Anyone won with Shimazu on Barocca\'s IronMan ?

I won with Takeda on Normal difficulty, it was quite hard but not overly so. Now trying with Shimazu on Hard, and I am quite willing to accept advice at this stage...

The point is, it's impossible to beat the mongols' initial 3000 troops with Shimazu's initial troops (less than 1000), you can't build more than 1 unit a season until you conquer (easy) and develop (takes time) more provinces, and the mongols move east just too fast.

I managed to take Chikugo (the river province ) on the second season and hold it. The mongols attacked once, lost a full army (16 units), then placed a holding force and went east. Many provinces are upgraded to +100% farming in this setting, which is worth over 800 koku in pillage, so they get lots of pillage even in non-castled provinces, and non of the other clans really resists them.

By 1284, 10 years after the invasion, I had Kyushu and Shikoku and was pushing into the main island through Nagato and Bizen, with training centers in Satsuma (original), Chikugo (developed) and Tosa (took from Uesugi). The best I do when attacking is 1:3 casualties, often 1:2. The mongols had some 12,000 troops, most busy finishing off Hojo, I had 3000. And then, reinforcements landed at Hizen, and there was nothing to stop them from taking Chikugo next even though I built a port there. End of story. I can't both push forward and defend the northern provinces of Kyushu.

Help !!

Only ply MP http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gifSoz

omine-san you're on the right track. You just need a bit of patience. When i played Shim, same thing. You need to be a little more aggressive at first and try to get and hold the good defensive areas. I kicked them out of the South Island, but they rompt through everyone else in the meantime.
Keep upgrading, try to have some good provinces mainland south where you can build armour and weapons upgrades. Push and consolidate. Keep large armies all along the Western seaboard particularly where u have assets. Pillage anything likely to be used by the Mongels.
They'll build up huge armies but over time you get the upper hand as their income stream will dry up with less and less pillaging.
Sounds like your on the right track. Just keep it up.

Cheers

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PSYCHO HOJO / PSYCHO SO

[This message has been edited by PSYCHO (edited 12-22-2001).]

Ok did it !

Yes I should have been much more aggressive.
The main thing is to race through Shikoku (the southern island) to get to the "neck" area (Kawachi-Tajima) before the mongols get there. Also with the force I placed in Buzen, then Nagato - I attacked more often, making the mongols divert forces from the center of the land to the west.

Training fast is more important than waiting for quality it seems. I built in Chikugo and
Higo and later Sanuki, plain Yari Samurai and Ashi XB-men, and 1 upgrade later. Just YS, AX-Men, and a few units of YC when affordable. Forget ND (and as Mori, I guess forget WM too) - they melt away in battle. HC and NC are better cavalry when considerd in all possible battle situations, but YC are best at what cavalry should do - attack missile units and slaughter routing troops.

Taking Tosa from Uesugi is a big help. So when I enetered the "neck" I was training in 5 provinces, 20 units a year. I rarely had to deal with more than 1000 mongols in a province, ususally much less. It was over in 1282, 8 years after the invasion. Right about burning anything you can't defend. especially since if you win , it has to be fast, so the pillage is a good deal against the loss of future income.

In battle, an important key is handling the Skirmishers. XB-men are a good answer to MLC, and any YS unit is good against MHC, so when defending, you don't need to break formation until the MHC attack; but the Skirmishers are a problem - you have to charge them with YS (because there are usually Spearmen behind them) before they get to their range, and not with just one unit that will get swallowed when they retreat in "skirmish" mode. Same with Thunder Bombers. Also watch for the MHC changing direction in mid-attack to punch a weak point in your formation - they are fast. As for MLC, once they are engaged in missile fire you can move a unit right by their side and attack them from behind - the only way to catch them.

Quite a challenge, Kudos to Barocca :-) Thanks PSYCHO http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

omine-san
you did a lot better than i it seems - I'll try some of your tactics next time i sit down to play,
8-)

i found mori's WM work best in or very near trees against all mongol units except those pesky skirmishers,
have seen WM's slaughter large numbers of MHC foolish enough to attack through a grove of trees... the trees provide some cover from MLC arrows and if you can get the WM onto the MLC flank ... 8-)

- closing with skirmishers hand to hand FAST is the best way, the next best is 3 or 4 ashi-Xbow's all peppering them...

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sorry to have been away so looong - with the holidays andrelatives and work and PC disabled...


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DoragonBarocca of Clan Doragon

Quote:

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Originally Posted by barocca

omine-san
you did a lot better than i it seems - I'll try some of your tactics next time i sit down to play,
8-)

i found mori's WM work best in or very near trees against all mongol units except those pesky skirmishers,
have seen WM's slaughter large numbers of MHC foolish enough to attack through a grove of trees... the trees provide some cover from MLC arrows and if you can get the WM onto the MLC flank ... 8-)

- closing with skirmishers hand to hand FAST is the best way, the next best is 3 or 4 ashi-Xbow's all peppering them...

---

sorry to have been away so looong - with the holidays andrelatives and work and PC disabled...


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DoragonBarocca of Clan Doragon

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Umm how do we get this "Barocca-s-IronMan" game? Sounds fun.

Here:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/local_links.php?catid=14

:bow:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ReluctantSamurai

Here:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/local_links.php?catid=14

:bow:

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Thanks mate! I installed it yesterday and gave it s shot already! I never played any STW mod when I was young. So now all these mods are it's like a present to me, like CA published the game with new maps :) (I also downloaded the new Age of Empires expansion packs.. It is a good year for old geezers :)

I will try to do Shimazu on VH/VH (and not using the Xbows) tomorrow. Will be quite a challenge.

wait what ?
i only ever saw 2 options about mongol, either hojo or mongol.
how do i go about to play as other clans vs mongol ?

Quote:

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how do i go about to play as other clans vs mongol

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AFAIK, the options to play clans other than Hojo appear at the start of the Barocca's campaign:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/local_links.php?catid=14

16 year old thread. :inquisitive:

It's never too late to point someone back to discover their TW roots...:bounce: