[Hoogley]

It's been well documented that I often miss release information.  So, even though it's been announced for probably a while, and there's info on the Total War website, I had no idea Shogun II was in production.

However, I happen to live in Brisbane, Australia, which just happens to be the primary base of the dev' team for Creative Assembly; and, I just happen to be a huge Creative Assembly fanboy; and, I just happen to work in a pro audio shop; and, it just so happens that the guys from Creative Assembly sound design team often come in to buy stuff.

So, I only heard about Shogun II yesterday, but it was direct from the horses mouth.  Scheduled late 2010 release.  Freaking fantastic.

I hope it's DX9 compatible.  

[Stwa]

You just made my day  

Thanks  

[graves101]

You son of a bitch.

I love Creative Assembly, I'm so jealous. Played every TW game except for Rome and most of the expansions. I'm still looking forward to getting Napoleon. Shogun was one of the first RTS games I started with on the computer.

The only gaming company here where I'm at is Silicon Knights, and they've only made generic "adventure" games. Granted, Eternal Darkness was pretty cool. But I know many of the employees and see them at shops I frequent downtown, so I know what you mean when you can get "insider" information.

[buuface]

Shogun Total War and Medieval Total War

Are probably the only 2 games i have played more than Close Combat  

Caint wait!

[Pzt_Kami]

Total War : Shogun II already released  

[buuface]

I've got the game its really great.

[Dima]

Second that - the game is a gem.
AI is better than in earlier versions overall, especially on strat level.
Graphics is awesome with DirectX 11.

[Manoi]

[Dima]

[Manoi]

[Dima]

I don't know, i just play it .

[Pzt_Kanov]

It looks very neat and polished but not really interested in the period. I only got RTW had a lot of fun with that (lots of mods) and Barbarian Invasion (Really hard as WRE), I plan on getting Medieval sometime but some things put me off like the 2 years per turn but characters getting older by one year only, that's bizarre.

Those other medieval RTS on the other post look amazing too, namely Real warfare 1 and 2.


Still waiting for Rome II  

[Hoogley]

No surprise that I own it already, and have played it a fair bit over the last few weeks.  It is amazingly gorgeous, and I like the experience system.  The overall play style is a lot tighter than usual, which is also a plus.

The down points are that there isn't a HUGE diversity in units.  Specifically, there isn't much reason to play through as each different clan; not that I can see, anyway.  Same goes for castles.  You spend a far amount of time laying siege to five different types of castles.  I would have hoped for a bit more variation or uniqueness to each.  The other down point was that in my first campaign I somehow managed to start raiding enemy trade routes for about 6 million Yen per season, which kind of took the challenge out of it.  I have restarted, and I am hoping it doesn't happen again.

I still love it, though, for all my complaints.  I still play everything from TW Rome forwards.

[Dima]

Hoogley,

what difficulty do you play on?

[Hoogley]

Ehem... normal  cough, cough.

I could never accept that difficulty level could affect the values to that great a degree.  6 million Yen per season should never happen, no matter what difficulty you are playing.  I am still not sure what combination of elements went into that little auto-hack.  I wonder if the AI was reaping that much cash before I redirected his funds?

[southern_land]

how do you think it compares to Empire (the last of the series I bought)?  I've read the battlefeild AI is a significant improvement?

[Dima]

Yeah Hoogley, seems to be some glitch no matter of difficulty level.

Strat AI is way more interesting than in any TW games.
Battle AI is good as well - agressive in attacks and cautious in defences.
But the main improvement is economical model, you have to develop farms to have enough food to supply castles but in same time you need to develop economy to have money so you need to balance these as you can't have everything in each province.

Overall, I believe that's the best game in TW series to date.

[southern_land]

cool thanks, might be time to dust off the visa card

[Hoogley]

@Dima: Yeah.  They've passed up on 'bigger better faster more' for 'make it all fit together properly'.  It's a lot more strategic than the previous lot.  I'm digging it.

@Southern Land:  It's a different beast, but just as worthwhile.  Empire is the culmination of the mega-strategy Total War concept.  It all fits together really well, and it's huge and diverse.  Shogun 2 streamlines everything so you can focus better on precision strategy.  That said, I've already made a number of strategic errors.