questions from N00b

First if I haven't played this type of game since Age of Empires I so my questions are really basic.

1. When a build a building I don't get the option to place it on the map.

2. In the beginners guide it mentions pesent farmers which are those.

3. When I attempt to attack a castle in the tutorial my armies are destroyed I am leading with yari spear men after reading I think I should be leading with samuri ?

4. Raids are mentioned is this going into the other lands and attacking other buildings besides the castle and do I get money for doing that?

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Originally Posted by xhatan

First if I haven't played this type of game since Age of Empires I so my questions are really basic.

1. When a build a building I don't get the option to place it on the map.

2. In the beginners guide it mentions pesent farmers which are those.

3. When I attempt to attack a castle in the tutorial my armies are destroyed I am leading with yari spear men after reading I think I should be leading with samuri ?

4. Raids are mentioned is this going into the other lands and attacking other buildings besides the castle and do I get money for doing that?

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Welcome! AoE 1 was a long, long time ago. The Rise of Rome demo was where it started for me.

The Total War series is a little different from classic RTS's like AoE, as you're finding out:

1. You don't get to put it on the map because the locations are already set for you. If you select the castle town in your province and click any of the buildings listed to the right hand side of the info bar on the bottom, it'll take you to where that building is. The buildings on the left side of the info bar are built in your castle town itself.

2. The peasant farmers ... I don't remember where it says that, but it's probably talking about your "ashigaru" units. It's probably telling you that your "yari ashigaru" and "bow ashigaru" are just peasants with spears/bows, so you shouldn't expect them to perform any heroics.

3. Even TW veterans have had trouble with the castle battle in that tutorial. I've not dared to try it, perhaps someone else can help?

4. You can raid by moving an army to any of the enemy's buildings outside their castle town (remember this distinction from the answer to question 1) to damage it. There won't be any resistance from the building, assuming there isn't an enemy army protecting it. When a building is damaged, the enemy stops getting any benefits of that building (they won't be able to trade or build ships from a damaged port, for example), and will have to spend time and/or money to repair it. You don't get any cash from doing this; it's just for the nuisance value.

Welcome to the Org, xhatan! ~:wave:

thanks so much for your help

I have a couple more questions.

1. I don't understand trade and trade ships do I load stuff on the ships and my trade neighbors don't seem to have any place to send my ship too and will it work on its own or do I have to move it each time.

2. Can I create a new general my main guy got killed last night:furious3:

3. My neighbor has a fort on an island can I build a fort anywhere once I expand or can I build it it on the edge of my own zone.

1) All you have to do is move the trade ship to the trade node - it works by itself

2) No, unless you get a "man of the hour" promotion - you do this by having armies without generals go out and fight. It is random and cost 1000 to create the general

3) No

HI Xhatan,

Welcome to the org.

1. There are 6 trade nodes out in the ocean on the outskirts of the strategy map. They are represented as little circles on the ocean with an anchor in the center. After creating a trade ship you want to move it on to one of these nodes. They represent various trade goods like spices, incense, and even horses. There are 4 nodes surrounding the western Island, which represent trade with China and Korea, one node above the center of the main island and one at the far eastern end. You can park up to 10 ships on each node. However, if a node is already occupied, you cannot use it---that is unless you attack and defeat the the ships on the node, which means you will be at war with their owners. There are also pirates that you will have to defend against, so while you are creating trade ships,you should also be building a few war ships to patrol your shores and protect your trade ships.

You get more trade income by establishing trade with your neighboring clans. This will gradually decline as you go war with more of them.

2. Do your best to always protect your general until you have him build up to several stars with advanced morale/mêlée stats. However, there are 3 ways one may get additional generals. First, you will hopefully have sons who will come of age and thus become trusted generals for free when this occurs--of course you have no contol over the timing of this. Secondly, you will occasionally get a message that a warrior from a good family wants to become one of your commanders. This comes at a price of 1000 monetary units. I think we are still using the term koku for this. Once again, you have no control over this occurence, it just happens.

Lastly, you can field promote a commander, which you have the ability to control yourself. To do this you have to win a heroic battle with an army that does not have a commissioned general. When this works correctly, just after the battle, you will get a message about how the worthy captain of the group can be promoted to general--however, this will also cost you 1000 koku to promote him.

3. All settlements (province capitals which are represented as forts and later castles) are pre-determined. You can only build them up if once you posses them.

I hope that helps

I think it's also customary to keep posting in the same thread you started yesterday. Keeps down the clutter, you see.

thanks a bunch guys I will continue to use this thread to hold down the clutter. If you could check back once in a while would be greatly appreciated. Loving this game already so I am sure I will have more questions. Thanks again

I've merged your two threads into one xhatan, so all your questions are now in one thread.

Also, welcome to the Org! ~:wave:

remember that a newb is someone who is new to a game and still learning the mechanics, while a noob is someone who refuses to learn anything.

did not know the difference between N00b and newb thanks on that. Well I spent hours last night restarting my campaign, getting my but kicked and going broke. On the flip side who wants to by a game for over $50 and beat it in two hours. Some more questions if you don't mind:

1. I am having a lot of trouble taking a castle in fact even when the odds are overwhelmingly in my favor I can't keep my men from routing.
A. My solution was to try to draw him out. I had some success I killed three of his generals and kept attacking his buildings outside then he came out with a bunch of vet samuri and wiped me out.

2. This takes me to my second questions, I am assuming vets are only created through battle or is there a way to train them up?

3. Should I always have siege equipment to take a castle and if so I get them by taking them in the bushido tree right? I don't seem to get the option to build siege equipment.

4. I am having trouble finding the right blend of economics I am permanently broke. Should I upgrade evenly I tend to build the best castle I can to get the military upgrades which costs a huge amount of cash.

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Originally Posted by xhatan

2. This takes me to my second questions, I am assuming vets are only created through battle or is there a way to train them up?

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Some buildings can create units with a level of veterency from creation, if i'm not mistaken. They are normally the upgraded version of the building, and normally require some research first. Like upgrading your Yari Dojo into a Nagitana dojo :yes:

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4. I am having trouble finding the right blend of economics I am permanently broke. Should I upgrade evenly I tend to build the best castle I can to get the military upgrades which costs a huge amount of cash.

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Markets are very important in the early game economy. I'd keep one or two towns as your designated troop producing factories, the rest you should build markets in to start off the game. Upgrading your farms is important too. Don't even worry about upgrading your castles until you've got around 5 provinces, otherwise you're just wasting money you could spend on troops or other economy upgrades :yes:

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Originally Posted by xhatan

1. I am having a lot of trouble taking a castle in fact even when the odds are overwhelmingly in my favor I can't keep my men from routing.
A. My solution was to try to draw him out. I had some success I killed three of his generals and kept attacking his buildings outside then he came out with a bunch of vet samuri and wiped me out.

2. This takes me to my second questions, I am assuming vets are only created through battle or is there a way to train them up?

3. Should I always have siege equipment to take a castle and if so I get them by taking them in the bushido tree right? I don't seem to get the option to build siege equipment.

4. I am having trouble finding the right blend of economics I am permanently broke. Should I upgrade evenly I tend to build the best castle I can to get the military upgrades which costs a huge amount of cash.

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1. Castles are tough to capture with the enemy archers favorable firing positions, towers and all other factors. What I suggest is archers or siege units. Fire arrows can burn down pieces of the walls so that enemy can't position troops there but you can still climb. Other option is simply siege units, if not bomb throwers then fire projecting mangonels, which can cause immense casualties with a single well placed shot to a crowded castle.
To keep your troops from routing is hard, either use morale-shock resistant units, improve unit morale through other means, don't take casualties from enemy archer fire or bring your general dangerously close to use rally and inspire abilities.

2. There are plenty of ways to get some starting experience such as some events, many techs and even some upgraded recruitment facilities give you some experience. Such as upgrading archery range to 2nd level (requires way of the bow) gives archers there 2 experience when recruited. Other way is combining already experienced but damaged units so that their experience progress isn't lowered by the fresh recruits.

3. Mangonels become available from building 2nd level siege units workshop which requires "attack by fire" tech. They're the 1st real siege units. You don't always need them but as said earlier, castles are tough to deal with.

4. I like to invest heavily on capturing trade nodes early on if I'm a faction that's near to some to get income. You probably shouldn't upgrade very high level castles early on, but specialize provinces in a manner where you hire katana samurai from province A, yari samurai from province B and samurai archers from province C. Requires much less/none castle upgrades if you demolish earlier buildings you don't need or want.

First of thanks everyone for your help. This game is really complicated and not much info is listed on the main webpage or in the book you get.

Ok apprently I am missing a key part of the game. You guys are talking about different provences. I am not sure what you are refering too. Can I build more than one town on the map I am given or do I have to take over a neighbors and does taking over a neighbor mean I have to take his castle. In earlier post I understood I pick the building to build but I don't place them the map. If you could clarify how to build different provences and then how to specialize.

http://shogun.bitcrumbs.com/

Provinces are those different colour shapes on the map. Most provinces have different specialties which offer different bonus to the player/AI who holds the province. And yes, you need to take the castle/fortification for you to build and have those bonus. Farms in the more fertile provinces offer more income than those in less fertile ground, but the food offered by the farms are the same regardless of where they are built.

Hope that answers your questions.

dbl post

The map xploring posted shows the provinces.

Each province is managed from a capital (fort, castle etc.)
Dbl-click on that and you get a summary (religion, food, order, income) At the bottom of your screen you will see tabs: Construction (what you can build) Recruitment (units available) and Army (units stationed)

If you hover over the buildings displayed over the tabs, you will get what they are and a drop down of upgrades possible. The upgrades usually give a pop-up telling you what benefits they provide and what you need to build them. Building req's are usually just koku and research. Markets and higher level fortifications also cost food. Its the food cost where most ppl get in a bind...your populace gets testy w/o rice.

Most upgrades become possible because of the research choices you make.
Research tree is divided into Bushido (war) and Chi (civil); both are necessary.
Some martial bonuses are too good to miss, but the civil ones let your citizens thrive.
Study that research tree_look at how you want to progress through it and make a plan.

I hope I said something useful in all that :) enjoy! And welcome to the .org~:wave:

When it comes to shipping is it enough to leave the ship on the trade knode or do I actually have to sail it back and forth

Just leave it. You can mouse other the dashed line leading back to your port to see how much you're making.

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Originally Posted by xploring

http://shogun.bitcrumbs.com/

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Very nice, thanks for the link.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?134260-What-do-we-know-about-the-economy

Some tips for the economy in that thread, since you seemed to have issues with that.

Short notes:
1. Be stingy with food. Only upgrade what you really need.
2. Don't build rice exchanges
3. Use trade nodes as much as you can.
3. Be stingy with food.