DLC Guide?

[Jashin]

I had this game for free in my library for quite a while (got it when it was free to keep). I mainly played the warhammer titles before, but just the other day I decided to try this one out, since it is set in a similar time period we were talking about.

I didn't played much, but I am already amazed but how different but still very great this game feels to play. So naturally, I plan to play it much more in the future when I can, and I plan to get dlc content later on if I keep enjoying it.

My question is. Can anyone link or give a guide on what the different DLCs offer? With the most important information. Or a DLC priority list. And how does fall of the samurai fit into all that? I am reading through them myself as well, but a guide would still be nice. Thank you.

[Jono]

Fall of the Samurai is a separate campaign to the Main game, as is Rise of the Samurai.

FotS is set in the 19th century, with the Meiji period, where clans were siding with either the old Shogunate or the western influenced european and american powers - this plays more like the Total war Empires or Napoleon titles.

RotS is set during the Genpei war, where clans were a part of or allied to 3 main factions fighting for supremecy and the founding of the first shogunate and samurai clan. It plays like total war rome in that sense.

Shogun 2 is set in the middle of the feudal period of japan, where clans were vying for control of the continent. there is some european influence from Portugal, so you can get matchlocks, but is primarily samurai/ashigaru infantry - plays like total war medieval where guns (Arquebuses in this case) become powerful late game units but cant win a fight alone.

The other DLC's are just unit or clan packs for Shogun 2; so the Ikko Ikki are a unique religious faction; Hattori are a Ninja clan

My personal favourite campaign is FotS; but all are good

[YaFilthy]

fall of the samurai is the best expansion hands down to buy first its basically Napolean but japanese.

Rise of the samurai is good as well but its basically just a shogun 2 mod with 3 clans

Both offer a lot of content as well as different skill builds for generals and player tech trees i recommend both

then if you really want to unlock the hattori, otto, ikki.. hattori is a basic clan that lets you start on a different part of map. Otto lets you play as Christians, and ikki is a secular japanese religion.

[asper714]

Wait till they are on sale and just buy them all, One of the best games ever made.

[BastardSword]

I would start by getting Shogun 2 (if you don't already have it) and Fall of the Samurai, both are good but in my opinion Fall of the Samurai (FOTS) was never really completely finished or balanced so some stuff is kind of off in the game. Shogun2 is a LOT more polished and balanced by comparison.

Rise of the Samurai is ok but I just find myself feeling irritated playing it. Normal difficulty is too easy and hard is just annoying. There are only 6 playable clans in the game and they are the only aggressive clans, so you end up getting railroaded into massive wars very early on in the game. It's not like Shogun 2 where you could be holed up your part of Japan only fighting your neighbors and (usually) not getting sucked into massive wars with all the other clans very early on.

Anyway other than S2, FOTS and ROTS, there are some DLC packs. I will rate them out of 10 because why not.

Saints and Heroes unit pack: A DLC unit pack for Shogun 2. this gives you a very small number of special "hero" units which are very powerful but you can only use one of each hero unit at a time. The base game already has some hero units and this gives you a few more. Quite frankly I never use these hero units, it takes forever to get the research to unlock them. They also have a very small unit size so the bow and gun ones can be easily wiped out by enemy bows. Having a small unit size also reduces their power, they have high morale so they will fight to the death but you should never put your units into a situation where they are fighting to the death. I would say 4/10, for completionists only.

Sengoku Jidai unit pack: another DLC unit pack for Shogun 2, this one is WAY better. Each clan gets a unique unit and a lot of them are great like the Oda long yari ashigaru and Date bulletproof samurai. However I would take some points away because some of the units really stink, like the Hojo hand mortars and Hattori bows. 8/10, defintiely worth having.

[BastardSword]

Shogun 2 DLC clans:

Otomo: this clan is Christian and starts out being able to hire matchlocks, unlike all other clans which have to get a nanban trade port or unlock guns via research. Being able to use guns at the start is cool. Like other clans that convert to christianity, their true power comes from being able to endlessly spam rebellions through missionaries. Quite frankly you can break the game by doing this, which is silly and boring. I would say 5/10 for this clan, they really should have toned down the rebellion mechanic.

Ikko Ikki: this clan is by far the hardest to play as in the game. Everyone hates you and will declare war on you early on. You can't hire metsukes so you miss out on thousands of koku every turn. You are always poor so you have to rely on ashigaru, but once you have good generals they can beat anything. I would say 10/10 because it's that rare clan with a lot of interesting unique mechanics that is fun to play as, but I would warn that this clan is VERY hard to play as especially if you are new to the game.

Hattori: another difficult clan to play as but not as challenging as Ikko Ikki. All their units have ninja training which means they can deploy closer to the enemy at the start of battle. Often this is pretty pointless but it can mean you can start melee and bow action more quickly, sometimes before the AI is ready. The ninja training means all their units are more expensive but on the plus side they start in one of the richest parts of Japan and can make lots of money. They are also in an area where they can hire high-level agents, and their ninja agents are better than other clans' as well. The difficulty comes from the fact that all the other clans don't like them so you'll find yourself at war a lot. I would say 9/10, a fun clan to play as but could have used some more unique mechanics.

[BastardSword]

FOTS DLC clans:

The FOTS DLC clans are kind of weird because they don't have unique units, which is pretty silly. They do have unique perks but they're mostly pretty meh. All of the clans that come with the base game have unique units except for Nagaoka, but they get better rifle infantry stats which is nice.

Obama: their main perk is that they have +2 repression in all provinces, which means the people are happier and less likely to revolt. This is pretty useful. Their other perks I've never really noticed doing much, like higher tax income and cheaper unit upkeep, but I guess that's nice. Like Tsu they start off in the busiest part of the map in terms of warfare so they can be pretty challenging. I would say 6/10.

Sendai: the best DLC faction but they also feel kind of broken. Their best perk is that they have a 2 turn reduction in siege times. So if you besiege a level 1 castle and the army inside just sits there instead of sallying out to fight, you will automatically capture it the next turn. Feels to me like the AI wasn't programmed to cope with this so you can just go around instantly capturing castles. They are also in a very isolated area so not many clans will mess with them. 7/10 but again they feel kind of broken.

Tsu: they are supposed to be the "traditional" imperial clan but they don't really get any perks that help with this. None of their perks are really useful. Like Obama they start out in the middle of Japan where lots of Imperial and shogunate clans are bunched up together so you will be surrounded by a lot of conflict early on, and get invaded a lot. 6/10.

Saga: they are the artillery clan, and I guess their best perk is +5 accuracy for all artillery. I don't like artillery because it slows down my armies and FOTS has a massive map and very short movement range for armies, so I prefer to just use line infantry with kneel fire which can destroy everything and has better movement range. 5/10.

[Foster]

Originally posted by YaFilthy:

fall of the samurai is the best expansion hands down to buy first its basically Napolean but japanese.

Rise of the samurai is good as well but its basically just a shogun 2 mod with 3 clans

Both offer a lot of content as well as different skill builds for generals and player tech trees i recommend both

then if you really want to unlock the hattori, otto, ikki.. hattori is a basic clan that lets you start on a different part of map. Otto lets you play as Christians, and ikki is a secular japanese religion.

This is a gross oversimplification.

I'll try to offer a simplified but more accurate explanation for each one.

Campaign Expansions:
FoTS - Battle oriented, easier Realm Divide than base game because you pick a team (unless you go Republic in which case you get Shogun 2 vanilla style RD where everyone wants you dead ASAP,) mostly oriented towards guns but you can absolutely beat the game with traditionalist units, lots of variety to be had in army composition and diplomacy is simplified quite a bit compared to base Shogun 2 because there's no longer a billion things constantly fluctuating every single clan's opinion of you at all times and you typically have less setup to worry about post-RD.
Get it if you mostly prefer the manual battle gameplay.

RoTS - Diplomacy oriented, streamlined units and tech trees, religion is changed to an "influence" system and you get stronger territorial conquest debuffs and it stacks up faster so using your army less and using agents (particularly the Metsuke equivalent, the Junsatsushi) to undermine your opponents instead is encouraged, there's way more than three clans I have no idea where this dude is getting that from, individual battles and provinces are a lot more important so each bit of land you get is a huge win for your economic, diplomatic and militaristic capacity and capability.
Get it if you're interested in a diplomacy and agent-oriented playstyle.

Clans:

Otomo - Has a modified tech tree and very unique bonuses to encourage near entirely utilizing gunpowder based units over traditional ones as well as making Christian gameplay less of a nightmare, additionally they have a ton of unique units, buildings, etc. only available to them.
Everyone else hates them by default because they have a different religion but that's what the cannons are there for
Probably the most game altering of the three Clan DLCs overall, it's a pretty neat bit of DLC especially if you're looking to turn the game into bootleg FoTS where you're the only one with a gun until the endgame.
Get it if you want what essentially amounts to a gun-oriented late game playstyle modified and rebalanced for use as an early game playstyle (Tercos way OP and all that) and a starting point that's far more advantageous than even Shimazu's for the trade routes over in Kyushu's waters.

Hattori - Not as extensive as Otomo but still interesting as they are the only clan specifically oriented towards the use of the Kisho Ninja units in battle as well as having unique versions of the Ashigaru and Samurai units that have vanguard deployment built in meaning you can utilize them for ambushes (and are encouraged to do so in order to counteract the fact you will naturally have less units generally due to a 33% price hike, the biggest downside to playing as the faction bar none), and even having the unique bonus of their generals all having the ability to perform night attacks from the time they spawn rather than needing to get a trait.
Also unfortunately requires use of a mod because unique Kisho Ninjas that are meant to have buffs don't benefit from them and have drastically lower ammo counts due to a bug that was never fixed for some reason.
Get it if you want a playstyle oriented around ambushes, as Hattori units can actually remain hidden in a battle without camping in the forests forever, have vanguard deployment and you can deprive enemies of reinforcements.

Ikko Ikki - Very interesting faction that alters how you play the game a lot more than Hattori but not as much as Otomo, you get much bigger Ashigaru units with stronger morale but weaker overall stats, you can recruit Loan Sword Ashigaru and uniquely enhanced variants of Warrior Monks and your unique version of the Monk agent can spread the clan religion to other areas as well as the rebellions he incites resulting in you taking the province because they convert into Ikko Ikko provinces automatically upon them successfully beating the province's garrison. Also, Ikko Ikki starts with an incredibly strong spawn point with two provinces under their control by default, mountains keeping invaders out longer and easier as well as each respectfully having the blacksmith and crafts specialties meaning you can get cracking near immediately on pumping out sniper versions of the ranged Warrior Monks and armor or melee buffed versions of the melee Warrior Monks.
Finally, your generals automatically have the ability that converts provinces to your religion.
Biggest drawback is that you cannot recruit Metsuke, so you don't quite get the hilarious amounts of cash that high level Metsuke afford you towards the midpoint and late game of a normal clan's campaign, second biggest is that everyone pretty much hates you automatically and you have to convert every province to your faith somehow but you get stuff to counter that particular aspect kinda like the Otomo so it isn't as awful to play them as it might sound.
Get it if you want a weirder counterpart to Oda to play that works high amounts of agent usage and the religion mechanic into your strategies moreso than you would normally consider them.

Units:

Saints and Heroes - Not much to say, it adds unique hero units to the game that aren't locked to any given faction but are clearly most benefited by playing specific factions, thing is that hero units in general aren't of particularly high value or even that strong in battle so you most likely won't bother using them anyways outside of because they're cool to look at.
Get it if you happen to like hero units I guess.

Sengoku Jidai - A variety of unique units that are all either outright or theoretically very strong, one for each clan (including the Hattori and Ikko Ikki DLC clans) and only available to their respective associated clans but on the flipside they're available in unlimited quantities so long as you can afford them as they aren't hero units and each one plays upon the strengths and disadvantages of their clan so they're very fun and very cool to have around.
Get it if you have the money for it, you'll benefit from it heavily regardless of which clan you prefer or what playstyle you have and it'll come in handy if you decide to experiment in those regards, quite literally the only DLC I would say is a flat out requirement unless you just don't feel like increasing your overall enjoyment of the game.