Total War: General discussion.

I know. It was just one of those random bits of advice that sprung up in my head.

For besieging castles, you want lots of archers and overwhelming numbers. That's pretty much all there is to it. Do not, under any circumstances, attack a castle without at least three times as many men as the opponent has.

MOAR ROME 2 CHARACTER GAMEPLAY - A larger family tree feature is being added (with a lot more intrigues in it, by the look of it), Agents and Generals' skills are culture-based, units will remain in slow formations toggled on even if ordered to run (and so will only break it to charge when getting in range of an enemy target), many fixes including graphical ones, and you get post-battle dosh like Total Warhammer.

I wonder why they're focusing on Rome II so much.

Many people wanting to play Attila without stuttering probably are also asking that.

It's probably just a numbers game, in that R2 is their most popular game right now after the Warhammer 2. They said another DLC for R2 was incoming, so a significant free update props up goodwill before that drops.

I think R2 might genuinely be Adored by the Network. They have enough faith in that game that they released a campaign DLC for it four years after launch, separated by the release of four new TW games.

Not that I'm complaining. I unironically love that game.

Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Jul 12th 2018 at 2:56:25 PM

I don't think it's quite there yet. If they manage to release like 3 more major DLCs for R2 before the next TWW2 lord pack drops, the label would probably fit then.

Edited by VutherA on Jul 12th 2018 at 3:30:54 PM

So what's the skill tree a first ninja probably needs to have? Assassination, Sabotage or Spy?

That said, can anyone explain about the agents in Shogun 2? As in, monks, metsukes, geishas, etc. What do they do and how important are they?

Edited by ChrisX on Jul 12th 2018 at 6:50:32 PM

Ninjas can kill people or sabotage them.

Monks can foment rebellions which is really great if you play Ikko Ikki

Geisha I think can seduce generals to switch sides in addition to killing people

Metsuke help to keep public order and are good for killing or arresting enemy agents.

All the agents can "attack" other agents. Monks counter Metsuke, who counter Ninjas, who counter Monks...unless there's some gigantic level divide. So get some of all of them! Remember to do this! You do not want some Ninja traipsing around cutting all of your generals' throats, or Monks demoralizing all of your armies before critical battles.

Ninjas' biggest thing is being able to sabotage armies, stopping them from moving or reinforcing, so you're probably going to want one that makes a beeline for improving that. The second, is stealthily providing sight. You play MOBAs, so I imagine you can understand the usefulness of a moving ward. The other possibilities are generally useful aside from sabotaging buildings since it's not even an annoyance to AI or even noticeable usually aside from sabotaging a castle's gates for a siege assault (and again, you're probably usually better off just starving it out).

Monks can give your provinces a happiness bonus, most notable for taking a town and letting an army go off to other business faster rather than having to stick around in it to keep order...or destabilize another province! This is great because it lets you take towns without declaring war on its former owner after a rebel army takes it, and rebel armies are usually pretty crappy. Monks are also unique in potentially providing a bonus to your Chi arts' research rate, and there's not many other ways to get that. On a lesser note, they can improve the morale of your armies or decrease an enemy army's.

Metsuke have the ability to make your provinces make LOADSAMONEE, which you'll want, because LOADSAMONEE. They can also provide the costly option of bribing enemy armies - might be a lot depending on the size and cost of it, but it's possibly handy for weakening an enemy or even saving a province that you have no hope of saving otherwise.

I personally like to have at least one of each kind specializing in anti-agent action because the last thing I want is the AI's to be successful, but you do you.

I don't think Geisha can seduce, I'm pretty sure they're just assassins in the base campaign. That mechanic is just RotS/FotS I believe. They can only assassinate and have no stealth ability, so they're high-risk high-reward agents when you absolutely positively want monks and generals dead.

Edited by VutherA on Jul 12th 2018 at 9:11:10 AM

Will investing on Monks influence how I get to Christianity?

Also what is the number of agents that will be suffice? (Like, do I need 2 monks, 2 metsukes, 2 ninjas if I have 6 provinces?)

I only had 2 provinces after 25 turns (it's now 1551). Had a ninja and building a metsuke market. I don't suppose I'm getting my priorities of which agent first wrong, do I?

Edited by ChrisX on Jul 12th 2018 at 8:36:05 PM

Getting a Nanban port is an option that appears as a pop-up when a turn begins, which just...happens at some point while you have a port.

You can get three of each agent max. It's up to you what to prioritize first (and you'll honestly probably going to end up getting Metsuke first because MONEE anyway), just keep in mind it's worth getting the others still before it's too late, even if by like, making 3 temples in your territory, recruiting the monks, then breaking down the temples. And if your plan is to get a Nanban port but stay Shinto-Buddhist, you're going to want a temple in the region that has the port!

Edited by VutherA on Jul 12th 2018 at 10:24:36 AM

A temple? You want an entire temple complex. Those missionaries don't fuck around. I suggest you go for Christianity early game or not at all. Religious Unrest is a thing, and there's a huge loss of honour when your Daimyo switches religions.

You'll be stuck putting down rebellions for an awfully long time, is what I'm saying. I personally don't find it to be worth it, but that's because I like my Warrior Monks.

Well if only a foreign ship will come. It's 1551, not about to come soon, huh?

Also can you explain what you meant 'temple complex'? Multiple adjacent provinces with temples built on it?

As a Date, I think I'd want some Christianity stuff. They're gonna provide me gunpowder, yes?

Edited by ChrisX on Jul 13th 2018 at 12:58:14 AM

Nanban trade's the only way to get matchlock ashigaru early, if I recall correctly, giving you a nice technological advantage over the enemy.

At least in my experience, matchlock units punch above their weight - a line of matchlock ashigaru can utterly destroy a samurai charge.

I actually won some battles in my co-op campaign that the AI claimed were not in my favour, as I was fielding mostly ashigaru units while the enemy was sending samurai against me - turns out all these years of training are worth jack shit when you run head-first into a rain of bullets.

There also some gunpowder units that are limited to Christian clans, as the port upgrade unlocking them is tied to conversion.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Jul 12th 2018 at 8:56:29 PM

The Temple Complex is the highest-level upgrade for the Buddhist Temple building.

If you stick to Shinto-Buddhism, you can research a gunpowder technology that allows the recruitment of Matchlock Ashigaru and Samurai, though it's going to take you half the campaign to get there. Building a Nanban Trade Port without converting unlocks the Imported Matchlock Ashigaru, which is much more expensive than the regular variant but reloads faster. Once you accept the word of Jesus, you'll be able to upgrade it to the Nanban Quarter, which unlocks European Cannons (immobile, inaccurate, slow-firing and kind of useless) and the Nanban Trade Ship (a European-style galleon with a row of cannons and matchlock gunners).

Also, keep an eye out for the European Traders faction! Once in a while, the game will notify you that their Black Ship has been sighted along the shore. The Black Ship is a large carrack with a massive amount of firepower that could pretty much solo any naval engagement with ease. You're going to need to sacrifice quite a few kobayas to capture it (as well as a hefty upkeep fee), but it pretty much guarantees you naval superiority for the rest of the game.

Edited by eagleoftheninth on Jul 13th 2018 at 12:11:05 PM

.... I think I made a bit of a mistake. During one of the earlier turns, a quest popped up saying "GO LEARN WAY OF THE SWORD TO BUILD NO-DACHI SAMURAI"

I did that immediately, forgetting the domestic arts.

I might have suffered a bit because of that. And now I just got into 25 turns that I built my own market. Is that a mistake I made?

Yes, but don't worry about it. Nobody is expecting you to actually win your first campaign. Shogun 2 is a pretty unforgiving game, and that's before Realm Divide hits.

There is nothing wrong with taking some Bushido techs early. In fact, some of them can be considered mandatory, and I nearly always start with two Bushido techs before going for Zen techs. Early battles are basically just a bunch of Ashigaru running headlong into each other, and in those circumstances, those few extra points of morale and melee defence/attack can matter a whole lot.

After winning your first couple of wars, however, the game begins to stress numbers. The AI gets a whole lot of cheating money, so they'll be throwing full stacks at you for the considerable future. You're going to need a strong economy in order to match that, and because of the way Economic Growth works, you want to get an early start.

"First markets, then farm upgrades," would be my advice to start you off with. Once you got that, you can spend some time researching other stuff you want while scrounging up money to upgrade your farms. Once most of your farms have the upgrade, begin research for the next farm upgrade.

Keep in mind that different provinces have different soil quality, which will affect the income your farms generate (but not the Food Surplus, oddly enough). When upgrading farms, prioritise the ones with high soil quality to maximise income. Also, target fertile provinces for conquest when given the choice.

"Gold is stronger than steel, for steel obeys gold" said some smart-ass. Once you've established sufficient military might for the threats you are currently facing, you want to prioritise economy over all. Farms, markets, gambling dens, gold mines (oh god yes, gold mines), trade routes, anything that makes money should be a primary concern. It's okay to stop conquering for a bit to invest time and money in your infrastructure.

Do not make the rookie mistake of recruiting more soldiers than you need, and be prepared to disband a few units if you ever find yourself without any immediate threats. Upkeep costs are brutal, and every turn an army spends waiting for something to happen is a turn where you spend thousands of currency (gokou? I forgot) for doing essentially nothing. Kick those peasants back to their farms so you can invest the money and recruit bigger, better armies when you actually need them.

Man, now I'm in the mood. Think I'm gonna fire up a Shogun 2 campaign of my own.

Edited by Kayeka on Jul 13th 2018 at 3:13:30 PM

Okay. Now... about diplomacy. Well... I think all I know is 'break diplomacy this, war this'. Is there any other means of victory aside of conquering? Though I think Date is best suited to kick ass.

Also let's say there's this minor clan (Hatakeyama, for example). They are in an alliance with me. If I have my ninja fuck up their facility, will they break alliance and declare war with me? So what are the signs that these guys aren't worth allying anymore?

Conquest is indeed the only means of victory in this game. Conquer a good chunk of the map and claim Kyoto in order to win. Later TW games would play around with alternative victory conditions, but in this game victory is earned with the pointy end of a spear.

Like I said in a previous post, there are no alliances. There are enemies you kill now, and enemies you kill later. Having said that, you want to honour any agreements you do make. Obviously betraying your "ally" by declaring war or committing hostile agent actions (ninjas are surprisingly bad about the whole "deniability" thing what with their clan emblem floating over their heads) leads to a loss of Honour for your Daimyo and a huge opinion penalty with all other clans. This means that, in addition to your former ally, the other clans are likely to pile on you as well. I'm sure you can see why that would be hardly ideal.

To avoid this, an alliance must last at least ten turns before you should break it. Then follows a period of another ten turns of truce. If you do not declare war in that time frame, you will not suffer the penalties.

The primary function of an alliance is to create a buffer zone. You pick allies based on their ability to defend themselves and their integrity, in order to create one direction from which you can be reasonably sure no attacks are coming so you can focus on business elsewhere. Once an ally can not perform this function, they are of no more use to you.

An ally that is weak will constantly drag you into wars you don't need, as the surrounding clans will try to pick them off. An ally that has a treacherous nature will not join your wars and might actually stab you in the back. An ally that is in the way of your conquest is doing the exact opposite of what you want it to do. Any of these are a good sign that you need to break off the alliance. Preferably sooner so that, by the time the truce runs out you'll be in prime position to smash their teeth in.

Not to mention the Realm Divide. It ensures that conquest is the only way to win; even your vassals will betray you.

Yeah, the moment a province you took gives you a pop-up saying the Shogun is getting antsy at your power, take a moment to think, because the real challenge of the game is coming. Take some more provinces after that, and Realm Divide will occur - just about everyone will hate you and inevitably declare war on you. And they won't do this with just units they logically built, no siree - they'll be spitting out full veteran armies out of the woodwork like Izanagi himself decided to make things difficult on you (I don't know much about Japanese Mythology and that's the only one I could think of for a fitting "Make people out of thin air" reference).

Think hard about the state of your military, defences and economy then. A good rule for it is making sure your income will be enough to make use of all of your agents every turn. And if you're really worried about it, just sit for a while! Nothing says you can't stockpile your money for the coming storm.

Now go, and make a legacy to last ten thousand years!

Edited by VutherA on Jul 13th 2018 at 2:45:04 PM

That didn't answer the question about if the Alliance will be annulled the moment I have my ninja fuck up their belongings (Sabotage or assassination)

Why are we still getting updates five years later for Rome II? Because Rome wasn't built in a day.

No, it will not.

Gonna have to ask about Metsuke again. What is its particular trait related to the ability to generate LOTS OF MONEEEE?