Well Rise of the Samurai is really good!

Just finished my first RotS campaign and I am impressed - a really great experience and amazing value - it's like a whole new game almost!!

I really like the General skill trees - some tough choices in there, I also really like the building chains, and the more significant variety between clans. Tech tree is also better and the top tiers actually seem acheivable now playing the long (40 province) campaign.

While the unit roster is significantly smaller it actually feels larger in a funny way, with 3 distinct tiers of units - levy/attendent/sam - the reducing unit sizes also mean that the sam never dominate too much (but the still rock pretty hard!) I also really like how unexperienced levy are just completely pants and run away at the sign of a stiff breeze. Which is what they should be like IMO.

I thought the agents were perhaps a touch too powerful, Sou's in particular can unleash some devastating rebellions while I also never seemed to lose any agents (apart from Monomi) to failed attempts?

Oh and the map, amazing, seems twice the size! I might get claustrophobia going back to the old one :)

This bodes very well for FotS, and also for whatever TW game they have got in pipes (please be Rome2!)

Great job CA!!

I'm working my way through my first campaign in ROTS. What do you consider some of the key strategies you used in your victory? Sounds like agents are critical, already had a feeling since the honor system is so sensitive that would be the case. Did you attempt to align with sister clans? Not attack them while attacking the others? I guess I"m just interested in hearing a bit of an AAR, because frankly, I'm not running across to many playing it, so there just isn't anyone to talk strategy with on this one.

I played with Kamakura Minamoto, long campaign (40 provinces)

It took me several attempts to get going, despite looking like a great starting location the gold mine in Ise is not developed and takes a large investment of both time and money to get going. There is also a drastic shortage of trade goods near by, and the trade nodes are far, far away with a lot of potentially hostile navies en route.

So key challenge for Kamakura early on is cash flow, you don't have any, which means you are not in a position to exploit your strength which is superior Samurai units and a nice Smith province to start with. I can run you through the starting path I took, which I think works quite well.

1. Send the Jansatsushi to grab Kai quick smart. It is crucial to get some early experience and get him to rank 2 for the Vindicator skills as soon as possible. It is also very cheap and easy to grab provinces like this before they have developed an army.
2. Immediatly attack Musashi - This is actually the province which will provide you with your early cash flow as it has nice town weatlh, a reasonable farm and of course the trade port.
3. Upgrade Musashi to a Fort to serve as defense from the West, it is very hard to defend towns without that first upgrade level. Then build the guild hall chain - you need to get a Shirayaboshi out early - distracting armies is a necessary skill for survival early on.
4. Remain freindly with your neighbours to the East, they never attacked me - I wouldn't recommend allying as this may force you into a war if Kiso Minamoto decides to wage war with them.
5. OPTIONAL - Send the Jansatsushi north to take the province with the silk, this will give you a nice trade income boost. BUT this is a risky move as it means spreading out and it will be impossible to defend without leaving your Southern holdings exposed should Amakura attack from the Northern coast. I bribed Amakura to break their alliance with Fujiwara, and began trading to ensure they remained freindly. I also didn't invest any money into this province until I had the means to defend it.
6. Recruit some more units and prepare to capture the lands East of Musahsi. I allied with Ashikaga in preparation for this as the clans to your east (Sataki, Yumi?) will probably be allied and you need to make sure your back is covered. This is also why you need the Fort at Musashi as it will be hard to maintain the troops needed to deal with the retaliations after you attack. Unit replenishment is a huge issue early on in RotS, consider researching Strength of earth or building roads and a muster field (Sagami should have one anyway) to help with this.
7. Launch attack to your east. This needs to be done still fairly early on, before Fujiwara becomes a threat and starts thinking about sending troops down by boat. Also hopefully before the minor clans themselves have fulls stacks. Of course you yourself won't be able to afford a full stack and Samurai troops are still too expensive. Stick with Nag Levies & Sword Attendents, make sure you have somewhere set up to quickly replenish, and use your shiriyaboshi to slow down the incoming retaliations. I found that keeping two genrals in the army at all times is also good as you need the coverage for the morale boost or the levies just run away.

From here you should have a decent powerbase to proceed with the conquest of Fujiwara and securing the entire Northeastern end of Japan. You sister clan should hold in the center ok. In my game I was also attacked from the North but managed to not lose my silk province thanks to a couple of lucky distractions. Once you have the East secure you will be near realm divide. I spent a while building up a mighty economy - Tax income in excess of 20k per turn. But don't leave it too late as conquering provinces can be slow in RotS as you must establish control of each province with Jansatsushi's or you will have happiness problems. Alleviate this with research or simply garrisons, but all those garrisons get pricey.

General army strategy with Kamakura is to focus on a strong ranged element - I would usually field 1 Gen, 1 Mtd Sam, 4 Foot Sam, 4 Bow Att, 2 Swd Att, 6 Nag Lvy as a core - with additional troops of any type depending on needs. You should be able to seriously maul most opponents with your bow and then once in combat your upgraded (armoury) Nag Lvy are good enough to go toe to toe with Nag Att if led by a decent general. I never really built any of the Koryu units, although you could consider adding some warrior monks in for their handy warcry (but remember Samurai get whistling arrows in RotS). Mounted Sam are primarily mounted archers and also great for running down all your defeated opponents. Also great for setting up a flanking whistling arrows shot right down the enemy line before you clash.

If there is any specific questions you have just ask :)

Thanks for taking the time to post this up, much appreciated. I'm going to crack open the campaign I'm currently in and see where I am relative to what you described. And I might see about starting a 2nd one and following along with your description to see how it plays out for me.

Thanks again for the post and going to the trouble to describe it in detail. I'll post back results once I get moving.

i agree that the agents are really powerful, and they do give you a little more time. when i played as the hiraizumi fujiwara, i used my junsatsushi's as often as i could, and this made it possible for me to only reach realm divide when i conquered the last province i needed. using them really slows down the fame bar. i didn't really use any sou's except for demoralising and stuff.

I've been really really happy with it as well ^^. In a review someone described it to the effect of, roughly paraphrasing here as well as I can remember :sweatdrop:, you know you're playing Shogun II and don't feel utterly lost, but it's unique and fresh enough that it feels like the first time you sat down to play Shogun and you're blown away all over again.

The building chains are my favorite aspect in it, I really love how it lets you specialize what you want out of each province much more.

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Originally Posted by Jungle Rhino

While the unit roster is significantly smaller it actually feels larger in a funny way, with 3 distinct tiers of units

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I absolutely agree with you. Even though the original game has more units, in my mind it's typically just a varying mix of ashigaru with samurai. Generalizing it like that ignores the strategic difference between their weapons, bonuses, armor, morale, etc. There's a lot more to its depth than meets the eye and its really engaging, but much of it feels and looks the same.

The units you'll come across in a ROTS army can be completely different depending on what type of approach that clan is taking, even though there's fewer of them. I also feel that getting access to warrior monks in ROTS feels easier and are more relevant, as they're not only more armored and but require a much simpler building chain to enlist.

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Originally Posted by Jungle Rhino

Oh and the map, amazing, seems twice the size! I might get claustrophobia going back to the old one :)

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The map is gorgeous. I have a weird habit of trying to find all the little bears in the forests of the map. I just love those little details they did. :laugh4:

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Originally Posted by Jungle Rhino

This bodes very well for FotS, and also for whatever TW game they have got in pipes (please be Rome2!)

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I have a feeling that it's only a matter of time, it's a natural choice and we're all drooling for it. I'll keep my fingers crossed as well ^^

I finished my first campaign, I accidentally selected short even though I wanted to play long, but stuck with it because I needed to get a better understanding of the military units and the agents, what are their strengths and weaknesses, where do use them and where not to.

Kamakura Minamoto was the clan I played, after reading the description that started this thread. And while I assumed on a short campaign I'd run out of time, interestingly it didn't turn out that way and I actually completed it with a few years to spare, which was nice.

I enjoy the new agents, I'm getting used to this clan influence component, that's something I'll have to continue to hone, I need to insure, as I did in this campaign that I take some of the provinces w/o tweaking the fame meter too much.

I also like the connections between the different families and the colors that symbolize it. Makes some of my decisions easier, and more in line with the story as the campaign develops because to be honest I focused on trading and aligning with my same family, and killing, backstabbing and otherwise conquering the other two.

So, started a 2nd one now, the Fukuhara Taira, mainly because they're right dead in the middle of the island, interestingly start with control of Kyoto, and I liked the color of their banners. ;)

The start is intriguing because I've got vassals right from the get go and like 4 or 5 provinces under my control, that's a lot for a starting position. But I'm guessing the hard part starts next, because my sister clan to the west is pretty much in way in terms of expansion that direction and I'm forced to go East, which is never really my desitination of choice because it takes so long to get anywhere and the trade nodes are the other direction.

Thus far I've grabbed about 4 nodes, so I've got trade going, I've got 14 of the 40 provinces, I've already has a vassal turn on me, who I then destroyed. And it now turns to the hard work of expanding East I guess. This seems to be a pretty much preordained path for this campaign, it's where the other two main clans are located, so, East I reluctantly go.

glad to hear this is so good, i'll give it a shot once i've finished skyrim.

It reminds me the "Viking Invasion" expansion pack. The villages were quite simple and defendless just like in Rise of the Samurai.

just finished a long campaign with the eastern fujiwara.

great fun.

and the map is infinitely better than the main campaign, as noted above it's much less claustrophobic.

Completely agree. It could have been the whole game if they just added a few more playable factions. It really makes the cheapness of Warpath look even worse in hindsight.

im also very satisfied, feels like a new game almost. blitzin is far harder and u really need to control ur newly conq territory. now i just wish someone will make a "all clans playable-mod". with all clans available it would be wonderful :)

The small number of playable clans is one of my two grumbles with RotS. I can see why they kept it as limited as they did, yet from day 1 I've secretly longed for more clans. Options add to replay value, and with both halves of each the sister clan starting near each other there is not much geographical variation in the starting positions.

My second grumble is the power of the samurai. Yes, I know, game theme, and so on. Problem is, they're so good I find them boring to use. They are too much an easy answer.

Other than that, it's a fantastic companion piece to the original campaign and excellent value for money. I alternate campaigns, one Sengoku and then one RotS. It helps to keep the game fresh.