The Total War series has always been in something of a class of its own. They’re the kind of games you will only see on the PC platform, and that alone is enough to earn them a very devoted following. It all began more than ten years ago with the release of the first Total War: Shogun in 2000, and developer The Creative Assembly has decided that it’s time to return to their roots and make a proper follow-up to their first groundbreaking project with Total War: Shogun 2.
Yes, it’s a series with a long and storied history, and one that most PC devotees know quite well. That’s what makes it so odd that Shogun 2 is actually my first foray into Total War. So how kind is this iteration for newcomers? Is the accumulated knowledge of ten years and hundreds of campaigns necessary to become Shogun? Hit the jump and we’ll find out.
If you’re not familiar with the basic premise of the game, here’s a quick rundown: it drops you waist-deep into war torn 16th century Japan and puts you in control of one of nine of Japan’s most powerful clans as they compete with each other to become the Shogun, Japan’s singular military ruler. It plays out in a somewhat Risk-style board game format, with you deploying your armies to capture the provinces of your opponents, and doing battle on land or sea, ultimately seeking to capture the capitol city of Kyoto.
The goal is simple, but the means of execution are many. Each of the possible clans has unique strengths that encourage particular means of defeating your enemies, whether that’s through diplomacy, subterfuge, or all-out warfare. For example, the Hojo clan can build more durable structures on the cheap, and are capable of building great siege weaponry for taking down the structures of their opponents. But maybe you like boats more, so you’d prefer to play as the Mori clan, who’s ships are second to none. Combined with the different starting locations for each clan, you’ve got a pretty different campaign experience depending on which clan you decide to lead to victory.
Progression on the main campaign map takes place on a turn-based system, where you’re given all the time you need to manage the buildings in your cities, recruit troops, move your armies, or engage in diplomatic relations with another clan. In addition to combat units, you can also recruit specialty units called “agents”, such as ninja or monks, that provide bonuses to towns or can deployed to sabotage your enemies. The number of options available to you at any given time during your turn is usually pretty staggering. Especially once you get a couple provinces under your belt, managing all of your cities, armies, navies, and agents, can be borderline overwhelming. On top of managing each of those, each of your army’s generals and all of your agents have individual, RPG-style progression as they gain experience, giving them various bonuses in or out of combat.
Yes, the task of becoming the Shogun is far from simple, and it can be easy of losing track of exactly how that’s going to get done, especially when one single player campaign can last easily ten to fifteen hours. Fortunately, Shogun 2 does a good job of breaking things down into more manageable chunks for you to tackle one at a time. It does this in two main ways: the Arts tree and Missions. The Arts tree will look pretty familiar to anyone who has had experience with strategy games: it’s effectively a tech tree, broadly separated into “Bushido” and “Chi”, basically combat and non-combat arts. Study of Bushido arts will enable the building of more advanced unit-producing structures in your cities, while advancing your Chi arts will allow you to upgrade things like farms and roads, or improve the performance of your various agents.
Missions are smaller objectives (taking a specific province or mastering a specific art, for instance) that typically only take a few turns to complete, for which you’ll be rewarded some extra units or a temporary buff of some kind. The actual gameplay impact of the rewards is not particularly significant, but the missions serve to provide you with shorter milestones and clearer goals towards which you can work, which is an immense help during those periods in your campaign where they may be relatively little happening and you may be at a loss for how to progress.
As overwhelming as the clan macro-management can get, Shogun 2 provides a couple pretty robust features to ease you into it. First is your basic tutorial, which walks you step by step through the opening of a typical campaign, including example ground and sea battles, with everything clearly explained and demoed with full voice over. And if you ever get confused after that (and you probably will), the game also includes an incredibly detailed in-game encyclopedia which you can access at any time. It’s basically a game manual for the modern gaming era; a Wikipedia-esque database (in fact, it’s actually coded in HTML and launches in a tiny browser within the game) that allows you to peruse every detail about everything in the game. Any time you’re confused about anything, simply hit the encyclopedia button next to that object, and you’ll immediately pull up the page associated with it so you can learn more than you’ll probably ever need to know. It’s an incredibly thoughtful inclusion, and keeps you from running off to find a guide on the internet any time you get flustered.
Of course, dictating your clan’s actions on the campaign map is really only half the game. The other half will have you taking direct control of the men in your army on the battlefield. In these skirmishes, you’ll be moving and battling with your units in a fashion much like other real-time strategy games, though it’s in these comparisons that Shogun 2‘s real-time battling system falls short. As is evident in the rest of the game, the folks at The Creative Assembly have a fanatical devotion to the accurate portrayal of this time period, and as such, the combat itself stays very true to what would have happened at the time. In other words, it’s a lot of angry Japanese dudes screaming at each other as they charge headlong into flying arrows, hoping they manage to get their goofy curve-style swords to connect with something besides dirt. It’s chaotic and it’s tough to control, is what I’m saying. If you’re used to the fast, precise micromanagement that’s possible in a game like Starcraft or Command and Conquer, trying to convince your regiment of archers to get into formation along the top of a hill will feel like trying to herd a bunch of overweight cats.
Nautical combat doesn’t fare much better, as it usually comes down “who can kite the big ships with the little ships longer”, until the big ships catch somebody and you have to watch the slow, brutal boarding and sacking process unfold in real time. Fortunately, it seems as though The Creative Assembly knew that battles could be potentially sluggish, and included a fast forward button to the battle interface for your convenience. For me, though, it seems like if you’re just going to spend the battle in fast forward, you may as well use the “auto-resolve battle” option and avoid the whole business to begin with.
It’s a shame that the real-time battles aren’t more enjoyable, because Shogun 2‘s multiplayer modes are pretty heavily dependent on them. There are co-operative and head-to-head campaigns, which are fairly self-explanatory, but Avatar Battle, in particular, is something I wish I could appreciate more, because the PvP progression on display seems pretty awesome. Basically, it presents you with a customizable clan on a simplified version of the campaign map, and you move your army pieces around and do battle with other players to take new areas that unlock more units. Any time you do something, your avatar gains experience to unlock various perks and benefits, allowing for lots of interesting options and army compositions. It all seems very sleek and intelligently designed, but unfortunately, all the actual combat is the aforementioned molasses-covered feline rodeo, and will therefore appeal only to the very devoted or the very patient. The option to create clans with your friends and take on pre-made teams of opponents also exists in this mode, but as of this writing I have never successfully gotten a game to start using this method.
In fact, the online in general feels a little broken right now. There is some Steamworks integration for friends lists and achievements, but it’s definitely not as robust as most Steam users are used to. Joining friend games via your Steam friends list is not very stable, and I’ve heard fairly widespread complaints about dropped connections to games. Hopefully this is something that Sega and The Creative Assembly are in the process of fixing, because the servers currently seem pretty barren.
If you want it to, Shogun 2 will definitely push the limits of your machine. While it does scale pretty well for weaker computers, and the minimum specs are very reasonable, when you can really get things running on all cylinders, you will absolutely be rewarded. As you’ve been able to see from the screenshots, the visuals can be extremely breathtaking. On a technical level, the number of individual models being animated at one time is astounding, especially in the ground battle scenes. The campaign map screen is way more detailed than it has any right to be; each passing turn changes the season, and tiny people can be seen traveling along roads and trade routes just to make the world feel alive. The art style just breathes love for the Japanese aesthetic; everything is presented with incredibly authentic Japanese calligraphy and woodblock prints in the style of the period.
Love for the culture doesn’t stop with the visuals. The Creative Assembly have really gone out of their way to make every element of this game feel authentically Japanese, and authentically period. It even goes so far as to imbue the strategy gameplay with the culture and philosophy that characterized that era, particularly using Sun Tzu’s The Art of War as a central basis for the way the opponents play the game. The specifics for how that happens are kind of opaque, but what is clear is that it encourages the use of policies and tactics that, through the lens our modern, western sensibilities, seem downright odd. For example, members of your clan’s royal family can be used as bargaining chips in diplomatic relations, and the somewhat abstract concept of “honor” is highly valuable. Your clan leader, or Daimyo, has an Honor rating that determines the loyalty of his generals. If it gets too low through the use of dishonorable tactics, like the razing of cities or the betrayal of allies, you may find that your prized generals turn against you. The fact that details like this exist in the game shows that there was an incredibly deep understanding of the culture and history of this period on the part of the developers, and when everything is said and done, it really makes you feel like the Shogun.
So if you’re like me, and this is your first time with a Total War game, Shogun 2 might be a good place to start. It can feel extremely punishing at first, but if you make use of the helpful resources available to you, and you stick it out through what can feel like simple trial and error, you’ll end up with an extremely deep, rewarding experience. The fact that the battle system is sub-par is unfortunate, as is the somewhat lackluster multiplayer, but considering the breadth of the content available here, is not actually as much of a detriment as it might seem. And if you’re willing to stick it out and enjoy those battles, this game is really the complete package.
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The Nanban and ChristianityBy Aftermath | Forum threadForeword
When you begin your campaign on Shogun 2 pretty much every Clan follows the Shinto Buddhism religion, with the notable exception of the Ikko-Ikki warrior Monks who practice Ikko. Religious unrest is nothing to sniff at either – it factors not only into the happiness in your provinces but also the way the other Clans perceive you. Religion can be used in various ways to get bonuses to certain troops or access to others earlier than you would normally be able to. It is also possible to use Religion as a weapon, stirring up unrest and revolt in the territory of your enemies. A powerful tool if used properly.
The Nanban
As you play your campaign, after a few turns you might encounter a Christian Clan and wonder how this has happened, well – read on!
The Nanban (Japanese term for barbarians, as they were called – basically European traders) will approach you directly after some time, offering trade in exchange for a port for them to use in your territory.
The consequences of this are both immediate and time-spanning, and the whole affair can take some extensive micro managing to get through.
Firstly, the Nanban trade port can only be built once you have an existing trade port. That means you need to upgrade at least one of your coastal villages to this point. The building tree for the ports progresses as follows;
Coastal Village > Harbour > Trading Port >
The advantages of the Nanban port are as follows:
The disadvantage of the Nanban port are as follows:
It will convert that region’s populace to Christianity. This will of course cause religious unrest and can, if left unchecked result in full scale rebellion against your rule.
In comparison to your other construction option after Trading Port, the Military Port allows the construction of more advanced Japanese Naval Vessels, but is less profitable in terms of trade. However, the Military Port does not convert your population to Christianity.
Once you have built a Nanban port, you will shortly afterwards get a notification advising you that the ‘Nanban’ have not only brought with them their gold and trade goods, but also their religion. It is suggested that the spread of this new religion should either be embraced or repressed as much as possible.
1: Embracing Christianity
Following the warning message mentioned in the paragraph above, you are now able to embrace Christianity as your clan’s official religion. To do this you need to go to your Clan Management screen. From there, in the ‘Family and Council’ tab, you will notice a button in the left hand corner.
By clicking this your Daimyo renounces traditional Shinto-Buddhism and embraces this new religion as his own, making it the official religion of your clan. Once this has done, you will notice that a lot of the Clans you’ve encountered will now be notably less friendly towards you. This has happened because both your Daimyo’s honour has taken a decrease, and you will suffer from the negative religious difference effect with other Clans. On the other hand, if there are any existing Christian Clans they will be much more friendly with you.
From left to right you can see the change in Diplomatic relations from switching to Christianity. Remember; if Clans dislike you they are more likely to go to war.
It is not only in inter-clan diplomacy that you might suffer slightly. Thanks to the lowered Honour of your Daimyo, some of your Generals may be on the brink of treason, forcing you to ask them to commit Seppuku – and if that doesn’t work they will outright rebel against you, taking some of their men with them.
Adopting Christianity as your Clan’s official religion also causes your population happiness untold turmoil. Not only do you need to offset the religious unrest as your Buddhist population is slowly converted, but also the lowered public order thanks to your Daimyo’s reduced Honour. If unmanaged you will suffer Buddhist revolts.
Sometimes you will be doing everything you can to increase Public Order; Garrisoned forces, Missionary, Exempted from tax but still the huge penalty ‘Non-Clan religion’ is strong enough to cause revolt.
In some cases it can take many, many turns to get your population back under control. A Christian Clan must beware however, from here on out the provinces you conquer (which are likely still majority Buddhist) will also have these lowered public order levels to contend with. Unless you take steps to increase your Daimyo’s honour, or convert the population before you conquer.
By adopting Christianity, you will now also have the option to upgrade your Nanban Port to a Nanban Quarter and will likely receive a notification to advise you of this.
The advantages of a Nanban quarter are:
At this point, being that you’ve now adopted Christianity it shouldn’t be considered a disadvantage that the Nanban Quarter also converts the population to Christianity quicker, but also spreads the religion to neighbouring provinces.
Now that your Daimyo is Christian, you will also notice that in the place of the Buddhist Monasteries, you’re now able to build Chapels to help convert your population and also recruit Missionaries who behave in much the same role that Monks do for Buddhist factions. This line of buildings progresses as follows:
Chapel > Mission > Church > Cathedral
Each increases the conversion rate to Christianity, and also spreads the religion to neighbouring territory.
The Missionary’s skill tree is much the same as the Buddhist Monk’s.
In summary, here are the units that converting to Christianity grants you:
A player who adopts Christianity will have access to these awesome new units which can devastate an army without an equivalent. The Matchlock Ashigaru give you a large advantage when it comes to damaging morale in the early game and gives you them a long time before other clans can build them through research.
The Nanban trade ship is more of a combat vessel, it’s upkeep is four times greater than the standard trade ship and you do not get any income benefits. However it is far more formidable than even most of the traditional Japanese naval vessels, complete with a large crew, devastating cannons and matchlock armed guards it is a terror to face in battle.
The European cannons do untold damage to castle walls and tightly packed enemy formations, able to be built straight from the Nanban quarter without the need for further gunpowder research or a siege works.
On the other hand a Christian Daimyo loses out on the ability to train the formidable monk units. The campaign is likely to play out a little slower than a traditional Shinto Clan’s, for the simple reason that you will need to be converting population and constructing Chapels to maintain a reasonable level of happiness before moving your army onwards. A Clan cannot change back to Buddhism once their Daimyo has chosen Christianity until that Daimyo is dead and his heir assumes the ruling responsibility.
Much like the religious unrest can be a major thorn in your side as you spread Christianity throughout Japan, you can also use your religion as a weapon against an enemy clan. Use monks and churches to spread the religion to neighbouring provinces and swoop in once a Christian rebellion takes place. This will of course only work on Buddhist clans.
2: Repressing Christianity
If you do not want to convert your Daimyo and face the perils of Christianity, drawing the ire of the other Clans, you can simply deny the Nanban request to trade. Alternatively you can aim to reap the benefits of the Nanban port and do your best to manage the spread of Christianity that accompanies it.
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For one, you should focus on researching the ‘Zen’ technology so that you can build Buddhist Monasteries. These buildings convert your population to Buddhism, though it does not offset the spread of Christianity by itself. To do that you’ll likely need the next building tier and also a Monk.
By using this method you are getting a decent trade off. On one hand you get access to the Imported Matchlock Ashigaru, who are very valuable early game, especially when defending the walls during a siege. Although they are very expensive by early game standards and also take a long time to recruit for non-Christians; 4 Turns. However you are needing to put Koku into repressing the spread of the religion, to prevent a majority of your population converting and causing religious unrest and perhaps Christian rebellions against your rule.
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In summary, choose wisely. The Nanban bring the opportunity of great wealth with them, but possibly at the cost of rebellion and even additional wars if your Daimyo renounces Shinto Buddhism. Shunning the old ways is not without it’s own benefits however, early access to cannons and matchlocks provides a valuable battlefield advantage for those brave enough to harness them and either tame or convert to the Christian ways.
Is there a way to open the Encyclopedia inside of Rome 2 Total War, as opposed to opening it in a web browser? Are there any Mods that will do this?
I'm looking for similar to the way the encyclopedia worked in the original Rome Total War.
Clarification:
When I right click on a card, it automatically opens up the online encyclopedia as opposed to an in-game one. Does running it on a Mac have anything to do with it? Or is there some setting I need to turn on to enable the offline one?
Vemonus
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2 Answers
According to Total War Support Forum Wiki you can achieve this by editing the preferences.script file
Q: The Encyclopaedia minimises the game and opens a web browser. How can I view the Encyclopaedia in-game?
A: This feature can be modified through the preferences.script file found in: ~/library/The Creative Assembly/Rome2/scripts (for the Steam download) ~/library/Containers/com.sega.mac.rome2/Data/Library/The Creative Assembly/Rome2/scripts (for the App store download) Open the file and search for the term external_browser true; then change this to external_browser false; and re-save the preferences.script file. The Encyclopaedia will now open in-game.
Reference:https://forums.totalwar.com/discussion/137170/rome-ii-mac-version-faq
Caution: As always when editing configuration files, take a backup before editing it.
Jonas SöderströmJonas Söderström
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You don't need mods for this.
Pretty much, right clicking on anything with a 'Card' in the bottom of the screen will bring up the Encyclopaedia entry for that item. For example, when viewing your army, your can right click on one of the units to go to the relevant place. Or right click on a technology in the technology tree.
You can also press the TZHXTZHX
F1 key, or the icon in the top-left of your screen, which will take you to the page for whatever 'mode' you are in (battle, campaign). Helpfully, if you open the encyclopaedia while in a battle, it will pause it.
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![]() Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged macosrome-2-total-war or ask your own question.Shogun 2: Total War StrategyIn the first part of our series we looked at the clans. Although each clan is well suited to a specific tactical approach there are some general strategies and tips that should help with any campaign game. In this Shogun 2: Total War strategy guide we’ll take a brief look at building an economy, trade routes, diplomacy, city management, buildings, religion and researching the arts. Getting StartedFor any clan to wage war on a large scale a healthy economy is required. The amount of money you bring in is directly related to a number of factors. In general terms the more territories you possess the larger the army you can support. It is a good idea to strike early, most clans start with a neighbouring enemy so attack them within the first few turns. The faster you expand your base, the better. In the first few turns build a few extra armies and develop your farms, your roads and your ports. Some territories also offer extra resources that you can exploit but they can be very expensive, so you may want to delay their development. Trade Routes and DiplomacyThere are a limited number of foreign trade route spots that can be claimed. Geographically certain clans have an advantage and should be able to grab these before their opponents (the Mori are well placed and have naval bonuses). Since you need a Trade Port before you can build trade ships you should start building your harbour immediately. You can also build a couple of military ships and send them out to claim the trade route spots then send your trade ships on later. It is worth sending multiple trade ships for each spot so you maximise your income but you will need to contend with pirates and attacks on your trade routes so you’ll need a navy to respond to these threats. You can also set up trade agreements with other clans. It’s a good idea to send a ship off round the coast early on so you can meet as many other clans as possible. Decide on your ideal allies, the earlier the relationship is established, the stronger it will become over time. Just bear in mind if you actually ally with another clan they might drag you into wars, although that goes both ways. You can see the likelihood of success for each proposition before you make it so experiment with the terms to see how this is affected. A marriage between clans can be a great boost to relations and you don’t need to be allied to do this. You really need to avoid reneging on deals or your honour will suffer and all clans will begin to dislike you. Don’t make deals with clans you intend to attack in the near future. Once you reach Legendary Fame you’ll trigger Realm Divide and the Shogun and all the other clans will decide to attack you. There’s a good chance your allies will turn on you too so be prepared for this. To become Shogun take and hold Kyoto for four turns (you’ll get a tax and morale boost). City Management and BuildingsLong term in any campaign your ability to generate food is vital. It may be tempting to shoot off researching the Bushido arts and developing your military prowess but don’t neglect the Chi or you’ll end up having to disband that huge army. Each of the building chains requires various arts to be researched before you can construct the better buildings. Since farms are your only source of food and a great source of income too, make sure you research Chi, Todofuken and Equal Fields before you progress too far into the game. Most provinces have some other resource you can exploit such as cotton, iron, crafts or stone. There are other specialities too like the Hallowed Ground at Shimotsuke which offers special bonuses to monks. Make sure you develop these and think about which resources will benefit your empire most. This can help you decide where you should be focussing your attack. Focus your building — beyond improving farms, roads and ports you need to choose carefully. You can expand the available construction slots by upgrading the Fort and obviously this will give you defensive bonuses and better public order too. You’ll need markets for metsuke and sake dens for ninjas. Even if you don’t intend to use them widely it pays to make sure you have them to protect your top generals in the field. As you construct more buildings you’ll find that researching arts is slowing progress and preventing you from constructing the next building in the chain. Try to plan ahead and select the right research so you can build the structures you want. ReligionYou have the option of adopting Christianity or sticking with Buddhism. The most obvious benefits to converting are access to European weapons (siege cannons and cheaper Matchlock Ashigaru). You’ll also unlock the Mission chain of buildings which ultimately provides more bonuses than the Buddhist chain. The Nanban Trade Port and Nanban Quarter also improve your trade. If you go this route then wait until the conversion of your people is well underway before converting yourself. You can convert the Daimyo in the family screen of your clan management (there’s an icon next to him). Just remember you can’t convert him back again. Another thing to consider is that other clans and even your own generals will react to this. If they are Buddhist then relations worsen, if they are Christian then relations will improve. The majority of provinces you take will be Buddhist so be prepared to deal with some unrest until you can convert populations. This can really slow your progress down. Researching the ArtsYou can speed up your research of the arts considerably by building the right structures, the temple or mission chain are great for Chi, the castle is great for Bushido and the Magistrate or Library chains offer bonuses to both. If your generals develop in the right direction they can also boost research rates. You’ll also get events or dilemmas that pop up and offer different bonuses for various actions or just present you with a choice of focus. Make sure you take advantage of these limited boosts. In the next article we’ll move on to the battlefield for some more Shogun 2: Total War strategy advice and discuss some unit types and how to get the best from your generals. ReferencesAll information and screenshots from Shogun 2: Total War by The Creative Assembly. This post is part of the series: Shogun 2: Total War Guide
Learn how to conquer Japan and gain a victory in Shogun 2: Total War with this five part guide. We’ll offer some strategy, tips and advice to help you in your rise to shogun.
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