A beginner's guide to province specialisation

A beginner's guide to province specialisation

What to build where is a question complicated by the plethora of province specialities in STW2. This guide looks at what types of settlements should be developed to take advantage of the specialities. The specialities encourage the dispersion of buildings around ones territory. This trend is reinforced by the tight limits on the building slots available in towns and the cost of increasing the number of such slots (both the direct cost of upgrading the castle and also indirectly the economic growth cost - across all provinces - of such upgrades via increased food consumption).

This guide outlines the various types of settlement to aim for, grouping them into three - those for troop recruitment, those for agent recruitment and others. It ends with a checklist for use when overseeing the development of your lands.

To see which provinces have what bonuses, twcenter linked a very nice map:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/attac...4&d=1300847863

There's a beautiful and informative interactive map available at:
http://shogun.bitcrumbs.com/


I. Troop recruitment

It makes sense to specialise troop recruitment to only a few provinces. Ideally these would be provinces with specialities that provide relevant bonuses. Concentrating troop recruitment in a few provinces also removes the cost of constructing duplicate encampments and dojos – all of which should ultimately be fully upgraded.


Main training camp

Most melee infantry should be trained here.

The best locations are (in order)
(1) Province with a smith (Satsuma, Bizen, Kaga, Sagami, Iwate) for either +3 armor or +4 melee attack.
(2) Province with a Holy Site speciality, dedicated to the Shrine tree (+5 morale bonus for Great Shrine).
(3) Province with Iron (for -30% recruitment cost)
(4) Capital (for extra recruitment slot)

The troop producing town should have an encampment for a -10% recruitment cost bonus, probably upgraded to an armory for +2 armor (especially if a bow training camp – ie a crafts specialist - is not available). I would build a sword dojo first, as there are no katana ashigaru – yari ashigaru can defeat enemy cavalry well enough – and then an encampment, adding a spear dojo last. These three building slots will require upgrading the town to a castle, at no inconsiderable cost. However, this will also give three troop recruitment slots, making training an army faster. The dojos should be upgraded so that ultimately samurai recruitment times are reduced to one turn. A stables could be added as the fourth slot if required (e.g. there is no horse speciality province near by).

Ultimately, almost all troops should be trained in smith provinces. However, gearing up your capitol, Great Shrine and iron provinces for troop production may be prudent. They could be used to produce garrison units (ashigaru) when the smith province cannot train troops quickly enough.

If cited in a smithing province, should a Master Armourer or a Master Weaponsmith be built? Opinions differ on this. The weaponsmith is likely to be superior for pure melee fights (+4 attack is bigger than +3 armor, assuming melee kill rates are determined by the difference between attack and melee defence + armor as in past games). However, armor will protect your men against archer fire. I would prefer +3 for elite melee units that I expect to be protected from archery in reserve and then brought out to break the enemy (e.g. katana infantry and no dachi; yari and katana cavalry). However, for archers or melee infantry to be deployed on the frontline and subject to archery, the armor is preferable (e.g. archers and yari infantry). Early in the game, when you mainly deploy lightly armored ashigaru (including archers), the armor bonus may well be more valuable to you. Consequently, I would recommend your first smith province have a Master Armourer, and your second a Master Weaponsmith. Which one to train Naginata infantry would be a toss up and probably depend on how you plan to deploy them - as a shock reserve elite or as your frontline.

The first building I would put in my first smith province would be a sword dojo, as I find yari samurai less useful than katana samurai (yari ashigaru can substitute for them in a pinch). The second building is a choice between a spear dojo and an encampment, but I would tend towards the former to get naginata infantry. The third building would thus be an encampment. When deciding whether to upgrade the encampment to an armory or a jujitsu dojo, a similar issue arises over armor vs melee as with the master armorsmith vs master weaponsmith. However, in this case, since the bonuses are equal (+2 armor vs +2 melee attack), the armor may be preferred as it also has a value outside of melee, against missile fire. For the fourth building, one could put in a bow dojo to provide more armor for your Samurai archers. However, a higher priority might be obtaining upgraded cavalry. Ideally, cavalry would fit better with your second smith province with the master weaponsmith rather than master armorsmith. But if I had only one smith province, I would put in a horse dojo instead of an archery one.


Archer training camp

Archers should be trained in provinces with the crafts speciality for 20% higher accuracy from Master Bowmaker. There are 4 such provinces are Buzen, Hoki, Echizen and Hitachi. If you do not control one, then designate another province for the task. It will be hard to squeeze in a fourth building into your main troop producing province and archers benefit less from smithing bonuses (which do not enhance the killing power of the archery).

Their encampment could be upgraded to a hunting lodge for +5% accuracy; -10% recruitment cost, but an armory for +2 armor may be more attractive (so the archers have a little more survivability against counterfire). Optionally, a stables could be added to allow the recruitment of horse archers.

Put your siege engine workshop in this province too - they will benefit from the accuracy bonuses (thanks to Kaigen on twcenter for this point).


Cavalry training camp

Training horse units in provinces with the War Horse speciality can give a +5 charge bonus (with a Warhorse studs). There are four such provinces: Higo, Awa, Mikawa and Kai.

These provinces will need a spear and/or sword dojo plus a proving ground for +5 charge and -10% recruitment cost.

The +4 attack from the smith province (and +2 armor from the armory in it) is comparable to the +10 charge bonus obtained here, so recruiting cavalry would be an option (and desirable if you do not own a warhose speciality province). However, having a fourth construction slot in the smith province will take time and money. While there are only three slots or less, prioritising the infantry makes sense (they are more numerous and don’t have such a good second best bonus as +10 charge to fall back on). In the interim, if you do not control a War Horse speciality province, it may be best to use a mundane province as your cavalry trainer. Having a stables early on to produce light cavalry to chase routers is a very high priority.


Warrior monk training camp

If you have two Hallowed Ground provinces or like warrior monks, it makes sense to use one for producing warrior monks. Upgrading a Hallowed Ground province to a Fortified monastery will provide +4 XP, which is far better than the +4 armor from smithing. (XP gives +4 to melee attack, +3 to melee defence, +8 to missile reload skill, +3 to morale and+8 to missile accuracy.)

This will require a monastery (L2) plus a naginata dojo and/or bow dojo. An encampment upgraded to an armory for +2 armor is desirable.


Kisho ninja training camp

If you have two ninja tradition provinces or like kisho ninjas, you could follow upgrade the sake den chain up criminal syndicate (via gambling hall) to be able to train kisho ninjas. In a ninja tradition province, upgrading the speciality will provide considerable experience benefits to kisho ninjas:

Mountain hideout (+1 XP) => Ninjitsu school (+3 XP) => Ninja clan fortress (+5XP)


II. Agent recruitment

Where possible, agents should be recruited in relevant speciality provinces for rank bonuses (up to +2 rank).

The relevant building chain can be fully upgraded for an additional +2 rank bonus, ultimately allowing +4 rank agents to be recruited. However, the ultimate building will be unique and require some research investment.

The number of each agent is capped at five and you can recruit one agent for each province with the relevant building chain. Given the usefulness of each kind of agent, it makes sense to aim to hit these caps by building five markets for metsuke, five sake dens for ninjas and five temples for monks. Typically, these will be dispersed across provinces not dedicated to troop production. There is some value in combining sake dens and markets in the same provinces. These will be your five "tax towns" - high income provinces that will provide more tax benefits from the placement of a metsuke (with only 5 metsuke, you can only place them in five provinces).


Metsuke trainer town

This requires the philosophical tradition speciality. There are five provinces with the philosophical tradition speciality (Tsukushi, Settsu, Kyoto, Suruga and Kozuke) dispersed across Japan. With just a school, these can provide +1 rank metsuke. This could, by upgrading to a magistrate and then a law court, increase to a +2 bonus. However, players with only one such province may prefer to specialise the province for research.

Maxing out the market chain to get one kabunakama would ultimately provide another +2 ranks for metsuke.


Ninja trainer town

This requires the ninja tradition speciality. There are only thee such provinces – all clustered in central Japan (Kii, Omi, Iga). Upgrading to the Burakumin village and then Smuggling Network will provide +2 rank ninja.

Maxing out the Sake Den chain to an Infamous Mizu Shobai District will provide a further +2 ranks. However, those with an economic focus may want to forgo the +2 rank bonus by putting the Infamous Mizu Shobai District in a richer province (e.g. with gold mine or fully upgraded market) to take full benefit of the +25% increase to the tax rate.


Monk trainer town

This requires the Hallowed Ground province speciality. There are five such provinces: Aki, Yamato, Ise, Shimotsuke and Uzen. One would follow the Holy Shrine path, ultimately receiving +2 rank to new monks from the Great Shrine.

Maxing out the temple building chain to a Famous Temple will provide a further +2 ranks.


III. Other specialist provinces

The university town

This requires the philosophical tradition speciality, following the School (+10% chi research) => library (+20%) => Confucian Academy (+33%) path. As discussed above, this may well become your metsuke training town.


The naval base

This is for producing naval units, so after a trading port, a military port and ultimately a drydock would be constructed.

It would benefit greatly from being in an area with a naval tradition and following the pirate path: merchant lair (+1 XP) => pirate cove (+3 XP) = > pirate fortress (+5 XP)
Five provinces, mainly on the west, have the Naval Tradition speciality (Hizen, Bungo, Bingo, Inaba and Echigo)

As the Lastdays suggests, a second choices would be a craft speciality province for the accuracy bonus. Coming a poor third would be a province with the pine forest speciality (Tosa, Fukushima) for -10% ship recruitment cost.


The Nanban Quarter town

Provinces with ports that are not to be naval bases might instead become Nanban ports. This would increase trade income and, when upgraded to a Nanban Quarter, build Nanban trade ships, which are are more effective in sea combat than the Japanese military vessels. This normally requires conversion to Christianity, although such buildings may be captured from Christian clans. If not Christian, constructing a Temple and putting a monk to work will be required to counter-attack the effect of Nanban buildings in converting the population to Christianity.


The five tax towns

Your five metsuke are probably best deployed in towns to increase taxes. As Slaists has suggested in another thread, these tax towns should be in provinces that have high income potential, although you probably also want to pick ones that you will own reasonably early in the game, to get the benefits over a longer period. Good candidates for this are gold producing provinces, ninja speciality provinces, provinces with high value trade goods and high agricultural yield provinces. Nanban Quarter towns will be suitable for this, as will the towns you choose to place your Kabunakama and Infamous Mizu Shobai District. These towns will want to develop all buildings in the market chain (and probably ninja chain too). They will therefore have fully developed castles and thus may be useful secondary producers of troops in the late game if need be (there will be free building slots after markets and ninjas).



IV. Checklist

I'm pretty sure +3 armor is better than +4 melee attack in general.

The more important factor, though, is what troops you'll be training the most and who needs the boost more. If you're recruiting Naginata Samurai, you should probably go with the melee attack bonus. If it's No-Dachi Samurai, the armor is the obvious choice. Focus on fixing deficiencies in your troops.

Also, it's not clear that +4 XP for monks is really that much better than +4 XP. The XP will actually decay over time, because as the unit dies and is replenished, its XP will go down. Further, low armor is the major weakness for monks. Giving them an armor boost corrects the only real weakness monks have.

Also, all troops will inevitably get exposed to lots of arrow fire when storming castles. It pretty much can't be avoided.

Also, you should add in the costs of all these buildings your talking about.

Really great information to be had here. Some of the more subtle aspects of the province specialties i didn't even realize, like the bonus to accuracy from crafts. :thumbsup:

Great summation: bonus/province/class; I could have saved hours of game play :)

I still haven't even found some of those provinces!

Thank you :yes:

Extremely useful. I've really been puzzling over what to build where in this game.

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Originally Posted by MCM

I'm pretty sure +3 armor is better than +4 melee attack in general.

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We don't know the formulae, but in the absence of other information, I assume it is like STW and MTW. In those games, the kill chance in melee was based on the difference between the attacker's melee attack and defender's combined melee defence + armour. Each one shift in the differential raised kill chances by around 20%. This means that the two stats are more or less comparable in melee, so 4 is a bigger shift than 3. In fact in the STW and MTW system, increasing your attack by one point (your chance to kill goes up by 1.2/1 ie 20%) is rather better than increasing your armor by one point (your chance to be killed goes down by less, 1/1.2, ie 17%). In RTW, the effect of a point differential was smaller - around 10% chance in kill chance, not 20%. In M2TW, animations started to cloud the maths.

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The more important factor, though, is what troops you'll be training the most and who needs the boost more. If you're recruiting Naginata Samurai, you should probably go with the melee attack bonus. If it's No-Dachi Samurai, the armor is the obvious choice. Focus on fixing deficiencies in your troops.

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I agree it is likely to be situational. I am primarily thinking about katana samurai, as they are the infantry that do what my ashigaru can't. But I am not sure your examples are quite right or even that the principle of fixing deficencies is sound.

On the examples, crunching the numbers for STW (using the STW stats and the formulae provided by the CA programmer Longjohn in the MTW strategy guide), for example, I make it that giving no dachi +4 attack would have increased their chance of killing a yari samurai by 2.04 percentage points, while giving them +3 armor would decrease the yari's chance of killing the no dachi by just 0.96 percentage points. The attack bonus is also preferable for a naginata vs a yari. This is just restating my first point that 4 is bigger than 3 and attack stats are rather better then defence ones if they shift the % chance to be killed in the STW/MTW way.

However, on the principle, it's just not obvious that you should compensate for weakness rather reinforce strength. That assumes your unit will play a "jack of all trades" kind of role. Now that's probably a fair assumption for a STW2 naginata. But there's a reason no-dachi have high attack and low defence - it's because that skew works best if you are an offensive unit. You should be shielded from damage until the last moment, then you are unleashed on the opponent's flank or rear, getting free hits. You want to hit hard, you are not so worried about dying. Conversely, defensive troops like naginata in STW1 had a high defence low attack because they were supposed to absorb heavy damage, not give it out. In STW, this was holding a bridge, for example. You put them in the front line, bearing the enemy missiles or facing the cavalry charge. Other chaps (archers, primarily) did the killing while they did the pinning.

Following this latter logic, I would be tempted to go for armour rather than attack for spears. Indeed, that's why I'm recommending the armory as the encampment upgrade rather than the jujitsu dojo (+2 armor rather than +2 attack) for the main troop recruitment centre, as it will be producing spears and swords. However, the 4>3 argument swings it for me towards the master weaponsmith over the master armorer on the smith upgrade.

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Also, it's not clear that +4 XP for monks is really that much better than +4 XP. The XP will actually decay over time, because as the unit dies and is replenished, its XP will go down. Further, low armor is the major weakness for monks. Giving them an armor boost corrects the only real weakness monks have.

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I think 4XP is about twice as good as 4 armor for melee troops: as a rough rule of thumb, you could assess the combat factor of a melee unit in TW by adding up the attack, defence and armor. I'm hoping not to replenish too much. You pay full price for a depleted unit. I'd consoldiate depleted units and may be even disband very low strength remmants. You'd be better off recruiting a new unit, especially if it starts off with 4XP. (In past TW games, you paid per man not full price and the main attraction for holding on to veterans was their higher XP than the 0XP rookies.)

You may have a point on the monk's armor - I've recommended the armory over the jujitsu dojo for them. But the quantity of bonuses for 4XP is just too large. And it would be hard to shoe horn a temple into a smith province (after the sword dojo, spear dojo and encampment buildings).

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Also, all troops will inevitably get exposed to lots of arrow fire when storming castles. It pretty much can't be avoided.

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At the moment, storming castles is often rather easy due to AI deficiencies: get the archers to fixate on one or more walls, shoot the troops in the courtyard from the other side and then scale the wall to kill the archers. (Yes, it's cheap but I'll take any edge I can at the moment.) And still the first to scale the walls are my ashigaru, not my elites. However, if it is a really tough nut (say with a near full stack of defenders), I'd be inclined to starve it out. With a siege expert general, there's no reason to put your elites through the meat grinder.

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Also, you should add in the costs of all these buildings your talking about.

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I am not sure what that would add - it's not an economic guide. I have only a shaky grasp of that side of things at the moment - most of which I have learned from your posts. :bow:

Thanks for putting together this useful guide. It will be much easier to plan my buildings in future. Maybe you can add missionary in the checklist? And siege weapons too.

With the armour/attack decision, it depends on the way you play, but I think +3 armour is better too. For its extra ability to better withstand missiles, and usually an army would have more holding/defensive troops than shock/attack troops (more expensive).

Was wondering do you need the buildings for the agents after they are recruited? If not, I was thinking about may be demolishing some of them and build something else. If yes, I would need to think about putting them in "safer" provinces so my agents won't disappear(?) with the buildings/provinces being taken. Is there any cost/reimbursement for demolishing buildings? Saw this question asked at .com but didn't see an answer.

A great read -- very helpful. Not sure I agree with the comments on cavalry though. I always feel like if I just have my cavalry sit there in melee that I'm not using them right. I tend to use them almost exclusively for their charge as a "morale bomb" coming from the side or rear. Once they finish their charge I tend to pull them out and charge another unit from a different angle. It's rare that I let them sit there and melee. In this setting the charge bonus seems better although it's possible that if I understood the math behind the "charge metric" I'd better understand your point.

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Originally Posted by xploring

Maybe you can add missionary in the checklist? And siege weapons too.

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I don't think any provinces give missionaries a bonus, so I guess you could use any for recruiting them. The siege weapons you want to put in your craft province (if you have one), recruiting in the same town as your archers, for the great accuracy bonus.

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With the armour/attack decision, it depends on the way you play, but I think +3 armour is better too. For its extra ability to better withstand missiles, and usually an army would have more holding/defensive troops than shock/attack troops (more expensive).

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After playing a few later battles, I think you may be right. There's lots of missile fire.

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Was wondering do you need the buildings for the agents after they are recruited? If not, I was thinking about may be demolishing some of them and build something else. If yes, I would need to think about putting them in "safer" provinces so my agents won't disappear(?) with the buildings/provinces being taken. Is there any cost/reimbursement for demolishing buildings? Saw this question asked at .com but didn't see an answer.

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I don't think agents are removed if you their "supporting" buildings are lost - just can't be replaced. Agents can always die, so I would keep the structures. I've demolished buildings and not seen any refund.

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Originally Posted by Leptomengines

Not sure I agree with the comments on cavalry though....

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I suspect the charge stat has the same effect as the melee stat, but lasts only while the unit is in a "charge" mode (it accounts of the high initial casualties of the charge, but then fades if the cavalry are stuck in melee). It's just that +5 charge seems underbudget compared with +4 attack (or +3 armour) from the smith. I'd rather have +4 all the time than +5 when charging. I'm even ambivalent on the +5 charge from proving grounds compared to the +2 alternatives, but will give CA the benefit of the doubt. One guide to TW units computed a "combat power" stat that weighted charge at 1/4 of melee attack (and defence), although that was probably arbitrary and not focusing on cavalry specifically.

Having developing my smith, I now see that it is quite easy to put a stables in there. You have yari dojo, sword dojo and armory, so there is room for one more building if you are willing to upgade the castle.

My preference is to use the encampment upgrade to boost armor by 2 and any smiths I use for attack. I tend to think that archers cause so many casualties that I need some extra armor on my samurai, but the extra attack gives a nice edge too - I suppose I tend toward a balanced approach, which means I am happy with +4 attack and +2 armor and most of that goes to Naginata and Katana samurai anyways.

I understand the debate of armor vs. attack is mostly focusing on melee combat, but what exactly is the armor effect on archery? I definitely notice a difference, but how big is it in reality?

For archers, I definitely will always get the armor from encampment upgrade, because +5 accuracy < +2 armor for me. My archers will anyway come from a crafts province that eventually gives +20 accuracy. Getting my archers to survive enemy missiles is more important. Still, it remains a bit uncertain what the accuracy actually means - my guess is that it is % of hits per arrows fired, but then the armor of the target somehow reduces that.

Even if this is a guide on producing units, I think it should be mentioned that an added building in a castle will mean reduced growth across all the provinces. That means, if you have to upgrade the castle just to get in an extra troop type (usually the last would be stables) I would think about this both economically and strategically before deciding. If the province is in my border, I am more happy to upgrade the castle (because of replenishment etc), but if it is located far away from the front lines, I like to keep the castle small.

For instance the Shimazu starting province with smiths I would not upgrade beyond adding spears and swords production + an encampment.

Perhaps if I would play with a cavalry heavy approach, I would be interested in getting some cavalry with more armor or attack, but for now the +charge is enough for me. My cavalry is mostly used to break units from the rear (charge is ok for this), countering enemy cavalry (usually a counter-charge, attack vs. charge applies mostly here) and to chase routers (I don't really need any bonus for this).
Countering cavalry with yari cav is mostly pretty easy, especially with some yari infantry back-up, so I don't bother building for getting high attack cav.

Good points, Rothe. I did wonder about +2 armor for archers - I can't quantify it, but it does feel a bigger bonus than +5% accuracy. (For example, bow samurai have 15% more accuracy than bow ashigaru and 3 more amor). I was giving CA the benefit of the doubt that the encampment designed for missiles was actually better, but you have prompted me to go with my original instinct.

I did mention the economic growth penalty of extra building slots in the second sentence but have now made it explicit that this affects all your provinces.

I was wondering about province optimization when it comes to conquering new provinces. For instance if that crafts province has been developed by the AI along the sword dojo line. Do you think barring any pressing need it's better to destroy the building and start on the archer line or just leave things as they are? This game is quite fast paced compared to previous titles and I wonder if the time and koku would be worth it.

I am finding the game slow paced if you choose it to be. I've been sitting on the cusp of realm divide for ages, building up a war chest, strengthening trading relations and having fun with defensive wars. It's around 1570 now and I guess I really should get this thing going.

Craft provinces seem rather scarce (I don't have one) but the +20% accuracy bonus seems amazing, so I would definitely re-fashion them. Ditto smiths and perhaps philosophical tradition provinces. The other ones would be optional, provided I have one of the same speciality already. But for troop production (crafts and smiths), I find it unlikely that I will be able to channel all my recruitment through one or two provinces once the fur starts flying, so a few more are always welcome.

On an unrelated subject, I noticed one bad thing about getting +4 agents straight out of training - you get the skill points but not the retinue. I think a more "organically" grown agent would have two retinue by level 4. Hopefully, my factory farmed ones can pick up retinue later.

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Originally Posted by Zim

I was wondering about province optimization when it comes to conquering new provinces. For instance if that crafts province has been developed by the AI along the sword dojo line. Do you think barring any pressing need it's better to destroy the building and start on the archer line or just leave things as they are? This game is quite fast paced compared to previous titles and I wonder if the time and koku would be worth it.

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Depends. If I already have a sword dojo in a smithy province, I am very unlikely to produce any sword troops without the smithy bonus in this kind of province. I say scrap it. But, lets say I have a problem in my front line of not having enough samurai and a large enemy stack is closing - in that case, why not make some swordsmen and then scrap it?

In this TW title you don't need buildings to replenish troops, only to make new ones. That means that you can make all your sword troops far away and just try to make sure they are not completely destroyed even if they rout. IT is much more critical that whatever you field is the best use for the upkeep money and the way to ensure it is to build your troops with the best bonuses.

I just found this amazing interactive map of STW2:

http://shogun.bitcrumbs.com/

It's a real work of art. :bow:

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Originally Posted by econ21

I just found this amazing interactive map of STW2:

http://shogun.bitcrumbs.com/

It's a real work of art. :bow:

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You can now look at it in-game.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=438482

Nice guide!

One thing to add about nanban ports and quarters is that it is possible to get one in a crafts province, which allows for more accurate imported matchlock ashigaru. It is a minor point, but the accuracy for cannon and matchlocks might interest some people, especially with mods that reduce matchlock training times (like darthmod).

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Originally Posted by econ21

I suspect the charge stat has the same effect as the melee stat, but lasts only while the unit is in a "charge" mode (it accounts of the high initial casualties of the charge, but then fades if the cavalry are stuck in melee). It's just that +5 charge seems underbudget compared with +4 attack (or +3 armour) from the smith. I'd rather have +4 all the time than +5 when charging. I'm even ambivalent on the +5 charge from proving grounds compared to the +2 alternatives, but will give CA the benefit of the doubt. One guide to TW units computed a "combat power" stat that weighted charge at 1/4 of melee attack (and defence), although that was probably arbitrary and not focusing on cavalry specifically.

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My take on cavalry is that it's all about the charge - if youre using cav in extended melees vs (melee) ground troops then youre going to suffer regardless of where you put the bonuses. Cav are your highly mobile shock troops - if the enemy dont rout soon after charging then youre going to start to lose horses very quickly - the idea (IMO) is to boost that initial charge damage as much as possible.

I can see the advantage in a smithy if you choose +4 attack (almost as good as +5 charge), but the problem with this is that i will almost always choose to go for the defensive path of smithy upgrades - it seems so much more useful in the early game because of the boost in protection against arrows for your (otherwise cripplingly low armour) early units. And this +3 armour wont give any boost to your cav charge at all.

So i'd tend to go for a horse province over smithy for cav. Maybe once i've got a second smithy province i'd devote that to +attack to turn out uber katanas & nagintas (IMO you should use bonuses to boost strengths rather than reduce weaknesses) and in that situation maybe it would be worth producing katana cav in that province too.

Same goes for the encampment - i'd much rather have another +5 charge over +2 armour.

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On an unrelated subject, I noticed one bad thing about getting +4 agents straight out of training - you get the skill points but not the retinue. I think a more "organically" grown agent would have two retinue by level 4.

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Yeah i noticed this too. Hoping it's a bug.

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Originally Posted by xploring

You can now look at it in-game.

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Wow!

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Originally Posted by Daveybaby

My take on cavalry is that it's all about the charge - if youre using cav in extended melees vs (melee) ground troops then youre going to suffer regardless of where you put the bonuses. Cav are your highly mobile shock troops - if the enemy dont rout soon after charging then youre going to start to lose horses very quickly - the idea (IMO) is to boost that initial charge damage as much as possible.

I can see the advantage in a smithy if you choose +4 attack (almost as good as +5 charge), but the problem with this is that i will almost always choose to go for the defensive path of smithy upgrades - it seems so much more useful in the early game because of the boost in protection against arrows for your (otherwise cripplingly low armour) early units. And this +3 armour wont give any boost to your cav charge at all.

So i'd tend to go for a horse province over smithy for cav. Maybe once i've got a second smithy province i'd devote that to +attack to turn out uber katanas & nagintas (IMO you should use bonuses to boost strengths rather than reduce weaknesses) and in that situation maybe it would be worth producing katana cav in that province too.

Same goes for the encampment - i'd much rather have another +5 charge over +2 armour.

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I agree on the cav issue, I put maximum +charge buildings in my warhorse province and produce mainly yari cav there... pulling them out to recharge once the charge is done...
I also have my smithy province built up for +armor

Now in my current Oda campaign I just recently conquered a second smithy province and will put that high attack plan into action, so I'm thinking Encampment->Jjujitsu Dojo, Sword chain, Stables, Master Weaponsmith
not really a need for spear dojo there as I'll use it mostly for No Dachi and Katana Cav, maybe some katana samurai if I want more flexible shock infantry,

Also, econ, I think ships profit from the accuracy bonus of a smith province so I would say that's better than the lowered recruitment cost from a pine forest, still coming second to naval tradition...

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Originally Posted by TheLastDays

Also, econ, I think ships profit from the accuracy bonus of a smith province so I would say that's better than the lowered recruitment cost from a pine forest, still coming second to naval tradition...

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Good idea, thanks. I've incorporated it into the guide. I've also added in the idea of five "tax towns" as suggested by Slaists.

I've changed my mind on the armor vs weapon upgrade issue. After experiencing the attrition from archery fire over the course of a full campaign, I think the armor upgrade is the best choice for your first smith town. I'm still inclined to have a weapons upgrade in a second smith town to produce shock attack units (although even then, I would less emphatic: the AI is very good at targeting your elites for archery fire). However, I think protecting your frontline is a higher priority, especially in the early game when you have few elites.

Are you sure ships benefit from the accuracy bonus? I haven't paid much atention to it, but Craft provinces tend to be hard somewhat out of the way.

Another good site for ship development are Iron provinces. Ships also benefit from the discount on all units, so there is really no point in targeting Lumber provinces over Naval Tradition or Iron Mines.

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Originally Posted by Narcisista

Are you sure ships benefit from the accuracy bonus? I haven't paid much atention to it, but Craft provinces tend to be hard somewhat out of the way.

Another good site for ship development are Iron provinces. Ships also benefit from the discount on all units, so there is really no point in targeting Lumber provinces over Naval Tradition or Iron Mines.

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The current encyclopaedia does not list accuracy for ships anymore, so it's safe to say craft provinces for drydocks is a luxury.

There's only 1 iron province (Miyagi) compared to 2 prime forest provinces which have coastal provinces (Tosa and Fukushima). Compare that to the 5 naval tradition provinces which are somewhat evenly spread out through the Japanese islands. The only faction to really benefit from iron naval provinces early-game is the Date (maybe the Uesugi and Hojo too if they try). The aforementioned clans and obviously Chosokabe get a head start for cheaper ships.

Yeah, my experience is coloured by ROTS where there are 4 coastal iron provinces, 3 of wich fairly acessible, versus 2 Forest Provinces.

I didn't realise the specialties for RotS were different from the original campaign, then again I haven't got around to starting a campaign there yet so that should be interesting.

They are mostly equal, but there are some differences.

Horses and Stone are no longer trade goods, so those are out, however you can import Wood from the Korea trade node, and you can produce Silk domestically.

I think the most interesting part is how the Market and Farming chains were changed. To produce horse units you must develop farms along the horse breeder line sacrificing food production and markets are now a choice between immediate money and extra food in the form of food stores. I'm still not entirely satisfied how food surplus affects town growth, but it is an interesting alternative.

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Originally Posted by MCM

I'm pretty sure +3 armor is better than +4 melee attack in general.

The more important factor, though, is what troops you'll be training the most and who needs the boost more. If you're recruiting Naginata Samurai, you should probably go with the melee attack bonus. If it's No-Dachi Samurai, the armor is the obvious choice. Focus on fixing deficiencies in your troops.

Also, it's not clear that +4 XP for monks is really that much better than +4 XP. The XP will actually decay over time, because as the unit dies and is replenished, its XP will go down. Further, low armor is the major weakness for monks. Giving them an armor boost corrects the only real weakness monks have.

Also, all troops will inevitably get exposed to lots of arrow fire when storming castles. It pretty much can't be avoided.

Also, you should add in the costs of all these buildings your talking about.

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That is pretty hmmmm..
Depends on playstyle a lot. I like to minmax myself.

Naginata Samurai's strength is amazing armour.. improve it even more. No-Dachis have amazing charge bonus, improve it even more and Katana Samurai are good at melee.. go and improve that even more.

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Originally Posted by econ21

I think 4XP is about twice as good as 4 armor for melee troops: as a rough rule of thumb, you could assess the combat factor of a melee unit in TW by adding up the attack, defence and armor. I'm hoping not to replenish too much. You pay full price for a depleted unit. I'd consoldiate depleted units and may be even disband very low strength remmants. You'd be better off recruiting a new unit, especially if it starts off with 4XP. (In past TW games, you paid per man not full price and the main attraction for holding on to veterans was their higher XP than the 0XP rookies.)

You may have a point on the monk's armor - I've recommended the armory over the jujitsu dojo for them. But the quantity of bonuses for 4XP is just too large. And it would be hard to shoe horn a temple into a smith province (after the sword dojo, spear dojo and encampment buildings).

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I have to disagree on this particular point a lot. XP4 is not unachieveable by just using the unit normally. Its actually almost a given with Monks since they are so effective at killing things. But getting +3 armor will never fade away or diminish in usefulness. In fact, outside of the first fights you have, the Monks will almost certainly have more XP on average with armor, since the only unit that can really hurt Monks is Samurai Achers (or lots of weaker Archers) and equally-developed Katanas. The AI will go full-out overboard with sniping your Monks, so unless you keep them so far away from the fight that it'll take them half a minute to close in on the melee, they *will* take casualties from arrows. Its nigh-impossible to avoid. Heck, if you use Monks so defensively that they never take casualties I'd recommend No Dachis instead as they're both faster and deal a lot more damage on the charge. Assuming the attack/defense/armor formula still holds up, it still doesn't address the issue of Archers.

XP is good for attack and defense, but it also provinces morale, which is huge on Ashigaru and decent on Katana and Yari Samurai. Its next-to-worthless on Monks, they never rout anyway. If you were to develop the Holy Sites for anything I'll much more recommend +5 morale and +2 armor and then churn out Ashigaru from a fully developed Castle instead.

Also, XP doesnt give +1 attack +1 defense per rank in Shogun 2. On melee units the bonuses are:
R1: 1 morale, 1 attack, 1 defense
R2: 0 morale, 1 attack, 1 defense
R3: 1 morale, 1 attack, 0 defense
R4: 1 morale, 1 attack, 1 defense
R5: 0 morale, 0 attack, 2 defense