Part 30: Post Game What we missed - Agent Skills and Arts
What we missed - Agent Skills and ArtsWith the short nature of our game, we missed out on the chance to see a lot of the more advanced skills and arts. Let's have a look at the things we missed:
Monomi Skill Tree:
Shirabyoshi Skills:
Sou Skills:
Junsatsushi Skills:
General Skills:
Budo Arts:
Bunka Arts:
e: I thought I would talk a little about the refinements that Creative Assembly put into Rise of the Samurai compared to vanilla Shogun 2. The first thing a Shogun 2 player will note is how clean the skill trees are, with a unified two levels for each skill and perhaps most importantly, a balanced philosophy towards skill bonuses.
The starkest contrast is with respect to the General skill tree, where in vanilla it was split between army buffs and general unit boosts which had little balance (Even if it made your general almost invincible, you were always better off with a boost to your army), the Rise tree instead gives both general unit boosts and army boosts in all of it's pathways, instead breaking it down by boosts to combat skills, boosts to morale/abilities or instead campaign map boosts to dramatically reduce downtime for an attacking force/large research bonuses. The result is a much more balanced tree with many useful choices, which is something vanilla Shogun 2 lacked, leading to complaints of "cookie-cutter" generals.
Fall of the Samurai goes further in mixing up the skills by doing away with the skill "trees" philosophy and instead making it so that boosts to a specific attribute are spread out so you can either go for a top tier ability or go for the full set of boosts for a single thing, but not both. I'm less enthusiastic about that philosophy, so for me, the Rise skill trees are close to ideal.
If someone wants me to talk about a certain tree or set of skills, I'm happy to elaborate and explain my thoughts on them
Sneak Peek: What we missed - Buildings and Units
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