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So, two days after Shogun 2 has come out and I have have to say I'm a bit disappointed in the new product. They said they were going to simplify the game and take it back to basics, but I don't see that at all. The interface is almost completely different, and even the scrolling on the main map is screwed up! The campaign is taking forever to play, with units that take an inordinately long amount of time to produce, and there are just too many tiny clans with too many different things going on all at once to make for an enjoyable experience.

On a positive note, the graphics are stunning as always, and the battles can be enormous fun when you get to them.

Maybe I just haven't gotten the hang of it yet. Anyone else have any thoughts?

I havent got it yet, mainly because my comp will probably blow up if i tried, could only just about play empire on it. My favourite by far was Rome Total War, but how does it compare with Empire? Being on a smaller may i would have thought alot easier to manage for a start? I find in Empire i keep losing track of what i'm doing where, or forget about one or two places untill theres an enemy right on top of them

I love the TW series, but the setting and historical flair is important to me. And while one of my majors is Asian History, and I take Japanese language classes, the fact that we're limited to one country is unappealing.

I liked Rome and Medieval 2 for their abundance of factions. Feels like there's little variety here.


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Edit: But I'm sure the mechanics, graphics, and so on are top-notch.

I also wish they would make a dedicated Naval TW game. The only part of Empire I liked (hate the colonial era, so boring)

Matt070 wrote:I havent got it yet, mainly because my comp will probably blow up if i tried, could only just about play empire on it. My favourite by far was Rome Total War, but how does it compare with Empire? Being on a smaller may i would have thought alot easier to manage for a start? I find in Empire i keep losing track of what i'm doing where, or forget about one or two places untill theres an enemy right on top of them

I would put Empire (my favorite so far) at a 9/10 and Shogun 2 at about a 7/10. It's harder to forget about provinces because you have just a few of them, but at the same time it's difficult to marshal the resources to fight so I spent a fair amount of turns doing nothing. That, and unlike the first Shogun there are a ton of other clans, instead of the major ones, so you're dealing with a lot of competition who don't seem to have clear aims. Naval power is pretty important in this too, because the computer will attack you from the sea, but fighting naval battles is so boring. Watching ships shoot arrows at each other isn't interesting at all.

So, in summary.
1) Boring resource marshaling
2) Clans that won't trade with you and declare war for no good reason
3) Boring naval battles