By John Walker on September 13th, 2011 at 10:05 am.
Have you heard of Total War Shogun 2? I think it’s a rip-off of that new Paradox game, but with bigger battles. Will Porter played the latest DLC for it – Rise Of The Samurai – for us a couple of weeks back, and now there’s the first trailer for the DLC, which I’ve hidden from enemies below.
So apparently there’s this one terrible bottle for control of Japan.
I don’t know what the bottle does, or what’s in it, but I assume it’s some kind of all-conquering genie. He presumably helps the six new clans in the new Samurai-including campaign, which offers single player, co-op and versus multiplayer.
It’s due out for download later this month.
I just replayed Total War 2 and finished my Chosokobe campaign today, it’s so much tighter and neater than Empire but I wish it had some of the ambition, vastness and variety.
Even these units and factions they are adding in the DLC don’t stray that far from what was already there – it was already possible to recruit various female warriors, monk warriors and horse archers, and those clans (that are essentially just described as warriors) don’t sound like they’re going to be especially distinguishable from the pre-existing ones…
Although a narrower focus is probably the price to pay for a game that isn’t riddled with bugs.
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To be fair, you can’t recruit female warriors in the vanilla game – they are only available as reinforcements when you are defending a large castle, which doesn’t typically happen often (and almost never if you’re properly managing your food supply.)
I agree that the homogenous nature of the clans and units is the main flaw in Shogun 2, but given the setting it’s pretty much inevitable.
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Hopefully the next major DLC will feature some kind of new culture, whether it’s Chinese, Mongols or Koreans. Ideally added into the vanilla campaign (not Mongols I guess, since they tried to invade about 200ish years before it…)
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Samuari, indeed.
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I tried campaign on legendary about 6-8 times, once survived about 30 seasons, but hope never dies. I will try in few weeks again:)
Addict
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Its possible to win but you need diplomacy luck. Alone you won’t beat the cheating AI that conjures one samurai army after another out of thin air every round.
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The inability to save on legendary difficulty I find crippling…
Tbh, even Hard difficulty is really tricky for me as certain clans like Takeda.
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One of the devs said that the computer does not cheat in that it does not makes units out of thin air. The only cheating that happens are the ones listed (extra money, higher moral etc)
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Well maybe its all beacaus i didnt know about existence of Samuari, its must be powerfull unit indeed…
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I’d still prefer Medieval 3.
Oh well.
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There have already been 2 Medieval games. I’d prefer another Rome or ancient China.
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Don’t be greedy, you already had two of them. How about some love for Rome?
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I’ll second this, if nobody else will. Medieval 2 is still my favorite in the franchise.
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Total War: Rome 2!!
Nothing is cooler than a Roman legion. You can be as cool, but not cooler.
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What’s so wrong with Rome or Medieval 2 (and there isn’t already a mod to fix) that you need a new version for? More interesting surely would be a Three Kingdoms or pre-imperial India or something like that game.
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Rome is fine too, come to think.
I mean feudal Japan is all flash but I feel like it lacks scope.
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I say Rome as well!
Imagine being able to move the cohorts with the new controls. I’d be able to move in formation without risking chaos! It will be glorious!
Also, I feel that however polished Shogun 2 is, it’s just not catching me. There is so little scope to things. No matter who wins in the end, it just doesn’t feel like it matters. It’s just Japan, and I know that on the other side of the globe there are much more interesting things going on.
Shogun 2 is simply too narrow and provincial to me. It’s a very insular game that doesn’t really look outside itself. But then I guess that was Japan for you at this point in time.
Add to that the fact that most units are called some incomprehensible Japanese gibberish and I just can’t care a lot for the game.
So, Rome!
Ceterum autem censeo, Carthaginem esse delendam
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As opposed to all the units being named from some incomprehensible dead language?
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i’d like to see world war 2. or 1.
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I’m very well aware of my hypocrisy. :D
The difference is, the dead language I understand, while Japanese is nonsense to me.
Edit: I should add, that I’m just stating why I don’t really connect with Shogun 2. I’m not saying that everybody thinks this way.
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Don’t they know that strategy games just aren’t contemporary? Not interested until they do an FPS version for the Xbox.
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At least they got the co-op part right.
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Best Total War so far. I’m looking forward to playing the new campaigns.
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Still wish we could have more than 2 players in the campaign. It might be hard to believe, but some people have more than one friend.
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Alright now, no need to boast of your friend-liness ;)
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That would be cool but I guess they have a hard time justifying the effort… look at the statistic on the global achievement stats page for the % of Shogun 2 players who have completed a coop campaign.
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They need to set up something like the Britannia expansion for Medieval. A smaller, more focused region to fight over would be perfect for a versus/co-op that doesn’t take days to play.
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If only it wouldn’t take my fleet about 10 years to reach from northern edge of Japan to southern, i’d be one happy puppy.
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Ugh comment system fail :(
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