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The future of RTS, C&C, heres a lesson....

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: September 16, 2000
Author: Amazon User

All I can say about Shogun is that this game is pure strategic excellence. People say this game is a mix between Civ2 and C&C, but in my eyes its in its own league. Its like Civ2, to a point, but thats the boring bit where you send your forces to battle and watch silly bars go down when your getting beaten or winning. In Shogun, these bars are yours. Like Civ2 the enemy moves its piece on your square and you think hey, what the **, you cant do that!! So what do you do, you wanna fight, then you've got it. This is where you take control!! Picture this.... you have a poxy army of about 500 men, and your facing a strong force of 1500 men. You think..... what chance have I got, lets retreat, but wait, you are behind a bridge over a major river and you have plenty of archers. So you settle your archers to cover the bridge with your spearmen behind but then.......... Here comes their cavalry, they have reached the bridge, but you have already set your archers to cover the bridge and as the cavalry crosses your archers are having a devastating effect. The cavalry is wavering, send forth your spearmen, but they retreat in fear........ get the picture??? For once in a RTS you are in control and the outcome is up to you. Take my advice, go and buy it, its a new experience and the future of wargames. Even Earth 2150 does not come even close to this masterpiece.

Shogun is very decent, but not great.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: July 09, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I played the demo for Shogun when it came out, and I couldn't wait to play the entire game. I ordered it the day it came out and when I started the game I thought it would be everything I'd hoped for. It wasn't.

First of all the manual was terrible. You have to more or less guess your way through the game. Half the stuff they write in the manual isn't even true.

Secondly, the strategic part of the game is way too much like risk. Sure, you can send Ninja and Emissaries around, but mostly it's just moving armies from one province to the next. It seemed to me like the Strategic part of the game was just tacked on to the tactical part of the game. A lot of the things you do will make no difference in the game. For instance, you make treaties all you want, but the computer still attacks you constantly. As far as I can tell, there is absolutely no penalty for breaking treaties. There are times when I'm playing that I sign a ceasefire and the very next season the computer attacked me again. This happened for years: I'd sign a cease-fire and they'd attack again. This would be fine if duplicity was punished by detoriation of relations with the other Daiymos, but it's not. Conversely being a good ally confers no benifits. I played a game where I had been allied with another Daiymo for ten years and the second I had to pull some troops away from our mutual border, he attacked me! And then when I sent an emmisary to patch up our relations he cut his head off! I should have been suprised that my long time ally betrayed me like this, but in fact I expected it. The computer seems to react in a totally ruthless fashion at all times, making mantaining relations with the other Daiymos a waste of time. Also, you can't send money or soldiers to help your allies, make plans together against a mutual enemy or demand tribute. So basically, there is no real diplomacy in the game. The strategy consists of building and moving armies and improving your territory. This is quite well done, in my opinion, but I would have liked to see more in depth relations between the Daiymos.

The tactical part of the game is great! My only problem with it is the fact that my soldiers often move around for now reason whatsoever. I spend a long time setting up my troops and when I start the battle they just go where ever they want. This is incredably frustrating! There may be a reason for this, but I couldn't find it (suprise) in the manual. Other than this, however, the battles are great. In general it is a good game. It's easy enough to learn that the lack of a decent manual doesn't hurt it too much, and despite the distinctly average strategic game, the tactical game makes it worth buying.

The best $50 game you'll ever buy for $35

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: June 22, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This is the best computer game I have played for at least three years. The battlefields are beautifully rendered, and the cut scenes, while brief, are some of the smoothest and best CGI animation yet produced for a game. But eye candy is the least of this game's virtues. In addition to being a challenging strategy game, the developers made the dangerous marketing decision to produce a realistic historical simulation rather than just another hack-and-slash. They went for the quality product rather than the quick buck, and their gamble has paid off richly for gamers. Shogun's strategic game is much like chess in that the system is simple, but its ramifications make for a complex, thought-provoking challenge. The tactical game is a marvel, and the player must make the best use of troop types, troop quality, ammunition, fatigue states, weapon and armor quality, weather effects, leadership factors, and the hilly terrain of Japan. And while every AI has a bad habit or two, Shogun's is the best I have yet seen. It knows when it has an advantage, and capitalizes upon it. While the strategic map could be more informative, it is adequate, so if Shogun has a flaw it is that the manual's coverage of the strategic side of the game leaves much to be desired. However, these are minor flaws in an otherwise superb product. Mastering Shogun will keep you highly entertained for a long, long time.

Great Look , Very tough AI...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: July 04, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Great looking game, if you like battle management games this is for you.

It is a good combo of turn-base and real-time game play, with a real short technology tree, and simple resource management...

If your looking for a game that can not be beaten in the first five days you have it, then this is it. A REALLY strong AI engine in this game just on normal level, and the coders didn't just beef it up with high tech and more man... the damn thing is smart.

Note: If you don't have good graphics card, and big CPU (350 and up)... don't even think about this game...

Shogun shall rule

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: April 09, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This game is great! The spies and ninjas are an interesting part because it lets you learn about the enemies armies. A easy gaem to learn to play and yet challenging for ever top players. The graphics are awesome and so detailed that the swordmen's swords are visible will they walk. Making allies and enemies is a important part of the game. They units are awesome ranging from archers to spearmen, spearmen (yari) calvary to calvary archers, warrior monks to priests all play a part. The ability to get gunmen by building trading posts with the dutch or spanish is a great feature. I recommend this game to anyone who doesn't have it.

Great War game that set the standard

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: February 06, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I wasn't going to review Shogun: Total War, except that everyone seems to be reviewing Medieval. So, I figured Medievals predecessor deserves some lip service.

The Total War series is without a doubt a standard to which any war game must be compared, and it all started with Shogun. Quite honestly, there are no games on the market that can give you anywhere near the experience of Shogun or Medieval. I used to be interested in RTS (real time strategy) games before this came along. I thought that the notion of hundreds or even thousands of warriors on a battlefield simply meant there were units that represented numbers of soldiers. The box said soldiers were individual units, but I simply didn't believe it because the idea was unheard of at the time. But when you see your army for the first time on the battlefield, rows upon rows, you know it's for real. And it's awesome. To me it is much more realistic and exciting to watch armies engage one another as they would have in real life. It's like watching and taking part in braveheart battles on your computer.

The game basically runs on a dual interface. The first is a
turn-based interface in which you move armies and agents, build and train, and issue all your orders for one season. There is no time constraints whatsoever, so you can spend as long as you like deliberating and making your decisions. When you are done, you end the season and face the results of those decisions.

This is the point at which you (may) enter the second phase, which is the battlefield. Also if you sent an emmisary or ninja on a mission, you will be notified if they have failed/succeeded. If you attack an enemy or someone attacks you, you will be given a choice(fight, don't fight etc.) The Battlefield interface is really the creme of this game. Without it any Total War fan would throw this software in the garbage. The battle field is truly 3-d, sometimes with rolling hills or high mountains, forests and bridges. You get a number of different units to choose from, that you have to train beforehand of course, to send into battle. While Shogun does not have as many unit types as Medieval, it has a respectable number, and almost every group serves an important purpose. There are many checks and balances between group types that keep the battlefield tactics interesting, and a good understanding of your troops ability really can turn the tide of a battle. It's not Just who has better troops or More of them! Winning a battle because of smart battlefield strategy is very satisfying, and gives you the feeling that what you do on the battlefield is just as important as what you do off of it. Mastery of the battlefield takes some time to obtain since the player must also consider elements like morale, your troops honour(how skilled a particular unit is), weather conditions, and various types of terrain as these all significantly affect what happens in battle. For example, hilly regions are much easier to defend so you may decide to make that a key defensive province by beefing it up with soldiers. When fighting large groups of archers, it's often wise to attack when it's raining as their bows don't fire as well. There are many more examples like these, but I won't get into them all right here.

The map interface is rather a bit abstract, and if you've played Medieval you will notice that the political scene is more fleshed out than Shogun's. This however is not a low point. By simplifying the map interface as much as possible, The game's makers allow the player to concentrate much more on the battlefield action without being bogged down by endless chores in the map interface.

Besides Medieval:Total War, this is the best war game out there. These games are really a genre of their own, and as of yet no one has even attempted to challenge Activision in their domain. If you have Medieval/Viking Invasion already, I would say there is enough difference and new stuff here to keep you satisfied for a while, although Medieval is more or less an improved version of this game and runs on the same engine(Rome:Total War will have a new engine). I certainly don't mind having both games, and besides this game isn't terribly expensive. If you've never played a Total War game, there is no reason not to buy either this or Medieval, they are both fabulous war games.

ps.- someone mentioned the manual for this game stinks, so I should mention that if you need help understanding strategies or tactics for battle check out www.totalwar.com. Among other things there's a section in there that gives a detailed description of all the different units and how they should be used in battle. It's very good.

The Best of the best of the best!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: December 13, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Just 5 minutes ago my brother'sfriend was over, and he played Shogun for 4 hours straight! He never gets bored of it. When he comes over he says "Let's play Shogun"!Even my friend is adicted to it. If you despise violence you would still love this game. You can even control the battles yourself. A cool thing you can do is play over the internet with your friends. So buy Shogun:Total War!!

A MILESTONE IN GAMING HISTORY!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: December 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

DISCLAIMER: I am a Japan-buff and games based on the Sengoku period of the Shogunate Wars have to be really bad for me not to enjoy them.
Now imagine how much I enjoyed one of the BEST strategy games ever!!!

SHOGUN: TOTAL WAR is admittedly such a great game in every aspect it has become a RTS game benchmark. Not to mention it has fathered the TOTAL WAR series!

Alternating between a tactical map (in which units get moved and improvements built) and the battlefield map (in which real-time unit movements and battles are fought) SHOGUN:TW has struck the perfect harmony between Turn-Based and Real-Time Strategy gaming.

The graphics are by now only a bit dated - and, on the other hand, they can truly shine even on mid-range systems today. The units are easily distinguished during battle, controlling them is done via a user-friendly interface and the issued orders are followed fast and effectively (something not true for much latter games, such as SUPREME COMMANDER).

The sounds manage to be both majestic and realistic (even after so many years, I am using them as my main WinXP Sound-Theme). Both Japanese and English is available.

Birth of an heir, earthquakes and assassination attempts by ninjas all add to the unpredictability of the gameplay. The particulars of the terrain and the weather, the troops deployment and the placement (and survival) of the general, all make the real-time battles such a unique experience!
Alliances are made and broken; rebels conquered and their shock troops assimilated; Christian traders allowed or shunted. Every decision has consequences.

Do not miss on it!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!

Great Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: September 01, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I truly enjoyed this game. It had all the same premises of Braveheart, without the horribly sufficating details. The battle scenes are outstanding, with the ability to truly apply strategy and watch that strategy play out. All in all, a great game.

Disappointed

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 11
Date: January 05, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Happily, I didn't buy this game, but had a look when my brother brought it to my house. The highlight that most people talk about (brilliant 3D terrain) just did not happen. I have a pretty new computer (PIII 550Mhz, Windows 98), and even after updating my monitor drivers, the battle sequences just display a pile of rubbish! When you use the 'software' drivers the terrain appears, but the response is SLOW - completely unusable. From a game my brother raved about, I got only disappointment

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