View Full Version : Discharge the Honourable: Chosokabe (Legendary, Domination)
Table of Content
Book 1 - Dishonorably Charged
Chapter 01. Leftover of Ichijo (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139997-Discharge-the-Honourable-Chosokabe-(Legendary-Domination)&p=2053418909&viewfull=1#post2053418909)
Chapter 02. Kono, the sitting dead duck (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139997-Discharge-the-Honourable-Chosokabe-(Legendary-Domination)&p=2053418942&viewfull=1#post2053418942)
Chapter 03. Sogo, one clan destroyed by one man (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139997-Discharge-the-Honourable-Chosokabe-(Legendary-Domination)&p=2053419362&viewfull=1#post2053419362)
Chapter 04. Showdown of Shigoku (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139997-Discharge-the-Honourable-Chosokabe-(Legendary-Domination)&p=2053419556&viewfull=1#post2053419556)
Chapter 05. Good things happen (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139997-Discharge-the-Honourable-Chosokabe-(Legendary-Domination)&p=2053419895&viewfull=1#post2053419895)
Important Announcement (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139997-Discharge-the-Honourable-Chosokabe-(Legendary-Domination)&p=2053420594&viewfull=1#post2053420594)
Book 2 - Prophecy Exodus
Chapter 06. New strategy (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139997-Discharge-the-Honourable-Chosokabe-(Legendary-Domination)&p=2053421150&viewfull=1#post2053421150)
Chapter 07. Great leap to richness (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139997-Discharge-the-Honourable-Chosokabe-(Legendary-Domination)&p=2053421287&viewfull=1#post2053421287)
Chapter 08. Shoni, the fat meat (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139997-Discharge-the-Honourable-Chosokabe-(Legendary-Domination)&p=2053421314&viewfull=1#post2053421314)
Chapter 09. The last stuck samurai (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139997-Discharge-the-Honourable-Chosokabe-(Legendary-Domination)&p=2053421508&viewfull=1#post2053421508)
Chapter 10. A daughter for a son (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139997-Discharge-the-Honourable-Chosokabe-(Legendary-Domination)&p=2053421753&viewfull=1#post2053421753)
Chapter 11. Ito, Kamizake warriors (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139997-Discharge-the-Honourable-Chosokabe-(Legendary-Domination)&p=2053421864&viewfull=1#post2053421864)
Chapter 12. To lose is to gain (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139997-Discharge-the-Honourable-Chosokabe-(Legendary-Domination)&p=2053422026&viewfull=1#post2053422026)
Book 3 - Passion of the Buddha
Chapter 13. The curse of Nana (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139997-Discharge-the-Honourable-Chosokabe-(Legendary-Domination)&p=2053422340&viewfull=1#post2053422340)
Chapter 14. Harmonious expansion (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139997-Discharge-the-Honourable-Chosokabe-(Legendary-Domination)&p=2053422472&viewfull=1#post2053422472)
Chapter 15. Long road to prosperity (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139997-Discharge-the-Honourable-Chosokabe-(Legendary-Domination)&p=2053422865&viewfull=1#post2053422865)
Chapter 16. Hunting, hunted (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139997-Discharge-the-Honourable-Chosokabe-(Legendary-Domination)&p=2053423186&viewfull=1#post2053423186)
Chapter 17. Infiltration (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139997-Discharge-the-Honourable-Chosokabe-(Legendary-Domination)&p=2053423353&viewfull=1#post2053423353)
Chapter 18. Stepping stone to Kyoto (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139997-Discharge-the-Honourable-Chosokabe-(Legendary-Domination)&p=2053424020&viewfull=1#post2053424020)
Book 4 - The Black Tsunami
Chapter 19. The Battle of Kyoto (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139997-Discharge-the-Honourable-Chosokabe-(Legendary-Domination)&p=2053424305&viewfull=1#post2053424305)
Formation: The machine grinder (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139997-Discharge-the-Honourable-Chosokabe-(Legendary-Domination)&p=2053424337&viewfull=1#post2053424337)
Chapter 20. The Dark Wave named Chosokabe Shogunate (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139997-Discharge-the-Honourable-Chosokabe-(Legendary-Domination)&p=2053424340&viewfull=1#post2053424340) (the end)
http://ccc-ccc.ca/tmp/temp_2012/stw2/chosokabe/chosokabe_000.jpg
INTRODUCTION
Greetings, honourable daimyo,
My name is Chosokabe Chikakazu, the Chosokabe clan daimyo's daughter. I am here to report my family's epic struggle in this era of war in the hands of maltz-san. In this story, you will find:
(1) Silly, sometimes epic mistakes made by maltz, since it is his first attempt on Legendary.
(2) Dishonorable exploits (hence the name of the story) performed by maltz on the flaws of the other clans and the world's design - I will mention them whenever I am consciously aware of his shameless exploits.
(3) Strategic discussions - Maltz tries to make the most rational choice based on his limited experiences.
I hope this story will help you formulate your own honorable or dishonorable (which is probably more likely) strategies, and possibly provide some entertainment while you enjoy your afternoon green tea. Please do not treat my story as a guide, rather a personal journey of finding fun with the Sengoku Jidai.
Before we even begin, we have to know the most important thing with a Legendary campaign - backing up your progress. Maltz creates a desktop shortcut to this folder for easy access. He makes a backup save every time a new auto-save is created.
Exploit #01: Being always lucky when luck is involved
A Legendary campaign is supposed to be irreversible, but there are loopholes. The mechanics of getting lucky results using a new save game (or not) is explained here (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139935-Guide-for-the-Dark-Side-How-to-be-Lucky-if-Luck-is-involved). If you are too busy to read it, please let me tell you that the enemy general will always drink their green tea. :rolleyes: Please assume that maltz resorted to saved games liberally throughout this dishonorable (but admittingly very enjoyable) journey.
http://ccc-ccc.ca/tmp/temp_2012/stw2/chosokabe/chosokabe_001.jpg
Thoughts #01: Chosokabe Family and Clan Overview
(1) Old Daimyo and General. My father and his loyal general are both more than 40 years old. Since people die young all the time in the Sengoku Jidai, they are already living on borrowed days. We must be mentally prepared for the ascension of my young brother, Chosokabe Motochica, during the course of the campaign, and look forward to promote young generals.
(2) Daughter at peak reproductive capacity. That's me. Poor father was unsuccessful in making survivable offsprings for 14 years. Well, I serve as a powerful bargaining chip to form an alliance with one special clan. Better be a powerful clan that we want to maintain peace with.
(3) Daimyo has good traits. My father boosts his soldiers' morale, which is a great asset for Ashigaru, which starts with 5 morale (Yari) and miserably 3 (Bow).
(4) Cheaper and more effective archers. This is a great trait. We will certainly be training a lot of archers. An archer-heavy army is especially devastating in early-game battles, when enemies can be easily routed by endless arrows during their advance. The Bushido arts Heaven and Earth (50% more arrows) and Way of the Bow (fire arrows) will be top research priorities.
(5) Navy is key. From maltz's past memories on lower difficulty, the winner of Shigoku's inner struggle remained the king of the island for a long time. AI's lack of interest on invading Shigoku is probably explained by the lack of land route access to the island. As a result, a powerful navy would be crucial for homeland security. Developing a strong navy also synergize well with the nearby trade nodes, which should be occupied by Bow Kabuya as quickly as possible. Since we want to occupy trade nodes, we better occupy Kyushu to maintain the dominance of the trades, too.
That concludes the introduction of the story. :bow:
The legendary Maltz returns to making campaign stories. I am watching this one with interest. :bow:
Book 1 - Dishonorably Charged
http://ccc-ccc.ca/tmp/temp_2012/stw2/chosokabe/chosokabe_002.jpg
Chapter 01. Leftover of Ichijo
Welcome back Daimyo. It is Tosa, Spring of 1545.
The remnants of Ichijo clan begs to be swept into the Pacific Ocean. But they have roughly the same strength as we Chosokabe. How do we approach this battle?
Exploit #02 - Reinforcement generals get EXP, too
Most of you probably know this already. Generals who participate in a battle leading a reinforcement also gets the same experience. So we split out the general as reinforcement. This also has added benefit that the split general is a cavalry unit, and therefore can travel further then the main infantry army. So they can activate battles without costing the infantry army's movement points. This allows our attack on Kono in the fall (Chapter 2).
http://ccc-ccc.ca/tmp/temp_2012/stw2/chosokabe/chosokabe_003.jpg
Note: The screenshots are taken from Battle Replay, so the radar map is present, but the unit cards are invisible.
The Ichijo army initially deploys on the plain, but as soon as our army gets close, they will relocate to the top of the hill (A). There is absolutely no way to make it to the top of the hill before the Ichijo army. Maltz have died trying 6 times. :wall:
Then a Youtube video enlightened him. In that video (also Legendary Chosokabe), the player marched the entire army forward on the plain, and the enemy somehow decides not to relocate to the mountain. So the battle takes place on the plain (B) Sometimes, the simplest way is the best way!
So our Chosokabe army marched forward in formation (Tip: Group all units together to move as one), with Bow Ashigaru in Loose Formation + Fire at Will at front. As soon as the Ichijo army starts relocating to the hill, we sent the Bow Ashigaru forward to start shooting. Some of Ichijo's units, one unit of Yari Ashigaru plus one unit of Bow Ashigaru, were distracted and attacked our Bow Ashigaru, while others continue their journey to the hill.
http://ccc-ccc.ca/tmp/temp_2012/stw2/chosokabe/chosokabe_004.jpg
That charging lone unit of Yari Ashigaru unit was quickly welcomed by two units of Chosokabe Yari Ashigaru. At the same time, my father and his general both rushed forward. The general charged into the back of the Yari Ashigaru, while my father bravely charged into the shooting Bow Ashigaru standing in the back!
http://ccc-ccc.ca/tmp/temp_2012/stw2/chosokabe/chosokabe_005.jpg
Ichijo's over-confident Yari Ashigaru was quickly routed. One guy was sent flying by the general's charge!
http://ccc-ccc.ca/tmp/temp_2012/stw2/chosokabe/chosokabe_006.jpg
The bow Ashigaru was hopelessly charged by my father and his bodyguards. Soon they started fleeing as well.
http://ccc-ccc.ca/tmp/temp_2012/stw2/chosokabe/chosokabe_007.jpg
Ichijo knew they made a big mistake by splitting the army even for a brief moment. Their general tried to save their day by ordering his men down the hill to join the melee. But it was too late. There was no Ichijo men still fighting by the time their help arrives. The Chosokabe army did not chase the routed men all over the place. They have started setting up a trap for the rest of the Ichijo army.
http://ccc-ccc.ca/tmp/temp_2012/stw2/chosokabe/chosokabe_008.jpg
Ichijo made their desperate bid of victory by throwing everything they have at the Chosokabe. Their Light cavalry were greeted by Yari Ashigaru's spears. Their Yari Ashigaru and Samurai also fell in the trap, attacked on all sides.
http://ccc-ccc.ca/tmp/temp_2012/stw2/chosokabe/chosokabe_009.jpg
The Ichijo general, who leads the Yari Samurai, started fleeing even if their men did not suffer heavy casualty yet. None of them made it to the exit of the battlefield.
This was a heroic victory for the Chosokabe clan, losing only a few dozens of soldiers. In no time their wound will heal (or their brothers will take their spot)!
For the few those did escape, they will be quickly hunted down by our army. Both my father and his general are ready to pick up a retainer and will be able to march army farther due to their strategic minds. There is a Chinese saying that "godly speed is army's valuable asset".
Thoughts #02: Picking Retainers
My father was looking for the following retainers in particular:
+2 morale (Legendary x player). Daimyo only. Generals get the +1 morale version. Very useful for leading Ashigarus.
Sword of Amaterasu. Reduce enemy's morale. One of the three Imperial Regalia of Japan. Available for both Daimyo and Generals.
+10 Diplomatic Relations. Daimyo only. Battle is won after Diplomacy fails. How about winning at Diplomacy in the first place?
After numerous interviews and refusal letters that started with (we regret to inform you that...), he ended up picking a Chinese Coutier (+1 Honor, +10 Diplomatic Relationship). However, the +10 Diplomatic Relationship apparently does not work. Maybe it is a feature. My father's general hired a good shooter that blesses his bow units with +5 accuracy.
This concludes Chapter 1 of our story. :bow:
Waiting for more =o I should write one of these myself.
Chapter 02. Kono, the sitting dead duck
Welcome back, brave daimyos.
A lot of you predicted that Kono would actively attack us Chosokabe. It also happened in a tutorial, right? Well, maltz-san found that if we take heavy loss in the rebel Ichijo fight (by auto-resolve, etc.), the Kono will detect our weakness and invade, probably followed by the betrayal of the Miyoshi clan. However, if we managed to cut down loss in the rebel fight, Kono would stay in their castle. Miyoshi would also continue trading with us for now. Not that I am suggesting that you are not very good at battles. Maltz-san died at that rebel battle 6 times as well.
http://ccc-ccc.ca/tmp/temp_2012/stw2/chosokabe/chosokabe_010.jpg
Chosokabe's next goal is to take care of the hostile Kono clan in the Iyo province. In the summer of 1545, the Chosokabe army, now reinforced by two fresh units of Bow Ashigaru from Tosa, reaches the border of Tosa and Iyo. The army will be able to reach the enemy's castle in the fall.
By the way, we have demolished the Archery Dojo without even hiring one unit of Bow Samurai from it. It is too expensive and slow for our need. We want something ten times more versatile on the battlefield. Yes. The answer is Man in black. But they will not join the action until next summer.
http://ccc-ccc.ca/tmp/temp_2012/stw2/chosokabe/chosokabe_011.jpg
Since now Kono remain in the castle, they should be more protected than on the field right? Safety is one of the seven deadly illusions in Sengoku Jidai. If you are paranoid about assassins hiding in some tree above you, one in fifty will fail to get you.
Exploit #03 - The predictable AI under siege
We actually LOVE to fight siege battles. In the majority of the cases, our enemy will display very predictable behavior that leads to loss of lives. If you have some time reading, you can see the full description here (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139947-Tips-for-Beginners-Besieged-AI-s-behaviors).
The Kono defender only has 1 ranged unit, a Bow Ashigaru. The AI assign them to defend a wall that faces our initial deployment. We know that this unit is unwilling to move as long as our initial deployment remains still.
http://ccc-ccc.ca/tmp/temp_2012/stw2/chosokabe/chosokabe_012.jpg
The Chosokabe general and a unit of Bow Ashigaru simply march by the castle's west without being attacked. They need to get to the east side of the castle. The Bow Ashigaru were afraid, probably because the bridge was not designed to hold 120 men. What does the general have in mind?
http://ccc-ccc.ca/tmp/temp_2012/stw2/chosokabe/chosokabe_013.jpg
Our general only wants to find a perfect angle to take out the defending Bow Ashigaru. Here is a perfect angle. With the general's Inspiration, our Bow Ashigaru not only regained their confidence, but also all of sudden became expert snipers with telescopes!
http://ccc-ccc.ca/tmp/temp_2012/stw2/chosokabe/chosokabe_014.jpg
None of the enemy's Bow Ashigaru made through the 30 volleys. What a miserable ending of these stupid defenders. Now that the enemy has no more ranged defenders. We can easily shoot down everything else. The trick is wait for a unit to come in range and stand still, release two volleys, and wait for the next oppurtunity. When the arrow finally depleted, the melee units charged in. Easy job!
http://ccc-ccc.ca/tmp/temp_2012/stw2/chosokabe/chosokabe_015.jpg
Kono was defeated, but the province of Iyo was very unstable. Our conquest of Shigoku has to take a one-season break here. We will recruit some more units back in Tosa, so we can leave some guarding Iyo. The next march will start in the winter!
In the meantime, we start sending Bow Kabuya to visit the trade nodes west of Kyushu. If we are lucky, we should be able to reserve a few trade spots. We do not have any spare fund to develop a trade fleet yet. That will have to wait after the conquest of Shigoku.
Thoughts #03: Trade or the rest of Shigoku?
Maltz-san reported that in his initial attempt, he went for the "Trade" strategy. He started selling military access (see strategy here) (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139934-Guide-for-Beginners-on-High-Difficulty-Selling-Military-Access) to Sogo and Miyoshi from the get-go, remain friendly with them, and used the extra funds to developed a prospering trading economy by the third year. However, there was very little to do next, as Sogo and Miyoshi refuses to fight each other despite they just broke the alliance and trade deal. Besides, the monks were successful in setting up revolts, but due to some map feature, the revolts in Awa were stuck and even the town's garrison refuses to do anything to them. We were extremely reluctant to declare war on clans that has our military access as it will make us look bad in all Japan. However, our main army cannot be marched anywhere else and leave the home undefended. So that parallel universe for Chosokabe quickly reached a good-looking dead-end.
So maltz-san wanted to try the brutal approach - take the rest of Shigoku as quickly as possible. There was no military access sale to the rich enemies. So we had to spend very carefully. We could afford very little infrastructure upgrades. We will end up with a poor economy by the time Shigoku is united. However, we will be able to march the main army away from a safe home.
That concludes the story of Chapter 2. :bow:
Chapter 03. Sogo, one clan destroyed by one man
Welcome back, great daimyos.
By exempting Iyo's tax, we only needed to leave two units of garrison there, and started marching the rest of our army toward Sogo clan's Sanuki province in the winter of 1545. By the next spring, we stopped just short of the border of Sanuki. War is not to be declared to Sanuki until the summer, as the army will be able to reach the castle in the same season. There is no point to give Sogo one season to prepare.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3562&d=1328189286
Chosokobe's very first Ninja has just obtained his undergraduate degree from Tosa's Ninja College. He is on his way for his first assignment. He reports that most of the Sogo clan's force, which is slightly more powerful than ours, is surprisingly stationed outside the castle. This is actually good news for us, since the castle there has been upgraded to a stronghold. A siege battle is undesirable because we will be inevitably shot by the arrow towers on the top and only level. But how do we deal with a more powerful army?
Dai jo bu (No problem). :2thumbsup:
Exploit #04. Free save points. Initiating a castle siege creates a new auto-save. However, there is no need to fight the siege battle immediately as we can choose continue to the siege, and create another new save the next time we consider attacking the castle. Since loading each new save generates a different parallel universe, we have infinite opportunities to make whatever our wishes come true as long as we have an army besieging a castle.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3563&d=1328189286
Our army reached the castle In the summer of 1946. Our army is in no shape to score a great victory against a superior force like this. What should we do? Well, didn't we already plan for this one year ago?
Thoughts #04. Ninja: Sabotage army I have heard Daimyos advocating that Ninja should not be used on a Legendary world because their shadowy missions are too expensive. Indeed, Ninja missions cost an arm and a leg, especially the sabotage army missions. Sabotaging a full stack costs slightly more than 1000 koku. However, a sabotaged army is unable to move for the current turn. During this paralysis, they are also unable to participate any nearby battle as reinforcement. This can create very dramatic outcomes, saving us more than 1000 koku in return.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3564&d=1328189286
That's indeed our plan. Our ninja, although fresh from college, was destined to sabotage Sogo's medium-large force because luck, if there is any involved, is always on our side. Now, the Sogo army was unable to reinforce the castle defenders even if they were just outside the castle. There must be a fire breaking out in their ration storage tent.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3565&d=1328189286
The siege battle was fought without my knowledge of the details (auto-resolve). But somehow we managed to pull it off without anybody receiving a scratch even though there were arrow towers in the Stronghold. How did we achieve that is a mystery. :sweatdrop:
Exploit #05. Auto-resolve. If you vastly outnumber the enemy, auto-resolve usually scores the win with 0 loss, which could be impossible to achieve if the battle was fought manually.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3566&d=1328189286
After stealing the castle under the eyes of the Sogo army, both my father and his general become even better strategists, and learned to compose basic poems that consists of inconsistent rhymes, fallen-apart parallel structures, and cliche scenic and emotional words. Good enough for our ashigaru to admire so they discover Bushido slightly faster.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3567&d=1328189286
Our researchers first followed the Way of Chi for the Emperors' permits to construct Markets and Temples, both enabling the recruitment of useful agents. We did not have the fund to build any yet, though. Our next goal is to switch to the way of Warrior, Bushido, and grab Heaven and Earth, which gives us more 50% more arrows. Not useful during a field battle, but very interesting when dealing with extremely predictable castle defenders.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3568&d=1328189286
Now we have the castle, but the Sanuki force remains. The remaining army of a destroyed clan only vanishes if it is outside their own territory. We are in no hurry to deal with it now, since fighting on the field can be problematic. We will not be able to stop the enemy general bodyguards' charge once our extremely limited melee units have engaged the enemy. Our bow-rich army is optimized against castle defenders or an all-infantry army on the field. Cavalry is bad news.
Dai jo bu. :2thumbsup:
Thoughts #05. Ninja: Assassination In this world (of STW2), clans no longer go extinct once all of their family members are assassinated. There will always be a randomly adopted distant third cousin. Therefore, family genocide is no longer a meaningful practice. The role of assassination is therefore reduced to remove key general's units in an army to (1) remove the threat of cavalry, or to (2) remove the various bonuses the general would have applied to his units if a battle is about to take place on the same turn. Trigger happy on assassination of any general we see only adds financial burden to the clan.
As there are two generals in the Sogo army, we need to take care of both of them before we fight the field battle. A wounded general is a good as a dead general.
In the meantime, we hired one additional unit of Yari Ashigaru to make the total to 2 (the rest of them were left in Iyo), and started the construction of a Buddhist Temple in Sanuki to plan for something further ahead.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3569&d=1328189286
Winter of 1546 came. The freed Sogo army managed to sabotage their old quarry in the province, and laid siege to their old castle. We would love to see them assaulting the castle, but they were smart enough not to do so. If we don't do anything about it for this winter, they will suffer attrition in the field. However, as soon as our Ninja wounded their second and last general, the time is ripe for a field battle. Why wait for the next season if we can beat them up this season?
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3570&d=1328189286
The Sogo army had quite a few units of Yari Ashigaru, with a fewer percentage of Bow Ashigaru. Our army has the opposite composition, but with two additional units of general and the 45 Samurai Retainers that volunteered to join the sally. These guys have a lot of brothers and cousins as replacement, so even if they end up all dead, we will not feel any pain.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3571&d=1328189286
The Sogo army, led by an inexperienced Ashigaru commander, was naive enough to march towards us. Maybe that's their honorable way to die under impossible odds? This gives us the pleasure to camp on the highest hill, with six units of Bow Ashigaru in loose formation of a little "[" shaped pocket, taking their best view of the field.
When the enemy approaches, my father and his general inspired two units of Bow Ashigaru. They and the remaining bowmen rained endless arrows on the enemy's head. The Sogo Yari Ashigaru tried to charge uphill, but they were soon stopped by our brave Samurai Retainer and Yari Ashigaru half way. They are arranged in a wide and thin formation so that they can stick with as many units as possible. All enemy units in contact of our melee will be unable to charge our archers, so that our archers can continue to harm them. They ended up sticking with five out of the six Sogo Yari Ashigaru units (the Samurai retainers only had 45 men, so they only managed to intercept one unit).
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3572&d=1328189286
The only Sogo Yari Ashigaru not entangled in melee rushed toward our archer on the left flank. That's why there are generals! My father bravely charged the flank of this unit. He could not remain a good formation since he had to run through the ranks of archers. His general also charged forward towards the Sogo's Bow Ashigaru.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3573&d=1328189286
In a short time, all of Sogo's Yari Ashigaru routed, followed by their Bow Ashigaru. The day is ours!
Thought #06. End Battle or Continue? I have heard a lot of recommendations of not ending a battle when the choice is presented in the first time, but manually chase down the routed soldiers. In fact, if you choose to End the Battle in the first opportunity given, you have a good chance to leave nobody alive. If you choose to Continue, you might not be able to hunt everybody down. Killing everybody might not be always desirable, because leaving weakened remnant army alive could provide another 15 EXP for the generals when there is no time pressure.
Indeed, we purposely let some very weak units escape, only to hunt them down immediately after. This enabled my father and his general to gain more experience. We have no time pressure at the moment, because our next opponent will be so powerful that we need one extra year of preparation.
This concludes Chapter 3 of the story. :bow:
Chapter 04. The showdown of Shigoku
In two years' time, we the Chosokabe clan was able to remove the minor factions of Shigoku. What remains is the Miyoshi clan, our loyal, friendly, and powerful trade partner. Miyoshi holds the provinces of Awa and Awaji, a little island connected by a narrow strait. Both Miyoshi's provinces offer something good - the war horses from Awa, and an additional harbor from Awaji. This will bring a total of our future trading ports to three, greatly increasing our sea trade income.
Declaring war on Miyoshi could create strategic difficulties, though. First, the clan starts with a foot hold in Honshu, the main island, so we will have difficulty eradicating them, and their large naval forces would threaten ours. Fortunately, at this time Miyoshi had already lost their Honshu province. As soon as we take over Shigoku, Miyoshi is forever gone.
The second problem is that Miyoshi is allied with the Bessho clan northeast of our Shigoku island. Declaring war on Miyoshi probably will make us the enemy of Bessho, which we will have to deal with later. Besides, the Bessho clan has other allies, so our trouble might grows larger and larger.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3582&d=1328235051
On the tactical side, Miyoshi does not have a weak army like Kono or Sogo. Since two years ago, they have been stock-piling units in Awa. While our total force at this moment consist of half a stack, the Miyoshi's force has reached a full stack of 20 units. We cannot beat them even if we exhaust our wits and less-honorable tricks. We must recruit more soldiers to bring the odds to our side.
Therefore, in the winter of 1546, my father returned to Tosa and Iyo to lead new recruits and old garrisons back to Sanuki. We aim for totally 10 units of Bow Ashigaru, 4 units of Yari Ashigaru, plus the starting 1 unit of Yari Samurai for the winter of 1547. That's not a full stack (20 units), but enough to give us a good chance to hurt Miyoshi's full stack plus whatever reinforcement they have.
Also, as the temple in Sanuki is completed, we hired a monk. He will assist in our struggle against the powerful Miyoshi.
In the meantime, we have sent out 4 units of Bow Kabuya to occupy as many trade nodes as we can. We ended up taking two out of the four western trade nodes. The other two was reserved by no other than Miyoshi. That means if we beat Miyoshi, we will have all of the four trade nodes west of Kyushu.
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Soon, our Ninja detected that Miyoshi was upgrading their Awa Fort to a Stronghold, which has arrow towers that can kill a lot of our men. Therefore, we must prevent the completion of their Stronghold. Fortunately, we can easily do that by Sabotaging their Castle Gate with our Ninja. I do not understand why they can't continue working on their Arrow Tower while only the gate is broken. :sweatdrop: Besides, each time we break the Gate, the work on the Stronghold would be delayed by two turns even though Miyoshi must have infinite funds to hire so many soldiers so quickly. As a result, we can easily keep Miyoshi's Stronghold one turn from completion, while in the meantime, some of Miyoshi's generals would suffer a bad, or something fatal diarrhea from drinking poisoned tea.
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We were ready for war by the winter of 1547! Miyoshi's defence had swelled to 25 units of soldiers. (Luckily, their generals are all lying in the hospital or cemetery.) There is no way to avoid a fierce siege battle. This is going to be our final exam of Siege 101: Attacking enemies in a Fort. We need to be able to predict Miyoshi's every move, and use various techniques to trick them to behave in the ways we desire.
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Stage 1: Deployment to lock in on wall defenders
Miyoshi is going to have reinforcements. We predicted that their reinforcement is going to come from the west side of the Awa castle, so we deployed everything to the west in order to kill each reinforcement as they enter the battlefield. This would happen later, as the defenders in the castle is already at full capacity. The reinforcement would only arrive if they started losing units.
By deploying everything on the west side of the castle, we attracted all Miyoshi's wall defending Bow Ashigaru to the west and south sides of the castle. (All Bow Ashigarus are pointed by arrows.) There are four units of them. They will not move away as long as our bulk army does not move too close to another side of the castle.
You must have observed that two additional units of Miyoshi Bow Ashigaru remain mobile in the castle. We need to take them out to create a safe shooting spot to the other defenders.
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Stage 2: Lure out the mobile shooters
Luring out the mobile shooters is easy. All we need to do is to initiate an archers' duel, and then pull back the duelling unit. The defenders will happily give chase and exit the castle. Soon, they will hope that they were smarter.
Since currently there are no wall defending shooters on the east side of the castle, we marched both generals, one Yari Samurai (in rare cases, Light Cavalry would come out of the castle), and one Bow Ashigaru unit all the way to the east side. Once we started the archer's duel, two Miyoshi Bow Ashigaru units joined the shoot-out.
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We quickly pulled back our Bow Ashigaru, and Miyoshi's two Bow Ashigaru units gave pursuit just as expected. Once they were sufficiently far away from the castle, our two generals charged them head-on. (Actually, we kind of screwed up on timing, so my father ended up charging both units before his aids came close. Luckily, no arrow found his face.) The Miyoshi men were quickly routed and hunted down.
By the way, when a castle-defending unit routed outside the castle, they will not attempt to flee back into the castle. Instead, they try to retreat to the edge of the battlefield.
Once an existing unit dies off or flees, the reinforcement will arrive.
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Stage 3: Dealing with the reinforcements
Miyoshi's reinforcement showed up on the side we expected, from the western edge of the battlefield. Thanks to our Monk, these soldiers have been contemplating about Zen, and doubts their meaning of life as a cannon-fodder Ashigaru. So we expect them to wave the white flag fairly quickly.
As the reinforcement appeared, my father quickly rushed back from the east to defend the path to the castle along with four units of Yari Ashigaru. Miyoshi's leading Light Cavalry was quickly routed when they ran into spears. Their Yari Ashigaru units suffered a similar fate, outnumbered, surrounded and destroyed in order.
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Then two units of Bow Ashigaru appeared. We pulled back our melee units, and used our own Bow Ashigaru to duel them. With height advantage and the daimyo's personal inspiration, we took very reasonable losses when the opponent ran for their lives.
However, since they routed quite quickly, they will remain active on the field after this battle, but probably won't have enough time to cause any problem.
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Stage 4: Targeting Practice
All reinforcement has been taken care of. We can focus on the defenders in the castle by shooting just outside the east wall, one Bow Ashigaru at a time. When one unit exhaust their ammunition, they walk back to join the rest of the army on the west side, while the next unit walks up. Our two generals take turn to inspire the shooters, making them think they are Bow Samurais.
Each unit kills more than 200 men, sometimes 300. We had 10 units of Bow Ashigaru. So we should have enough arrows to get them all.
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The targeting practices started with the closest wall-defending Bow Ashigaru. We were able to kill all but one man in the Bow Ashigaru unit defending the south wall. That lucky guy was hiding behind a pillar.
For safety, we next disabled the Light Cavalry units. The trick is to only shoot at most two volleys at a unit that has just become stationary (usually after the second volley, they will start running).
After about six units of Bow Ashigaru used up their arrows, the once heavily populated Awa castle has been littered with corpses. The remnants of the melee units are no longer any threat. But we still have not cause any damage to three units of wall defenders, who are on the other side of the wall and is out of range. They have to move for us to shoot.
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Stage 5: Reposition the wall defenders for elimination
We need to reposition the wall defenders so they actually enters our range. Ideally, they should face the south side, since the walls on the west and east sides of the castle are not very tall. We successfully tricked them to move when we relocated our idle army to the south side of the castle, close enough but still outside of their range.
Now both the west and east sides of the castle are safe for shooting. However, there too many wall defenders, so when they spread out, they were able to cover a little section of the west and east wall.
After some careful marching (actually not very careful, we lost about a dozen of men who accidentally walked into their bow Ashigaru's fire range), we were able to find a small area on the east wall for our Bow Ashigaru to shoot most of the wall defenders down. Some of them are untouchable due to distance and building protection.
We have to make them move again.
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So we moved all of our idle units back to the west side. The defenders follow. Now our shooters could use the south wall for some more easy kills.
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But some Bow Ashigaru are still sheltered by the gate house. The only side of the castle that does not have a gate house is the south side. Why not move them back? Their number has been cut down so much, so they will all fall into the range of our arrows.
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That's exactly what happened. Can't hide this time! All three wall defenders eliminated.
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The last Bow Ashigaru were targeted by an entire unit and had dozens of arrows going through his chest. Really poor guy.
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Oh here is a smart guy. Can you tell which one? He is the one hiding just under the little shrine. The battle ended before our Bow Ashigaru ran out of arrow, because they had to run inside the castle to get this smart guy.
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Finally, the battle is over. 2800 of Miyoshi's men lost their lives, but only slightly less than 200 Chosokabe men were killed. Apparently we passed the final exam of Siege 101! It is the power of knowledge and patience (this battle took a long, long time even on fast forward replay).
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Now Miyoshi's main army is destroyed in Awa. Just a tiny province remains. Shouldn't be any problem... Unfortunately, we have a situation here. Miyoshi's ship is parked on both sides of the narrow straight between Awa and Awaji, so our army cannot pass! All we could do was to quickly queue a Medium Bune from Tosa, and pull back the Bow Kabuya that we sent to explore along the east coast of Japan. Together they should be able to get rid of the two Bow Kabuya.
Strangely, Miyoshi voluntarily moved away both ships in the following two seasons. In the spring of 1948, the second and last ship moved away to attack our Bow Kabuya returning from the east. We had no intention to fight, so we just dragged them in large circles to end this meaningless encounter.
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Exploit #06: Battle Timer. A Legendary world does not prevent us from changing the time limit of battles. For small-scale defensive naval battles that we wish to avoid, simply change the battle timer to 20 minutes, and run in great circles on the map. The enemy also does not seem to use the "Battle Speed" ability. So we can even slowly increase our lead off the enemy ship.
By the way, a similar exploit can be used to win siege battles - by laying a siege with just one general unit. Every time the defenders sally, just circle the battlefield while the enemy cannot catch up. After 3-4 fights, the castle defenders will starve out. This works against an all-infantry army. If the enemy has cavalry, though, they might be able to catch up our general when the battle timer is almost up. Maltz-san tried that to the Miyoshi's Awa garrison and his general died miserably at the end. :sweatdrop:
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With the Miyoshi navy gone, our army in Awa quickly laid siege to Awaji and stormed the castle. I am unclear about the details of the battle (auto-resolve), but I do know that we only lost 70 men to kill all of their 700 plus. That's really good.
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My father became a really experienced army commander after this battle, so he picked up the ability Stand and Fight, which provides a huge boost to nearby units. He also learned to become more honorable such as by swearing less often, so the other clans will show him more respect.
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My father was also able to hire a second retainer. After numerous interviews (which is why the siege of Awaji is auto-resolved), he picked up a... sword as his second retainer. The Sword of Amaterasu, the Okami! (Echo: Okami! Okami! Okami...)
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News travels quickly. The Emperor in Kyoto has noted our successful conquest of Shigoku. What lies ahead? Only one thing is certain - we will be facing tougher and tougher challenges.
That concludes Chapter 4 of our story. :bow:
Chapter 05. Good things happen
Welcome back, wise Daimyos.
Notice: It seems that our chapters are getting long, that even the first page of thie war story stretches from the front gate to the out house. Many of you could experience slow load time. Therefore, we are going to have one picture per entry until we get to the next page.
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It is the year of Nanban's Lord, autumn 1548. A great harvest arrived, and we decided to stockpile the food so we could have 4 seasons of 5 food surplus. This would translate to +20 growth in the castle town's commerce. At 20-30% of tax and 5 provinces, this means 25 extra koku per season to the end of the campaign. Not so much, but good to have in mind.
Note: Events like these (great harvest, Nanban trade port, etc.) are random. But if this season's auto-save file is loaded, the event is forever lost as if it never happened. The closest solution is to initiate some kind of battle in the turn in order to have a new save that perserves the good event. On the bright side, if we get bad news, it can be easily fixed, too.
We the Chosokabe clan gained controlled of all Shigoku. But in order to compete with other clans of Nihon (Japan), we still have a lot to do.
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Thoughts #06: One enemy at a time
Nihon's #1 "Daimyo" magazine published its latest military power ranking of all clans. Our clan unfortunately ranks very poorly, down to the Weak category, although our economic power is ranked in as Moderate. Therefore, we score quite high on the fat meat index.
Aggressive and ambitious clans would think that Chosokabe is a loose passive fish and declare war on us as soon as they run out of enemies. But in fact, we probably will stay high on the "fat meat" index forever, since we are the only clan in Nihon that does not print its own money and recruit self-replicating soldiers.
We have to be careful not to make multiple enemies, or we will be overwhelmed by their wealth and number. Therefore, the hostility of the Bessho clan, who honorably joined Miyoshi's side against us, must be discharged before we find another enemy to fight.
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Thoughts #07: Cheap Marriage
After Bessho succumbs to our power, our next target of conquest could be Kyushu, literally the nine provinces in the western island, for its isolation and vincinity to our successfully reserved trade nodes. Currently, Kyushu is divided among three clans. The two clans in the north, Shoni and Sagara, are allies. Shoni in addition is allied to Ouchi on the west end of Honshu the main island. Sagara has converted to the religion of the southern barbarian (Nanban). We call them barbarian because their chests are so hairy. The third clan Kyushu clan is Ito to the south, which has no allies.
Attacking Shoni or Sagara will make us enemies of multiple clans. In order to make a successful invasion on Kyushu, Ito would be the best target. Then we can slowly work on the rest.
Shoni is now surrounded by allies, so they must be looking for somewhere to expand. Maltz-san recalled that in his last attempt of this world, Shoni declared war on us Chosokabe despite being a trade partner with us. :dizzy2: If this happens again, we will be in deep trouble. So we must do something to prevent it.
One of the ways to befriend Shoni is to propose a marriage between the two clans. Both clans have unmarried daughters. Why waste me if they have a daughter, too? Plus I do not wish to marry to somebody who is going to die in a few years. At least let me finish narrating Chapter 10.
In this Honor-bound world, Daimyos do not cherish their daughters and can sink the virtue-less ones into the bottom of Nihon Sea at any time. In fact, the Shoni clan agreed to marry his daughter to our clan - strangely, to whom we do not know - for merely 50 koku. You have a deal! I really feel sorry for her.
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Now that we have friendly clan to our side. Let's look at Shoni's diplomatic relations. It seems that Shoni has just gained a new enemy - the Mori clan to the east, whom we have not met. This is great, so we know that now Shoni's armies will be directed to Mori.
Thoughts #08: Imbalanced Trade
We would like to have a stronger army, but we need to find more income. Our first Trading Port is completed, in Tosa, in the winter of 1548. We are ready to sign our first sea trade agreement. Since our clan now has three exportable resources: horses, stone, and wood, it will be a little hard for us to find comparable trading partners.
Many daimyos wonder why the larger clans have to pay the smaller clans to trade. Well, trade treaties in this world is more like free trade treaties - once it is signed, we can sell as many products as possible. If I can use an analogy 460 years later, we will be like the United States of America pushing for Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership, or TPP, among smaller countries in the region, so that we can export a lot of products to them for great profit. The smaller countries's smaller local industries could be overwhelmed and die off, so they might not be really better off. So in thesee treaties we might need to compensate them a little, so everybody is benefited.
But of course the United States can always make up dishonorable excuses like weapon of mass destruction or nuclear threats to invade those who does not obey. Unfortunately, we are not powerful enough to threat smaller clans to trade with us. I am not sure whether it will work at all.
Interestingly, in this world, the profit of trade outweighs the income of actually occupying those lands. This is probably because people only use 30% of their income to pay tax, but use 70% of their income to buy things - hopefully they like to choose our Chosokabe products.
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Our new best friend Shoni asks for 2500 koku to sign a trade agreement with us. that's a little too much. They must be one of those bastards who charge more to their friends and relatives. After some shopping around, we go to the Imagawa clan, who only demands 1100 koku. This clan has stable alliance with its neighbors, so it is unlikely that our trade partnership will end any time soon. Our trade with Imagawa turns a profit of almost 300 koku. Why not 493 koku, as shown in the picture? If we don't trade with them, the unsold products is sold for 190 koku, so the net profit is 490-190 = 300 koku. In any case, this is a great deal, as we will start earning a good profit a year later.
Exploit #07. Cheaper Counter-offers
Negotiating clans tend to lower their requirement in a counter-offer, sometimes even making it lower than your initial offer. For example, when we offered to pay Imagawa 300 koku for 5 turns, for a total of 1500 koku, Imagawa said "1100 koku cash at once". Perhaps these clans cherish cash a lot more than per turn income.
Looking back, it might be a better idea to build the trading port earlier and look for a trade partner when they would sign the treaty for free. But we did not have enough koku to invest in ports at that time.
Thoughts #09: Markets and Metsuke
A conventional way to make money is to build economic infrastructures such as Farms and Markets. At this moment, all of our Farms have been upgraded as much as possible, but we only queued one Market. Market increases town growth by about 4 per turn (which translate to 1 extra koku income this turn, 2 extra next turn... so after 10 turns it is extra 55 koku, after 100 turns it is extra 5001 koku), and allows us to hire Metsuke. These secret polices can supervise castle towns and cut down corruption. They are both good investments to be made early.
Thoughts #10: Profit from War?
The fastest way to make a lot of money is actually to have war aimed not to destroy enemies, but to cripple them to extract maximum profit from Peace Treaty, and selling military accesses to any temporary new neighbors (we will then abandon unwanted provinces to rebels). Since the other clans are all so rich, we will be able to get a huge income from it, which can be used to upgrade our infrastructures. We have a perfect candidate for that - the Bessho clan.
Let the battles resume! :bow:
We cannot find a battle blind-folded. Our Ninja and Monk, who excellently disguised as, respectively a Monk and a Ninja :dizzy2:, crossed the Seto Inland Sea. They reported Bessho has one and half stacks of army, and three units of navy - two Trade Ship in a trading port, and one Medium Bune patrolling th shore. If we want to make a perfect landing with our fleet intact, we have to take care of Bessho's navy first. So we queued a new Bow Kabuya in Awaji. By winter 1548, we are ready to take on to Bessho navy!
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Each side has three ships. The main ship from both sides are both a medium bune. But we hold a very good advantage - the enemy's reinforcement appears in the back. So we can quickly take care of their Medium Bune, then come back to handle the trade ships.
We let my father's trusted general to lead this Naval battle. The Bessho Medium Bune bravely rowed toward us. We surrounded it with our Medium Bune and two Bow Kabuya. They suffered heavy losses by the arrows, and our Medium Bune's War Cry was just in time for the melee stage.
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Our men bravely defeated the Bessho sailors and captured their main ship! We also managed to capture their two trade ships, but they mysteriously ran away. Must be a feature.
Exploit #08: Agreesive AI in Naval Battle
On the sea, the opponent always row all ships toward us as soon as the battle begins. Since they are so predictable, we can deploy accordingly to maximize our advantage. For example, we can easily lure the enemy into the down-wind. In this battle, if we deploy to the far south of the sea, we allow ourselves even more time between the first encounter and the second, making it possible to use War Cry on both melee stages.
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Now the Bessho navy is defeated, we can decide when and shere to ship our units. The more powerful Besso army is to the west, while anbther half stack guards a bridge in the east. If these two stacks do not attack us together on the field, we should be able to take care of each one easily, especially if they are stupid enough to hide in a castle - both are just basic Forts. We killed 2800 Miyoshi men in a fort. So seeing enemies in a Fort is a great news.
In the next seaon, the more powerful Bessho army moved toward the west. We were very surprised to learn that Bessho has just broke into war with their powerful neighbor in the west. This creates a perfect oppurtunity for our landing, which takes place in the eastern province, Settsu.
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Before we move our land army, we capture their escaped trade ships. We reserved four trade nodes, but we have just one Trade Ship so far! Medium Bune is really excellent at capturing these weak ships.
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Now we have a great oppurtunity to cause extreme damage to Bessho. Both of their castles are conquerable - they are so close together we can take them both out in the same season. Is this what we want?
Our original plan is to beat them up so badly that they will sign a peace treaty that ships us thousands of koku. But since Bessho's full stack is away fighting their neighbor, we might not be able to overpower them militarily unless their full-stack is somehow defeated. Or we can simply wipe out Bessho and take their two provinces, both have Trading Ports. That will bring us lots of trading profit. But it might make us additional enemies later, and we will have to get some garrison here.
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To trading profit, it is! We decide to wipe out Bessho and make use of two additioanl trading ports. Maybe later on we will need to give up these two provinces, but at least for now we can enjoy it.
The first province to take is Harima, which has no garrison at all. This battle was over before I finished my tea break.
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In fact, the sequence of conquest matters a lot here. This is because that Bessho's full stack is still within the border of Harima. If we leave Harima the second and last province of Bessho, that full stack will remain there and we will have to fight it later. However, if we take Harima first, by the time we take the second province Settsu, that full stack will be regarded as outside their border, and will vanish forever.
Exploit #09: Vanishing Remnants
When we take the last province of a faction, if its remaining units are out of the border of this last province, it will disappear for good. It might be a good idea to purpose leave alone an enemy's defenseless province to be the last one to conquer.
Important Announcement
Welcome back, honorable daimyos.
While we successfully eliminated the Bessho clan and grabbed two new trade ports, we found a serious oversight in this world's rules. While we expect to trade with two additional clans with newly acquired ports, and to the newly found neighbors such as the Ashikaga shogun, but the somehow our sailors are unable to move any goods from Shigoku to the main island Honshu, as any good that entered the sea mysteriously sink to the bottom of the ocean.
After some research, we now understand a strange rule of the world - a clan can only trade from ports that has a LAND ROUTE connecting to its capital. Japan has one large land route system that includes the main island Honshu and the western island Kyushu. Shigoku, unfortunately, does not share any land route connection with the rest of Japan.
Essentially, we Chosokabe are limited to a MAXIMUM of 3 trade ports (Tosa, Iyo, Awaji) for the entire campaign, while other daimyos can have dozens. Any trade port we control on the main island is completely useless. Any provinces that we own on the main island cannot trade with its neighbors.
This is terrible.
There are a few possible solutions to this problem:
(1) Enable intra-clan sea route connections. We can add the rule that ports connected by a sea route to the capital can also function as trade ports. We ship goods to other clans' ports anyway, so why can't we ship goods within our own ports?
(2) Add a land route connection between Awaji and Settsu.. The narrowest strait between them are less than 4 kilometers apart. A few hundred years later there will be a bridge above it. It would be stupid if the rest of Japan are all connected by land routes, but Shigoku is excluded from this system.
(3) Enable clans to move capital. Oda Nobunaga moved his capital from Kiyosu Castle (Owari) to Gifu Castle (Mino). Toyotomi Hediyoshi built and moved into Osaka Castle. And he ordered Tokugawa Ieyasu to move to Tokyo. So why can't we move our capital because we found a better strategic location? However, this does not fix the fact that anybody else who conqueres Shigoku and Sado will find no new trade possibility.
The above three solutions require modifying the world, which we have no ability to. Maybe someone with extensive skills and knowledge can help us. In the meantime, we must work out some alternatives based on the current world's rules:
(4) Intentionally lose Tosa. When the original capital is lost to another clan or rebels, a new capital is then randomly chosen among provinces that have the most advanced castle. So we still have some degree over where our new capital will be - as long as it is not on Shigoku.
(5) Bite the tongue. We endure and work with extremely limited trade ports throughout the campaign. We might need to travel back in time and do something different in order to maximize our very limited trade income. For example, conquering Sogo in Sanuki would be a net loss to our income, since there is no port in the province, and therefore they will serve us better buying our products. Conquering Miyoshi is trade-neutral, as Awaji has a port. So the net gain is two additional provinces to collect tax and the warhorse resource.
After some extensive deliberation, we decide to have a combination of (4) and (5). We will not relocate at the very beginning, but actively plan for the move. We also updated the world to its latest version, with various added content. It is still a new world to be discovered.
Book 2: Prophecy Exodus
Chapter 06. New strategy
Welcome back, daimyos.
As mentioned in the previous annoucement, we planned to restart our campaign due to a serious oversight of this world - our trade routes are limited to the land routes provided on the Shigoku island, unless we purposely give up Tosa. We also updated the world to its latest state with various additional contents such as the Ikko-Ikki pack and the Blood pack.
Before we go further, let's compare what's the major differences in the updated Sengoku Jidai.
(1) My name is 7. The makers of the world probably have found out that my old name actually belongs to my unborn younger brother, the one after Motochika. So they did the right thing to gave me a new name, Nana, which conincidently means SEVEN in Japanese.
(2) Many errors fixed. Many retainers' bonus, such as +10 diplomatic relationship, now correctly applies. Sadly, my father's old favorite Chinese Courtier has been nerfed to +5 diplomatic relationship and no honor bonus, so we consider to hire someone else.
(3) Arrows are less deadly. What can be killed off by 3 volleys of arrows now might require 5, probably also resulted from a weakend general's inspiration. This is a major hit to our clan's power, as we rely heavily on archery. But it can work in our favor, too. We will suffer less casualty in field battles against an opponent that uses a lot of archers.
(4) Defenders are smarter in castle, but more stupid on the field. Some old tricks in castle assault, such as drawing out individual units with archer duels, frequently fail. However, opponent actually becomes more susceptible to this trick in field battles, where individual units charge into us when provoked.
(5) No easy heroic victory. It is now a little harder to be an honorable daimyo. Battles, if not won by a landslide in extraordinarily disadvantaged circumstances, will not be count as Heroic Victory. But... there are loopholes. We can put the Daimyo on a Bow Kabuya to draw attack from any enemy. Run circle in the water for 20 minutes. Heroic Victory!
(6) 1000 extra starting koku. We used to start with just 2000 koku in treasury. But now we have 3000 koku at the beginning.
There must be other changes, but I cannot recall them at this time. Let's continue the story first.
So what's our new strategy here? We want to maximize our trade partners before we move the capital away from Shigoku. When our capital is located on Shigoku, we can have up to 4 trade partners. There are two ways to achieve that:
(1) Three sea trade (eliminate Kono and Miyoshi) and one land route.
(2) Two sea trade (eliminate Kono) and two land route.
The difference is about whether to defeat Miyoshi, our starting trade partner. Taking over Miyoshi gives us two more provinces, but it will make us one additional enemy - the Bessho clan, which we now have absolutely no interest in taking any time soon. Their lands have too many neighbors. On the other hand, sea trade is more valuable than land trade, since we can purposely pick trade partners who have more provinces and hence larger markets for our products.
But keeping good terms with Miyoshi allows us to sell Military Access to them, which provides a huge initial boost in treasury at about 5000 koku, and roughly 200 koku per turn after that. This income boost will certainly give us enough power surge to take over some juicy opponents. Who should we pick on?
frogbeastegg
02-08-2012, 16:47
I'm pleased to see that you continued with your quest for a legendary Chosokabe victory. :bow:
If this is your first time playing with the Ikko-Ikki pack installed might I suggest that when convenient you attempt to keep a line of sight on central Japan? The tweaks to I-I religion make central Japan a real hotbed, with clans rising and falling and rebellions all over the place. It's fascinating to watch and sometimes there are opportunities for a sharp daimyo to take advantage of.
Thanks, Frogbeastegg! So Shinto-Buddhism's monks will stir rebellions just like missionaries? :laugh4:
Ichijo Rebel - Spring 1545
The first battle against the leftover of Ichijo clan looks largely the same. We approached the battle by marching toward them head-on on the plain. The Ichijo army, however, reacted more quickly than before as they rushed for the hill before we got any close. Our archers failed to lure any of their units forward.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3706&d=1328736805
But they are not smart after that. When we marched one general close, one Yari Ashigaru unit charged down hill, and chased the general all the way into our trap.
We then drew another Yari Ashigaru unit with our archers by engaging in an unproductive archer duel in the forest. When no more Yari Ashigaru can be lured down, we dueled the archers on the open and won with general's inspiration and superior accuracy of Chosokabe.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3707&d=1328736805
When Ichijo is left with just two units (Yari Samurai and Yari Cavalry), they honorably charged down hill into our spears. We won an even better victory compared to last time, losing less than 10% of our men. Certainly we will recover to full strength before the next battle.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3708&d=1328736809
New Retainers
It is interview time again. After screening hundreds of candiates, my father picked up an old man who trains my father to act in (+1) more honorable ways. His general, whose new look resembles a ramen noodle cook, picked up +10% accuracy for all infantry bow units. The ramen general would be great for castle fights, while my father's morale boost is better for field battles.
Selling Military Access
We sold 5 turns of military access to Miyoshi in spring, followed by 10 turns in summer, and 20 turns in autumn, for a total of almost 6000 koku. Why would Miyoshi want our military access so badly?
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3712&d=1328736809
Maybe they want a guarantee of peace from us, as if we attack them when they have our military access, the entire Japan will look down on us for some reason. But in the end, we also want to keep them alive so we can continuly sell our yearly tickets to them. They want peace so they pay. We want them to pay so we keep peace. Everyone is happy!
Kono Castle - Fall 1545
Same as before, we took Kono clan's castle in the fall of 1945. The fight happened in pretty much the same way as before. The Kono army had only one unit of Bow Ashigaru, which defends whichever wall we ask it to. This makes them very good stationary targets for our Bow Ashigaru.
We also discovered a new little trick for the final castle storming. Right after we entered the castle, we can arrange Yari Ashigaru in spear wall formation, the enemy defenders will bravely chrage toward us and die horribly (and honorably). Perhaps the door to the central keep is locked so they can't get in there to commit Seppoku in the final moment.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3709&d=1328736809
The battle ended with three of our Yari Ashigaru twisted their arms. :sweatdrop:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3710&d=1328736816
Note: Kono is very lame for an starting enemy. In a previous parallel world, we abandoned Tosa at the very beginning, thinking that Kono would quickly take over Tosa and help us relocate our capital. But they never came year after year.
Military Access to Sogo
Starting in Fall 1545, we sold military access to Sogo clan. With all these hot sales of advanced door tickets, we could update the infrastructures of both Iyo and Tosa, especially on farms and trading ports.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3711&d=1328736816
Although we plant to lose these provinces later later, we will still be making good profits with them before that day arrives.
Note: A clan at war will attempt to make landings on undefended territory. So it will be important to have a strong navy to intercept any such attempt.
Looking for a sea trade partner
Our trading port in Tosa is completed. Who should be our first trading partner? We decided to pick Mori, since they were doing pretty well at the time. And they only charged a minor signing fee.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3714&d=1328736831
Our decision to go with Mori soon turned into a disaster as they were quickly eliminated in the coming few seasons...
By the Fall of 1546, we have done all the preparation necessary for the next phase of our campaign. Where are we going next?
This concludes Chapter 6 of our story. :bow:
Chapter 07. Great Leap to Richness
Planning for Exodus
We now have a full-stack army and two Ninja. Situation on Shigoku is very stable, as we have two peaceful trading partners who even do not fight each other. (They did this on us in a previous parallel universe. But at that time we were not smart enough to relocate...)
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3715&d=1328736833
Thoughts #11. 1 Very Fertile Province = 3 Average Provinces
So where shall we go? If we look for tragedy, we could relocate to central Japan. But if we look for prosperity, we should find rich and weak "fat meat" candidates nearby. Northern Kyushu has three very fertile provinces, Hizen, Higo, and Tsukushi, all concentrated in a small area. At 30% tax rate, these three provinces will give us 2500 koku per season. This would be an excellent place to setup our second home.
We are ready to move! How long will it take to reach Northern Kyushu? Probably a year and half if we simply broad a bow kabuya and sail and sail and sail. How does a bow kabuya hold 2000+ men? Maybe most had to swim behind.
Exploit #10: Ship Relay Transport Chain
The details are explained here (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?139936-Tip-Sea-transport-relay-chain). In short, if we have a series of ships spaced within one season's travelling distance, we can instantly ship units and agents to the other end within the same season. A little like Chinese checker.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3716&d=1328736833
For example, we already have the second Bow Kabuya waiting on the eastern coast of Kyushu, so it will take all passengers on the first Bow Kabuya.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3717&d=1328736833
Of course we already have the next ship waiting for us further south, so the relay continues. We decided to take the southern route to reach northern Kyushu so we can reserve one of the incense nodes before Otomo and Miyoshi makes their own reservations.
After two more relay points, this is what we achieved in one single season of autumn, 1546. We started in Iyo and ended at the other side of Kyushu! We could have invaded Shimazu, but their lands are just average.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3718&d=1328736833
We ran out of ships at this point, or else we could simply make the landing here. The invasion will formally launch in the spring of 1547.
But declaring war is not the first step of war. We have lots of preparations to do. First, we assigned a new duty for my father's ramen noodle general. Since we won't hire a lot of new units for a while, he can save us more money as a Commissioner for Development
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3719&d=1328736833
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3720&d=1328736833
We have sent a Bow Kabyua to explore east at the same time. This gives us the oppurtunity to set up sea trades with distant but powerful Daimyos. Oda, who miraculous survived up to this point, would continue to thrive and would form a very profitable trading relationship with us.
Diplomatic Effort
The Shoni clan holds northern Kyushu's richness. Shoni is unfortunately a difficult opponent to take on, as Shoni starts out with multiple allies close by - Sagara clan to the south and Ouchi clan to the east. Both Shoni and Ouchi has powerful navies. Sagara clan has a powerful land army measured at one full stack and half. At this time, Sagara is also allied with the Ito clan to the south, which had successfully eliminated Shimazu. So essentially we might become the enemy of all Kyushu (Shoni, Sagara, Ito) plus the rest of Chugoku (Ouchi) if we simply declare war on Shoni and fight.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3721&d=1328736833
Let's see if we can somehow isolate Shoni through diplomacy. After some probing, we found that the Ouchi clan in the east is interested in forming a military alliance with we Chosokabe AND abandon their alliance with the Shoni clan, IF we are willing to send my first younger brother, Motochica, to them as a hostage for two years.
That's a great deal. We have no intention to fight Ouchi any time soon, so my brother is likely to return unharmed... physically, at least. We will just make up an excuse to tell him that the Ouchi clan has better schools so he will go as an exchange student. Now we have successfully elminated Ouchi as Shoni's help on the sea and possibly their surprise landing on Shigoku (it actually happened in a parallel universe in the past).
Unfortunately, Ouchi refused to break up trades with Shoni. So they might not fight each other any time soon. But in return they agree to cover our boat tickets of 50 koku.
Note: Past allies have a tendency to restablish their alliance quickly, so we had to make this Ouchi deal moment before we decalred war on Shoni, to make it impossible for Ouchi to restore its alliance with Shoni again (as their current ally, Chosokabe, is at war with Shoni).
Exploit #11: Hostages are powerful diplomatic chips
While daimyos' daughters are sold for just 50 koku, boy hostages are much cuter not just to Catholic missionaries. Whenever a clan has a male child, letting somebody else babysit them for two years might complete a highly unlikely diplomatic arrangement. However, if war breaks out within the following two years between these two clans, the hostage will be executed.
We also found out that Ito clan has an unmarried daughter. Why not becoming in-law relatives iwth them? If we make friends with Ito, they are less likely to join our inevitable war against Sagara, their ally.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3722&d=1328736833
Now have have narrowed our enemies to just Shoni and Sagara. If we ship a full-stack army to Kyushu, we have a great chance to utilize their respective predictable behavior and take them down one after the other.
And then we can have a second sea trade partner. We ended up picking the Kikkawa clan, which defeated Mori and spoiled our trade agreement with them.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3723&d=1328736833
The Kikkawa clan has emerged as a formidable power in the Chukoku region (that narrow land strip above Shigoku). With our alliance with Ouchi and trade with Kikkawa, it is unlikely that we will receive any additional problems while we focus on Kyushu.
This concludes Chapter 7 of our story. :bow:
Chapter 08. Shoni, the fat meat
Spring 1547 - our army landed on the shore of Hizen! There was no resistance sighted. We were able to easily take the castle in the summer.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3724&d=1328736833
This province is so well-sheltered and so close to trade nodes (we successfully reserved 3!). No wonder so many people recommend to move here no matter who you are. :rolleyes:
Note: There will be a problem with Wako Pirates getting stuck below Hizen's port, making its trade ships unable to sail out. But there is a bright side of that problem. We will discuss it later.
There was still no sight of Shoni's coutnerattack. So we marched on and invaded Tsukushi in the next season. This castle is a basic Fort and has no ranged defenders at all, so we saw 11 units of Bow Ashigaru making porcupine of those poor 45 Samurai Retainers.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3725&d=1328736833
The Sagara clan soon marched a powerful army to the border. At the same time, our Ninja successfully sabotaged their castle gates. The Sagara stack promptly returned to garrison the castle. Perhaps they thought some consealed army is going to steal their castle when they are away? We can't afford that. :sweatdrop:
Seeing that Sagara's army retreated, we decided to push further east to take the third province from Shoni, Buzen. The castle there is a stronghold, but does not have a lot of defenders. We easily siezed it without full stack (auto-combat). Buzen's craftsmen enable us to train more accurate bow units. A very important province for Chosokabe! Shoni's main army is probably further south of Buzen, as they just wiped out the Otomo clan in Bungo.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3726&d=1328736833
Now we are neighbors with the Ouchi clan. We are unable to do land trade with them because our capital is in Shigoku. However, we can sell military access to them. They are our allies, so we don't plan to attack them anytime soon. Besides, if they join our war against Shoni, they might gain automatic military access from us. So better take their money when we can!
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3727&d=1328736833
In the winter of 1547, we have the oppurtunity to hire an additional general. Our trade ships have been hunted badly by Shoni's navy. Maybe it is a good idea to train a naval general. He also takes up the job as the Finance Commissioner, although we doubt he had any experience stimulating the economy. :sweatdrop:
The Sagara army came back in the winter, with thier one full stack and half of army parked right between Hizen and Tsukushi. Also came uninvited was one full stack of Ouchi units just within our border. Are they here to help us, or fight us?
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3728&d=1328736833
Let's assume that the Ouchi daimyo still cherishes his reputation. So he is here to help us. This means that we now have a good barrier between Buzen, our newest acquisition, and Shoni's last province, Bungo.
The bulk of our army is in Buzen, one and half season away from Sagara's army. Sure, we could sabotage their castle again to see if they would return to defend against ghosts, but isn't this a good oppurtunity, since we don't have to worry about Shoni too much for now, to get rid of Sagara once and forever? We have our two Ninja around, and Ouchi has pre-paid their advanced door tickets...
Let's fight Sagara's full stack! It is not that full anymore, for they already suffered from attrition in the winter. My father sent his ramen cook general to defend Buzen with about 1/3 of the stack, and called up new recruits from the other two provinces. He has with 19 units. The advantage is on our side!
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3729&d=1328736833
The battle begins! Strangely, the Sagara army actively came to us, although they could camp on a tree-filled hill. Their arrogance will spell their doom.
We first considered deploying on the tall mountain just behind us, but there were too many small obstacles for a full-stack army to properly form a line. So we opt for a tiny hill to the west. We used most of the Yari Ashigaru to make a thin spear wall in front of the loosely formed sea of Bow Ashigaru.
There were three mobile Yari units as reserves, in additional to my father's unit. Experience shows that the opponent sometimes try to flank us with cavalry. So we should be fully prepared for that.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3733&d=1328763308
The enemy quickly approached us and started a duel between the Bow Ashigaru. Since we had superior numbers and quality of bows, we were winning the duel. The Sagara general lost patience and ordered all of his men to charge forward - up the slope, toward our spear wall.
Here comes the charge! They did not even bother for flanking manuever, probably because they saw our reserves waiting for them to try.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3734&d=1328763308
Good luck breaking the spear walls before getting pinned to the ground! :sweatdrop:
One of their Light Cavalry did try to flank, but it was greeted by two blood-thirsty spear units. Our spear wall held extremely well. It didn't take long before Sagara's generals were killed by the spears.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3735&d=1328763308
My father ordered a counter-charge of our Yari Ashigaru toward their Bow Ashigaru. That was the last straw on their morale!
A decisive victory! We lost 1/3 of our men, but Sagara had 2 men left standing.
As our archers had to fight into heated melee just in front of them, friendly fire was unavoidable but surprisingly few (16). Sagara also had 8 friendly-fire casualties.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3736&d=1328763308
Now that Sagara's main army is defeated and dissolved on the spot. The remaining half-stack is not going to stop us from taking Higo in the next season. But just to be safe, we sabotaged their castle again so they won't be training any new units.
Exploit #12: Easily paralyzed castle
Ninjas have an easier time opening castle gates compared to other missions, and they only charge a minimal fee like 100 koku. This actually counts as a damage on the castle, which is unable to recruit until the castle is repaired. Opening castle gate is a cheap and effective way to paralyze enemy's unit replenishment, which can be quite crazy on Legendary difficulty. Also, as shown above, the AI tend to return to the castle to defend when the gate is sabotaged. This could be useful to delay an invasion.
Our great battle with Sagara, although only a Decisive Victory, earned a landmark on the spot, and the Emperor in Kyoto was impresed by our progress. Indeed, the Shoni clan is such a fat meat that so far we have not met any meaningful resistance.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3737&d=1328763308
The only big battle we have to fight is against its small one-province ally. Not with very small army, though.
From the picture above you can see an annoying Metsuke from the Shoni clan. Our ninja, who has gained significant experience from Sabotage missions, met him in his sleep easily. :smash:
This concludes Chapter 8 of our story. :bow:
Chapter 09. The last stuck samurai
Welcome back, wise daimyos.
Our conquest of the rich lands in Kyushu continues. In the autumn of 1548, we received mercahnts' request to look for trade opportunities in far-away lands. If we are not capped by 4 trade routes, maybe this is a good idea... :furious3:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3738&d=1328763322
But we ask them to improve our domestic markets, which gives more town growth and income in the long run.
My father's 2/3 full stack marched to Higo and laid siege on the castle, defended by half a stack of nothing but archers. It would be a pain to watch the endless archer duels, so let's just skip the details (auto-resolve) and say that we won.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3739&d=1328763322
It is still possible to win with less loss, but it will take a lot of time to watch. Since we are in no hurry to fight the next battle (the Ito clan has a marriage relationship with us), we can afford to wait a few turns for the units to replenish to full strength.
Now Sagara is gone, all that's left is Bungo's Shoni, which still has some considerable military strength. It seems that they have given up the idea of attacking Buzen after Ouchi landed their full stack on the beach. Ouchi has severed its trade relationship with Shoni after we setup a temporary blockade on Bungo's port, but has not declared war on them yet.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3740&d=1328763327
When Shoni's main navy returned to Bungo, we found out Shoni has boarded a 4/5 stack army on the fleet. There are quite some Bow Samurai in there. Are they thinking about landing in Shigoku?
That is actually a very good news for us, because this will leave Bungo relatively defenceless. At this time our ramen cook general in Buzen has accumulated a small army with 5 units of Bow and 3 units of Yari Ashigaru. It may be possible for him to steal Bungo from somewhat weak defenders. If we take the Bungo castle, Shoni's navy and its passengers will forever vanish on the sea. :happy2:
We hide the ramen general and his force in the forest just north of Bungo, so we may get a chance to put an end to Shoni in the winter. We again sabotaged the Bungo castle so they can't hire new units. Why is that our ninja always succeed? Because there is a castle siege happening in the same season. :cool3: Maybe later we should purposely keep an useless inland province rebel.
In addition, just for experiment, we "blocked" Shoni's fleet with one single bow kabyua, led by our third general (the finance commissioner), in the expectation that Shoni's fleet will certainly attempt to attack it and lost to the 20-minute timer. The Shoni's fleet will have nowhere to retreat. Will it sink to the bottom of the ocean? We will have to find out.
If we can defeat Shoni, all that's left in Kyushu is the Ito clan. But we decided to sell them advanced door tickets as well.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3741&d=1328763327
How come?
First, we need time to consolidate our new domains. Buzen and Bungo will have a huge Christian population that needs to be converted back to Shinto Buddism.
Thoughts #12: Converting to Chrstianity?
Now religious difference incur a terrible diplomatic penalty of -40. I do not see how any diplomatically conscious daimyo would commit such a political suicide. The best benefits of converting to Chrstianity are (1) invincible navy and (2) very effective agents for inciting rebellion.
(1) Navy is not a big problem if we are rich enough to afford enough traditional navy. We now have three very rich provinces and 3 trade nodes, so it is just a problem of time before we can amass a powerful full-stack fleet. Before we have this powerful navy, we can almost always repel attacks with one single Bow Kabuya. In fact, we have been doing that outside of Hizen's port against Wako pirate for a year.
(2) Inciting rebellion is simply a factor of luck, which will be easily on our side if we leave one province with rebels and constantly lay siege on it. Or we can try the slower method of trial and error to figure out the correct sequence of movement of units in order to make all agents successful or surviving failure.
So converting to Christianity isn't really a good idea, at least when we play dishonorably. :sweatdrop:
Another important reason to temporarily slow down our expansion is the timing of relocation.
Thoughts #13: When to announce the move
We have full freedom to decide when to move. All we need is to raise tax for two seasons for peasant rebels to march to Tosa.
In the meantime, we will need enough garrison in Kyushu to keep the population happy in the three very fertile provinces (we can exempt the taxes from the other provinces if there is not enough garrison) so we have enough income to support the clan.
The five northern Kyushu provinces has 4 sea trade routes (2 Trading ports, 1 Nanban port), plus whatever land-route trade partners we have. So there is no net loss of trade. But before the move we can use Tosa's port to build more cheaper trade ships. Besides, Tosa has a Buddhist temple. Before we have five monks out in the field, we should keep the province so we don't have to build additional temples. Then we can demolish it to make a market so we can support 5 Metsuke a little sooner as well. Hm, maybe followed by Sake Den so we also get 5 Ninja and just get this agent building thing over with.
So it takes about two more years until the move, and we need some army in the north to garrison the three rich provinces.
Past experience shows that Iyo is a popular candidate of the new capital once Tosa is lost, so we should consider giving up Iyo at the same time (and quickly retake it). Sogo and Miyoshi have been ever peaceful on Shigoku. But once we are no longer trade partners of theirs, we will be able to declare war on them without much difficulty, leaving Tosa in a safe permanant rebellion state.
As for Ito, we will let our 5 monks and 2 ninja handle them. :bow:
Shoni was of course very angry that we dare to use one little Bow Kabuya to block their large navy and army for shipment. They attacked our ship from both sides. Thanks to Bow Kabuya's superior maneuverability, they were close, but not close enough. :sweatdrop:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3742&d=1328763327
Unfortunately, their ship did not sink after the unheroic loss.
Our intentional negligence to foreign trade options have apparantly back-fired in a good way - we got a bonus of foreign trade income! How does this make sense?
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3743&d=1328763333
But we will happily take the bonus.
Note: If we load the auto-save at the beginning of the turn, whatever bonus we receive this season will be lost.
As Shoni's large army remain stuck on the sea, the Bungo castle is only mildly defended. We have 1 general, 3 Bow Samurai, 1 Bow Ashigaru, 2 Yari Ashigaru, and the samurai retainer.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3744&d=1328763333
A very equal match to the little force led by our siege specialist (retainer: +10 bow accuracy) ramen chef general!
First we tried the old trick of luring out defenders with archer duel. Unfortunately, the defenders have become smarter now - none of them took the bait.
Also, while our Bow Ashigaru was almost as accurate as Bow Samurai (+10 general bonus, +5 Buzen craftsmen, +general's inspiration), they easily beat Shoni's Bow Ashigaru, but were losing the duel against Shoni's Bow Samurai. Maybe those Bow Samurai are also from Buzen. We had to find other ways.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3745&d=1328763333
While we tried to move around units to lock up Shoni's archers as wall defenders (so there will be no mobile shooters and we can safely shoot them from the sides), a very strange thing happened - Shoni's only mobile shooter unit, the Bow Samurai who were winning the duel, suddenly got stuck in a permenant "W" formation. This allowed us to shoot them down to 7 men, when they finally decided it was better to run back and forth like idiots.
They are getting smarter, but still not smart enough. Now there is no more mobile shooters, we safely approached the wall defenders from the sides and wore them down. We also relocated the wall defenders to the side and then back to the middle, so they are more compactly grouped for our arrows. :dizzy2:
The battle ended when the last Shoni solder was shot in the castle. We did not lose any extra man after the duel.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3746&d=1328763333
And that's the end of Shoni's stuck samurai, both on the water and in the castle. They are history. Northern Kyushu is ours!
Want to guess the Christianity population in Bungo? Of course, 100%.:sweatdrop: The Nanban trade port is equivalent to a 3.5-starred missionary. So we either demolish it and lose one trade route later, or overpower it with monks and temple. The latter is more profitable, so we will do just that.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3747&d=1328763333
There is no more enemy (other than Wako pirates - there are two fleets of them harassing us already). With very a healthy income, we will soon gather a powerful fleet and send them packing.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3748&d=1328763333
Chosokabe has two friendly neighbors. If they don't betray us, we will gladly keep the peace and focus on development for a while. From now on we should minimize our war declaration, and always let our monks and ninja to do the dirty work. :sneaky:
That concludes Chapter 9 of our story. :bow:
Chapter 10. A daughter for a son
Welcome back, great daimyos. :bow:
Just as we expect to enjoy some peaceful development, we heard rumors (which means prophecies from a parallel universe) that the Ouchi clan will suddenly betray us and declare war on us! We are their ally and trust them enough to give our military access to them! And it is my brother's last hostage season! They must do this on purpose! Treacherous dogs! :furious3:
Well, we give our military access to them because they paid a lot for it. :sweatdrop:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3752&d=1328843842
Well, luckily this is just a prophecy for the next season. Let's see what we can prepare now...
Since Ouchi still has one and half stack of soldiers in Buzen (our production base of bow units), if we allow the war to break out during their turn, they will be able to take Buzen from us. This will create a lot of trouble for us since our total army is only about one and half stack, in addition to the execution of my brother. My father will be heart broken. :embarassed:
After trials and errors, there is only ONE way to prevent war and save my brother - making them like us a lot more through marriage. Unfortunately, great daimyos, this will be my last chapter to narrate this story for you, as I will be married to some dog in that Ouchi clan. I will personally supervise their downfall and see their provinces transferred to Chosokabe! :furious3:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3753&d=1328843842
We also bundled the marriage deal with infinite military access to Ouchi, so that they would agree to break up with their other ally and trade partner, the Kikkawa clan (which is actually one of our trade partners). At this moment, Ouchi is allied to both its neighbors. So they might think that in order to expand, they will have to break up with one neighbor. So instead of breaking alliance with us, this arragement will encourage Ouchi to break up with the other unlucky partner.
Farewell, great daimyos! :bow:
Greetings, uncles and aunties. My name is Chosokabe Motochica, the heir of the Chosokabe clan. I am 10 years old. :bow:
A few days ago, I returned from a two-year student exchange program in the Ouchi clan in Chugoku. The Ouchi clan used to be a very good friend of our clan. Our reationship climaxed last winter, when my sister was married to their clan's heir, who was not particularly handsome. I was there at their wedding!
However, the night before their wedding, my sister secretly told me that the Ouchi clan was actually plotting against us. She said they would betray us in the earliest opportunity. She said she would make sure that when the destined day came, the Chosokabe clan would make them regret. :stare:
I also promised my sister that I would continue her story of our clan. So here I am! Yoroshiku Gozaimasu! :bow:
First, let's see what's the news for the new year of nanban's 1549...
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Oh right, I am back... What the... I was a hostage? How come nobody told me that? :inquisitive:
At least Ouchi treated me pretty nicely when I was there until the last month... but then they were nice again when they knew about the marriage proposal.
Let's look at the next news... our dogged pursuit of knowledge has improved our capacity for mastering both military and civil arts by 50% for 2 years.
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So our clan will soon master both the method to shoot Fire Arrows (Way of the Bow) and carry 50% more ammunition, in addition to building Encampments that can be upgraded to wonderful structures (Heaven and Earth). Both are very good arts.
Let's see the next news. The Ito clan, who had become our ally and bought our military access has... what, broken our alliance?! How come we did not receive any notice about that? Is that a feature or something? :sweatdrop:
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Maybe another clan bribed them to break alliance with us? Is that the Ouchi clan's secret pan? That realy spells "we want to declare war on you" all over the place. We are now their only neighbor, so if they do not want to sit and rot, war is the only way out for them. We sympathize with them. So we will shorten their pain when that day comes. :rolleyes:
Now let's take a look at the Ochi clan. What the... Broken alliance? Threats of attack? Of course we did not threaten them... did they threaten us? How come we never received any message about that? What did they say? :inquisitive:
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Is there another evil clan controlling both our friends to betray us at the same time? :dizzy2: So now my sister is the only way standing between a war between us and the Ouchi clan...
But soon the Ouchi clan pulled their army back from Buzen... is this my sister's work? :sweatdrop:
So my father held an urgent clan meeting and decided to try to repair our relationship with the Ito clan. They agreed to restore our alliance, and offered a good price for our door pass in the next 5 years. (Military access can be sold for more if the buyer has a more friendy relationship with us.)
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Now that we have successfuly delayed Ito and Ouchi's war. Let's quickly prepare. We have been working on the following:
- Two full-stack army with about 50% Bow Ashigaru in each. The Bow Ashigaru units are exclusively trained in Buzen for 10% extra accuracy.
- One full-stack fleet to repel Wako pirates with 8 Medium Bune. The Wako pirates are really getting out of control in the sea northwest of Hizen. This fleet will certainly kick them between the nuts.
- Five Monks. Before we ask them to convert Buzen and Bungo back to the good old Buddhism, we should to train them on the field. They charge nothing when they tell other clans' soldiers about the greatness and peaceful of Buddha. After we have 5 monks, we can demolish most temples to build Sake Dens.
- Five Ninjas. Right now we already have two pretty good Ninjas. We will send them to Ito's territory and continuely sabotage their castle. This will keep their army small. After we have 5 ninjas, we will demolish most Sake Dens to build Markets.
- Five Metsuke. They will be trained exclusively from Tsukushi, so they start more experienced than newbies. Three of them will permenantly manage the three most fertile provinces of ours. The other two will accompany our army to arrest enemy agents and bribe enemy troops.
Training agents is a dangerous business. If they fail, they might be caught and executed. :skull: I heard that if we are at war and is laying siege at a castle, all of our agents will mysteriously succeed in all their missions. But now we are not at war with any clan...
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But everybody is at war with the Wako pirates!
Exploit #13. Wako pirates for lucky agents
Legendary game, not at war with anybody, not even the rebels? Hopefully you have some pirates in sight. You can use any navy unit to fight the pirates but then select retreat. The unit will still have lots of movement left, while you get one free auto-save! In the above picture, the unit is actually stuck with the pirates, providing infinite save points like in a castle siege!
Fighting (but not fighting) pirates is never so enjoyable. :laugh4:
My father heard of the pirates, so he wished to meet them personally. All he needs is one Bow Kabuya, and the pirates chase him in circles like idiots.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3761&d=1328843842
Heroic victory for him! But unfortunately he does not get any extra honor for scoring a heroic victory. Maybe that feature has been removed from this world. He still gained a lot of battle experience from it, though.
Exploit #14. Wako pirates for experienced generals
Since using a Bow Kabuya gaurantees a heroic victory against the Wako pirates, it is possible to quickly level up a general for 15 experience every season. This will improve a brand new 1-star general to a 4-star general in just two years. :rolleyes:
Soon my father was able to hire a second retainer, and he chose a Waka poet, who recite poems when my father meets his guests. This makes him look slightly more honorable. My father also learned to bow down more often. So he is now as honorable as a Daimyo could be (6 points)!
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Unfortunately, now not many clans like to see honorable daimyos like the world we used to know before (the unpatched version), so our clan is not really better received by others. My father is still well-liked by his loyal generals and people (2 extra points of happiness).
While enjoying hard-earned peace, our clan's power steadily grows. Our ninja burn down Ito clan's castle gate every season. Finally, the Ito family could not take it anymore! They declared war on us!
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We did fail the sabotage once, so they probably guessed it was our work.
One year can make a big difference - Ouchi's one and half stack had returned to their land! We are not afraid of pouring everything to southern Kyushu anymore.
This concludes Chapter 10 of our story. :bow:
Chapter 11. Ito, Kamizake warriors
Welcome back, uncles and aunts. :bow: This is Chosokabe Motochika reporting our clan's story.
Last time we mentioned that Ito declared war on us, but we were quite prepared for it already. We almost have two full stacks of soldiers, and we can pour it to Ito since Ouchi's attention has shifted. It might be my sister's infuence.
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While Ito and our relationship has deteriorated to rock bottom, the rest of Nihon do not think highly about Ito. For someone who backstabs their ally and who sold them door tickets, this is what they deserve. Maybe they are just committing Kamizake, suicide attacks since they realize there is no future for them.
Since we wil have six trading sea ports after relocating to Kyushu, we must look for other rich trade partners. A few years ago we hooked up with the Hojo clan, which has controlled much of Kanto region.
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Now our Bow Kabuya has reached the northern tip of Honshu. This trade node of iron was owned by Satake, but now they have been defeated by Hojo. So we will gladly take it. It might take a long time until any of our trade ships arrive.
Now we have four out of six trade nodes. The other two are controlled by the Miyoshi clan (the western incense node) and the Honma clan of Sado island (the northern war horse node). None of them are very powerful. We might take care of Miyoshi ourselves after the relocation. Honma's isolated position might enable them to survive a little longer.
Our full-stack navy has sailed to northwest Kyushu and is ready to deal with the Wako pirates! The Wako pirates also had one full stack.
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But the Wako immediately called help from their headquarter. A half-stack fleet suddenly dropped from the sky. We must defeat them before they merge!
Thoughts #13: Wako Pirates, Blessing not Curse on Legendary
Wako pirates' spawn at a fixed spot in northern Kyushu - which is the Wako fleet on the right in the above picture. Their spawn is randomly determined at the end turn. So if you do not want to see a Wako spawn, simply reload a save file before the end turn until they fail to spawn.
At the early stage of the game, a fleet of Medium Bune plus a few Bow Kabyua can easily defeat Wako pirates, which comes with just two varieties, Wako Medium Bunes and Wako Trade Ships. Wako Medium Bunes has 20 less bowmen compared to regular Japanese Medium Bunes. So if we capture any of them, we better sink them on the spot or they are just a waste of space in the stack. Wako Trade Ships are identical to Japanese trade ships and can't fight properly. Their movement on the water can be heavily slowed by the wind, and so can be captured quite easiy.
As discussed before, on Legendary, the Wako pirates provides valuable save points during a turn. And they also offer trade ships for us to capture. So whenever our navy has nothing to do, Wako pirates might be a welcoming sight, especially when our navy has been waiting for them nearby, as we can easily learn their exact spawn spots.
For trade fleets unprotected by a nearby fighting fleet, it is a good idea to use one Bow Kabuya to protect them in the stack, or right on the side. As soon as the battle begins, retreat all trade ships. Then simply use the Bow Kabuya to run in a big circle. When you win the heroic victory, the trade ships will not run away but remain in the stack on the spot.
Likewise, when you dispatch trade fleets to some trade nodes far away, bunch them up and escort them with a Bow Kabuya. They will never sink.
So my father, who is in command of this formidable Chosokabe fleet but with his name wrongly written :inquisitive:, decided to work on the harder target first, as they do not run away probably because they already have a full stack. That would be a big mistake for them, for we not only have a superior full stack of 10, but also various minor reinforcement nearby! :yes:
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As our combined fleet vastly outnumber the Wakos, we did not bother with the details of the massacre (auto-resolve). While both sides lost two ships, we captured all their rest - 4 wako medium bune and 4 wako trade ships! :laugh4:
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The four Wako Medium Bune will be sunk to the bottom of the sea immediately for their inferior quality, but we will keep the trade ships for the Chinese silk node nearby.
After we dispatched the full stack Wako, we can turn our attention to the half stack Wako which just spawned. If we attempt to fight them with our main fleet, they will certainly run away and then harass our trade fleets.
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What we can do is to "house arrest" these Wako pirates by using the zone of control (the red circle) of our fleets. As shown in the picture above, with just two fleets, we made a prison of the Wako pirates. So we can deal with them in the next turn, when we have full movement points.
What the pirates do not know is that if they attack us and choose to retreat, they can break this house arrest. But they probably can't retreat far enough to survive our main fleet's attack anyway.
Thoughts #14: Extending the Zone of control
Checking the Zone of control of armies are quite useful in certain situations. By splitting out minor units to extend the zone of control, we can sometimes completely restrict enemy's movement on the campaign map. In the above example, we only need to split out one Bow Kabuya to arrest the Wako pirate fleet. The jailed Wako fleet can then serve as an infinite save point in the future. :yes:
But since we are fighting Ito at this moment, we don't need other save point opportunities. In the next season, my father, whose name was again wrong :dizzy2: (it is probably the name of the captain of his boat), commanded his main fleet and nailed down the retreating Wako pirates on the open water. We easiy defeated them (auto-resolved). The battle marks the debut of our Sengoku Bune (1000-koku boat), which is a suitable flagship for its large melee crew and high mobility.
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Our trade income greatly increased thanks to the Wako trade ships. The three western trade nodes together nets more than 9000 koku per turn! We will still build more trade ships for the distant northeastern Iron trade node.
No more Wako for now! Let's pull back one season and see how our war with Ito goes. We used two armies to attack Ito's territory from both northwest and northeast. Ito apparantly has decided to abandon its western provinces, bu concentrate all their forces to the northeast in the Hyuga province.
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That's also where the weaker Chosokabe force is. We do not have the time to develop a full stack there yet, and we are a little lacking in melee, with just four units of Yari Ashigaru. However, our ramen general, with his 10% bonus to bow accuracy, is perfecty suited for leading an bow army.
The Ito's force came in a string, and that is their big mistake. So we can defeat them one by one without suffering significant losses. Our first encounter is against 10 units of infantry without a general!
With a superior ranged force and inferior melee, the ramen general adapted the same formation that my father used in the Sagara battle (the one that left a landmark), knowing that the enemy will probably actively approach us since we have a ranged advantage.
Our ramen general found a good hill to camp on, and spread his four units of Yari Ashigaru to a thin spear wall only 3 men deep. Behind the spear wal was two layers of loosely formed sea of Bow Ashigaru. He also hid a unit of Light Cavalry in a forest nearby, waiting for their chances to charge unprotected Ito Bow Ashigaru.
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By this time we have already researched the art to shoot Fire Arrows. So we gladly opened the battle with it. The Ito army sent its Yari Samurai first, but their added morale did not last when thousands of fire arrows poured on them!
Ito's Yari Ashigaru charged uphill, and was stopped by our spear wall. Soon turned their back on us as well.
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Soon the battle was reduced to an Bow Ashigaru's duel. But even before our Light Cavalry left the forest, they started fleeing, too!
Since all the enemy started fleeing, we let the battle resolve itself (end battle) without manually directing our units to give chase. (Note: Ending the battle in the first opportunity actually gives way better outcome than continue the battle then manually chase the routing army, as many of the fleeing soldiers will reach the exit especially with restricted camera and lack of radar map on Legendary.)
Ito's Kamizake attack on both the campaign map and the battlefield was a disaster. They only slightly scratched us when almost 1200 of their men threw their lives away.
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To the Hyuga castle!
In the fall, our two armies have made significant advance on Ito. The first army, led by our youn commissioner of finance, has taken over a completely undefended Satsuma, and is on his way to conquer a completely undefended Osumi. They are Ito's gift for us.
Our second army, led by the ramen general (the commissioner of development), will be able to lay siege on the Hyuga castle this season.
All Ito wants is to have a great fight around Hyuga castle. Essentially, the current garrison army in Hyuga is from Osumi, while the reinforcement on the road is from Satsuma. Our monks pretty much followed them all the way, demoralizing them non-stop. They must know they are about to lose this war. :sweatdrop:
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But why do we want to attack the Hyuga castle with its reinforcement nearby? Our 4-star Ninja, who had burned down Ito's castle gates season after season, promptly sabotaged that reinforcement army led by Ito's daimyo, so they have to sit and watch our attack on Hyuga castle helpessly.
Also, if we take Hyuga then Osumi, Ito's final army will be considered outside its last province, and will vanish forever. We don't even have to fight them. :sweatdrop:
What a gathering of agents at Hyuga castle. Ito has an army with plenty of Samurai. But they only had two units of Bow Ashigaru, which is all that matters for a castle defender.
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Ito has two units of Bow Ashigaru. They assigned one unit to defend the wall facing the bulk of our army. The other unit remains mobile, which has to be dealt with first.
We marched up two of our Bow Ashigaru to shoot this mobile unit (unfortuantey it did not take the bait to chase outside the castle. After patches this extremely exploitable behavior is quite rare). They were down to 8 men when they ran out of arrows. We lost 40 something men.
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Now we can comforrtably shoot the other 1000 defenders.
Every Ito man in the caste died from arrow wounds. We did not lose anymore man after that. Good job to the ramen general! Too bad there was no chance to show the power of our new matchlock units, which we only get one every year.
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When the other army led by our finance commissioner easily took over Ito last caste, Ito's leftover army in Hyuga rapidly dissolved. What a rapid end of their kamizake attack.
Kyushu is ours! The power of Chosokabe reaches historic high! We are currently the biggest clan in Japan, and our trade income is second to none. :grin3:
Our advance against Kono, Shoni, Sagara, and Ito over the past years have really alerted the rest of Japan, so the other clans are now more or less unfriendly with us. Strangely, the other powerful clans who have gained similar territory did not suffer such penalty in diplomacy. :inquisitive: I heard we are the only possible candidate to become the public enemy of the rest of Japan. So we have to be really careful from now on.
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In order to stay successful in diplomatically, we should start making reliable friends, and stay low for a while to let rumors Chosokabe threat cool down. Actually, we do have something important to do, and that involves cutting our powers by a bit. That's right - the relocation of our capital to Kyushu.
This concludes Chapter 11 of our story. :bow:
Chapter 12. To lose is to gain
Welcome back, uncles and aunts. I am Chosokabe Motochika. Soon I will be 12 years old. :bow:
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Our stable recruitment of Bow Ashigaru in Buzen has earned us the folk title of Ashigaru Master. From now on for two years, we will be able to recruit experienced Ashigaru units (level 2). We should really cherish this opportunity and form the backbone of our army.
We have been actively preparing for the relocation to Kyushu. If we wait for Miyoshi or Kono to attack us, it could take forever. So we decide to enlist the help of peasants, or Operation Shigoku Spring.
Starting in Spring 1551, we raise the clan-wide tax rate to High, but exempting the taxes in the three southern provinces as the local resistance to invasion is stil high.
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The people in Tosa and Iyo was of course unhappy, as their happiness dropped just below the neutral mark (to -1). They protested in front of the caste. But there was no one coming out to greet them - because we simply did not have any garrison there! :sweatdrop:
After two seasons of high tax rate, the people in Iyo and Tosa decided to rebel. Interestingly, the rebellion in Iyo was led by the Kono clan. Everybody thought they were long gone. What a dramatic come back!
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Their come back will not last - our Ramen general has docked in Iyo's port with his full-stack army, which will be responsible for taking all Shigoku province except Tosa in the future. We don't want to make a landing before the rebellion takes place, because...
Thoughts #15. Controlling the size of rebellion
The size of the rebel increases with the number of current units in the province. So in order to make the recapturing of Iyo more managable, it is better to land the counter-attack army after the rebellion takes place.
Our timing is a little off, as the rebellion spawned too far away from the castle. So they couldn't take the castle in the fall. We will have to wait until winter. Unfortunately, our army will have to suffer from winter attrition.
Tosa's rebel also spawned a little too far away. So we will also have to wait till the end of winter to formally relocate.
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Interestingly, our Ninja team of 3, who landed in Shigoku two seasons before our military, reported that Miyoshi has been secrety marching a large army toward Tosa. Maybe they will declare war on us if the rebels does not take Tosa quickly.
Also, war has finally broken out between Sogo and Miyoshi. While we expect to see some interesting battles between the two, we also have the chance to take over all their provinces with... less orthodox means. That's why we shipped 2 monks and 3 ninjas there in advance. :grin3:
A group of Wako pirates spawend southwest of Kyushu. Our main fleet is on their way!
These Wako pirates are actually like a beneficial pest to us. As it actively looks for the softest target within its reach, they promptly sank Miyoshi's tiny fleet reserving one of the two Incense trade nodes. So we promptly take it over! (Strangely, Wako trade ships do not stay on trade nodes.) Needless to say, our trade fleet will swarm and saturate this new trade node within a year.
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We have also started to send a full trade fleet for the very northeastern Iron trade node. The iron will also help us construct valuable armorer buildings in Satsuma.
Thoughts #16: Province Specialization
Provinces have different resources (or no resource), so they are suitable for different purposes. In order to maximize our efficiency, we have to build up each province according to their respective specialty.
Priority #1: Recruitment centers
We only need a few recruitment centers to satisfy all our needs for fresh units. As Chosokabe has superior archers, Buzen's specialty Artisan - Fletchers - Master Bowmaker line greatly increases accuracy for archers for up to 20%. So we should make Buzen our bow recruitment center. We will need a high-level castle for rapid recruitment and bonus experience. We also need to upgrade the Archery Dojo line and the Encampment - Hunting Lodge line for cheaper recruitment cost and another +5% accuracy. With these upgrades, our Bow Ashigaru will shoot like Bow Samurai! We might not even recruit Bow Samurai since the Ashigarus are more than twice cheaper and comes in 33% greater numbers. Then we can forget about the Archery Dojo line all together. In the future, we might add a Siege Workshop line to produce some Fire Bomb Throwers and Siege Weapons, or Temple line for Bow Warrior Monks. They all have their uses.
Another very important recruit center is required for melee units, in which we prefer armor over melee attack, as our sea of arrows will be our primary damage output, and the role of the melee is mainly to hold the enemies long enough so they will be killed off/routed by our arrows. Satsuma's specialty Blacksmith - Armorer - Master Armorer will provide +3 armor for all melee units, Yari Ashigaru included. The Encampment - Armoury line gives another +2 bonus to armor. Our Yari Ashigaru will take arrows like Yari Samurai! And of course they are much cheaper and comes with +25% ultra size.
Another useful building for Satsuma would be the Sword Dojo line to hire Katana samurai. Just in case the enemy has a lot of swords, too.
In the future we also look forward to have a cavalry recruitment center, and that should be enough for all battles in Japan.
Priority #2: Money Makers
Money making provinces are limited to those that produce the most tax revenue. Generally this refers to very fertile provinces such as Hizen, Higo, and Tsukushi, where we will further improve their revenue with Metsukes specialized at supervising towns. The highest-level Markets are a must.
In addition, the end of Sake Den line or the Temple line both generates 25% extra tax revenue, which could be huge. If we have both of them... :laugh4:
Priority #3: Food Makers
Since we are liberally upgrading the castles and markets in the first two priorities, we need all the other provinces to act as Food Makers. Their castle and markets will stay at the lowest level possible, while their farms will be upgraded to the highest possible just like any other provinces. The extra food will help our town grow rapidly, and also serve as a cushion when we inevitably conquer high-level castle in the future. And the buildings for such provinces are the simplest markets (or temple for religious diverse provinces).
As you can guess, our next research goal will follow the Farm line for two extra levels, so we will run a huge food surplus and gain weight.
That's our plan for province specialization. :book2:
Our scheduled evacuation of Tosa finally happened. Before we left, we tore down everything that can be removed, so even if Miyoshi takes Tosa next, they will not have so many freebies! Of course, it would be the best if they are destroyed before they could take Tosa. Such a small rebel force is almost like targeting practice.
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Farewell for now, Tosa! :cry:
Just as we suspected, Iyo was chosen as the new capital, which would totally destroy our relocation effort. We definitely prepared for it, as the capital was again relocated... to Bungo.
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This is quite a disappointment, as we would prefer Buzen or Satsuma to be our new capital so we can hire a lot more units from them. Bungo is not too bad, as we can now hire twice as many matchlocks from its Nanban trade port.
OK, so now we have lost all our existing trades... wait, we still have Miyoshi. Maybe they did not have any sea trade partner at the time, so they automatically restore their trades with us via a sea route.
Anyway, we can now afford to look for a number of new trade partners.
Thoughts #17. Trade Partners and Allies
Within 7 years, Japan has advanced from numerous warring tiny clans to several warring medium-large clans, it is now a good time to plan the grand strategy for the rest of the campaign. We need to grab one, at most two partners (can't afford more) to lesson our pressure in the inevitable Realm Divide. We need to make such friends as early as possible, cultivate the relationship, and make sure they stay on our side without any negative impacts between our relationship.
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The first candiate is Hojo - the famous Hojo horde from the last life (Shogun Total War I)! At this moment, Hojo already has the most powerful army of all Japan. They are quite good with diplomacy as well - having only one enemy at a time. Certainly, they will be able to conquer the northeast of Japan in a matter of time. As they have their backs on the sea like us, they will hold a distinctive advantage over other clans and steadily expand. If we can keep Hojo on our side, we will be able to "sandwich" all the other hostile enemies in the middle and divide their attention. This is the best alliance option we have. Then we can worry about the Hojo horde. :sweatdrop:
Next we are looking at the Oda-Ikko Ikki alliance. These two powerful clans are allies, establishing their dominance in central Japan (in history, though, they were nemesis). As their enemies are either too weak or too far away, they are unlikey to fail any time soon, so they are very stable trade partners.
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Later on, we look forward to dissolve their alliance before the Realm Divide comes, and just make friend with one of them.
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We will probably stay with Oda, as Ikko-Ikki has the innate religious difference problem.
The strongest clan closest to us is definitely Hatano, which has conquered almost all of Chugoku, the narrow land strip above Shigoku. They will certainly be able to continually trade with us.
The Ouchi clan is now making their last struggle against them. Our goal is to peacefully receive Ouchi's provinces before Hatano takes them. We already have Ninja there, so it will be quite easy to delay Hatano's progress.
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To maintain our border security, we will consider allying with Hatano. From now on, we will try to stay out of all wars if possible. This is because that if we take provinces from any clan that is at war with us, no matter whether we are the invader or are the counter-attacker, we will suffer a diplomatic penalty. So far we already have a pretty bad reputation from it.
Exploit #15. Taking rebel provinces incur no diplomatic penalty
While taking over another clan's province makes others nervous, taking a rebel-controlled province is completely diplomatically neutral. That's why we have maximized all our agents early on - so we can very peacefully take over Japan.
So that means we will stay in good terms with Hatano, but at the same time turn their provinces to rebel one by one. We do that to anybody who is unfortunate enough to border us, too. It shouldn't be too difficult as now we have 5 Ninja and 5 monks, and a healthy income to support their operations. :grin3:
Takeda has managed to keep their alliance with Hojo. They are inconveniently located between Hojo and central Japan, so they will actually serve to delay Hojo's expansion. We suspect that Hojo might break their alliance when they eventually run out of room to expand. Takeda will also have to take intense heat from the powerful Oda-Ikko Ikki alliance once they take care of minor resistance in central Japan. Takeda does not really have a promosing future.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3792&d=1328907320
But we will trade with them for now anyway.
Now we have run out of sea trade routes, we can still trade with one land-route partner - Ouchi. Ouchi's day is counted as they are obviously the next taret of Hatano.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3793&d=1328907320
Probably due to my sister's influence, they actually offered to pay us to trade! We will take their money any day. :bow:
Exploit #16. Remove trade ships from the nodes for better trade deals
A potential trading partner tends to charge us more if they know the trade deal would benefit us more than them. A good way to trick them to sign a deal cheaply with us is to first remove all trade ships from trade nodes, negotiate deals with them, and then move the trade ships back to the node. All of the above trade deals were signed this way. :devilish:
We have established as many trade routes as we can. Our clan will be making almost 10,000 koku from trade alone! This is definitely one step up from our old trade routes. Besides, every new trading port will give us one additional trade partner.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3794&d=1328907320
Prophecy Exodus is accomplished!
That concludes Chapter 12 of our story. :bow:
Book 3 - Passion of the Buddha
Chapter 13. The curse of Nana
Welcome back, uncles and aunties. My name is Chosokabe Motochika, the heir of the Chosokabe can. :bow: I am here to report our clan's gloriously... dishonorable story in this legendary campaign. It is now the spring of Nanban year 1552. I am 13 years old.
When we relocated from Shigoku to Kyushu, we purposely gave up two provinces: Tosa and Iyo. We would not take back Tosa, but we can certainly take back Iyo very quickly. In fact, our ramen general had been waiting in the forest just outside the castle. That will mark the quick end of Kono clan's rebirth.
Exploit #17: The harmonious bulldozer
We are also actively planning ahead. We already discussed that we wish to avoid expansion through regular clan warfare, which greatly hurts our relationship with every clan. Ideally, all of our future new territories are taken from rebels.
Essentially, we wish to create the situation that our 3 full-stack armies will be ready to take over a rebel-owned castle as soon as it is available. In the future, we might add the fourth army when we have the new general for it.
This means that for now we need to have:
(1) At least 3 monks to incite rebellion. We have 4. We need to leave one monk back in Bungo in order to hold off the spread of Nanban's religion there. In the distant future when we add the 5th army, we might call up the 5th monk and simply tear down the Nanban trade port.
We also want to minimize meaningless rebellions - rebellions that will be quickly put down by the owner of the province, since it will not only be a waste of money, but also reduces the target clan's relationship with us needlessly. Monks who have nothing to do will simply chat with (and demoralize) some soldiers to pass time.
(2) At least 3 ninja, one assigned to each monk. We have 5. Their most important job is to sabotage any large army that might be able to intercept and defeat the rebels we incited. If they don't have any army to sabotage, sabotaging castle gates is not a bad idea.
The combination of the monks and ninja will travel just ahead of the full-stack army, so they can prepare each castle to be taken down.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3795&d=1328907337
Here is an example. We are going own Iyo, so we can easily expand to Sanuki owned by the Sogo clan. Sogo's main army is out to attack Miyoshi, whose main army is on their way to Tosa. So Sanuki's castle is quite defenseless, but some army remains in the province.
This is an ideal situation of reciting a successful rebellion, since the resulting rebels will be scaled up due to precense of additional Sogo army. That army, however, will not be able to defend the castle against the rebels in their turn, because we are going to sabotage its movement with our Ninja. As a result, the very defenseless castle will be no match against the beefed rebellion, and Sanuki will certainlly fall to the rebel's hand - while our full-stack army awaits within one-turn's march distance just outside their border.
The result is our very peaceful ownership of Sanuki next season. No other clans raised their eye brows (except Sogo is now unhappy about our monk's activity). Our clan fame still goes up accordingly since we now own more provinces.
Let's first fast foward two seasons and take a look at our setup in Chugoku (the middle countries). We have successsfully made rebels taking over Ouchi's Suo, and in the end turn they will take over Ouchi's Nagato.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3813&d=1329024480
Our first army has been waiting just outside Suo - they will be able to attack the castle in the next season, and immediately march toward Nagato so they can take it next. Then this army will be responsible for expanding on the upper route of Chugoku. Our second army, led by my father himself (currently in Buzen, which is shown on the left of the picture), will land in Suo and take over the lower route from there.
Exploit #18: There is nothing they "can't do", only things they "can't imagine"
In order to make our agents always successful, we better have one army besieging a castle at any given turn. If not, we better hope that there is a Wako pirate fleet spawned right beside our main fleet - no luck so far. This means that we have to carefully pace our expansion.
Sometimes we might rather let an army wait for an additional season before storming the castle, so that they will be able to continually cover the luck of our agents on the next turn.
Now let's rewind back. Seeing that Sogo and Miyoshi will soon lose their lands to rebels, we want to extract the last bit of profit from them - what is better than selling infinite military access to them? They can't use it anyway.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3814&d=1329024480
Together they paid more than 2000 koku for the garbage. Thanks!
Exploit #19. Infinite Military Access for the Dying
Just before a neighboring clan is destroyed, we can extract their last value by selling Infinite Military Access to them. They will go broke on it. :sweatdrop:
We have successfuly made rebels taking over Sanuki and Awaji, immediately after Awa is taken by Sogo. Miyoshi is instantly destroyed! :sweatdrop:
Their one and half stack of soldiers were forever lost in the forest between Tosa and Awa. Even if they were in Awa, since Rebels act after Sogo, they still vanish as Awaji was their last province. Such a abrupt end of a peaceful clan... maybe that's what they deserve for trying to ambush us in Tosa.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3815&d=1329024480
So after our ramen general takes Sanuki, he can board a Bow Kabuya to land on the Awaji island. Then all we need to do is to wait for Sogo's army to leave the castle - probably for Tosa. :laugh:
Our ramen general easily ended the rebels' resistance in Sanuki. Such an easy victory (auto-resolved) even though the enemy was half of our size.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3816&d=1329024480
The end of Miyoshi means that we can now afford another trade partner. The biggest clan that has not been paying for famous Chosokabe imports are the Hatakeyama clan. This clan has a really incompetent publicity department - they are hated by almost the entire Japan (not us though). Here you go. Good luck resisting the rest of Japan.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3817&d=1329024480
And they agree to pay 990 koku! However, moving the trade ships away from nodes make no difference.
Note: There is a bug that if a trade route is broken in a given turn, a new route will not be available unless a new saved game is loaded.
Due to our eagerness in charging cheaply (actually, freely if we disregard the upkeep of trade ships) imported products for high price to the rest of Japan, we have earned a one-year town growth bonus. Neat!
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3818&d=1329024480
Actually, my family has a better reason to be happy this season, because...
My sister, Nana, has returned to us! She has fufilled her mission of maintaining Ouchi's relationship with us Chosokabe to the last minute.
Ouchi was able to temporarily hold one province within Hatano's territory, but they were no match of Hatano's military might there. But the last straw on Ouchi was definitely the rebels recited by nobody else but our monks.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3819&d=1329024480
My sister has expressed that she wishes to remain solitary and does not seek re-marrying opportunities, which is actually a common practice in the Sengoku Jidai. :sweatdrop:
In the meantime, the Hatano clan has lost a trade port to their enemies, and they are unable to trade with us anymore... so we need to find a replacement. Now we have exhausted the larger clans, so we have to look for small clans like Satomi.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3820&d=1329024480
They are land-locked by Hojo. And even for their aggressive temperament and questionable integrity, they seem to be content to remain as Hojo's pets. But it does not matter as long as they actually PAY us to trade! :laugh4: (Again, moving trade ships away from trade nodes no longer makes a difference.)
Here is an example of an uncessfull rebellion. We called up a large rebellion force in Aki due to the precense of a large Hatano army in the province. However, our ninja has already moved (see the smoke arising from Aki?), so there is nothing we can do to prevent the rebels being crushed by Hatano's army.
Lesson learned: recite rebels first, sabotage army second.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3821&d=1329024480
There seems to be an upper limit for rebellion - I have never seen anything more than 2/3 stack. If the province's owner has a full-stack army, they will have no problem crushing the rebel. However, some clans prefer to station a large army in the caste instead of on the field. In such case we will have to lure their army out of the caste - by a juicy province, or by reciting a bait rebellion.
That full-stack Hatano army indeed crushed the rebels and marched north. The rebels were getting out of control there! Now we can ask them to take a break this turn.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3822&d=1329024480
Then we call up another rebel army to take over Aki. :cool3:
Our 3rd army has successfully taken over Suo, give it over to my father's first army, and now takes Nagato to establish a firm foot hold in the upper route of Chugoku. Those weak rebels are no match against our highly experienced army.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3823&d=1329024480
By the way, the province of Suo has good warhorses. So we will develop that into a cavalry recruitment center.
Our 2nd army has no trouble hunting down minor rebels on the Awaji island. Well done!
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3824&d=1329024480
Now let's wait for Sogo's greed to spell their end in Awa.
The summer of 1553 is a really productive season for us, with three additioanl provinces (Awaji, Iwami, and Aki). Also, Hatano's army will be bumped out of our border automatically.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3825&d=1329024480
By the way, our research on the next farming technology was completed. So we have started upgrading farms, starting with the richest provinces in northern Kyushu.
Thoughts #18. Tax on towns will eventually surpass trade
While currently our trade income is about twice as much as our tax income, eventually we will have to heavily rely on tax income. As stronger clans devour their weaker neighbors, there will be less and less clans to trade with us. In order to quicky develop our alternative revenue, we will develop two additional levels of farms in all provinces starting from the most fertile.
The surplus of food will enable all our towns to grow very rapidly. For example, if we stop our expansion at 20 provinces (just before the Realm Divide) and get 30 units of surplus food, our towns will grow 120 more units per year. The accumulative effect could be huge as time goes on. In addition, as Chosokabe we receive additional income on farming. So why not go crazy on farming? :laugh3:
At the moment we took the Iwami province, Hatano's full stacked has been bumped all the way to the border of Bingo. And the full stack has pre-used all its movement for this season.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3826&d=1329024480
What this means is that we don't even have to waste money to sabotage it - the fresh rebels will take over Bingo without any difficulty.
Poor Hanato, they are hopeless puppets in front of Buddha's passion. :sweetheart:
This concludes chapter 13 of our story. :bow:
Chapter 14. Harmonious expansion
Wecome back, uncles and aunties. I am Chosokabe Motochika, heir of the Chosokabe clan. It is now the summer of Nanban year 1553. I am 14 years old, turning 15. I cannot wait for the day that I am enlisted as a formal general of the clan. It could happen any day now.
With the help of extremely functional agents, we have been able to expand very rapidly through fresh rebel provinces. Our biggest victims are the Hatano clan in Chugoku, and the our old trading partners Miyoshi and Sogo in Shigoku. Maybe soon they will become history.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3827&d=1329024515
Let's have an example - as soon as we occupy Iwami, our agents incited a rebellion in the next province Izumo. By the end of this turn we are going to move our army to the border of Iwami, so they can reach the castle in Izumo in the next season.
Thoughts #19: The Rapid Expansion Phase
Our goal is to rapidly expand through the use of agents until we almost reach the fame requirement to become the public enemy of all clans. We will make a complete stop of our expansion and focus on economy. We will not trigger the Realm Division unless we are confident that we can beat the oppositions even if it comes down to a war of attrition.
My father easily took another castle controlled by Rebels.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3828&d=1329024515
This is probably the Aki province. Since provinces all look the same in Chugoku, I am not really sure. :sweatdrop:
Our clan's power grows rapidly, and we are now able to hire one additional unit in all provinces. But we don't really need to hire soldiers everywhere - we have enough to meet all our needs at this stage. We have actually started to disband some low level vanilla units to cut down our maintenance cost.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3829&d=1329024515
Currently, the only two provinces that we hire from are Buzen (Bow) and Sazuma (Yari). The Encampment upgrades there are both complete!
We have also been advancing at a steady pace in the lower route of Chugoku. My father purposely did not attack the castle of Bingo this season, as doing so would bump a full stack of Hatano army, which is currently in the northwest forest of Bingo, to Bitchu. Then they will defeat the rebels we incite this turn.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3830&d=1329024515
As we keep the siege on, that full-stack army has to slowly walk to Bitchu, and they will be too late to save that castle from the rebels. :cool:
Back to the upper route, we discovered a Hatano army right at the border of Izumo. They would have no problem defeating the rebels. But this time we have learned our lesson - our Ninja is still free. So they easily sabotaged the Hatano army, who will hopeless watch their Izumo castle taken by the rebels, then us.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3856&d=1329024515
You would think that Hatano must hate us to the bone after seeing so many rebellions incited by us. However, there seems to be a maximum hatred in this category of -40. So our relationship is not that bad yet. Besides, Hatano is also at war with its neighbors on the other end. So they should prefer not to declare war on us.
But we never know - the opponents are sometimes very stupid. So far, we have been betrayed by all our military allies, Ouchi and Ito. Ironically, no one else has declared war on us but our allies. Isn't this strange?
Thoughts #20: Military alliance is for emergency
It seems that in this world, clans have a high tendency to break their alliance. There are just so many conditions that encourage a clan to break an alliance. Maybe they do not want to help an ally in defence. Maybe they have nowhere else to expand. Maybe they are simply stupid.
Making an alliance also has a strange effect on diplomacy - the positive favor actually wears off over time. You would think an old friend is more reliable than a new friend. This leads us to think that if we really want to keep peace with a clan, maybe it is best to stay away from allying with them until the last minute. This way, we will not be dragged into war by them with uncessary clans before we are ready to.
Staying away from alliances also gives us more strategic freedom in deciding what to do.
For example, if we want to be friendly with Oda and Hojo, we only need to maintain trade relationship with them, and stay out of their way. Only when we will amost come into contact with their territory shall we think about an alliance.
As expected, Sogo moved all their army away from the Awa castle, probably trying to take rebel-controlled Tosa. It seems that any tiny clan in Japan has at least one full stack and half of army.
This is our perfect chance to unite Shigoku (except Tosa)! Our Ninja promptly sabotaged their main stack, while our monk conjured a rebellion right outside the Awa castle.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3857&d=1329024515
This is the last season for the Sogo clan. Shigoku is ours! We will stay away from Tosa until maybe the last moment. :yes:
We will instead use Awa as the Cavalry recruitment center, since it is better developed than Suo.
Now we have a Hunting Lodge (upgraded from Encampment) in Buzen, we can recruit one of the most powerful and easily available bow units in Sengoku Jidai - Chosokabe Daikyu Samurai.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3858&d=1329024515
Thoughts #21: Range makes a big difference
Let's comapre Chosokabe's more advanced Bow units:
Chosokabe Bow Samurai
Range 150, Accuracy 50, Reoad 50, Ammo 25, Armor 5, Size 120, Cost 675, Upkeep 99
Chosokabe Daikyu Samurai Numbers in brackets are their current stats.
Range 175, Accuracy 55(72), Reload 35(37), Ammo 25(38), Armor 4, Size 120, Cost 950(756), Upkeep 135(176)
Chosokabe Bow Warrior Monk
Range 175, Accuracy 70, Reload 60, Ammo 30, Armor 2, Size 100, Cost 855, Upkeep 117
Chosokabe Bow Hero
Range 200, Accuracy 75, Reload 65, Ammo 30, Armor 7, Size 80, Cost 1700, Upkeep 190
The best thing about Daikyu Samurai is their early availability of extra 25 range (remember how ass-kicking Cretian archers are back in RTW, right?), so we do not have to wait for Bow Warrior Monk, which comes with 20 less men in a unit.
Long range is a huge advantage in many different situations, such as attacking without being retaliated, and forcing the enemy's range units to move forward for our melee units to quickly close in. Or they could draw the enemy's units forward safely.
The big disadvantage of these large-bow users is that they reload slowly. Therefore, they are not suited for defensive field battles (or offensive field battles when the defender actively closes in), even though they can set up screens against cavary charge. Therefore, we probably only need one unit of Daikyu samurai per army, as their job is merely to disrupt the enemy's ranged units.
If we later research Essence of Spirit to unlock Monastery, we could switch to Bow Warrior Monk, for they have better damage output rate, and they have the an additional ability (Whisting Arrows) to lower target's morale.
If we need affordable damage output, it is still the best to stay with beefed Bow Ashigaru, which comes with large numbers and reasonable accuracy when recruited in speciality provinces like Buzen.
While my father decided to delay his storming of the Bingo castle so Hatano's army cannot save their next province from turning rebel, the defending rebels in Bingo decided to sally immediately. This was really a surprise for us, as they were definitely outmatched by my father's full stack.
My father laid out his usual formation on a little hill. One thin line of Yari Ashigaru spear wall at front, backed by a sea of loosely formed Bow Ashigaru. There were also reserve Yari Ashigaru on both sides, as certainly the rebels will attempt to flank us with light cavalry.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3836&d=1329024515
Exploit #20: Rebel in castle? Pick your battle
Since there is no hope of reinforcement, rebels defended in a castle tend to sally in their first besieged season. This allows us to pick our fight between a castle assault or a field defence.
In most situations, manually fighting a castle assault will certainly give better outcome. But they also take a long (real) time. Auto-resolve is instant, while field battle is relatively quick, too. So we are essentially picking between two quick alternatives of a long manual assault.
If our army is not much more powerful against the rebels, auto-resolving might give us higher losses. In such cases, fighting the field battle is more desirable. A reasonable loss ratio in a field defence against rebels is about 10-15%.
If no rebel unit made it to the exit when we choose to end the battle, we will instantly occupy the castle. So there is no loss of progress.
If our general is only two battles from leveling up, fighting the field defence battle might leave some survivors retreating into the besieged castle (easy win for auto-resolve next season), as long as we allow some units to escape. As we already know, this could be useful in generating infinite chances to get an ideal retainer, or keeping our agents always successful. :mad:
This is also the first field battle that we had a chance to use our exotic Matchlock Ashigaru. My father kept them in the back, just in case any rebel breaking through our line. Here comes one light cavalry unit eating the bullet!
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3837&d=1329024515
Instant rout! (They were already wavering and low in number.)
A tragic ending for the rebel's saly. We might have achieved similar results with auto-resolve anyway.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3838&d=1329024515
The only 7 rebel soldiers made it out alive were not enough to regroup and defend the castle anymore. My father's army walked into the castle instantly.
As we peacefully and indirectly devour our innocent neighbor, there are important developments in other parts of Japan. Hojo has declared war on Ikko-Ikki. This does not quite makes sense, as the two clans do not have any border provinces at this moment. They are separated by Oda, Takeda, and a revived clan west of Takeda.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3839&d=1329024515
Hojo has almost completely destroyed its enemies in the northeast. So it is probably imaginable that it is now ready to turn its strong military west. Can Ikko-Ikki hold them off for long?
And Takeda has been reduced to a weak power under the united pressure of Oda and Ikko-Ikki. We anticipate their downfall anytime.
The next news is really shocking - the alliance between Ikko-Ikki and Odda is broken. This is probably because that Oda decided not to help Ikko-Ikki in their defence against Hojo. Oda is still Hojo's trading partner. And they are the two most powerful clans in central and eastern Japan.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3840&d=1329024515
While Oda and Ikko-Ikki is not at war yet, the end of their friendship already altered the future of Japan. If Oda stays friendly with Hojo for a long time, Hojo might be able to develop into a superpower that Oda will not be able to contain when they eventually fight each other.
Thoughts #22: If there are only 3 superpowers left, better make the other 2 fight each other
The best situation for us is that all remaining clans remain equally weak in their fruitless war against each other. So when we inevitably fight them, they will be all weak and underdeveloped. The worst we want to see is we are up against a single clan owning the rest of Japan. There won't be any Realm Divide for them, so this is bound to happen sooner or later.
So our goal should be to turn Oda and Hojo against each other as early as possible. This would contain Hojo's expansion, and prolongs the life of Ikko-Ikki.
So let's see if there is anything we can do diplomaticaly to encourage Hojo and Oda fight. Hm... how come Hojo's relationship with us has deteriorated so far? Dishonoring treaties -49? What is this?
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3841&d=1329024515
Feature or Bug?: Dishonoring treaties
When a clan attacks an ally/vessal, they receive a really bad reputation all across Japan. And this negative image is officially called "Dishonoring treaties", even though this treaty was made with another clan.
In this case, Hojo has probably declared war on Satomi (one of their enemies at the bottom). We know that Satomi used to be Hojo's ally.
Now, Hojo makes itself very unpopular in Japan, as every clan, including Oda and us Chosokabe, receives this Dishonoring Treaty modifier in their relationship with Hojo. However, there is nothing happening for other clans' relationship with Satomi. So we infer that it was Hojo who broke the alliance.
Why would Hojo turn against a loyal ally while it still has other enemies? This is really stupid.
Now it is quite hard for anyone to make friends with Hojo. This is a great news to us - Oda and Hojo is now more likely to fight each other. After realizing how bad military alliance really is, we do not want to ally with Hojo anyway, as this only brings us to unecessary war with Hojo's enemies.
Let's come back to our own business. Our harmonious expansion in Chugoku continues. In this winter, we will be able to add two more provinces, Bitchu, and Izumo, to our rapidly-growing territory.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3842&d=1329024515
Hatano's full stack has been bumped to Bizen. Please note that although that army avatar appears to have run out its movement (sitting on a folded chair), this onlly means that they had run out of movement before they were bumped. They will still be able to move this turn.
Unfortunately, we did not realize this at the time, so we missed the precious chance to sabotage this army for the rebel (instead our Ninja burned their castle gate). The result is that the rebel we called up in Bizen was ruthlessly crushed by the full stack! :bomb:
Lesson learned: When in doubt, sabotage that army anyway.
As expected, my father was able to easily overpower the small rebel in Bitchu.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3843&d=1329024515
Similarly, our young finance minister had no problem taking Izumo in the north.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3844&d=1329024515
Our fast growing territory certainly made us famous. The Shogun has been really nervous.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3845&d=1329024515
But we will wisely pause just before he gets too nervous. That day should come very soon given our current rate of expansion.
Our ramen general laid siege on the Awa castle. But he is not keen to assault the castle right away, since there are quite a few defenders in the Stronghold.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3846&d=1329024515
The rebels predictably sallied in the same season. Let's see what we can do on the field!
Since the rebel has a large number of Cavalry but we have limited Yari units, our ramen general camped all the way back to the corner of the battefield, with spear walls completely seal off any possibility of flanking.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3847&d=1329024515
So what does the rebel cavalry do? They charged into the spear wall!
There was a hill obstacle before our line, so the rebel infantry had to readjust their group formation when passing by it.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3848&d=1329024515
This delay not only resulted in the total loss of the rebel's light cavalry, but also funnelled most their infantry into the middle, where our always-massive Bow Ashigaru horde had plenty of time showering arrows on them one by one.
We only lost 75 men. This is way better than storming the castle in the first place.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3849&d=1329024515
However, two dying units of Light Cavalry made it back to the castle. So we will have to fight them again next spring. In the meantime, we will suffer from winter attrition. This is not a problem at all - the soldiers will have several years of rest after this. The countdown to the pre-Realm Divide Pause has started!
This concludes chapter 14 of our story. :bow:
Chapter 15. Long road to prosperity
Welcome back, great daimyos. I am Chosokabe Nana. :bow: Yes, I am back to narrate our clan's story.
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My brother Motochika has become an official adult at a young age of 15, in the Nanban year of 1554. As the heir of our clan, Motochika must receive rigorous military training and accumulate his reputation (honor) as a good daimyo. He has boarded a ship in the Nanban port in Bungo.
We Chosokabe are undoubtedly now the richest clan in Japan, with a financial rating of "Spectacular" in the current issue of Daimyo magazine. We sell products to almost every corner of Japan. With the completion of Terrace Framing upgrade soon in all 21 provinces, we now generate an enormous amount of food surplus.
We still wish to further develop our economy so eventually we will be able to support our armies even without a healthy trading income. Within 3 years, we will be able to start improving our agriculture to its ultimate form - Land Consolidation. This will push our food surplus to about 45. We will have very prosperous towns in all provinces.
Only after we accumulate a tremendous amount of wealth and advanced military power will we take on the rest of Japan.
In the meantime, we will simply maintain as many trade partners as we can. The best way to business is to be friendly to everyone. So we will try to avoid any kind of alliance, so we do not have to pick sides. No matter who is at war with whom, they buy Chosokabe products.
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Interestingly, weaker clans such as Hatakeyama are now especially eager to pay to trade with us. They would pay so much. They probably think that the trading relationship will eventually lead to our "Terrifying" army's protection. But they never explicitedly ask for it. It is to our best interest that they are kept alive, as each trading partner brings in at least 1000 koku per season.
Here, our financial commissioner takes over one additional province from rebels.
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But he has to stop now. Our fame is now dangerously high. We can at most take just two more provinces. We have to pick them wisely. The next province on the upper route of Chugoku has nothing special.
Finally, our trade fleet has reached the trade node in the northeast. Irons are a must for military. So far we have been buying Iron from other clans. Since whoever supplies us iron might not be our friend after Realm Divide, taking this trade node also help ourselves.
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It is a good time to spend some time to discuss diplomacy for the upcoming Realm Divide.
Thoughts #23. Realm Divide Diplomacy
Realm Divide produces an one-time initial penalty at -50 or less, plus a gradually increasing penalty of diplomatic relationship up to -200. It is reasonable to assume that eventually even the best ally will betray us, but if we keep them friendly for long enough so that we can eliminate other hostile clans before they turn hostile, our diplomacy is already successful.
In order to make one clan to lilke us as much as they can, here are the factors to consider:
Military Alliance. Initially +100 relationship, but the effect wears off over time. So it is better to form the alliance at the last moment before the Realm Divide for the best result. While making an alliance, we can bundle it up with sending a Hostage just like we did with Ouchi. This powerful bargaining chip could create a very desired situation that allows us to ask the new ally to break their alliance with another clan, who is about to declare war on us due to Realm Divide.
We are in no hurry to find an ally. Our current favorite choice is Hojo, as they are the farthest from us, so there is little chance that they even want to betray us. However, this does not mean that we will not send agents to slow down their expansion. If we are so good that we can destroy them just by the works of agents, we do not even have to ally with them.
Marriage. Initially +100 relationship, but the effect wears off. While I am not going to re-marry into another clan, we might be able to find wives for my younger brothers from other clans. While we also want to delay the marriage to the last moment, we also want to get the girls before they are married to someone else.
The drawback of marriage is that we will be quite disliked by the clan's enemies. So it is probably a good idea to avoid marriage with an unpopular clan.
Trade. Improves realtionship +1 per season, starting from +15 and goes up to +60. Given that we have just relocated and established trade realtionship with other clans for a few years, we need to wait quite a bit longer for the friendship to develop. It is resonable that we trigger Realm Divide about 10 years (40 season) later.
Territorial Expansion. Each province acquired from another clan gives a penalty, which improves by +1 per season. Currently, we have a -28 modifier on this one. After seven years, all clans will forget about what ever happened to our bloody wars. However, once the Realm Divide triggers, if we take lands from another clan, we will again fill up this mind of hatred quickly. So it is still a good idea to use agents to create rebeled provinces as we move forward.
Monetary Gift. Everybody likes more money, even though they already have plenty. This may be the powerful push we need to improve the relationship of a certain clan to delay their war on us. It is more efficient to give an one-time large gift than many small gifts.
Currently, we make about 15000 from trades - 13000 from the actual trade, 2000 from unsold resources. This trade income will stay more of less the same if we maintain the same number of trade partners. However, if we start losing trade partners, we will lose trade income.
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It is reasonable to assume that after Realm Divide, we will lose a lot of trade partners as they declare war on us. So at that time we better rely almost solely on non-trade income - tax income.
Let's draw a graph to explain it better.
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Currently, our trade income is almost twice as much as our tax income from farming, towns, commerce (Markets, Sake Den, etc.), and mining. However, since we will have a lot of food surplus, we will have rapidly growing towns. Eventually tax income will surpass trade income even at its full capacity.
Thoughts #24. Realm Divide Economy
Most of our post-Realm Divide economy will be supported by tax revenue. But since trade income is still so lucrative, it might be worthwhile to keep a few trading partners, if we can turn a profit from it. If we think about the bright side, we would be supporting an additional ally through trade revenue with this clan. We won't get any extra money, but we get one less enemy.
A very reliable and inexpensive way to generate trade partners after Realm divide is to make vassals of formally destroyed clans. When we conquer a province, we sometimes have the option to revive a fallen clan which used to based in that province. Such clan will immediately become our vassal. If a clan is revived after the realm divide takes place, they will not be affected by the diplomatic penalty. We will be able to enjoy friendship with this clan and trade with it continuously.
Now since there are two Realm Divide triggers - one for having more than about 22 provinces (Domination campaign) and one for taking Kyoto, it would be a good idea to make both happen as quickly as possible, so we can start making vassals/trade partners all over Japan. Our current plan is to coincide the clan fame Ream Divide with our march toward Kyoto.
Actually, trade income is not always stable. The fluctuation is not that big, but we can always expect one or more trade routes blocked or raided by our trade partners' enemies.
In addition, the Wako pirates always love to raid our trade routes or blockade our ports. Luckily, even one Bow Kabuya can defend a key passage, and keep a lot of ports safe.
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In this case, we can effectly stop the Wako pirates from going north to threaten our trade routes base in Bungo, Buzen, etc. The Wako pirates also can't go west, as our full-stack main fleet is there. So it had no other choice but to go east, and eventually destroyed by other clans's navy.
Here we received an useless mission - in order to Strengthen our Borders, we need to recruit one unit Iyo for a reward of six seasons of defence boost. We have no use of military and garrison as we are not even at war with anybody. So there is no point to hire anything in Iyo.
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But later on we accidentally completed this mission by building a trade ship in Iyo. That somehow strengthened or borders. :sweatdrop:
Let's take a quick look of our clan's current financial status.
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We are generating a huge profit every season. There is no way we can spend that much. Now we are just saving up for the mass upgrade of farms (Land Consolidation) about 2 years and half later, which requires about 70,000 koku. Then we can simply save up and get ready for the Realm Divide. In order to keep army upkeep low, We will only start mass-producing high quality units in the last two years leading to the Realm Divide. We aim to have at least 100,000 koku in savings when Realm Divide kicks in. But the more the better.
In the meantime, we are moving our agents toward Hojo's territory. If there is anything that will cause major problems later, it would be Hojo. We want to weaken them as much as possible before we pull back our agents to weaken Oda.
At the beginning of this chapter I mentioned that my brother Motochika needs to receive rigorous military training before he can become a respected daimyo. But how do we give him battle experience during peace time?
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Well, why don't we use our old home? The rebels in Tosa was at minimal strength, with no cavalry. Motochika only needs to fake a siege to the castle to draw the weak army out to sally, and run in circles for a while. Although he does not have to engage the enemy, he develops a strong heart both from mentally facing a superior army, and physically riding the horse around the battlefield.
Exploit #21. Rebel trainer
When generals have no battle to fight, it is a good idea to level-up generals using weak rebel provinces, which has nothing else but ashigaru infantry defending in the castle. Just like the case of a Bow Kabyua on water, while laying siege to the castle with just the general's unit, the general can easily shake off the chasers and earn a heroic victory (50% more experience). So we can quickly level up generals. The drawback is that we cannot quickly interview potential retainers.
Defensive heroic victory does not increases clan fame, so it does not make Realm Divide happen more quickly.
Laying siege to the castle also has one important use on Legendary - it generates infinite save points within a turn.
If we do not want the general's bodyguard to suffer from winter attrition, simply break the siege (an option when we enter the zoom-in view of the avatar) before ending the winter turn, and walk the general back to our border.
Also, a basic Fort usually only holds a siege for 3 turns, so we have to break the siege in autumn and resume anyway, or we may accidentally take the castle.
The defenders in the castle also slowly suffer from attrition. Eventually they will be wiped out. But luckily there is always the free Samurai Retainer.
My brother probably had a sore throat because he sounded like my uncle.
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Can you tell which one is he? He is the one without the balloon in the back. The balloon "horo" marks the bodyguard so they can be more easily distinguished. They do not carry their tent in there.
While our agents move toward Hojo's territory while opening every castle gate on their way, they discovered a new clan called Anegakoji.
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They are probably revived from Hida, which was occupied by the Takeda clan. Now they actually own a province that has a trading port, and they are willing to sell their pants to trade with us. This is great!
Now we own five out of the six foreign trade nodes, but apprantly here is an opportunity for complete monopoly. The last trade node (warhorse) used to be reserved by the Honma clan. The Honma clan is at war with the Ikko-Ikki, whose navy bumped out the fleet guarding this trade node, but strangely, Ikko-Ikki's fleet do not take the trade node.
We will gladly take over. :bow:
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Exploit #22. Waiting in line for trade nodes
It is always a good investment to wait in line for a trade node with a cheap (but invincible) Bow Kabuya. The original reservation might be bumped away by an hostile fleet or Wako pirates, or simply vanish because their clan is defeated. Strangely, none of the attackers of the trade node is smart enough to split just one boat to inherit the trade node.
That concludes Chapter 15 of our story. :bow:
Chapter 16. Hunting, hunted
Welcome back, honorable, or not so honorable daimyos. Let's continue the story of Chosokabe. I am Chosokabe Nana. :bow:
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Let's look at our clan's research plan for the future. We still have about 5-10 years before we finally go all out war. So there are certainly a lot of research items we can complete in the meantime.
Our top priority is to complete the research of Chonindo, the way of townsfolks. Chonindo not only unlocks the ultimate farm upgrade Land Consolidation, which enables us to rapidly develop towns throughout provinces, but also unlocks the Master Bowmaker as the ultimate upgrade of the Artisan line. The Master Bowmaker provides +20% accuracy for bow units.
Next, we wish to complete a set of medium-level Chi arts to enable a 20% discount on all agent actions. Essence of Spirit also unlocks Monastry and the recruitment of Warrior Monks. We will be recruiting the Bow variety in Buzen. These will be the elite Bow units in our army.
Next, we will go after the advanced art for Ninjas, Ninjatsu Mastery. This art allows us to construct the highest-level Sake Den upgrade, the Mizu Shobai District, to provide 25% extra tax income in our richest provinces such as Hizen, and allow us to recruit the most feared assassin, Geisha.
That would be the end of all our research in economy. Next, we will completely shift our focus to the resarch of Bushido, the way of Warrior. We will first complete a number of medium-level arts, then go deep on the Bow path to give us even better Bow units' performance. By then, the most difficult part of our campaign should be over, and we will just make porcupine out of anyone who were not handled by our agents. :sweatdrop:
Bizen is the final acquisition of our rapid expansion. My father easily took care of the large rebels in the castle (auto-resolve).
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This province has Blacksmiths and Yari Workshop. We can make this one our fourth recruitment center, as this province is right at our border. Other than +5 armor Yari Ashigaru, we look forward to recruit some very good Naginata Samurai. A line of golden armor Naginata Samurai pretty much deflect arrows from the enemy! :laugh4:
Our Ninja traveled to Etchu, and found that our latest trade partner, Anegakoji, was about to be destroyed the second time. A large Takeda invasion has defeated their main army. If the Takeda army attacks their castle later this season, Anegekoji is done for (again). We will lose a trade partner, but we will also regain Takeda as a trade partner. Maybe Takeda will sell their underwear to trade with us, too. :grin3:
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However, since Takeda is allied with Hojo, and our current objective is to weakend Hojo's power with our agents, we may as well spend 1000 koku and sabotage Takeda's army. By delaying Takeda's attack by one more season, the Anegakoji might have just enough force to repel Takeda's attack.
As the Takeda army was sabotaged, and their assault on the Etchu castle failed. We expect that the Anegakoji clan would at least appreciate our timely assistance.
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However, they repaid us by trying to arrest our Ninja with their Metsuke! This is how they show gratitude? :furious3:
And by failing the arrest, Anegakoji is now very embarrassed when they negotiate with us. Our relationship therefore receives a great hit (-48). How is this ever our fault? :furious3:
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We should have received a huge thank, plus an apology from them. But instead now they hate us. What's wrong with this world? :inquisitive:
Lesson learned:
(1) Always get rid of an agent when we see one.
(2) Never help another clan, for they are too stupid to say thanks. Or maybe the world is too simple to allow any gratitude expressed. There are tons of ways to express betrayal, though. :sweatdrop:
Seeing that my brother Motichika is having some fun with Tosa's rebel, our Ramen general left his army in Awa and joined him in Tosa. Now both of them can enjoy the exercise while there is no enemy to fight.
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The first retainer that my brother pick up was a Waka Poet for Honor/Loyalty +1. This will definitely come in handy later. It would be the best if he can have a pet tiger (diplomatic relationships +10), but unfortunatey it is for daimyo only.
Now my father and his young finance commissioner also decide to setup their own training camp in a nearby province. Our agents have turned this former Hatano province rebel, so they can have the fun, too.
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There is a little problem with the rebels here, as they have a Light Cavalry unit that travels faster than our general's bodyguard. However, since we have two general units, we had no problem luring it out and hunting it down with very reasonable casualties (5 men and 7 men, respectively). We will gain those number back during our break in the winter seasons.
While our agents steadily travel east, we inevitably alearted the local clans, who sent their own agents. Here in Settsu, both Hatakeyama clan Metsuke and Oda clan Ninja made a move on us.
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Now we have learned our lessons - all enemy agents will try to destroy us when they see us. So we must do that to them first. That's why we now have two Metsuke joining the action. Their job is to arrest all other agents!
Let's start with these two Hatakeyama Metsuke and Oda Ninja. Our goal is to train these Metsuke by arresting every single new agent from these local clans. Eventually, when our Metsuke becomes famous cops, they could bribe bribe armies at a cheaper price.
There has been a while since we last fought Wako. But here comes a new opponent. The European traders have dispatched a Back Ship to patrol the coast of Nihon! Are they here to trade with us, or are they here spank us with cannon balls?
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The Black Ship is the most powerful naval unit in this world. Its side cannon has a long range of 700, and can easily destroy any approach ship. Can we capture this ship and dominate the water?
Exploit #23: Capturing the Black Ship
On manual combat, the ship can easily destroy a full-stack fleet. However, in auto-combat, the Black Ship is only as powerful as their limited melee crew number. (It is still a large crew of more than 300.)
It is actually possible to capture the Black Ship by a large number of the worst naval unit - Trade Ship with auto-combat, although in manual combat this feat could be extremely unlikely. We will end up losing a lot of Trade Ships and therefore suffer a temporary large hit in trade income. But who can resist the temptation of having the most powerful ship?
If uninterfered, the Black Ship travels around Japan on a high speed, faster than conventional Japanese navy. Any clan that sees the Black Ship probably only has one turn to capture it before it sails away, and has to wait for its return many years later.
The Black Ship tends to avoid any contact in its first encounter, even if they hold the advantage. Depending on which direction the attacker approaches the Black Ship, it will retreat to the opposite direction by a certain distance.
This predictability enable us to capture it in the second encouter in the same turn, where they will be forced to stand and fight. However, from experience, if the Black Ship is approached at its full crew and condition, it is extremely unlikely (never worked for me in over 20 attempts) to capture it in auto-combat. It will simply sink.
Therefore, in such case, we need to weaken, but not kill, the black ship in our second encounter, so we can capture it in the third encounter of the turn.
Ideal spawning place for capture: It would be ideal if the Black Ship appears close to the western trade nodes, as we would have a large number of trade ships nearby for a coordinated effort. In this case, we have full-stacks of 1 Bow Kabuya + 9 Trade Ship in each trade node. We also have a full stack of regular navy nearby, consisted of 1 Sengoku Bune, 7 Medium Bune, and 2 Bow Kabuya.
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Our first move is to force the Black Ship to move further west and therefore into our crossfire of three fleets neraby. This way we are certain that we can capture it with quantity over its quality in auto-resolve combat. We first attack from the east so the Black Ship escapes west. The attacker from the east is simply a Bow Kabuya split from the southern trade node (pointed out by the arrow).
Now if we simply attack the Black Ship with all three fleets nearby, the ship will be defeated and sink 20 out of 20 times. We need to weaken it first, but without sinking it.
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How do we weaken it without sinking it? We used our main naval fleet to engage it alone with auto-combat. Our fleet lost and one Medium Bune was captured, but the Black Ship was also weakened.
Then we move in for the capture with the two trade fleets with a total of 1 Bow Kabuya and 18 Trade Ships.
Success! A heroic victory on the sea and the Black Ship is ours!
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Who wants to convert to Nanban's lord, if our agents are always as effective as missionaries and we will easily get the Black Ship anyway? :laugh4:
Taste the power of (underground) Law Enforcement! Odas Ninja stumbled in the street chase and fell by our Metsuke's feet.
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This is probably the quickest way to train a Metsuke. It would take ages for them to become better supervising towns.
As our ninja travelled further east, we found that Anegakoji has emptied its defence in order to counterattack Takeda. Since both of them are down to just one province, whoever takes the other's empty castle wins! What a risky and... exploitable behavior. :rolleyes: It seems that Takeda had missed their opportunity.
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Nah, we are not going to interfere this time.
There are certain a lot of hostile agents in the capital area. One of our best Ninja was not careful and he was arrested by Oda's Metsuke!
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Fortunately, we hired the best lawyer and reduced his charge to "vandalism of historical site". He did burn down a lot of castle gates, but he certainly had not killed anybody (important). :devilish: He will be freed in Bungo in the next season.
In the meantime, we constantly check back dating services to see which clan has a daughter to marry into us. Currently, only the Hatameyama clan has an available daughter. But only an idiot wants to make friends with them, as they are pretty much the public enemy of all Japan, and they are on the blink of elimination.
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But we noticed something big - Oda and Hojo, the two most powerful clans after us, have become allies! This is quite a shock, as we saw Hojo betrayed and destroyed Satomi not so long ago. It is shocking that Oda would put their trust on Hojo.
The alliance of the two signals the bad news for Ikko-ikki and Hatakeyama, as Oda and Hojo should be able to get rid of them rather quickly. We might be able to bribe them to break the alliance just before the Realm Divide, but doing so now is meaningless, as they can simply re-ally on the next season. Now our biggest diplomatic fear has come true - we have to be more careful.
That concludes chapter 16 of our story. :bow:
Chapter 17. Infiltration
Welcome back, great daimyos. I am Chosokabe Nana. :bow:
After we capture the Black Ship, we were eager to test its power on the water. It happened that a Wako fleet approached our coast. And they don't even try to escape when our massive Grim Repear apporaches. Taste cannon balls!
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We positioned our Black Ship on the far corner of the deployment zone, with the wind blowing against the approaching enemy. This greatly slowed them down, and we were able to destroy that entire Wako fleet before they even fired an arrow at us! :laugh4:
Since our Metsuke has been active on the field arresting other agents, we were given a mission to bribe any army in order to receive a boost of Metsuke's success chance by 10% for 6 seasons.
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This is pretty pointless, as our Metsuke will always succeed anyway. And we certainly don't want to bribe other clan's armies to make unecessary enemies.
While we infiltrated all our available monks and ninjas into Hojo's territory, our two Metsuke watch out the development of Kinki and arrest any agent who just graduated from their respective temple/market/sake den. For example, that fresh Hatano ninja is about to be trialed and executed.
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Oda has amassed a huge army of almost four full stacks. They will have no trouble taking the Settsu province from Hatakeyama, who does not even bother defending the castle. Our Metsuke reported that Hatakeyama's full stack of army in the south. They were smart not to defend the caslte, as they had no chance.
Interestingly, although Oda has this extremely powerful army, they were not in a hurry to take the castle right away. Oda's stacks have been standing there for a year now. Also, Oda is leaving most of their provinces lightly defended. If that Hatekeyama's one full-stack army wants to steal any city from Oda, they can. But strangely, they are not doing it.
Also joining the party is Hatano's one stack and half. Since Hatano is at war with both Hatakeyama (they are pretty much the enemies of all Japan) and Oda, Hatano has no chance to take the province. So why are they even here, only waiting to be crushed by Oda? (Indeed, that's what happened later this season.) It would be reasonable if Hatano sets up an ambush in the forest in their own territory.
Exploit #24: Probing the weakness the Horde
The above observations on our future opponent clans give us valuable insights of their way of thinking, and allow us to come up with powerful strategies to exploit their weakness.
For example, since the opponent clans really like to have one giant but slow group of stacks but leave other provinces relatively defenseless, we can easily turn their other provinces to rebel when their horde is far and away.
Also, if we are able to sabotage one stack, are the other stack going to wait for them to catch up? In all these turns Oda was standing in Settsu, they seemed to be waiting for more units, although they already had far more than necessary.
Even if the horde does attack us, on the battlefield, only one stack shows up at a time. The only thing that we need to worry if that we will run out of arrows before they run out of reinforcement. With 50% more ammunition, we can probably rout two full stacks. But if we are the defender, we can always use the battle timer to restrict the length of the battle so at most two stacks show up. If we had to sally from a castle, we can use our savings and two Metsuke nearby to instantly bribe away two of their full stacks. Now we have a spectacular fortune, there are limitless possibilities.
Let's verify our theory. While our agents' main objective is to weaken Hojo, we happen to pass by some more distant Oda provinces, very far away from the Horde in Settsu.
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Ops. One less province for Oda. Now if we turn another province to rebel, we will be able to sever the land trade between Oda and Hojo. :rolleyes:
One less province for Hojo, too.
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The northeastern provinces are very far apart from each other, so even if we will have 4 monks and 5 ninjas working together, we need quite a few seasons to effectively weaken Hojo. Maybe we will keep going until they only have one province left - the province that they use to trade with us. :pimp:
By the way, the Honma clan seems to be very content with their two full stacks on Sado isoland. If they sail out, they can easily capture a few provinces nearby. Maybe they are just not ambitious enough.
There are certainly a lot of agent activites around Kyoto. The Ashikaga shogun is particularly fond of monks. Every time we arrest and secretly executed one, they train another immediately.
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Excellent training facility for our Metsuke. After a few arrests, our Metsuke gets the trait "Vicious". :leer:
Our agents engaged in heavy combat with Hojo's agents. Of course, we won. We killed about 5 Hojo's agents here. This Metsuke will be the last.
It seems that each clan has a different pre-set rule of hiring a certain agent. As soon as one dies, they will hire another one. For example, Ashikaga (Kyoto) always hires Monk. Anekagoji and Hojo always hires Metsuke. Hojo has a lot of Metsuke.
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Hojo lost Izu and its gold mine, an important income source. Or can they hire army without money anyway? :sweatdrop: (from experience, they actually can run out of money even on legendary)
By the way, our trade with Hojo used to be worth more than 4000 koku, but since we are turning their provinces to rebels, we are selling less and less products, too. That's why we need to develop towns and reduce our reliance on trade income.
Here we are given a new mission - to assassinate anybody. The reward is increased ninja success chance.
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While this mission is very easy to complete, right now our ninja's priority is to sabotage castle gates to prevent a province from hiring new troops, while our monk recite a rebellion there.
We don't need increased ninja success chance anyway. :sweatdrop:
Finally, our research on Chonindo is complete. There is now a massive farm upgrade in our provinces. But it will take another two years to finish. :wall:
Hm, this world's research and infrastructures are taking way too long compared to the pace of expansion and war.
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As planned, our next goal is to complete the 3rd-tier arts of the Way of Chi.
Here we have our first 6-star Ninja, Takanaga san! He was our very first Ninja, hired in Shigoku in the very first year of our campaign. He is now 44 years old!
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3930&d=1329456100
And he is our expert on assassination and army sabotage - same as any other Ninja we have. The success chance for opening castle gates are already very high anyway. Hm, why do we care about success chance? :rolleyes:
We were debating whether to incite a rebellion in Hojo's capital, Sagami, which may cancel our trade agreement with Hojo and waste away the positive relationship built up over the past years. But there is no need for debate anymore. Ikko-Ikki has amassed an army of almost two stacks, heading for Hojo's relatively defenceless core region. Hojo's army is really scattered here and there and can't save their capital in time. So we will probably lose our trade with Hojo.
So let's turn all these provinces to rebel anyway. :smash:
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Thoughts #25: Trade Cancellation
When trading is no longer possible between two clans, the trading agreement is automatically cancelled, and all accumulated positive relationships from trading is forever lost.
For sea trade to happen, a clan must have a LAND ROUTE connection between its capital and a trading (or above) port. The specific trade port then becomes the designated trading port. If that province is lost, the trade is automatically cancelled, no matter how many other available trading ports remain. If that designated port is blocked by a hostile fleet, all trade income is lost for the turn (the trade agreement remains), even if your territory is right next to them and you can easily ship goods to them via the land route. This does not make any sense, but it is how it goes. :wall:
Land-trades are not so easily broken, though. If two trading clans already have a land-route connection between their capitals, when the land route is broken, a sea route may be used and trade is not cancelled. Only if no land and sea routes are possible will a land trade route cancel. This happened to us when we relocated from Tosa to Bungo - we were still trading with Miyoshi after the move.
When our capital is base in Kyushu, when we trade with another daimyo on the mainland, sea trade is the default way even if land route is possible (probably because sea trade offers more income).
Note: There is a bug that when we lose a trade partner, we are unable to find a new one until we load a new save.
The Ikko-Ikki is really serious about aggression - not only did they send two stacks to steal Hojo's heart provinces, but they also managed to steal Oda's capital Owari when Oda's giant stacks were not paying attention. Since all our trading goods were shipped to Owari, our trade with Oda is also lost.
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But Oda really like to have a Wal-Mart type (dumping everything to you for $) trading partner like us. Look at how much Oda is willing to pay us to restore our trade! Can you come back every year, Ikko-ikki? :bow:
While waiting for our tax income to catch up, our trading network is so well developed that so many clans are willing to sell their sons and daughters to trade with us, even though we will profit much more than they from us.
Since the sea trade routes are so easily broken, it might be profitable to purposely incite a rebellion in the clan's designated trading port province with us, if we will be able to restore the trade immediately after. The loss of a trade partner's province means less trade income for us, though. A short-term gain vs. long-term loss.
And here we have our first 6-star monk as well. Apparently, the more experienced they are, the less money they need to carry and the less clothing they can afford.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3933&d=1329456116
He is am expert of reciting rebellion and spreading the good old Shinto-Buddhism. It will come in handy when we eventually expand into the Ikko-Ikki territory.
While my father and his young general think they have a private training ground with the rebels, Hatano sent an army to join the fun. Since we have "reserved" this castle by constantly laying siege on the rebel castle (later, we found out that general's bodyguards alone do not suffer from winter attrition, so we can train every season, every year), the Hatano army could only watch.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3934&d=1329456116
But they did join one combat as our ally, even if we are not allies. Maybe the fact that we are both at the war with the rebels are good enough reasons. They killed off most of the sally defenders, but we purposely let some of them go so our training can continue. Luckily, the Hatano army did not get that close to "help us" anymore. They just patiently wait in the field, forever.
Maybe they think we will eventually lose and the castle will be theirs to take. Or maybe they are not even this smart - they are simply given the order to take this castle, and will keep waiting until the castle is available to be attacked.
So we failed the Metsuke Bribery mission; we failed the Ninja Assassination mission... there is finally a mission we can accomplish. We should train one more Cavalry unit for the "buy one, get one free" promotion! Sure. Let's queue one in Awa. The free one probably won't get the charge bonus, though.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3935&d=1329456116
It will be still sometime until we enter the "massive recruitment" stage, but we can afford the extra 300 koku upkeep.
Hojo's capital is finally lost, but we can restore trade with them from their alternative ports. Strangely, Hojo is unwilling to pay us anything.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3936&d=1329456116
Since Hojo has been losing provinces to rebellions, but not losing their army as quickly, maybe their reduced financial income render them unable to afford any signing bonus. It is OK. We will sign it for free for our ex-largest trade partner.
But this won't slow down our agents. :smash:
Another new year has arrived! Nothing much has changed exept for Hojo's dwindling power from Ikko-Ikki, Anekagoji (they declared war a few years back), and of course, the ever-respawning rebels incited by us. We lost the trade with them again since they have no trading port left.
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Now there is a chance to pick a suitable wife for my brother Motochika. While we would love to choose him a wife who provides some positive traits. A (re)productive wife is certainly an interesting choice. Who wouldn't want to have lots of offsprings fighting for our throne when we are about to pass? Yeah. At least there are free generals and diplomatic chips a couple dozens of years later.
Hojo is attacked by almost everyone. Even its northeast castle has been stolen by the once dying Hatakeyama. Hojo's two remaining provinces are both under attack by two different clans. Even without our help, this might as well be their last season! :dizzy2:
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By the way, Hatakeyama will soon lose their blacksmith provinces to rebels. Their new home has only a Harbor, so we will have to wait for them to upgrade it to Trading Port for us to continue to trade with them. Inciting rebellion is not really a profitable business.
Well that's it! Hojo, once the most powerful clan in Japan, almost peacefully succumbed to its neighbors and troubles form within - at least it appears that way. :sweatdrop:
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And we did not even have a battle with them... during all these times we were upgrading our farms.
Er, can you notice that there are holes appearing in the middle of Oda's territory? :rolleyes:
By the way, the Anekagoji clan has performed quite a mircale come-back from certain destruction. We saved them with our Ninja. And look at them now! They have pushed back the Ikko-ikki by so much.
It seems that Anakagoji and Ikko-ikki, and possibly many other clans, are ultra-aggressive types. They frequently send out their stacks to attack, but leave their home completely defenseless. So they can expand really quickly if they do not have an enemy after their tails. These are really dangerous clans and we should contain them, too.
Judging from the turtle speed of the development of towns, there are still a lot of work for our agents before we return to the battlefield.
That concludes chapter 17 of our story. :bow:
Chapter 18. Stepping stone to Kyoto
Welcome back, graet daimyos. I am Chosokabe Nana. :bow:
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Finally, we have the 5th general. It has been quite absurd that we have been governing 21 provinces with just four generals - all of them away for training. This lucky man is instantly promoted to our supply comissioner, and then is sent to Tosa to train with my brother Motochika.
As the Hojo clan has been silently destroyed by a combination of efforts, we can direct our agents to other meaningful activites, such as turning the other ultra-aggressive clans' provinces into rebel, so they will not grow out of control.
We are also considering to move forward the countdown to Realm Divide, since we no longer need so much army when we do not have so many powerful opponents. Right now, there are only three clans, Oda, Ikko-Ikki, and Anekagoji, who regularly field invasion armies larger than one full stack. So we will time our massive recruitment together with the downfall of one of the above.
Thoughts #26. Accounting for Realm Divide
We aim for one full stack of army for every general, for a total of 5 stacks. One army consists of elite army units, such as samurai, and will be actively looking for field battles to crush the enemies.
For the elite army, we will have the following units ready specializing against different enemies:
- 10 units of Bow Warrior Monks or Bow/Daikyu Samurai (+ accuracy)
- 6 units of Naginata Samurai (+ armor)
- 6 units of Yari Samurai (+ armor)
- 6 units of Katana Samurai (+ armor)
- 4 units of Yari cavalry (+ charge)
- 4 units of Matchlock Ashigaru
- 2 units of Kisho Ninja (+ armor)
So essentially we have two samurai stacks, not just one. So we will always fight with the optimal configuration.
The rest of the 4 generals will lead all-ashigaru armies for general purposes.
- General
- 10 units of Bow Ashigaru (+ accuracy)
- 7 units of Yari Ashigaru (+ armor)
- 2 units of Light Cavalry (+ charge)
Right now we have two fleets, or more accurately, one fleet plus one massive Black Ship. We need one fleet to fend off the Wako Pirates in the west, and two fleets to push forward along with our land army, one for northwestern coast and one for the southeastern coast. This way no enemy can drop anything behind our lines. We need to get another full fleet ready.
That's why we have been waiting for our tax income to catch up. A rough estimate tells us that we need an income of 24000 koku per season to feed all of the above. Considering that all but one or two trade partners will declare war on us after the Realm Divide, we need a tax income of at least 20000 koku.
Realistically, we can probably get away with less, since we will soon revive a few fallen clans as vassals to become our new trade partners. And we will have a saving of at least 200,000 koku to cushion against initial deficit. Besides, our towns will continue to grow as we expand. As long as we turn a profit before our savings runs dry, we are fine.
We plan to start the massive recruitment at a raw tax income of 16,000 koku with the cheapest to upkeep (Bow and Yari Ashigaru), and move to the more expensive (Bow Warrior Monk, Cavalry) later. If everything goes well, the last shipment will simultaneously arrive in the front line, and we declare war with no season wasted.
Someone was not very careful while cooking dinner. Smoke came up from the Buzen castle-town!
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3941&d=1329456132
But luckily none of our essential buildings are damaged. :sweatdrop:
This is the day! The ultimate farm ugprade, Land Consolidation, is complete in all of our 21 provinces. There are plenty of food for everyone. We are running a food surplus of 53 units.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3942&d=1329456132
But there is something that we had not anticipated. We thought our towns will grow more by 21 more units per season with Land Consolidation, but actually the town-growth penalty brought by tax is also proportionally increased by the tax rate (30%) as well. This means that our towns are only getting extra 15 units of growth out of 21 more units of food.
Still, more than 40 units of town growth per season is still very amazing. It looks like that we can start the mass recruitment next year.
Currently, our tax income is 17,192 koku per season, under the "Time of Plenty" 25% bonus on farming revenue. It is still a little far away from our goal of 18,000. But we will get there very soon.
Our trade income has been taken a large hit, as the Ikko-Ikki had successfully blocked Oda's trade port with us. While Oda could have easily lift that blockade with its experienced full-stack fleet, Oda chooses to blockade Hatano's trade port with us.
Now if Hatano's fleet blocks Ikko-Ikki's port it would be really funny. But luckily it has not happened.
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We noticed that there are some marginally content provinces in the middle of Chugoku. So we will demolish markets there and build Sake Dens instead. Just in case the Realm Divide or whatever fire, typhoon, earthquake, or tsunami happens there.
Here we take an important strategic step. In order to trigger both Realm Divide triggers as closely as possible, we decide to make Kyoto the 23rd province of ours.
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We have been saving our 22nd province for this date - immediately after we turn Oda's Settsu province to rebel, our Ramen general leads his army to lay siege on the castle. Settsu is right next to Kyoto, and also has a port for us to dock fleets. This is a perfect strategic location to arrange our future invasion.
That battle was over very quickly (auto-resolved).
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We immediately work on to improve Sattsu's infrastructure match the rest of our provinces. This province also has a school, which will be upgraded to accelerate our art research.
But before our army is ready, we can still trade with the Ashikaga Shogun. Immediately after the trade agreement is signed, we noticed that there was no new monk hired in Kyoto for the season. But the hiring resumed in the next season (and immediately got arrested and executed by our Metsuke).
So it is likely that even the Ashikaga Shogun is also running on a tight budget. Previously, we heard some daimyos were able to get tens of thousands of koku from the Shogun in a peace treaty. Maybe the world has been patched so the Shogun is just an ordinary clan with realistic budget.
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The Ashikaga Shogun is still allied with Oda. So we must have enough power to take on Kyoto's all-bow-samurai army and Oda's giant stacks as well. We have been weakening Oda's economic power, but their terrifying military strength remains.
Spring of 1960 - the new decade arrives! Our family also welcomed the first member of our third generation. My eldest brother Motochika has a baby daughter thanks to his (re)productive wife!
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Strangely, Motochika has been with his bodyguards in Tosa training with rebels all year long, and his wife was staying in our capital all the time. So who was the father of this girl...
Let's not get too far into investigation. Congratulations!
Note: There was a rumor that a general needs to stay in a castle town in order to have a baby born. We now prove that this rumor is rubbish.
While we have started recruiting elite soldiers, our agents are not idle. Our Metsuke's frequent arrestment of married monks in the towns of Kyoto have attracted the Shogun's notice (although we were actually arresting the Shogun's agents).
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The Shogun offered us an opportunity to pay in order to increase our Metsuke's success chance. We don't need that. :grin3: What a waste of koku.
Here they are. The Chosokabe Bow Warrior Monk!
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3956&d=1329605543
If accuracy goes over 100%, do they always hit the target? :yes:
Well, our agents were really mightier than soldiers. They have eliminated clans after clans. Now Oda and Hatano are backed into the corner - and they are still fighting each other.
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Oda actually asked us for an alliance. But there is really no point to annoy Hatano. They are both friendly to us even if we stay neutral.
Finally, Hatakeyama managed to upgrade its harbor to trading port. One more trade income.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3959&d=1329605543
But we expect that Hatakeyama will explode into power as every clan (including us) grows exponentially if it is given the nutrition - the weak rebel provinces. So maybe it is a bad idea to leave Katakeyama alive back then. But since they have an unmarried daughter, we should be able to stay friendly for free.
Now this is absurd - the Shogun asks us to give him 2000 koku for nothing in return! :bomb:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3960&d=1329605543
But it seems that refusing the Shogun here brings no negative effect to our diplomatic relationship with the Ashikaga Shogun.
After arresting dozens of monks in Kyoto, our Metsuke has become an expert at spotting baldness in the crowd. This is our first 6-star Metsuke!
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3961&d=1329605543
But all of our 5 Ninjas and 4 Monks have reached 6-stars a few years ago. Our enemies should fear! (But we have no enemies. :sweatdrop:)
That's probably it for Oda! After so many battles with the Ikko-Ikki and dozens of rebellions, the once invincible Oda's 4-full stacks of doom have been reduced to 1 half stack of Samurai - very high experienced though.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3962&d=1329605543
Their last army is also a little too far away from their last castle. Sabotaged. Rebel incited. We saved their face by not selling them our infinite military access. :rolleyes:
Maybe we overdid it - there is nobody in front of us but the Ahikaga Shogun! Our elite troops have been gathered - we are ready to declare war!
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3963&d=1329605543
Let the final showdown begin next spring!
This concludes chapter 18 of our story. :bow:
Chapter 19. The Battle of Kyoto
Now we are ready to declare war on the Shogun and welcome the Realm Divide. Due to our agents' hyper activity, there are only two clans that could join the Shogun's call against us, the Hatakeyama clan and the Honma clan. If we ally with them before we declare war on the Shogun, we might be able to keep them on our side for longer.
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The Hatakeyama clan is also very happy to married their daimyo's daughter to us.
Since my oldest brother Motochika already have a very reproductive wife, my second brother is the lucky recipient of this beautiful wife from Hatakeyama.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3992&d=1329605543
His beautiful wife improves his command when he commands a defensive battle. Not sure how this works. Maybe he will fight hard to stay alive so he can return to his wife.
An alliance with Honma was reached when we offered my youngest brother as a hostage.
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Since Honma never invades anybody, they have no reason to declare war on us. My brother should be very safe there.
Since we were trading with the Shogun at the time, we purposely staged a fire accident to burn down the trading port in Settsu last winter. This way our trade with the Shogun is cancelled without any bad feeling. Not sure whether cancelling a trade makes us look bad to others - just in case.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3966&d=1329605543
The diplomatic preparation are done!
The Shogun failed to extract any cash from us, but now comes the emperor's extortion. This one actually has some benefit bundled - 10% extra income from tax and +2 happiness! Since we are earning about 18000 koku per season, we will get the 2000 koku investment back in no time.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3967&d=1329605543
Emperor or shogun... only math matters. :2thumbsup:
Our financial situation right before the showdown. Since we moved forward the schedule, we did not recruit as much as we wanted to. But we still have 1 elite stack (plus spare parts) and 4 full Ashigaru stacks, for an upkeep of 14000 koku.
We also have 3 fleets for an upkeep of about 7000 koku. Our tax income before the emperor's bonus was 18000 koku, while our trade income has reduced to about 10000 koku.
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We are almost ready to declare war. But there is one final preparation...
Here we assassinated all but one general of the Ashikaga family. :mad: (Can't assassinate them all, as there will always be one free general spawned in the castle when all of them die.) We want to leave the last general on the field, because we prefer to fight a field battle.
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War declared!
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We did not ask any of our new allies to join us - they are too far away to help anyway. Besides, if we ask them to join us, they may refuse and hurt our relationship.
Although we only see one full stack of defenders in Kyoto, there is apparently a hidden full stack on the field. So we are up against two full stacks of (almost full) samurai army!
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We purposely fight this battle just one stack led by our best general - my father. We don't think we will need any reinforcement anyway. We picked the most versatile army composition for this important battle, with 9 units of Bow Warrior Monks (accuracy +25%), 6 units of Naginata saumari (armor +5), and 4 units of Yari Cavalry (charge +5).
At the start of the battle, we noticed that the Ashikaga daimyo deployed very close to us, and only slowly marched back to meet with his full stack of reinforcement.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3972&d=1329605543
This is a very good opportunity for Yari Cavalry horde - they are one of the fastest units, and they have a large (+10) bonus against cavalry.
My father used himself as a bait, and successfully distracted the Ashikaga daimyo. Our four Yari Cavalry charged forward and trapped him!
Exploit #25: Suicidal general
In battles where the enemy actively approach us (usually happens when we have superior ranged strength - not a smart move, though), the opponent general/cavalry has a high tendency to charge into us when being provoked by an approaching unit (or not provoked at all), without waiting for infantry to catch up.
It has hard to tell which corpse is which, but this is probably him! The Shogun has died an honorable (and stupid) death!
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3973&d=1329605543
Now his two full stacks of mostly samurai has to fight us without a leader!
As the enemy's long line approaches, we backed up to a little hill. My father dismounted and ordered his units to Stand and Fight! This provides a huge boost to his commanding power (larger blue circle), and all affected units receive a large fighting bonus. Our Bow Warrior Monks's accuracy reaches 95%!
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3974&d=1329605543
Here they come! The clash of the elite!
Our warrior monks started shooting their whistling arrows!
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Our Naginata Samurai at front are also affected by the arrows. But their morale is so high anyway (my father gives +6 morale to everybody) that they are completely unaffected. We want to rout the Ashikaga samurai as quickly as possible.
Our Bow Warrior Monks quickly switched to flaming arrows to further hit on the enemy's morale. The Ashikaga infantry charged (two units were already wavering)!
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Our Naginata samurai takes them head on!
Our Yari Cavalry charged out from the flanks and routed the Ashikaga Bow Samurai! This attracted a few Ashikaga Yari Samurai units to go after them. But of course they could not catch up.
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The massive Ashikaga infantry was stopped by the durable line of Naginata, and shot by the most accurate arrows of Bow Warrior Monks. Their line collapsed!
Seeing that their samurai comrades have lost their will to fight, the Ashikaga Yari Samurai chose to retreat.
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Our Yari Cavalry had a really nice charge on their back. But we unfortunately failed to route them as their morale was locked on wavering. We suffered quite heavy losses before we pulled back.
Lesson learned: Never cavalry charge retreating Yari Samurai.
Soon the first Ashikaga army has retreated, and the second wave arrived. This wave has a very different composition from the first wave, which was largely melee infantry. The vast majority of them are Bow Samurai, accompanied by some cavalry.
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Their cavalry tried to flank us, and we used our own Yari Cavalry to counter. Very soon, the Ashikaga cavalry started retreating (not routing), as they have given up.
Although their cavalry is gone, their Bow Samurai remains on the spot to shoot our Naginata Samurai line. Not very effective as they were pretty much wearing full plate armor (armor = 14). They can be a lot more productive if they aim at our Bow Warrior Monks, who were having a great time tearing them to pieces.
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But we will not stand there and let them shoot. Charge!
As our Yari Cavalry charged into their flank and our arrow-proof Naginata Samurai ran downhill toward them, there was soon a massive routing of Ashikaga Bow Samurai. The battle of Kyoto is won! :laugh3:
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A heroic offensive victory! We killed half of the Shogun's samurai army, 2000 men, losing only 400. Only 1 Bow Warrior Monk died.
While Ashikaga still had half of their army, they were separated in two stacks. One stack defends Kyoto, and the other retreated far enough so they can't help when we immediately attacked Kyoto with our two (almost) full stacks.
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Here it is! The Kyoto castle!
With more than twice of their men, the assault of the Kyoto castle was quite an one-sided slaughter (auto-resolved - tactical manual fighting may take less casualty but will take too long - we will replenish the lost numbers very quickly anyway).
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That's it! The Ashikaga Shogunate is oba! :yes:
We captured Kyoto! The Realm Divide arrives as this is also our 23rd province.
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We have been preparing so extensively for it. The realm divide is 3 clans on Chosokabe team, 0 clan on the opponent team. The Chosokabe team advances by default. :sweatdrop:
This concludes chapter 19 of our story. :bow:
Formation: The machine grinder
Before we continue the story I feel the urge to discuss in better detail of my favorite formation for field battles in this campaign. It is surprisingly effective against the extremely predictable AI. Welcome to modify it to suit your play style.
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The biggest problem for a legendary-difficulty battle is that we cannot issue orders during pause. We also can't slow down battle speed. This means that we can issue very limited numbers of command in real time, just like in a multi-player battle. One way to get around this restriction is to be familiar with keyboard short-cuts, as moving the mouse cursor to each icon and unit takes too much time. Another way around this is to minimize the number of commands we need to issue.
In the above anti-AI formation (nicknamed "the machine grinder"), we will have very few commands to issue, perfectly manageable for a non-pausing legendary battle. The army is composed of 45%-55% of ranged units (9-11 units in a full stack), and the rest melee. See more details below.
The key idea is that the AI will actively attack you if you have superior ranged power. What we want is to let the AI come to us. (If they don't come, we can lure their units down their hill one by one. But it takes a lot of time.) Try to find the most steep and tree-less hill to camp on. If this location is at the battlefield's corner, even better.
(1) The defensive line
You need a durable line of defense at front. They will take the AI's ranged units' arrows and its melee units' charge head-on. In early-mid game, Yari Ashigaru's Spear Wall is good enough for this role. Group all "line units" together and enable the spear wall when the enemy starts charging with one mouse click. Then leave them alone.
In late game, you can afford Yari Samurai (if the opponent has lots of cavalry, but you can fulfill that role with Yari Ashigaru anyway) or better, Naginata Samurai (solid defense against almost all units). Just look at your opponent`s melee units composition and decide the best counter. Turn on their Guard mode.
Ideally, we need at least 4 rows of men for enough depth of the defensive line. If you can't get 4 rows, maybe narrow your formation and camp at a corner. The AI will march to you.
When the enemy starts routing, disable the spear wall and order them to charge the shooters in the back.
(2) The ranged unit
The core idea of this machine grinder formation is to use superior ranged power to really punish anything that challenges your line at front. Sometimes the AI's shooters will attack your line, sometimes they will attack your shooters. So to play safe, arrnage them in loose formation of two columns/rows. Keep the healthier/better units at front. If you have Yari Ashigaru and Bow Ashigaru, the AI will probably shoot Bow Ashigaru. If you have Naginata Samurai and Bow Warrior Monk, the AI will probably shoot Naginata Samurai. Both are wrong choices, ha!
Group all ranged units together. Turn on Fire at Will.
In research, quickly get Way of the Bow to unlock flaming arrow. When the enemies start charging, activate flaming arrow for a very spectacular firework and expect some mass routing happening quickly. Bow Warrior Monks' whistling arrow is also very effective.
(3) Flanks
As your line and ranged units only need one or two clicks to jump into action, most of your work in the field battle is to command the flanking units. The AI will actively look for chances to flank you (to get to your loosely packed and defenseless ranged units). That's why you have reserves to kick their ass. If the AI has any cavalry, they will almost certainly attempt to circle to your side or even your back. So you need some anti-cavalry units (Yari Ashigaru, Yari Cavalry). If the AI has no cavalry, which is very rare, they will use infantry to circle to your back. So you can use Katana Samurai or No-Dachi Samurai.
You need to manually order each flanking unit to surround and kill AI's flanking units. Don't let your flank wander too far (chasing the routers), as the AI might make multiple attempts to flank you. Pull them back behind your line as soon as they rout a unit.
If you have no spare units to put into flanks (such as 5 Yari Ashigaru + 14 Bow Ashigaru), you can camp in the corner of the map, so you technically have no exposed flank! The AI's cavalry will charge into your spear wall! But not all battle fields have a good corner for camping. So it is better to always prepare a more balanced army.
If your flank has nothing left to counter, order them to charge AI's ranged units from the side when there are no danger doing so (for example, if you have cavalry on the flank, only use them to attack when all AI's spear units have charge into your defensive line).
(4) General
Shogun 2 general's bodyguards are a lot more fragile compared to previous incarnations. And their numbers replenish rather slowly. It is best not to use them to attack unless absolutely necessary. The general is good for Inspiring a key unit (such as the most attacked unit on the defensive line) when the engagement starts. At 4-stars, you can get a powerful skill Stand and Fight. You won't be able to manually inspire anymore, because everyone in the enlarged radius is automatically inspired.
By the way, sometimes the enemy's ranged units get close enough so they can shoot at your general. Move them away from the harm!
Another frequently mentioned general's ability is "Rally". But during this entire campaign I did not use Rally even once after I get the machine grinder formation optimized to the above form.
Remember to choose to end the battle in your first opportunity, so all routing units will be automatically killed.
That's it! Enjoy the slaughter!
Note: By the way, it is seldom a good idea to be outnumbered on the field (the exception being you are the all-cavalry defender against an all-infantry AI, with the battle timer set at 20 minutes). So always bring a full stack. A full stack of Ashigaru army is very cheap anyway.
Chapter 20. The Dark Wave named Chosokabe Shogunate
Welcome back to the final chapter of our war story, great daimyos. I am Chosokabe Nana. :bow:
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After training four of our generals to at least 4-stars, the famous Tosa training ground is about to cease operation. Our general simply starved out the defenders (we used to give them a break whenever it was their last season simply by breaking the siege and immediately resuming it in the same season).
In this last "catch me if you can" skirmish, the rebel defenders ran and thew themselves at us. But our general was still too fast for them. Poor guys. :sweatdrop:
As we reclaimed Tosa (Kochi is the name the castle), we automatically relocated back to Tosa.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3986&d=1329611828
This means that we will at most have only three trading partners if we do not build any Nanban Port in Tosa. But since there are only two other clans remaining, we are fine with that.
However, if there are still lots of enemies remain and lots of agent actions required, it is probably better to keep the infinite save points alive (Legendary only) until the last moment. It is really useful.
The Realm divide incurs a -20 relationship penalty at the start, and -5 every season after.
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Also, the positive relationship from alliance, marriage, and hostage also fades quite quickly. So if we don't send them any gift, eventually we will lose our two allies.
As soon as Kyoto is conquered, our 6 full stacks advance very rapidly. The rebel provinces not a match against our well-balance full stacks. If there are too many soldiers defending in the castle and quick combat gives too much losses, we will simply wait for them to sally in the same season and crush them on the field.
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Now Jizamurai, or local militia, are willing to help us with either economy or military.
Well, we have hired all the units we need. So 25% income bonus for a year is not bad.
It has been a year since we beat Ashikaga. The Chosokabe clan is declared the new Shogunate!
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We received a bonus in clan-wide tax rate, a quite-powerful ship called Nihon Maru (but its power is not even close to the Black Ship), and a unit of Great Guard cavalry.
We even get a new auto-save file name called the Chosokabe_Shogunate! :sweatdrop:
A second general in our clan reached the legendary leve of 6-stars (the first one is my father).
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We will develop him into a national celebrity. Wherever he goes, people go crazy about him (+10 happiness). Then we send him to conquer the former Ikko-Ikki provinces.
By the way, my father followed the Intimidation line. That's probably why Ashikaga's samurai army fled so quickly.
Since we still have the capacity to make one more trade partner, let's make a vassal from one of the poorest provinces (so we have the least income to lose).
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3991&d=1329611828
The Sakai clan is the lucky winner! Hey, are they not wearing any pants (just red underwear) in that picture? :inquisitive:
Our territory expands extremely quickly as we have so many armies pushing forward without meeting any meaingful resistance. We also prepared very well for the Ikko-Ikki region by brining our 6-star monk squad.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3993&d=1329611828
With a religious zeal of 27 (9 x 3), we will convert these Ikko-Ikki heartland back to Shinto-Buddhism quickly.
The local milita now also gives us better views of neighboring provinces. Not very useful, since our neighboring procines are all rebels and do nothing at all. :sweatdrop:
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Finally, we have a Geisha! It really took way too long to get the required art and building even if we unecessarily rushed for it.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3995&d=1329611828
Hopefully we will find someone for her (to kill). :smash:
Wako pirates never stopped spawning. But now we have the Black Ship, which they strangely never run away from, we can easily reduce all their ships to floating garbage, and the Wako to swimmers.
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The trick to wipe out a Wako fleet is NOT to end the combat in the earliest oppurtunity, but to continue to shoot until all ships are disabled. We will automatically capture some ships, too. (Although we might end up scrubbing them right away.)
Here is another rather useless bonus: +2 experience for all cavalry recruit when we control all provinces that have produce good horses.
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Since these provinces are so far apart, by the time anyone controls all horse province, recruiting +2, even +9 cavalry does not matter anymore. :sweatdrop:
My brother's Motochika's wife may not be as beautiful as her sister in-law from Hatakeyama, but in the end all that matters is that she is (re)productive. :rolleyes: That's the third children!
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The battle of Kyoto took place in Spring, 1563. By the winter of 1565, we have conquered all rebel provinces available. But we are still just 2 provinces short to be the dominating winner (60 provinces) of the Sengoku Jidai. We thought that the fast natural decay of relationship with our two allies will drive them against us, but I guess we expanded a little too fast.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=3999&d=1329611828
Hatakeyama seems to be impatient, too. Here they send a 5-star Ninja to sabotage our (completely useless) trading port in Echigo. Are you looking for war? :yes: Of course, our 6-star Ninja quickly dispatched him. (Too bad, our Geisha was still 2 turns away.)
Some other amazing feat by the Hatekeyama clan - it has built a Legendary Bajustsu School, which reduces the recruitment time of cavalry by one season.
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What a useless building. Unit upkeep is too high to support non-stop hiring. :sweatdrop:
Well, there was no alternative - we simply used Hatakeyama's hostile sabotage activity as an excue to declare war on them. Quicky we captured two of their provinces.
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The Sengoku Jidai is over! We are victorious (athough we just declared war on Hatekeyama)! I used to think Japan has only 60 provinces and the domination victory is the complete conquest of Japan. But at this point it is just a matter of time. Plus we will need to betray more allies to win - it is just not reasonable.
Other than winning the majority of our battles, destroying 654 units but only losing 2, here is the highlight: we successfuly sabotaged 147 out of 149 times, and assassinated our targets 25 out of 25 times. :mad:
The Chosokabe clan is victorious! We did sabotage a lot of castle, so this picture is fitting. :sweatdrop:
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Thank you so much for reading our story. I wish you all the best in your own adventure in the wonderful Sengoku Jidai. Hope you find the style that you enjoy the most. (The end) :bow: Welcome comments and ideas.
Wow, what an epic AAR. I know how time consuming these are to produce and you did a great job, both with the informative gameplay pointers and the vivid screenshots. Thank you so much for sharing. :bow:
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