Total War thread

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In reference to the above post, picture a game where, since the unit is just a rectangle with perhaps an illustration of a soldier on it, you can add ANYTHING easily by just choosing the relevant numbers for its stats and what abilities/features it has (like direct vs indirect fire).

A game where you could easily code in and field things like Napoleonic horse artillery versus hoplites in the same battle.


I came up with some basic rules about construction in Shogun now that I finally really understand it. The game is very confusing at first in how it uses Japanese terminology and understanding how the building/unit progressions work and all that, but I get it now.

So it seems that if you're being efficient, first you have to account for the way Monasteries and Stables interact with other buildings. You've got four basic weapon chains (Yari, Katana, Bow, Matchlock). The Stables + a weapon chain gives that weapon chain's version of Cavalry, the Stables by itself just gives shitty light scout cavalry (perhaps good for raiding on the strategic map, maybe). The Monastery + Yari (Naginata) or Bows gives uber-elite monks, the naginata sohei being basically fanatical frontline troops crossed with supports (extreme morale and ability to inspire a whole front) and the bow sohei being snipers.

In general, you don't want to take up any more slots than you have to, so even if you plan to have multiple recruiting centers of a type, it makes sense to specialize a province around matching up buildings with some kind of synergy. So any Monastery province must have Yari and Bow (3 slots, one left over) and any Stables province must have 3 weapon buildings (your choice which you leave out).

On top of that, you can only set tax on a clan-wide scale but can exempt tax locally, so I have a suspicion - maybe wrong - that it is best to stack happiness/repression, farming, and economic buildings on the same provinces so I can raise the extortion as high as possible, even if I have to give up taxes from military provinces. If a province has gold or other valuable local industries it should be a dedicated economic province. This means that the entertainment/ninja building chain and the market/metsuke building chain should be built together, which also turns it into a joint intelligence and counterintelligence center.

So, ultimately, there comes the following dedicated province types:
- The economic/intelligence complex
- The war monastery
- The cavalry complex
- Other major recruiting centers, perhaps augmented with encampments and variant buildings that raise stats

And you NEVER build things you don't ACTUALLY need, including shitty farms.

I was trying this as Uesugi, but the playthrough got derailed real early on and then Ashina destroyed me. Sado managed to destroy my first army, Ikko-Ikki jumped me and it was repeated battles to get them to fuck off, Hatakeyama had a free run for a long time of repeatedly sabotaging my buildings with a ninja I couldn't eliminate, I wandered into Ashina (lesson learned: always have cavalry or agents scouting ahead) and lost a doomstack, and finally Ashina swung around while I penetrated their territory and captured my specialized monastery/military center so I had no way to recover...
 
The total wars are on sale on steam.

Thrones of Britannia is well worth getting at 75% off. It's smaller scale, but the sieges are great and they've purged a lot of annoyances.
Three Kingdoms is arguably their best game and also reduced.
Ughubughughughughughghlug said:
In general, you don't want to take up any more slots than you have to, so even if you plan to have multiple recruiting centers of a type, it makes sense to specialize a province around matching up buildings with some kind of synergy. So any Monastery province must have Yari and Bow (3 slots, one left over) and any Stables province must have 3 weapon buildings (your choice which you leave out).
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I prefer to just recruit my bow monks in provinces with an artisan and naginata monks in places I have an armourer. Experience can be earnt, armour can only be given at creation and gives them much needed survivablity when things go wrong.

I use my monasteries to buff my agent monks, it allows you to skip all the expensive failures to rank up.
 
Agents and characters sure did have a sharp decline in Total War games. I've never played Medieval 2, but I've heard about it. How the characters have traits like CK2, how their traits change in response to the world (like becoming a drunkard from being stationed near a tavern), and how they can interact in interesting ways.

And what did they do with that? Gut it. Look at Rome 2/Atilla, or Shogun 2. It's just skill trees, nothing about their actual personality, just the same bland skill tree which you're pretty much going to fill out the same way every time (or at least for a certain order of how many agents you already have).

The best agent gameplay is probably (maybe not, but probably) Shogun 2. It's clean, it's clear. They have a rock paper scissors relationship to each other (ninja counters monk counters metsuke counters ninja), are flavorful, all have offensive and defensive interactions with ever type of asset (nearly), and are still specialized in meaningful ways. But they still don't have any personality. Kind of gay there's no samurai duels, either.

In my dream Empire 2 (that will never be made) they'd can the separate agents and just have everyone be Gentlemen, but with traits that add on/take off abilities (like dishonorable men being usable as assassins and saboteurs, but not as civic leaders and generals). I think what really made gentlemen of the Enlightenment stand out was that many of them were Renaissance men and/or worked in many different fields. I'd like to see a system where these characters could varyingly be commanders, frontiersmen, governors/ministers, heads of government, scientists/philosophers, diplomats/spies, missionaries, and so on over the course of their lives. They'd all, as a rule, be able to duel each other, though maybe requiring some sort of provocation.
 
I never could get into Rome 2 until now. I had wound up buying basically all of their historical games. Empire and Napoleon, Rome and Atilla, Shogun and FOTS. But the only ones that I could really wrap my head around quickly were Empire (gunpowder warfare just came very intuitively to me once I started to understand that I only had to think of it as a geometric problem with setting up areas of fire) and Shogun. (Napoleon and FOTS are boring and suck.) Rome/Atilla stressed me out a lot. I tried playing Iceni again and again, too - typical Noob Island strategy - but despite being labeled "Easy" it has your first war be against someone that can summon better armies than yours.

I finally got it starting as Macedon. Helped, as well, to get better at Shogun since that is largely the same style of warfare with muskets being a gimmick. I like starts where I can begin from a small base, rapidly expand (especially with real world justification) into a middle sized power. In Crusader Kings that would be William the Conqueror, the Great Heathen Army, Castile and (minus the real world justification) Oriya. Here I've (with savescumming, a necessity when learning) united core Macedonia, eliminated Epirus, and eliminated with Athenian help Sparta (Athens owns all of Hellas as my starting client, I own all of Macedonia and all of Macedonia except Odrysia). Now I'm in a war Athens started with Asia Minor. My first real battle was against Sparta where I crossed a river with mercenary javeline cavalry. They of course had a stack of very heavy troops, always a huge problem. What ruins Attila for me. I got them stuck in the river crossing (I'm no genius here, I know this is babby's first tactical decision) and even after I ran out of ammo (quickly, they're javeline cavalry) I was still able to keep repeatedly charging them and eventually kill all of them.

I absolutely hate the Total War tradition of making the player uncover the map. In Rome 2 it's sometimes somewhat justified with things like Rome not knowing what exactly is in Britannia. But most of the time its things like Greek polises, that have been in a sophisticated diplomatic system - were a united fucking empire in living memory - not knowing what is two stones throws over. It's at its most unjustifiable in Shogun/FOTS, where a nation that has one Emperor has to discover everything. Likewise, for Shogun at least, for gameplay reasons you only get a gradual rollout of troop types, these people have to reinvent concepts like "cavalry" that have existed for time immemorial in their culture.

I kind of like the decentralized province system. I hate the characters having cutesy Cunning/Zeal/Authority/Gravitas traits. It's not intuitive like CK2 traits.
 
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Ughubughughughughughghlug said:
I hate the characters having cutesy Cunning/Zeal/Authority/Gravitas traits. It's not intuitive like CK2 traits.
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The trait/character attribute system has never been a strength of the series and Rome 2's is one of the worst implementations. The historical games that do it 'good'(Atilla and Shogun 2) reduce characters to a basic progression tree with a few items/retainers thrown in.

On a different topic of complaint I put my Shogun 2 FOTS campaign on hold. Whoever decided that to increase the enemy ship cannon range on higher difficulties is on my permanent shitlist. Every naval battle turns into a suicide charge into cannon volleys before you can return fire regardless of which side is supposed to be defending. And you fight a lot of them playing as a republic(deciding not to side with the Emperor or Shogun, everyone declares war on you). Its a shame because the land battles are great if you can tolerate the artillery ai.

Shogun 2 shines in a lot of areas, but the community pretends its a much better polished game than it actually is.
 
likeacrackado said:
The trait/character attribute system has never been a strength of the series and Rome 2's is one of the worst implementations. The historical games that do it 'good'(Atilla and Shogun 2) reduce characters to a basic progression tree with a few items/retainers thrown in.

On a different topic of complaint I put my Shogun 2 FOTS campaign on hold. Whoever decided that to increase the enemy ship cannon range on higher difficulties is on my permanent shitlist. Every naval battle turns into a suicide charge into cannon volleys before you can return fire regardless of which side is supposed to be defending. And you fight a lot of them playing as a republic(deciding not to side with the Emperor or Shogun, everyone declares war on you). Its a shame because the land battles are great if you can tolerate the artillery ai.

Shogun 2 shines in a lot of areas, but the community pretends its a much better polished game than it actually is.
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I didn't know that FOTS had the based samurai Ezo Republic as a possibility. I'll have to go back to it. Works like Ikko-Ikki in that you have to spread your own support against everyone else?
 
Ughubughughughughughghlug said:
I didn't know that FOTS had the based samurai Ezo Republic as a possibility. I'll have to go back to it. Works like Ikko-Ikki in that you have to spread your own support against everyone else?
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You play the game like normal siding with either the Emperor or Shogunate. A few years into the game it gives you the choice of permanently siding with the Emperor, Shogun, or going on your own. Its similar realm divide in regular Shogun 2 in that the ai gets very hostile, very fast. Within a few turns everyone has declared war on you. Like the Ikko-Ikki/Otomo you have your own allegiance/religion, but without a monk or missionary agent to help convert provinces (the game despawns your pre-existing pro shogun/emperor agents and units and forces you to destroy the shogun/emperor allegiance buildings). You have to plan your entire campaign around preparing for it or else you will go bankrupt, face constant rebellions, and get mass invaded within a half dozen turns.

Definitely the hardest TW end game scenario. Like realm divide in regular Shogun 2 it triggers after you reach a certain level of fame or power. I find it triggers earlier compared to the base game, before I'm properly set up with stacks of end game units. It would be great if naval battles weren't a PITA and artillery ai didn't fuck up constantly.
 
Ughubughughughughughghlug said:
I didn't know that FOTS had the based samurai Ezo Republic as a possibility. I'll have to go back to it. Works like Ikko-Ikki in that you have to spread your own support against everyone else?
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Yes. It's really tough, you lose your Shinsengumi/Ishin Shishi, all your propaganda buildings go down to level 2 and you have to rebuild the higher level ones, all your Shogunate/Imperial Infantry/Cavalry despawn and everyone hates you. Republican cavalry is also the worst of the 3 alignment cav units (it's a hussar unit lmao) while Republican Infantry is the same as the other two variants. I think the only upside they have is that their unique propaganda building is better than Imperial and Shogunate variants.
 
likeacrackado said:
Shogun 2 shines in a lot of areas, but the community pretends its a much better polished game than it actually is.
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Thing is, among all the TW games, Shogun really is the most polished game. Not an excuse for all the issues it has but compared to the rest it has the least amount of bugs, performance issues, superfluous systems etc.
 
Ughubughughughughughghlug said:
the based samurai Ezo Republic as a possibility.
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Some tips.

Pre independence
  • Don't upgrade your police stations, because they'll start spreading enemy influence after independence.
  • Make sure you research all influence spreading technology.
  • Vassalise 3 factions for daimyo honour
  • Put 3 or 4 katana samurai in each castle. When defending, put them away from the walls, and charge any unit climbing up.
  • Prepare armies with at least 8 armstrong guns, 2 yari ki and the rest line infantry. When you've got Republican infantry, split the armstrongs and replace the line infantry.
  • Build up a lot of money, you'll be running at a deficit afterwards because of the loss of trade.
After independence.
  • Focus on eliminating factions not provinces, each dead faction means less agents and ironclads to deal with.
  • Loot as much as you want, the honour penalty caps at 3.
  • Upgrade your police stations, influence is key now.
  • Don't build Republican Guard Cav, they are pathetic.
I managed to complete it using Sendai, and their reduce penalties from resistence and influence differences made it a lot easier.
 
They really shit the bed on Pharaoh, didn't they?
All they had to do was depict the Near East, nothing but the eastern parts of Rome 2's world scaled up. Greece, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Holy Land, and what lays at the fringes.
But they couldn't do it. They tried to sell just two (basically) cultures as a full game.
 
Rome 2's AI is so shitty. How can they justify churning out this crap again and again. I have seen armies just wander off from defending their last city.
 
Ughubughughughughughghlug said:
Rome 2's AI is so shitty. How can they justify churning out this crap again and again. I have seen armies just wander off from defending their last city.
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I've seen that happen even on Legendary, when I have 2-3 armies near their last city sometimes they just fuck off with their last army, not even to conquer another city but they just leave. I think the AI is programmed to prioritize saving its armies over its cities, or at least I think that's what is happening. In any case I only ever see this happen in Rome 2. Same with the battle AI, pike heavy factions are kinda mid in multi because pikes aren't useful outside of siege defence, but in SP they're godlike, even on an open field and on Legendary for some reason the AI just insists on smashing its army head on against a line of pikes, you just need to have someone on the flanks covering the odd cav unit that the AI tries to flank with and you're golden.
 
Big Brown Schlub said:
I've seen that happen even on Legendary, when I have 2-3 armies near their last city sometimes they just fuck off with their last army, not even to conquer another city but they just leave. I think the AI is programmed to prioritize saving its armies over its cities, or at least I think that's what is happening. In any case I only ever see this happen in Rome 2. Same with the battle AI, pike heavy factions are kinda mid in multi because pikes aren't useful outside of siege defence, but in SP they're godlike, even on an open field and on Legendary for some reason the AI just insists on smashing its army head on against a line of pikes, you just need to have someone on the flanks covering the odd cav unit that the AI tries to flank with and you're golden.
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I suppose it may not be completely retarded since the armies have survivability. Can try to return from exile. Wait. Find a vulnerability elsewhere. The one that moved actually did take a city of mine (crossed by sea to get to before I cornered it.

AI is surprisingly even handed strategically, too. I saw Odrysia effectively migrate into Illyria, sack a city of mine with a small force, and yet they were still willing to accept a peace. Usually these kind of games have irrational haters that fight to the very bitter end over anything.

I don’t like how casual sailing is. I can see why in an era where galleys were commonplace, might be accurate for all I know, but land chokepoints feel less meaningful.
 
I've gotten to really liking Rome 2 now that it's clicked. Both how to use units (which as much having an intuition of exactly how effective they are) and the convoluted province system.

I quit my Antigonid game to start as Arverni. Use lots of cavalry (which only works because the AI is stupid) charges, melee cav charge, disengage in the direction of another unit to charge it, work over the rear of their line and spread chaos.

I like the idea of what they tried to do with the agents, but it runs into CK2 Syndrome with there being so many traits (in this case ones that aren't immediately understandable like personality traits) that makes it all blend together. There is such a thing as too much detail. Shogun 2 characters are a lot cleaner.

Naval in this game suffers from Shogun Syndrome. The naval system is bizarre and uncomfortable (I have no idea how to handle it, wish the scale was larger but I just commanded squadrons instead of individual ships) and if you have artillery ships you'll just slaughter everything - cheese, because the AI doesn't know to stop trying to cross the seas without a navy - and win. In Shogun 2 it was the galleons that did that, but those did have two big downsides in that they won by forcing retreats (and so you could sometimes wind up in an impasse if you couldn't break their morale) and, like zeppelins of the ocean, become incredibly vulnerable the moment fire gets invented.

It sucks they didn't make an Imjin War DLC just because the Koreans were assblasted. That would have offered way more variety than ROTS and could have been used as the perfect opportunity to work on the naval gameplay.
 
Legend claims to have leaks regarding the new DLC and the next TW game.
-Nurgle DLC lord is Tamurkhan with Epidemius as the FLC lord
-Empire DLC lord is Elspeth Von Draken
-No leaks regarding Boris Toddbringer
-new TW game is World War One
-Warhammer 3 has roughly four DLCs left after ToD, he knows the next one(won't say what) and hints that the last DLC involves "the end times"
-CA leakers claim they're close to end of what GW will allow them to make, sales would have to double to change their plans
-CA will jump into Total War 40k once TWW3 is done around 2025/26 with Orks, Chaos and Space Marines as the starting factions.
-TW 40k is further along in development than TW World War 1

I'm disappointed that they're pushing towards WW1 rather than the Empire 2/Medieval 3 game most historical fans want. Sounds like they have an infatuation with single entity units(tanks, aircraft, etc.) and abilities(artillery and gas attacks). As for the Warhammer leaks, its what everyone expected. Ind, Nippon, and Araby are the last never ever factions they could add. Hard to see Nippon and Araby happening for various reasons, but there is room on the map for Ind. Halfings maybe? I'm not enough of a lore nerd to know if thats feasible. Gonna be fun to see how they shove in more female LLs/LHs after Elspeth.
Kane Lives said:
Perhaps of interest to anyone still playing Total War, but it looks like CA is revising how they structure their DLC. Remains to be seen if it'd work out to be more expensive, but I do like the option of just purchasing shit that I care about (Empire), and not having to also get shit I don't (Dwarf, Nurgle).
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Wish this was a retroactive so I didn't have to buy Cathy shit.
 
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