Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
This forum is in permanent archive mode. Our new active community can be found here.
Shogun: Total War and PC strategy
After listening to Scrym trash PC gaming yet again in their Wesnoth episode of Geeknights, I got the distinct impression that they have had rather limited experience with the current face of strategy gaming on the PC.
I don't know if I'm the first person to bring this up, but I'm new to the forums and I'm going to do so anyway.
After digging through the old archives for a bit I've heard them mention the board game Shogun on numerous occasions. I don't know if you are aware of this fact, but back in 2000 a videogame adaptation of that board game entitled Shogun: Total War was released for the PC.
While the game now seems somewhat dated, it was revolutionary at the time for various reasons. The game was really two games in one, broken down between the campaign map and the battle map. On the campaign map the game was essentially Civilization confined to one era of history. It's turn based, you manage your cities, build structures, upgrade your tech, build/move/combine armies, conduct diplomacy with neighboring factions, invade territories, etc.
However, once your units actually invade an enemy province the computer doesn't simply calculate the results of the battle, but instead you enter the battle map. The battle map is a 3d real-time interface where the armies that engaged are rendered down to the individual soldier. That is to say thousands of units are visible on the battlefield and are given orders and handle much like your typical RTS unit. Strategy actually matters; you position your archers in the back, your swordsmen in the front, and your spearmen and cavalry at the flanks. You can pause the action at any point to issue complex orders and are treated with epic lord of the rings type melee battles that are as much fun to watch as they are to play. Your units suffer from morale, and will retreat if they see no possibility of victory despite the protests of your general. There is also absolutely no building of units of structures on the battlefield, whatever units your army contained prior to entering the battle is what you've got.
Of course I can't forget the ninjas, you can build in your cities a ninja unit that can travel unseen throughout the map and assassinate the generals, daimyos, emissaries, etc of your rivals. This is done through terrific little CGI cut scenes that appear in a window on the campaign map and show the success or failure of your ninja’s assassination attempt. The odds of your ninja's success are determined by the experience and skill of your ninja and the type of target you have selected for assassination. For instance, a general is far harder to assassinate than an emissary.
Shogun: Total War has spawned a series of sequels each more awesome than its predecessor. After Shogun came Medieval: Total War, Rome: Total War, and recently Medieval II: Total War. The later games add a ton of new features to the model of the original and upgrade the graphics significantly. You need a fairly serious gaming machine to play Medieval II.
Shogun however is fairly easy on your system resources and the warlords edition(which contains the game and Mongol invasion expansion) can probably be found for about 10 bucks in your local EB's bargain bin.
If you haven’t experienced this series, I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys war gaming, and would even venture to say that this series is perhaps the ultimate in video war gaming. Perfectly blending turn based and real time elements, you would be remiss if you cheated yourself out of this awesome series.
I don't know if I'm the first person to bring this up, but I'm new to the forums and I'm going to do so anyway.
After digging through the old archives for a bit I've heard them mention the board game Shogun on numerous occasions. I don't know if you are aware of this fact, but back in 2000 a videogame adaptation of that board game entitled Shogun: Total War was released for the PC.
While the game now seems somewhat dated, it was revolutionary at the time for various reasons. The game was really two games in one, broken down between the campaign map and the battle map. On the campaign map the game was essentially Civilization confined to one era of history. It's turn based, you manage your cities, build structures, upgrade your tech, build/move/combine armies, conduct diplomacy with neighboring factions, invade territories, etc.
However, once your units actually invade an enemy province the computer doesn't simply calculate the results of the battle, but instead you enter the battle map. The battle map is a 3d real-time interface where the armies that engaged are rendered down to the individual soldier. That is to say thousands of units are visible on the battlefield and are given orders and handle much like your typical RTS unit. Strategy actually matters; you position your archers in the back, your swordsmen in the front, and your spearmen and cavalry at the flanks. You can pause the action at any point to issue complex orders and are treated with epic lord of the rings type melee battles that are as much fun to watch as they are to play. Your units suffer from morale, and will retreat if they see no possibility of victory despite the protests of your general. There is also absolutely no building of units of structures on the battlefield, whatever units your army contained prior to entering the battle is what you've got.
Of course I can't forget the ninjas, you can build in your cities a ninja unit that can travel unseen throughout the map and assassinate the generals, daimyos, emissaries, etc of your rivals. This is done through terrific little CGI cut scenes that appear in a window on the campaign map and show the success or failure of your ninja’s assassination attempt. The odds of your ninja's success are determined by the experience and skill of your ninja and the type of target you have selected for assassination. For instance, a general is far harder to assassinate than an emissary.
Shogun: Total War has spawned a series of sequels each more awesome than its predecessor. After Shogun came Medieval: Total War, Rome: Total War, and recently Medieval II: Total War. The later games add a ton of new features to the model of the original and upgrade the graphics significantly. You need a fairly serious gaming machine to play Medieval II.
Shogun however is fairly easy on your system resources and the warlords edition(which contains the game and Mongol invasion expansion) can probably be found for about 10 bucks in your local EB's bargain bin.
If you haven’t experienced this series, I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys war gaming, and would even venture to say that this series is perhaps the ultimate in video war gaming. Perfectly blending turn based and real time elements, you would be remiss if you cheated yourself out of this awesome series.
Comments
Medieval II might be cool some day, but the engine is broken at the moment.
Are you sure Shogun: total war isnt based on the boardgame, because I'm pretty sure I've read that in numerous reviews for the game back in the day.
As for the video game itself, I couldn't wrap my head around it. As Rym & Scott can tell you with board games, more complex and realistic does not necessarily mean more fun. The intricacies of a Warcraft III battle, while hardly the pinnacle of computer strategy games (it gets maybe a B+ if you're kind), are more engaging than the brutish difficulty of Shogun.
I tend to dismiss most RTS games, because they're just crap, kind of like most shooters. It's the same story no matter the genre: one dev makes an awesome, popular game (Command & Conquer, Starcraft, Counterstrike, Tribes II, Medal of Honor), and then 1,000 companies make their also-ran.
However, there are some real gems out there. If you can deal with horrible crashiness in multiplayer, Europa Universalis II and Victoria by Paradox are outstanding strategy games. While Civ 4 was not bad (yeah yeah Civ 2 was awesome, get your heads out of the fucking 90's), these games are just so much more fun. You can play any country on the planet Earth. There is a high degree of historical accuracy, while still being very much a video game. The game doesn't expect you to conquer the world as, say, Switzerland. You'll learn more about history playing these games than you ever did in school. (Unless you majored in history, in which case...my condolences.)
In general, I think board game logic applies to strategy gaming. You want your game to be easy to learn and hard to master. You want it to be mostly skill-based, with just enough randomness to keep things interesting. You want the strategy to be dynamic enough that a less-skilled player might suddenly become bad-ass by learning a new strategy...at least until the counter-strategy is developed.
What you don't want to do is copy the same, tired formula over and over and over and over and over like these shit-tastic Age/Rise of Empires/Legends/Nations/Republics/Myths/Magocracies/Starbucks games. What would board gaming be like if there were 97 direct knock-offs of Puerto Rico? If the new "hot" game was Gilgamesh, a knock-off of Amun-Re that uses the Euphrates instead of the Nile and you build ziggurats instead of pyramids?
I mean, if you're a fan of the genre, then the new strategy games can be fun in bite sizes. Battle for Middle Earth is a good week's entertainment, if you can find it for $15. Of course, it's still four times as expensive as WoW, but I digress.
I honestly think strategy gaming as a genre needs to get a clue from board gaming. Civ is awesome because it's like a board game--designed to be a playable, fun game, not designed to be some sort of simulator. Shogun is an example of a game that tries way too hard to be "realistic", while giving too little thought to being fun.
I say, let's see the Puerto Rico video game. You know, it would be pretty damn easy to make almost any board game into a video game. Hell, you could use Flash. Sure, you lose the visceral thrill of clutching all those plastic pieces, but it would sure be more cost-effective. I'd like to see more of that.
I can't comment on long-term staying power, because my data is not well-controlled. I played Civ 2 as a kid with nothing else to do. I played ALL games much longer when I was younger. I got some decent play out of Civ 4. Is it the game's fault? Who knows.
I could play games seven or eight hours a day without pause if I somehow had infinite time to do so. I mostly blame the real world and this "working" BS for my lessened gaming attention span.
And the best part about owning a PC? The fact that no matter how much you upgrade the sucker, you can still play great old games without much issue. I.E.-Deus Ex, and others of it's ilk. Most consoles are loosing their backwards compatability so quickly it's making my head spin.
And just a side note, Mideval 2 is pretty damn fun, even if it's not perfect yet. I still can't get enough hearing my units say "POR JESUS CHRISTO!"