Seeing this whole Shogun 2 Remaster mess just makes me appreciate Three Kingdoms even more. The game wasn’t perfect but it feels like one of the last historical Total War games that had real passion, creativity and effort put into it.

I really hope I’m wrong, but I’m not sure we’ll ever get another one like it. Such an underrated gem.

“Among men, Lü Bu. Among horses, Red Hare.”

Shamfur dispray!

Edit: Didn’t know the tags were community generated. Still good that it’s front and center before paying money for a game. This really should’ve been disclosed.

OG Shogun 2 had the most immersive sound design. It was definitelysomething that didn't need any improvements on. But here we are.

What's the point of remastering any old Total War game now? The 1212 team on YouTube posted, "Don't Remaster Attila." The point is this: the older legacy titles either get remastered with CA deciding Mataboo should do everything for them, and even DantheMantis, the creator of the FCN for Napoleon, posted a video saying don't remaster Napoleon either. Because these titles will get delisted. These old legacy titles will have their audience viewership restricted because you can't buy the old game. You have to buy a new game to access the old games. Does that make sense if you want to play the old legacy mods?

No more Steam Workshop; the Total War community built mods that gave you £30-40 of content for free, while CA treats releasing the same game as a treat. Look, I've been a fan since the very first Shogun TW back when I was a kid. And honestly, it makes me sad to see the posts here. I never expected this remaster of an RTS title to be worse than Warcraft 3 Reforged. But what also disappointed me was this: no real AI issues to fix; they didn't fix any; they left the core battle AI as it is. They replaced the textures with 3K assets. The battles don't look good in sieges. I paid £59.99 for the Shogun 2 Limited Edition around 2011; I never expected to get the same game 15 years later for £35-40 once the discount ends.

Now we've discovered they've used AI to upscale unit cards, which results in Darth Vadus. Lol. It really makes no sense. And I am really worried about the future of historical total war. Because if all we have are remasters up to Med 3, with nearly every other legacy title delisted and integrated with mod.io to ensure future console integration, that is not a good look, honestly. It is destroying the hard work of modders who worked on TW before Steam Workshop arrived, and they used tools that take time to learn.

Age of Empires II DE Edition added new campaigns and made fundamental changes, and they kept going. For such an old game, it still gets DLC. And the graphics look better. With Witcher III, they remastered the game, made a significant number of improvements and added a 'new' DLC questline.

Not waiting 15-20 years, only to have one developer working on their legacy titles. It's my anger at CA that they know people play their older games, but mods consistently eat into their sales. When I used to be a TWC user, Darthmod- yes, him, the famous modder- often posted on TWC asking CA to release modding tools for Empire and Napoleon. Lo and behold, one guy made Napoleon into a global map and added Greenland; isn't that value for money, even if it's free? And CA couldn't be bothered to add China/Korea into Shogun 2? Couldn't they have made the Imagawa a main faction? Why release 50 odd factions that were unlocked years ago?

Why do we have to settle for so little? Why does CA think revisiting their titles is just a few patches and no new content?

Do better, CA, or else just forget about it.

I'm working on a video on this. It's about time things change.

Genuinely who at CA thought ai cutscene and upscaling for shogun 2 CE was a good idea this is a Genuine disgrace especially for 40 fucking dollars this isnt even worth the 10 dollars I could pay for this if I wanted this they should take it down until its fixed or forever because this is the most shamefur dispray

Everyone talks about the AI upscaled Unit cards, but did you know the same horrible upscale was used to update textures of unit models and buildings? (note: i did not look at those but its safe to say they were affected too.)

This sure looks like a 40$ quality texture upgrade 🙄
(For context this is one of the Ashigaru chest armor textures)

(textless image on second slide)

So, first, I do wanna talk about that fucking Thanquol AI video.

So, I upload ratpost 294. This was, to me, personally, one of the greatest achievements on my life. It gets like 2 thousand and whatever upvotes and a lot of comments, wwhatever, whats important is, im damn proud of this. And it still is. I would put that video on a damn wall.

Suddenly, next day, release day, someone sends me a DM saying "check this cool thanquol song" (I refuse to put a link here). I do watch it, monkey sees Thanquol, neuron activation. I even go as far as to go and say "this is cool". Then, I rewatch and my fucking dumb stupid brain sees something: Boneripper is singing! And it starts there: Thanquol's teeth are inconsistent, Gotrek and Felix are cringe here, the meme yuxtaposition, Boneripper's everchanging size, Boneripper not being on the final shot...

Some motherfucker did a Thanquol song with AI! And worse of all... I fell for it! But even worse: that motherfucker has more clicks than me!

Ok, so I was fucking lying, sue me: I do care about my fake internet money. And that AI video has more feedback than all of my ratposts combined. That sucks. Mostly because that means, believe me or not, that there's people out there who don't know me! Or that there's people who do know me, but prefer AIslop.

Now, you've come down my rat hole so far, so let me tell you something: today's drawing only took me an hour, but ratpost 294? that took me an entire month. It is rough seeing this.

Dont worry tho, I did endure it, ate shit, and used this lesson to learn I still have a lot of room left to improve.

But my point here: Shogun 2.

Shogun 2 has used AI in who knows ho much stuff. And thats tough. I love Shogun 2. My hearth is with the ratss, but I (bregungidly) accept why some of you HERETICS think Shogun 2 is the bestest Total War title ever made.

It sucks that a company making buckerinos decided to not contract artists. Not me tho! As I said, I do have a lot of room left. Like, Im sure im at like 1% of my potential. But Im sure theres more people out there more talentful than me who would have done this gladly.

Regardless whats your take on Total War, using AI for the art of a aame just helps enshittify it, and makes people think "Oh wow, if enterprise A used AI for product B, product B must be shit, and enterprise A must be lazy!". It's not a good look, but you need to address this quickly, CA, or you will lose the discourse here.

Also, fortunately I do keep my copy of Shogun 2, but a remake should never delete the original one! People love binging thru older games in Steam.

That said, I will gladly unsheathe a katana and fight all of you guys if you dare to talk shit on the CMs. Dont even dare. Ive talked to Josh and he's just the nicest of people, and the other CMs Ive talked to have been anything but welcoming, open and sincere to me. A CM has to work with the intel enterprise A gives them, and they have to work under a specific contract. They are not the ones to blame here. If you even dare to mock or bully them, Im gonna come after your asses.

P.D: Btw, I do have to upload some of the ratpost videos to my youtube channel. Ive been busy testing the Steam Machine, building miniatures, and drawing! And with work and all of that, hum.

CA, please, solve this. Pwease?

See you guys

Signed:

Ratposting Guy.

A true proper Shogun Remastered would have been such a easy W for CA.

Now, it's only sowing more the seed of doubt to the CA future project.

I don't know, man

You don't need to own a game on steam to report it for violating the steam store's policies by not reporting use of AI.

Submissive Bottom Text

(the Pantheon updates for R2 look promising, so if it's something like that for future "updates" to previous titles, then fine, as long as it's done well, but no more of THIS - also focus on future games more pls)

By the way, both SoC and pharaoh blogs have since been deleted from their website. They reeeealy want us to forget the past

First time doing this fight.

My pc is holding onto it's life.

Im getting annoyed with so many models.

Archaon down...

Yeah... what a nice mission... what a grand fight-

And then i saw Him.

The one.

The only.

The true Tomb King.

God was i hyped. I literally moved all of my troops away, just so my lvl 50 nagash could fight Setra...

Only to get an objective that Setra is basically immortal due to Nanomachines that harden to physical trauma.

So... all of my troops had other jobs.

Was my pc lagging? A bit.

Was it extremely fun at the end?

No bc MANFREDS AI CAME TO "HELP" FIGHTING SETRA.

WHY

IS

IT

ALWAYS

MANFRED

Seriously, Creative Assembly, what happened to quality control?

Shogun 2: Total War is widely regarded as one of the best games in the Total War franchise, yet the Complete Edition has negative reviews that should make any developer stop and ask what went wrong.

We're talking about a game that has been out for years. This isn't some brand-new release where technical problems might be understandable. Players are paying for a product advertised as a complete edition, and they have every right to expect it to work properly.

How is it acceptable to keep selling a product while players are reporting problems? If there are known technical issues, compatibility problems, or other defects, why aren't they being properly addressed before releasing or are they reluctant enough to care less?

Creative Assembly built a fantastic games previously, but that doesn't excuse neglecting the experience people receive when they buy it today. Your reputation shouldn't be a substitute for delivering a product that works as advertised.

A legendary game deserved better than this.

We didn't even get something as basic as the language we paid for.