New to the game

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Yesterday I reinstalled the game to have a closer look at the files. The "Ironing Board" is available even without patch. The ShogunW.exe is not, it seems it came from the patch last time. That would explain why it didn't work.
So... does that mean Shogun Gold is not the same as Shogun WE? The latter uses the ShogunW.exe as far as I know, while Gold seems to use the ShogunM.exe like Mongol Invasion.
Apart from the used .exe, is Shogun Gold 1.0 identical as Shogun WE 1.02?

I believe the gold version comes prepatched, yes.

For some strange reason the enemy placed his units far away from the bridge. Doesn't look very smart to me. Does the difficulty level improve the AI?

Level of difficulty adds to AI attack, defend and morale, and might change behavior some I'm not sure.


The enemy YS engages one of my units as soon as it reached his side of the river. I flank him with my other unit.

The bridge is clear, so my Daimyo attacks his archers. They retreat, but for some strange reason he can't pursue them. Is this a bug? Sometimes something like that occurs in Rome and Medieval 2 as well.

You should be able too...sometimes I get a bug where my guys will try and march after fleeing troops even when I order them to charge.

The rebels invade Bungo (and destroy my castle... great ). That was not expected. It seems the rebel AI in Shogun is quite aggressive.
Do the rebels act like any other faction or do they only go after really easy targets?

The rebels are pretty opportunistic yes, they usually only attack weakly defended provinces.

A Takeda Emissary? I grant him an audience and... what is this?
Wow. A video? That is awesome. Not as complex as the Rome and Medieval 2 diplomacy, but the atmosphere of the whole game is just fantastic.

Try training some ninja, they get videos too

The enemy finally sends his spearmen. Time to disengage... disengage... DISENGAGE! Helloooo? Daimyo? Are you there? Disengage. Halt. Disengage. Go there. Or there. Anywhere. Are you deaf?

How could this happen? Was it the morale penalty from the ambush, the distance between my men and the Daimyo or were my men just tired? Or a bit of everything?
My second battle and first defeat. I already feared I would disappoint you, but here is the embarassing noob defeat I promised. Enjoy.

Sounds like a bit of everything, your guys had taken casualties, were being fired at, tired, low morale to start with.

After that I invade Iyo. Like in Hizen, the enemy troops don't want to fight me and run away as I close in. Is this the usual AI behaviour or only when they are outnumbered?

The AI often tries to change position if it feels like it is in a bad spot. This is what prevents you from outflanking it every time.

A legendary swordsman? How is that triggered? A lot of melee in a battle, or more or less random? And more importantly, what does this school do?

You have to get a certain number of kills in a battle. It allows you to build a sword dojo, required for no-dachi samurai (and kensai and battlefield ninja with more upgrades).

Now that you could see my style of playing, do you have any advice? What should I do and what not?
It seems I am used to the overpowered general bodyguards in Rome and Medieval 2 and expect too much from my Daimyo, right?

But starting difficulties aside, I love this game. It is just great. The atmosphere, the battles... I don't even mind the "bad" graphics at all.

The daimyo unit is not as powerful as in the medieval games, it's true. They will often be hard pressed to defeat a unit of archers 1 on 1 (it will at best take a long time). Better used as flankers, where the morale effect can be devastating.

[rattenfleisch]

I believe the gold version comes prepatched, yes.

I've just found some threads on this board about the gold edition and patches.
Now I feel like an idiot.
I couldn't use the board search without being registered, so I just used google. As the results weren't really helpful (and one of them told me that I WE and Gold are the same, so I should use the Patch for WE), I registered here but forgot to try it again with the integrated search function...

Level of difficulty adds to AI attack, defend and morale, and might change behavior some I'm not sure.

I hope so. While the AI is significantly better than in Rome, it could be a little bit more challenging sometimes.

Battles are going fine now. I utterly annihilate equal matched AI armies and was even able to get a nice victory when I was outnumbered on the attack. I still have a lot to learn of course, but nothing compared to my MTW battle performance years ago. I was horrible.

Sounds like a bit of everything, your guys had taken casualties, were being fired at, tired, low morale to start with.

Nobody fired at them, but you are probably correct about the rest.

The AI often tries to change position if it feels like it is in a bad spot. This is what prevents you from outflanking it every time.

I thought that this might be the reason, but it seemed a little bit too much to me in that particular battle. As if the enemy wasn't interested in a fight at all, no matter how favorable the position.



My Shimazu campaign is running fine, a bit too fine perhaps. I should have chosen a higher difficulty setting or a clan who has to worry about more than one direction.

Shortly after the last update, I discovered that my heir was "unassigned". Fortunately I knew what this meant, as I was browsing the Dojo while I eagerly waited for my copy of Shogun to arrive.
Otherwise he would have appeared at the head of a Yari Ashigaru unit I would have trained in Satsuma.
As I really wanted him to be in a cavalry unit, I had to stop my troop production completely for a while. This caused some trouble, as I was not able to conquer, defend my provinces and ensure loyalty at the same time. I tried to run in circles on the southern island, gaining a province, losing another, and so on.

After around two years delay, my heir was ready and I could pump out troops again. I blitzed Mori and my ally Takeda assisted me in nearly every battle against him. Unfortunately he lost a considerable amount of his army in the process and a Takeda without army and heirs was just a too juicy target to resist...
As I was grateful for his help, I made it quick and easy. One turn, two stacks and he was no more. I am sure it wasn't painful and that he is in a better place now.
The Mori followed a few turns later.

My current situation:

[Catiline]

Happy memories.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I construct a port in Satsuma and a farmland upgrade in Buzen, as that is my richest farmland province. In Bungo I build a castle, in the other provinces either farmlands or watch towers

A quick word about farm improvements and border towers.....

General rule of thumb for which provinces to improve farmland is that if they produce 200 koku or less they are generally not worth any investment at all. Between 200 and 400 koku will efficiently return your investment of one upgrade.......over 400 koku deserve maximum upgrades. I have a mathematical table showing how long each level of improvement takes to pay back and eventually make koku over a twenty year period, if you'd like

Not a big deal at Easy or Normal settings as your starting koku is 4000-5000. But at expert setting you start with only 1000 koku, IIRC, and you have to be careful with money at the start. Also at Expert setting the AI gets verrry aggressive and costly battles in terms of replacements can have you broke in no time. It's kinda like playing the Eastern factions like Parthia or Armenia in RTW....only here you collect income only once per year

The first level of watchtower is generally good for 'peeking' into neighboring provinces, but a border fort is usually only recommended for a port province. Shinobi are better.

The rebels invade Bungo and destroy my castle

When I saw you stripped Bungo for troops I had a feeling this would happen

While the AI is significantly better than in Rome, it could be a little bit more challenging sometimes.

You will find yourself cursing the computer screen at the highest setting, believe me

The first time you fall for the fake retreat and get your Yari cavalry (who were chasing would-be routers) massacred by a suddenly resurgent enemy, or as in the Oda 1580 campaign you find yourself between a Takeda-Imagawa alliance on one side, and a Mori-Shimazu one on the other, and they attack almost every single season, or the Hojo horde with seemingly endless stacks of samurai.....or, again as Oda, that 4-star monk taisho in Kawachi might decide that he'd rather be sitting in your province of Yamashiro and bring a few of his +3 monk buddies and archers along with him......you might just regret that statement

[InsaneApache]

Happy memories.

Was just thinking the same.

[rattenfleisch]

Happy memories.

Was just thinking the same.

Glad I could awake some good memories.

I have a mathematical table showing how long each level of improvement takes to pay back and eventually make koku over a twenty year period, if you'd like

I'm all ears.

You will find yourself cursing the computer screen at the highest setting, believe me

If something like that comes from a veteran, a newbie like me shouldn't underestimate the difficulty of the higher settings.
But Shimazu on medium is too easy for me. What would you recommend for my next campaign?
Higher setting, a different clan or maybe even both?

I was thinking about Hojo or Uesugi on hard, but their rich provinces might counter the increased difficulty more or less completely. On the other hand, Hojo has to take care of large borders, which could provide enough challenge for me at the moment.

The first time you fall for the fake retreat and get your Yari cavalry (who were chasing would-be routers) massacred by a suddenly resurgent enemy

A fake retreat?
The AI actually does something like that?
Sounds scary, especially because I often have problems with disengaging.


The Portugese arrived:


They have already been in Satsuma. Are they going to bother me in every port province now or what?

[InsaneApache]

They probably will.

Now it's been a few years since I played but if I were you, I'd wait for the Dutch and build a trading post. That way you get to keep the warrior monks and you can train arquebusiers. A noble addition to any army. Defending bridges becomes a bloodbath for your enemy.

I really am going to have to dig out my old copy of shoggy. You've wet my appetite.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Rat flesh, I would recommend going for broke and trying imagawa, oda, or mori on expert. Nothing better than having a tough challenge.

[Wishazu]

Imagawa would be my personal recomendation. My fondest memories of challenging battles mostly come from that clan. Good Luck Rat Flesh.

[rattenfleisch]

I could have finished it over a decade earlier, but I really wanted to have my geishas ready and see one of their assassination movies.
After trying it over ten years with three geishas, I gave up and used my army to kill the Hojo leader.
From the posts I saw in this forum I expected geishas to be more effective.

Rat flesh, I would recommend going for broke and trying imagawa, oda, or mori on expert. Nothing better than having a tough challenge.

Expert?
I don't think I am ready for that at the moment. I am still a complete newbie after all.
There are still some aspects of the game I haven't even touched, like gunpowder units, Naginata Infantry, Kensai or Monks (well, I have used monks one time to flank a YS unit, but that's it), so I don't know what to expect from them and what not.

Mori sounds tempting, but I don't want to play another western clan yet. I should probably try an eastern clan now, to see the "other" side of the game. The west has narrow, easily defendable borders, poor farmlands and the opportunity for harbours almost anywhere, while the eastern borders are broad and vulnerable, farmlands quite rich and harbours often not possible.
So, different to my Shimazu campaign, I have to think about where to attack and where to defend, where to build farms and where not and so on. An economy more based on farming than on trade would also be more vulnerable to poor harvests, so I would experience another aspect of the game that was no problem before (my insane trade income was able to compensate for the worst harvest years).

Imagawa is already on my list, but as my third campaign. Their starting position is interesting, but I want to play a "real" eastern clan first, not a 50/50 one.

So it will be either Hojo or Oda I think. Let's see... I will decide when I start the game... in about half an hour.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Hojo I find turn into a predictable fight very soon. As you quickly take out the uesugi and then turn west and take the rest of japan in basically the reverse of the shimazu campaign.

Imagawa, takeda, and oda all offer the oppurtunity of a two front war.

As for the geisha, you would have to train them up on some lower level generals, else they will fail over and over against a daimyo.