And the new Total War game will be

[Maniacal]

Hopefully the campaign map will feature lots of regions, as the painting they show in the trailer has less than 20.

 

[Dell19]

Hopefully the campaign map will feature lots of regions, as the painting they show in the trailer has less than 20.

I guess from their point of view it shortens the length of a campaign and lets people eliminate another nation in one go so its appealing to more people. Will stop me playing though as I like the idea of gradually defeating rivals after a series of wars.

 

[Traitorfish]

Hopefully the campaign map will feature lots of regions, as the painting they show in the trailer has less than 20.

I got the impression that they were supposed to represent the domains of various clans, demonstrating the division of contemporary Japan, rather than depicting in-game provinces. I may be wrong, of course, but even the first Shogun had more more than was depicted- I think the provinces were actually based on those which existed at the time, albeit with a few of the smaller ones merged. I'd be quite happy if they recreated them as such; Shogun never felt quite as grand as Rome or Medieval, and there was always the sense of being in a single country, rather than a whole continent, which I think they'd want to keep.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Hmm, it could be quite satisfying in Rome when you finally brought a larger reagion -like the middle east- under your control but there always came point where you were so large that you knew you've basically won and the rest of the game felt like busywork.
I hope they'll find the righ balance and make it epic bu not tedious in the late stage. 30-50 regions would be OK but 20 is way too small.

 

[LightSpectra]

I think corruption costs should be tripled or something. You should start facing financial difficulties when you overexpand, not become impossibly wealthy. That would help with the "busywork" feel of it after you've annexed two or three factions.

 

[Skwink]

The reason I played Rome was because I was interested by that time period. I really have no interest in Japan and that area.

 

[Maniacal]

I've never settled on a time period that is more fascinating than the others for more than a short period of time.

 

[W|M]

And its the time period I know the least about, so It'll be interesting to see what happens.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Awesome! I can't wait.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Nice, now if CA could just not screw it up like they did with Empire and learning from their mistakes instead of making many of the same ones EVERY TIME would be nice!

Also would have been nice if they included other parts of asia, so hopefully they will have many regions in Japan like they did in Shogun one, and none of these stupid super large regions in Empire.

Nah, I would be mad if they tried to bite off so much. The Shogunate wars were generally confined to Japan, and so should the map be. I don't want an epic, Pan-Asian Total War Set in the Shogunate Era.

 

[LightSpectra]

Gameplay screenshots!

 

[Traitorfish]

Nah, I would be mad if they tried to bite off so much. The Shogunate wars were generally confined to Japan, and so should the map be. I don't want an epic, Pan-Asian Total War Set in the Shogunate Era.

Aside from anything else, it would be a teensy bit unbalanced. A single Japanese clan against the entire Ming Empire? Bit of a curb-stomp, there.

 

[eduhum]

Those screenshots are sooooooooo AWESOME!!

 

[salty mud]

I'd much rather have Rome 2, but I'll pick this up anyway. It'll make a nice change from Europe bashing, but Japan seems such a small area for a Total War game.

 

[Traitorfish]

I'd much rather have Rome 2, but I'll pick this up anyway. It'll make a nice change from Europe bashing, but Japan seems such a small area for a Total War game.

Well, scale is essentially arbitrary; it's quite easy to make a map of Japan as large as any previous map, although, as I mentioned before, they'll probably use the traditional province system as their basis, as they did before.

 

[salty mud]

Well, scale is essentially arbitrary; it's quite easy to make a map of Japan as large as any previous map, although, as I mentioned before, they'll probably use the traditional province system as their basis, as they did before.

Yeah, but will the same sense of accomplishment be felt when you conquer a tiny corner of southern Japan, as opposed to say... Destroying the Holy Roman Empire in Medieval 2?

If that's the scale of the map of course, I have no idea how big it's going to be.

 

[Traitorfish]

Yeah, but will the same sense of accomplishment be felt when you conquer a tiny corner of southern Japan, as opposed to say... Destroying the Holy Roman Empire in Medieval 2?

Well, as I said, it's a matter of scale. If "the tiny corner of Souther Japan" represents several provinces, then it could be a major coup, just as conquering a "Germany" province in a full-earth map could be underwhelming. Granted, there will likely be less provinces than in previous games, assuming they adhere to the traditional Japanese system, but they already scaled back the provinces for Empire, so if we assume that they'll retain a similar dynamic, I see no reason why this would represent a loss of scale.
That said, I wouldn't be put off by a lack of scale. Shogun has a certain immediacy about it which later games lacked, and I wouldn't be particularly offended to see it return. There was always a sense of the map as representing a single region, and so you felt more involved in all the affairs of the land. A Uesugi-Hojo war, while distant, still had long-term ramifications for Shimazu, while in MTW2 Scotland wouldn't blink if the Turks seized the entire Byzantine Empire. That's probably a personal preference of course; I'm one of those players who enjoys forging the initial kingdom more than creating a continent-spanning empire.

 

[aronnax]

Oooh pretty Screenshots.

I would have preferred a greater Asia:Total War. But Shogun 2 seems piques my interest.
I think I'll get the game as long as they use a map/province system similar to the Medieval Total War Games.
Empire Total War's Map were ugly to me and I hated how taking Paris constitutes to taking all of France save Alsace-Lorraine. I also hated the improvements on the maps and that each village equals to one specific resource/improvement. etc school, fishery, trade port
Probably since it is Japan's fragmentation period, we will have none of that.

 

[kibbles]

For those who are interested, this guy got to play a quick demo of shogun 2 at E3. He actually gives a pretty good audio preview: http://angryjoeshow.com/2010/06/shogun-2-interview-demo/

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Not sure it was the same in the sequels (never played them), but a cool thing about Shogun the first (still play that ) is that :
All the moves on the strategic map are executed at the same time but the AI chooses its moves AFTER the human has.
That was pretty neat and made it possible but difficult to outwit the AI. It also meant a single defeat on your frontlines could be a real danger to your ambitions if it openned several invasion paths to the opponent, possibly meaning the player's loss or setting him back several years.


From what I heard, what was lost in the series after Shogun was that sentiment of danger you can feel while playing. The AI is ruthless and every battle is so important. Not to mention it's very easy to lose a battle if you don't pay attention.


So... To the people who never played Shogun : it's not too late !
You just got to be prepared to be beaten up a few times...

Spoiler :

To illustrate the above, here's a pic from a campaign of mine. Mori (Red) is in a strong position and invaded the Rebel land (Grey) from two provinces :
- Troops from Harima invade Kawachi ;
- Troops from Tamba invade Yamachiro.

That is all good except that the Rebels in Kawachi took the opportunity to invade Tamba !!! To prevent this, I should have sent troops from Tamba to Kawachi (but maybe I couldn't afford it... Troops would have fought in Tamba anyways, Mori being outnumbered).
Now... Mori used to have 2 well guarded provinces on the frontlines but suddenly he needs to defend 4 provinces (i.e. needs a lot more troops). Main goal is to prevent the rebels from rampaging into his inner territory, where there is wealth and infrastructure. Most probably, that would mean "guiding" the rebels moves to outer provinces. Doing this, the thing to avoid at all cost is to allow the rebel armies from Awaji, Yamato and Tamba to join up, be it in Harima or Kawachi.
Danger, danger