![]() That authenticity comes with a steep learning curve. The amount of things to do in a single game and the way they interconnect is a feat I can’t help but marvel at, but it’s a curious mixture of micromanagement and helplessness that constantly leaves me unsure of how well I’m doing. It’s a real back and forth until suddenly one of them finds an opening. Watching soldiers battle each other one-on-one on these fields is as entertaining as it is startling. These are characteristics of the landscape that Japanese people are very proud of and that I readily associate with the country. At other times, it’s a hillside slowing down your advance or a forest hiding enemy troops. Sometimes it’s nothing more than a rice field, or cherry blossom petals floating in the wind. Each landscape has traits that are both beautiful to take in and can affect battles quite a bit. There is a lot of walking (good God is there a lot of walking!) but this is the way to enjoy the spectacle. Get close to your armies and you can relish in the sound of their footsteps across the plains like rolling thunder. Thankfully, Shogun 2 excels at the type of grand, Hollywood-style warfare I’m looking for. I’ve become the villain, intent on just taking what she wants. I would give a lot to have statistics telling me how much time I used to funnel into Starcraft way back when, but now I lack the patience for alliances and playing nice. I realise I would’ve loved all this back when I was the kind of player who funnelled all of her time into one game. ![]() It’s just more entertaining than sitting in trade meetings with other daimyo. The civics layer occasionally feels like busywork, because as important as it is to improve the stats of my troops via a skill tree, I get most excited whenever I acquire a new unique unit or successfully pull off small manoeuvres like sending my ninja to assassinate an enemy monk in the night. Normal life doesn’t come to a complete standstill just because you’re waiting for samurai to finish their training. It’s my job to take the clans immediately adjacent to my own, but my gradual expansion is regularly slowed by neighbouring clans resisting my efforts, almost as if they don’t want to be occupied.Īs soon as I’ve finished a battle, another enemy comes knocking while I’m still in the middle of replenishing my forces and upgrading my irrigation systems to satisfy the people crying out for rice. Normally I wouldn’t bat an eyelash at losing units-it’s a war after all-but I’m astoundingly invested in my general, who also turns out to be difficult to track in the midst of all the chaos. I like the more personal layer, but it’s also a large source of stress during my first forays into battle. Over time you build up an overview of your general’s character traits and skills as well as a chronicle of your clan, which helps to make it feel like you’re truly roleplaying a daimyo and not just sending lemmings into battle. What the general wants, the general gets. To keep your troops happy you need to coddle your general, like a toddler prone to tantrums, so that he doesn’t defect, for example by making him a commissioner or letting him marry into the daimyo’s family. Keeping an eye on your general is vital, as their ability to inspire their troops goes so far that losing them is catastrophic for morale and causes your armies to desert the battlefield in droves. Increasingly unhappy with the shogunate-the military government that ruled Japan at the time-clans started to fight each other before setting their eyes on Kyoto, the old capital. You assume control towards the end of the Sengoku Jidai, when the war was in full swing. Like most Total War games, it consists of two elements: large-scale real-time battles, and a turn-based layer of civic development that takes place on a map of the different provinces. By comparison Shogun 2’s love for detail feels almost oppressive. While films such as Akira and Lord of the Rings make use of large-scale battles to great effect, up to this point strategy games with their overhead views always made me feel far removed from the action. Looking at Shogun 2, developer Creative Assembly seems to have been influenced by the same grand tales I enjoyed so much-tales of unlikely odds, loyalty and bravery that get adapted into Japanese television shows over and over again. As I’m fond of saying, while other kids were interested in boy bands and trading card games, I studied the blade via accounts of historical sieges such as the Battle of Kawagoe.
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