Hi guys,many people have this issue, you start Shogun 2 multiplayer and you get 'empty server response'. With the servers down, Shogun 2 multiplayer has become unplayable. Key features as clan competition, ranking and avatar specialization (via clan tokens) have become unusable.

Therefore, we started a petition for CA to fix the Shogun 2 multiplayer. It is on change.org.

If you all could sign it too, hopefully CA will fix the Shogun 2 multiplayer and we can all have fun again :)

https://www.change.org/p/creative-assembly-to-fix-the-shogun-2-multiplayer-issues

After many regular FotS tournaments, 2018 brings us a new tournament: Civil War! The Emperor and Shogunate battle for domination of Japan. Pick a side and join the vanguard to victory!

What? When? Where?
How to sign-up? https://steamproxy.net/groups/its2#announcements/detail/263279334072

Hello,

Miki – Anarchy: 1-1. The king of draws had drawn for the last time. This will have been the last game of a series of wonderful battles. Some were short, some were long, but most of all I’ve seen a great portion of joy return to the community. Unfourtunately, last week I have decided to end the S2 Pro League.

Through this way I would like explain the reason for me to stop the competition, share my experiences and do a recommendation for the future of TW Shogun 2 Multiplayer.

This decision was not taken lightly, but rather based on several events and developments within the community and the participants of the league.

The decreasing enthusiasm among some participants was one of the reasons to end the league. Though I was disappointed to hear that some players preferred to leave the league, of course, there was nothing I can do but respect that. To these players I would like to say that in further competitions, they should consider participating in tournaments well and do not take the choice lightly, especially when the tournament is scheduled for a longer period of time.

Furthermore I had to conclude that in general, the interest among the players for the competition has decreased. After a great week 5 in which 11 games had been played, enthusiasm dropped. Now I still have to analyze the cause of this drop of enthusiasm, but there are several things that are on my mind already. First of all it might be necessary to adjust the setup of the league. Currently a Swiss model is applied where every opponent will play against any other opponent in the league. This results in a long competition, namely 19 weeks for a competition of 20 players. Furthermore there is a significant difference in strength between the participants. A possible solution to these factors might be a change in the setup in the league. Instead of using a Swiss model a double group model might suit the league better. I was thinking of three different groups (approximately 6 players) to start with. These 6 players all play against each other. After 5 weeks, the second stage of the league will commence. The top two players of every group will come together to make the golden league. Numbers 3 and 4 will make the silver league and the numbers 5 and 6 come together in a bronze league. Then another 5 weeks in the second stage are played. As a result of this different setup, the duration of the league will be reduced from 19 to only 10 weeks. Furthermore will the battles be more balanced since the more skilled players will only play each other in the second part of the league. This will benefit all participants and give more tension in the competition. Maybe after summer there is a chance to start the league again in its new format.

Unfourtunately, nowadays you can't host a tournament without having to be on everybody's tail to ensure the battles are played. There is a difference between a quick chat once a while to inform each other about the situation and on the other hand the situation where you are spending more time talking, discussing and arranging than you are actually playing the game. Unfourtunately for me as host I started to experience the latter in the last weeks of the competition. I will upload one last leader board for the competition with the last scores edited in it.

Now for the future of TW: Shogun 2 multiplayer, I think the community has positively improved in the last months. Due to the increased amount of tournaments and flashes hosted the general community has improved. Furthermore some old veterans came back to the game. I think the current state of the S2 multiplayer community can be best described as adequate. The Chaos Riders tournament and the Pro League have contributed to community and are currently a motivation for both type multiplayer players (Vanilla and FOTS). With the end of the Pro League I will make room for the [-TWR-] tournament that starts in May.

The current community is not big enough yet to handle multiple tournaments at the same time. This is also where the thread lies for the current (proper functioning) community. The community core is currently rather small. There is a pool of approximately 25 players that participate in tournaments and are possible opponents in-game. As a result of this, you play a lot of the same players in the TW: Shogun 2 multiplayer competitive scene. For the community to make permanent steps forward, it is absolutely necessary that the pool of competitive players is increased from 25 to at least 40. Furthermore it should be stimulated that less experienced players and new players participate in tournaments too. Currently new players are not or hardly stimulated to keep playing and need more assistance from the veteran players to really grow in the game.

Due to the Match Made segment of the game still being corrupted by unfair and malfunctioning players, new players don't get a lot of chance to get to learn the multiplayer environment (outside of the battlelist). The clan competition, in my eyes one of the greatest inventions by the developer CA ever, has been reduced to a mere play tool for the cheating players.

In my opinion, the new S2 competitive community should focus on the battlelist and grab every chance to increase the pool of players. Currently there is a tournament ongoing for both the Vanilla- and the FOTS-players. This is a good development. The community is not (yet) ready to for multiple simultaneous tournaments. It is very important to keep one tournament going and to ensure when it finishes a new tournament starts. Here lay the goals for the tournament hosts. Also FLASH-tournaments can be used for some alternation and to keep the fun in the game. A well chosen FLASH-tournament with a good timing can do miracles for the community.

Soon, summer is coming and the community will for a large part come to a halt for several weeks/months. It is from great importance that after summer and the commnity gets restarted and new tournaments start in order to retain an as big as possible part of the community.

For now, I would like to thank everyone that has contributed to the S2 Pro League and the S2 community in general. Special thanks to Chao$ Blade who has showed great dedication for the cause. Also to Hemul who was responsible for great tournaments in 2014 and 2015. For now, new promising people have arisen and will (hopefully) take the task to develop the S2 multiplayer community into something wonderful. So that CA's pearl, Shogun 2, will keep on shining brightly. For the Shogun!

With kind regards,

[One] The Marvelist

Hello everyone,

First of all my apologise for this late upload. Unfourtunately I was not able to upload monday. I have high hopes that this was an exception and from next week on I will hopefully be able to upload on monday again.

Last week featured S2 Pro League's first clan wars. The Ides of March took up arms against the Vandalen mit Sandalen. An Lei Tung decided his match in a 2:0 IDE victory against Anarchy. Hannibalismus didn't get further than a 1:1 against PR0AC3 and Simon and Tocki drawed as well. This way the Ides win the clanwar with 4:2!

http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=673862235
http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=673862258

Play your games BEFORE MONDAY MORNING 02-05. I will upload the results of the week on monday afternoon and also upload the schedule for the next week at the same time.

http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=673913097

• Every week 2 players will have a bye (no play). If you already know you can not play in a certain week (work, vacation, school etc) please message me and I will ensure you have a bye in that week.
  
• When you weren't able to play a game in the last week, you still have to play the game later. So discuss with your opponent when you can play the delayed game as soon as possible. The competition moves on but the game still has to be played.
  
• If you feel like you have just played a great game, you can send the replay to -IDE- PR0AC3 or AggonyAchilles who might stream your game online! Discuss this with your opponent too. The e-mail adresses: pr0ac3@yahoo.de and snipingachilles@hotmail.com

• Shidoku Anestis (w1)
  
• PrussianPrince Killerfish (w1)
  
• PrussianPrince Shidoku (w3)
  
• Dragon Aura of Death (w4)
  
• Shidoku Tocki (w4)
  
• Shidoku Vim (w6)
  
• Alexandersson Aura of Death (w6)
  
• Dragon PrussianPrince (w6)
  
• Miki Don Rumata (w6)

Rules: link
Map pool: link

Hello everyone,

This week will feature the first clan war within the competition. The -IDE- clan will face off against the <VMS> clan. Three battles regarding the clan war are on the schedule for this week. An Lei Tung faces Anarchy, Simon will battle against Tocki and Hannibalismus will play PR0AC3.

http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=668291556
http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=668291593

Play your games BEFORE MONDAY MORNING 25-04. I will upload the results of the week on monday afternoon and also upload the schedule for the next week at the same time.

http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=668291519

• Every week 2 players will have a bye (no play). If you already know you can not play in a certain week (work, vacation, school etc) please message me and I will ensure you have a bye in that week.
  
• When you weren't able to play a game in the last week, you still have to play the game later. So discuss with your opponent when you can play the delayed game as soon as possible. The competition moves on but the game still has to be played.
  
• If you feel like you have just played a great game, you can send the replay to -IDE- PR0AC3 or AggonyAchilles who might stream your game online! Discuss this with your opponent too. The e-mail adresses: pr0ac3@yahoo.de and snipingachilles@hotmail.com

• Shidoku Anestis (w1)
  
• PrussianPrince Killerfish (w1)
  
• PrussianPrince Shidoku (w3)
  
• Dragon Aura of Death (w4)
  
• Shidoku Tocki (w4)
  
• Killerfisch Hannibalismus (w5)
  
• Anestis An Lei Tung (w5)

Rules: link
Map pool: link