Total War: Shogun 2

by Sega

• CONQUER sixteenth-century Japan. Lead massive samurai armies and fleets of warships into sweeping real-time battles.
• BUILD a kingdom in turn-based mode. Wield economic, political, and military power to amass wealth, armies, and influence.
• SCHEME & FIGHT with Sun Tzu's powerful Art of War techniques. Deploy ninjas as either spies or assassins to gather enemy information or perform assassinations before unleashing the army's wrath.
• BATTLE ONLINE in special campaigns. Lead online armies to glory against the community's best Total War generals.
• NEW TOTAL WAR FEATURES

Product Details

• ASIN: B004CZZZXQ
• Item Weight: 1 pounds
• Media: DVD-ROM
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (101 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,438 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

Amazon.com

Shogun 2: Total War is the long-awaited follow-up to the original PC game in the Total War turn-based Strategy franchise, Shogun: Total War. In it players assume the leadership of one of several warring provinces in a historically correct rendition of Medieval Japan simultaneously cursed by warfare and blessed with new wealth following the fall of the Ashikaga Shogunate. Using the natural and political resources available, as well as the strengths of their Samurai and peasant units, players eliminate enemies by all means possible as they seek to become the next shogun and extend their power over the whole of Japan. Additional features include: leveling of the player character, hero units and standard units, realistically varied AI responses and both competitive and cooperative online multiplayer support.

The Total War Franchise

In 2000, The Creative Assembly game development team reinvented the Strategy game genre with Shogun: Total War, an unprecedented blend of 3D real-time battles and turn-based game management that would become the first offering in the multi-award winning Total War series. With over 7 million units sold and universal acclaim from the press and community, The Total War franchise has consistently been at the cutting edge of the genre and is today one of the most successful PC franchises of all time. That success continues with Shogun 2: Total War. Shogun 2: Total War takes longtime veterans and newcomers alike to the next level of strategy gaming on PC. Based on 10 years of experience, Total War, Shogun 2 is the perfection of the series with a new Artificial Intelligence (AI), revolutionary multiplayer modes, brand new campaign map options and epic 3D real-time battles.

Return to the beginning of the Total War strategy franchise with Shogun 2: Total War.
View larger.

Shogun 2: Total War--Limited Edition

Set during the golden age of Samurai warfare, Shogun 2 brings to life the most turbulent period of Japanese history. It is the middle of the 16th century in Medieval Japan. The country, ruled for nearly 200 years by a unified government under the Ashikaga Shogunate, is now split into many warring clans following the shogunate's fall. The player takes on the role of one Daimyo, a feudal clan leader ruling a limited area of the country, and will use military engagements, economics and diplomacy to achieve the ultimate goal: unification of Japan under his supreme command and the title of Shogun - the undisputed ruler of Japan.

Gameplay

Like all Total War games, Shogun 2 is a turn-based Strategy game, featuring real-time tactics. The original Shogun: Total War game was the first in the Total War series, making it the blueprint for those that came after it, but this new game does contain a variety of new notable gameplay features. These features include: the players role as an individual leader on the field instead of an invisible hand guiding combat; improved graphics down to the motion capture techniques used to animate matched combat; a built-in morale system that allows opposing AI to react to the forces you set before them, influencing tactics as well as their willingness to stand and fight; combined naval and land battles; and RPG like leveling of standard units and special Hero units that rise in rank with each successful battle.

Limited Edition Extra Content

• The Total War: SHOGUN 2 Limited Edition delivers instant access to exclusive and free content to both the single player and multiplayer modes of the game. 
• Exclusive ninja clan – the Hattori clan are masters of the Iga-ryu ninjutsu - a unique collection of martial skills and guerrilla techniques. This additional in-game faction is only available in the Limited Edition and includes the most powerful battlefield ninja units. 
• Extra historical scenario - The Battle of Nagashino saw an alliance between the Oda and Tokugawa clans clashing against the legendary Takeda clan in 1575. Takeda was ultimately defeated but, as in all Total War battles, victory lies in your hands and by playing one of these three factions you can repeat history... or even rewrite it! 
• Special armour for your avatar – this complete set of armour will make your General’s avatar stand out on the battlefield and will reward you with the Bad Omen retainer that affects morale to enemy ashigaru (foot soldier) units, giving you a competitive advantage online. 
• Bank account of XP for your avatar – only the Limited Edition owners will be able to start their General’s avatar at a higher level, with instant access to one upgrade point to spend on special skills or traits.

Key Game Features

• Total War Redefined - Shogun 2 is the ultimate refinement of the original formula with a new, cutting-edge AI, more polish and online functionality than ever before. The result is the perfect mix of real-time and turn-based strategy gaming that invites both veterans of Total War and new players to experience the enjoyment and depth of the series.
• New Character Progression - Choose from nine different clans and compete for the undisputed supremacy of Medieval Japan. Gain experience to level up your own character-warlord as well as your generals and agents.
• A Complete Single and Multiplayer Offering - Play through the main campaign in single player or invite a friend online to play competitively or cooperatively in Campaign Multiplayer mode. Join 8-player multiplayer battles with your own upgradable avatar and climb the online leaderboard to show the world who reigns supreme. Also including exciting new modes of team play for clans, a first in the Total War series.
• New Generation AI System - Developed according to Sun Tzu's principles in "The Art of War," the game's artificial intelligence constantly analyzes its situation and reacts to your every move with greater precision and variety.
• Improved Land and Naval Battle Gameplay - Land battles never felt so realistic with new multi-staged castle sieges and terrain features changing according to the weather and time of the day - turning each engagement into a tactical challenge. Set buildings on fire to force garrisoned troops out and use your units' special abilities to turn the tide of the battle. Naval combat also offers more variety with the addition of coastal battles. Islands can work as effective cover for your ships, while sand bars and reefs can be used as traps against an enemy fleet.
• Accessible and In-depth Empire-building Gameplay - A streamlined user interface makes management of your kingdom much easier. Build and govern cities, recruit and train troops, conduct diplomacy and manage your agents – each feature is now introduced with comprehensive tutorials, gradually revealing the depth of the Shogun 2 campaign map – the heart and soul of the Total War experience.

Additional Screenshots

Rank heroes & level units. View larger.

Huge scale conflicts. View larger.

Take control of every unit. View larger.

Combined land & sea battles. View larger.

Product Description

Shogun 2 is the ultimate refinement of the original formula with a new, cutting-edge AI, more polish and online functionality than ever before. The result is the perfect mix of real-time and turn-based strategy gaming that invites both veterans of Total War and new players to experience the enjoyment and depth of the series.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars first impressions, 3 games and 77 hours later June 17, 2011

By WiltDurkey

Fun: 5.0 out of 5 stars   

Shogun 2 is my favorite in the series, along with Rome. I skipped Empire, really didn't hear much good about it, but have played all the others.

A bit about myself so that you can see where I am coming from. Have been playing RPGs and wargames for 25+ years. Loved the early Civ games, not so much the later ones. Big multiplayer Quake and Doom fan, but dislike any type of real-time wargame that involves simultaneous combat & resource gathering (Rise of Nations, StarCraft...). Mostly looking for solo replay value, but will try online gaming. Read several history books about Japan as well as some James Clavell. Big into military history. Computer: 2011 MacBookPro under bootcamp Win7, 4 GB, mostly run at 1920x1200.

So what is there to like, after 3 tries, last one successful, and 77 hours of normal-level play?

- Tactically: Gorgeous graphical update to the Total War series that keeps the same tried game mechanics and control. Reasonable AI that can quickly overwhelm you with aggressive infantry troops if you let it. It's pretty clever about archers now, protecting its own, attacking yours.

As usual, it's rock/paper/scissors, i.e. infantry/archers/horse. The AI is just better at it than before, so flanking is more difficult to carry off.

One annoyance is that you often have to babysit your units to keep them from engaging in melee: skirmishing archers do not always retreat, horsemen turn around and attack spearmen. That's probably fairly realistic for medieval/ancient battlefields though.

The generals have better-defined abilities, such as their command radius and the option to temporarily inspire/boost one given unit. My failure is using them too much as shock cavalry, especially before you get reasonable cavalry units => high mortality rate, historical accuracy.

Naval Combat !!! :-) Can be frustrating and not that well done, but a welcome addition nevertheless.

Auto-resolve is also much more reasonable than before. The AI fights relatively well on your behalf, so you can skip trivial battles.

- Strategic: Early on, the AI definitely keeps you on your toes, a bit like Rome, but unlike Medieval II where it was much too passive. Later on, it seems like it gets a little less competitive as you get a better economic base and as your troops gain experience. In the endgame, I had to defeat a number of big armies, but none were very much of a challenge by that time and I had the initiative. This is not unlike Rome. That may not be a bad thing, the system doesn't "cheat" by levying opposing huge veteran armies from nowhere and they avoided gratuitous revolts like in Medieval I. So it doesn't stretch out the end game needlessly once you are dominant (a major reason why I disliked Civ after a while).

I love that strategic play is turn-based. Leaves you all the time to figure out how to tweak your economy and cities and you will need that planning.

- Trade, diplomacy and special characters. I am still not too sure how diplomacy works, nobody seemed to like me after I gained a few provinces. Maybe, and that brings me to my next point, I used too many ninjas to be honorable? Ninjas are great fun - if sufficiently experienced, they can easily kill enemy generals at no great cost or risk and taking out their 30 horse bodyguards is always a good way to shift the odds before joining a battle. They did become too easy to use after a while, the AI is not aggressive enough in going after your ninjas with its own ninjas or metsukes.

Power ups for named units like generals, monks and ninjas are great. You have all sorts of options to choose from, ranging from speeding up strategic movement to making units tougher in melee for a general. You could make a ninja into an escape artist or improve his assassination rank. So you can really customize your characters.

Trade is very very important, but tough to get right. Your allies may eventually come to dislike you as you gain power and cut off trade. Trade with remote powers (Ceylon, China, Korea, etc...) doesn't require diplomacy and is very lucrative, but it does require control of the trade points and the AI is pretty aggressive about that. I guess that if you levy large enough navies, including numerous trade ships (you can park up to 10 trade ships per trade point & you get $ for each one), you can fight off those attacks, but I don't know if that is an historically accurate approach for Japan.

- Technology tree. You can aim for weapons techs or artistic/economic tech, with a wide variety of effects. So, for example, you could opt to boost your archers, boost your ninjas or collect more revenue with the same level of taxes. Again, lots of re-playability and exploration is possible because you'd struggle to get all techs in one game so you have to pick your emphasis.

All in all, I really recommend this game, 4.5/5. My main complaints, besides lack of sleep, are:

- Steam. I don't like it. It doesn't bring me anything that I am aware of in solo-mode (patches are easy enough to download by web). If it cuts down on piracy, fine, but why isn't the game cheaper then? What if I wanted to gift the game to someone, but that person doesn't get into Shogun. I could take a CD back and pass it on to someone else, but I can't do that with Steam, can I? No, my complaints are not original.

******************************************************
Nov 2011 update: Steam now refuses to load the game, apparently because it can't connect to its servers. Their site's "helpful" instructions has some gobblygook about DirectX, DLLs & other arcana that would be total crypto to a casual gamer or non-techy. It is unacceptable to see Steam troubleshooting instructions, which are core to customers getting the value out of their purchases, posted in such a casual, blog-like and unstructured fashion. You'd think it was for a freeware product with no revenue.

Sure, I could reconfigure the install, but I needed the sleep so let it go.

Shame on you, Steam.
******************************************************

- Load times are really, really, slow. That's both for the initial startup as well as for the setup before each battle.

- Can't switch to other programs. Come on guys, I want to check my email. If I am on the turn-based strategic map, why stop me? This is so 1990-DOS. Plus, I would have liked the option to listen to NIN or Modest Mouse rather than Japanese chamber music!

- I had a few recurring freezes on the same naval battle. Never got that to work, had to skip that battle. Mostly stable otherwise.

109 of 131 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars KAN-ZEN March 15, 2011

By NeuroSplicer TOP 500 REVIEWER

Fun: 5.0 out of 5 stars   

About a decade ago Shogun: Total War was the masterpiece that launched one of the best Strategy simulation franchises in gaming history. It was a perfectly balanced game that combined turn-based strategic decisions with real time battles in a beautiful interface made in the style of medieval Japanese artworks.
The game was based on the teachings of Sun Tzu, the Chinese strategist, who believed in the indirect approach: search for comparative advantages, use your forces with economy, surprise and deceive, and only fight limited wars. The medieval Japanese setting (relatively small armies made up from a limited number of distinct units fighting on different terrains), served as the perfect substrate to implement these strategies.
I have played every single Total War game since and they were all a joy to experience - yet nothing surpassed to the first Shogun. Until now.

KNOW THY SELF, KNOW THY ENEMY. A THOUSAND BATTLES, A THOUSAND VICTORIES (Sun Tzu)
The gameplay has matured, deepened and acquired a number of new features, including some RPG additions. We now have Mastery of Arts, a tech tree branching into Bushido (warfare) and Chi (governance & finances). There are now hero units, inspiring the troops, going after the enemy general or turning the battle at that crucial point.
Generals are upgradable and modifiable, increasing their effectiveness and making them indispensable. The honorable death of a seasoned general will affect many aspects of your overall strategy and may prove the decisive point of the entire campaign. Which is why subterfuge is so important.
There may be no honor in using Ninjas - but now they can assassinate the enemy general or soften up the enemy defenses by sabotaging their production or the integrity of their defensive structures. And because the Ninja knife cuts both ways, make sure to have enough Metsuke units to sniff out the ninjas send by the enemy.
Children serve as hostages to ensure cooperation whereas marriages are arranged to strengthen alliances. And since no army fights on an empty belly, one should make sure to set up complex trade agreements. Ones that will hold through the treacheries of war. Because sooner than later, your task will graduate from impossible to you-gotta-be-kidding-me.

INVINCIBILITY LIES IN THE DEFENSE; THE POSSIBILITY OF VICTORY IN THE ATTACK (Sun Tzu)
The AI will make your life miserable. Enemy units will try to flank you from every possible direction and they will try to make use of your troops movement in order to achieve this. And then, just when you think you are winning, every single clan and province turns against you...
It is possible to let the AI auto-resolve all battles and play the game as a highly sophisticated turn-based Civilization game - but why miss all the fun?
Unlike the first game, SHOGUN 2 also has sea vessels and battles. While in a sea battle, you either board and take over or burn the enemy vessels. However, the real strategic consideration is this: when attacking a neighboring province, did you leave adequate defenses to prevent, say, the sacking of your own castle? Because the AI does not forgive such oversights.

OPPORTUNITIES MULTIPLY AS THEY ARE SEIZED (Sun Tzu)
The graphics and sounds of Shogun 2 are something one has to experience to believe. Even on DirectX 9 (WinXP - which is the OS I am experiencing this on), the strategic map feels like flying over the real Sengoku period Japan whereas the game design goes into unbelievable details. Every ribbon on a set of armor, every blade of grass, every ray of light reflected on raised katanas or refracted through the clouds are just gorgeous.
The game absorbs you into its world and never let's go. In one word: Kan-Zen (Perfection).

HE WHO KNOWS WHEN HE CAN FIGHT AND WHEN HE CANNOT, WILL BE VICTORIOUS (Sun Tzu)
I usually deduct a full star from the final rating of any game that comes with any form of DRM that requires online activation or ties your game with digital shackles. Because even the retail version of SHOGUN 2 comes with mandatory STEAM, I did exactly that. However, because I rated the game well...above 5-stars, this could not become apparent and the game still rates a perfect score.
Yes, STEAM is the pheasant festering on the porch someone has to do something about. However, SHOGUN 2 is one of those extremely rare games that are worth their DRM hassle. If STEAM is still a deal-breaker for you, well, now you can make an informed decision either way.

SHOGUN 2 truly embodies The Art of War - and it will stay with you for a very long time.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

------------------------------------------------------------
Kokoro yori okuyami moushiagemasu.
On a more sober note, I want to send my deepest sympathies to anyone in Japan hit by the latest earthquake and ensuing tsunami. Courage and endurance have always been characteristics of the Japanese psyche.

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Warning - massive download February 22, 2012

By Pieter H Francke

Amazon Verified Purchase

Fun: 1.0 out of 5 stars   

My low rating is based entirely on steam and the update/patches -- I don't know how the game plays, since I have not played it yet. I bought the limited Edition and opened my package and installed the two DVDs.

The game requires Steam registration, no problem. Then it installed = after installing around 14 Gig worth of data, it started to download the required updates. Normally this is a good thing. It is not a good thing when the size of the update is an additional 7 Gig.

I let the game update overnight, in the morning it was still updating, and finally it finished. Good news, now I could see a great game in action!! The game would not start. I left it alone initializing or doing whatever mystery process it was up to for a couple of hours. Then I stopped the process with it's cancel button and stopped steam. Started Steam up again and Lo and Behold, it started downloading a second update that is sized at 3.5 Gig. I got to about 1 and 1/2 Gib downloaded when I got the expected email from my service provided that I had exceeded my Fair Access Policy and that I needed to stop downloading data. (I'm not lucky enough for proper DSL or other typical broadband and must use Satellite (too bad for me).

Anyway, I put the download on pause and will continue it in another month or so. My negative review hopefully will keep some other poor fellow from making the same mistake that I did. WARNING, just because you can install from disk DOES NOT mean that the patches are of a reasonable size. Be warned, even if you have DSL or such, the update process will take hours. And if you are like me, the entire exercise will not be one that you seek to repeat!!!