cities. So those two clans are now at war. I am thinking this might be an excellent time to invade Shikoku and go after the Chosokabe homeland, They will have to divide their attention between islands and myself and the Ouchi. The only problem is that the Chosokabe have a powerful fleet. But one of the provinces I took from the Otomo has a pirate lair, which gives a +3 to experience to all ships recruited there. So I think I will be building a pirate fleet...

I even got tempted to fire up Shogun 1 and try it again. But it won't run on my Windows 7 computer. Still, I might try putting it on my old Windows XP box.

One of my Kobaya - the smallest ship in the Samurai arsenal

A medium Bune (which is technically a Seki-Bune) probably the workhorse of a Japanese fleet

A trading ship

My Seki Bune grapples a Wako (pirate) trading ship

Great plan!

Banzai!

My Katana Samurai (in green) battle Otomo clan Yari Ashigaru (peasant spearmen)

Slaughtering an Otomo general

Scaling the walls of a fortress

This post has been edited by SubRosa: May 30 2017, 12:35 AM

[SubRosa]

I was able to beat off the first sea borne assault upon my territory with nothing but a general and two auto-generated castle units belonging to the castle I was defending. The next turn I brought in more quickly raised troops from all around to exterminate what was left of the invaders. But that was only the first invasion. A few turns later the Takeda clan came ashore in another part of the realm. But once more my scratch forces were able to drive them off and later destroy them.

In the east I found I could not bypass Osaka. Unlike the previous games, cities and armies all have a zone of control around them, and moving into that zone stops your movement, leaving your only options to attack them, or give up the rest of your movement. So I stormed Osaka. Sadly the losses took a few turns to recover from. That left it too late in the year to go on to Kyoto.

One difference between Shogun 2 and the other TW games I have played is that it has four turns per game year. At least the official games. I did play some RTW mods that had 4 turns per year. Basically each turn is a one season. Winter is a bad season to campaign in, as any troops in enemy held territory take losses from attrition. So that encourages you to plan your invasions around the seasons.

So I had to wait in Osaka until the year ended and next spring rolled around. That gave my many enemies more opportunities to come at me. In the form of that second amphibious invasion I mentioned above, and more attacks on my land forces along the western coast of Honshu. Not to mention the never-ending waterfall of enemy fleets attacking my trade routes and ports. Nagasaki gets blockaded every single turn, even though I sink the attacking fleets every time.

Now I think I am finally ready to go for Kyoto.



hazmick: I love RTW 1. Of all the TW games I have played, it is definitely my favorite, thanks to the rules, the settings, and the ease of modding it (everything is in text files).

I have not been able to recruit any Geisha in Shogun 2 yet. I am not sure what you need, but I do know they are a really high tier agent. I understand that their starting assassination skill is the same as the maximum a ninja can build theirs up to. And they only get better from there! I would love to send one on a killing spree throughout Japan.


Acadian: The AI is not always the brightest in these games. Well, in any game. That said, this is the most challenging and difficult TW game I have ever played. The AI can crush you in this game if you are not careful, and don't plan your decisions out in advance.


The 300 Samurai have seen off the first amphibious invasion of Shimazu territory

The next turn reinforcements took care of the remnants of the invaders

in the east, my armies are poised to drive upon Kyoto

My ninja is busy murdering the Shogun's family