Strange formulation for how the Shogunate works - there's a realm divide system that increases hostilities against you the more land you take and battles you win. But this is issued by the current Shogunate. It's possible to capture Kyoto before they can call a realm divide, but the realm divide instantly happens afterwards, even though you're the new Shogun. Not a bug, but retarded anyway.
If you grow too big so will the Shogunate make an alliance against you. Even though most clans aren't that loyal to the Shogunate so can't you deny the fact that you're proberly the biggest clan when this happends and the other clans sees this as a chance to crush you.
And if you take Kyoto so will pretty much the same thing happend. You can see this as a real-life Coup d'état. You pretty much takes over the capital and pronounces yourself Shogun/King/Emperor or what you want to call it.
It is pretty obvious the others won't stand for this.
How many bugs are there?
As Guard Bane said. There is a few. Not that major. The AI as said sucks quite much at Siege battles. on normal field battles so are they quite good compared to the older games(Total War games that is)
There is also semi-rare bugs like the one bane mentioned with the trade route that you somehowly gain loads of money(Have only happened for a few from what I have seen) Never happened for me, sadly.
For Multiplayer so was there some issues with the matchmaking. Sometimes you ended up in a 3vs3 when searching 2vs2, or a naval battle when you searched for siege, etcetera.
But that have been pretty much fixed. It still happends. But is quite rare.
The only real major bug is that if you start as Shimazu, and then either walk near or attack the enemy army at the start so will the game crash(But not for all. Maybe depends on CPU?) But you can easily not attack him and instead attack the castle and he'll be defeated.
I haven't purchased this yet. Are the multiplayer and co-op any good?
The Campaign coop is for 2 players. I believe you are forced to be allies? Haven't touched it yet. I've heard it is quite good but overall. It is like Singerplayer campaign just with a friend. I've heard that siegeing Kyoto with two big armies, etcetera is great fun.
There is also Clan wars. Similiar to Shogun 1 campaign style. Were you just attack regions and gain clan points there. The clan with the most amount of points owns the region.
Then after the league you are in is finished. Like around 10 days so does the two top clans go up a league while the four bottom clans go down a league.
In this clan wars/avatar campaign so do you unlock new units, level up your general, gain veteran units and so on.
There is still also the normal battle were you just choose amount of funds and what troops you want.
There is also drop-in battles. Which is that someone/you plays singerplayer campaign. And then when there is a battle so does someone/you drop in as the enemy.
that way you don't have to face the AI.
Was quite hilarious once when a Oda played Sieged Kyoto and I played as Ashikaga Shogunate and pretty much dominated him becouse of those capital walls.
Vassals, what are they good for? I gain more troops & gold by just occupying the providence myself.. And for some reason my allies and vassals always wage war on each-other QQ
The oda faction's start is way to harsh, especially on the harder difficulty levels. Only managed four rounds as them myself.
Feel the use of ships could have been better. In my previous shogun 2 games i only needed a few trade-ships & a small number of attack-ships to gain & guard the trade-posts. No point in going after the black-ship (too much risk vs reward) and raiding trade-lines are near useless (in my experience).
All in all it is a decent game, and i have had great fun playing it.
Vassals can be quite a good ally to have. To protect one of your flanks or so from the enemy. But overall so is it better to just conquer the region.
But funny thing happened once for me. I had Mouri as my ally. And he being as mad he was, had several wars against lots of clans. And one of those clans. Which I never even have fought against asked me for peace. So I just asked if he wanted to be my vassal and accepted. So that was pretty alright.
Anyhow. Oda historically was in quite a bad position. But from what I have heard so after you survive the first ten turns or so does it become quite much easier.
I have pretty much just played as the island clans(Mouri, Shimazu and Chosokabe) So the navy has alwaysd been important to me. Having to start war to conquer all the trade points and then secure my fronts and against pirates.
And I usually gain around 500-1000 income from raiding trade lines. it is not much. But it's atleast something for my navy to do while waiting.