Mongol Invasion Campaign

[Drisos]

Turn #10:

The Hojo gave up on Satsuma.

Time for the bad news. Sudden loyalty drop on the southern island. I'm retreating from Satsuma, in an attempt to prevent revolts in all other regions. (I'll give up on Satsuma for now. I destroyed the dojo's now anyway.)

More bad news, lots of Hojo reinforcements arrived in Bingo.



*****

Btw, Wasp, on the dutch copy. I have Warlord Edition, and bought it in a Free Record Shop. Probably somewhere in 2003 or so.

(Misschien dat 'Genomen hoofden' nogal vreemd klinkt als je er niet aan gewend bent? )

[Drisos]

Turn #11:

Ok, lost Satsuma, but loyalty seems a lot better. Attacking Hyuga now.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Mongols rock on defense

You might want to burn that port in aki when you can.

[Wasp]

Btw, Wasp, on the dutch copy. I have Warlord Edition, and bought it in a Free Record Shop. Probably somewhere in 2003 or so.

(Misschien dat 'Genomen hoofden' nogal vreemd klinkt als je er niet aan gewend bent? )

Hehe, I bought an English version of Warlords (or Gold? Should check the box), but I had never seen a Dutch version before

[Drisos]

Turn #12:

Easy battle in Hyuga. They retreated when I came close. I was fast enough to catch a unit of YA though. Killed 59, lost 2.

Seems like loyalty is going to be fine next turn. However, I cannot expand without more reinforcements. Does loyalty ever get gradually better in this campaign?

Btw, following Sasaki's advice: I attack Aki. Cav only, lol. Will be nice to burn the port. Daddy Khan may send some more reinforcements in return.

[Drisos]

Turn #13:

Gah. I retreated in Aki. They sent in reinforcements by sea, and I was outnumbered over 3:1... I'll just sit and wait till they meet their death in attacking Iwami.

Loyalty looking ok again. I wonder what does actually trigger reinforcements? If it's conquering, I see no way to win this campaign... I don't have much possibilities to expand right now.

Well... I'll just play on and see what happens.

[Drisos]

Turn #14:

Acidentally Skipped. Nothing happened though.

Turn #15:

Loyalty looks good! Somewhere soon I might actually start getting troops out of regions like Hizen, Chikugo, etc.

So, time to attack... Satsuma again. With 4 units of Light cavalry. Should be easy. After that I'll get Osumi and if loyalty stays this well I can move almost my entire armies to Bungo and to the Western front. (Nagato+Iwami)

[Drisos]

Turn #16:

The Hojo give up in Satsuma. They're trapped in the castle now.

The Hojo aren't moving around a lot in the east. Seems like 60 new men arrive in Aki each turn. They have more than enough men for an attack on Iwami, but they're just standing there, doing nothing.

[Drisos]

Turn #17:

Gah, I wish I could write more then a few lines each turn. But it's just, nothing at all is happening. There's no action.

Good news though. reinforcements arrived. In Iwami. The Iwami army is now a full stack. A very strong army. Yet, I hope not too strong, it would be nice if the Hojo attacked me instead of the other way around.

[Drisos]

Turn #18:

Loyalty is going up and down. I don't dare to invade Osumi yet. Only moving troops around now... The castle in Satsuma was conquered, btw.

[Drisos]

Turn #19:

Things went better, so, invading Osumi now.

You can see that his forces in Aki have grown quite much over the last turns. I wonder if my strategy is too defensive. Maybe it's good, because he's losing terrain (and thereby; income) and his forces are increasing. He might actually start running out of money if this continues for a while?

[Drisos]

Turn #20:

Starting to move my Cavalry in Kyushu to Bungo. Even in Igo, the Hojo have quite an army now. It'll take more than just a few units to win there.

Loyalty stuff is going well.

Still both sides don't dare to move in the West.

[Martok]

Gah!! It's tense standoffs like this that help make this game so great. An interesting game of "Chicken", as it were....

[Drisos]

Turn #21:

Yeah! Some action at last. They attack Iwami. 870 vs. 2535. Should be winnable though.

My deploy:
first line thunderbombers and skirmishers
second line korean melee inf
third line mongolian light cavalry

heavy cavalry on the flanks.



Looking good on the hill.

...


They close in until my light cavalry start firing. Sadly they didn't come close enough to let my korean ranged units take a shot.. aw well. After some engagements on the flanks with my heavy cav, his leftover army is a chaos, and there's not much to stop my cavalry. So, I rush in my light cavalry. Now all of his 1st wave is routing. Chasing them down now. I might retreat my Heavy Cav to keep them from tiring too much. There'll be 2 more waves maybe.



Luckily, their reinforements are a mess. One-by-one slaughter instead of a second wave. Tried to take a screen of thunderbombers firing on some... kinda missed.



Trying to keep my army together. I'm losing way too much this battle. Expensive losses! A unit of CA routed through my thunderbombers, leaving only 9 alive. I lost lots of HC agains the first wave. And CA and other ranged are going to take some kills in the last stage of battle probably.

Here I just sent a unit of HC to kill another of those lonely reinforcement units..



...

Still destroying units one by one... here my thunderbombers take a good shot at a unit of YS. This screen was timed better.



...

Victory at last! I had a comp crash two days ago, had to reinstall STW. Because of that, time limit was on. (Btw, another thing, I forget to patch to 1.02. Now I have cavalry units with over 48 men. I'm afraid that might cause trouble if I went back to 1.02. So I'll finish this campaign on v1.0.)They ran out of time. I killed pretty much all of their army though. Should give me some space in the West for now.

Results:


Attacking Aki now, with 2 Light and 2 Heavy Cavalry. I hope they don't invade Iwami this turn too, that would make things problematic. Main goal is to destroy the port and gain the money from that. I'm not sure If I'll hold on to Aki for now. Will have to keep looking at loyalty.

[Gregoshi]

There'll be 2 more waves maybe.

...AND???!!!! You are a tease Drisos!

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Holy crap, you'd think 2500 kills would leave a dent but they have almost a full stack still.

[Gregoshi]

Ahem. Sneaky Drisos! Editing your post, eh? For those wondering what I've been smoking with my "AND???!!!" post, when I read the Turn #21 post, it ended at "There'll be 2 more waves maybe." I was on the edge of me seat and BAM, the post ended in mid-battle.

Nice battle though! Let's hope for more reinforcements.

[Drisos]

Ah, sorry Gregoshi. I usually write my post during the turn, in this case, during battle. Pause+Write > Play > Pause+Write, etc. I hit the 'submit' button a bit too early, so it took an edit to finish the post.

*****

Turn #22:

Wow! This attack on Aki had surprisingly cool effect! Their Daimyo moved into Aki, making the battle 240 vs. 313. I must say that my cavalry was devastating in this battle! The Hojo moved to my deploy on a small hill (while they were defending!), I started firing. The only units that approached were a YS unit and a YA unit. His daimyo and ranged units stayed behind. I attack both Yari units from front and rear the same time, after some movement. Both rout, and his Hamamoto moves in. I managed to do the same to that one. The die surprisingly soon, including Mr. Hojo himself. The leftover Ashigaru Crossbowmen are an easy prey for my cavalry... I even manage to kill most of their CA unit with my light cavalry. Killed 303, lost 23. This conquer gave me a nice amount of koku too. Going well, I'd say.

So, their Daimyo is killed. I wonder, how much heirs does he have? And most of all, where is Takazaki Suenaga? He was in western Honshu before the attack on Iwami. I recall that I killed the attacking general in Iwami, but I'm not sure if it was him. I don't see him anywhere now, so good chance that it was him. So, killed their two best generals + two family members in two turns. Not to mention the severe losses they took!

Btw, looking at the map, it's quite impossible that Suenaga is still alive. Because, their armies have 1 star or less generals. Formerly he could've been in the same army with his Daimyo which would've caused him to be invisible, but the Daimyo's army is now trapped in the Aki castle.

I'm surrendering Aki for now. If I place a large enough army there to maintain loyalty, the Hojo army in Bingo can outnumber me, by attacking in Iwami or Aki. They won't get new units by revolt anyway, because they have men left in the castle, and the region will be theirs again, by default.

Plans... wait for reinforcements, lower the garrisons in Kyushu to 60 men and invade Shikuko.

Total situation:

[Xehh II]

Such a good read.

[Drisos]

Turn #23:

Hojo indeed have Aki back. Minor glitch: their forces in Aki are shown as an 'attacking army', while they're just standing in their own region. Weird.

Still on 2-3-unit loyalty-keeping armies in Kyushu. It's increasing slightly though.

[Drisos]

Turn #24:

Again, nothing is happening. Got some bad news, a child of Hojo has come of age and is now one of his generals. Though, it said, that's his only heir. So there's only two family members left. Conquering Japan from the rebels will be easier than defeating the Hojo, so I hope that their family members come to fight at the front.

[Drisos]

Turn #25:

I'm going to give it a try: 1 unit of Korean Spearmen in the Kyushu regions. All regions were 'Green' so I thought it could be done now.

Turn #26:

Going fine. All is green still.

[Brave]

keep up the good work!

[Drisos]

Turn #27:

All going fine still. 120 men in Satsuma and Osumi. The rest of the regions 60 men. Bungo has quite an army.

Scaring: Their army in Suo has grown a lot after some troop movements. I'm afraid they might attack Nagato. That would be horrible. It would cut off Iwami. I don't dare to move troops from Iwami into Nagato either. That would make my army too small there.

Turn #28:

Attacking Iyo with my army from Bungo. The Hojo in Suo haven't moved still.

[Brave]

You could be going for the hof 08 best stw write up.

[Drisos]

Turn #29:

Ha! Very good news!! Reinforcements in Wakasa. And not just a few, full stack!

Battle in Iyo: 528 vs. 540.

I attack on a Sunny day.
Gah. They're making it too easy. Their army is mainly Ashigaru crossbowmen. 2 units of CA and one YC unit. Only need my cavalry, frontal charge on their cuddled-up ranged units, and I attack his gen. YC unit in the rear. All routs after a short fight, and I kill nearly all. 528 kills, 49 losses.

Moving some Korean Spearmen into Iyo to keep loyalty, and attacking Tosa now.

In Central Japan, I take about half of my new army from Wakasa to attack Yamashiro. Will give a lot of money if I conquer that. + Fewer troop training abilities for my enemy.

[Martok]

Good luck with conquering Yamashiro, Drisos! I'd still be concerned about Nagato, however -- it's definitely vulnerable right now.

[Drisos]

Turn #30:

There was no one in Yamashiro to defend, and in Tosa they gave up. This gave me lots of money! So, there'll come loads of reinforcements?

Moving more men from Kyushu towards Shikoku, I should be able to keep loyalty there as well.

Still concerned about Nagato indeed, Martok. Yet, I don't know a good alternative to just wait and see what happens. I hope that if they attack they don't bring their entire army, and I might be able to get another miracle victory. (Those Mongol Cavalry seem to beat anything, lol )

In central Japan I'm not conquering other regions, at least for now. Conquering more would mean more regions to defend, if they move in some troops. And there's no 'important' regions neighbouring Wakasa or Yamashiro, I guess.

[Drisos]

Turn #31:

Nothing happens...

Turn #32:

Loyalty in Kyushu is over 150% everywhere it seems. I think it's safe now. Moving my armies towards Honshu and Shikoku now. (that'll help the Suo-Nagato situation )

Moving some troops into Iyo, my Iyo army into Tosa, and attacking Awa with my army from Tosa.

[Brave]

You have inspired me to begin one I will use a different title though.