Unlike Empire and Napoleon: Total War, all the ships are steam-powered, so the wind doesn’t play as big a role as it did in those games. I have yet to get the hang of naval warfare. Against well-defended castles, artillery seems to be essential. In my first game, it was a delight to give a whole army of charging samurai a lesson in modern warfare.įortress assaults are even more lethal, due to the ubiquity of guns. And not only does better technology unlock new units, it also grants bonuses to the basic ones, so those basic riflemen remain useful later on. Train up a decent force of riflemen (again, this doesn’t take long they’re not too expensive, and they only take a single turn to recruit), and you can safely relegate the spearmen to anti-cavalry support or castle wall fodder. However, it doesn’t take long (~12 turns) to unlock modern rifles, which shoot much faster and more accurately than the muskets. At first, cheap spear levies should remain the core of any army – early muskets are inaccurate and slow-firing, which makes levy musketeers better suited to manning fortress walls than to the open field. I like the balance between firearm and traditional units. After getting ~70-80 turns (up to 1867) in my abortive first campaign on “hard” difficulty, starting a second hard campaign, and then reaching the mid/late game (1866) of a third campaign on “normal” (all three times as the Nagaoka clan), here are my early thoughts: With its promise of firearms, ironclads, and railroads, I was eager to leap into Fall of the Samurai, the nineteenth century-themed expansion to Shogun 2.

Let’s reunify Japan in Total War: Shogun 2! Part 3 (Final): Ride Forth Victoriously.

Let’s reunify Japan in Total War: Shogun 2! Part 2: Patience and Preparation.

Let’s reunify Japan in Total War: Shogun 2! Part 1: Awakening the Tiger.

Matchlocks for my Eyes, or Total War: Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai – The Verdict.

Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai first impressions.

Postcards from Sengoku Japan: The Mori’s Last Stand.

Total War? Only for the undiplomatic: the lessons of Shogun 2.

Shogun 2 impressions: THIS is a difficulty spike.

Fall of the samurai unique units