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Topic: Shogun 2: Total War (Read 36201 times)
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K9
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7441
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TrailerI haven't played the most recent total war games, but I had a lot of fun with Rome. How much did they improve/wreck the gameplay in the intervening period?
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I love the smell of facepalm in the morning
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Zaljerem
Terracotta Army
Posts: 280
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I actually just reinstalled Rome, having a lot of fun with it. I can't say I've played any newer ones much (Medieval 2 a little, Empire a little ... haven't got around to Napoleon yet) ...
Shogun was great, I was always hoping they'd re-vamp it.
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Every problem has a better solution when you start thinking about it differently than the normal way. - Steve Wozniak When is [Minecraft] going to get together with DF, have a nice cuddle and a bottle of wine and finally produce the Baby that I want ? - Ironwood "Thank you for helping us help you help us all." - GlaDOS
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eldaec
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11844
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The game got more complicated, the AI didn't keep up. (when I say more complicated, really they just layered on more 'stuff')
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"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson "Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
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HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42666
the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring
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I've enjoyed them all. I haven't been able to play Napoleon enough to be sure, but it definitely seems like the AI got tougher.
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Paelos
Contributor
Posts: 27075
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Rome was great and imo the best in terms of factions and period. Medieval 2 was good, but it's a slave to the period and how much the church really messes with you. If you play as a non-Catholic nation it's total EZ-mode. Empire was horrible and the AI was non-existant they said they fixed it, but tbh I hated the battles with all guns. It's just not TW if i'm not sending in asskicking infantry to hack you to bits. They focused all on shiney and none on game. I didn't play Napolean.
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CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
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Morat20
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Posts: 18529
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I loved Rome, picked up Medieval 2 on sale right after Christmas and still haven't installed it.
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WayAbvPar
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I liked M2 better than Rome, but I like being giving the pontiff the finger and getting excommunicated, followed by long and bloody wars of conquest to show him who's boss, at least here on earth.
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When speaking of the MMOG industry, the glass may be half full, but it's full of urine. HaemishM
Always wear clean underwear because you never know when a Tory Government is going to fuck you.- Ironwood
Libertarians make fun of everyone because they can't see beyond the event horizons of their own assholes Surlyboi
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eldaec
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Posts: 11844
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There is some really cool shit in M2, the religious, plague, espionage, and princess mechanics in particular. The AI won't use any of them properly of course. Or boats.
I gather you can mod a lot of the AI problems away if you are so inclined.
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"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson "Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
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Teleku
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Posts: 10516
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Empire was a bit garbage, mainly due to AI issues.
Playing Napoleon now (picked it up during the steam sale), and its pretty nice. It runs a lot better, and battle AI seems to be pretty good. The campaigns themselves are more focused, with your goal to rampage across the map and conquer shit, so AI doesn't really have time to do poor empire building like it did in empire.
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"My great-grandfather did not travel across four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this nation overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That's the rumor." -Stephen Colbert
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jakonovski
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Posts: 4388
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The last one I played was Empire. It's pretty much the perfect wargame, except for the AI. It literally ruins the whole game and I'm not buying S2 unless it's finally been fixed.
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Rasix
Moderator
Posts: 15024
I am the harbinger of your doom!
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I liked Rome a great deal. Played the shit out of it. There's nothing like two squads of elite Roman soldiers holding a fort against an entire barbarian horde.
M2 and Empire annoyed the hell out of me. With M2 I just felt like the entire religion system was rather bothersome (which I guess it was supposed to be). Empire is where the AI issues starting bugging me. Plus, with both of them I started having performance/crash issues. That shouldn't be a problem for me now and I might load up / mod one of them.
Of course, I could just wait for Shogun instead and pray they didn't foul it up too bad.
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-Rasix
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Paelos
Contributor
Posts: 27075
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Shogun at least goes back to a period like Rome where you have soldiers hacking at each other. I'm sure they will find a way to have the religion thing just piss everyone off.
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CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
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Teleku
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Posts: 10516
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The dynamics of Japanese religion doesn't lend itself towards anything like the pope game play of ME. However, they might come up with some cool factional stuff that could give you extra troops or something if you cozy up to various local Buddhist/Shinto sects (since many of them maintained their own armies of warrior monks). Or they could just be extra factions to fight against in and of itself. Either way, it shouldn't play out like religion in the ME games.
Also I agree on Rome, best of the franchise so far. For Setting, game play, and AI. I remember one game where I fought en epic campaign to conquer Greece. Took decades, and dozens of major battles over the years. Felt very real and historical. Very tense as well as the first half was mainly me fighting to maintain my foothold in Greece and expand outward, as the AI kept throwing endless huge armies at me from all the cities to try and drive me out. Seems like the AI forgot how the fuck to do that by Empire.
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"My great-grandfather did not travel across four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this nation overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That's the rumor." -Stephen Colbert
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Modern Angel
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Posts: 3553
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Empire and Napoleon basically killed the franchise for me. I wanted to love Empire desperately but I couldn't ignore the AI problems despite some of the overall improvements. And limited units. Ugh. Then Napoleon comes out which is a very playable, solid Empire spinoff but it's basically just a straight wargame. They fixed the AI empire building problems by removing the empire building. Straight wargames don't generally appeal to me so that was about it. I'm not getting suckered in this time.
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dusematic
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Posts: 2250
Diablo 3's Number One Fan
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Never buying another Total War game. Bought them all until Empire.
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kildorn
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Posts: 5014
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Empire and Napoleon basically killed the franchise for me. I wanted to love Empire desperately but I couldn't ignore the AI problems despite some of the overall improvements. And limited units. Ugh. Then Napoleon comes out which is a very playable, solid Empire spinoff but it's basically just a straight wargame. They fixed the AI empire building problems by removing the empire building. Straight wargames don't generally appeal to me so that was about it. I'm not getting suckered in this time.
I never understood why they didn't patch the Napoleon crash fixes back into Empire at the very least.
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Kalle
Terracotta Army
Posts: 54
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Not only was Empire's AI completely broken, the new policy of releasing DLC packs of units and whatnot seems to have made CA intentionally limit the modability of the game. Last I checked the game map, for instance, was completely locked down and no one had any success with editing it. I just wanted to add a swedish naval base to Karlskrona for some historical authenticity but no luck there. And no hope of any map-altering total conversions either.
This really is a major sticking point with me because I got an insane amount of play out of Rome thanks to the effort of the mod community, and Medieval 2 looks to continue on that same path. The Total War series isn't half as interesting if that is no longer the case.
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Zaljerem
Terracotta Army
Posts: 280
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Shogun at least goes back to a period like Rome where you have soldiers hacking at each other. I'm sure they will find a way to have the religion thing just piss everyone off.
The dynamics of Japanese religion doesn't lend itself towards anything like the pope game play of ME. However, they might come up with some cool factional stuff that could give you extra troops or something if you cozy up to various local Buddhist/Shinto sects (since many of them maintained their own armies of warrior monks). Or they could just be extra factions to fight against in and of itself. Either way, it shouldn't play out like religion in the ME games.
In the original, the only real effect religion had was how early you managed to get ahold of firearms. If you cozied up to the Portuguese (Catholic), you'd get firearms sooner, but you'd have to convert and end up dealing with Buddhist/Christian issues and probably restrict your access to Warrior Monks (been too long, I can't remember). If you wait and deal with the Dutch (Protestant), you don't have to convert, but it takes much longer to get firearms. Also I agree on Rome, best of the franchise so far. For Setting, game play, and AI.
Totally agree. It's an epic setting, and I like the two-part "conquer the foreigners, then later, win the civil war" feel of it. I also enjoy the "noble family" aspect of it; being able to choose your heir, the various character traits both earned and randomly assigned. I really hope Shogun 2 adds that back in, as it fits very well in the feudal Japanese setting too.
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Every problem has a better solution when you start thinking about it differently than the normal way. - Steve Wozniak When is [Minecraft] going to get together with DF, have a nice cuddle and a bottle of wine and finally produce the Baby that I want ? - Ironwood "Thank you for helping us help you help us all." - GlaDOS
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Sheepherder
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Posts: 5192
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Why are they doing a second Shogun in the exact same goddamn time period?
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Teleku
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Posts: 10516
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Uh, because the warring states period is the only real period you could get away with doing this in?
Also, its the only period in Japanese history anybody gives a rats ass about (including the Japanese).
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"My great-grandfather did not travel across four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this nation overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That's the rumor." -Stephen Colbert
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Paelos
Contributor
Posts: 27075
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Also, its the only period in Japanese history anybody gives a rats ass about (including the Japanese).
They could always go back to the classical periods and deal with the battles against the spread of chinese culture and emerging imperialism. But yeah, people just want Samurai.
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CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
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Ingmar
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Posts: 19280
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Why are they doing a second Shogun in the exact same goddamn time period?
If they did it in another time period they couldn't very well call it Shogun. 
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The Transcendent One: AH... THE ROGUE CONSTRUCT. Nordom: Sense of closure: imminent.
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proudft
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1228
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Oh, they can come up with another name. Samurai Swords, perhaps. 
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Paelos
Contributor
Posts: 27075
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Samurai: Total War
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CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
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Teleku
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Posts: 10516
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Why are they doing a second Shogun in the exact same goddamn time period?
If they did it in another time period they couldn't very well call it Shogun.  Not true! Shogun is just the rank, basically military dictator of Japan. There were several Shogunates before the final Tokogawa shogunate formed after his victory in the warring states period. So I guess I should have said they could technically do another period, like when the Kamakura shogunate was formed, but that just consisted of two big factions fighting over who got to be in charge. Warring states period is when everything fell apart and you had a shit load of different kingdoms going at it. And again, its also the period that pretty much all feudal Japanese Samurai/ninja pop culture is derived from. Thats what people want. Edit: Also, good reference proudft, heh.
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« Last Edit: January 14, 2011, 11:26:51 AM by Teleku »
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"My great-grandfather did not travel across four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this nation overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That's the rumor." -Stephen Colbert
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Ingmar
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Posts: 19280
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Fair enough, I wasn't thinking of time periods quite so granularly - I was thinking more "the medieval period" than "Second Crusade" sort of detail.
That said I think clearly they should set it in the Heian period and we can all work on looking more fragile and delicate than each other.
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« Last Edit: January 14, 2011, 11:32:46 AM by Ingmar »
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The Transcendent One: AH... THE ROGUE CONSTRUCT. Nordom: Sense of closure: imminent.
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Teleku
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Posts: 10516
https://i.imgur.com/mcj5kz7.png
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Fair enough, I wasn't thinking of time periods quite so granularly - I was thinking more "the medieval period" than "Second Crusade" sort of detail.
Ah, well, I was taking it from the view of Sheepherder's original comment about the "exact same goddamn time period", which I took to mean specifically the Sengoku period. Since yes, as you mentioned, if your talking about any period outside of the feudal era it would pretty much be "Flower Arranging: Total War".
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"My great-grandfather did not travel across four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this nation overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That's the rumor." -Stephen Colbert
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eldaec
Terracotta Army
Posts: 11844
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<obscure japanese history reference here>
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"People will not assume that what they read on the internet is trustworthy or that it carries any particular assurance or accuracy" - Lord Leveson "Hyperbole is a cancer" - Lakov Sanite
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Speedy Cerviche
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Posts: 2783
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Empire and Napoleon basically killed the franchise for me. I wanted to love Empire desperately but I couldn't ignore the AI problems despite some of the overall improvements. And limited units. Ugh. Then Napoleon comes out which is a very playable, solid Empire spinoff but it's basically just a straight wargame. They fixed the AI empire building problems by removing the empire building. Straight wargames don't generally appeal to me so that was about it. I'm not getting suckered in this time.
Same, I been playing TW series since SHogun but I bought Empire on release, played a few times then haven't touched TW since, so much fail. The AI couldn't even load troops onto ships. Looks like they are simplifying the game, trying to give it more atmospheric and roleplay character, which is a good move, but they have also cut out all modding (more people still play MTW2 than the new ones cuz of primo mods) so they can sell more DLC. They have added what I understand to be a multiplayer campaign and some multiplayer character persistance & customization elements, I guess so if their AI is once again total fail, maybe people will stick around to play vs humans. Personally I am not so sure, TW always has very limited multiplayer scene, it's always had poor MP balance (lots of cheese tactics), suddenly it will be a main draw of the series? If they dont get the AI right it will blow like Empire, and they have never gotten the AI right. There will be no modders to bail them out.
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Ingmar
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Posts: 19280
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There won't be any naval warfare to speak of in this one I expect, so that removes the core issue the last one had, no?
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The Transcendent One: AH... THE ROGUE CONSTRUCT. Nordom: Sense of closure: imminent.
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kildorn
Terracotta Army
Posts: 5014
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I think they fixed the "AI will never launch an assault on islands" bug at some point, but the AI was still pretty terrible at putting armies together and doing much other than stacking stupid numbers of troops in home cities.
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Teleku
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10516
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There won't be any naval warfare to speak of in this one I expect, so that removes the core issue the last one had, no?
From the wiki: Also, the players will fight naval battles with unique Japanese ships resembling "floating castles", and take into consideration melees on ships, arrow fire, coastal terrain, and many factors.
I wonder if after you unify Japan, they'll let you try to invade Korea and squander it all. 
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"My great-grandfather did not travel across four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this nation overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That's the rumor." -Stephen Colbert
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K9
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Posts: 7441
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I reinstalled Rome, lots of fun.
But how the fuck to I stop the autogoverned cities from producing fucking wardogs non-stop?
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I love the smell of facepalm in the morning
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HaemishM
Staff Emeritus
Posts: 42666
the Confederate flag underneath the stone in my class ring
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I think they fixed the "AI will never launch an assault on islands" bug at some point, but the AI was still pretty terrible at putting armies together and doing much other than stacking stupid numbers of troops in home cities.
The campaign AI in Napoleon certainly fixed the amphibious assault thing. The AI will invade your ass by sea if they have the chance.
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Sheepherder
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Posts: 5192
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Ah, well, I was taking it from the view of Sheepherder's original comment about the "exact same goddamn time period", which I took to mean specifically the Sengoku period. Since yes, as you mentioned, if your talking about any period outside of the feudal era it would pretty much be "Flower Arranging: Total War". Let the player choose a starting point between the late Heian period and the end of the Sengoku period, with the option to fast forward through dry periods. Or just not do fucking Japan again. Or widen the scope to include mainland Asia. If they dont get the AI right it will blow like Empire, and they have never gotten the AI right. There will be no modders to bail them out. Dude, the AI in this one is totally inspired by Sun Tzu, therefore it will be great!
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