The major addition to Shogun 2's multiplayer options is Avatar Conquest mode. In this mode, you create a persistent avatar who gains levels of experience as you play online skirmish battles. After creating your avatar, you gain access to the conquest map that divides Japan into numerous provinces, each of which grants a bonus of some kind, such as new unit types or improved reload speeds for bowmen. Once you've picked a province for your avatar to attack, you can join or host a multiplayer skirmish game. If you win the match, then your avatar conquers the province and receives the corresponding bonuses. Regardless of who wins, each player gains experience during these battles, which is then used to buy improvements for your avatar's leadership, bow mastery, physical, and melee-combat skills. http://jugar-online.blogspot.com/
The 'boss battle' of Shogun 2's campaign takes place in the giant capital city of Kyoto.
Avatars also receive new retainers and additional retinue slots as they level up. Similarly, individual units can achieve veteran status, becoming permanent and even gaining skills of their own. These veterans don't replenish their numbers after combat unless you let them rest for a few battles. The improved skills and experienced units don't feel unbalanced because each match has a gold limit that determines the maximum value of each fielded army. Since better generals and experienced units cost more to bring into a battle than ordinary units do, a new leader could overwhelm a heavily experienced army through sheer force of numbers. There is also a clan mechanic where clan-wide victories grant bonuses to each individual clan member. All of this makes Avatar Conquest mode more interesting than more traditional unranked skirmish battles (which are still available).
Multiplayer campaigns, which were first added to the series in Napoleon: Total War, are back in Shogun 2, which boasts both cooperative and versus multiplayer campaigns. Your ultimate goal in a versus campaign is to destroy the other player, and to further this goal, you can control any AI troops that your enemy fights on the battlefield. Cooperative campaigns won't let you play as the AI during your allies' battles, but it won't force you to passively watch during allied battles either. Now you have the ability to gift control of some units to your ally during battles. While Napoleon would auto-resolve conflicts where both players' armies were fighting as allies, Shogun 2 now lets you battle it out alongside each other. Assaulting the vast fortress of Kyoto with a friend is an amazingly entertaining experience. Not so entertaining are the stability problems that crop up during some multiplayer campaigns. On one of the three computers used for this review, Shogun 2's multiplayer campaign modes caused numerous inexplicable crashes. Crashes were much rarer for the other computers, making it possible to play a cooperative multiplayer campaign all the way through to the successful invasion of Kyoto without any issues.
Shogun 2 has improved upon Napoleon in several additional ways. First, Shogun 2 offers more options during skirmish battles. Skirmish mode now boasts 37 maps, three map types (land battle, naval battle, and siege), and various options regarding weather, seasons, and time of day. One additional new option is the ability to add "key buildings" to the map. These buildings grant bonuses to whichever side captures them, giving both sides good reason to eschew turtle tactics and sally forth. Furthermore, the artificial intelligence has been improved for both campaign and skirmish games. On the campaign map it can cleverly conceal its units, waiting within the woods and striking once your army leaves a keep underdefended. It also attempts amphibious invasions. During real-time battles, the AI is more capable than before and makes commendable attempts to smash your weakest flank. AI-controlled armies can be surprisingly effective during castle sieges and often attempt to divert your attention between multiple castle sections, obfuscating your opponent's true intentions. Unfortunately, on occasion the AI mysteriously "forgets" its plan and just marches troops around your castle walls aimlessly until your archers' persistence routes them from the battlefield. There doesn't appear to be a way to separate the campaign difficulty from the battle AI difficulty, so you are out of luck if you want to face hard AI on the battlefield while playing at normal campaign difficulty.
Its work here complete, the Chosokabe clan sallies forth toward new adventures.
Stylistically, Shogun 2 is a visionary, coherent, and beautiful game. The rotatable campaign map is gorgeous and full of details, like tiny peasants moving their wares between provinces and cherry blossoms falling from the trees during autumn. Every unit or character is represented by an image card that looks like it came straight from a historical Japanese painting or woodcut, and the user interface is adorned with beautiful Japanese calligraphy. The graphics during battles are equally impressive, and even warriors in the same unit often have unique faces and armor. Shogun 2 is incredibly detailed: arrows stick in castle walls or boat hulls; corpses of men and horses cover the battlefield in silent testament to the price of your lust for power; and fire arrows, lanterns, and rockets light up the night sky. Complementing all of this are excellent sound effects and an effective score.
The captivating character of Shogun 2 doesn't end with its visuals. In cutscenes before each battle, generals give inspirational speeches to the troops, often focusing on themes like fealty or remaining fearless in the face of death. Subordinates bow when new orders are issued, an advisor laments the "shameful" behavior of retreating units, and unit formations have names like "reclining dragon" and "barking pine tree." All of this combines to give Shogun 2 a unique feel that is highly evocative of its historical setting. Shogun 2's delightful and all-encompassing world, coupled with its excellent production values, artful interface, deep strategic campaign, and thrilling real-time battles, makes it more impressive than its predecessor was a decade ago. Its only real flaw is the stability issue that occurred almost exclusively during multiplayer campaigns. Overall, Shogun 2 is just about everything you could want from a strategy game and is easily the apex of the Total War series up to this point.
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