Got an email today telling me my copy of Shogun had been dispatched.. cant wait for this one.. Love the total war series. Seems to be dispatched early to me though. I thought it wa out next friday in teh UK.

that is early... next Tuesday for the US... I've decided to hold off on that one... I want it...bad... just too many at once. (Homefront and Crysis 2, ToW3 Korea and then 2 racing games.)

Yeah, i understand holding off on it.. having played the demo it is more of the same but seems much more accessable than Empire and Napoleon. If i pick up Homefront it will likely be on the 360 but even then im not convinced by how much playtime i will give it. I enjoyed Frontlines but it always felt like a BF clone to me.

I don't know much about ToW Korea but if it is full on strategy then i'll pass as the Total War series is about as deep as i can get without feeling overwhelmed with how to actually play it. Crysis 2 holds no interest to me and NfS shift 2 is a wait on reviews for me to make sure they fixed the sliding around corners feel i cant stand. Nascar would be a buy for me but it looks like no european release for it which is a let down

Yeah I'm on the fence about buying this one this weekend or not, I pre-ordered Empire and it was really buggy when it shipped and by the time I came back to play it post patches it was a $25 title... never really got the bug for it like the previous titles either.

I loved the first Shogun, so am likely to love this one, just hoping buying it on release isn't another buggy mess that will be much cheaper by the time they fix it.

Mine arrived this morning courtesy of Zavvi, I'd set aside today for a reinstall of BOBII and to set up TIR for it but hopefully I'll get a look at it sometime. Game overload as I've discovered Mount & Blade: Warband via the AAR forum and its been taking up the time bigstyle.

S!

PS: Just checked the TWC forum apparantly you can't install the game until the 15th so I don't have to rearrange my schedule.

Can't install it until 15th.. nah, that sucks. However it's not an issue because mine didn't turn up this morning anyway so Monday / Tuesday it is. It must be a worldwide release of 15th for it then.

It seems like the UK are moving away (for large titles anyway) from a Friday release to a universal release.

Ok good reviews on Shogun2 coming out now:
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/reviews/59467/Total-War-Shogun-2-Review

I'm officially off the fence and just pre-ordered on steam, really looking forward to it, I loved the first one.

Now that was a great - and honest - review.

Shogun2 manual is up on steam:
http://cdn.steampowered.com/Manuals/34330/SHO2_PC_UK_DD.pdf

Not a very long manual, but good to see what's changed from other TW games.

Man, that is some manual (not). But I guess the Encyclopaedia is there to pick up the slack.

These days you should not expect too much in this area but it is cool that Battlefront has produced a 200 page (!) manual for CMBN.

Yeah they just don't make manuals like they used to even on PDF.

The reviews seem to all be pretty good so far, I'm glad to hear:
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/shogun-2-total-war/critic-reviews

Preloading now, should unlock in the morning...

I'm downloading now from D2D, 23.9Gb!!! Wow...

I have to wait until tomorrow for delivery from Amazon.

I loved Shogun the moment I played it! It brought back all my love and memories of Akira Kurosawa's wonderful movies. I love the region, the history, and the subject matter.
BUT, I hate being an early adopter, when i pay full price for a game it is for two reasons only: A) it has a proven track record B) I honor the company, or the effort, or want to support the industry (flight sims, grand, detailed strategy games, etc.). I own and liked a lot of the TW series, had a few problems with the direction they went but they were enjoyable at a discounted rate. So now I am giddy like a little school girl over the prospect of reliving past glory with Shogun 2, but I fear it wont be ready. I have read the reviews, been fooled by them before, I've been caught up with those who have it, they don't mean to fool but things are always shiny when they are new. Can I, should I, reward this company with my dollars, so soon?
All these are questions I ponder more out of rhetorical fashion than the search for real answers, I am by no means S**ting on the release fervor, I'm just a cynic, but I want to be a joiner.
If anyone here in my most respected community can put down their game playing for a moment and just futz with the thing, try and break it etc. I would be incredibly appreciated and, to be honest, I would probably be too engrossed to do what I'm asking of others, but the demo was good but too limited to be convincing. A kind soul out there? With time on his/her hands? Buller, Buller? Thanks in advance, Enjoy the game those that have it.
-Behemoth

If you love the series... then IMO... a no brainer...get it.

If you can wait, play an older version... then wait for a sale...with a nice patched version.

IMO


and BTW... welcome to SimHQ.

Thanks for the welcome Magnum, actually, been around since 2001 or 2 but lost my account, made a new one in '08. Love your reviews, hope I'll see one soon for this game. I think I may just bite on this, it sure looks nice and Amazon has it for DL at 10$ cheaper (39.99).

Got it yesterday via Steam, loving it so far.

Far too early for more than 1st impressions, but what I've seen so far is excellent.

Could become the favourite title in the series for me:

Same here early days, but am really enjoying it so far.

The medieval Japan feel of the game is really good with great art and music and voice, looking great and playing great so far, the only unfinished thing I noticed is AA setting is not available in game (supposed to be added with a forthcoming DX11 patch), but I was able to force AA via ATI control center.

Also the AI seems much tougher than RomeTW which is what I've played the most besides the original Shogun, so far the AI is reminding me why I would have made a bad officer/general during my time as enlisted in the Army

I've just done three MP battles in the Avatar mode and people really seem to enjoy splitting their forces, probably bad habits from playing vs the AI.
Won easier against those humans than some of the battles against the AI last night.

A friend gifted me the game last night and I installed it. I played it for a bit this morning before work. Sofar it feels like the best game in the series. It is everything I loved about the early games and none of the crap I hated from the last few games. I am really enjoying it.

One problem with the AI is that they keep stack spamming me on hard. I wish they had a custom AI setting where you could pick to have everything on hard except no cheap stack spamming.

BTW I was being sly forcing the AA in the ATI control center since the game didn't support AA yet, but it turns out that causes the water and weapon range rings not to show... so I stopped doing that, supposedly the AA and DX11 patch will be coming within 4 weeks.

I've only played the demo so far, but I am planning to get the full version soon.

I'm a bit worried about performance: it looks and plays much worse than ETW and NTW on my system (which ran great on near-max settings). The lack of AA really hurts the eye.

From what I have seen in the demo, the character development has improved a lot. In earlier titles they would amass so many character traits it didn't make sense anymore, while in ETW and NTW they would only get a few generic traits. This time it seems they found the right balance.

The AI "cheating"... I this may turn out to be for the better, I just wish they had found a subtler way of implementing it. In previous titles the AI was usually too much of a pushover. Human players usually tend to "turtle" for a while and cripple the AI e.g. by blockading the AI's trade or going directly for its key provinces. That's sound strategy, of course, but the AI isn't up to it. And I daresay this is not so much an issue with TW, but rather with all strategy games.

Other than that, it looks like they got back to their mix of humour and visual flair which I found lacking a bit in ETW and NTW.

I have played this fot some 20 hours now and the bottom line is that I am rubbish at it but I love it none the less. I made a mistake with my builds right off bat and upgraded too many provinces to fortresses and now I am struggling to get enough food for my population forcing me to try and takes more provinces before I am ready.

I still love seeing a large formation of archers taking ranks of troops out.

All in all it's a great addition to the series.

Been playing the full release and loving it. Great effort from CA. Patch will give us DX11/AA functionality so no worries there.

Well, I can't play it. I'm among those with quality and updated systems that get a crash at start up "splash" screen. Like it restarts my computer crash. Those tools at CA are actually suggesting that people screw with their BIOS because they have no clue.

I mean...only an idiot would advise someone to update their BIOS like that. They may as well put in their post a promise to mail you a ball peen hammer so you can smash your box after you screw with the BIOS. At least then you'd get a $5 hammer for your $60.

Shogun 2 seems to run better than Napoleon to me. No crashes, or issues at all. Having a blast with it as I seem to grow attached to the monks, ninjas, generals etc and the ability to upgrade them is cool. Makes me try to keep my general out of trouble!

All in all "those tools at CA" seem to have done a great job.

Good for you. However, suggesting you change BIOS is NOT a good idea and they are doing it. I think it would be a disservice to SHQ folks to say it is a "great job" since all you have to do it look here, where they've basically created a forum subcategory for this particular problem:

http://forums.totalwar.com/forumdisplay.php/99-Compatibility-Issues

Sorry that YOU are having issues. But most of us are not and for us the game is mighty fine.

I wasn't trying to sound smug, and you make a good point about users being careful about updating BIOS, etc. I purchased each and every TW on release, and well remember Empire's disaster. In the light of that Shogun 2 is a great improvement, with the caveat that some (note: some users with outdated BIOS) are getting BSOD when it starts.

I don't know what else would they suggest as a fix!

Thanks for the link, by the way. Have yet to use that forum! On reading through 2 of the threads it seems that most of the posters that worked out how to update the BIOS found that it worked. w00t!

Guys, if you go into Multiplayer / Avatar conquest, it might be nice to also tag SimHQ Steam Group as your clan.

I love the new character customization, veteran units, and with clans you can get some very nice upgrades to your units

Wow... I am really bad at this game. I got a faction divide message that basically prompted me to take Kyoto as every other clan was at war with me.. I then lasted about 20 to 30 turns before i was basically wiped off the map!

And i was playing on easy. No matter, i still love the game.. Brilliant fun. And now to restart with a better plan of action!

Devoted some hours on Sunday, playing the Shimazu clan I managed to take all of Kyushu before quitting. Luckily, I haven't had the technical problems some have experienced. The campaign AI is pretty agressive, plus it cheats to make the game more difficult. Early in the game, my main rivals on Kyushu were sporting full stacks of experienced troops (3 & 4 chevrons), resulting in several battles with large amounts of casualties. They definitely didn't have time to build these armies, so I'm guessing the AI's troops automatically get the experience upgrades associated with the various buildings and tech advances. Now I've got a stack of experienced units, having earned them after many close battles with large stacks of these magically experienced troops.

OK, broke down, bought. So far? Really like it, it's simpler and more fun that previous titles and really close to the original. No bugs to speak of yet. Naval battles are a real "everyone losses" affair, but then again so is land combat unless I'm doing something wrong. Money well spent.
-B

Bump, come on guys, last night we had 2 territories. I'm sure there's tens of Shogun players on this board.

Hang on, i don't know what this means.. what do i need to do to be tagged as a SimHQ player and what would that entail.. playing other guys online? Coz if so i'm gonna get reamed. I get reamed by the AI on easy for goodness sake!

Well it only makes sense if you play MP, but don't worry about it, you're not obliged to do anything.

MP is very fun, you're missing out, though.

I need to get home to provide exact instructions, but basically you need to
a) join the SimHQ steam group - you can do that from steam interface, or from the game
b) tag the steam group as your TW2 clan - you do this in the Avatar Conquest menu - look for the clan page on the top of the screen.