Guide for Beginners on High Difficulty: Selling Military Access

Guide for Beginners on High Difficulty: Selling Military Access

This is mostly written for new players who have not appreciated the power of the technique, and for the keeners who insist on squeezing out every penny out of the AI legally (but probably not ethically). Welcome inputs.

I guess a lot of people may call selling military access to willing AI neighbors an exploit. (So is selling open borders to other Civs in Civilizations.) On lower difficulties you can always get away without them. However, selling military access provides much needed initial boost for the top difficulties. Besides, military access still has to be sold carefully so to avoid nasty troubles later.

Summary

- Selling military access is a significant additional income especially in early game. It still generates a steady stream of income from neighboring clans until they turn against you.

- Declaring war on the buyer causes diplomatic penalty to ALL clans.

Whom to sell

- Neighbors who have direct access to your territory. When you offer the access their willingness would be "High", so you can bundle up the deal with a payment demand.

- Neighbors whom you DO NOT plan to attack in the near future. If you attack anybody who bought your military access, you face a diplomatic hit to ALL clans. That includes the case when you are forced to war that clan by your ally.

- Neighbors who will be wiped out immiedately in the end turn. Load the auto-save and sell the military access for eternity, which means 1 turn.

How

- Turn 1: Sell the lowest 5-turn access for about 400-600 koku. You can probably squeeze some additional cash from establishing trades.
- Turn 2: Sell the 10-turn access for about 1000-1500 koku.
- Turn 3: Sell the 20-turn access for about 1500-2000 koku.

The reason not to sell 20-turn access at the beginning is that the AI might not have enough cash/willingness to pay. But if you really need cash that badly, why not?

After that, every few turns come back and re-sell the 20-turn access for about 1000 koku. The military access date will not be extended by 20 turns, but simply reset to 20 turns.

After expansion, you might acquire new neighbors and who are willing to pay to visit your new acquisition. As long as you don't plan to attack them, this is always a good idea.

*Never sell the indefinite access (since you can keep selling the 20-turn access forever) unless the buyer clan is about to attack you, or be eliminated in the end-turn.

How to spend the income

- Hire lots of Ashigaru and mop up your top-priority enemies while the AIs are still relatively weak.

- Get agents. Build temples and hire monks. Demolish temples, build Sake Den and hire ninjas. Demolish Sake Den, build markets and hire the secret police. Agents are just great.

- Get some ships to secure and profit from nearby trade nodes.

Concerns

Q: Suddenly my military ally has indefinite military access to me! Can't sell anymore!
A: This is because you are fighting the same enemy. When that condition disappears, you can sell again.

Q: Will the AI suddenly declare war on me while his army is right beside my defenceless capital?
A: EDITED: they can certainly do that! So it might not be a good idea to sell military access to a clan that has no other possible enemies but you. Even you did, there are some possible ways to prevent it from happening. Load a save before they declare war and:

(1) Cancel their military access. This will bump all their armies out of your province and incur a diplomatic penalty between you and that clan, but apparently not to anyone else (at least the impact is not visible). OR
(2) Do something to make them like you a lot more, such as marriage, cash, alliance, etc. This will likely delay their attack.
(3) Create enemies for them, such as bribing them to break alliance with some other neighbor.

When you are desperate, hostage and infinite military access are powerful bargain chips. But they definitely have their drawbacks. The latter is probably better.

Q: Will the AI be more likely to declare war on me?
A: Doing so will greatly damage its reputation. Probably not. But hey, AI is stupid.

Q: Will I make a jail for myself if I run out of place to expand? Then I will have to pay for military access.
A: Ship your units to jump across your buyer. Or use monks/missionary to incite rebels to take over your target province, followed by your own merger without any diplomatic penalty (yes, that qualifies for another exploit).

Maltz! Welcome back! You sure do know how to make a grand return by posting several mini-guides. Thanks!

Sorry - important correction of the original post (now edited).

When an AI declares war on you while they have your military access, their units will NOT be bumped to the border of your provinces. There are still things we can do to prevent that from happening (please refer to the edited firts post).

Hmm, I started doing this about 60 turns in, but I got the "unreliable ally" penalty with my ally the Ouichi. Not quite sure when it appeared though.

I made peace with the Ikko for $, then went to the Ouichi and offered to help them against the Ikko for 1k. I don't think I've done anything else to annoy them. Have always joined them when they declared, and they have joined me when people have come after me.

Were you asked to choose between two allies when they go to war against each other? That could make you an unreliable ally for one of them.

But AIs love to break alliance without no reason. So the unreliable ally may be them, not you. Diplomatic relationship in Shogun 2 is the same number that goes both ways, so even if you are a saint to your ally, your ally may still hate you because it behaves like a jerk.

For example, when an AI attacks its ally, all clans in Japan acquire a big negative modifier "dishonor treaties" to the aggressor. I wonder whether Ouchi is a unreliable ally to some other clan, and somehow that penalty is now applied to you as well. Is Ouchi's relationship with other clans suddenly turning red, too?

If the Ouchi were at war with Ikko and you too were at war with Ikko while holding an alliance with Ouchi, the minute you signed a peace treaty with Ikko would have caused the unreliable ally stat..
I would have thought that when you then resumed war with Ikko this does not negate the unreliable ally stat, as there is no diplomatic loading for this event.. especially considering it was a deal for Koku as well..That is pretty much a straight business deal..
In fact I would be interested to know if you got diplomatic minuses across the other clans for breaking the new found peace with Ikko?

The Ikko declared on me (Mori), and the Ouichi joined me. The Ouichi have been allies with me all game, and have been very peaceful. I think that "unreliable ally" only appeared recently, and I recently started getting $ from making peace and declaring.

Don't think I got the penalty with any other clans.

I just tested as similar a scenario as I could in my Oda campaign and yep my Takeda allies now see me as an unreliable ally..but none of the other allied clans have done the same..
So I guess it is a matter of weighing up the potential diplomatic penalties VS the Koku influx.. :-)