STW 2: Fall of the Samurai (question)

[Gusington]

How about that...I don't feel as bad now.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

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).

[TheCommandTent]

Very nice SDR

[Sir Slash]

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?

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

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.

[Gusington]

I have yet to taste sweet victory in this damned game. Shameful! I think those hats above are kinda cool.

[Sir Slash]

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.

[Gusington]

I better not go near the mod then.

[Sir Slash]

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.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

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.

[mikeck]

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

[Sir Slash]

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.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

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.

[mikeck]

Tw series games have never dealt with firearms well.

[Gusington]

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.