Realm divide?

[Dootslayer]

I'm new to shogun 2 (well i owned it for a while but never gave it a chance until now) and i played it like every total war, slowly carefully, planning every step. After that the realm divide came, i never even heard about it, so i was like, okay this is ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up but i have 2 strong allies (Chosokabe and hojo) so i'll manage somehow. While the tojo forces f inished off the remaining takeda forces, i and the chosokabe foughts againts the shogunates , i even managed to take kyoto with my main army, but before that the chosokabe betrayed me, after i took kyoto the Hojo did the same.

I checked and literally whole japan is at war with me, while i was exteremly careful with dipolomacy only going to wars if i have to and mainting good relationships, and this is the reward? A ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ all out war?

Could someone explain this to me? Are there any decent tactics or logics behind this, because right now this feels like a cluster F and not a total war moment. Or better yet is there a way to remove it?

What do you think about the "realm divide"?

[ReignOfaNewKing]

eventually all of Japan is only like 4 or 5 giant super powers battling it out, until one captures the whole nation. So by the time realm devide hits you should have a giant fifedom. That being said i dont like realm devide but it makes sense, the Shogun wouldnt just sit by and allow some major clan to rise and challenge his power.

[shiggies713]

as good as this game is, the AI is absolutely terrible in almost every regard.

No sense of allegiances, always treats the human like garbage, "very friendly" yet won't do trade agreements etc., horrible in assaults and defending sieges, really the only place the AI is decent is in an open field battle.

Honestly sometimes RD is a relief in FOTS, at least then all of the clans with the same alliegiance are forced to make peace and alliances with me at that point.

[G-Man]

If you've never heard of Realm Divide, you must not have been on these forums before. It is quite possibly the biggest source of angry rage threads in the entire game.

You see, the AI in Total War hates the player. Completely and unconditionally. They don't treat the player as another AI, they consider you their biggest threat and most hated enemy. When you go to the diplomacy screen, imagine everything they say is said through clenched teeth with one hand on their sword. Basically, they want you dead. Any alliance you make with the AI should be considered temporary.

Realm Divide is the point where they stop pretending not to hate you. This is the floodgates opening. Once you reach this point, you are completely on your own against all of Japan. I've heard that a vassal clan related to you by marriage might not attack you, but I wouldn't count on it. Every other clan will be out for your blood.

Realm Divide can trigger two ways:

-By taking Kyoto
-By capturing a certain number of provinces. If you look at the yellow bar in your Clan Management tab, you'll see how close you are to the beginning of Armageddon.

Before RD hits, always upgrade your farms, stockpile some koku, and if you can begin trading with the nanban, because no Japanese will trade with you after RD. The good news is, if you survive the opening years of Realm Divide you have basically won the game.

[Dootslayer]

Originally posted by G-Man:

If you've never heard of Realm Divide, you must not have been on these forums before. It is quite possibly the biggest source of angry rage threads in the entire game.

You see, the AI in Total War hates the player. Completely and unconditionally. They don't treat the player as another AI, they consider you their biggest threat and most hated enemy. When you go to the diplomacy screen, imagine everything they say is said through clenched teeth with one hand on their sword. Basically, they want you dead. Any alliance you make with the AI should be considered temporary.

Realm Divide is the point where they stop pretending not to hate you. This is the floodgates opening. Once you reach this point, you are completely on your own against all of Japan. I've heard that a vassal clan related to you by marriage might not attack you, but I wouldn't count on it. Every other clan will be out for your blood.

Realm Divide can trigger two ways:

-By taking Kyoto
-By capturing a certain number of provinces. If you look at the yellow bar in your Clan Management tab, you'll see how close you are to the beginning of Armageddon.

Before RD hits, always upgrade your farms, stockpile some koku, and if you can begin trading with the nanban, because no Japanese will trade with you after RD. The good news is, if you survive the opening years of Realm Divide you have basically won the game.

I think i might just look for a realm divide adjuster/remover, because it could have potential in my opinion but it's broken beyond repair. I mean how can i win as the Hattori? I basically have to follow a pre-determined path every game, to avoid a 2 front war. And that kills the randomness of the total war games, while that is the source of the replayibility.

Also currently i'm thankful for the spoiler here , because real divide in Rise of the samurai? What the hell?
Why? Isn't the endgame there like "Emperor loyalists vs shogunate OR claiming control" ? How does the realm divide work there?

[Mile pro Libertate]

Yeah unfortunately RD is still present in RotS. I thought it was going to be like FotS where you have two large alliances, in this case Minamoto and Taira.

But sadly, once you reach a certain number of provinces, the game will tell you that the emperor has declared you an enemy of the state.

It's basically identical to base Shogun 2, except that it's the emperor condemning you instead of the shogunate.

[easytarget]

I've never been bothered by RD in S2 or ROTS, in fact in the case of the latter the whole campaign to me feels like a 3 way civil war from turn one, so it's not like typically the campaign has not turned into a war zone long before the dreaded RD kicks in.

Want to know what I find boring?

Every other TW title because all of them have a middle-late campaign where steam rolling to inevitabile victory is a foregone conclusion.

[Mile pro Libertate]

Yeah I agree totally. As many ways as RD could've been tweaked, I still defend it as a mechanic because like you say, one of the biggest weaknesses of TW has been the late game.

Once you build your faction into a powerhouse in the early game, the rest has always just been mopping up operations.

I think CA realized that pretty early on actually, hence the civil war event in RTW. But it had a lot of problems, most obvious of course being it only applied to the Roman family factions. Then they tried using an "external threat" mechanic to achieve the same thing for all factions, by way of the Mongols and Timurids in Med 2; but the problem was that it was too repetitious, I.e. if you survived the Timurids in one campaign, you knew exactly what to do to survive them in subsequent games.

Empire pretty much just gave up on the idea, and Rome 2 had too many unfinished mechanics and broken features to achieve what was, I think, the same intent by means of the new "politics" system.

Even Attila, as good as it is, gets progressively easier as you expand and after a certain tipping point, you are very hard to stop.

Shogun 2 is the only TW game where I felt that I could actually see my faction wiped out and my entire campaign in tatters in the final turns if I made a poor decision, or lost a pivotal battle. With the other TW games the early game can be hard, and then it gets easier to the point of becoming boring.

With Shogun 2 it is more like a roller coaster, or series of peaks and lows: early game, especially with certain factions, can be ridiculously hard to survive; then there is some calm as you consolidate; then a very big war involving two or three "blocs" of super clans where you take a side; more consolidation and usually taking Kyoto; finally one last big war of you and your vassals against a grand alliance out to stop you at all costs, oftentimes with several dead clans reemerging. Instead of the battles getting more one sided, they tend to get bigger and bigger, the theater of operations gets more extensive instead of more narrow, and agents, rather than being gone or irrelevant, are high level pains in the ass causing all sorts of trouble.

[shiggies713]

Shogun 2 can still be the steamroll game that apparently the other TW games are.

Just depends though really. I guess if that happens you are playing on too easy of a level, but then again, I have had it happen on legendary once or twice too.

Seems to be a little bit of luck and/or just good timing though. Sometimes an AI will accept trade and military alliance, but if you don't send it, they might just dow you instead. Lots of random factors with the AI, but like said it can be done. I have even had games where I mopped up the last few provinces by inciting revolts on my allies because I had no enemies (in fots).

Without RD, I would probably get bored and never even finish a campaign though.

I play more of a slow game though, always building up economy and infrastructure, playing somewhat defensively. So in that regard, it is less of a roller coaster type game for me, because late in the game I could lose an entire army (which rarely happens) and all it would do is slow me down a few turns essentially. Spam up a new army with the 10's of thousands of koku everyturn or redirect another army and its no biggie most the time.

[easytarget]

Mile,

That pretty well sums it up what you posted above..

As a very typical example, In my current campaign the Ikko Ikki and Takeda clans took over pretty 2/3's of the island, in fact Ikko Ikki had 36 provinces by themselves at the point we met up in earnest. And this sort of ending where a few clans have consolidated power happens pretty much in every campaign, when you couple that with RD you get the most challenging mid-end game campaign that any TW provides, it's not even a close contest.

And as you said, nothing else CA has come up with has worked, and clearly they've tried repeatedly. I do think the MTW2 Pope game mechanic was rather clever. I had many a time I slowed down or halted an attack to avoid being excomm'd.

[Dootslayer]

The mechanic would be totally fine, if it applied to every faction not just the player. I mean i wasn't clearly the "biggest fish" when the realm divide happened the Hojo had the same amount of regions but a lot more armies because well they barely seem to have any upkeep costs.
It would be really fun if it could become something like "alliance vs alliance" because it's really annoying when literaly lifetime long allies betray me on the fly.

[Dootslayer]

That might be what i'm looking for. Real divide still happening, but with the ability to keep allies.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?436082-Realm-Divide-Mod-v2-0-(UPDATED-FOR-FotS)

[Fino]

Originally posted by Knight:

The mechanic would be totally fine, if it applied to every faction not just the player. I mean i wasn't clearly the "biggest fish" when the realm divide happened the Hojo had the same amount of regions but a lot more armies because well they barely seem to have any upkeep costs.
It would be really fun if it could become something like "alliance vs alliance" because it's really annoying when literaly lifetime long allies betray me on the fly.

You can get a mission from the shogunate to take provinces from clans that have too much power,but i belive that is the most that can happen.
Also it cancels out if you are allied to said clan.

[The Fox]

Not sure if this is still going but what happens with realm divide in Rise of the samurai, do your allies turn on you as well or just those who are not part of the same clan allegiance?

[easytarget]

Pretty much everyone including your sister clan is going to come after you. Early on in the campaign you can finesse it, but ultimately they're all coming for you.

Plan accordingly.

[Sputnik]

Let me speak for the ethics of my fellow AI

Once Kyoto is taken, then a full year must elapse before the conqueror is declared Shogun. If you think it's unfair when your AI allies turn on you - just consider how you'll treat one when he's on the verge of winning.

Sure, he's an honourable ally, but you'll put him to the sword anyway.