I got Shogun: Total War 2 recently on a steam sale and I had been playing to in anticipation of Total War: Rome II. Shogun is super broken. Like, my units don't go to where I click, it's crazy. It's an older game though, so I still had high hopes for this game. Then I read all these crazy user reviews about how it's completely broken, but the critic reviews are all super high... I don't know what to think.

Lay it on me: just how broken is this thing?

It hasn't been broken for me. Has some AI issues and stuff, but the series always does at launch and already some mods coming out to fix that.

If you think Shogun II is "broken" though... idk man. That game is not broken and I've never had an issue where my troops don't go where I click in any of the games. Shogun II is probably the most polished entry in the series.

I guess wait a while if you want? I'm not sure what to tell you if you're saying Shogun II is broken... it's really not.

@artisanbreads: I had my army split into groups, and when i would select one of the groups and do the "hold down the mouse button and drag so I can set them up in a strategic line" thing, the markings that indicate where they would end up when I let go were *literally* on the opposite side of the map, and when I let go of the mouse button, that is indeed where they started to go. SO i ended up having to tell each individual unit where to go, one by one.

Fair enough, I've never had this issue in any of the games.

As I said, Shogun II is as good as the series gets polish wise, especially right now this far after release.

I'm a sucker for Roman stuff, so I'll probably end up getting Rome 2.

It'll have to be once this kinda stuff is fixed though:

If AI is a concern, know, as I said, modders always fix the AI without fail and make the games better. There are already AI mods that make Rome II better right now. They've been more aggressive on the campaign map and constructing their army better to be more of a challenge. It's called "Radious mod" if you're interested.

That's an issue with Shogun 2 i've never heard of, are you experiencing any other issues? For the most part Shogun is a very solidly built title with few major gameplay issues. Anyway, back on topic. Rome 2 is a very awesome game with a pretty great scale, but at the moment it has its fair share of issues, mostly connected to the AI at this point. Personally i'm having plenty of fun with the game still, but if you don't feel the need to play it asap i would wait till it goes on sale, for by then not only are you saving money but you will be purchasing a more solid title.

@brenderous: Pretty fucking broken. In keeping with tradition, though more so than usual, Rome 2 is a buggy mess. Creative Assembly somehow managed to craft a game that not only runs like shit, but looks worse than the original Rome: Total War.

hahah just a tad hyperbolic. INTERNET FORUMS!

@artisanbreads: I wish there was a notification system for when people reply to me! Anyway, my primary gripe with the graphics are the god awful post processing and colors. Nothing looks natural or pleasant at all, and the game looks like it takes place in a polluted dystopian world with how smoggy everything is. That and the game really does look worse than the original Rome on low settings.

Look at that. LOOK AT THAT! They look like a bunch of zombies (some of them don't even have feet) wearing paper mache hats and wielding broom handles and cardboard frozen pizza shields! It looks fucking terrible! Compare that to the original:

@artisanbreads: I wish there was a notification system for when people reply to me! Anyway, my primary gripe with the graphics are the god awful post processing and colors. Nothing looks natural or pleasant at all, and the game looks like it takes place in a polluted dystopian world with how smoggy everything is. That and the game really does look worse than the original Rome on low settings.

Look at that. LOOK AT THAT! They look like a bunch of zombies (some of them don't even have feet) wearing paper mache hats and wielding broom handles and cardboard frozen pizza shields! It looks fucking terrible! Compare that to the original:

@sathingtonwaltz

(you can turn notifications on in your settings, it defaults to off)

Anyways, I am not playing the game on low, so sorry I guess? If you have the rig to run it, its a very pretty game, obviously way better than Rome I. And if you don't like the filter, you can take it off with a mod that's already out.

@artisanbreads: That's the problem. I MORE than have the rig to run this game, it's just so shittily optimized I can't. Ultimately it's fine, as there are mechanics from that game that were removed and other things changed that I just don't like at all. The first Rome is superior to me and I will just play that instead, at least until CA fixes their game via patches and updates.

After some more time with the game. Naval battles are flat out broken. The pathfinding is completely broken unless you manually control each ship... oh wait you can't manually control them anymore. That and it just turns into a ramming match but you need to order each ship to ram every single time. Finally naval artillery doesn't fire half the time for no reason and almost never fires at towers, walls or ground units even when ordered too.

Ground artillery generally does a good job if you put them in a good spot and set them to autofire. But if you decide to actually order it to attack something directly it always moves forward a dozen meters to get that "perfect shot", there's no option to tell it to fire in place. Artillery also always break formation when they do this.

Sieges are just as bad as they've been in any other Total War game. Unless you turn your unit count too low it just becomes a mess to move blocks of 160 men in tight urban streets. Attacking units on walls actually seems to be even worse now since troops don't have grappling hooks anymore. We've basically gone back to the Medieval 2 style of brokenness when it comes to that.

I've come to dread every time I need to siege a walled city and just set 90% of my navel battles to auto-resolve.

Shogun 2 works fine for me now, so not sure what issues you are having :P
Unlike Rome 2, it takes some time to for your units to move.

Noticed the game is 50% off today on Steam. Is it still completely broken, or should I hold off until the summer sale?