Easy=Normal, Normal=Hard?

[Moo (Watch 'Ongezellig')]

Campaign is too hard on normal, even with the "easy" factions, Ive tried playing with Satsuma for six times and every time, I keep getting myself into a fail state. The land battles themselves are fine, I win those almost all the time but the strategic and naval aspects of the game are atrocious. For the navy aspect, despite being in range, my ships dont fire whereas the enemey ships do for some reason, to which, when I tell my own fleet to attack, they decide to move a different direction for some reason thus putting themselves needlessly in danger when they didnt even need to, and they do this constantly, thus meaning if I am outnumbered, I am guaranteed to lose. As for the strategic aspect, I end up conquering provinces occasionally, however two things keep happening that ends up ruining my ability to conquer effectivley. 1. The enemy has managed to create a large stacked army out of nowhere, therefore I cant advance my own army into their territory 2. Even if I manage to defeat one stack by drawing them out to my territory, and have the opportunity to capture one of their province, another faction takes it from me with their own large stacks. No matter how hard I try, I cant conquer that much, I can defend, but I cant conquer, so it ends up being a stalemate. Granted I could build up my economy to alleviate this problem, but I only have so much time before the campaign ends.
So im wondering, Is easy difficulty actually normal difficulty? Id liked to know if anybody can confirm this.

Edit: Perhaps my poor performance is genetic and that it isnt possible for me to play and win complex strategy games like this, but I would like to know if normal difficulty is expected to be challenging for skilled players.

[Björn]

no it is not, on easy the player actually gets advantages compared to other difficulties. Maybe learn how to use 175 range for sieges and cannons. Those are really helpfull to decimate the enemy on the walls before going into melee and capturing the settlement with a couple of sword/spear units.

[Mile pro Libertate]

On both Easy and Normal the player gets bonuses to combat and recruitment relative to the AI. The AI is also scripted to be less aggressive towards the player on the strat map. From Hard onwards the player doesn't get bonuses.

Easy - Significant player bonuses over the AI and low AI aggression on the strategy map. The AI treats the player faction like any other faction in diplomacy.

Normal - Slight player bonuses, and standard AI aggression, but with the player recognised as a higher priority threat over AI factions in diplomacy.

Hard - Player receives no bonuses and now the AI gets slight bonuses. Increased AI aggression on the strategy map. Priority of the player in terms of threat level is similar to Normal.

Very Hard - Player still receives no bonuses. AI now has significant combat and economic bonuses. Maximum AI aggression level on the strategy map. The AI now prioritizes elimination of the player to the exclusion of other AI factions.

Legendary - Everything as per Very Hard, but manual saving is not allowed, battles auto save before and after resolution, player can only reload the last (auto) save, and "Realistic Battles" mode is forced to always on, i.e. no radar map in battle, visibility of units is dictated by the player units' line of sight, minimal combat resolution info in tooltips, etc.

[Moo (Watch 'Ongezellig')]

Even with the so called advantages, what im saying is that the Normal difficulty still feels like a hard difficulty, mainly due to the problems I have already stated

[Elitewrecker PT]

Maybe the campaign issues is just because you're new.

[Moo (Watch 'Ongezellig')]

Originally posted by Elitewrecker PT:

Maybe the campaign issues is just because you're new.

True, but after six tries, and reading strategy guides, it feels impossible anyway

[hagakuremoi]

Originally posted by Vigilant Tea:

So im wondering, Is easy difficulty actually normal difficulty? Id liked to know if anybody can confirm this.

.

In my experience having played Rome 1, Medieval 2, Empire, Napoleon and Rome 2 I would say that Shogun 2 is the most difficult.

[easytarget]

If you know anyone half decent at this you might consider running the campaign co-op. that way both of you could either side w/ the emperor or shogun and run the campaign working together.

[Mile pro Libertate]

Originally posted by Vigilant Tea:

Even with the so called advantages, what im saying is that the Normal difficulty still feels like a hard difficulty, mainly due to the problems I have already stated

Shogun 2 is the most difficult TW campaign, in my and a lot of other vets' opinion, so I can definitely understand what you mean.

None of the other TWs have Shogun 2's combo of high AI aggression, narrow island map, campaign time limit, a take-and-hold context objective (Kyoto + Shogunate), and context-triggered-end-game-event (Realm Divide). Many TWs have some of these five attributes, but some of them (Rome 2) have none at all, and none of them, besides Shogun 2, have all five.

You'll learn the game though, and it'll get easier, if you just keep at it. Once you can win on Easy, then Normal or even Hard will seem more than doable. Then once you get that down, Legendary ;)

[Alendrik]

hey, I started and had alot of trouble too. BUT what helped me the most was watch tutorials or other people playing. Not of the same faction but what I would do is observe what and WHY they did the things they did. You learn to play to strengths and exploit weaknesses. you learn to manage economy and armies/navies.

I reccoment the Youtuber MrSmartDonkeyLP. He has Run thrus of every faction in the hardest difficulty and you learn alot from watching and hearing him. Some campaigns are long and others are short. If you need a recommendation on which LP to watch I recommend his legendary Shimazu , DATE, Hojo, and Chosokabe campaings.

Those are easier factions to start with and he really covers some good stuff on them. MY first one was the Shimazu and it basically set me up. I only have around 100 hours in the game but I've had plenty of victories and I attribute them due to the knowledge I got from those videos.

[Joe Sixpac]

Lol I know this is of no help at all, but I have to say this is the main issue I usually have with ALL TW games....I can buildup and Conquer but eventually/inevitably I cannot control the beast.
It just becomes too damn hard and usually I lose or give up trying.
But F#@K me it's fun.

[BastardSword]

Just keep at it. The first time I played the game when it first came out, I thought it would be a good idea to upgrade all my castles. Then my people kept rebelling over and over again. Then I realized that I had negative food from wasting it on my castles, which causes major unrest. I restarted and did better. There's a lot of stuff in Shogun 2 that is confusing at first, especially around the economy, but eventually you'll get it.

Satsuma and Chosokabe are both very easy to play as on Normal or even Hard, the main reason being that they are isolated from other strong clans, and other clans seem to usually leave them alone.

Here are some quick basic tips for Satsuma:

- mainly take over all of Kyushu (the island they start on). It has some provinces with fertile and very fertile farms which will give you a lot of money in the long run.
- keep in mind that you start with a blacksmith, so all your units are better than any AI units. Upgrade the blacksmith when you can.
- don't rely too much on Satsuma's superior katana units, instead use a few of them in an army consisting more of bows and spear units. Have your spear units hold up the enemy and kill their cavalry, then charge in your katanas to finish off the enemy.

General tips:

- play a long campaign, don't do a short campaign. Short campaign is like a speedrun challenge compared to long campaign. You will never have to worry about running out of time in a long campaign. On a short campaign you do have to worry, and you'll probably trigger Realm Divide way before you're really ready.

- on Normal don't bother with naval battles if you can help it. You should try and get a trade port ASAP so you can send trade ships to the trade nodes surrounding Kyushu, but other clans may declare war on you just so they can attack your trade ships and kick you off the trade nodes. Trying to dominate the waves will just lead to wasting money on building ships and repairing them. It's better to focus on getting upgraded farms. On Hard I find that if I don't build any ships the AI will leave me alone with their ships. On Normal you should be able to get some trade ships on trade nodes without too much drama.
- every turn check your diplomacy page and make as many trade agreements as you can. This is basically free money.

- early on you can get a lot of mileage out of yari ashigaru and their spear wall, but it's pretty tricky and takes practice to know when and how to activate spear wall. In the long run you should focus on a mix of naginata samurai and katana samurai with bow ashigaru or bow samurai, depending on what you can afford.

[Björn]

first you should learn that you only need a few provinces that can recruit troops.

2nd is that ninja dojo´s are your best ways to secure income and public order

3rd Ashigaru are your best troops for defence and protecting borders.

4th Samurai are hardly needed to finish a campaign on legendary difficulty

with this you can start experimenting and remember the spearwall for the Yari Ashigaru

[acornco]

rofl its not you, this game sorta sucks. tons of stuff is made available early game, but its really only for late game. pluss theres just tons of secret information... like using chains of ships to move your troops allllll the way across japan in a single turn... or that the only two good stats are melee attack and anti cavalry bonus. or that samurai suck and everything is over priced. just use bow ashigaru. oh or that the "choice" to switch to christ is an illusion... its a must.

its so not you. its so much a lot of crappy choices the designers made to "make the game more challenging..." they just ended up making it super linear.

the way they set the difficulty is just the final slap in the face. lame.

heres another super secret tip. the ai cheats alllll day long. just bring big armys with one third spear, one third archer and one third sword. hit auto battle.... win. rofl... great for seiges too... no seige engines? no problem... auto battle... no casualties! fun...

and make liberal use of the pause button in battle if you do battle. the ai lives on pause. once you figure that part out, you realise all the ai armys are crap because theyre only built to beat the auto battle... seriously lame.

but really, as long as you dont take creative assemblys crap too seriously, its a pretty fun game.

rofl... great interface. oh and write down what you were doing when you saved... cuz you wont remember when you load...

just a great game. how about an ordered spread sheet of my provinces and what i can upgrade? nah... just scroll around the map looking for easter eggs... did you over look that ninja because the info pop up vanished because you chose to fight a battle first? and now your crops are on fire? and now theyr 2k to fix?

so great.

[easytarget]

Why is it so hard to take incoherent remarks seriously?

[Moo (Watch 'Ongezellig')]

I guess I overreacted, im currently winning in my new campaign, problem solved.

Edit: Problem probably not solved I think? I guess I was just lucky on the other campaign, but my newer ones were a lot harder for some reason, im practically at the mercy of simple A.I. decisions I guess.