Shogun 2 Total War

Oh man, I´ve been waiting for this one for years. {do the happy dance}

 

I thought Two-Handed Katanas where called Dai-Katanas?

Those things are insanely long




this discussion reminds me of, Sword of the Stranger! It's an animated film about chinese warriors in fedual japan, hunting a blessed child on the run, who supposedly, if sacrificed can give the emeperor of China immortal life. It's such a fantastic film.
I tried finding a good youtube trailer but there is none... only amv's that spoil the film

Sword of the Stranger - MyAnimeList.net

 

Someone mentioned in this thread about Rome sending templars to asia against the slaughtering of christians? For medieval history we had to read Holy Warriors by Jonathan Filips and I didn't find any mention about sending the templars or other crusaders to Asia.
The Templars were disbanded because Filips king of france had financial problems and had barowed a lot of money from the wealthy templars (he also had Pope Clemens to do whatever he liked so...). Disbanding their order was the perfect way for getting more cash, most of them joined the Hospitalier Knights afterwards.

I don't know how the samurai fought, but if you look at the actions which the (crusader)knights made during the crusades, i'd probably say the samurai would win. Not because of superior fighting, or armour, but because the knights were stupid. It was al about honour, and a true knight would rather charge knowing this would mean defeat, instead of withdrawing to strike another time. You all know that famous charge from the movie Kingdom of Heaven, where everyone was slaughtered xept the guy who lead the charge. Well that was actualy their only tactic. Just charge and see how things go....

Also, one should not mistake a crusaders armour with the well known full plated armour (try wearing that in the desert chasing saladins evading troops, you'll cook within 5 minutes) which was only used during the latest years of the Medieval Era (and which was also mainly for charging on a horse, when they fell off they couldn't get up and got killed).

 

Well, if you say that being honourable is "stupid", then I guess Samurais were even more "stupid", they don't even charge if they know they are going to lose, if they suffered any dishonour, they will commit sepukku(Stabbing and cutting open your own stomach) to "redeem" their honour.

But then, I have to say that how honourable a person is is usually directly proportional to his prowess and bravery, all elite troops in the course of history were very honourable. Because being honourable gives confidence and bravery, which is what made them strong in the first place.

 

In case of the crusaders it was not honour that gave them strenght but their faith in god. There were a few cases where the crusaders were facing certain death, when suddenly someone had a prophecy which made everybody so enthousiastic that they regained their strength and won (the episode with the 'holy lance' for example).
If the samurai would not have this relgious moral boost, yes then they would most likely fail, especialy if they would commit suicde instead of doing a last charge like the knights would.

 

please allow me to correct some information or my mates at the medieval society may never forgive me

the reason why crusader knights would 'stupidly' charge impetuously is because for the most part it worked.
most spears of the time were too short to stop a charge and the only medieval weapon that could effectively counter a charge was the polearm, which came in use much later than the crusades (I to III).
a bodkin arrow (iron tiped) fired en masse could arguably stop a charge too (agincourt) but this has been debated over by historians.

another reason for the impetuous nature of crusader knight is their religious zeal. they would attack and attack believing they are absolving sins by killing muslims.

also the laymans concept of a knight being an unwieldy, slow fighter is just not true. like samurai most of them train from a very young age and they did have martial skills too. knights were also mostly big, athletic men adept at using a sword as his most fundamental weapon. they could easily swing these weapons with ease and technique which included hacking and slicing, and also use the 'half-sword' technique - basically holding a part of the blade of a greatsword using it like a spear to pierce and skewer.

also most plate armor they used are not as unwieldy as most people think. in fact plate armor was constructed in such a way as to allow mobility for the knight. a wel trained knight would be neither slow nor lumbering. but he would have difficulty getting back up once he loses his footing.

as antwerp mentioned there were no plate armor in use during the crusades (I to III) so templar knights whose order was banished in the late 13th most probably did not use them.

well just my 2 cents

 

i have that movie! id say one of the best if not the best samurai anime out there

 

Not even close IMO. It was average at best.

My favorite Samurai and haven't seen anything else even close yet: http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=73

For most realistic among animations, without competition: http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=5108

 

Well actually the charging on a horse did lose its impact quite fast. During the first periods of the hundred years war (1337-1453) the french knights got owned by the english because the latter used more footfolk & mercenaries (like the bowmen from Wales if i'm not mistaken). Ofcourse this period is already past the first crusades (11 & 12th century).

Nonetheless armies that entirely exist out of cavelery are still the easiest way to own in both Rome and Medieval 2 total war.

 

those arent movies though, i was referring to a samurai anime movie

 

well thats why i mentioned agincourt which was the most decisive victory of the hundred years war (15th century).
an army of French knights were massacred by a much fewer army of english yeomen. but historians disagree whether it was the longbow with the bodkin arrow (which they had to shoot at less than 20 yards to penetrate plate armor); or the soggy ground that acted like quicksand and allowed the yeomen to ruch in and hack the stuck knights to death which was the actual cause of victory.
it was not until the significant use of the polearms in the latter half of the 15th by footmen as you have mentioned that the knights cavalry charge eventually lost its military impact and shock value.
but from the time of charlemagne in the 9th century to the late 15th century , the mounted knight ruled supreme in the medieval battlefield. thats a good 600 years.
id say thats a fairly effective weapons system to have lasted that long...

 

Ya its Sun Tzu not sun Tze...

 

I wonder if anyone tried a greek-style phalanx (with ridiculously long spears) against mounted knights, with of course their own cav to protect their flanks.

 

well some late medieval and renaissance polearms were redicolously long (12'). but unlike the phalanx i think they were used braced.

 

Macedonian phalanxes were about 18', but the main point about a phalanx vs a group of guys with polearms is the density of spear points. For every man-sized space, there would be, depending on the length of their spears, 3-5 spear tips. Someone on a horse would have to get through 6+ spears before reaching the front rank of hoplites.

 

yes i do know that but like i said i think the longest that polearms and pikes ever got was 12 feet.
and i believe they were used in a line formation and braced for impact.
i think the main reason why the phalanx went out of favor is because it lacked maneuverability and mobility. it could thus be easilly mowed down by archers, flanked by cavalry, or destroyed by close quarter combat.
by the age of pax romana they were already quite obsolete.

but the pike was the renaissance reincarnation of the phalanx so to speak. they were not as long or as deep, giving the pike formation a little more mobility.
a combination of pikes in line formation and gunpodwer units like the arquebus made knights and cavalry charges quite obsolete.

 

Actually gunpowder did not make cavalery totaly obsolete, the riders simply wielded "guns" instead of lances and swords. They also dropped most of their armour in return for a very heavy chestplate to be able to perserve their most important organs when charging into a 'bullit' battle (the risk of losing their limbs was part of the job lol).

 

When cavalry and guns were both being used together, the guns sucked. Matchlocks for the loss. Cannon with grapeshot or canister, though...

 

well i was actually refering to the knights cavalry charge.
the cavalry wielding guns were more similar to the missile cavalry of the medieval ages.
heavy cavalry of the gunpowder age was in the form of a horseman armed with a cutlass and protected by a cuirass(breastplate). they however were used more for flanking maneuvers rather than a head-on shock charge which would have been suicide in an era of pikes, bayonets and muskets , and later on artillery.

 

o_o I wonder if the kensais will come back in shogun 2 and still be as strong as ever xD

 

If the developers are doing motion-capture for the battle animations, Kensai should make the cut but battlefield ninja probably won't.

 

I just finished playing SoaSE for 2 hours on a 46 inch Samsung 7 series LED TV. It was BEAUTIFUL. It may be a 2 year old game, but it just beats every other RTS (or any game in fact) in terms of scale even today. I'm crossing my fingers that Shogun 2 will at least see hundreds of units smashing each other's faces in without being such a resource hog.

 

will it be possible to play it maxed out with an asus g73 jh a1? any guesses?

 

The difference between a phalanx and a pike formation of the late medieval period is that 1) the phalanx had longer spears, 2) the phalanx was densely packed, and 3) the hoplites all carried shields, while pikemen did not. Arrows weren't nearly as effective against a phalanx compared to a pike formation. Close quarter combat wasn't as big of a problem for phalanxes because no one could get into close quarter combat with them, if the used a combined arms approach like Alexander. Alexander used both cav and phalanxes... the cav were to not only protect his own flanks, but to flank the enemy. Of course in a vacuum, a phalanx (or any formation) has problems, but cav + phalanx conquered most of the western world at the time and had the greeks still used a lot of cav, they probably could have repelled the Romans. The Romans either lost to phalanxes or had very close fights.

 

No, not really.

 

No clue since the game's only been announced and there's no hint on what sort of GPU and CPU power the developers have in mind for the duration of development.

 

not really. read a little bit more on the roman's maniple formation. romans used their own cavalry to tie up opposing cavalry and phalanxes would get destroyed by the much for flexible maniple formation. in fact it made the phalanx, as the greeks used it, obsolete by the time of caesar.

 

The graphics requirement likely won't defer much from napoleon/empire total war, considering that the game engine didn't change much from medieval 2 to napoleon, and it's already good enough as it is, most likely they will just let it remain the same and just change the 3D models etc.

 

yeah and most people over at total war forums are quite satisfied with the level of graphical detail that the TW engine can output.
what almost everyone is clammoring for is better AI. i think this is what CA is working on and what better title to introduce a revolutionary AI than Shogun- the game that started it all, and whose AI still comes out better than most recent total war games (according to most TW vets )

 

I wish they would make a Rome total war man its killing me here i have the original game and everything and the expansion pack!

 

Rome TW's graphics IMO is already quite good, it's the Shogun and medieval with their 2D sprite that need graphics refresh the most.

 

The Knights on horses were like the tanks of our time, a true judgernaught and the knights were around before Charlemagne anyway. Read the murder of charles the good its like the effect of his empire and his vicous murder while he was in church praying, compared to the fall of the Ottoman empire chaotic results. In terms of the battle of Agincourt in 1415, October 25th, it was the English Lowbow that saved the day, it could of been the weather that slowed down the French Knights. But in reality it was the mens training and how they angled their bows that saved the day. Plus their willing to break vow of Chivalry where it died. It did last somewhere else in a different form. Did anyone watch the show warriors? Medieval history is just so amazing and has such an impact on modern history. It was also the French metal armor that stopped them.

 

I know its quite good but still to me that is the most important game ever! Love that game so much, i am a history major and antiquity is what i enjoy studying.

 

yes of course knights were around before charlemagne. but it was in this era where they started carrying spears (not lances) to charge with.
with regards to agincourt , historians and books i have read debate this issue. it was long believed that the longbow won the day. but in order to pentrate armor, a lngbow has to be fired straight and at a distance of 20 paces or less. at that distance an archer would only get to fire once on a chrging knight. add to this the fact that the english were outnumbered almost 3:1 you can see how its difficult to imagine them winning by the longbow alone.
many modern historians believe that the soggy ground ( torrential rains the nights before) was the main culprit. most of the french army were heavilly clad knights and many of them got stuck or fell from their horses in this mud. its not easy getting up with a full plate of armor and many of them were felled by arrows where they lay and others were hacekd to death as they could not get solid footing in this quicksand like mud.
like you said chivalry was also broke down as most french nobles were killed. part of the code of chivalry was to ransom nobles and not kill them.
so agincourt is historical for these two facts: it was the first time an army of knights were completely annihilated by an (smaller)army of commoners and for its disregard of chivalry.

 

See the entire pyrrhic war. The only real battle that the maniple proved superior is the battle of pydna, but that could be attributed to the ineffective use of cavalry by perseus.

 

I wish the mods... there are so many mods for each game! If they could be cross compatible so we could use or Rome TW and Medieval 2 Mods in this new Shogun 2 TW... That would be incredible.

 

i am trying to remember the reference i read regarding a certain lesser known historical figure who used the greek phalanx against the romans and lost. the book fully describes how the maniple system defeats a phalanx. it was circa 120bc and much later than the pyrrhic war where i believe the romans have not perfected this system yet.
ill get back to you when find the reference from my shelf... im quite interested to remember myself

 

Was it Polybius?

 

no it wasnt, it was written by a modern historian. looked for the damn thing last night. anyways ill pm you when i find it as it is a good read.

 

but these are some of the things are i remember from the book:
the maniple gave the romans two major advantages- initiative and mobility. with it, the roman soldier could bunch up or move apart from one another. a maniple also allowed them to change facing almost instantaneously and change formation on the fly. it also allowed them to move through the battle field at a quick pace.
the author described this battle where the maniple would march towards the pahalanx in a cohesive square at a steady pace. as they approached they quickened their march and spread out in a wide line abreast formation only 4(?) men deep. the center would engage the phalanx head on while the wings would encircle them. the pahalnx would be unable to turn or form a circular shield wall bec of their overlapping spears and would thus get destroyed.
cavalry was used to tie up the opponents cavalry only
interesting read...

 

It was 197B.C. Two forms of warfare were fighting, Phalanx the old way and the Roman way of shield moving and hacking with their Spanish inspired sword. I keep forgetting the name, Phillip IIII of Macedonian had before in the past joined the side of Hannibal when he was invading and terrorizing Italy, he never sent troops and it was his downfall.

 

Sorry Phillip V, and yes Polybuis was the name of battle.

 

hmmm.
the only polybius im aware of is an ancient historian who also wrote about the pahalanx vs roman maniple. he described how a phalanx could only be effective in flat terrain and how the maniple system allowed the roman frontline to fall back being replaced by the men behind them without running into each other.
this is not the text i was referring toearlier however

 

although i still cant find the damn book i now remember the section was about mithridates of pontus.

 

This reminds me of some kind of king in the north of greece (macedon, or maybe even high towards thracia) which owned everybody (I recal a few cities which fought against each other like thebians, athenians, etc), i'm not sure if he was macedonian, but he used a scizor phalanx movement which anahiliated all the other phalanxes. Only downside was that after the guy died, no one else could replace his military genious command and the party was over.
Just to say that a phalanx isn't the same as a phalanx and that with the right tactical command, even the romans would probably have bitten the dust fighting against such military tactics.

edit: the scizor movement (or whatever its called in english) was a continous reinforcement from the left flank so they could surround their enemies from one side break their formation.

 

You mean Alexander the Great's hammer and anvil tactics?

 

No not Alexander the great...

 

I actually believe that Roman Legions are superior to the Macedonian Phalanx, I was just playing devil's advocate earlier. An army led by Alexander with his excellent usage of companion cavalry with his hoplites would have done very well against the Roman Empire, although terrain still can ruin a phalanx's day. But if you assume the leadership was equal and take sample fights from many types of terrain, a Legion should prevail the majority of the time. When you get a true Macedonian Phalanx (with a lot of good cavalry and cavalry officers) on relatively open terrain, that's where Legions will have the most trouble and most likely lose every fight to a phalanx. But mostly everywhere else, the flexibility of the Legions will prevail.

 

Then again, the mongolian cavalry archers totally destroyed any tight formations.

 

Well in terms of Alexander the great, when he was coming back from Indian and arrived in Babylon he was already organizing an invasion of Europe. He ordered his top ship commander to do a recon of the area and at the the same time build ships that can go long enough to Europe and also be big enough to have many troops. Also the reason why Alexander took complete control of the Persian empire was mainly due to many reasons especially in Egypt because the Persian kings didn't respect the Egyptian people and live in the country and be the Pharaoh, that's why Alexander was so successful there. Another reason military is due to the fact , Darius and the troops of his empire just always had a lack of communication and fought not for their king as Alexanders men did, they fought for land, and tribal reasons and of course money. Yes it was great feats why he surpassed as the world's greatest conquer. Indian with Porus was a tough one though and was the bloodiest battle since Battle of Gaugamela, but again it is the soldiers training and experience that won the day same thing as the men of 300 it was their training and discipline that held out so long and not their weapons and grounds well kind of due to the narrow edge of Thermopylae. The longbow men at Battle of Agincourt were training since they were the six of age! Its in the warriors training and not the weapon. The phalanx would of failed in Europe against the early Romans, they would of catched up and also adapted to it. It was Rome's continuous amount of Men that defeated Hannibal.