On the battlefield the AI still receives slight penalties to accuracy, morale and attack, and the player receives a slight boost to those areas.Įxactly as the name implies, this mode will offer a stiffer challenge. It will do as it sees fit without biasing towards or away from humans. It seems quite balanced in its attitude towards the player it will punish foolish moves more often, and appears to have no preference between player or AI controlled clans when it comes to aggression. On normal, the campaign AI has a small penalty to its production and building priorities. Conversely the hardest clans, such as the Oda and the Tokugawa, will be quite a bit tougher and it may take a few false starts before a player feels that they have survived the opening satisfactorily. Certain clans, such as the Chosokabe, will be fairly easy and players will not need to worry overly about being trampled underfoot. The AI is still capable of giving you a beating, especially in the perilous early turns and in the realm divide phase of the game. Normal is the level that most people will want to use for their first game. On the battlefield the AI has limitations to its accuracy, morale and melee attack value, and the player has bonuses to them. Its production and building priorities are handicapped. It will deliberately make mistakes, or fail to follow up on opportunities. It seems more likely to direct its aggression at other computer controlled clans, although that is not to say it ignores the player altogether.
The AI is quite generous towards the player at this level. Alternatively, if you want a laid back, relaxing game where you can admire the scenery and indulge in evil laughter as you mow down your foes, easy is a good choice. If you have played through that and found it to be about right for you, then there's no reason to not select it for your first campaign. Now, some notes on the specific difficulties.Įasy is the difficulty that the tutorial campaign uses, or so I assume as it awards the "Easy Campaign Completion" steam achievement. For everyone else, adjust your difficulty setting accordingly. For those who enjoy learning with a challenge, this is perfect. If you select very hard it will be very hard, especially if you do not know the game very well.
This means that players should not expect to select very hard and then cruise through a reasonably mild campaign, as they have grown accustomed to doing in the older games. In fact many of the early reactions to the game I saw came from stunned players who had been crushed in the opening turns! Excellent. If you get in its way it has no qualms with crushing you. It will expand, it will use diplomacy, and it will try to take Kyoto to proclaim itself shogun. The developers responsible for it had stated that it aims to win this means it is playing with the same goals as you.
Total war shogun 2 battle series#
Personally I feel that it is the best in the series by a good way. No longer is it passively snoozing away, making the occasional questionable move as it stirs in its slumber. The AI has had a bucket of cold water tipped over it and is up on its feet outraged. There is one very important thing that players of past Total War games need to take note of. It also has reference to some developer comments regarding difficulty and AI bonuses, which I am going to past here: It is a great overview of all aspects of the game, but unlike many other guides, it goes into some detail about the difficulty settings and what exactly they do. I thought'd it'd be helpful to post this link to Frogbeastegg's Guide to Total War Shogun II:
I've noticed we have quite a few new Shogun 2 players last several weeks, and many discussions about difficulty and AI bonuses.