I'm Buying Taishi Instead of Awakening

[omnius]

After watching a Japanese anime series about the Sengoku period I got interested in a game that covered Japan's Warring States Period. I'm enjoying Koei's Romance of the Three Kingdoms 14 and wanted a game like that so started with Koei. After looking at multiple games from multiple companies I finally decided upon Koei's Taishi version of Nobunaga's Ambition rather than this new Awakening version.

I like turn-based games and hate RTS as it's too childish. I really like the WEGO style game system of ROTK 14 and the Taishi version does an excellent job of this style. I really like the Taishi tactical battle feature that is also turn-based, simulates giving orders during battle better than RTS. I never liked the RTS-style tactical battle features of Total War but enjoy the Taishi one as it gives us turn structure which allows us to think about what to do and allows us to give unique orders to units when they become available. The new RTS maze-like tactical battle feature of Awakening is truly a big step backwards and is just too gimmicky.

I definitely can't stand the new user-unfriendly UI where one has to click on a castle town and then mouse over a function to activate it, completely backwards from Taishi where we click on a function and then can see all the cities through that function's filter instead of just one. Worst UI idea ever!

While there are some new bells and whistles they're not good enough to overcome the main problems. I definitely don't like the Prestige feature, seems like another gimmick that isn't an improvement over the Taishi Resolve system. I also don't like the new placing officers in charge of counties feature to ensure an officer has usable stats, yet again more silly gimmicks that just force players to needlessly micromanage stuff.

So I'll be going old-school and buying the Taishi version of Nobunaga's Ambition instead of this new Awakening one that puts me to sleep. I sure hope Koei learns from the many design mistakes it made with this new Nobunaga version and puts out better games like the Taishi version, a pity they didn't stick with turn-based.

[redhongkong]

i purchased taishi to support nobu/3k series , it sucks that we dont get puk.
hate keoi's region lock strategy.
many of us understand chinese/japanese but live in the west.

[Silva]

Watch out: the Taishi version we got in the west is the non-PUK one, meaning it's very barebones and has lots of unbalancing (battle AI too exploitable, non-existing Schemes / Covert, Loyalty is pointless, some daimyo traits broken, etc). If you like the tactical battles it's worth it, but I recommend waiting for a sale.

[psanick]

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[Silva]

By the way, just noticed these..

Originally posted by omnius:

While there are some new bells and whistles they're not good enough to overcome the main problems. I definitely don't like the Prestige feature, seems like another gimmick that isn't an improvement over the Taishi Resolve system

Personal preferences aside, notice that Awakening's Prestige and Taishi's Resolve are completely different concepts that don't really compete. Prestige is a measure of political clout while Resolve is a personality trait that dictates daimyo bonuses and behaviors.

I also don't like the new placing officers in charge of counties feature to ensure an officer has usable stats, yet again more silly gimmicks that just force players to needlessly micromanage stuff.

Actually, what Awakening does is simulating the feudal system that was present at the time. Considering the series label itself a historical simulation, it does make sense.

Not arguing personal preference here, I see you dislike Awakening and that's fine. Just trying to be fair with both games.

[BloodyPork]

Originally posted by Silva:

Actually, what Awakening does is simulating the feudal system that was present at the time. Considering the series label itself a historical simulation, it does make sense.

The dominion system is imo a good addition, and is a more accurate simulation than the "free assignments" in previous games honestly. Retainers do deeds and accumulate achievements and then daimyo reward them with lands/domains. It actually make no sense that in previous games you could hire a random new noname guy and then immediately made him castle lord, this was not how it works historically. Of course in this game you can see oh this 15 yo new guy has amazing stats but actually you can't know that irl for a new guy who hasn't even done anything yet... so he would need to contribute to the clan first before. I like how this give use to high ranked low statted guys, and even if their base stat sucks you can assign good adjutants to improve the castle stat, this is also realistic because we knew about mediocre lords who listen to their talented retainer and does okay (in many other koei games the stats of the assisstants doesnt even count or barely count or has no such mechanic).

It's nice how you put like an intelligent covert guy with a bunch of other devious guys and it make it more efficient for example, or group diplomats or civil builders together, this simulates like them brainstorming on how to accomplish things and more heads are better than one.

Overall everything is like better than Taishi, the only features in Taishi I miss are the tech/council system which I think is better than the policy system here that is stacked to help major clan, as well as the Taishi battle gather system which prevents the silly trickle down combat where AI march unit one by one to get destroyed. So yeah I think Taishi had better combat and tech tree maybe but everything else is vastly inferior. Taishi facility building is dumb too and what I hate the most... training officers passively by building leadership/valor building is so dumb glad they got rid of that. Taishi farming and commerce system is also kinda meaningless and dumb, especially the farming system there is basically no need to even bother manually changing the AI's suggestion because it's just the logical flow. A lot of the things in Taishi is just illusion of choice, like obviously you build trading posts in places you can build why is it even a choice? But here the buildings are real choices, do you want more money? more marching time? more frequent marches? more troops? higher gun/cavalry level? etc.

But most importantly out of all nobunaga games I think the "living officers" system here is definitely the right direction for the series. In the previous games it feels like everyone else other than your daimyo is just a brainless robot and you have to do everything yourself, micro everything, but now the only thing you need to micro is just how to distribute lands to your retainers (it does get annoying as you get more castles but hey, that's what regents are for). It's not that necessary to minmax that much only need like 1 castle for covert, 1 for diplomacy (just use daimyo team usually or just use attendant), and like maybe several combat team with all the useful combat traits is all you need the rest is like whatever. But it's great you no longer feel the need to develop/build each castle yourself like in these previous games, the system here is much better designed so the AI builds decently (especially facilities, never really feel the need to rebuilt captured castles other than demolishing towers usually).

Limiting manual combat (only can use if daimyo participate) is probably a good thing because how op they are, so late game you might not be tempted to abuse that all the time when you're already the strongest faction anyway. In early game when you are weak it makes weaker faction play viable.

I like turn-based games and hate RTS as it's too childish

Kind of broad generalization. I don't like RTS (especially those like spellforce/dawn of war) compared to TBS but the rts system here is really slow paced. It's nothing like total war where you need to react/reflex (especially that dumb arcadey warhammer with loads of micro needs). It's as strategic as an RTS can be even if you have the slowest reaction ever it doesn't matter, this requires less reflex than any RTWP/RTS ever made.

Far superior and balanced than rtk 13/14 combat and such too, and the AI is much less dumb.

[Ger]

I have Taishi and supported KT and the NA franchise. But when I realized they had no intention to give us the PUK in English, I cursed them.

And here I am again, purchasing Awakening and only requesting 2 things.

The crest change feature and the Birth of Nobunaga scenario.

If they don't care about it, I will buy Sphere of Influence and Ascension if a good sale goes out and then I will stop supporting NA.

[XYZEXPIRED]

I don't even play Taishi much, was trying it out but lost interest after exploit the money which is not fun. Everyone is not your ally in this Sengoku period. Same as SOI, too, but at least it have something to make everyone rival or jealous of you like Coalition if you get too big. The only regret is battle in SOI suck, but can be ok to live with. At the very least the tactic does work in battle :).
I recommend Awakening more better than Taishi, and Sphere of Influence if you don't like either.

[omnius]

Thanks for the comments but I'm sticking to Taishi as the videos I've seen of Awakening gameplay just don't inspire me the way Taishi's gameplay videos do. I really like the tactical battle system for Taishi better as well as the seasonal councils with a tech tree. I feel the tactical battle feature in Awakening is too Mickey Mouse with it's little rat maze system of funneling units on the battlefield. Both games do some things well and some poorly but on average I feel Taishi's game system is more like what I like. The new Awakening features just don't appeal to me, too much needless micromanagement.

[omnius]

I've been playing Taishi and am really loving that game. I truly enjoy the turn-based tactical battle feature, the first time I ever enjoyed doing tactical battles after hating the Total War RTS perversion. I will not waste my time or money on the Awakening tactical battle feature that dumbs down the tactical battles to a lame childish RTS mouse maze whack-a-mole game.

Even without the PUK the base computer version of Taishi is still a lot of fun, rally don't need the power up kit which is basically a bunch of lame cheats. The turn-based turns are far superior to RTS, we can even do some very limited commands during a turn resolution which is nice when we take a castle or win a battle.

I love the quarterly policy function with the tech tree, probably a bit much on giving us policies that eliminate flood damage entirely but I love figuring out which tech boosts to go after during the game.

For my style of play Taishi was better than Sphere of Influence which was basically very similar. Taishi is vastly superior to Awakening which puts me to sleep. I don't do RTS or RPG type games so Awakening will never interest me.

[brianpk80]

All NA games are excellent but Taishi is my least favorite since as others mentioned it lacks the PUK and burned out most quickly for me. Awakening, Sphere of Influence, and Iron Triangle were all deeper and with more replay value.

[forumcrybaby]

Originally posted by brianpk80:

All NA games are excellent but Taishi is my least favorite since as others mentioned it lacks the PUK and burned out most quickly for me. Awakening, Sphere of Influence, and Iron Triangle were all deeper and with more replay value.

I have put in more hours on Iron Triangle then I would like to admit.

[Silva]

Originally posted by omnius:

I've been playing Taishi and am really loving that game. I truly enjoy the turn-based tactical battle feature, the first time I ever enjoyed doing tactical battles after hating the Total War RTS perversion. I will not waste my time or money on the Awakening tactical battle feature that dumbs down the tactical battles to a lame childish RTS mouse maze whack-a-mole game.

Even without the PUK the base computer version of Taishi is still a lot of fun, rally don't need the power up kit which is basically a bunch of lame cheats. The turn-based turns are far superior to RTS, we can even do some very limited commands during a turn resolution which is nice when we take a castle or win a battle.

I love the quarterly policy function with the tech tree, probably a bit much on giving us policies that eliminate flood damage entirely but I love figuring out which tech boosts to go after during the game.

For my style of play Taishi was better than Sphere of Influence which was basically very similar. Taishi is vastly superior to Awakening which puts me to sleep. I don't do RTS or RPG type games so Awakening will never interest me.

We already understood your opinion of the game the first time you posted it. Don't need to keep repeating it. If you don't like Awakening and have nothing constructive to add, and only want to praise Taishi, I suggest you post on the appropriate Taishi's steam forums or other, external Taishi-related forums like this one:

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/koeiwarriors/nobunaga-39-s-ambition-taishi-t24908.html

Repeatedly posting on a forum of a game you dislike only to call it "childish" just makes you sound like a child / immature person yourself.

[Nox]

Originally posted by Silva:

Originally posted by omnius:

I've been playing Taishi and am really loving that game. I truly enjoy the turn-based tactical battle feature, the first time I ever enjoyed doing tactical battles after hating the Total War RTS perversion. I will not waste my time or money on the Awakening tactical battle feature that dumbs down the tactical battles to a lame childish RTS mouse maze whack-a-mole game.

Even without the PUK the base computer version of Taishi is still a lot of fun, rally don't need the power up kit which is basically a bunch of lame cheats. The turn-based turns are far superior to RTS, we can even do some very limited commands during a turn resolution which is nice when we take a castle or win a battle.

I love the quarterly policy function with the tech tree, probably a bit much on giving us policies that eliminate flood damage entirely but I love figuring out which tech boosts to go after during the game.

For my style of play Taishi was better than Sphere of Influence which was basically very similar. Taishi is vastly superior to Awakening which puts me to sleep. I don't do RTS or RPG type games so Awakening will never interest me.

We already understood your opinion about the game the first time you posted it. Don't need to keep repeating it. If you don't like Awakening and have nothing constructive to add about it, and only want to praise Taishi, I suggest you post your opinions on the appropriate Taishi's steam forums or other, external Taishi-related forums like this one:

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/koeiwarriors/nobunaga-39-s-ambition-taishi-t24908.html

Repeatedly posting on a forum of a game you dislike only to call it "childish" just makes you sound like the child / immature person yourself.

Agreed, its also worth noting they are acutally supporting the game.

[Ger]

Originally posted by omnius:

I've been playing Taishi and am really loving that game. I truly enjoy the turn-based tactical battle feature, the first time I ever enjoyed doing tactical battles after hating the Total War RTS perversion. I will not waste my time or money on the Awakening tactical battle feature that dumbs down the tactical battles to a lame childish RTS mouse maze whack-a-mole game.

Even without the PUK the base computer version of Taishi is still a lot of fun, rally don't need the power up kit which is basically a bunch of lame cheats. The turn-based turns are far superior to RTS, we can even do some very limited commands during a turn resolution which is nice when we take a castle or win a battle.

I love the quarterly policy function with the tech tree, probably a bit much on giving us policies that eliminate flood damage entirely but I love figuring out which tech boosts to go after during the game.

For my style of play Taishi was better than Sphere of Influence which was basically very similar. Taishi is vastly superior to Awakening which puts me to sleep. I don't do RTS or RPG type games so Awakening will never interest me.

Idk if you are aware of the fact Taishi base game lacks some essential scenarios such as the Siege of Osaka and the Battle of Sekigahara.
Yeah, you can live without the PUK stuff, but sure, it disheartens a lot that we, western fans got it incomplete.