Shogun 2: Total War

**Dinner** · September 20, 2011, 20:38

No, not online. I actually find the combat cut scenes lame so I normally just auto resolve combat. The game is slow without the combat cut scenes but it's boring with the combat cut scenes. That's just something I never really got into about the Total War series.

**Felch** · September 22, 2011, 12:24

You know you can skip the cutscenes. And you know that the combat is basically 90% of the game. The campaign map is practically an afterthought.

EDIT: There is a lot of micromanaging in the combat. It's certainly not for everybody.

**Proteus_MST** · September 24, 2011, 22:39

Yep,
someone who doesn´t like combat too much
might be better off with
Europa Universalis (they have a "Divine Wind" expansion that covers Asia)
or with Sengoku (which is also based on the EU engine, but only covers Japan during the time of the Sengoku jidai)

**Dinner** · October 15, 2011, 15:55

Does Rome Total War still have the problem where all of your leaders & Generals are always getting assassinated? With in a year or two literally everyone one of my characters were dead due to assassination which seems wrong.

**N35t0r** · October 15, 2011, 21:20

WTF? I've only rarely gotten my chars assassinated in RTW. Generally, it's me doing the assassinating...

**Al B. Sure!** · October 15, 2011, 22:10

at Oerdin not liking the combat. That's the entire point of the game

**Felch** · October 16, 2011, 15:59

Well, if he doesn't like the combat, it certainly explains why he doesn't like the game overall.

**Dinner** · October 16, 2011, 18:25

Originally Posted by N35t0r

WTF? I've only rarely gotten my chars assassinated in RTW. Generally, it's me doing the assassinating...

I haven't played the game since the first patch came out way back when.

**Al B. Sure!** · October 16, 2011, 18:33

I also find it weird he calls them 'cut scenes'. They're the majority of the game.

If you go back to Rome: Total War, get that mod I advertised in this thread. It improves the look of the game drastically and gets rid of the nonsense like the Egyptian units and the Roman families thing.

**Proteus_MST** · October 18, 2011, 08:17

Have to agree with N35t0r ...
cannot remember ever having too many problems with assassinations in Vanilla RTW.

**Dinner** · October 24, 2011, 17:09

I'd usually try to conquer the world as quickly as possible and that resulted in everyone hating me and trying to assassinate my people.

Edit: Ahh, I'm mixing up my ancient Rome games. I'm thinking of Europa Universalis: Rome. That was the game with the out of control assassinations where literally everyone of note in Rome got killed in the first year. It was insanely out of control.

**Al B. Sure!** · November 24, 2011, 16:32

Originally Posted by Oerdin

No, not online. I actually find the combat cut scenes lame so I normally just auto resolve combat. The game is slow without the combat cut scenes but it's boring with the combat cut scenes. That's just something I never really got into about the Total War series.

I still have to go back and laugh at this. Do you understand the purpose of the game? What is lame about it?

Originally Posted by Felch

You know you can skip the cutscenes. And you know that the combat is basically 90% of the game. The campaign map is practically an afterthought.

EDIT: There is a lot of micromanaging in the combat. It's certainly not for everybody.

Not for everybody? First of all, the micromanaging in the Total War games is nothing compared to, let's say Company of Heroes or the grand strategy games like Hearts of Iron. Starcraft is more annoying with all the clicking and micromanaging than the relative relaxation of Total War. Secondly, it's not hard at all on hard difficulty if you have any sense.

Have your spearmen form the main line with archers in loose formation set to skirmish mode in front of them (archers are a little too strong in Shogun, I think). Put your cavalry on the wings and advance. Exchange arrows back and forth. If their archers are more numerous, charge your cavalry at them. If they show spearmen, charge your spearmen (or better yet, your samurai if you have them) into them. If you have the advantage on archers, just whittle them down until they charge you.

The key in any case is to flank. You'll rarely decimate an entire enemy unit before they break. In the early game, when I don't have cavalry, I just charge the rear of the worn enemy units (look for, I think, the 'weakening' designation) with my general's bodyguard. About 5 seconds into combat, I run them out and charge again. They break and run soon enough. Cavalry don't fare too well in a stand-up fight so that's why you rely on the charges. If you have reserve infantry, you can also position them to flank and encircle enemy units.

All in all, how much micromanaging did I just describe? The archers in skirmish mode will retreat on their own. You decide if you will charge with your line or stay back (it's a double left click to charge, regardless) and the most you really move around is your cavalry. Whoopty-do. You double click to charge, wait a few seconds, then double click away. When they reform, you double click the exposed enemy again.

If that's too much for some people, maybe they should reconsider video games period

**Felch** · November 24, 2011, 18:35

Dude, I enjoyed Total War, Empire and Shogun 2, and have played a **** ton of both. I agree that it's not hard once you get used to it, but you're nuts if you don't think there's much micro. The player has to pay attention to facing, fatigue, ammunition, subtle differences in terrain for defilade, recharge on powers like fire arrows, and so on. At elite levels, Starcraft involves more micro, but a typical player can do just fine with masses of zerglings or marines. The marines don't suddenly panic and run if they get cut off. Coming from a traditional RTS mindset, Total War can be overwhelming.

**Al B. Sure!** · November 24, 2011, 20:10

Originally Posted by Felch

Dude, I enjoyed Total War, Empire and Shogun 2, and have played a **** ton of both. I agree that it's not hard once you get used to it, but you're nuts if you don't think there's much micro. The player has to pay attention to facing, fatigue, ammunition, subtle differences in terrain for defilade, recharge on powers like fire arrows, and so on. At elite levels, Starcraft involves more micro, but a typical player can do just fine with masses of zerglings or marines. The marines don't suddenly panic and run if they get cut off. Coming from a traditional RTS mindset, Total War can be overwhelming.

I can't even play Starcraft anymore it's too stressful. Go play a ladder game.

Total War is like a Sunday brunch in comparison, especially against the AI. Empire is more complicated than Shogun and Medieval I think because facing and ranks means a whole lot, though. Still, Shogun is the issue at hand and, as I said, it doesn't take much to beat the AI with close to similar forces.

**Felch** · November 24, 2011, 20:45

So you're comparing ladder Starcraft to Shogun vs. the AI? How could you think that's valid?

**Al B. Sure!** · November 24, 2011, 20:52

Case in point, look how big APM is in Starcraft but in Total War, not so much.

I just got Empire off Steam and played my first game (I played a little of the demo months ago). I'm playing with a mod called Darthmod. I did a battle and used the default army compositions. I had a heroic victory on hard difficulty with around a 2:1 kill/casualty ratio. I used the standard hammer and anvil strategy and wiped the floor with the CPU.

I wish I had a way to show just how little clicking was involved (way less than SC2). Maybe I'll make a screen capture video and let you see how it doesn't take much clicking.

**Al B. Sure!** · November 24, 2011, 20:54

Originally Posted by Felch

So you're comparing ladder Starcraft to Shogun vs. the AI? How could you think that's valid?

You ever play random map SC2 against the AI? That AI is brutal. I can't beat it on anything but the lowest difficulty.

**Felch** · November 24, 2011, 21:12

WE GET IT. You're a fanboy who's played a lot of Total War, but who sucks at Starcraft. You've proven your point.

**Al B. Sure!** · November 24, 2011, 21:16

Originally Posted by Felch

WE GET IT. You're a fanboy who's played a lot of Total War, but who sucks at Starcraft. You've proven your point.

That's not true at all. I've played far more Starcraft. Until Shogun 2, I hadn't bought a Total War game since the first Medieval. Fortunately, Steam keeps track of hours played.

Shogun 2: 43 hours played
Medieval 2 (which I got last week): 8 hours played
Empire (got today): 114 minutes (most of which was reading about the units)

And I was actually in Platinum league for 1v1 in SC2 last season.

It's not about the difficulty really. My point is about micromanaging. I just don't see where all the supposed microing is in Total War games. Maybe I'm not playing it right? Maybe you are making superfluous moves? SC2 is a clickfest compared to Total War. Hell, I think most of my activity in Total War is zooming in and panning the camera to admire the graphics.

I click the units, tell them where to go. Admire graphics while I wait for contact. Make a few adjustments. Admire graphics. Make a few adjustments. Admire graphics. Send general after fleeing enemy. Victory.

**Al B. Sure!** · November 25, 2011, 15:52

All I know is Starcraft is the only game I have ever played where (excluding custom games), I am always sitting up at the edge of my seat, crouched over the keyboard, heart racing, damn near sweating, feeling like I'm taking a freaking test trying to click and type as fast as I possibly can, my eyes darting around the screen like crazy, freaking out when I have 200 minerals stockpiled and units in ****ing queue. Otherwise, you flat out will not win. There is no room for error in SC2.

The game is way too ****ing stressful. Go google "Starcraft is too stressful" and you'll see a shitload of hits. The game is beyond intense.

**Proteus_MST** · December 4, 2011, 17:59

As we are also talking about E:TW now...
I love it that the enemy troops/generals talk in their native langauge (or at least in a language that belongs to the correct language group)...
but maybe they should have paid more attention to which person should be allowed to say which sentences.

It is really strange when my prussian troops siege vienna and, when the austrians try to break the siege, my general announces it with:
"Feindliche Segel gesichtet! Alle Mann an Deck." (Enemy sails sighted! All hands on deck)

I can only rationalize it this way:
My general always wanted to become an admiral. But the job center only had a position as general available. So, everytime he leads his troops he now fantasizes about being an admiral, who leads a fleet

**Al B. Sure!** · December 11, 2011, 03:28

You know, now that I've played a few hours of every Total War, I can say that I'm the opposite of Oerdin. I like the battles (in fact, I've been playing custom battles), but the turn-based campaign is difficult to get into.

One thing that bothers me is that armies barely get anywhere via land in a turn. Like in Shogun, it really takes an army a freaking year to get from one end of Kyushu to the other? Are they traveling a quarter mile a day?