History VideoGame / TotalWarShogun2

* ReformedNotTamed: The monk agent in the base game may acquire as a retainer a (mostly) Reformed Ronin, who complains he's trying not to use his sword and significantly diminishes his chances of being assassinated.

* AchievementMockery: There's an achievement for sinking or capturing a particularly powerful ship. Possibly due to a programming oversight, you still get this achievement if it's ''you'' who loses the ship in question.

** Sparing a clan by making them your vassal increases your daimyo's honour, gives you a new trade partner and ally and is obviously the kind, merciful thing to do, right? Well, unfortunately for you, your vassals don't see it that way come Realm Divide and will betray you just as readily as anyone else. (Unless [[GameBreaker you vassalize them again ''after'' Realm Divide happens, as they don't have the Realm Divide diplomatic penalty.]])

* DemotedToExtra: The Imagawa Clan were playable in the original ''Shogun: Total War'', but are now NPC-only in ''Shogun 2''.

** Sparing a clan by making them your vassal increases your daimyo's honour, gives you a new trade partner and ally and is obviously the kind, merciful thing to do, right? Well, unfortunately for you, your vassals don't see it that way come Realm Divide and will betray you just as readily as anyone else.

* AlwaysChaoticEvil: The Wako Pirates. Unlike the other factions in the game, they will automatically attack your ships and you can't engage in diplomacy with them.

* BonusBoss: Capturing [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast The Black Ship]] is an entirely optional naval encounter and sometimes you'd be lucky to even see it. It's the single toughest ship in the regular campaign and it carries a hefty economic toll just to pay its upkeep. But if you can handle the capture and maintenance cost, you'll have a fairly powerful weapon at your disposal.

* HighlyVisibleNinja: Despite their 'stealth' skill, all the ninja (both campaign agents and battlefield ninja) dress in the Japanese stagehand costume associated with them instead of [[BeneathNotice simply dressing unremarkable]] like historical ninja would do.
** Averted with some retinue characters that have Ninjas in disguise which lower assassination likelihood.

* NormalFishInATinyPond: The Nanban Trade Ship is a European-designed vessel that can't even be used for trade: it's literally just a top-tier warship to the Japanese factions despite being weaker than actual trade ships in other Total War games. In ''Napoleon'', you can get a Merchantmen for 400 gold and 50 upkeep. They can be built by pretty much any faction in the game at any Trading Port (a tier 1 building), and are considered "defenseless" despite having 12 guns: for comparison, the weakest warship in that game is the Sloop which has 18 guns. In Shogun 2, Nanban Trade Ships cost 1500 gold and 250 upkeep, can only be built at a Nanban Quarters (a tier 4 building with a one-per-faction limit) by a Christian clan, and can annihilate entire Japanese naval stacks with just 10 guns. For comparison, most Japanese warships are simply floating platforms for soldiers to shoot at each other or attempt boarding. The only Japanese ships that have actual weapons (the Cannon Bune) are a late-game unit that can only has 8 cannons, can only be built by a Drydock (tier 4 building) and has a unit cap of 2.

* SoLastSeason: In the baseline game, Shih and Epic Architecture are the final technologies in military and civilian tech tree. In ''Fall of the Samurai'', they are the first technologies in their respective trees to develop and are completely outdated by the standards of the era. This is reflected in the opposite direction in ''Rise of the Samurai'', which has Way of Chi and Way of Bushido, the baseline game's starting technologies, at the top of its own respective tech tree.

* {{Stealth Expert}}s: Kisho ninja, who (as long as they are moving slowly) can move about the battlefield undetected and scale castle walls quickly and safely. While individually skilled, their small numbers and lack of armor means they tend to get smashed in a stand-up fight, but their stealth allows them to do things like capture and unlock castle gates for the rest of the army to pour through or ambush a small, high-value unit (like an enemy general) when they are isolated.

* BeleagueredBoss: If a Daimyo suffers too many Terrible Defeats, his Honour will drop to 1 (Unworthy) which will make his Generals fair game for betrayal and bribery.

* The second new campaign came in the form of a stand-alone expansion, ''Fall of the Samurai'', which depicts the [[UsefulNotes/MeijiRestoration Boshin War]] of the 1860s between the Tokugawa Shogunate of Edo and the resurgent Imperial Court in Kyoto. As a result of Japan's opening and contact with Western influences, Japanese society is changing rapidly, spelling the demise of the feudal rule under the Samurai which has been in place for almost 700 years. "Modernization" serves as the technology trees and buildings involved in the main strategic mechanics, which will naturally improve your clan greatly to procure...at the cost of citizens becoming increasingly unhappy with their lives being turned upside down by foreign influence overtaking traditions. The influence mechanic replacing religion remains from ''Rise of the Samurai'', instead split between Imperial and Shogunate alignment. Unlike the other campaigns, Realm Divide here will have the Shogunate and Imperial forces openly declare their loyalties and fight against each other with you forming the vanguard of one of them - or you may instead choose to fight off ''everyone'' again by forming an independent republic! \\
''Fall of the Samurai'' was later split off into the ''Total War Saga'' subseries and rebranded as ''A Total War Saga: Fall of the Samurai'' in 2019, seven years after the expansion's original release and includes all the expansion's DLC for free.

*** InvertedTrope by the Date's Bulletproof Samurai - their armor uniquely is one of the only kind that can stand against gunshots and so they get a reduced damage modifier against gunfire that allows them to survive being shot by muskets. [[note]]A General's Bodyguard can also survive gunfire, but that is for the much more game-y reason that they're the only land units which each have 1 health more than the 1 damage any single hitting attack does.[[/note]]

* GatlingGood: Gatling guns are present as a late-game unit in ''Fall of the Samurai''. Getting within range of one typically results in a rather grim recreation of ''The Last Samurai''. Spamming them is basically an 'I win' button in the campaign. Kotetsu-class ironclads are also armed with a pair for close-range defence, which have a [[CurbStompBattle predictable result]] on enemy crews[[note]]In RealLife, during the Battle of Miyako Bay, the Ezo Republic warship ''Kaiten'' attempted to ram and board the ''Kōtetsu''. The crew of the latter used the Gatling guns to repel the boarders, inflicting heavy casualties.[[/note]].

** Playing as the Kamakura will probably have you subsume the neighboring Takeda clan with your starting Junsatsushi in spite of how anyone whose looked at the main campaign will see the Takeda will persist to the Sengoku period.
*** Another minor clan who will often quickly be snapped up by the Minamoto via Allegiance mechanics are the Ashikaga, who players will immediately recognize as the reigning Shogunate from the Sengoku Jidai period and the clan who succeeded the historically victorious Minamoto to the position.
** Similarly, some minor clan can take out the Shimazu fairly early too, despite the Shimazu historically being powerful, distant, long-lived, and independent enough that even the Shogunate hesitated on oppressing them all that much. [[note]]The Shimazu are one of the few clans that still exist to this day, along with the above mentioned Tokugawa. So two of the most common victims of DeathByAdaptation are two of the few who actually endured.[[/note]]

** Katana samurai are arguably the best general-purpose melee units in the game,[[note]](certain other melee units might be situationally better but can also be situationally worse)[[/note]] and will carve their ways through almost any other unit type if they get into range.

* LosingTheTeamSpirit: Like all ''Total War'' games, morale is a huge factor in battle. If you can cause the enemy to waver and break, you have swung the battle to your advantage even if the enemy still has substantial strength left. Having other units in close support range, outnumbering the enemy, and having the general nearby are just a few of the factors that govern morale. [[note]]In total, the positive factors are: In a secure fortification (less if breached), winning combat (more for more significantly), in a deep formation, flanks are secured by allies, general alive, general nearby, on a hill, charging. Negative factors are: Losses incurred (increasing with how badly), routing allies, army destruction, fatigued (more and more from tired to exhausted), under friendly fire, losing combat (more for more significantly), fighting cavalry, attacked in flank (more when attacked in rear), general dead or fled, under projectile fire[[/note]]

** The Tokugawa are an unremarkable clan that start off as a vassal to the Imagawa and have to deal with the Oda who have a stronger army than them. Unless they betray the Imagawa immediately or wait for them to be destroyed, they have no options to expand their territory since they can't declare war on other clans. Sadly, their specialization in Kisho Ninja is actually a flaw as Tokugawa Kisho Ninja are inferior to standard Kisho Ninja. This is due to an error that was never corrected[[note]]Though there are mods that fix the error and give Tokugawa Kisho Ninjas a sizeable stat boost to make them almost as good as Hattori equivalents, so the clan becomes just DifficultButAwesome instead.[[/note]].

** The end of the Genpei War led to the establishment of the Minamoto Shogunate which became the major governing power over all of Japan. The war also gave rise to a class of privileged, professional warriors who would come to dominate Japanese culture for nearly a millennium. No matter what clan you pick, the new Samurai units '''will''' come to form the core of your armies, and the Minamoto actively specialize in totally replacing Attendant units with them, uprooting the old ways and redefining Japanese society. Hence, ''Rise of the Samurai''.

* RevolversAreJustBetter: Revolver cavalry can absolutely decimate enemies with a massive barrage of rapid fire. The downside is that the short range means to have to get dangerously close to use them.

** Averted in other places. Katana Samurai will struggle against cavalry units. Portuguese Tercos' have nearly identical melee stats to Katana Samurai with their sabres.

** If you convert to Christianity, you can recruit Portuguese Terco infantry - European soldiers in heavy armor, carrying muskets and swords. They are point by point the best unit you can field and work great both in melee (with similar melee stats to Katana Samurai) and ranged combat (with accuracy and reloading stats that are almost as good as the Matchlock Hero). Nothing Japanese have can even compare in being this versalite and in the same time powerful.

** The Otomo Clan DLC has hints of this, depending on how you play the aforementioned faction. If Christianization and prolific matchlock access don't give this away (among other things), then the ability to deploy Portuguese Tercios (i.e. ''European'' infantry) against your foes and lease out land to foreigners definitely will.

** The Otomo Clan Pack introduces the Portuguese Tercios in the most recent DLC: armored European infantry who can stand their own against at least a good chunk of Japanese units, but their low number still makes them vulnerable in melee combat.

** If you convert to Christianity, you can recruit Portuguese Tercio infantry - European soldiers in heavy armor, carrying muskets and swords. They are point by point the best unit you can field and work great both in melee (with similar melee stats to Katana Samurai) and ranged combat (with accuracy and reloading stats that are almost as good as the Matchlock Hero). Nothing Japanese have can even compare in being this versalite and in the same time powerful.

** Most Siege Units with the possible exception of the Firerockets. While the European Cannon and Fire Projecting Mangenel have insane range and can kill many enemies per volley, their horrific accuracy means they tend to miss any target smaller than a full stack army. They also slow down campaign movement, meaning having them in your army literally slows down your conquest of Japan.

** Warrior Monks will wreck enemy units in large numbers with the Bow, Naginata, and Matchlock. Unfortunately, their lack of armor means that they are easy prey to cavalry and missile fire.

** While the Matchlocks units are generally well balanced (and have been considered overpowered at points) in the main campaign, the one cavalry unit that uses matchlocks doesn't go into battle loaded, and reloads ''very'' slowly only once an enemy is within its range. The Donderbuss cavalry from the Otomo Clan Pack DLC are a lot stronger, however. Things are quite different in ''Fall of Samurai'', where Revolver and Carbine cavalry gun unleash devastating rains of rapid fire.

* HarderThanHard: Legendary mode takes away the pause part of the RealTimeWithPause, removes the save function - except autosaves after turn passages and battles - to foil SaveScumming, and you still have to deal with the rules of Very Hard. As this can make coordinating your forces an absolute nightmare, and there are no second chances, even hardened veterans can find this difficulty mode a struggle.

*** During the Genpei Era, armies consist mostly of attendant and levy troops, who are so unskilled and unprepared for combat that the latter are wont to break and run away if the enemy so much as looks at them funny. The idea of professional warriors, in the form of the eponymous samurai, is still relatively new in Japan, and this is reflected in the fact that samurai in this campaign will absolutely wreck any other kind of unit that isn't a warrior monk, with each being easily the match of dozens of levies. They're balanced, of course, by the fact that, as a new innovation to warfare, they're also very expensive to recruit and maintain. They're also a new enough concept that they're completely unspecialized: every samurai unit is both an archer and a swordsman, varying only in level of skill (and whether or not they have a warhorse) - making them flexible but further adding to their immense cost.
*** Comes the Sengoku Era, and the samurai who ruled over the battlefields of the Genpei Era are now a standard complement of every sensible fighting force, supplemented by regiments of ashigaru peasant soldiers who are now actually disciplined enough to be able to offer a meaningful threat to samurai in sufficient numbers - a hint of things to come. Being such a much more common feature of the battlefield as they are now, samurai are now more specialized, allowing them to be feasible to field in vastly larger amount than in the Genpei armies and resulting in tactical dynamics that revolve not around who has enough resources to support the larger force of strictly ''better'' units, but by who can best leverage the individual advantages provided by different weapons and tactics - your naginata samurai don't need to also receive extensive training in or carry bows because you can deal with enemy infantry by fielding a separate group of equally affordable katana samurai (or bow ashigaru). Matchlock firearms appear towards the end of the era but are still crude enough that between the exorbitant cost, low firing-rate and low accuracy, they're a very circumstantial weapon for very specific occasions.
*** Finally, comes the Boshin Era, and the cumbersome matchlocks of the Sengoku Era have evolved into rifles equipping vast armies of western-style line infantry. In the early game, traditional warriors can still hold their own against modern infantry, and samurai archers have the advantage over riflemen in range and accuracy, but they're expensive, not as cost-effective and fewer in number. Training a samurai with bow and sword takes years of investment (as is reflected by their in-game cost), which is simply not worth it when a conscript trained in a couple of weeks can reliably shoot them dead from across the battlefield. As the game progresses, combat comes increasingly to be decided by who can bring to bear more and more advanced artillery technology, and "traditional"-style units are left long, long behind in history's dust. Even the heroic samurai at the very peak of the traditional tech tree, legendary warriors who would've dominated the Sengoku battlefield and been absolute forces of nature had they participated in the Genpei War, can now do very little more for their astronomical logistical requirements besides get disintegrated by an explosive shell or shredded by gatling gun fire before they've gotten close enough to so much as put arrow to bowstring.

** It's perfectly possible to take a bridge, rout the opposing army, and then turn right back around and amass a staggering number of taken heads as the enemy's reinforcements arrive, presumably meaning to outflank you on the ground you have just left. If their comrades have already routed, they will first attack you and then try to run away across the bridge you are now guarding; the result can be some fairly skewed kill ratios.

** The AI doesn't know how to get through its own gates if you capture them, and will stubbornly refuse to go around. If you're besieging an enemy castle and they have reinforcements inbound, it's entirely possible to storm their walls, capture the gates and watch as the entire reinforcing army, intent on reaching their allies, crowd around the gates that refuse to open and just mill around looking like idiots while you capture the tenshu or use them as target practice.

** Naval battles have a tendency to drag out for much longer than they need to due to archers constantly missing their targets and even trying to shoot at enemy crewmen that are safely located in a part of the ship where arrows can't reach them.

** In the game, your Samurai units will specialize in only one weapon while real life Samurai were JackOfAllStats proficient in the spear (yari or naginata), the bow (yumi), and the sword (katana or tachi). The sword was usually a back-up weapon for when your bow or spear was broken or discarded, rather than being a main battlefield weapon the way it is for Katana Samurai and Katana Cavalry in the game. Even the legendary UsefulNotes/MiyamotoMusashi strongly advises against CripplingOverspecialization through the exclusive usage of just one weapon.

** Many other playable clans also suffer from varying degrees of this. In addition to the aforementioned Chosokabe, the Tokugawa were known as the Matsudaira until UsefulNotes/TokugawaIeyasu changed his name in 1567, and the Otomo were far from dominated by Christianity in 1545, their daimyo only converting to Roman Catholicism over three decades later.

** Kisho Ninja are only good for scaling castle walls, making surprise attacks, and butchering units that are poor in melee, weakened by casualties, and/or already tied up in melee against another friendly unit. If they try to wage a fair fight by themselves against a full-strength unit that is strong in melee, they'll get their asses kicked badly.

** In ''Fall of Samurai'', you can upgrade your castle archery towers to matchlock gun towers and eventually Gatling gun towers. However, this upgrade takes up a province building slot that would probably be better used for something else, since your constantly expanding borders will often render a specific province's castle defenses moot. Chances are by the time you upgrade your towers all the way up to Gatling guns, the castle in that province will no longer be on the edge of your border, and thus no longer faces much threat of attack. However, the only thing that doesn't make them mostly useless is the occasional enemy fleet that sneaks by your fleets and makes an amphibious landing deep in your territory.

* BattleInTheRain: Fighting a battle in the rain is a possibility. It prevents fire arrows from being used (or rather, [[GoodBadBugs it's supposed to]]), consequently making it harder to set buildings alight. In addition, reload times for gunpowder units take a hit and it takes longer for tired units to get their breath back.

** In ''Fall of the Samurai'', making alliances with minor clans is a bad idea that can backfire as the clans will usually go to war against each other despite being on the same side, forcing you into a lose-lose situation that permanently damages your clan's diplomatic standing, and honour, through a betrayed alliance.
** Sparing a clan by making them your vassal increases your daimyo's honour, gives you a new trade partner and ally, and is obviously the kind, merciful thing to do, right? Well, unfortunately for you, your vassals don't see it that way come Realm Divide, and will betray you just as readily as anyone else.

** Without the ''Blood Pack'' DLC, the game plays this trope straight. ''With'' the DLC, it goes [[OverdrawnAtTheBloodBank somewhat in the opposite direction]].

* BonusBoss: Capturing [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast The Black Ship]] is an entirely optional naval encounter, and sometimes you'd be lucky to even see it. It's the single toughest ship in the regular campaign and it carries a hefty economic toll just to pay its upkeep. But if you can handle the capture and maintenance cost, you'll have a fairly powerful weapon at your disposal.

* FirearmsAreRevolutionary: In the trailer for the ''Fall of Samurai'' DLC, a traditional samurai practicing archery is juxtaposed with a bombastic announcer praising the advantages of a Gatling gun.

* NotTheIntendedUse: An emergent and gamey tactic in ''Shogun 2'' is to decide that a difficult home start doesn't matter if you can just take Kyushu, which is absolutely prime territory both due to its corner position and its control of the majority of Japan's foreign trade. So prime Uesugi and Oda players often pack it out of their barren lands in Echigo or their endangered home in Owari and take over the southwestern isle.

** Invoked in one of the promos for the ''Fall of the Samurai''. The video spends considerable time talking about how awesome and powerful a well-trained samurai is and what it takes to be one, eventually just turning into incoherent droning of the overlapping praises... only to cut to a single Gatling gun effortlessly turning the samurai charge into a massacre, while in turn a thick-accented American arms dealer starts his sales pitch of the brand new gun.

* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: The Choshu clan in ''Fall of the Samurai'' qualifies. They surrendered to the Tokugawa clan without a fight and as a ''reward'' were stripped of their possessions, including the famed Osaka castle, and given the economically poorer Choshu province. Now [[BestServedCold 250 years later]], they're determined to dismantle the Shogunate. Their faction perks are called "Emperor's Fury" and when controlled by the AI, Choshu typically becomes the Imperial Vanguard.

''Fall of the Samurai'' was later split off into the ''Total War Saga'' subseries, and rebranded as ''A Total War Saga: Fall of the Samurai'' in 2019, seven years after the expansion's original release, and includes all the expansion's DLC for free.

* AllianceMeter: Diplomacy is governed by several factors that can increase or decrease another clan's fondness for your own which are then summed up to get their final disposition for your clan. Positive factors include having a particularly honorable daimyo, having good trade relations, [[EnemyMine having mutual enemies]], and having {{Arranged Marriage}}s with them. Negative factors include having a dishonorable daimyo, being known to be untrustworthy, being aggressively expansionist, trading or allying with their enemies, and being at war with them.

** If you have both ''Shogun 2'' and ''Fall of the Samurai'', it is possible to take an army of 16th century samurai and ashigaru, and fight an 1860s army of riflemen, cannons, revolver/carbine-armed cavalry and [[GatlingGood Gatling guns]] during online multiplayer matches. There are achievements for winning a match using an army from either end of the TimeyWimeyBall against an opponent roughly two centuries ahead or behind you technologically.]

** In ''Fall of the Samurai'', in the early game, a cavalry charge (whether to front or flank) can kill Line Infantry rather effectively, but traditionalist spearmen (the Yari Kachi or even Spear Levies) will clear them off the field rather swiftly. Later in the game, the more powerful domains will have developed artillery and modern rifles, and sabre cavalry will become virtually useless.

*** InvertedTrope by the Date's Bulletproof Samurai - their armor uniquely is one of the only kind that can stand against gunshots, and so they get a reduced damage modifier against gunfire that allows them to survive being shot by muskets. [[note]]A General's Bodyguard can also survive gunfire, but that is for the much more game-y reason that they're the only land units which each have 1 health more than the 1 damage any single hitting attack does.[[/note]]

*** To add insult to injury, the Gatling gun towers are ''so'' pathetically weak and have such a low rate of fire (in fact, from a purely numerical perspective, their killing power is slightly less than that of a single unit of levy infantry... which can be recruited anywhere, in one turn, for a minuscule fraction of the cost) that to this day some players are certain it has to be a bug or a programming oversight. It's just inconceivable that something so far up the tech tree requiring such a massive investment would be so worthless. Mods to increase Gatling tower firepower to a level more in line with that of battlefield Gatling guns, conversely, makes them dangerous enough to practically change siege combat dynamics as machineguns did in real life, by making it suicide to try and approach fortifications before bombarding them with artillery.

* BadassFamily: Given that many of your generals in ''Shogun 2'' come from your family, this can easily result.

* BoringButPractical: Basic starter units never quite go obsolete, and in fact can be surprisingly effective, especially as they gain experience and receive province-specific or ranked general boosts. [[ElitesAreMoreGlamorous Samurai are more interesting, varied, and technically more powerful]], but that doesn't mean a lot when yari ashigaru available from everywhere can still best them, especially with a well-utilized yari wall (think along the lines of European pikes). On a similar note, bow kobayas are the only boats you really need to win just about any naval engagement, especially after you research fire arrows. What bow kobayas lack in boarding capability, they make up for with high maneuverability that allows them to kite many boats that are slower. (Sengoku bunes are one of the few boats that can outpace them, but only if the wind is in their favor.) Any other boat, no matter how big and imposing, can eventually be burnt to destruction. For [=FotS=], the situation is similar to the base game, at least in terms of land battles. You can win with nothing more than spear levies and line infantry, both quite rudimentary units. If you want to research artillery, you never need to go past the early availability of Parrott guns, as they are already quite effective.

** "[[LargeHam Our men are running from the battlefield! Shameful display!]]". The battlefield advisor says this whenever a unit routs, a fairly common occurrence in larger battles. In ''Fall of the Samurai'', the equivalent exclamation is "Damn lily-livered cowards! Your men are running, sir!"

* LargeHam: The battlefield advisor. ''"[[JustAStupidAccent Awah men are running from the battlefield. Shameful display!]]"''

** The Bow Kobaya is incredibly bad at the start of the Sengoku campaign as it's only strong enough to go 1-on-1 with a Trade ship with a certain chance of winning. Fighting another Bow Kobaya is a 50-50 chance and trying to fight a Medium Bune or anything heavier is pretty much suicide. It's only when you have access to Fire Arrows that the Bow Kobaya can become strong enough to make a difference against unfavorable odds.

* CoolButInefficient: Late-tier markets and castles, due to their food consumption. It costs a lot of time and money to build them, they provide proportionately less to you for their cost with each rung on the ladder, and a food surplus increases that quantity for economic growth in ''all'' of your provinces meaning once you have enough provinces, consuming food will hurt you economically in the future (potentially making it worthwhile to ''demolish'' these buildings even if you got them for free from capturing their province), and their technology requirements make it unlikely you'll even be able to build them before they get decisively inefficient. Castles are only useful for their defensive benefits because the repression and buildings slots (you only need a few buildings to specialize a province for building some particular units and perhaps one more for keeping order in it) are probably superfluous, the replenishment rate can be gotten much cheaper with a Barracks and/or improved roads, and the growth and money you'd save by not building them can be spent on more units (that can actually move around) anyway.

* ColorCodedMultiplayer: Most of the ''Rise'' and ''Fall of the Samurai'' factions have traits which exclusively affect their performance in the campaign, and there are very few unique units in either expansion. Consequently, faction choice in multiplayer skirmishes largely comes down to what colors you want your troops to be wearing.
* CombatPragmatist: Modernization in ''Fall of the Samurai'' often revolves around using tactics that are effective but not necessarily "honorable" like some traditionalist fighting techniques. A major theme is using long range weaponry like naval bombardments, cannon artillery, and gatling guns to kill enemies long before they can hope to lay a sword on you. Other technological advancements can also count, like firing long range torpedoes or explosive shells to deliver infrequent but devastating attacks at sea, or even just ramming straight into the enemy if cannons are too slow for you.

** If the AI loses their daimyo and all his heirs, a new one will be automatically generated in their home province.
* CoolHelmet: The famous Kabuto helmets worn by Samurai units are (obviously) on parade, along with notable or famous examples from history belonging to the Daimyos of the great clans. Of particular note are the crescent-moon helmet of the Date, and the "rolling waves" helmet of the Oda.

* LargeHam: The battlefield advisor. ''"[[JustAStupidAccent Awah men are running from the battlefield. Shamefur dispray!]]"''
* LeeroyJenkins: The Date clan has this as their specialty: They gain a bonus to charging units and their specialty unit is the No-Dachi samurai, a unit that's most effective when charging an enemy unit. Funnily enough, their Sendai clan descendants have bonuses toward the opposite sort of mindset, with a diplomacy bonus, easier control of opposite influence in their cities, and starving out cities by a siege faster.

* MacrossMissileMassacre: The faction that builds the Arsenal has access to [[KillItWithFire Fire Rockets]], which are ''more'' powerful than European cannon, often causing enemy troops to be launched into the air when they hit.

* NormalFishInATinyPond: The Nanban Trade Ship is a European-designed vessel that can't even be used for trade: it's literally just a top-tier warship to the Japanese factions despite being weaker than actual trade ships in other Total War games. In ''Napoleon'', you can get a Merchantmen for 400 gold and 50 upkeep. They can be built by pretty much any faction in the game at any Trading Port (a tier 1 building), and are considered "defenseless" despite having 12 guns: for comparison, the weakest warship in that game is the Sloop which has 18 guns. In Shogun 2, Nanban Trade Ships cost 1500 and 250 upkeep, can only be built at a Nanban Quarters (a tier 4 building with a one-per-faction limit) by a Christian clan, and can annihilate entire Japanese naval stacks with just 10 guns. For comparison, most Japanese warships are simply floating platforms for soldiers to shoot at each other or attempt boarding. The only Japanese ships that have actual weapons (the Cannon Bune) are a late-game unit that can only has 8 cannons, can only be built by a Drydock (tier 4 building) and has a unit cap of 2.

* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: The Choshu clan in ''Fall of the Samurai'' qualifies. They surrendered to the Tokugawa clan without a fight and as a ''reward'' were stripped of their possessions, including the famed Osaka castle, and given the economically poorer Choshu province. Now [[BestServedCold 250 years later]], they're determined to dismantle the Shogunate. Their faction perks are called "Emperor's Fury", and when controlled by the AI Choshu typically becomes the Imperial Vanguard.

** Traditional units will walk all over modern units in the early portion of ''Fall of the Samurai''. This usually gets subverted when they have to deal with artillery and modern rifles, but even late in the game traditional units can still have a place on the battlefield. Spear units can help protect the flanks and artillery units from cavalry attack, while traditional cavalry units like Yari Katchi can ride around enemy armies and take out artillery units in the rear. Units like Katana Katchi and Shogitai are good to have on standby behind your riflemen in the event the enemy tries to overwhelm you with a bayonet charge. Kisho Ninja look massively out of place on a battlefield dominated by riflemen and artillery guns, but between their speed, stealth and incredibly high melee attack, they will fillet line infantry and even put up a mighty fight against elite riflemen and Western troops - all while being third of their unit size.

* SameCharacterButDifferent: The Shimazu, Mori and Date from the core game are still around as the rulers of the Satsuma, Choshu and Sendai domains in ''Fall of the Samurai''. They're completely different, though; the Shimazu's specialization in katana is replaced by a grab bag of abilities, while the Date's [[TheBerserker Berserker]] army style is gone, and Sendai is one of the most diplomacy-oriented factions in the campaign. The naval-oriented Mori have turned into Choshu, a domain of looting specialists focused on adaptability.

* DragonInChief: It's possible to play as a clan that controls half of Japan's provinces, has numerous armed forces at their disposal, maintains access to limitless resources, and all while technically being a vassal to a smaller, less powerful clan.

** ''Rise of the Samurai'' starts off at the twilight of Japan's "classical" Heian period, marked by the Genpei Wars as well as the titular emergence of the Samurai.

** In ''Rise of the Samurai'', the once-powerful central government of of the Heian-era has crumbled outside of Kyoto and the provinces under Fujiwara control.

* AntiFrustrationFeatures: In the original game, contact with Europeans only happens after a random event, preventing players from both building European trade outposts and using firearms, while obviously not allowing access to Christianity too. In particularly weird situations, event spawning Dutch traders would happen before the forst contact with thePortuguese, completely shifting the game dynamics in that regard (the Dutch traders instantly unlock access to both gunpowder units, without any religious restrictions). In the sequel, the game starts in 1545, three years after first contact with the Portuguese, Nanban ports are possible to build from the start (but it will take almost a decade in-game to reach that point of infrastructure) and the only thing that’s random, is the eventual arrival of the Black Ship, which can be completely ignored if you don't plan to capture it. The Otomo clan also starts as Christian and with related infrastructure already in place.

* CultureChopSuey: The overall aesthetics of ''Fall of the Samurai'' increasingly give this impression, with its mix of 19th Century Western and Japanese styles, such as Victorian style photographs for the unit portraits, and the unit control interface looking more "Western". This is also reflected in the soundtrack.

** In the Sengoku Jidai campaign, the Ashikaga Shogunate is reduced to Kyoto and a handful of loyalist clans, though that changes once Realm Divide kicks in.

*** It can be taken further if you have ''Rise of The Samurai''. The 16th century Samurai armies can also bring twelfth army units, widening the potential technological gap to 600 years.

* AntiFrustrationFeatures: In the original game, contact with Europeans only happend after a random event, preventing players from both building European trade outposts and using firearms, while obviously not allowning access to Christianity, too. In particularly weird situations, event spawning Dutch traders would happen before Portugese, completely shifting the game dynamics in that regard (Dutch instantly unlock access to both gunpowder units, without any religious restrictions). In the sequel, the game starts in 1545, three years after first contact with Portugese, Nanban ports are possible to build from the start (but it will take almost a decade in-game to reach that point of infrastructure) and the only thing random is eventual arrival of the Black Ship, which can be completely ignored if you don't plan to capture it. The Otomo clan also starts as Christian and with related infrastructure already in place.

*** InvertedTrope by the Date's Bulletproof Samurai - their armor uniquely is one of the only kind that can stand against gunshots, and so they get a reduced damage modifier against gunfire that allows them to survive being shot by muskets. [[note]]A General's Bodyguard can also survive gunfire, but that is for the much more game-y reason that they're the only land units which each have more 1 health than the 1 damage any single hitting attack does.[[/note]]

* ArtificialStupidity: However, the AI is still prone to the occasional moment of jaw-gaping stupidity.

** An AI opponent will usually stand idly by as archers outside of an AI defended castle shoot their troops to pieces instead of sallying out. (There is a reason for this, though it doesn't make the action any less stupid. Units inside walls get a large morale bonus and the computer is unwilling to sacrifice that bonus for ''any'' reason. Too bad that morale bonus doesn't protect against projectiles...)
** If you get two missile units in a duel with one another (one isolated missile unit attacks another isolated missile unit in the field) then you'll sometimes be treated to the sight of archers and gunners forgetting about their area of expertise altogether and [[LeeroyJenkins charging a wall of bows]]. Utter slaughter is, naturally, inevitable.

* MoreDakka: Hits probably the franchise's zenith in ''Fall of the Samurai'', where proto-UsefulNotes/WorldWarI weaponry makes its debut. Case in point, in the historical Battle of Hakodate, a small three-regiment force you control (600 riflemen) is charged by a force five times larger if they're not helped. Properly placed, even in higher difficulty levels your force has about an even chance of mowing down the entire attacking force before running out of ammo.

** If you convert to Christianity, you can recruit Portugese Terco infantry - European soldiers in heavy armor, carrying muskets and swords. They are point by point the best unit you can field and work great both in melee (with similar melee stats to Katana Samurai) and ranged combat (with accuracy and reloading stats that are almost as good as the Matchlock Hero). Nothing Japanese have can even compare in being this versalite and in the same time powerful.

Two expansion packs were produced, introducing new campaigns to the game. The first, ''Rise of the Samurai'', is set during the Genpei War of the late 12th century, which led to the decline of the Chinese-influenced Imperial Court, the rise of the first shogunate and the dominance of the Samurai class in Japanese society. Unlike the basic game, the major clans are split among three families and the igniting event of the conflict ''will'' occur (Emperor Takakura is pressured to abdicate by the Taira and his toddler grandson Antoku is placed on the throne), setting off war between the three families and probably their aligned minor clans with them - the pressures of this war will create an emphasis on the usage of agents to aid your cause without even more fighting. The religion mechanic has been adapted to "influence" of the three major families which will be a core mechanic to deal with constantly, since Junsatsushi agents can convert provinces with a majority of influence aligned to your family without a fight - especially helpful with the war certainly occupying your troops elsewhere.

The second new campaign came in the form of a stand-alone expansion, ''Fall of the Samurai'', which depicts the [[UsefulNotes/MeijiRestoration Boshin War]] of the 1860s between the Tokugawa Shogunate of Edo and the resurgent Imperial Court in Kyoto. As a result of Japan's opening and contact with Western influences, Japanese society is changing rapidly, spelling the demise of the feudal rule under the Samurai which has been in place for almost 700 years. "Modernization" serves as the technology trees and buildings involved in the main strategic mechanics, which will naturally improve your clan greatly to procure...at the cost of citizens becoming increasingly unhappy with their lives being turned upside down by foreign influence overtaking traditions. The influence mechanic replacing religion remains from ''Rise of the Samurai'', instead split between Imperial and Shogunate alignment. Unlike the other campaigns, Realm Divide here will have the Shogunate and Imperial forces openly declare their loyalties and fight against each other with you forming the vanguard of one of them - or you may instead choose to fight off ''everyone'' again by forming an independent republic!