Newb Q's: Initial Diplomacy, Trade, Auto vs. Battlefield, Loyalty, Numbers

I have been looking forward to playing Shogun 2 for some time now, and I am having a very good time learning the game. I am currently playing on easy mode, and have read a lot of guides here, but I have a few specific questions:

1) Even after reading a couple diplomacy guides, including Dribb's, I am at a complete loss as to how to get started with diplomatic relationships. I am playing Chosokabe, so I initially don't have any contact with any clans off Shikoku. I conquer Iso by the first Winter, and Sanuki shortly after, and even that early, I've found it impossible to find a replacement trade partner for the Miyoshi clan, who are next on my list. Only the Mori ever offered me a trade agreement, which looked unfavorable to me, but I took it anyway. They broke the agreement a couple turns later. By the time I own Awa, or worse, Awaji, it seems my territorial expansion penalty is so high, no one will trade with me. Even clans with no resources said I had nothing to offer them.

What I am doing wrong? I've offered them payments over turns amounting to half the amount I'd gain in trade. Since my experience with the Mori, I've been reluctant to offer a single lump sum, seeing as they may well break the trade agreement a couple turns later. By the time I've found a worthy enough potential trade partner that I would offer marriage, it seems like everyone is paired up into multiple trade agreements, leaving me with no one to even potentially trade with! How do I cut this knot?

2) Without trade agreements, it looks to me like I DO derive some income from trade resources. Am I reading the Finance Summary window correctly? Am I getting some income from resources that I control but am not trading?

3) For the sake of simplicity I am learning the strategic game by relying on Ashigaru and Auto-Resolve Battles. I realize that in the long term, battles will be more enjoying on the battlefield with a variety of units. I am wondering what the differences between Auto-Resolve and Battlefield, so I can anticipate how my strategy will have to change. I assume the main difference is that a good battlefield commander can win a bigger victory with a smaller force well played, for example, and that the quality of troops matters more on the battlefield.

It also seems to me that units gain XP roughly in proportion to their losses, or at the very least, no losses means no experience. Is this really so, and how will battlefield play affect my units' XP gains.

Are there Bushido Arts bonuses, like formations, that don't affect Auto-Resolve much?

4) For a while I thougt I was seeing a bug, because when my general took skills or retainers that increased loyalty, it seemed their loyalty stayed the same or even dropped. Last night I moused over the loyalty of my main general, and found he had a -3 penalty for "Delusions of Granduer." What's the deal with that, why isn't it a Trait, how come I got no notification, and is there anything else like that I should worry about?

5) I really appreciate the various guides that have been posted here and in other forums, especially FrogBeastEgg's, but I really am a fan of the Brady/Ultima Strategy Guide format, with lots of reference materials, and especially hard numbers. The Encyclopedia is frankly disappointing in that regard, is not well organized, and appears to have no search function. It is quite vague, and leaves much unsaid. Are there tables of hard numbers compiled?

Thank you in advance for your consideration.
Smeelbo-san

Some quick answers 'cause I happen to be online. No doubt there are some veterans around here who will answer better.

1) With Chosokabe you will usually have to pay a fair bit to get trade agreements (on normal I tend to pay in the region of 1000-1500 koku, lump sum). You have both wood and stone early (and horses from Miyoshi soon after) and the AI is pretty smart about trade agreements; they know you will benefit more than them. Probably the easiest trade partners to get will have a couple of resources that you don't, i.e., they will greatly benefit from the trade agreement as well (which can be a double-edged sword). In short just pay a big (number of provinces) clan who you don't intend to be at war with for some (a long?) time. You'll quickly get the money back. Then repeat with another clan. There is no limit to the number of trade partners a clan can have. Don't worry about a few minor -'s from expansion at this stage they make hardly any difference. The clans who say that you have nothing to offer them just mean you haven't offered them a juicy enough payment. Look at the likelihood of agreement to your offer, if you get it to high you'll get them to agree.

2) You get 'some' money from trade resources which are not exported (enough that you want them even if you can't trade them). I'm not sure offhand how much, maybe a sixth or a third of what you would get if you traded them. You WANT to trade them!

3) Auto-resolve is different. It is somewhat unkind to you in field battles but can be kinder to you in siege battles. The mix of units when you fight the battles yourself is more about strategy. You don't want all archers facing cavalry! You don't want to be without archers in a siege battle. Etc. When you fight your own battles you can generally get away with less units. You gain XP by killing other units (which correlates pretty well with unit losses, especially under auto-resolve). You get more for killing cavalry and different types of units need different amounts of kills to gain a level. (Strangely enough you get no experience for killing samurai retainers...) There is a list of the bonuses for each level of experience in the encyclopedia. Battlefield play effects XP gains by giving you a (that is, some) measure of control about the number of kills each unit amasses.

4) Your problem is that your general has more stars than your daimyo. I think it is -1 penalty for each star more. Get your daimyo out and into battle from the start. I try to keep him as my highest starred general. You should worry about everything (evil laugh)...

And 5) I'll leave for someone else. But yes there are.

Have fun! :yes:

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Originally Posted by Smeelbo

1) Even after reading a couple diplomacy guides, including Dribb's, I am at a complete loss as to how to get started with diplomatic relationships. I am playing Chosokabe, so I initially don't have any contact with any clans off Shikoku. I conquer Iso by the first Winter, and Sanuki shortly after, and even that early, I've found it impossible to find a replacement trade partner for the Miyoshi clan, who are next on my list. Only the Mori ever offered me a trade agreement, which looked unfavorable to me, but I took it anyway. They broke the agreement a couple turns later. By the time I own Awa, or worse, Awaji, it seems my territorial expansion penalty is so high, no one will trade with me. Even clans with no resources said I had nothing to offer them.

What I am doing wrong? I've offered them payments over turns amounting to half the amount I'd gain in trade. Since my experience with the Mori, I've been reluctant to offer a single lump sum, seeing as they may well break the trade agreement a couple turns later. By the time I've found a worthy enough potential trade partner that I would offer marriage, it seems like everyone is paired up into multiple trade agreements, leaving me with no one to even potentially trade with! How do I cut this knot?

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Well, money is always the key. Early on you can usually find a few trade partners without paying them, especially on easy but that changes quickly. You'll have to pay for your trade agreements. Keep in mind that it quickly pays off, not only because the trade income will increase over time but also because a trade agreement is the start of a new friendship, winning you an ally if played right. Thus you should try to use your trade capabilities on clans you do not intend to go to war with any time soon.

Don't use marriages for mere trade agreements though. Wait until you know who you are aiming to win as a long term ally and marry off your children to them. If you really don't get trade partners because they are all tied up already try using the diplomatic option of "Demand Trade Embargo" where you basically ask them to break a trade agreement with a trade partner. You'll have to invest money again though.

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2) Without trade agreements, it looks to me like I DO derive some income from trade resources. Am I reading the Finance Summary window correctly? Am I getting some income from resources that I control but am not trading?

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If you have resources that you are not trading to other clans, you sell them among your populace. This nets you less than foreign trade of course but I think it show up under trade in your finances.

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3) For the sake of simplicity I am learning the strategic game by relying on Ashigaru and Auto-Resolve Battles. I realize that in the long term, battles will be more enjoying on the battlefield with a variety of units. I am wondering what the differences between Auto-Resolve and Battlefield, so I can anticipate how my strategy will have to change. I assume the main difference is that a good battlefield commander can win a bigger victory with a smaller force well played, for example, and that the quality of troops matters more on the battlefield.

It also seems to me that units gain XP roughly in proportion to their losses, or at the very least, no losses means no experience. Is this really so, and how will battlefield play affect my units' XP gains.

Are there Bushido Arts bonuses, like formations, that don't affect Auto-Resolve much?

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Auto-resolve works quite well actually, calculating troop quality, morale, numbers, etc. A skilled battlefield commander can usually get results that are a bit better, which means he'll lose less man or could even turn close defeat (auto-resolved) into a victory when fighting it manually but rarely can you pound an enemy force into oblivion on the battlefield that would have defeated you single handedly in auto-resolve, like it used to be in previous Total War titles. At least that's my experience.

Troops collect XP for how many kills they do, methinks. Of course in melee that's usually equivalent to taking losses, especially in auto resolve.

Don't know about the Bushido bonuses. I'm not sure if auto-resolve takes into account what formations are available for the player and if it uses abilities like fire-arrows.

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4) For a while I thougt I was seeing a bug, because when my general took skills or retainers that increased loyalty, it seemed their loyalty stayed the same or even dropped. Last night I moused over the loyalty of my main general, and found he had a -3 penalty for "Delusions of Granduer." What's the deal with that, why isn't it a Trait, how come I got no notification, and is there anything else like that I should worry about?

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Well, as a general advice, keep a good eye on your generals. I'm not sure what you can do to up their loyalty, other than choosing the right skills and retainers and assigning them with a commission. Quick EDIT: There's a Chi-Art, I think it's called "Noh" that gives your generals +2 loyalty.

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5) I really appreciate the various guides that have been posted here and in other forums, especially FrogBeastEgg's, but I really am a fan of the Brady/Ultima Strategy Guide format, with lots of reference materials, and especially hard numbers. The Encyclopedia is frankly disappointing in that regard, is not well organized, and appears to have no search function. It is quite vague, and leaves much unsaid. Are there tables of hard numbers compiled?

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Dunno, sorry.

I'm sure someone else can give more insights into some of these topics. Welcome to the Org! :yes:

Thank you all very much for the answers so far. I'm taking my time in my first learning campaign, and I've found the responses useful.

I have some more questions.

1) It seems like "over-flow" XP for units disappears, either between turns, or between loads of a save file. Am I mistaken, or does XP short of levelling for units only accumulate during a season, and resets to zero each season?

2) Nobody likes me, no one will trade with me, and every clan shows they cannot trade, even if they are adjacent to me, and have no trade partners. What is the deal? Some of them lack any resources whatsover, but they're never interested in trading, even after their trading partner has been eliminated. This has been the case for well over 20 turns.

3) It seems to me that you could use Field battles instead of Auto Resolve to more effectively hassle enemies. That is, go in, bloody them a bit, then withdraw. You could use this to turn ONE battle into TWO battles, and garner more XP, at least for the General.

4) I read something in a forum about merging two damaged units of the same type, so that badly damaged units would be in fighting shape faster, and you would only pay the upkeep for the combined unit. Is this so?

5) That reputation bar is getting mighty close to full, and I've tried to avoid taking more territory, but I am at war, and even winning battles nudges it up. Am I doomed? Do I soon expect to have to fight everyone?

More questions later, but thank you again.
Smeelbo-san

Welcome to the .Org Smeelbo

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1) It seems like "over-flow" XP for units disappears, either between turns, or between loads of a save file. Am I mistaken, or does XP short of levelling for units only accumulate during a season, and resets to zero each season?

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I somehow never followed it too closely. What is very sure is that experience decreases as a unit replenishes -- the logic behind it being that new recruits lack experience and thus draw back the mean for the entire unit. A corolary to that would be: on the battlefield, engage to rout the entire enemy army fast, giving your men the opportunity to massacre the adversary during the chase and thus gain experience without suffering a great many losses. It might seem obvious, but on many occasions you'll be tempted to engage a protracted fight to destroy an entire army corps in one battle; end of the day, just bite on the bullet and go for routing them unless the need to save up your army's march capacity is dire.

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2) Nobody likes me, no one will trade with me, and every clan shows they cannot trade, even if they are adjacent to me, and have no trade partners. What is the deal? Some of them lack any resources whatsover, but they're never interested in trading, even after their trading partner has been eliminated. This has been the case for well over 20 turns.

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This is really odd though. I always play on Legendary (my diplomatic penalties are quite large) and I always trade with quite a few very fast and without many issues. The beginning of the game should have you launching a couple of kobayas to the east and west -- you really should have the entire list of clans at your fingertips in the diplomatic panel as fast as possible. Also, remember to increase your Honor and enhance your diplomatic relations.


Tips for raising Honor: establish a vassal early on -- that's 1 Honor right there. Gain a Heroic Victory, that's 1 more Honor point. It's rather crucial to be at 5 before you even begin researching Tea Ceremony.
Tips for improving diplomatic relations: sue for peace a couple of times in the beginning. This will give your daimyo the trait Peaceable, which gives you +10 to diplomatic relations. Note that you really want to :daisy: them up good first, destroy all their military capacity and vassalise them, so they can be quickly conquered by another and you will thus be able to invade the province again without receiving a diplomatic penalty: breaking a recently (and not that recently) established peace gives you a -25 diplomatic penalty with all clans; and you cannot get rid of it ever; you don't want that! Moreover, always resist the temptation to trade with your next target or even the target after next unless you're sure you can provoke them to declare war on you, because declaring war while trading with them will again get you the penalty of doom. Do not think this penalty unimportant, 3-4 years down the road you may discover it had a butterfly effect capable of the most intense :daisy:.
You will have discovered all the clans, as I described above. Search for whoever has daughters. Marry them. Don't hold off, just go ahead and marry them to retainers and what not. It's all in creating as favorable a climate as possible for yourself -- note that there are diplomatic penalties to be had with clans which are in open conflict with the one providing the bride.
And of course, go for Tea Ceremony and Caligraphy, you want the Honor and the diplomatic relations perks -- even if you don't care about them all that much for those reasons, you want Epic Architecture so best to research them in the beginning, when they matter most.

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3) It seems to me that you could use Field battles instead of Auto Resolve to more effectively hassle enemies. That is, go in, bloody them a bit, then withdraw. You could use this to turn ONE battle into TWO battles, and garner more XP, at least for the General.

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Mmmno, you really don't want that even if you can pull off the inital battle exactly as you'd want it every time (I suppose you want to rout all of them bar a unit or two, then withdraw en masse). But it's defeating the point a bit. If you win, you gain 10 experience (15 for a Heroic Victory). Then you go and destroy the retreating army, that's another 10 experience. If you lose the first, you gain 5 experience, and during the second, you have to win anyway, because you cannot withdraw a second time in the same turn. So at best you clock at 15. If you really want a way to level your generals, be aware that a reinforcing general (a general not in your main army, but able to reinforce your attacking force during the battle) gains the same experience as the main one, even if he does not show up on the battlefield. You can have up to 3 reinforcing generals.

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4) I read something in a forum about merging two damaged units of the same type, so that badly damaged units would be in fighting shape faster, and you would only pay the upkeep for the combined unit. Is this so?

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Yes, though I advise against it in 95% of the cases. As badly damaged that unit is, it still replenishes and in the end you will have 2 fully functional units, while if you merge them, you will have one and will have to lose time and koku to recruit another -- basically, is the upkeep cost until it fully replenishes greater than the koku and time you have to spend on the replacing unit?

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5) That reputation bar is getting mighty close to full, and I've tried to avoid taking more territory, but I am at war, and even winning battles nudges it up. Am I doomed? Do I soon expect to have to fight everyone?

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Only Heroic Victories of all battles nudge it up a tiny bit, so don't worry that much about that. Just hold on, build your economy and play defensively. Make sure you have a decent warchest (100.000 koku or so) and 3 to 4 army corps before you trigger the realm divide -- or that your revenue cannot plummet too much (and it really shouldn't if you play it right and capture all the trade nodes beforehand -- you really should, even during realm divide, the income you receive "from unsold trade resources" will keep your revenue going; about 11.000 koku from those unsold resources if you keep all the trade nodes -- the AI is not very effective at raiding you once you defeat a couple of its fleets.

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Originally Posted by Nowake

Regarding "overflow" XP:

...What is very sure is that experience decreases as a unit replenishes...on the battlefield, engage to rout the entire enemy army fast, giving your men the opportunity to massacre the adversary during the chase and thus gain experience without suffering a great many losses.

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No, it all disappears in one turn. At first, I thought it was the game punishing me for saves, but I saw the XP disappear between seasons. Except at least once, it did not.... I have not been able to figure it out, except that now I assume that when I hit End of Turn, it's going to disappear.

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Originally Posted by Nowake

Regarding impossibility of trade in my first game:

This is really odd though. I always play on Legendary (my diplomatic penalties are quite large) and I always trade with quite a few very fast and without many issues. The beginning of the game should have you launching a couple of kobayas to the east and west -- you really should have the entire list of clans at your fingertips in the diplomatic panel as fast as possible. Also, remember to increase your Honor and enhance your diplomatic relations.

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Thanks. I hit Realm Divide on my first learning campaign, and things went pear shaped, so I started a new learning campaign on Normal difficulty. This time I am playing the diplomacy game from Turn 1, and expanding much more slowly. Soon I move onto Honshu.

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Originally Posted by Nowake

On honor:
Tips for raising Honor: establish a vassal early on -- that's 1 Honor right there. Gain a Heroic Victory, that's 1 more Honor point. It's rather crucial to be at 5 before you even begin researching Tea Ceremony.

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Got lucky with Haiku for my Daimyo at the beginning of my new campaign.

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Originally Posted by Nowake

More on honorv and diplomacy:

Tips for improving diplomatic relations: sue for peace a couple of times in the beginning. This will give your daimyo the trait Peaceable, which gives you +10 to diplomatic relations. Note that you really want to :daisy: them up good first, destroy all their military capacity and vassalise them, so they can be quickly conquered by another and you will thus be able to invade the province again without receiving a diplomatic penalty: breaking a recently (and not that recently) established peace gives you a -25 diplomatic penalty with all clans; and you cannot get rid of it ever; you don't want that! Moreover, always resist the temptation to trade with your next target or even the target after next unless you're sure you can provoke them to declare war on you, because declaring war while trading with them will again get you the penalty of doom. Do not think this penalty unimportant, 3-4 years down the road you may discover it had a butterfly effect capable of the most intense :daisy:.
You will have discovered all the clans, as I described above. Search for whoever has daughters. Marry them. Don't hold off, just go ahead and marry them to retainers and what not. It's all in creating as favorable a climate as possible for yourself -- note that there are diplomatic penalties to be had with clans which are in open conflict with the one providing the bride.
And of course, go for Tea Ceremony and Caligraphy, you want the Honor and the diplomatic relations perks -- even if you don't care about them all that much for those reasons, you want Epic Architecture so best to research them in the beginning, when they matter most.

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Thank you.

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Originally Posted by Nowake

On trying to manipulate XP using Field Battles:
Mmmno, you really don't want that even if you can pull off the inital battle exactly as you'd want it every time (I suppose you want to rout all of them bar a unit or two, then withdraw en masse). But it's defeating the point a bit. If you win, you gain 10 experience (15 for a Heroic Victory). Then you go and destroy the retreating army, that's another 10 experience. If you lose the first, you gain 5 experience, and during the second, you have to win anyway, because you cannot withdraw a second time in the same turn. So at best you clock at 15. If you really want a way to level your generals, be aware that a reinforcing general (a general not in your main army, but able to reinforce your attacking force during the battle) gains the same experience as the main one, even if he does not show up on the battlefield. You can have up to 3 reinforcing generals.

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Thank you.

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Originally Posted by Nowake

On Merging very damaged units:
Yes, though I advise against it in 95% of the cases. As badly damaged that unit is, it still replenishes and in the end you will have 2 fully functional units, while if you merge them, you will have one and will have to lose time and koku to recruit another -- basically, is the upkeep cost until it fully replenishes greater than the koku and time you have to spend on the replacing unit?

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Or can I replace it with a similar unit recuited later.

In any case HOW do I merge units? I've puttered around, and haven't found a method.

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Originally Posted by Nowake

On being on the verge of Realm Divide:
Only Heroic Victories of all battles nudge it up a tiny bit, so don't worry that much about that. Just hold on, build your economy and play defensively. Make sure you have a decent warchest (100.000 koku or so) and 3 to 4 army corps before you trigger the realm divide -- or that your revenue cannot plummet too much (and it really shouldn't if you play it right and capture all the trade nodes beforehand -- you really should, even during realm divide, the income you receive "from unsold trade resources" will keep your revenue going; about 11.000 koku from those unsold resources if you keep all the trade nodes -- the AI is not very effective at raiding you once you defeat a couple of its fleets.

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Again, thank you very much.

Smeelbo

Hello again

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No, it all disappears in one turn. At first, I thought it was the game punishing me for saves, but I saw the XP disappear between seasons. Except at least once, it did not.... I have not been able to figure it out, except that now I assume that when I hit End of Turn, it's going to disappear.

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Yep, I understood from the get go, but as I said before, I never really paid much attention to the problem, eventhough I had observed the oddity. I classified it as a screw-up by the devs and moved on, there are so many it's not worth even sighing about them unless they're game breaking. Plus, it does not always happen and it was aleviated a lot post-patch, your units actually gain quite a bit of experience nonetheless now. It was very rare to be able to raise a unit even only from zero to the third experience level before, nigh on impossible, nevermind the level five-six figures you get to now after the first seven-eight years of your campaign.

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Got lucky with Haiku for my Daimyo at the beginning of my new campaign.

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Oh, you lucky sod, I got that only once -- in my current campaign, and it's my sixth! :stwshame:

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Or can I replace it with a similar unit recuited later.
In any case HOW do I merge units? I've puttered around, and haven't found a method.

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Well, yeah, of course, I was talking about your options, but every koku matters. It's situational and preferential, I somehow pace my recruitment very tightly.
So, to merge them, simply drag-and-drop the heavily damaged unit's card (on the campaign map, not on the battlefield) over any other damaged identical unit i.e. if you will drag-and-drop a unit of 20 Yari Ashigaru over a unit of 190 Yari Ashigaru (playing on Ultra unit size, a YA unit has 200 men), you will then have a unit of 200 Yari Ashigaru and one of 10. If the number would be 180 or lower, the unit would be fully absorbed. And of course, note that each Yari Ashigaru in each unit has its own experience level, so the damaged unit will raise or lower the experience mean during the merger.

Oh and to paraphrase signor Capulet, thank me no thankings mister!
We're exchanging experiences :bow:

It looks like you have a lot of people helping and answering your questions already, and some of what I say will probably already have been answered, but I'll throw my 2 cents in here as well just from my experience.

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Originally Posted by Smeelbo

1) Even after reading a couple diplomacy guides, including Dribb's, I am at a complete loss as to how to get started with diplomatic relationships. I am playing Chosokabe, so I initially don't have any contact with any clans off Shikoku. I conquer Iso by the first Winter, and Sanuki shortly after, and even that early, I've found it impossible to find a replacement trade partner for the Miyoshi clan, who are next on my list. Only the Mori ever offered me a trade agreement, which looked unfavorable to me, but I took it anyway. They broke the agreement a couple turns later. By the time I own Awa, or worse, Awaji, it seems my territorial expansion penalty is so high, no one will trade with me. Even clans with no resources said I had nothing to offer them.

What I am doing wrong? I've offered them payments over turns amounting to half the amount I'd gain in trade. Since my experience with the Mori, I've been reluctant to offer a single lump sum, seeing as they may well break the trade agreement a couple turns later. By the time I've found a worthy enough potential trade partner that I would offer marriage, it seems like everyone is paired up into multiple trade agreements, leaving me with no one to even potentially trade with! How do I cut this knot?

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Later in the game, trade agreements get harder to get. Early on, everyone is scrambling for money, so most likely all agreements will be accepted. As the game goes on, it becomes less about money and more about what trade resources you can provide for them, what they're willing to provide you (are you threatening to them enough that they don't want you to have their trade resoureces?), in addition to how threatening you are to them in general, their allies, or other unforeseeable consequences. You can get just about anyone to agree to a trade agreement, but just know that later in the game, it will require you to spend kokou. It's not uncommon for me to drop 5k-10k on a trade agreement I want - the longer term benefits outweigh the short term requirements. If I'm willing to spend that much money for it, it's likely I don't really need the money in the first place.

Whether or not they break the agreement is completely up to them though, and it is definitely a risk you take. It's hard to want to drop a lot of money on an agreement that you're not sure they'll keep. It has happened to me, but again, that money is usually throwaway. Most of the time, it doesn't bother me if they keep it, because I was mostly only asking for it for the one trade resource that was required to build a certain building.

Marriages are hard to come by after the first 20 turns or so. Most family members are married off by then and solid alliances have been established. I wouldn't worry about it to much. It's good for the early game to cement a strong alliance with a faction that you'll want to stay allied to for a very long time, but it's just as useful to use that kid and marry them for a general (daughter), or for specific retinue bonuses (son).

Other things to keep in mind; I try not to trade with enemies of my friends. I'm not sure if that even matters, but I would like to think it does. If I'm neutral, it's not so much of a big deal, but I'm still wary of who I may potentially anger by doing that. Also, when expanding, it's a very good idea to take a few settlements and then hold off and defend for awhile so that diplomacy penalty subsides. It won't be there forever, and you have plenty of time to win the game. Don't feel like you have to steamroll every province you run into as quickly as possible. Wait it out for more positive benefits. You'll want to have an assortment of friends or vassals by the great divide anyway, so you still have avenues of making money when other clans start teaming up against you.

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2) Without trade agreements, it looks to me like I DO derive some income from trade resources. Am I reading the Finance Summary window correctly? Am I getting some income from resources that I control but am not trading?

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You will get funds from trade resources, and that can vary wildly throughout the game. There will be specific amounts of trade resources that you are exporting, and what specific amounts of that trade resource bring in revenue. I can't remember off the top of my head if that is shown or not, but I do remember that from Empire.

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3) For the sake of simplicity I am learning the strategic game by relying on Ashigaru and Auto-Resolve Battles. I realize that in the long term, battles will be more enjoying on the battlefield with a variety of units. I am wondering what the differences between Auto-Resolve and Battlefield, so I can anticipate how my strategy will have to change. I assume the main difference is that a good battlefield commander can win a bigger victory with a smaller force well played, for example, and that the quality of troops matters more on the battlefield.

It also seems to me that units gain XP roughly in proportion to their losses, or at the very least, no losses means no experience. Is this really so, and how will battlefield play affect my units' XP gains.

Are there Bushido Arts bonuses, like formations, that don't affect Auto-Resolve much?

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This is really a preference, but it can also mean different outcomes. Read my post here for more info on this, as I recently commented on something similar to it.

Units will get experience based mostly on how many kills they get, but also how many battles they've been in in general (or at least that's my take on it). Units that take a lot of losses typically means they will get more experience, but only because they've been locked in fighting a lot more than other units, and coincidentally kill more of the enemy.

I'm not sure on the formations. I prefer to use my own setup that is normally something like;

Heavy infantry in front, Archers in the middle, Light infantry reinforcements behind the archers, defensive reserves on the sides and horses in the back and mostly towards the sides, with my general in the middle to hit as many units as possible with rally.

Sometimes I'll switch it up and put my archers in front, but I usually only do this when I'm attacking. When I'm defending, I will use the above setup. I will also swap units in and out of loose/tight formation, depending on who is getting targetted by enemy archers. Trust me, you will want to do that to reduce losses. Heavy infantry can normally take quite a beating from archers, but I don't like to suffer unnecessary losses. Light infantry will get tore up though, so you will definitely want to spread them out as well if they come under fire. Archers... Eh, they aren't really affected to much by being showered with arrows. Sure, they lose men and damage potential, but that's all they'll ever do in a fight. I would prefer the enemy target my archers and not my infantry. The only time I worry about archer casualties is when my archers are in front peppering the enemy archers. That's about the only time I'll worry about setting them in loose formation.

As an addendum; historically, I've never really done this, but I've been finding myself, more often than not, creating a solid line of heavy infantry about 20-30 steps away from the rest of my army as a "front line", and then I send in my light infantry to reinforce or fill in gaps as I'm required. This is especially true for the more difficult fights, as you will want an abundance of fresh troops. Sending your entire army in is really only relying on who has the most morale and resistance to fatigue. You're also running the risk of your entire army chain-fleeing because one group broke rank and had their morale fail.

As I mentioned in my link above, I will often fight very difficult battles on half-speed, so that I can catch morale failing units faster than normal, and also so I can respond to it by sending in a unit to reinforce them quicker. It's typically ok if one unit breaks and flees, but only if they're doing it because they went from a full stack of 120 men down to 10-20 units (in short, they were getting owned, but if they're doing that, it's because you didn't reinforce them quick enough). In my experience, that doesn't have as much of an effect on adjacent unit morale nearly as much as seeing an entire full stack break and run away. My two defensive units that I have positioned on the sides I will normally use to flank the enemy as well, but I keep them on the sides also because the AI likes to try and sneak in cavalry to kill my archers. Another added benefit of creating a front line away from your main army is that you can probably catch the AI trying to flank your front line and then you can sandwich them with a reinforcing unit, which is only benefitting you. They lose horses and morale.

Getting their units to break and flee is an integral part of the battles - battles aren't fought solely for trying to kill everything and everyone, it's more about who can get their army to stand, fight and break the other army first.

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4) For a while I thougt I was seeing a bug, because when my general took skills or retainers that increased loyalty, it seemed their loyalty stayed the same or even dropped. Last night I moused over the loyalty of my main general, and found he had a -3 penalty for "Delusions of Granduer." What's the deal with that, why isn't it a Trait, how come I got no notification, and is there anything else like that I should worry about?

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It's sort of a hidden trait, and is really only because they've won so many battles that they're getting a fat head. I typically use my Daimyo or his heir for my generals. Other generals I will usually just give an assignment to finance or construction and just have them sit in the back to collect on that bonus, and then eventually kill an enemy army here or there.

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5) I really appreciate the various guides that have been posted here and in other forums, especially FrogBeastEgg's, but I really am a fan of the Brady/Ultima Strategy Guide format, with lots of reference materials, and especially hard numbers. The Encyclopedia is frankly disappointing in that regard, is not well organized, and appears to have no search function. It is quite vague, and leaves much unsaid. Are there tables of hard numbers compiled?

Thank you in advance for your consideration.
Smeelbo-san

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I don't know about this. Sorry. =/

Thank you again for all the replies; they have been very useful. My second campaign, as Chosokabe at Normal difficulty is going quite differently than my first campaign. While my first campaign was all about building stacks and expanding militarily (until the dreaded Realm Divide blew up in my face), this second campaign I have followed the philosophy of:

"The nail that sticks out gets hammered down."

Recalling how useless Sanuki, Awa, and especially Awaji seemed to be, I traded with Soga and Miyoshi instead, and allied with Soga (based on their performance, a sad decision).

I liked the Aki-Bingo-Bitchu-Bizen-Harima axis from my first game: good provinces with nice resources, and easy to defend, but by the time I was ready to cross the waters, Aki was taken by my ally Ouchi, and Harima seemed a bridge too far, as Bizen seems much more important, and easy to defend. So currently I have Tosa and Iyo on Shikoku, and, since about turn 16, Bingo-Bitchu-Bizen, a nice, compact territory.

My plan has been to max out Bizen, and until then, delay maintaining a large army I wasn't using. I was starting to worry that I was surrounded by friends, or allies of friends, and there would be no easy targets for my high quality army, but just at the right moment, around turn 28, Ito, having conquered Kyushu, declared war on Ouchi, and I was pleased to join in. That's where I am now. I am thinking of aiming at Tsukushi, Higo, and Hizen, which seem both defensible, have useful resources, and will help me to defend my trade routes. That's the plan, any way.

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Originally Posted by Feelotraveller

With Chosokabe you will usually have to pay a fair bit to get trade agreements (on normal I tend to pay in the region of 1000-1500 koku, lump sum). You have both wood and stone early (and horses from Miyoshi soon after) and the AI is pretty smart about trade agreements; they know you will benefit more than them.

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By starting trading on turn 1, with both Miyoshi and Soga, trade partners have been easy to acquire, and I haven't paid more than 700 for an agreement, and usually much less. I am very impressed by the money made by trade. It's certainly comparable with conquering new provinces, and has several advantages. Mainly, that I don't find my self with a large army to maintain, then looking for new conquests to justify the maintanance of said army. I've kept a much lower profile this time around.

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Originally Posted by Feelotraveller

There is no limit to the number of trade partners a clan can have.

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Well with only four trade ports, it seems I can only have four trade partners.

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Originally Posted by Oh! TheLast Days!

Don't use marriages for mere trade agreements though. Wait until you know who you are aiming to win as a long term ally and marry off your children to them. If you really don't get trade partners because they are all tied up already try using the diplomatic option of "Demand Trade Embargo" where you basically ask them to break a trade agreement with a trade partner. You'll have to invest money again though.

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So far, so good. I haven't married off my daughter yet. I was hoping to use her to secure Miyoshi until Realm Divide, but they seem uninterested. On the other hand, they really are peaceful. I am sure they will betray me eventually.

Speaking of which, how much can or should I rely on the numeric attitudes of the clans? If Soga is Ambitious, Reliable and Very Friendly, how likely is he to march on my capital?

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Originally Posted by Nowake

Tips for improving diplomatic relations: sue for peace a couple of times in the beginning. This will give your daimyo the trait Peaceable, which gives you +10 to diplomatic relations.

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That didn't seem to work. After I conquered Bingo-Bitchu-Bizen from the much disliked Urakami, I offered peace to them and their Bessho allies, leaving them with much reduced armies. Maybe if I were conquering one province, then suing for peace, or not conquering any, that might work, but to be worth the effort of going to war, I'd like a few defensible, useful provinces for my trouble.

I've avoided the vassal route this game so far. My understanding is that it effects your reknown as much as conquering, and besides the pathetic Soga, I've not seen any good candidates. Maybe in this coming Kyushu war with Ito.

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Originally Posted by Nowake

You will have discovered all the clans, as I described above. Search for whoever has daughters. Marry them. Don't hold off, just go ahead and marry them to retainers and what not. It's all in creating as favorable a climate as possible for yourself -- note that there are diplomatic penalties to be had with clans which are in open conflict with the one providing the bride

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Haven't married anyone yet, I think I'll explore the possibilities. I was hoping for clearer lines to the East, so I could pick a side, but instead it's a mess, with the two clans I fear the most allied with each other.

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Originally Posted by Nowake

Just hold on, build your economy and play defensively. Make sure you have a decent warchest (100.000 koku or so) and 3 to 4 army corps before you trigger the realm divide -- or that your revenue cannot plummet too much (and it really shouldn't if you play it right and capture all the trade nodes beforehand -- you really should, even during realm divide, the income you receive "from unsold trade resources" will keep your revenue going; about 11.000 koku from those unsold resources if you keep all the trade nodes -- the AI is not very effective at raiding you once you defeat a couple of its fleets.

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Really? A hundred grand? I'd better keep taking it slow. My income seems not impressive enough, but I need to absorb another three provinces now I think. By focusing on max-ing Bizen as soon as possible, my Chi arts have suffered. On the other hand, I've not been maintaining a large army, and only now am I building it up. The war with Ito will be the ripe fruit that falls into my open palm.

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Originally Posted by Nowake

Well, yeah, of course, I was talking about your options, but every koku matters. It's situational and preferential, I somehow pace my recruitment very tightly.

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Avoiding or deferring unit maintance is about the most effective thing I've found to grow my economy. I try to build as few units as I think I need, and disband any units inferior to what I could recruit. That's why I rushed to max out Bizen, so every unit I recruit has bonus XP, melee and armor. Initially, I am focusing on Ashigaru, but I expect to feed Samurai to the meat grinder eventually.

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Originally Posted by Nowake

So, to merge them, simply drag-and-drop the heavily damaged unit's card (on the campaign map, not on the battlefield) over any other damaged identical unit i.e. if you will drag-and-drop a unit of 20 Yari Ashigaru over a unit of 190 Yari Ashigaru (playing on Ultra unit size, a YA unit has 200 men), you will then have a unit of 200 Yari Ashigaru and one of 10. If the number would be 180 or lower, the unit would be fully absorbed. And of course, note that each Yari Ashigaru in each unit has its own experience level, so the damaged unit will raise or lower the experience mean during the merger.

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Or select the two units, and hit CTRL-M.

Are you saying that I can merge Yari Ashigaru units to become 180 men, instead of 150, at the same maintance cost? What happens when they lose men? Do they replenish back to 180, or stop at 150? What is "Ultra Unit Size?"

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Originally Posted by Madae

Other things to keep in mind; I try not to trade with enemies of my friends. I'm not sure if that even matters, but I would like to think it does.

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I have a theory that if you attack a trade partner, either your trade partners, or their trade partners, or both, consider that to be "Dishonouring Treaties." But I don't understand how the various diplomacy modifiers seem to come into play. My good allies the Ouchi for some reason all of a sudden decided I had been "Dishonouring Treaties," and I had done nothing to anyone. The Ikko Ikki broke a trade agreement with me, but that's all I can think of.

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Originally Posted by Madae

Also, when expanding, it's a very good idea to take a few settlements and then hold off and defend for awhile so that diplomacy penalty subsides. It won't be there forever, and you have plenty of time to win the game. Don't feel like you have to steamroll every province you run into as quickly as possible. Wait it out for more positive benefits. You'll want to have an assortment of friends or vassals by the great divide anyway, so you still have avenues of making money when other clans start teaming up against you.

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That's been the plan. I took Bingo-Bitchu-Bizen, and have been peaceably building them up for a few years. My expansion penalty is only a few points now. I intend to do the same thing against Ito in Kyushu: taking Tsukushi, Higen and Hizen, then settling down again for a few years. I figure if I average a little under one province a year, I will keep a low profile, and steadily move towards the win.

What I am hearing is that I should probably make a vassal during this coming war as well. I did notice that you can trade with vassals, which I'd thought otherwise.

Thank you for the advice about Field Battles, Madae. For now, I am relying on Auto-Resolve on the theory that once I master the economic game, I can more easily afford the army I'd like to play with.

Again, thank you all for the advice and insights. I am really enjoying this game, and this forum.

Smeelbo-san

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Originally Posted by Smeelbo

On the other hand, they really are peaceful. I am sure they will betray me eventually.

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Some clans are naturally predisposed to being "wimps" and will rarely declare war themselves, preferring to do nothing all game. Honma could be considered one (at least in my experience). Another would be the clan just north of Shimazu. Both of these clans are content with their position and will just sit back and watch the show going on around them.

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Speaking of which, how much can or should I rely on the numeric attitudes of the clans? If Soga is Ambitious, Reliable and Very Friendly, how likely is he to march on my capital?

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I don't really follow that all too much, though it probably plays a part (like in the above example, though I've never noticed what they are)..

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I've avoided the vassal route this game so far. My understanding is that it effects your reknown as much as conquering, and besides the pathetic Soga, I've not seen any good candidates.

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The general consensus on vassals is very split - or has been in the past - with a lot more people leaning towards one side than the other. Personally, I've not had problems with vassals, or allies for that matter, randomly declaring war on me for what would seem like a death wish or no significant reason at all, but a lot of people have experienced the opposite, with allies and vassals throwing themselves on the sword as it were.

Vassals are different than an alliance for a few reasons; aside from creating a more "permanent" alliance (used loosely, since they can always betray you), vassals pay half (or some other amount... it's a lot) of their income to you, in addition to whatever trade agreement you can have with them. Vassals cannot ally themselves with other clans, or make other vassals, but they can declare war. Vassal territories also count towards your winning territories for the campaign.

Disadvantages aside (such as the ability to declare war - which will draw you into the fight), these are significant bonuses to creating vassals as opposed to allying outright.

I have had some great experiences with vassals, and never once had one betray me... I'm serious. What everyone else would complain about with vassals and allies, I have not experienced at all - and I'm still pleasently surprised by it. When I played my first game with Date, I made Mogami, a past enemy that had a lot of historical greivances with the Date, a vassal pretty early in the game. I made it all the way to the Great Divide and beyond and they never betrayed me or backstabbed one of my weak provinces. They actually helped me and made some significant decisions in the game. I let them expand down alongside the cost, and then a few provinces around Uesugi. They effectively blocked both Uesugi and Takeda, who both wanted a piece of me, from coming at me from that side. Meanwhile, I just mopped up all the southern territories before I moved in on them.

I also made Satomi a vassal - they are situated on a little stub that's off of another province - so there was only one way in (by road) to their castle. This was well behind my territory, and didn't really make much sense after I had done it, but I also had assumed I could give them land through diplomacy (I was wrong - this was literally my first game). At any rate, I always assumed Satomi would eventually backstab me. They had a massive army just sitting in their castle for many, many turns. Past experiences with Total War had lead me to believe this nob would get bored of sitting there and do something stupid, but they actually did something that made me do a double take - they took their army out and literally marched it across something like 8 of my provinces to the front line to join the fighting. When it came to allies and vassals (which were almost impossible in older games), this was the first time a TW game actually surprised me.

In the end, I have had some great experiences with vassals, though I rarely make them. I can't really explain what my way of going about it is, it just has to "feel" right for me at the time, and it could be a variety of things that help me make that decision. I also rarely ally with anyone until the late game, as I'm not a big fan of being randomly pulled into wars. I'll keep up good relations with clans I like, however, by giving them gifts or other things, but it won't be until the battle lines are clearly drawn across japan that I start picking permanent allies (by permanent, I mean clans that I will want to stay allied to for the entire game). Clans that I have allied with or vassaled have even stayed with me through the Great Divide. Hell, I've had clans I made vassals/allies that turn stay with me even if on the very next turn the Great Divide happens. A lot of people are eager to say this is useless in the game, but I beg to differ.

In addition to Mogami, who is a hated Date enemy, I had Imagawa stay allied with me as Tokugawa for the entire game as well (I was still their vassal... hah).

Things to keep in mind with allies and vassals;

1. Help them out, either with agents or small armies. You don't need to spend the whole game babysitting them, as they are usually more than capable of helping themselves, but score some diplomacy points by giving them a hand. I prefer to keep small armies nearby and an assortment of ninjas/monks to deal some damage to the enemy. Most of the time, all I will do is sabotage enemy armies trying to attack my vassal (and then waiting for them to attack it so I can reinforce the battle with my small army), or demoralising attacking armies before they hit my vassal.
2. Give them gifts on occassion. Nothing says "friend?" like a sack of money. I even give gifts to potential enemies to keep them from attacking me just that much longer. I also like to go into diplomacy and tell them I'm going to declare war on their enemies (or at least offer it) - I would recommend you do that than just attacking a province or telling that enemy clan you're going to attack them.
3. Give them an opportunity to expand (although, this obviously doesn't apply to Satomi in my previous example). When I make a vassal, I make it in such a way that they will be open to expanding in a direction I have no interest in going in at the moment. This gives them plenty of opportunity to get off their ass and make something of themselves without having to go a long way to do it. It also gives them a reason to do something other than attacking you.

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Are you saying that I can merge Yari Ashigaru units to become 180 men, instead of 150, at the same maintance cost? What happens when they lose men?

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When you merge armies, you're taking units from one and putting it into another. However, it can't go over the maximum size of the unit. You're basically refreshing the unit as if you were waiting for it to replish itself automatically. Experience and weapon/armor bonuses can be lost in this fashion, so its typically not the best thing to do. I only do it if it makes sense to do it (like I'm getting rid of spare units, or one unit is so trashed and useless in battle, I may as well combine it with another one - this is especially true when you're on the front and away from territory that will replenish units).

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What is "Ultra Unit Size?"

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You can set the size of units in the options menu that will increase the amount of men in each unit. I prefer normal, but if you like really big battles of 4000+ men, you will want to raise the unit size. You can only do this before you start the game though - it can't be changed midway.

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I have a theory that if you attack a trade partner, either your trade partners, or their trade partners, or both, consider that to be "Dishonouring Treaties." But I don't understand how the various diplomacy modifiers seem to come into play. My good allies the Ouchi for some reason all of a sudden decided I had been "Dishonouring Treaties," and I had done nothing to anyone. The Ikko Ikki broke a trade agreement with me, but that's all I can think of.

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I'm not really sure what does that either. I'm thinking this is probably a bug with another clan breaking treaty with you and you get the penalty as if you did it..

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Thank you for the advice about Field Battles, Madae. For now, I am relying on Auto-Resolve on the theory that once I master the economic game, I can more easily afford the army I'd like to play with.

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You should consider saving your game and play all your battles - if you don't like the outcome, just reload and auto-resolve, or play it again. I understand this can take considerably more time to get through a game, but you should learn how to play the battles. I mean, that's practically what this game was made for anyway.

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Originally Posted by Smeelbo

By starting trading on turn 1, with both Miyoshi and Soga, trade partners have been easy to acquire, and I haven't paid more than 700 for an agreement, and usually much less.

Well with only four trade ports, it seems I can only have four trade partners.

Smeelbo-san

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Well done with the trade agreements.

With only four ports you can only have four trade routes by sea. If you build the nanban structures you can have one or two more (depending on if you go for the more advanced structure with Christianity being required). You can also have as a trade partner anybody who you share land borders with. Finally you can capture more ports :laugh4:. Actually your number of trade partners is limited by the number of other clans in the game! That's all I meant really. It means that any other clan can potentially trade with you (regardless of its current partners) as long as you have access=trade route or shared land borders. For the Chokosabe though, as you point out, usually the real limitation is the number of sea routes early on. :yes:

Keep in mind that it's not necessarily a good idea to be trading with the enemy. The money you get from trading with other factions is negligible compared to what you would get if you, say, put 10 ships on a trading post. I consider trade agreements to be, more or less, another avenue of diplomacy. Sure, you both get a little bit of money, but in my case, it's mostly used for establishing good relations early on. It's also not so much of a good idea to trade your resources to someone that will eventually use it against you. Granted, resources don't have that much of an effect on buildings/units (thankfully), but it still opens up some potential avenues (such as Cotton for advanced Naginata, and Horses for Cavalry).

This is something you'll want to keep an eye on when setting up trade agreements later in the game. If you have 4-5 resources, you really don't want to be trading with a potential enemy, especially if that person only and already has 1 or 2 of those resources - he's getting more out of the agreement than you, because he is only providing you resources you already have, while at the same time collecting on the resources you have that he doesn't own. Free trade should really only be applied to those you want to have good and long-lasting relationships with, or if there is a resource you absolutely need. In the interim, it does provide a small diplomatic boost to an otherwise hostile clan, so it is useful for staving off potential attacks until you're ready for them - just keep in mind that caveat about trading resources.

Also, the difficulty in acquiring trade agreements later in the game is likely directly influenced by what resources they would be providing you, and also partially by how much money you'll be getting from the agreement.

Well I've learned a few things since my last post, some of them well worth sharing.

First, my second campaign blew up in my face almost immediately after my last post. The Hattori declared war on me, and they were much more mighty than I. In that campaign, I had tried to cheap out too much, I think. That is, I tried to minimize the amount of maintanance I was paying, with the effect of having too small an army to survive a war by the leader.

Second, I found you can take advantage of two offices per general per turn. For example, if you begin your turn with a general that discounts buildings, you can build a bunch of buildings, then remove them from office, then give them the office that discounts recruiting, then recruit all your units. Next turn you reverse the order, recruiting first, moving the general to the building office, then do all your buildings. I think this is a bug. When you remove someone from office, they should probably not be able to take a new office that same turn.

Third, I accidently found you can experience two generals in one battle. Move two stacks, close to one another. The stack with the junior general attacks first, gets XP, and then the senior general's stack reinforces, and he then gets XP when he takes command. I now move generals around in pairs.

I am now on my third campaign, and it is going much as I hoped it would. I've been trading with Miyoshi since turn one, and the relationship is very good now. Once I digested Iyo, I vassalized Soga, and he loves me like a lap dog.

I decided this campaign to avoid the complex political topology of Honshu, and am conquering Kyushu instead. First I invaded Buzen for the accuracy bonus, then Tsushiki for the Metsuke bonus, then Hizen for the ship bonuses. Rather than make peace, I let my wars simmer, taking them as opportunities to level my ninjas, destroy my enemy's army, and XP my generals and troops. I tried to keep it to gaining about one province a year, so Territorial Expansion penalty is minimal. Besides Miyoshi and Soga, I've managed to always maintain at least one or two other trade partners, although none of them so far has been long lasting.

Rather than trying to scrape by on unit maintanance, I've tried to stay on par with my main rivals. This game, Ikki Ikko is huge, with 14 provinces, and they are allied with Hattori, at 6 provinces. They are both Mighty and Affluent, whereas I am Mighty and Rich, with 7 provinces: Tosa, Iyo, Buzen, Tsushuki, Higo, Hizen, and as of last year, Satsuma. The only clan left on Kyushu is Ito, and I am using them as a punching bag for my agents, armies, and generals, rather than take too many provinces at once.

I have been worried about the Ikko-Hattori axis, but Hojo seems to be on the rise, and I think I will partner with them.

Thank you all for the advice. I will share what else I have learned.

Smeelbo-san

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Originally Posted by Smeelbo

1) Even after reading a couple diplomacy guides, including Dribb's, I am at a complete loss as to how to get started with diplomatic relationships. I am playing Chosokabe, so I initially don't have any contact with any clans off Shikoku. I conquer Iso by the first Winter, and Sanuki shortly after, and even that early, I've found it impossible to find a replacement trade partner for the Miyoshi clan, who are next on my list. Only the Mori ever offered me a trade agreement, which looked unfavorable to me, but I took it anyway. They broke the agreement a couple turns later. By the time I own Awa, or worse, Awaji, it seems my territorial expansion penalty is so high, no one will trade with me. Even clans with no resources said I had nothing to offer them.

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I'm having the exact same problem right now.
I played some games before, and hadn't any particular problem finding trade partners.
But here, playing the Chosokabe, I just CAN NEVER find ANY trade partner.

I have EVERY SINGLE kind of ressource available. I've managed to monopolize every single foreign trade route (sent one ship to each early to occupy them, then sent trade ships later :p). I've no need of anyone's ressources, so it can't be that they are afraid to give me them. I've rather okay diplomacy (turtled a bit to decrease the penalty for territory gains), with nobody being hostile and very few being unfriendly. I'm not even considered a bit threat (barely "noted" in fame, that is the Emperor just recognized my existence).

Despite this, I can NEVER manage to get a trade agreement. Even when the Date were around, and I had a marriage with then and +150 relationship, they would refuse. Even with 5K gift, everyone refuse.
What the hell is happening ? Have the Chosobake a hidden flag that make them unable to get trade agreement ?

A few more things to share...

On merging units:

What I did with pairs of damaged units sometimes is merge them, resulting in one unit at full strength, and one much weaker unit. I split the stack, moving the full units forward to attack or threaten my enemies, while leaving the weakened units to defend a fort or castle. The weak units still count as full for purposes of repression. Also, by merging very damaged units, you get a better looking stack (less ragged banner), and reduced upkeep costs.

On trade:

It seems to me that the number of Trading Ports is a "soft" cap on the number of overseas trade routes, including foreign ports, and if you are over that "soft" cap, you can't gain any further clans as trade partners, although you can still get more foreign ports. I have 5 trading ports: Tosa, Iyo, Buzen, Hizen," and now Satsuma, and can't get a fifth trade partner beyond Soga and Miyoshi by land, and Ashina and now Hojo by sea. But I do have two foreign ports. Even gaining the Nanban Trading Post in Bungo hasn't helped. I burnt the Nanban Trading Post to the ground, for the purity of Japan.

Smeelbo

I've actually started noticing that trade with multiple partners is not necessarily a good thing. In my Chosokabe game, I had been trading with the Date, who were the most powerful clan in that game, and I was getting a good chunk of money from them every turn. I was also trading with the Hattori. Well, eventually, Hojo had a trade route open up, so I gave one to them (not necessarily a good idea considering they were at war with Date and Hattori). At any rate, between Hattori raiding the trade route, and the Date slowly devouring their lands, it didn't turn out to be as lucrative as I thought. When none of their routes were being raided, it actually -reduced- the amount of money I was getting in trade. When I cancelled the agreement, it immediately shot back up to previous levels.

So, what I'm seeing here is that you have a limited amount of goods that are distributed between all of your trade partners. Some get more goods than others, though I'm not exactly sure how this is calculated. It seemed that if I created another trade route, I lost a lot of the income I was getting because I was giving them to another clan that wasn't in need of them nearly as much, or some other means (I'm thinking it has something to do with the longer a trade agreement is in place, the more money you make from it or the goods). Immediately cancelling that agreement seemed to increase my revenue. In short, a bunch of trade partners doesn't seem to always be a good thing.

When I'm playing Shimazu are Chosokabe, almost the first thing I do (aside from grabbing trade nodes) is creating a bow koboya and sending it around the entirety of japan to locate other clans for potential trade. I always go for the furthest away trade partners, because they will bring in more cash and typically won't cancel the agreement anytime soon due to being so far away from eachother. I find that those clans make the best allies.

Combining units has a tendency to remove bonuses (like melee/armor/morale bonuses) and reduce the amount of experience the stack had - if both stacks had a different level of experience, it will average out. Overall, it's not necessarily a good idea to combine units unless you absolutely need to (you're on the front and no way to replenish your forces) or if you're just getting rid of units to make space for others.

Nanban trade ports are actually pretty useful, despite the penalty to religious conversion. If you can stack enough decent monks in the province, it will counteract the christian conversion, and still provide all the bonuses a nanban port provides. The only times I typically destroy nanban ports are when it's the very last level of the building from a christian clan, as that one will convert nearby provinces and is a lot more difficult to handle.

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Originally Posted by Akka & Smeelbo

I'm having the exact same problem right now.
I played some games before, and hadn't any particular problem finding trade partners.
But here, playing the Chosokabe, I just CAN NEVER find ANY trade partner.
I have EVERY SINGLE kind of ressource available. I've managed to monopolize every single foreign trade route (sent one ship to each early to occupy them, then sent trade ships later :p). I've no need of anyone's ressources, so it can't be that they are afraid to give me them. I've rather okay diplomacy (turtled a bit to decrease the penalty for territory gains), with nobody being hostile and very few being unfriendly. I'm not even considered a bit threat (barely "noted" in fame, that is the Emperor just recognized my existence).
Despite this, I can NEVER manage to get a trade agreement. Even when the Date were around, and I had a marriage with then and +150 relationship, they would refuse. Even with 5K gift, everyone refuse.
What the hell is happening ? Have the Chosobake a hidden flag that make them unable to get trade agreement ?
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It seems to me that the number of Trading Ports is a "soft" cap on the number of overseas trade routes, including foreign ports, and if you are over that "soft" cap, you can't gain any further clans as trade partners, although you can still get more foreign ports. I have 5 trading ports: Tosa, Iyo, Buzen, Hizen," and now Satsuma, and can't get a fifth trade partner beyond Soga and Miyoshi by land, and Ashina and now Hojo by sea. But I do have two foreign ports. Even gaining the Nanban Trading Post in Bungo hasn't helped. I burnt the Nanban Trading Post to the ground, for the purity of Japan.

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All right, so, here’s how you two fix this: for example, you, Akka, precisely because you have access to every single trade resource, you are impaired in gaining trade partners – simply because the AI will never agree to trade unless your gain from it is comparable to its own. Thus, what you will want to do is sail all your trade ships just out of your controled Trading Posts, conclude the trade agreements and then sail them back in. Same for you Smeelbo; and the number of trade routes is only limited by the number of your and your potential partner’s trading ports, there’s no soft cap; unwillingness to trade is dictated only by comparative financial gain.

Moreover, note that, even if your fleets are limited in size to Small (six ships) you can increase their size to ten when performing a merger as long as you have at least one ship remaining in the fleet you want absorbed. I.e. say you have four trade ships you want absorbed into your full six trade ships fleet; if you add to that fleet of four one more ship (any kind) and then attempt to merge, you will notice you will be allowed to transfer the four trade ships into your six trade ships fleet nonetheless.

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Originally Posted by Smeelbo

Second, I found you can take advantage of two offices per general per turn.

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Yep, yet this is limited by the fact that, once all your offices are filled, generals instantly get loyalty penalties if they lose their comission instead of going from one post to the next anon.

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Third, I accidently found you can experience two generals in one battle.

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Hah, the most satisfying way of learning is to discover the mechanics on your own :yes: Yet, I can’t but notice you have the tendency to overlook what we already talked to you about and then stumble upon it alone, like this bit of info above. It’s no matter if you do eventually discover it of course, just hoping you won’t regret not knowing mechanics already discussed in this thread when moving forward for entire campaigns. Oh and you can level up to four generals that way, as I wrote before (one main and three reinforcing).

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Originally Posted by Madae

I've actually started noticing that trade with multiple partners is not necessarily a good thing.

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Yep – trade agreements can be very damaging, because the income you would’ve made from trade is not converted into Unsold trade goods if, say, their port is blockaded – it is simply lost. This sort of thing can give you a heart attack (read: bring you close to bankcrupcy) in the blink of an eye if you’re not careful.

I haven't had time to digest the replies, but I need to ask:

How come, all of a sudden, with no warning and no event I can identify, my trade and marriage partner Hojo just decided that I "Dishonouring Treaties -99(+)?"

What The Fudo?

Previously, I believed that there were some random factors that would pop up, and some clans are more sensitive than others, but -99? For what?

Smeelbo-san

Are you sure it's even your fault?

If the faction in question betrayed someone else, that clan will get the diplomatic penalty with all others, including yours. A -99 usually means the chaps attacked a previous ally.
That is actually the most common reason for all out of the blue dishonouring treaties events. It's very simple to check -- Dishonouring treaties is a world wide trait, if you get it, all clans will display the penalty towards you. So if you only get it towards one faction, the problem is on their end.

:book2:

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Originally Posted by Smeelbo

On merging units:

What I did with pairs of damaged units sometimes is merge them, resulting in one unit at full strength, and one much weaker unit. I split the stack, moving the full units forward to attack or threaten my enemies, while leaving the weakened units to defend a fort or castle. The weak units still count as full for purposes of repression. Also, by merging very damaged units, you get a better looking stack (less ragged banner), and reduced upkeep costs.

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Also worth bearing in mind: If you merge two depleted but experienced units, you end up with a full experienced unit - its experience level wont drop as a result of replenishment with green new recruits.