This is mine. I had NO clue that I would have to deal BOTH with Ikko and Imagawa at the same time in ONE battle when they came in. One by one I could take them on. They aren't even allies, wtf? Also, this was my first campaign after like 5 years of not playing, I went straight for Legendary and got my ass handed to me haha. PS: Legend has fixed this for me, but I have already started another Oda campaign on Legendary before he got back to me. I remembered Legend's (I think) Otomo campaign from way back. I dealt with the initial threats and isolated myself, then I dominated the region. I basically have no threats (Takeda is BIG, but I have already taken half of their territory, they can't do nothing, I could snuff them out at any moment). I'm at a point where I'm now starting to get upgraded Matchlock Ashigaru (not the Christianity route). I definitely wasn't ready for Legendary then, but I am now. These noobs are 'bout to get pwned. (I can upload my current savegame if anybody wants to see the progress). Thanks for playing my savegame and helping me with this campaign, Legend!
A word of advice for early game: When the AI parks their army just outside their settlement, send a single unit to siege the settlement and attack that army with the rest. They will usually try to retreat into the settlement, but since the way is blocked, they will instead be instantly wiped out, no battle needed. You will lose out on the experience, but it makes early sieges much easier.
@@acheron16 thanks, I have never tried or even seen that. At this point I want the experience for my generals and I'm mostly moving in 2 full stacks, but I'll give it a try in a new campaign if needed.
I played hundred of campaigns with oda. This is what i usually do Turn 1. Kill rebel, sent army to mikawa border and recruit some unit. Usually mikawa will send their army to attack ur army. Just outmaneuver AI yari and rush their bow with generals. Rush the yari samurai to kill enemy general. Must kill them to wipe out the enemy. Turn 2. Recrut more unit in owari. Conquer mikawa, be careful not to damage the castle because u need to recruit and replenish troops. Watch out for nothern border. If they send a huge army. Camp in city. Usually it is a small army and they send it to border first or raid your farm. U can catch them in the next turn either at the border crossing which is good for you or normal field which require some tactical skill. Turn 3. Move the main army in mikawa toward the next enemy border. Totomi if I’m not mistaken. Or suruga. Recruit from mikawa and send it to main army next turn. The one in owari stay in palace if there are no attack from the north. If u are lucky sometimes the nothern enemy send their army elsewhere. U can conquer it with reserve army and they will suffer attrition. Focus on building farm first. Turn 4. Continue conquering with main army. I usually stop here and camp the bridge crossing nearby. Turn 5: by this time i usually hold and develop my city a bit and wait for territorial expansion penalties mellow a bit. Form some trade with kiso(if im not mistaken) nearby. The one who got stone supply. During turn 20 or so they usually at war with takeda so you got some buffer zone. Or conquer it after takeda take them down. Ikko iki usually come in turn 7-10 or so in my campaign. And by that time u have 2 or so army with somewhat stable base. U can take them out in river crossing. I really love camping near river crossing because of oda superior yari ashigaru. By turn 10-15 its up to you what u wanna do. I usually third party a war. If takeda at war with uesugi i go take them down. If ikko iki at war with asai or hattori. I backstab them. During mid game i usually slow down a bit to stable my conquered province. Because u need some money to build a fleet to protect the gulf nearby your port to secure trade route with other clan. This is my meta everytime i play oda hahaha. Since u already pawned those noob Ai, i guess my strats are for those why read this later then hahahaha.
Oh yeah I remember the legendary Oda campaign. I like to call it the blitzkrieg campaign because you need to move fast because Tokugawa, Imagawa, Ikko Ikki and Hattori will jump you immediately.
It's the easiest of all "hard" central japan clans due to op oda ashigaru. Now imagine playing ikko ikki and having no metsukes and a heretic religion. It's worse than hattori extra +33% upkeep (which you at least get universal guerilla deployment for).
@@ggleplussuxx4787 True, but I still think the Tokugawa campaign is hardest because their "advantages" are really pretty bad. One of the bonuses (the better kisho ninja) still doesn't work unless you hunt down the mod for it as CA never actually implemented it into the game, and the minor diplomacy buff doesn't help at all with nearby clans vying for your lands (only really helpful for setting up trade deals with far off clans you never plan on fighting). At least the Ikko Ikki get some advantages to go with their disadvantages. It's better than having an almost entirely vanilla army with clan advantages tied into esoteric units that don't even function normally.
Legendary difficulty on Shogun 2 is definately no joke. It's arguably the hardest campaign of all the total war games because of how agressive the A.I is and the buffs they get are very substantial and if you make any mistakes whatsoever with your economy or on the battlefield you get punished like you broke the geneva convention.
I agree. I started playing TW with Attila and while many claim that it's the hardest TW game I have to disagree. I think Shogun 2 is much harder overall because there are way less options, units and mechanics you can use to beat the AI than in Attila
Shogun 2 battles are also super quick, so you just scramble to react to everything happening around you. I barely managed to complete short Oda campaign and had a better time with Otomo, because matchlocks are perfect for defense, but yeah not going to repeat it. Too much hassle.
In Shogun 2 the AI does not get buffs. They get a better economy so they can bring more armies against you. That is there only buff. Their units are the same as yours.
The Shogun 2 content (all campaigns showcased so far) has been amazing, literally made me redownload and play Shogun again. Keep up the amazing content Legend P.S. Would love to see a Campaign tier list on different game campaigns, e.x. Crusades, Fall of the Samurai, e.t.c.
If you like Shogun 2 i would like to recommend the mods "Fourstriders Japan" and "Master of Strategy". They greatly expand the gameplay and made it more challenging while still staying true to core.
Can't tell what happened with arrows. Arrows in Shogun 2 were really nice, felt powerful and were visible, they felt similar to previous Total War games, while in Rome 2 and forward, arrows felt weak and were hard to see without trails and feels more like you're just throwing sand at the enemy.
I never quite got the hang of them after uni-directional fire in Rome and M2 (Sufficiently ranged archers had better mobility than heavy cavalry for this exact reason). But yeah, when they hit, they really really hit.
Arrows in Shogun 2 are more powerful because there are no shielded units in this game, so you don't have any way to block the projectile other than fortifications. Most units in Rome 2 and other Total Wars are shielded.
Units from Rome 2 onward have health points. Before then, most units had 1 hit point and only blocked damage based on things like shields, armour, defence skill, etc. When arrows hit rome 2 units, they soak them up for a while.
1 thing I always wish they would do with dragging a line, is have the units spread evenly by row instead of by column. That way that unit of 30 men will be 5 deep and 6 wide, and being bolstered shoulder to shoulder with more healthy units next to it, instead of being a thin weak point in your line.
The reason why the archers are moving forward is because they need to be able to shoot at atleast half the targeted units= their max range has to cover half the unit they are shooting
Watching these recent videos got me the hankerin' for some Shogun 2 again myself and I've been relearning it as I go after probably 4 or 5 years off. I'd forgotten just *how* aggressive you have to be on the campaign map if you don't want to get swarmed. While there's some room for a little bit of a breather after going on a tear in a region and securing it (especially if you're Shimazu, Otomo or Chosokabe and securing your smaller island), but you really have to keep pressing forward or you'll get hit from some angle you didn't expect after enough turns. The safest way to stop that is to keep pushing and keep growing your armies. It lets you pick your battles much more frequently rather than having the AI pick them for you. Also yeah, like most revolutionary peasant groups, the Ikko Ikki show up in large numbers but don't have much courage. If you let them attack, they will absolutely take advantage and bully you with their masses. But if you present a firm defense and hold strong, they break astoundingly fast.
I got the game again this week and its brutal, i started my campaign as oda on hard and it turned into a total mess : i start the game allying with kitabatake to the southwest, vassalizing the northern faction of shino and taking out tokugawa. Then i do the standard course of action and beat down imagawa to a pulp. My ally gets attacked by tsusui and hattori from central japan and my army needed replenishment. ( meaning that i was in no position to finish the war with imagawa without losing my core territory )so i decided to go back and defend my position. To do that i quickly sign peace with imagawa turning them into a vassal then turn back my forces to fight off the new threat. Before i get to my capital Chosokabe sees the opportunity and jumps in declaring war on me resulting in a war im too weak to handle. I knew that if i dont act quickly i will get overwhelmed so to get my self out of this situation i ally with the ikko ikki and they keep the hattori busy for me Then i take my army south to fight off the enemy there. I take one of their towns and quickly vassalize them. After that i take my army into hattori lands which is badly beaten by ikko ikki to "persuade" them and they also become my vassal. Now i had 2 new armies in the form of my vassals so my position was rather secure right? No ! Takeda jumps in like a jerk and declares war on my southern vassal and hojo also joins them. So i ally with all the central japanese states to secure my west against chosokabe and go back east. Hojo and takeda both show up with massive 20 stacks and ikko ikki betrays my alliance and also declares war. Leading me to divide my forces into 3 parts. I lose 2 of my cities and the takeda army attacks my capital. My daimyo holds the city with a small army of 4-5 units and dies. Later turns consist of me clawing my way back into power and peacing out my enemies, making marriages and alliances to isolate takeda and force it to focus on its eastern front and taking out hojo and ikko ikki. It was one of my most memorable experiences with constant alliances, betrayals and epic battles which all culminate in realm divide for a good end game challenge. 10/10 game really happy to buy it all those years ago
Guard mode doesn't work as advertised since Empire TW. If you right click on enemies they will follow no matter what even though the description says if they leave the range they will stay put.
Maybe it meant routing units, i definitely don't think they would chase units who have rout, but if it's still an active unit and they left the range of the bow ashigaru or other archers, they will chase them.
This made me look back and remember that I pulled off legendary when this came out. If I remember right I was the Date, and man was that anxiety inducing. But hey I'm part of the 2% of people around the globe that have completed the legendary campaign so thanks for the reminder.
Yeap. For legendary as oda you need to blitz into kanto region. Straight to imagawa. If u can get 2 army it is enough to protect your domain on both end in the early campaign. Getting high vet for ashigaru is great especially oda long yari ashigaru.
Realizing that I'm not cut out to play Legendary, but having the persevearance of that very specific patch of black mold, I think I restarted the Legendary Shogun 2 campaign like 20 times.
Im so glad legend is playing the total war games that actually have real-world strategy involved. Hearing him explain how sallying out against an overwhelming force is actually how you win, and being able to describe all the intricate details as to WHY that is the case and NOT suicidal. Felt like i was actually in a classroom learning something.
My main beef with Legendary is that it doesn't increase difficulty in an interesting, nuanced way. Soldiers just get inherently better and units come out of nowhere instead
@@pyroparagon8945 That'dd require the AI to be remotely competent. No competent human player is going to make the kinds of mistakes as the AI showcased here. I'm very curious how a machine learning bot, akin to AlphaStar, would play TW.
Really enjoying your return to Shogun 2 and FOTS. Please keep them coming 😁❤ do you have any plans to do any coop campaigns series with it? Know you've been talking with Volound a little bit behind the scenes as you've mentioned it in videos, would love to see both of you do some shogun 2 together, would be great.
There's a way to "cheese" all shogun 2 siege battles. You need a fortress at least. The way it works: retreat all forces inside the inner most part of the castle. Form yari wall around the point. The AI always charges the point, and archers will charge point too so long as none of your units are in range. The Yari wall (especially doubled up) can take on units about 5 to 1 if flanks are secured in a yari square.
The ikko Ikki were the hardest faction to exterminate for sure... The only faction that annoys me to no end. They start a rebellion every other turn with their monks, and I can not seem to kill their monks no matter what I do. Only solution I ever found includes both fire and their provinces, and boy is that a cathartic solution. Also so glad he corrected himself on the Ashigaru units being bad units. I find myself using them exclusively as they simply get the job done for cheaper as I have never once seen anything beat a Yari Wall in fair and even combat. And remember if it is a fair fight in a war you are losing. 33:35 "I see a tree in that bright yellow forest of men, but no Yari Ashigaru." -An Ikko Ikki scout Fun set of tips, if you want siege weaponry, Rocket mortars are the ONLY option in this game. And Shogun 2 Vassals will ALWAYS rebel in time.
Try Ultimate General American Revolution next! I'd love to see your take on it. Its a total war competitor made by a former total war modder that started the Ultimate general series for another company
I have the same issue with archers advancing stupidly in this game. Despite having them on guard mode they will follow routing enemy troops, I think its because when giving specific attack orders it overrides guard mode.
Never realized the general's portrait on the bottom left bows every time you issue a command. Looked like he was constantly falling asleep and waking back up with the clicks haha
30:48 damn imagine you're that spear unit. You run towards your reinforcements. Then the whole army about faces to fight the enemy reinforcements. A jagged line runs at them and half your unit dies. Then you begin to run back to join the rest of the army. But then the general makes you run back to fight another unit that crossed over. So you run at the unit. By the time you get there the general already routed them and makes you start running back to the army. You run and run and run and almost get there before the general puts you in the group that guards the bridge crossing all the way back where you started the battle at. Id defect at that point, f that noise. That unit should be disbanded and sent home with honors for that shit.
There is easy way to defeat any army. If you play on timer just hide your units and commander is the only one that can't hide so you take him on other side of the map so they would attack him with all forces and it's a long way to march to the other side... Even if they do catch him and kill him next unit that becomes reveal is your captain. You send him on the opposite side so they march once more. You just play like that and you win. Technically you will not loose units but they will not loose it also until 3rd turn of siege or if you can't retreat anymore using this tactic will just end disbanding them... Doesnt work on castles because they take flag in middle of the castle making them win.
Yari Ashigaru is the best unit in STW. I pumped them out by the hundreds in my campaign and basically overwhelmed the AI with overwhelming odds of 3:1 or 4:1 in the fields. It was not even a contest :D
Hey @Legendoftotalwar would you consider doing a Hattori campaign on shogun? I always come back to that damn campaign and never seem to handle it without a struggle. Would love to see how a pro would handle it.
As someone who has both legendary difficulty achievements in the game, FOTS/Vanilla displayed on my steam. Fighting large stacks like this, was a nightmare.
I always quick save for everything because sometimes shogun 2 feels like crashing and when I tried doing legendary once on the first battle I won it crashed and never played it again.
Oda is, imho, one of the hardest Shogun 2 campaigns, despite having arguably the best faction boni. The starting position sucks and it's very easy to make many enemies early who will attack you from all sides. You will likely need many agent actions early to slow down your enemies and take them out systematically while making allies without getting dragged into bad wars.
Thanks for posting shogun 2 content, its my favorite total war game. I've played it a lot and haven't asked this anywhere else but I could swear that CA did some weird thing with the AI, let me explain. One star generals will sometimes run right into a spear wall and die comically. Five and six star generals never do that. I think they made the AI of the army based on the enemy general's command. Have you noticed anything like this?
Can someone please tell me what Resolution you play the game on? I have it on high resolution and I can BARELY see the text or icons on the screen. It makes me crazy.
Doesn't guard mode only mean the units won't chase units? Not that they won't move at all. Especially when you order them to shoot at something just out of range.
A few mount ago I try to do Legendary Oda with the knowledge i get with your blitz campagne, all go well until in 1 turn everything north go awful and I lose the campagne cause not there
Sure it true about being ready. My first TW game was Rome 2 and I was unstoppable on legendary difficulty. But then I downloaded Shogun 2 and had to switch to hard. Only after like 50 hours I managed to conquer whole map on legendary
I tried Shogun 2 a bit and honestly the difficulty scaling seems really steep. I started some campaigns in normal and they were far too easy: I was able to steamroll everyone after getting a full stack realtively quickly. So I tried to switch on hard difficulty and it was stupidly hard: by the time I got a full ashigaru stack, I was already starting to find samurai armies and had absolutely no way to deal with them when they were fortified in cities. It would be cool to see Legend play some shogun 2 on stream, to have an idea on how it should be played optimally, cause it seems much more unforgiving than Warhammer, where I usually play on hard / hard and have no particular issues.
Maybe I am not typical TWS2 player but I completed the campaigns of all houses on legendary level and until the very end my forces consisted of 90-95% ashigaru. The wall of spears is unbeatable. And the economy - food surpluses in the late game give a huge boost. You can easily have 2 or 3 ashigaru armies where the enemy only has one, so what if it's an elite army?
@@signoreVanici my problem is actually the early game. I tried a campaign on hard with the blue and yellow clan on the eastern shores of the map (don't remember the name) and before turn 10 I found a samurai stack in a settlement that was kinda impossible to take with my ashigaru stack. And I didn't find any good way to cheese seiges in shogun 2, like you can do in WH3
Pro tips: - giving units (on guard mode) attack orders makes them chase their target - yari ashigaru have a very cool bug when you use the yari wall that causes them to hit targets without an animation (doing extra damage as a result) - to do the above effectively, spread a unit out at a maximum and additionally have multiple units in the same area. LOTW made one huge line, if it were me I would have made 3 lines in the corner preventing flanking but also making the bug appear more often - the main downside to the above is the vulnerability to arrows - you don't want to run down enemy units, instead - end the battle when they enemy is still near your units (they get wiped due to proximity i guess, i dont really get it)
Dude fell for the "Oda Legendary" meme that was circulating back when Shogun 2 was released, lmao Also, your FOTS videos actually made me buy it, I'd skipped it way back in the day but realised I missed out on a lot
ME: "Oh, yeah, they used to double-line, that was so much better!" Legend, literally 2 seconds later: "I don't like the double-line, I'd much rather there be one big line" Boo! Boooooooo!
Just courious - I know you can deal with almost anything, but from perspective of making it easier - why did you not attack the most south stack (ikko-ikki with I guess half a unit)? That way you would clean all those who were in previous battle without dealing with big stack and you could deal with the full stack afterwards without any reinforcements for him as they would have nowhere to retreat?
@@mikeceebo8611 I meant the one after initial battle - basically sweep the bottom of the 5 armies, which should destroy the 4 depleted ones, which are not on the bridge and then get the bridge one without any reinforcements.
You call the groups control groups, do you always press ctrl+g when you group them? Because im pretty sure that makes them a locked control group and if you just press g it makes them an unlocked group
Isn't Oda one of the hardest starts? IIRC you start as a vassal and have to rebel to make any progress and you're in the middle of like 2 other factions at war with you in a surrounded region, and the AI have some hefty cheats in Shogun legendary. Once you get going Oda are strong as hell--long yari ashigaru are nuts and super cost effective--but you have to get through the ringer to make it that far. It's been years since I played though, so I might be remembering wrong.
@@maybenexttime6430 OK, I had to go look up the map to remind myself again because I literally got into total war reading an LP of a guy playing Oda on legendary because it's one of the hardest factions. It's just been so many years I forgot a lot of what's there. Chosokabe is the easiest of the starts, full stop. You're on a secluded island that's rich and super easy to consolidate, with your pick of where you want to expand to after that. Date and Shimazu are close seconds, because they both have their backs in a corner so they only have to fight on one front. Having wars on limited fronts in Shogun 2 is super important in legendary difficulties, because the AI will spawn stacks out of thin air wherever you don't have campaign LoS. From there, Hojo and Hattori are pretty easy but not Date levels of manageable, while Ikko Ikki is in a shit position but they can play defensively and use Ikko rebels to do their expanding for them if you don't do a good job managing the early game. Oda and Takeda both start proper fucked. I usually felt like Oda was easier than Takeda because even if they have a separate enemy on three different borders they have juiced ashigaru to help deal with it while Takeda are just in a boned position. Note that I'm talking about the START of the campaign. Oda are strong as hell if you manage to thrive the first ten turns and get rolling, but those rich farm bonuses don't do jack for you when there's seven armys from three different clans roving around burning them.
There's something wrong with the resolution on these Shogun 2 video's. Weird bar on the left of the screen too, doesnt look great. I myself play on 1440p and have a better looking game, not sure what youre using but maybe look into it.
the bar on the left is indeed an issue but youtube's atrocious bitrate cannot be adjusted. Legend should drop from 60fps to 30fps though, that would help. the bitrate of this video seems to be ~1mbps, lmao. A 1080p bluray is ~40mbps, and a good quality stream, 4-8mbps. your game on your machine will look crisper, if not better, at 720p, or even 480p, because there's no compression.
What is the benefit of clicking (move order) behind an enemy unit instead of directly attacking it? I thought there is no charge bonus applied in this case.
They basically start "pushing" the enemy same thing can be done on m2tw when you turn off guard mode from your pikes this becomes very deadly with long yari ashigaru
This is mine. I had NO clue that I would have to deal BOTH with Ikko and Imagawa at the same time in ONE battle when they came in. One by one I could take them on. They aren't even allies, wtf? Also, this was my first campaign after like 5 years of not playing, I went straight for Legendary and got my ass handed to me haha.
PS: Legend has fixed this for me, but I have already started another Oda campaign on Legendary before he got back to me. I remembered Legend's (I think) Otomo campaign from way back. I dealt with the initial threats and isolated myself, then I dominated the region. I basically have no threats (Takeda is BIG, but I have already taken half of their territory, they can't do nothing, I could snuff them out at any moment). I'm at a point where I'm now starting to get upgraded Matchlock Ashigaru (not the Christianity route). I definitely wasn't ready for Legendary then, but I am now. These noobs are 'bout to get pwned. (I can upload my current savegame if anybody wants to see the progress).
Thanks for playing my savegame and helping me with this campaign, Legend!
yo could i have your disaster save by any chance?
A word of advice for early game:
When the AI parks their army just outside their settlement, send a single unit to siege the settlement and attack that army with the rest.
They will usually try to retreat into the settlement, but since the way is blocked, they will instead be instantly wiped out, no battle needed.
You will lose out on the experience, but it makes early sieges much easier.
@@acheron16 thanks, I have never tried or even seen that. At this point I want the experience for my generals and I'm mostly moving in 2 full stacks, but I'll give it a try in a new campaign if needed.
This is a pretty great redemption arc
I played hundred of campaigns with oda. This is what i usually do
Turn 1. Kill rebel, sent army to mikawa border and recruit some unit. Usually mikawa will send their army to attack ur army. Just outmaneuver AI yari and rush their bow with generals. Rush the yari samurai to kill enemy general. Must kill them to wipe out the enemy.
Turn 2. Recrut more unit in owari. Conquer mikawa, be careful not to damage the castle because u need to recruit and replenish troops. Watch out for nothern border. If they send a huge army. Camp in city. Usually it is a small army and they send it to border first or raid your farm. U can catch them in the next turn either at the border crossing which is good for you or normal field which require some tactical skill.
Turn 3. Move the main army in mikawa toward the next enemy border. Totomi if I’m not mistaken. Or suruga. Recruit from mikawa and send it to main army next turn. The one in owari stay in palace if there are no attack from the north. If u are lucky sometimes the nothern enemy send their army elsewhere. U can conquer it with reserve army and they will suffer attrition. Focus on building farm first.
Turn 4. Continue conquering with main army. I usually stop here and camp the bridge crossing nearby.
Turn 5: by this time i usually hold and develop my city a bit and wait for territorial expansion penalties mellow a bit. Form some trade with kiso(if im not mistaken) nearby. The one who got stone supply. During turn 20 or so they usually at war with takeda so you got some buffer zone. Or conquer it after takeda take them down.
Ikko iki usually come in turn 7-10 or so in my campaign. And by that time u have 2 or so army with somewhat stable base. U can take them out in river crossing. I really love camping near river crossing because of oda superior yari ashigaru. By turn 10-15 its up to you what u wanna do. I usually third party a war. If takeda at war with uesugi i go take them down. If ikko iki at war with asai or hattori. I backstab them. During mid game i usually slow down a bit to stable my conquered province. Because u need some money to build a fleet to protect the gulf nearby your port to secure trade route with other clan.
This is my meta everytime i play oda hahaha. Since u already pawned those noob Ai, i guess my strats are for those why read this later then hahahaha.
Oh yeah I remember the legendary Oda campaign. I like to call it the blitzkrieg campaign because you need to move fast because Tokugawa, Imagawa, Ikko Ikki and Hattori will jump you immediately.
Just like in history
@@srdjan455 Honestly. Nobunaga is the goat for dealing with all the shit he had thrown at him during his life. All the way till the ending betrayal.
basically your average shogun 2 total war average experience: even your mom will declare war at you.
It's the easiest of all "hard" central japan clans due to op oda ashigaru. Now imagine playing ikko ikki and having no metsukes and a heretic religion. It's worse than hattori extra +33% upkeep (which you at least get universal guerilla deployment for).
@@ggleplussuxx4787 True, but I still think the Tokugawa campaign is hardest because their "advantages" are really pretty bad. One of the bonuses (the better kisho ninja) still doesn't work unless you hunt down the mod for it as CA never actually implemented it into the game, and the minor diplomacy buff doesn't help at all with nearby clans vying for your lands (only really helpful for setting up trade deals with far off clans you never plan on fighting).
At least the Ikko Ikki get some advantages to go with their disadvantages. It's better than having an almost entirely vanilla army with clan advantages tied into esoteric units that don't even function normally.
Legendary difficulty on Shogun 2 is definately no joke. It's arguably the hardest campaign of all the total war games because of how agressive the A.I is and the buffs they get are very substantial and if you make any mistakes whatsoever with your economy or on the battlefield you get punished like you broke the geneva convention.
I agree. I started playing TW with Attila and while many claim that it's the hardest TW game I have to disagree. I think Shogun 2 is much harder overall because there are way less options, units and mechanics you can use to beat the AI than in Attila
Certified gangbang
Shogun 2 battles are also super quick, so you just scramble to react to everything happening around you. I barely managed to complete short Oda campaign and had a better time with Otomo, because matchlocks are perfect for defense, but yeah not going to repeat it. Too much hassle.
Aizu or Obama in Fall of the samurai legendary are brutal.
In Shogun 2 the AI does not get buffs. They get a better economy so they can bring more armies against you. That is there only buff. Their units are the same as yours.
"Look, i'm making such a tactical mistake; I'm such an idiot" -legend. Was the highlight for me.
It was “sweet, sweet general ass” for me
I love how every total war game over the years maintains it’s relevancy and replay value. Watching these shogun 2 videos make wanna play it again.
Well, all of them since Rome 1.
@@asraarradon4115All of them since Rome 1 and before Rome 2
absolutely still playable, FOTS is also a really good option if you have it
Straight up re-downloaded shogun 2 just because of these videos. Also got me back into watching legend more often again
Dont disrespect rome 2 and atilla@@Elendrian
The Shogun 2 content (all campaigns showcased so far) has been amazing, literally made me redownload and play Shogun again. Keep up the amazing content Legend
P.S. Would love to see a Campaign tier list on different game campaigns, e.x. Crusades, Fall of the Samurai, e.t.c.
Same here for me. I blasted the north of Japan as Sendai and are enjoying video games for the first time in years
If you like Shogun 2 i would like to recommend the mods "Fourstriders Japan" and "Master of Strategy".
They greatly expand the gameplay and made it more challenging while still staying true to core.
@@SamuelSamuel-zx9mu I've been itching to play Shogun 2 again after watching the Shogun series so I just might. Thanks for the heads up mate
Can't tell what happened with arrows. Arrows in Shogun 2 were really nice, felt powerful and were visible, they felt similar to previous Total War games, while in Rome 2 and forward, arrows felt weak and were hard to see without trails and feels more like you're just throwing sand at the enemy.
I think it's because they wanted to make javelins the strongest projectile and the only way to balance that was to nerf arrows.
I never quite got the hang of them after uni-directional fire in Rome and M2 (Sufficiently ranged archers had better mobility than heavy cavalry for this exact reason). But yeah, when they hit, they really really hit.
Arrows in Shogun 2 are more powerful because there are no shielded units in this game, so you don't have any way to block the projectile other than fortifications. Most units in Rome 2 and other Total Wars are shielded.
Units from Rome 2 onward have health points. Before then, most units had 1 hit point and only blocked damage based on things like shields, armour, defence skill, etc. When arrows hit rome 2 units, they soak them up for a while.
@@historygateyt this. Total War never felt this real after implementing hit points, and now we don't even have melee combat
OUR GENERU IS IN GURAVE DANGER MY LORD!!
1 thing I always wish they would do with dragging a line, is have the units spread evenly by row instead of by column. That way that unit of 30 men will be 5 deep and 6 wide, and being bolstered shoulder to shoulder with more healthy units next to it, instead of being a thin weak point in your line.
My ass ain't even ready for normal on Shogun 2.
“But Alexander the Great is cheesing!”
- Darius the III, 331 B.C.E., shortly before fleeing the battlefield at Gaugamela
The reason why the archers are moving forward is because they need to be able to shoot at atleast half the targeted units= their max range has to cover half the unit they are shooting
Watching these recent videos got me the hankerin' for some Shogun 2 again myself and I've been relearning it as I go after probably 4 or 5 years off. I'd forgotten just *how* aggressive you have to be on the campaign map if you don't want to get swarmed. While there's some room for a little bit of a breather after going on a tear in a region and securing it (especially if you're Shimazu, Otomo or Chosokabe and securing your smaller island), but you really have to keep pressing forward or you'll get hit from some angle you didn't expect after enough turns. The safest way to stop that is to keep pushing and keep growing your armies. It lets you pick your battles much more frequently rather than having the AI pick them for you.
Also yeah, like most revolutionary peasant groups, the Ikko Ikki show up in large numbers but don't have much courage. If you let them attack, they will absolutely take advantage and bully you with their masses. But if you present a firm defense and hold strong, they break astoundingly fast.
I got the game again this week and its brutal, i started my campaign as oda on hard and it turned into a total mess :
i start the game allying with kitabatake to the southwest, vassalizing the northern faction of shino and taking out tokugawa. Then i do the standard course of action and beat down imagawa to a pulp. My ally gets attacked by tsusui and hattori from central japan and my army needed replenishment. ( meaning that i was in no position to finish the war with imagawa without losing my core territory )so i decided to go back and defend my position.
To do that i quickly sign peace with imagawa turning them into a vassal then turn back my forces to fight off the new threat. Before i get to my capital Chosokabe sees the opportunity and jumps in declaring war on me resulting in a war im too weak to handle.
I knew that if i dont act quickly i will get overwhelmed so to get my self out of this situation i ally with the ikko ikki and they keep the hattori busy for me
Then i take my army south to fight off the enemy there. I take one of their towns and quickly vassalize them. After that i take my army into hattori lands which is badly beaten by ikko ikki to "persuade" them and they also become my vassal. Now i had 2 new armies in the form of my vassals so my position was rather secure right? No !
Takeda jumps in like a jerk and declares war on my southern vassal and hojo also joins them. So i ally with all the central japanese states to secure my west against chosokabe and go back east. Hojo and takeda both show up with massive 20 stacks and ikko ikki betrays my alliance and also declares war. Leading me to divide my forces into 3 parts. I lose 2 of my cities and the takeda army attacks my capital. My daimyo holds the city with a small army of 4-5 units and dies. Later turns consist of me clawing my way back into power and peacing out my enemies, making marriages and alliances to isolate takeda and force it to focus on its eastern front and taking out hojo and ikko ikki.
It was one of my most memorable experiences with constant alliances, betrayals and epic battles which all culminate in realm divide for a good end game challenge. 10/10 game really happy to buy it all those years ago
Guard mode doesn't work as advertised since Empire TW. If you right click on enemies they will follow no matter what even though the description says if they leave the range they will stay put.
Nah, guard mode works pretty well in Warhammer
@@Xaphnir it definitely doesn't work in empire, napoleon and shogun 2.
Maybe it meant routing units, i definitely don't think they would chase units who have rout, but if it's still an active unit and they left the range of the bow ashigaru or other archers, they will chase them.
This also applies to melee units.
Ever since I started watching Legend, I´ve got no disaster campaigns anymore :D.
Started using his tactics ( ).
Keep the work up mate.
Bis support!
This made me look back and remember that I pulled off legendary when this came out. If I remember right I was the Date, and man was that anxiety inducing. But hey I'm part of the 2% of people around the globe that have completed the legendary campaign so thanks for the reminder.
"Fuck off, basically"
And thats why we love you Legend
My man had a whole hill with trees on the left to work with and still chose the flatground
Just a tip, if you want to run down fleeing units more efficiently you need to move your cav in their retreat path rather than give an attack order.
i found this the same with medieval 2 as well
Thank you for doing historical TW games again. Shogun 2 is def my favorite. Even started watching your FOTS campaign again.
Sun Tzu himself was a master of and advocate for cheese.
42:12 what an epic rout just like a movie
Yeap. For legendary as oda you need to blitz into kanto region. Straight to imagawa. If u can get 2 army it is enough to protect your domain on both end in the early campaign. Getting high vet for ashigaru is great especially oda long yari ashigaru.
I did that in my second attempts, see the pinned comment
@@mikeceebo8611 okey bro. I will rply on your comment
Let's go glad you're making more and more Shogun 2 Vids!
Realizing that I'm not cut out to play Legendary, but having the persevearance of that very specific patch of black mold, I think I restarted the Legendary Shogun 2 campaign like 20 times.
Shogun 2 is my favourite total war by miles, it’s the reason I built my first gaming pc!
The same for me!
Im so glad legend is playing the total war games that actually have real-world strategy involved. Hearing him explain how sallying out against an overwhelming force is actually how you win, and being able to describe all the intricate details as to WHY that is the case and NOT suicidal.
Felt like i was actually in a classroom learning something.
watching you try to pronounce Japanese words alone is worth it hahaha, great vid.
Oh hell, it would have been tempting to just dig in and have that massive siege defence but it is certainly a better move to go on the offensive.
1 more victory with the daimyo this turn and he gets the Summer Son trait.
My main beef with Legendary is that it doesn't increase difficulty in an interesting, nuanced way. Soldiers just get inherently better and units come out of nowhere instead
I agree. The hardest difficult should be perfectly fair for the player, or "realistic." No unnatural advantages for the ai.
@@pyroparagon8945 That'dd require the AI to be remotely competent. No competent human player is going to make the kinds of mistakes as the AI showcased here.
I'm very curious how a machine learning bot, akin to AlphaStar, would play TW.
loving the total war contents beside warhammer so far.
Also, if anything, yari ashigaru is THE unit of Shogun 2, based on Yari wall alone
Really enjoying your return to Shogun 2 and FOTS. Please keep them coming 😁❤ do you have any plans to do any coop campaigns series with it? Know you've been talking with Volound a little bit behind the scenes as you've mentioned it in videos, would love to see both of you do some shogun 2 together, would be great.
Second this comment
i didnt know someone did total war disaster saves. this is fucking epic.
There's a way to "cheese" all shogun 2 siege battles. You need a fortress at least. The way it works: retreat all forces inside the inner most part of the castle. Form yari wall around the point. The AI always charges the point, and archers will charge point too so long as none of your units are in range. The Yari wall (especially doubled up) can take on units about 5 to 1 if flanks are secured in a yari square.
The only way i can describe legendary is like taking half the map when you are not prepared and watching as you slowly lose everything one by one
The ikko Ikki were the hardest faction to exterminate for sure... The only faction that annoys me to no end. They start a rebellion every other turn with their monks, and I can not seem to kill their monks no matter what I do. Only solution I ever found includes both fire and their provinces, and boy is that a cathartic solution.
Also so glad he corrected himself on the Ashigaru units being bad units. I find myself using them exclusively as they simply get the job done for cheaper as I have never once seen anything beat a Yari Wall in fair and even combat. And remember if it is a fair fight in a war you are losing.
33:35 "I see a tree in that bright yellow forest of men, but no Yari Ashigaru." -An Ikko Ikki scout
Fun set of tips, if you want siege weaponry, Rocket mortars are the ONLY option in this game. And Shogun 2 Vassals will ALWAYS rebel in time.
*Legendary be like :*
Well ! I am a master. I think its challanging !
*20 turns later*
Traumatized SHAMEFURR DISPRAYY
"We got nothing but shit"
The ashigaru will remember that
Try Ultimate General American Revolution next! I'd love to see your take on it. Its a total war competitor made by a former total war modder that started the Ultimate general series for another company
You're right - I'm still not ready - that's why i watch you. Much love
"But Alexander the Great was cheese!" LOLOL amazing quote
Love these maps, they are glorious and sprawling!
Great to see LOTW playing Total War again
"OOoo Legend but Alexander the Great was cheese"... frikkin hilarious
So good to see Legend playing Shogun 2 and FOTS ! ❤x ♾
where is the map during the battle? not being able to see it was driving me crazy!
There's no battle map on legendary difficulty.
I have the same issue with archers advancing stupidly in this game. Despite having them on guard mode they will follow routing enemy troops, I think its because when giving specific attack orders it overrides guard mode.
Never realized the general's portrait on the bottom left bows every time you issue a command.
Looked like he was constantly falling asleep and waking back up with the clicks haha
30:48 damn imagine you're that spear unit. You run towards your reinforcements. Then the whole army about faces to fight the enemy reinforcements. A jagged line runs at them and half your unit dies. Then you begin to run back to join the rest of the army. But then the general makes you run back to fight another unit that crossed over. So you run at the unit. By the time you get there the general already routed them and makes you start running back to the army. You run and run and run and almost get there before the general puts you in the group that guards the bridge crossing all the way back where you started the battle at. Id defect at that point, f that noise. That unit should be disbanded and sent home with honors for that shit.
I would love to see a continuation of this campaign Legend!
"Boy! You are not ready for this kind of engagement!" Kyoshi LoTW.
I just watched Blue Eyed Samurai on Netflix. Now I'm playing a Shogun 2 campaign. Most fun I've had with Total War in years.
Shogun 2 AI only reacts to your main General of that battle when not engaged.
This Is legend basically saying: "you are not made for this streets son"
the fight music in shogun 2 is an absolute bop
I'm getting a bit tired with the "but it's cheese" thing. Basically all of Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, and Clausewitz is how to cheese.
I believe that one of the biggest "challenge" with cavalry in this game is that almost any unit is anti-cavalry, even cavalry at time
There is easy way to defeat any army. If you play on timer just hide your units and commander is the only one that can't hide so you take him on other side of the map so they would attack him with all forces and it's a long way to march to the other side... Even if they do catch him and kill him next unit that becomes reveal is your captain. You send him on the opposite side so they march once more. You just play like that and you win. Technically you will not loose units but they will not loose it also until 3rd turn of siege or if you can't retreat anymore using this tactic will just end disbanding them... Doesnt work on castles because they take flag in middle of the castle making them win.
Giving archers a fire order will make them pursue the target if it goes out of range.
Its been like this since Rome 1 at least as far as i remember
Seeing these has made me realise I need to play shogun 2 until warhammer 3 gets good
Yari Ashigaru is the best unit in STW. I pumped them out by the hundreds in my campaign and basically overwhelmed the AI with overwhelming odds of 3:1 or 4:1 in the fields. It was not even a contest :D
That seem like a save that could be continued further! Nothing like a bit of a tough start to make it more interesting to watch.
Hey @Legendoftotalwar would you consider doing a Hattori campaign on shogun? I always come back to that damn campaign and never seem to handle it without a struggle. Would love to see how a pro would handle it.
We're paratroopers... i mean oda we're supposed to be surrounded.
As someone who has both legendary difficulty achievements in the game, FOTS/Vanilla displayed on my steam. Fighting large stacks like this, was a nightmare.
I always quick save for everything because sometimes shogun 2 feels like crashing and when I tried doing legendary once on the first battle I won it crashed and never played it again.
Oda is, imho, one of the hardest Shogun 2 campaigns, despite having arguably the best faction boni. The starting position sucks and it's very easy to make many enemies early who will attack you from all sides. You will likely need many agent actions early to slow down your enemies and take them out systematically while making allies without getting dragged into bad wars.
Have you done many 3K campaigns, it feels very slow based on the way replenishment works and how fast military supplies are consumed.
I'm loving the Shogun 2 content
When you say the enemy gets archer cheats in legendary, in what way do you mean?
Id guess its accuracy buffs, but i dont know
Total war, but shogun 2 in particular works like: an ally is an enemy, that has not attacked you yet
Love to see Shogun 2 still getting played xD
Shift + G will put units into an unlocked control group and you wouldn't have to press the tiny padlock in the bottom left
Thanks for posting shogun 2 content, its my favorite total war game. I've played it a lot and haven't asked this anywhere else but I could swear that CA did some weird thing with the AI, let me explain.
One star generals will sometimes run right into a spear wall and die comically. Five and six star generals never do that. I think they made the AI of the army based on the enemy general's command. Have you noticed anything like this?
This one is so good. turn a seeming hopeless situation around.
Can someone please tell me what Resolution you play the game on? I have it on high resolution and I can BARELY see the text or icons on the screen. It makes me crazy.
Doesn't guard mode only mean the units won't chase units? Not that they won't move at all. Especially when you order them to shoot at something just out of range.
I've noticed guard mode doesn't work in shogun 2
I've never played this game - will give it a go.
A few mount ago I try to do Legendary Oda with the knowledge i get with your blitz campagne, all go well until in 1 turn everything north go awful and I lose the campagne cause not there
Sure it true about being ready. My first TW game was Rome 2 and I was unstoppable on legendary difficulty. But then I downloaded Shogun 2 and had to switch to hard. Only after like 50 hours I managed to conquer whole map on legendary
I tried Shogun 2 a bit and honestly the difficulty scaling seems really steep. I started some campaigns in normal and they were far too easy: I was able to steamroll everyone after getting a full stack realtively quickly. So I tried to switch on hard difficulty and it was stupidly hard: by the time I got a full ashigaru stack, I was already starting to find samurai armies and had absolutely no way to deal with them when they were fortified in cities.
It would be cool to see Legend play some shogun 2 on stream, to have an idea on how it should be played optimally, cause it seems much more unforgiving than Warhammer, where I usually play on hard / hard and have no particular issues.
Maybe I am not typical TWS2 player but I completed the campaigns of all houses on legendary level and until the very end my forces consisted of 90-95% ashigaru. The wall of spears is unbeatable. And the economy - food surpluses in the late game give a huge boost. You can easily have 2 or 3 ashigaru armies where the enemy only has one, so what if it's an elite army?
@@signoreVanici my problem is actually the early game. I tried a campaign on hard with the blue and yellow clan on the eastern shores of the map (don't remember the name) and before turn 10 I found a samurai stack in a settlement that was kinda impossible to take with my ashigaru stack. And I didn't find any good way to cheese seiges in shogun 2, like you can do in WH3
Pro tips:
- giving units (on guard mode) attack orders makes them chase their target
- yari ashigaru have a very cool bug when you use the yari wall that causes them to hit targets without an animation (doing extra damage as a result)
- to do the above effectively, spread a unit out at a maximum and additionally have multiple units in the same area. LOTW made one huge line, if it were me I would have made 3 lines in the corner preventing flanking but also making the bug appear more often
- the main downside to the above is the vulnerability to arrows
- you don't want to run down enemy units, instead - end the battle when they enemy is still near your units (they get wiped due to proximity i guess, i dont really get it)
Dude fell for the "Oda Legendary" meme that was circulating back when Shogun 2 was released, lmao
Also, your FOTS videos actually made me buy it, I'd skipped it way back in the day but realised I missed out on a lot
Meme? They are the best faction if that is what you mean.
archery is so god damn satisfying in this game, the newer total wars have not managed to get it this good in my opinion.
Ah another SCP:ikko ikki campaign
How is your UI so large? What resolution are you playing at? When I put it up to 4K I can barely see my income or the unit cards.
ME: "Oh, yeah, they used to double-line, that was so much better!"
Legend, literally 2 seconds later: "I don't like the double-line, I'd much rather there be one big line"
Boo! Boooooooo!
welcome to the oda legendary campaign where the world is your enemy
Just courious - I know you can deal with almost anything, but from perspective of making it easier - why did you not attack the most south stack (ikko-ikki with I guess half a unit)?
That way you would clean all those who were in previous battle without dealing with big stack and you could deal with the full stack afterwards without any reinforcements for him as they would have nowhere to retreat?
This is my savegame. You can only attack the stack that is directly sieging the town. Believe me, I've tried lol.
@@mikeceebo8611 I meant the one after initial battle - basically sweep the bottom of the 5 armies, which should destroy the 4 depleted ones, which are not on the bridge and then get the bridge one without any reinforcements.
You call the groups control groups, do you always press ctrl+g when you group them? Because im pretty sure that makes them a locked control group and if you just press g it makes them an unlocked group
"you know i like my hills"
Isn't Oda one of the hardest starts? IIRC you start as a vassal and have to rebel to make any progress and you're in the middle of like 2 other factions at war with you in a surrounded region, and the AI have some hefty cheats in Shogun legendary.
Once you get going Oda are strong as hell--long yari ashigaru are nuts and super cost effective--but you have to get through the ringer to make it that far. It's been years since I played though, so I might be remembering wrong.
no oda is like the 2nd easiest start after shimazu, rich provinces, even more broken ashigaru spam.
Tokugawa starts as a vassal
@@krytykx2 I knew there was a vassal somewhere in there. It's still a turn 1 war declaration either way, though.
@@maybenexttime6430 OK, I had to go look up the map to remind myself again because I literally got into total war reading an LP of a guy playing Oda on legendary because it's one of the hardest factions. It's just been so many years I forgot a lot of what's there.
Chosokabe is the easiest of the starts, full stop. You're on a secluded island that's rich and super easy to consolidate, with your pick of where you want to expand to after that. Date and Shimazu are close seconds, because they both have their backs in a corner so they only have to fight on one front. Having wars on limited fronts in Shogun 2 is super important in legendary difficulties, because the AI will spawn stacks out of thin air wherever you don't have campaign LoS. From there, Hojo and Hattori are pretty easy but not Date levels of manageable, while Ikko Ikki is in a shit position but they can play defensively and use Ikko rebels to do their expanding for them if you don't do a good job managing the early game.
Oda and Takeda both start proper fucked. I usually felt like Oda was easier than Takeda because even if they have a separate enemy on three different borders they have juiced ashigaru to help deal with it while Takeda are just in a boned position.
Note that I'm talking about the START of the campaign. Oda are strong as hell if you manage to thrive the first ten turns and get rolling, but those rich farm bonuses don't do jack for you when there's seven armys from three different clans roving around burning them.
sweet, sweet general ass made me rofl
Other than the ottomo, oda are my go to matchlock faction. I love using pike and shot.
There's something wrong with the resolution on these Shogun 2 video's. Weird bar on the left of the screen too, doesnt look great. I myself play on 1440p and have a better looking game, not sure what youre using but maybe look into it.
the bar on the left is indeed an issue but youtube's atrocious bitrate cannot be adjusted. Legend should drop from 60fps to 30fps though, that would help. the bitrate of this video seems to be ~1mbps, lmao. A 1080p bluray is ~40mbps, and a good quality stream, 4-8mbps.
your game on your machine will look crisper, if not better, at 720p, or even 480p, because there's no compression.
What is the benefit of clicking (move order) behind an enemy unit instead of directly attacking it? I thought there is no charge bonus applied in this case.
Units in Yari wall don't attack. This way, they "charge" into melee rather than wait for the enemy.
They basically start "pushing" the enemy same thing can be done on m2tw when you turn off guard mode from your pikes this becomes very deadly with long yari ashigaru
You know I like my heels it's a pretty nice heel , when someone says this you have to understand that a heel in Total war games are a necessity
Sun Tzu pretty much states the all forms of warfare is based on cheese and you should avoid any casualties