So I just bought Shogun 2

[CABAL49]

I got paid yesterday and it was on sale. I hate Steam sales. They make me buy things.

Anyways, I am rather inexperienced with Total War. I am a big RTS fan and I love Civilization. Total War is supposed to be the best of both worlds as far as my understanding has it. I played the demo for it, but I felt it was very limiting and annoyed me when it switched my units out for units I didn't want or find that useful. But for those who are experienced with Total War, what are your thoughts? This can be a general Total War thread.

[Magic_Marker]

I enjoyed Rome and Medieval 2 but I haven't played it in a long time. There isn't as much on the research side of things as I liked, and in that time the trade mechanics weren't the best, but as far as playing a war like society there isn't much that can beat it, at least at the time.

[Azisien]

Shogun 2 is, if not the greatest Total War game, then probably equal to Medieval. It's fantastic, and my only gripe with it thus far was launching without anti-aliasing. They patched that, though.

The demo was pretty limiting, but if you play your own campaigns, you're not so limited. Co-op is awesome, since you can share unit control with your co-op partner in battle, and pull off some killer maneuvers.

[Magic_Marker]

I heard they added ship combat in Empire, did they keep that? Also, what's the trade and cultural mechanics like these days?

[CABAL49]

Well, since I started this I have been unable to make it work. I checked their faq and when that didn't help I made a support ticked to Steam and they just sent me a copy of the FAQ that didn't help.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

I haven't played Shogun but I recently started Rome again, as the Scipii this time. This will be only the 2nd time I've actually tried to play a full campaign (because I insist on playing the longest game possible and fighting ALL battles and micromanaging the hell out of my cities).

I'm not liking the Scipii as much as the Brutii, mainly because Carthage are bastards on the water and the senate just gave me a mission to go and attack fucking Gaul and I lost most of my army there. So now I'm building a fuckton of triremes to go and blockade the shit out of all of Carthages ports so I can strangle them to death and safely move forces across the sea without interference. At the rate Carthage is losing money (3k Denarii every turn), this shouldn't take long.

Shame I never got to finish my last run through as Brutii though, I was only a few rounds away from taking over Rome and wiping out the other 2 houses. I'd bought Scipiis only territory in Italy from them, and was prepared to blockade all their ports and wipe out all their fleets in the next turn, effectively removing them from the game, and I'd paid Germania to start a war with Julii and had each of their armies in northern Italy outnumbered 2 to 1. Once those armies were out of the way I could immediately move and take the northern territories and then surround Rome from all sides. It was the perfect plan. Unfortunately the game got wiped. I must try and do it again sometime though.

[CABAL49]

Ok, so I got it work, became Shogun and then hit a game killing glitch. But it was going pretty awesomely so far. I didn't know about the Great Divide and so having to fight everyone now is pretty interesting. Especially since the greatest threat to my power is my closest ally.