Pagans' Requiem: Shimazu (Domination, Legendary)

[Maltz]

An oppurtunity to earn more koku! The foreign prosperity seems to be a better option, since we have four trade nodes with full-stack trade fleets.

[Maltz]

Finally, we finished the research on Chonindo thanks to the huge bonuses on Chi research from Missions.

Now we can switch gear to Bushido and head straight for Mastery of Guns! There are two prerequisite techs. In total, it will take us 20+ more turns. After that, we need a few more turns to build the Gunsmith, hire the units, and ship them. So a reasonable time frame to trigger Realm Divide is 8-10 years later.



Note: We could stay in the Chi route for longer and enjoy the hyper-speed of Chi research. But none of the remaining techs are so good to worth the extra waiting turns:

Calligrahy - +20 diplomatic relations. We are already operating at optimal diplomacy, which is to trade with everyone. Maybe just before triggering Realm Divide we will complete this, so we can grab allies more easily.

Scholarship, Neo-Confucianism - Unlocks Church/Cathedral. We have 8 or more years to spread Christianity, that's far more than enough to make our provinces 100% Christians. Those buildings are also too expensive. Neo-Confucianism might be a good option after triggering Realm Divide, so we can convert new provinces slightly more quickly.

Kinza Mint - for 5% extra town growth (x 70% under 30% tax rate). Requires a useless prerequisite tech. After finishing all the Land Conslidation upgrades, we will have almost +50 food surplus. Takes too long for too little benefit.

Shi - the ultimate tech gives 10 extra town growth (x 70% under 30% tax rate). Also requires that useless prerequisite tech. Again, takes too long for too little benefit.

[Maltz]

Our ninja reported that there is going to be a huge fight happening in Kinki! It would be Hattori's great attempt to reclaim their heartlands from Takeda. Hattori's ally, Imagawa, also has some good stacks nearby.

We Shimazu stay neutral, but it is our secret desire that Takeda, the more powerful team (with Hojo and Ikko-Ikki), loses this battle.



If Hattori is able to focus its attack on one of the Takeda stacks, they should be take out both of Takeda's army. But Takeda acts before Hattori, so this might not happen.

We recalled our Ninja afterward so we did not know the exact outcome of the battle. But Takeda was able to keep their territory after this battle, so at least they did not lose badly.

[Maltz]

We have successfully resolved the clogged trade routes, so our income (12000+ koku per season) looks very healthy again.

Yamana - We incited a rebellion in their port province under Ikko-Ikki's blockade, so the trade had to be relocated. We now have Settsu, so we can ship products to them via land route.

Hattori - Takeda has taken Hattori's capital. As Hattori had to relocate and we own Settsu, we established a land trade route.

Ikko-Ikki - The monk from Kyoto incited a rebellion in Echizen, which harbors our trade port. The rebels took over the castle thanks to pure stupidity of Ikko-Ikki local forces. But we are unable to resume trade as their port has been fully occupied. It is OK, we can sell the products to others.

By the way, Ikko-Ikki has driven away Yamana's trade ships guarding the war horse trade node. Guess who is the only clan in line for that node? Very soon we will be shipping products from all 6 trade nodes to the rest of Japan.



To our little disappointment, Yamana's large samurai army in Hoki remains stationary probably because they are waiting for a general to lead. They do have generals in their eastern provinces, but we have turned their middle provinces to rebel. And the general-less army is not smart enough to reclaim the rebel provinces, even though they can do it with extreme ease.

[Maltz]

There is a good reason that team Takeda is winning - they know diplomacy! So far they are the only clan who have asked us for a military alliance.

"What would the two most powerful clans in Japan accomplish together?" the Takeda daimyo says.

"Didn't my son and your daughter just made a baby?" I said.



But we would be idiots to agree - we still want to trade with the rest of Japan! But allying with Takeda just before triggering the Realm Divide is indeed our plan. Just not right now.

[Maltz]

Our ninja lost sight of the large armies of Takeda and Hattori... here they are! Apparently they did NOT have a great battle a few seasons before. Are they going to give some action now?



Actually no. Since Takeda acted first, they promptly took the Ise castle and moved on.

The Hattori army could easily reclaim the castle and trap the Takeda army on the field. But they... they retreated north... What the hack is this?! No wonder Takeda has such an easy time in Kinki.

[Maltz]

That's it! Apparently I have nothing more to learn from running away from rebels! I can happily lay on a couch in Settsu and watch drama and feed my carps.



Somehow our Shimazu clan gained some more respect (+10) from my new fish pets. Maybe this fish die so easily, so the fact that I have raised them to be fat and colorful is worth the respect?

[Maltz]

Oh, here is another clan's emissionary knocking on our door. It is the Hattori clan!



Hm, but they are too incompetent to be worth of our time. Go home and do something stupid.

But since they are still trading with us from Kii (note: Apparently no "road" connection is required for trade. As long as two provinces shares a border, land trade is possible.), allowing them to die from their stupidity is not in our best interest (yet).

We will slow down Takeda a bit for you.

[Maltz]

I know a lot of people have to visit the fertility clinic nowadays due to their exposure to constant stress, pollutants, radiations, and chemical additives in their food... but MAN can my sons make babies! I have to partly thank myself for my good gene and my choices of their reproductive wives.

[Maltz]

Hattori clan is down to their LAST province without even trying to fight the invaders! At least camp in a castle or setup an ambush! This has to stop.

Since we have learned from Yamana's Hoki that an army without a general does not initiate any offensive action on its own, the best way to slow down Takeda is to force their generals to take a break - a sick leave, or a permenant retirement.

The Legendary Takeda Shingen has been volunteered by our MacGyver Ninja's soap bomb for a permenant retirement! So have all his generals active in the Kinki area.

Now Takeda's army is without leaders - they will stay still.

[Maltz]

And here we have our first 6-star missionary with his fancy hat. That 21% bonus on Chi research is not useful anymore - because we need help on Bushido. But at least by the time we hit Realm Divide, we will be able to rush Calligraphy and Neo-Confucianism more quickly.

[Maltz]

Let's fast forward a few turns. Takeda's provinces in Kinki has been turned to Rebel. Hattori once controlled Omi province, but was simply idiotic to completely ignore the ongoing unrest in the city and parked their large army just outside the castle town. So the unrest resulted in the revival of the Asai clan!



But Hattori's army nearby was still strong enough to beat Asai (again). Now if we can get rid off Hatorri, the Kinki area will be all rebels - making our occupation very easy later.

[Maltz]

Another child is born... and it is my own child! Now I am seriously in a race with my sons to produce the most children! And I am winning!



Something must be right in our food. Maybe it is in our seaweed. It tastes weird lately, and whenever I eat seaweed, I get a strong urge to... er...

[Maltz]

Our training with the rebels are quite fun actually. Sometimes we can defeat spear units by charging them in the back and quickly rout them before we suffer heavy casaulties.



But it is a bad idea to charge a spear unit at the front. In the few seconds before they rout, they can easily kill a row of our bodyguards. I learned that lesson the hard way.

[Maltz]

Our clan is now having some "significant advances"! Although nothing important has happened for a few years now.



Now our research rate is bumped up by 50%! But this is only 50% from the base rate. Let's see how much sooner we can learn Gun Mastery...

[Maltz]

In the last season we checked, we needed 12 seasons. Now we need 9 seasons.



So the "significant advance" saved us 2 seasons! That's... not quite significant.

Note: Research is really slow in unmodded STW2. There is actually a double research rate mod around. Maybe it is a good idea!

[Maltz]

Yamana has been stuck in Hoki since they had no general there. But the rebellion we incited are all too small to beat their full samurai stack.

So we had an idea - if we turn all their provinces to rebel, they will be forced to relocate their capital to Hoki. Then, they should have a new daimyo in Hoki. The new daimyo will then lead the army to attack somewhere! As soon as he leaves, we sabotage their army and...



Poor Yamana, their greed spells their doom. Amen.

[Maltz]

All the provinces have finished the construction of the best farm - Land Cosolidation. This pushes our food surplus to 61! Our tax income has been steadily increasing due to very fast town growth. Soon our tax income will exceed our trade income.



From experience, this would be a good time to trigger the Realm Divide, as we will have sufficient funds to cover the loss of our trades. However, we are still waiting for research to catch up to get our planned Heavy Gunner army! Even after research is done, building the Gunsmith takes 5 more seasons! And upgrading that to produce Fire Rocket must takes more than 5 seasons! Training and shipping also takes time!

This drives us insane! How about we make a change of plan - we first produce a mostly samurai army to take over Kyoto to trigger the Realm Divide, occupy Kinki area, and use the Heavy Gunners to fight the remaining clans. This way at least we can still see the guns in action. It is probably better not to use guns to attack Kyoto anyway, as the defenders there had tons of samurai archers.

Let the countdown to Realm Divide start!

That concludes chapter 10 of our story.

[Maltz]

Chapter 11. Ashigaru versus samurai

Welcome back, daimyos. As we decided to wait no further to start the countdown of Realm Divide, we need to produce a samurai army that is independent of advanced gunpowder weapons. The army in Kyoto is full of Samurai Archers. This leads us to create an army with high armor. We will also make up the army with a small portion of ranged units at any moment to encourage the defenders to camp, instead of to attack.

Stack 1 (13 units or more) - bonus for sword infantry (our best general has +2 melee)

- General
- 6 Naginata Samurai (+5 armor, for a total of 14)
- 4 Katana Samurai (+5 armor)
- 2 Yari Cavalry

Stack 2, 3 (20 units or more) - bonus for bow accuracy (our best general has +15%)

- General
- 19 Bow Ashigaru

Reinforcement brought by stack 2 and 3 will possess the general's accuracy bonus. We hope to lure Kyoto's Bow Samurai one or two at a time to duel with our Bow Ashigaru. We will retire damaged/depleted bow units and replace with fresh ones as the battle goes on. We will have to see the battle to see how this plan plays out.

Now we have placed our recruitment orders in Satsuma (Naginata, Katana), Bizen (Katana), and Awa (cavalry). They will be delivered to Settsu after just a few seasons.



Our bored agents pretty much have Kindi under rebel control! The ambitious Ikko-Ikki and Takeda both wanted to fill the void. This is a perfect chance to eliminate Ikko-Ikki. All we need to do is to freeze their stacks from taking any other new province, and incite some tiny rebellions at their defenseless homes...

Ikko-Ikki is eliminated by their greed. Amen.

[Maltz]

Let's again fast forward a year (as nothing important happened in between). The Imagawa used to control three provinces (Owari, Mino, and Migawa) with 2.5 powerful stacks. They had a good chance to stand against Takeda and Hojo's weak invasions.

Their front line is at Migawa and Mino. So if they station a full stack there, they should be pretty safe.



But somehow they decided to MOVE AWAY all their army in Mino and Migawa and let a weak Takeda and Hojo steal those two provinces. They also think it is a good idea to grab the weak rebel provinceIse in their back, leaving just half a stack to protect Owari. From experience, we know they will just keep giving up what they left behind to a lucky scavenger.

What kind of idiot is this?! No wonder Takeda and Hojo has such an easy time. It seems that Imagawa will soon be destroyed by their endless stupidity.

[Maltz]

Amen. Imagawa has been eliminated by their stupidity - when the rebels appeared in their last province, they did not even bother attacking it. But we had to froze their two full stacks in a rebel province with our ninja.



Oh nice. Here is a chance to boost 100% (base rate, not current rate) Bushido research!

Let's see how many turns it saves us to get Gunpowder Mastery...

0 turns.

[Maltz]

Fast forward again - our samurai units have been shipped to Settsu. We are ready to declare war on Ashikaga and trigger Realm Divide! But we should be ready diplomatically as well.



There are four potential allies. Takeda and Hojo are alies, and they both have terrifying military strength. Takeda is at war with Date and Honma. Hojo is at war with Date, and has pushed back Date to their last two provinces.

If Hojo and Takeda attack us together, we will have big problems after Realm Divide. Honma and Date won't be great helps.

So how do we break up Takeda and Hojo? Well, didn't we plan for this many years ago by marrying Takeda's daughter? In fact, Takeda has asked us to be allies 4 times now.

[Maltz]

When we agree to help Takeda in their war with the Ashikaga Shogun, he immediately agreed to break up his alliance and trade with Hojo! We are going to fight Ashikaga anyway, so why not pretending that we are just "helping" our ally?



And just to make sure Takeda stays as our ally longer, we volunteered a young grand child to go to Takeda for two years. We have so many of them anyway.

[Maltz]

Soldiers, to Kyoto! We will resolve this on the field as plaaned.



The number of units attacking Kyoto is a little tricky. If we use too many units, the field army flees away, and we will end up besieging the Citadel full of Samurai Archers. After some trial and errors, we find the most we can bring to the battle was the above units pus 12 units of Bow Ashigaru.

Can 12 units of Bow Ashigaru defeat 17 units of Bow Samurai, with Shimazu's famous (and brainless) "Bait" tactics?

Note: Strangely, there is only one full stack of defenders. I expected two full stacks, as in my previous Chosokabe campaign, where I attacked Kyoto even a few years earlier.

[Maltz]

Only 6 of the 12 Bow Ashigaru could be deployed due to the unit limit.



The Ashikaga army formed a super long line with their 17 units of Bow Samurai.

We have all the time we need. Let the fishing begin!

[Maltz]

We first tried to fish with Cavalry as bait, the the prey easily get away because it is hard to maintain a good distance.



We then switched to Bow Ashigaru as bait. As they slowly walk back and pause from time to time, we can consistently keep our prey on the hook. We can also freely control the size of the prey. If there are too many hooked, we will reduce pausing until there are only 1 or 2 preys left.

[Maltz]

The preys entered our trap one by one, and was eaten alive.

We keep a long distance to Ashikaga's line - about 3-4 arrows' range. Since we have quite mastered the art of baiting, the extra distance does not lower our success rate at all - it provides more cusion for our cavalry to mop up the routed units to conserve our ammo.



We have two kinds of enemy corpses on the floor. Those that line up are pinned down by arrows when they entered the trap. Those that scatter around are cut down by Yari cavalry after they rout.

[Maltz]

That's a big fish - a threesome! Since we have 6 units of Bow Ashigaru and 3 cavlary units ready to charge from side and back, we should be able to take care of them.



But they are probably giving their lives away to us... by superimposing their formations on each other?! Is that the opposite of loose formation, a "super tight" formation, the worst possible formation for taking arrows.

[Maltz]

We actually planted a Yari Cavalry unit in Ashikaga's back (hidden in the forest-rich hill) to catch the lucky preys who survived the slaughter.



No luck for them anymore.

[Maltz]

Athough we seem to have a very open battle field, there are a small patch of "forest" just in front of Ashikaga's ine. Units on the hook will inevitably enter that forest and think "we should remain hiding!" and get off the hook.



So we continue to bait from the other side.