Darwin

I like that you come up with neat stuff a lot HAR HAR HAR seriously though, so far I think there's been a nice balance of visual treats and articles. I would like to see a breakdown on effective assault and defense in woods (preferably a mix of screenshots and text). Other topics that could make good articles, a general keeping your infantry alive type, concealed movement (how effective are sneak and crawl/in what types of terrain are they appropriate) This would be one big spoiler but a complete breakdown of one of the beta maps showing traps and strategies (I know it's all relative to each particular game but each map has definite features which lend themselves to various tactics). The mortar article by Fionn was very nice, to do more articles along the same lines would be great.

Cool Steve, understood Raider, light samurai vs spear scenario is easy once you get the hang of it. That scenario is designed to introduce you to the effects of terrain I believe. put your archers in a loose formation real quick at the crest of the hill (you actually move toward the spearmen at first) go to a side angle to see that you real close to the crest then just let fly with the arrows till the enemy is almost upon you (about 4/5 of the way up and double click (left mouse arrow) to charge and you should wipe them out with minimal casualties. Now that I've played it a few times it seems to simple. I love the samurai period also but in the beta it's just a matter of using terrain and matching units correctly. Once again it's a beta but seriously it's all about knowing the formula and I almost felt disapointed winning handily repeatedly after figuring it out. The challenge comes in doing it frantically in real time. CM's beta AI although yes I can win any of the released scenarios vs AI no problem didn't feel that way to me at all. Much more depth in the CM AI. Oh side note about the AI in shogun beta. I flanked some entrenched units and started raining arrows on them from a steep hilltop (cavalry and spear hidden behind the crest) and the AI left never flinched, allowed me to shoot at him from behind freely. I eventually got bored and charged my cavalry and spear to finish them off. Regarding camera views. in shogun they have a neat right click on mouse to point camera. The camera really reminds me of myth only giving me the larger perspective I couldn't get back then. I think it's smooth and pretty easy to get the hang of. CM's camera is also clean and is easier to get it to do just what you want it to within it's bounds (which are fully functional). If Shogun were to allow for large multiplayer games where you could work as a team it would be a beautiful thing. I believe thats part of their plan, unsure though.

I'm sorry, I was just thinking that it's being a wargame in a 3D envirionment would make for some good conversation/comparisons directly related to CM once people had looked at it even though it is set in a different style and era than CM.

Hey guys, the shogun demo was just released you can get it at http://www.totalwar.com in 10 Mb packets or if you have a fast modem you can go to http://www.totalwar.org and get it as one 95mb download. I recommend checking it out. Unfortunatly the demo does not allow for multiplayer but it's a good peek at whats coming up.

I used to have an album from the "king of rock" which had Japanese covers of "smoke on the water" and "my woman from tokyo" pretty funny stuff. Ore no kanojo wa tokyo shushin...

They said something about us having to master the original 3 before moving on and how we weren't worthy of the other planned scenarios. Isn't Fionn supposed to be the Gatemaster who will release one scenario to you each time you beat him or something, dont remember exactly...

Gotta go with the shrad here. Jewish defense league, neo nazi's, black power movements it's all the same garbage to me but it's not for me to decide how they live or choose to percieve the world.

Read the thread "Dear BTS, soon?" from just a couple of days ago.

Thomas, you are aware that there are 3 scenarios avaliable to you. Right?

If I had the money for it I'd get some of those dolls and if they made a little Hitler doll I'd buy it too. Of course I'd rather have an Attila the Hun doll but they don't make it either even though he was a rather brutal individual. Would having an Attila doll be going to far? In some parts of the world Hitler is respected for his strength and will and nazi germanys might generally goes unargued. I could imagine such an ad campaign being rather succesful in a place such as Asia. Sorry if this is personal for any of you, but to me they're just doll's and freackin cools ones at that