Now that I am putting together a computer who will run STW 2 well, I see that GG has Fall of the Samurai for $7.... is it worth the purchase?
No longer on sale:
http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-TWS2FOTS/total-war-shogun-2-fall-of-the-samurai (http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-TWS2FOTS/total-war-shogun-2-fall-of-the-samurai)
PE
Absolutely. My favorite game of the series. For 7.00 it's like stealing.
Agreed. FOTS is well worth $7.
Purchased.... Thanks
PE
Post your thoughts once you start a game...I'm about to start a new campaign myself.
Ditto. Want to see how others are doing and what they're doing right that I'm doing wrong.
Awesome. Thanks for the heads up!
I'd been waiting for FotS to drop a ways before I grabbed it (haven't been in a big TW mood for awhile). At this price, I just bought it with Blue Coins at GG.. didn't cost me a thing. ;D
Still haven't won a campaign of FOTS...
Hey Gus. I know you played a campaign as the Shogun side but have you tried it from the Impreial side? I'm wondering if it's any easier or how different you think it is from the Shogun-ies. I'd really be interested in any tactics or strategies that work well.
The Shogun side was definitely tougher for me, and I was obliterated much quicker by the Imperial steamroller. I was literally surrounded on all sides from almost the beginning of the campaign. One bright spot is that I was the 2nd to last Shogun faction to be beat...I gave it the old college try.
That said I have also been beaten as an Imperial faction. Along with being the most polished TW game, FOTS is also the most difficult IMHO...there are few if any exploits amd he AI is relentless. I find it difficult to take and hold territory in the game but it is so fun to play I keep coming back for more.
Trying a new Imperial faction next.
I won once as the Satsuma clan against vanilla. Now playing as Saga using Darthmod and it's quite a bit tougher but I'm making steady progress at the same difficulity level- hard. The Shogun's/AI side is holding-up pretty well though with large armies and very aggressive at sea. I want to try the Shogun side but I'm kind of scared now if it's tougher.
I've played on Normal every time and still get my buttocks handed to me.
I understand that when the game hands you your buttocks, that's actually an old Japanese sign of respect. I think it pre-dated the ceremonial bow. I sometimes think I hear the game making fun of me in Japanese, but then most of the wargames I play often laugh at my efforts.
After reading these post I am really interested in starting a campaign.
PE
Shogunate or Emperor?
You know at Realm Divide, you can try to take-over all Japan by your self. Anybody ever try that one?
Yup. I did that in my first and only game of FOTS. Then I upgraded my PC and couldn't play for nearly a year. Maybe I'll fire up another campaign too and we can compare notes.
I'm still waiting to get to Realm Divide :/
...someday.
Maybe look into doing an AAR Gus and the crowd can help find ways to improve your strategy.
I can do that but the kernel of the problem is pretty simple: I suck at multifront conflict in FOTS. Also, in most strategy games I like to turtle, and while I can do that for a time in FOTS, at some point you must go on the offensive. And when I do that, some frickin' faction I've never even heard of sticks it to me on another front. Bastards, all of them.
Also...in my last campaign my allies got their arses handed to them almost immediately so for almost the whole campaign I was virtually alone.
How do you counter these problems other than throwing your hands in the air and admitting suckdom?
Use fodder and give up space. Man your forward castles with crap troops and use them to chew up enemy armies on the walls. Sure, you'll end up losing the province, but then you can counter-attack with your quality army, retake the weakened province and hopefully be able to push on into the enemy's province as they've just wasted most of their army on your castle walls.
I have attempted to do that but typically there have been 2-3 strong factions surrounding me, so my high quality army is slowly destroyed and I then have no way to rebuild it. It happens slowly, but eventually I lose and am snuffed out.
In all TW games, I just tend to keep attacking & capping enemy territories. If you ever slow down doing so, the AI will start taking more of your territory than you can gobble up every turn. Since the AI is pretty much programmed to steadily gang up on you (if you border them or have fought them in the past, or a myriad of other reasons), you must constantly do your best to expand or it'll further the divide in income and, therefore, troop quantities.
I actually prefer to turtle a bit, and take my time plotting and looking for weaknesses in these grand strategy games. But I don't think TW lends itself to that kind of gameplay well, unfortunately. It's programmed to swarm you, as the strat & tac AI isn't anything amazing (although they have improved it with the S2TW series!)
In FOTS the agents can have a huge impact on the game especially after they gain a couple of levels of experience, assinations, sabotage, inciting revolts in rival provinces, crippling other armies as well as getting generals and troops to switch to your side. They also give boosts to your troops in battle or on the campaign map and in your cities. They can be major players in this game and I always keep them with or in front of my armies.
My agents were the ome factor in my last campaign that kept me afloat for as long as I did. To be honest I think Normal difficulty has been ramped up in Shogun 2. It's definitely a lot more difficult than Normal in say Medieval 2.
Started on Normal as the Imperials..... let the buttocks handing begin!
PE
Quote from: Sir Slash on March 27, 2013, 02:37:01 PM
You know at Realm Divide, you can try to take-over all Japan by your self. Anybody ever try that one?
I tried as the Republic of Satsuma on Normal and found it almost impossible. Anywa, so hard that I switched to
other less demanding games.
Are you being sarcastic? I can't tell. If not then I consider myself to be in good company!
I just started a new campaign as the Obama. I figured I'd try the Shogunate side this time as my first campaign was as the Chosu clan. I'm playing on normal difficulty with limited Battle UI. It's off to a good start. It's now the middle of summer, 1864 and I've grabbed Echizen and Kaga with minor losses.
Quote from: Gusington on March 28, 2013, 10:05:45 AM
Are you being sarcastic? I can't tell. If not then I consider myself to be in good company!
No, I had a hard time as the Republic of Satsuma. I could go back to it, but I'd rather blow things up in ARMAIII or play board games.
How about that...I don't feel as bad now.
I just completed my second Fall of the Samurai campaign. The first time I played, I went with the Imperial side as the Choshu clan but abandoned the Imperial cause at the end and set up a Republic.
This time, I decided to choose the pro-Shogunate side and I went with the Obama clan because I liked their admin bonuses. Things went like clockwork. My alliances were strong and I never once got stabbed in the back. I was pretty much able to march down to Kyushu and the only real challenge lay in beating my AI allies to the punch in order to snap up pro-Imperial prefectures. The Satsuma clan were the last holdout on the Imperial side but their vaunted army of high tier units fell easily to my Gatling guns and naval artillery. Serves them right for wearing such stupid hats, I say. (sorry about the image quality. Photbucket's gone and turned the image quality to crap when I upload now. Dunno why).
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv320%2Fbogaty%2FShogun2hats_zps99721a9a.jpg%3Aoriginal&hash=fb2ee29175e672044ff8597623fa1e363ef3c414)
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv320%2Fbogaty%2FShogun2battle_zpsf74f0daf.jpg%3Aoriginal&hash=fbc83d2fafb24b35bc0aa083f9202eafb547e8b3)
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv320%2Fbogaty%2FShogun2win_zps863b2e3f.jpg%3Aoriginal&hash=d777c68e69e2600072f56960f9d74f46181b1155)
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv320%2Fbogaty%2FShogun2stats_zpsf490292c.jpg%3Aoriginal&hash=b431715264a8c4e97bbe7076d0c8312df7381a07)
Very nice SDR
Congrats. You be de Emperor now. Very impressive victory. All hail Silent-Naga Robot-Hito. Did the AI give you any real trouble at sea? And how didyou handle it?
Not really. They did do a lot of trade lane raiding so I had to spend a lot of time hunting down single ships.
I did have one massive sea battle that was just ridiculous as the magazines on my 4 huge copper hulled ships seemed to me made out of flame pro-tardant polyexplodium foamalate. I had three in a row go up from the first volley and the fourth didn't last much longer. Just bad luck, I guess.
I have yet to taste sweet victory in this damned game. Shameful! I think those hats above are kinda cool.
The reason I asked was I beat vanilla once and now am playing again with the Darthmod as Imperials. At the Realm Divide, all the Shogun factions declared war on me and have stayed at war since and are making a real serious attempt to take control of sea around my territory. I've had to really scramble to hold them off even with the HMS Warrior. Fortunately they haven't advanced beyond wooden ships and rarely larger than corvettes but there's alot of them and they just keep coming. A much tougher campaign than vanilla.
I better not go near the mod then.
Not to belittle SDR's victory in any way. Winning as Shogun is harder than Imperials I think. And Darth also tends to make your allies/vassals more aggressive. Three times mine have turned on me and attacked without provocation. As if I would ever provoke anyone. Still, I'm enjoying it alot.
The Aizu were the only pro Shogun clan to break the alliance and attack their own side. They were quite a ways away from me on the map so I was hardly bothered by them apart from a few nuisance naval raids. They actually ended up helping my cause by tying up the Josai clan who had been leap-frogging ahead of me and gobbling up prefectures all over the map.
How is Darths mod for this? I need something as the vanilla units move too fast and have jellyfish on their backs. Does DM work with the DLC
Yeah Darth works with all the DLC and battles are tougher as the morale has been improved so AI units still charge strait at you but will take alot of punishment before they begin to break and run. In almost every battle against the Shogun's forces, they survive rifle and cannon fire to reach my lines to either shoot back or engage in melee before breaking though I don't think they're actually moving more slowly. Check-out the mod preview at the Total War Center or at Steam.
I'm going to have to check that out. I don't know how to say it without sounding like a braggadocios douchebag but I find Fall of the Samurai to be too easy to beat. The tac AI doesn't seem to know how to deal with firearms and, as a result, even when they should be defending they end up marching straight into my line of riflemen.
I've decided to start a new Rise of the Samurai campaign. For me, that's by far the toughest of the three campaigns to win. I chose the Fukuhaira Taira clan because naginatas are cool.
Tw series games have never dealt with firearms well.
Melee is definitely the way to go in TW the majority of the time. Napoleon and Fall of the Samurai did well with firearms IMHO. Well enough to keep me from winning, anyway.
Congrats SDR, got one under your belt. I have a campaign in progress, but have mainly been flying in FSX.... hope to jump back into the campaign this weekend.
PE
Quote from: mikeck on April 11, 2013, 05:17:55 PM
How is Darths mod for this? I need something as the vanilla units move too fast and have jellyfish on their backs. Does DM work with the DLC
There is a Speed Mod that's been around for ages. I'm not sure if it's listed in the Steam Workshop section, however.
EDIT: Ugh.. finding small mods on TWcenter is like masturbating with a cheese grater. >:( I tried looking for it, but got a needle in a haystack.
Did you use the search function? Sometimes it is benevolent.
Quote from: Gusington on April 12, 2013, 09:21:25 AM
Did you use the search function? Sometimes it is benevolent.
Yes, but I don't remember the exact name of the mod. So digging through a massive heap of thread results wasn't what I wanted to do at the moment.
Quote from: Nefaro on April 12, 2013, 08:35:59 AM
Quote from: mikeck on April 11, 2013, 05:17:55 PM
How is Darths mod for this? I need something as the vanilla units move too fast and have jellyfish on their backs. Does DM work with the DLC
There is a Speed Mod that's been around for ages. I'm not sure if it's listed in the Steam Workshop section, however.
EDIT: Ugh.. finding small mods on TWcenter is like masturbating with a cheese grater. >:( I tried looking for it, but got a needle in a haystack.
No, masturbation with a cheese grater has a completely different feel I find.
I posted the links in another thread a while back.
http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=4955.msg116329;topicseen#msg116329
http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=4955.msg116329;topicseen#msg116329 (http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=4955.msg116329;topicseen#msg116329)
Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on April 12, 2013, 02:42:27 PM
I posted the links in another thread a while back.
http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=4955.msg116329;topicseen#msg116329
http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=4955.msg116329;topicseen#msg116329 (http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=4955.msg116329;topicseen#msg116329)
SDR to the rescue!
I believe that I used the 30/15% version of the speed mod but it's been awhile.