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shalcar posted:The tournament will indeed be epic! I'm excepting a much bigger turnout, not to mention the plethora of army types we can see. I'm also working on a handicap system of some sort to give newer players a fighting chance against certain other players. This sounds like it could really hurt. Can't wait to see what ends up happening there, and who turns up. Have high hopes that Sydin will be a really tough fight in it.
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Jul 11, 2013 05:29
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FredMSloniker posted:So I'm all caught up with the previous thread and this one, and I can finally ask a question that I missed the answer to: what do you mean by 'building chains'? I mean, I get that, for instance, the Castle chain contains the Fort and all the buildings a Fort can be upgraded into, but the phrase also gets used in places where I'd have expected just 'buildings' to be used, e.g. 'The Stronghold chain increases the size of the city, allowing additional building chains to be constructed in the province'. Is it just the game's way of saying 'you can't build more than one building in the same chain in the same province'? Most of the time, when you have an empty slot, you think about putting down a building in terms of the upgrade path that you are going to put there, not necessarily just the basic building that you plan on using. For example, if you have an empty slot, you generally think about adding in the gambling chain rather than just adding the sake den which is the first step in the gambling chain. It's simply how some people prefer thinking about the game, as it grants a better long term understanding of the buildings you're placing, and your long term strategy.
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Jul 11, 2013 08:04
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Agent Interrobang posted:Oh man, this is gonna be good times. I swear I played the original Shogun until I wore grooves into the disc. Probably gonna be picking this up during the Steam Sale(it's 15 bucks right now, seriously) and playing along with the thread. It's much, much more useful against human opponents. It can provide a morale penalty if perfectly timed that the AI can't ignore, but other than that, it's limited against the AI.
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Jul 11, 2013 21:03
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AtomikKrab posted:You realize you could have just shot them with arrows and lost 0 men? They may have fixed this, as the last few times I've done this, the AI just ran his units out of the fortress. Either that or I'm just unlucky.
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Jul 16, 2013 20:54
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Deadmeat5150 posted:That was, almost step for step, the exact actions I took the last time I played Shogun 2. I love the Hattori clan. They're allegedly arrow catchers. Certain Japanese soldiers or messengers would wear large whale bone and cloth sacks that could tangle up and catch arrows that came from behind. I think they were also something that could indicate status and affiliation a bit like a sashimono. Edit: I am the fasterest! Yukitsu fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Jul 17, 2013 |
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Jul 16, 2013 21:04
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Fangz posted:What I like to do is have the AI start to send his guys up walls, then sally my cavalry out and hit the climbers from behind. Is that a good idea? Circumstantially. First off, it's not great having a much cavalry for garrisons, so I'd only consider that if they happen to be around, and you need to bulk up a defense because it isn't at cap garrison, second, it's not great against yaris, especially not yari samurai, and lastly, if the enemy has a ton of troops invading your walls, usually they stagger their climbs a little, which means it's unlikely that you'll get clean rear charges, in which case having them hunt archers may be more profitable.
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Jul 17, 2013 21:33
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Randalor posted:I've learnt two things this past week playing Shogun 2. The first is that archer's fire arrows can actually take out archery towers and fort walls. It's one of those things that... honestly, it takes several volleys, and after the first couple didn't seem to do anything, I just assumed that it couldn't actually light the sections on fire. Now that I know that they can... yeah, there's no use for siege equipment when a unit of archers with fire arrows can do about the same thing, and for a fraction of the cost. Try to take castle walls intact. There's rarely a reason to try and burn down sections, and capturing the towers gives you a tremendous advantage in taking the remainder of the fortress. It also saves money, which is always a good thing when you're spending a ton to refurbish a newly conquered town. This is the same reason I never autoresolve siege. If you're in a situation where you would consider scorching the walls, it may be best to rely on something like a ninja, or on waiting up the siege. Yukitsu fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Jul 18, 2013 |
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Jul 18, 2013 18:38
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Arcturas posted:Huzzah, more updates on the way! I tried to play Shogun 2 again the other day, after being inspired by the LP, and I realized I'm terrible when I have to fight a multiple front war. I picked whoever gets bonuses to monks because they seem nifty, but after I take 2-3 provinces I always get squished and destroyed. I think people are under willing to use this, but it's sometimes important to bite down your pride and just bribe people into becoming your friends, trade partners or allies to avoid a two front war. Protecting your vassal is also a great way to let you focus your aggression somewhere without having to worry about your flanks until you're better established. I'm running a legendary for it, and yes, the Uesegi start position is ridiculously hard to fight your way out of.
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Jul 22, 2013 02:18
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At least this'll mean 5 people with no excuse to not compete in the upcoming blood bath.
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Jul 23, 2013 06:04
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That would be a really strange name. There is no "L" in Japanese. :p Sharuka is how you'd likely pronounce that name. Which may have to be modified further, because that comes out pretty girly.
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Jul 26, 2013 07:03
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Fangz posted:How significant are the melee capabilities of missile units? When my front line is doing not so well, I often have a temptation to throw my bow infantry forward to try to plug the gaps. Is this a good idea? They're pretty similar to the yari ashigaru melee stats. I tend to draw them around the flanks and rear charge when the enemy is all tied up in melee, and my cavalry has pushed their archers off the field.
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Jul 26, 2013 17:35
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CommissarMega posted:Is there a short guide as to what one should do first in Shogun 2? Maybe a 'First 10 Turns™' thing? Shalcar's info writeups are useful, but they are a little overwhelming. I want to play Ikko Ikki, but all I remember from the previous thread was 'build temples every other province'. Your first 10 turns really makes a difference depending on which faction you are, so it's a bit hard to say for each faction in turn. I could probably help out a bit with it, but honestly, I frame my strategy around cheese free legendary, which doesn't help a lot of people who can't win outnumbered significantly all the time.
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Jul 26, 2013 20:06
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CommissarMega posted:What do you mean by 'cheese free'? As I recall, the Ikko need as much help as they can get, so I don't mind being maximum cheesy. You can abuse the AI in some cases through siege defense, as the AI is a bit glitchy on those, it's actually possible to save scum a legendary run. The biggest though is taking advantage of the AI's siege abilities, or using autoresolve on siege attack battles that are in your favour. It's also possible to "run the clock" while defending so the AI "loses" due to the timer by using 1 unit of scout cavalry. That one can hold up a pass with just 1 unit for pretty much ever.
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Jul 26, 2013 20:24
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my dad posted:Is there anything that's as broken as Rome TW phalanxes? Spear wall IMO. I use those to beat katana samurai heavy armies in multiplayer on a 1 per 1 or even 2 against on a regular basis, and I don't even have the right set up for that. Works just as well against the AI. So basically phalanxes still. And if you know what the hell you're doing, shotgun cavalry makes my opponents flame me in chat. Yukitsu fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Jul 26, 2013 |
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Jul 26, 2013 20:41
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Jesenjin posted:I've played Rome TW a lot, and am playing Europa Barbarorum now, but what makes phalanx so broken? Phalanxes use a different method for generating damage, and also form a physical obstacle, so for example, a regiment of iberian swordsmen fighting the sacred band don't actually get into close combat, as the spears form a palpable, physical barrier that they can't move into. If you can use them facing directly towards the enemy, they'll always win. Similarly, yari ashigaru work differently from other units in terms of how combat is "rolled". A yari ashigaru basically puts his spear forward, and has a chance to hit, miss or knock back anyone that walks within their range. Since multiple spear points can affect the same area, it's unlikely that any swordsman can actually get into that duel animation that is required to generate a chance for a kill, and even if they do, a spear behind can knock them back and interrupt. This contrasts to normal combat where participants square off and fight one on one. Edit: Old video from multiplayer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jt7FPECdKM Yukitsu fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Jul 26, 2013 |
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Jul 26, 2013 21:06
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Jesenjin posted:That cheesiness. Yeah I know about that one, but didn't though about that one use when I posted. Using it against AI is like shooting fishes in barrel. It is the best way, but you'd have to be an idiot to let it happen.
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Jul 26, 2013 21:10
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They have the same sort of weaknesses that other spear formations have got in games. They're relatively immobile, and even cavalry smashing them from behind can wipe them pretty easily, and the lack of armour makes them easy arrow fodder. Ultimately, they are a great buy, especially for their cost, but even against the AI, I've been finding I need to work real hard to keep them from losing a flank or to avoid the AI getting around my rear, especially as I have small armies.
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Aug 18, 2013 04:34
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Fangz posted:Yeah, imagine what Sun Tzu could have done with Microsoft Excel... It's better for people like Tacitus (I don't know any famous Chinese tactician). Grand strategy unfortunately doesn't benefit as much from maths as tactics do, other than logistics which you can do with a block of wood and an inky horse bit.
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Aug 19, 2013 21:53
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Smiling Knight posted:
I keep mixing him up with Aelianus Tacticus for no justifiable reason.
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Aug 21, 2013 08:32
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Tacitus was not a tactician, but a historian. He trashed the Caesars, was known for his dry wit, and codified the stereotypes that would be used to describe Germans and other "noble savage" types for the next two thousand years!
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AtomikKrab posted:Do tell about this railgun, I am a noob at games. The heavy matchlocks that are unique to the shimazu. They have much better armour penetration than standard matchlocks and can penetrate units, I think to a max of 5 troops per bullet or something similar, they keep patching that. A pair of units will pretty much obliterate any AI charge, and if you're playing against them, they can easily catch you off guard.
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Aug 21, 2013 21:06
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BurningStone posted:As a new player, the deep swords and spears do indeed look the same to me. What's the big difference? The logistics upgrades along the spear/gun path mostly. Form is worse than Heaven and Earth for example. Personally, I like going deep along the chi arts.
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Aug 22, 2013 18:41
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For those of you who do prefer swords, you can get more mileage out of the sword tree than the spear one, but the manner in which you do it is kind of meta gamey, not that that's bad. The AI tends to build a lot of weak infantry, and a lot of bow ashigaru. The reason you don't necessarily want to commit to the spear path here, is because the AI doesn't build enough cavalry, and because yari ashigaru are the best spear unit. However, what makes the yari ashigaru great is relatively stat independant, so you either are upgrading relatively weak units, or you're upgrading a unit that doesn't strictly speaking need upgrades. On the other hand, two or three really BS sword units can cause an enemy to chain route really, really fast. You can't really get the same sort of effect with a more sort of middling spear unit, even if the spear army would be more efficient stats wise. The other reason this is great, is that you can safely stack armour on your sword units, and shrug off a ridiculous amount of bow ashigaru fire without having to spec all the way to naginata samurai. If you go the sword route, it's possible to win fights a lot more decisively, and take less casualties, but it's also possible to bungle the attack and wind up in a far worse position, as relying on a few key units to instantly shatter an enemy inherently has that greater risk of failure for the much greater reward. So if you do think you'd prefer the sword path, you can actually still get a ton of power out of it, but it's less straightforward than what you get out of the spear path. The key thing to remember is, the spear path is still probably ultimately better. Reliability is a huge advantage here, but if you're confident that you can always, 100% cause an instant chain rout in your enemy, the sword path can give you a slight edge to make that a bit easier compared to the spear one. Yukitsu fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Aug 23, 2013 |
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Aug 23, 2013 19:49
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If you're already pretty hard into the attack side of things, you can make it work, but you need to be very confident. Stacking attack to a very high level lets you basically wipe low morale units far far faster. If that's where you've already gone, keeping a mass of cheaper units on the center, a strong group of katanas on each flank, you can basically do a repeat of Marathon or Cannae using your troops. It's an astonishingly efficient way to fight, and relies on having a huge attack bonus on your flanks.
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Aug 25, 2013 07:37
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Mzbundifund posted:I understand this as it applies to Metsuke, but I'd like some clarification on the visibility radius, specifically, is the diminishing returns on ninja visibility really that bad a thing? Even a 50% of normal increase to visibility radius still translates to a much larger area of visibility (πr2), and unless a lot of that visibility is wasted (by being over water or something) isn't it still helpful to stack ninja at least once if your goal is sight lines? I'd only consider that if I have a province sort of surrounded on multiple sides and I don't know where it will be attacked from, but know for sure that it will be attacked. Otherwise, using the spare ninja to scout the area outside the city is generally the best option to get vision.
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Aug 28, 2013 21:21
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I just make sure to take as many generals as possible, so if one of them gets uppity, I can just can the sod. Edit: If you can't afford this, you can put a metsuke in the army with him, and he'll not only have a great resistance to ninjas, but you'll also have something that is increasing his effective loyalty. Though of course, if you have like, a 6000 koku income town, you may be losing more money by not having your metuke tax them. Yukitsu fucked around with this message at 08:02 on Aug 29, 2013 |
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Aug 29, 2013 02:57
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Apotheosis posted:And I preordered it, too. That'll teach me to have hope. You can give it a try if you already own it. It's all working out relatively well for me, and I'm not having too easy a time in the short campaign peeks that I've been doing against the AI. Then again, it's never been the battle management that made total war challenging, it was always the resource management. In this one, keep getting bit by public discontent.
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Sep 4, 2013 20:05
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I'm guessing traitor general, though my recollection of the last one is shaky. And from a defensive standpoint, nothing beats Kyoto castle. I say you go take it. 
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Sep 19, 2013 18:35
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shalcar posted:Let's Learn Shogun 2 I'll definitely try to help out with this, although a friend of mine once told me that my fundamental strategy only seems to work for me, so I'm not positive how much help I'll be in that regard. Edit: For example, I build all the farms, and never burn down enemy buildings. One could almost say I'm the anti-Shalcar. Yukitsu fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Sep 21, 2013 |
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Sep 21, 2013 20:21
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Tax Refund posted:Because Chisato will be training them. Right? From beyond the graaaave. Wooooooooo.  Assuming you do an action per turn though, pretty good odds your ninja won't survive to the end game, so don't get your hopes too high on ninja survival.
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Sep 26, 2013 18:50
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Got a quick look at it. First off, to avoid being where you are, I would have done the following differently: 1: You need a fleet. Naval battles kind of suck in vanilla shogun but they are still required to prevent a mass of naval landings that you'll now be exposed to. 2: Focus your production centers and your economic centers. You have way too many markets and way too many naginata dojos. I demolished a market in Sagami to replace with an encampment, as it is needed to produce the high quality troops with the blacksmith, and I also upgraded your black smith to an armour smith. On a similar note, I cancelled your production of a fletcher in Hitachi to make it into a paper mill, as you have a market there but no archery dojo. All in all, pay more attention to your region specialties. 3: Your farms are underleveled, I set to researching those right away. 4: It's too late to fix this, and it may not be your fault but you should not be adding all of these improvements to the strongholds. Castle building has a net negative economic impact. You can fix the lack of construction slots by not overbuilding markets in places that better deserve unit production, and not building yari drill yards in economically viable provinces. 5: Izu is your richest province, yet doesn't have an upgraded market. Izu needs a really high level market, that should have been built before the gambling hall upgrade. 6: You have too few armies that are likely too concentrated. Learn to defend a front with perhaps 2/3 the troops per stack, that would give you another stack to defend your massive front with. 7: You advanced East and West, but are relatively still central with regards to a North advance, leaving 3 fronts open to land invasion. Try to drive straight up to the far North shores so you only have 2 fronts to fight on. This would mean you would need a third and fourth fleet, but as you will need those later it's better to have a core fleet built up both North and South before realm divide hits. This turn I cancelled some of your build orders, demolished the mentioned buildings and started to build a fleet in your farthest North and West provinces. I'm expecting to initially lose south central provinces to naval invasion, and will prepare to repel them back and retake those lands within about 5 turns of losing them, but you need to get new armies out fast. Edit: Not liking your proportion of archers in your armies, so I've set to cranking those out, canceling any production of naginata for a small while. Yukitsu fucked around with this message at 06:38 on Sep 27, 2013 |
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Sep 27, 2013 06:28
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Sydin posted:He's making 7k a turn with only 2k coming from trade. Yeah his economy isn't rockstar, but you make it sound like he's in the poor house. He's making that because he's under armed. His mil expenditure once he stabilizes his fronts with 2 more armies and gets two-four navies will drop his income to less than 500 a turn (which is in the poor house), which can make consolidating your territories with upgrades and garrisons a lot harder. He's only spending 4500 per turn on army costs, which is half of what he'll end up spending. quote:
I'm not sure if he's on a short or long campaign, so I'm assuming it's the long, as it looks rather like a long campaign through the number of provinces captured before realm divide. But even so, I will be sinking money into them rather than armies in 13 turns, as by then I'll have another two stacks of army and a few navies. By then, income will be a concern. Ideally, I want to hit the 40 or so food growth factor if I can, and get 5 provinces up to a 70% tax rate. Edit: Also, I've never actually cared about in game numbers or other things, they don't really matter much to me. quote:He has 14 food and a good economy, how has he built too many strongholds? Yeah if you're on legendary and you need to squeeze every drop out of your economy, you don't want to throw strongholds everywhere, but it's scarcely an issue here. What fun is sitting around with a bunch of forts? It's fine to build high level forts, but you pick a choke point and funnel all your stronghold upgrades there. It's more fun to me to have two citadels that are very likely to get attacked than to have a bunch of middle level ones that will never do anything. Also, the reason his income is so high, but his armies are so small is that he's been spending on those buildings instead of armies, and as they also don't provide any growth, he's currently looking at not increasing his income at all in the coming turns. His income by this point in time should be closer to 2000 due to more army upkeep, but his income before deduction should be higher. And remember, this is how I'm pulling him through this. And for me it involves massive economic reforms and simultaneous massive military spending. If you do something different, more power to you, but this is how I'm doing it. Yukitsu fucked around with this message at 07:38 on Sep 27, 2013 |
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Sep 27, 2013 07:21
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Uh, what? He's got terrace farms more or less everywhere. Are you talking about Land Consolidation? Go back and look at shalcar's math posts: LC has a negative return on investment until like 80+ turns out. On very fertile. This save is at RD on a normal difficulty short length. By the time LC is researched and built the game will be half over. It's just wasted koku and research time he could be putting into bulking up his army.
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shalcar posted:I'm sure you didn't intend it, but your initial post comes across as pretty damning of Burning Stone and I think Sydin was right to point it out, while your second post on the matter reads like a dummy spit. No-one here doubts your skill at Total War, but that doesn't mean that your advice is going to be magically immune from criticism, especially when parts of that advice are provably wrong. If you don't care about specific numbers, that's fine, but it's unreasonable to think that any numerical advice you offer holds any credence after that point. I'm not a nice person, and I'm definitely not a nice teacher. When people are saying that they're in a bad spot, and want a look at things, I'm not there to pat them on the shoulder and tell them they're doing a good job, I'm just going to list all the things that went wrong, and if he had done otherwise, I can guarantee that even if he'd not be in a position that you would like, he would be in a position to beat the game without any real problems. If he wants me to add that everyone ends up in a position like this from time to time, yes, everyone does end up like this from time to time, but that doesn't in my view, help him. What I'm telling him will. The biggest contention I have here, is that I don't feel his economy is all that strong. 8 turns in from here, my income has dropped to 500 or so koku a turn because I've increased my turn by turn upkeep to over 8000, and am forced to repair buildings that were damaged by ninja every turn. I've got just enough navy now that I feel secure at delaying a faction or two at sea, and I've added an army to hold in the far west, but I can't upgrade economic buildings, and I can't build another army to make a secure push towards Kyoto, let alone an army strong enough to easily take Kyoto. With basically no new economic streams, I'm forced to try and take Kyoto or money generating centers with what I have, which is not something you want to tell a struggling player he should be doing. I can compare and contrast this to a save I have on turn 46, where I'm spending 11,000 on military upkeep, but still earn 3000 a turn to spend. And my tax take is passively increasing by over 200 a turn. BurningStone posted:Something I expected to get tweaked about, but I don't think came up, is the lack of monks. I've played three or four turns past the save, and the AI is being very aggressive about sending all varieties of agents after me. They've been quite successful at eliminating my agents, which has never happened to me before. I had to swap research and grab temples to my research chain, but only when I was offered a Nanban trade quarter. It's possible to play a completely monk free game, but they can certainly make life a little easier. Ultimately, if you're not getting the Nanban trade quarter, then it's entirely up to you. quote:I expected to be told I've got too much food, not too little, so that surprised me. Likewise, I'm surprised that you guys have provinces that never see a market, while they form most of my economy. I do see that I should pick my metsuke provinces and build all the economic buildings I can there. Shalcar, and those that follow him view growth as largely secondary, and prefer to quickly pay back what they've spent on a building. Essentially, they will do approximately what you've done and get cheap but efficient economic buildings while I'd spend a lot more on growth, including roads and ports which I forgot to mention you also need more of. I suspect the reason I'm succesful even though I eschew his advice is that my key economic centers, which rely heavily on growth are taxed way above what Shalcar estimates, and because I seem to have a faster border expansion rate. There's nothing really wrong with building a market when you have nothing else to build in a province, but you should first pick 5 to have ninja production, and perhaps another 5 to produce monks and matchlocks (with the nanban trade quarters, you want to surround it with temples). That would leave you with only 5 provinces to have built a market in. 10 if you don't get any monks. That may seem like it's really helping, but it's only providing about 2000 koku a turn, and of that, only a few hundred will end up in your pocket as tax income. And remember, Shalcar's profit expectations for a market are only for building a market. I don't recall him figuring how many turns it would take for a return from a market that required a stronger castle. The castle triples the price and if you've built 5 markets in that manner, it also eliminates any growth bonus from the markets. If I had to guess, I'd guess it takes around 40-60 turns to pay off a market/castle combo. Lastly, as some food for thought, every market that you build? Paid off quickly, but it's only earning you 40 koku a turn. All of your markets combined right now are generating you only 600 koku a turn. quote:Another point that came up: I'm repeatedly surprised by how few military recruitment centers you can get away with. So do you guys only build troops in places where they'll get a bonus? I only build samurai in provinces that get a bonus. For the most part, I'm willing to throw ashigaru into the meatgrinder and potentially lose a few groups of them, and recruit them from anywhere. Yukitsu fucked around with this message at 18:06 on Sep 28, 2013 |
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Sep 28, 2013 17:13
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