Next Total War Game May Be Shogun 2?

finished install and its only 19gigs according to steam for my shogun 2/rise of the samurai/fall of the samurai files

and its 27.4 gig when I check it through windows. And I see no seperate folder for fall

yeah fall installs directly into shogun 2 and shows up as a new single player campaign.

Had a quick fiddle and it's surprisingly more different then I thought on first glimpses.

I already had the ability to do artillery fire from my ships and spent the first few turns bombarding my nearest neighbour and decided to quickly throw together a quick army just to test the battle mode and I had firearms from the get go. Reminded me a bit of Empire straight away.

That and having the limited ability to fire artillery from my ship made it quite funny. I dont know if the size of your fleet will affect how much firepower that will bring, but from just one ship I did a surprisingly amount of damage from my two volleys. Also very funny seeing a formation just break down the middle from a direct hit.

Though your opponent gets plenty of warning of an incoming shot via smoke signal that appears (ala COH) and you can scare the enemy away from the position you will be assaulting using it.

When I have time I'll give the campaign a proper go. But it looks to be surprisingly fresh.

seems so.

I'm in the UK so unless Creative assembly decided they didnt like Ireland it should be available across europe.

It doesnt show up as a stand alone. You have to load up shogun 2 to access it.

*grumble*

I am either the biggest idiot or I hit an annoying glitch very early in the game.

I went to declare war on my nearby pro-shogun neighbour and thought I had done so because the very next turn I got into a long drawn out naval pissing contest with another fleet.

Which annoyed me cause I had a big invasion force on his boarders ready to swoop in and take two of his provences after I institgated a rebellion in a third that he had sent his army to deal with.

After said pissing contest had finished I went to instigate my grand plan when the game announced that I was about to declare war with this clan.

*what?*

nooo I already declared war, let me at him?

Again *nope you are at peace with this clan*

so I go check who's navy I was actually fighting and it turns out I had somehow ended up declaring war with the biggest Pro-Empire faction on this side of Japan...


F*ck.

I dont know if I just wasnt paying attention or if it was a glitch. I could have sworn I clicked on the pro-shogun clan it even stated that pro-shogun clans had sided with them.

but I'm suddenly fighting my own side.

Damn this will be my third rerolling of the campaign (did 1 of each just to see the intro and get a feel for changes)


So far things I like:

-The new seasons system is very good, seasons are now split up into 4 (spring, summer, autumn, winter) and all last for six turns and carry unique properties. Farming is up 10% during spring, happiness is up during summer, farming is down 10% during autumn and winter carries a few army related nerfs, from slower troop movement to army exhaustion if a turn ends outside your provence costing you precious troops.

It really helps you to pace when you focus on expanding and when you focus on teching. You can raise the taxes a small bit during summer, then pace autumn/winter between improving your army where needed and improving a few farms so when spring hits you can go on the offence while you enjoy the economy boost from the farms to improve key structures.

Aside from that, the artillery in game is a lot of fun and naval combat has the big guns appeal of Empire without the irritating wind system.

The empire/shogun stuff hasn't played into much yet beyond giving you a huge boost in diplomacy with certain factions and a nerf with others and a lot of the more interesting changes are much further down the tech tree (such as railways). And a lot of the choices I have been asked seem very much like ones I was asked in shogun 2. But when I get the time to do a full campaign I'll come back with more thoughts.

Happiness plays a big role in the game now. I wonder if they took a cue from Civ on that mechanic.

I was thinking if that was standard or if I'd played too much civ lately that I was calculating the risk vs reward of each building according to modernisation vs happiness


My new re-roll was super effective, not only did the side that earlier I had problems with stupidly rushed me at the beginning of the campaign so I took their territory without issue but the big friendly neighbour from earlier instead of me accidently picking a fight with him I got to sign a military alliance with him instead.

Though I may be overzealous with the instigate riot ability I kept using it to delay a much bigger army from attacking me and by the time I got around to counter attacking they had a bandit army bigger then their regular army that became my problem once I conquered the Provence.

standard.

I've bought limited editions of the last 4 total war games on steam and retail (for empire/medieval 2) and honestly I've never used the extra unit they give and really the only thing I used was the physical item they gave with empire (it was a map/tech tree sheet if I remember...or was that medieval 2? Wait! Medieval 2 was the model knight I think.)


Honestly the only limited edition I regret not getting was the shogun 2 chess set.

It's poorly optimised performance wise too, I had to knock it down to 720p and medium settings to get a smooth frame rate and it looks like garbage (my computer runs skyrim in 1080p perfectly)

really loving the artillery and naval bombardment in battles :-) its excellent.

Dcully wrote: »

So is this the best in the series guys?

If your talking about fall of the samurai then in my personal opinion yes.
Shogun was good anyway, and this kicked it up a notch.

My favourite things about it are !
1. No realm divide, i detested that it basically dumped diplomacy out the door and made it a long slog .
2. Diplomacy has defo got an update i find people are more willing to make alliances early and trade agreements etc .
3. The research lines are good and make sense.
4. I like the skills trees for characters.
5. Naval bombardment and artillery is excellent.
6.Loving castle attacks and defenses, the artillery is a game changer for both sides.