Skill point strategies

[Dead Guy]

I'm more fond of the +20% to escape from enemy agents myself. I find my ninja are rarely caught in the act (they fail, but rarely get executed), but more often found and tried by a metsuke. Furthermore, that event is something that I have no control over. If a mission has a poor chance of success I can always choose not to try.

[Rothe]

I'm more fond of the +20% to escape from enemy agents myself. I find my ninja are rarely caught in the act (they fail, but rarely get executed), but more often found and tried by a metsuke. Furthermore, that event is something that I have no control over. If a mission has a poor chance of success I can always choose not to try.

I tend to try for one or two "risk taking" ninja. That is, I only go for assasination bonuses and retainers I use to reduce "getting caught %". Those might die occasionally, but I have gotten two 6 star ninjas up without reloading by relentlessly doing missions that are pretty easy. I reserve these guys for high risk high reward missions, like assassinating an enemy Daimyo or high ranking general - that is, I don't use my 6 star ninja to spy in enemy territory where he might be caught or do missions that are low priority. I don't mind if an agent gets killed. I don't reload after lost battles either unless the whole campaign might fall to that loss. I find that with minimal reloading the game is more interesting, although I like to keep the chance (thus no legendary yet) to recover an interesting campaign.

I think it is a waste to level all your ninja to the same skills really. It is really nice to have a ninja good at spying and army sabotage, and try to make him with high escape chance. That ninja can then hang around where my armies can't see otherwise and possibly even split a multi stack attack, or at least give early warning. Couple of this kind and then a few "super assasins" are what I'd ideally like to have.

[frogbeastegg]

Oops. Stars representing experience is another game I've been tinkering with, not shogun II. Sorry.

[econ21]

Looking at the metsuke skill tree, four possible builds stand out:

The taxman: Go for 2 points in magistrate for +2 overseeing towns; but save a point a level 3 and only invest 1 pt in secret policeman as you won't be overseeing armies. Then at level 4, you can put 3 points in censor for another +3 overseeing towns. And that's it: no other skills will increase your tax revenue. The good thing is that you only need to be level 4. By then you will only have earned 6 skill points and so will have none spare. After that you will probably level so slowly [1XP per turn; 100 turns (25 years) to get to level 5], I would not worry about extra skills.

The corruptor: Save all your points a level 2 and then at level 3, put three into Bribery for +4 subterfuge for bribing. You've then got a long wait until level 6 when you can put 3 into Mercantile Contacts for a 40% cut in action costs. What to do with your four excess points? I'd be inclined to put three into traveller for 9% army movement range as you'll typically be deep in enemy, perhaps near an army. I guess you could put 1 point in counter-espionage so you at least can spend one point when you first ding.

The policeman: This one goes right down the counter-espionage chain, ending up with legendary thieftaker. If counter-spying only frustrates enemy actions, then it is only needed to unlock the chain. I would recommend putting only one point in that at the start and saving a point for level 3. You'll max out thieftaker with one point left over - I'd put it in eyes and ears for a +15 increase in campaign los.

The armyman: This is all about traveller for a +9% army movement range and eyes and ears for a +30 increase in campaign los. They require only 5 points but will be a long wait - being available only at levels 5 and 6 respectively. To unlock eyes and ears you need to go down the counter-espionage chain. I would spend three points in counter-espionage, as I assume counter-spying may help stop other agents messing with your army (not sure though) with only a token point in investigator and yakuza contacts to move down the chain.

Next game, I will try out these variations - although I may skip on the corruptor. Using monks to incite revolts and then metsuke to bribe the rebels created has been recommended as a good way of levelling up these two agents though.

[econ21]

I find the honorable trait to be completely useless.

It just occurred to me it might be decent for a general, rather than a daimyo, to give him more shelf-life. One adoption and one ambitious wife and my best general's loyalty is starting to wobble (4 loyalty). I was going to bench him, but if he get two points in honorable (+2 loyalty) at the next level up, he may last quite a while.

[Dead Guy]

Yup, that's true enough.

I usually end up taking it on occasion to get to intimidating, actually.

4 loyalty isn't that bad though? I don't know, maybe I've just been lucky, but most of my generals get +3 from Daimyo honor, +1 from Noh if I want to (it's what? 3 turns?) and sometimes as many as 3 additional modifiers, like +2 from personal loyalty etc. It's just never been a problem for me.

[econ21]

I don't know about loyalty yet - I haven't got that far into the game. I am just remembering my BI campaigns as WRE where great generals inevitably went bad as battlefield success ruined their loyalty.

How are you finding intimidating? It sounds like dread in M2TW, which I remember people saying was better than chivalry but I never tried it - always preferring to keep my characters light side.

In STW2, with my daimyo, I was inclined to go for intimidating and siege expert but seeing even minor clans come at me with multiple stacks, I suspect stealthy (for night battles) and siege expert may be a better combo.

[Dead Guy]

I haven't really noticed the effect actually. That said, I never played a battle where I paid attention to which general was fighting it. Hard to quantify effects on morale properly I think. I'm happy if the enemy break a bit earlier, even if it's not as noticeable as it was (IIRC) with dread in M2.

I need to try that night battles thing. Facing several stacks can get ugly =)

[al Roumi]

I'd not say honourable was useless, but that depends on the relative honour of your daimyo and his generals. If your generals garner greater honour than your daimyo -you will need honour for him from whatever source. Remember that all sorts of things can ruin a general's loyalty -from their wife to their own success. If your Daimyo goes Chrisitan, he loses honour. You can get the "upstart generals" or "upstart brothers" modeifiers too -presumably from how glorious/honourable your Daimyo is.

Recently, I've been focusing on campaign movement for level 1 and then the bushido research bonus (this seems to be the best way to boost bushido research in the early game). I'm keen on infantry commander (for stand and fight) and have added loyalty/honour upgrades as I've seen fit.

[Rothe]

Looking at the metsuke skill tree, four possible builds stand out:

The taxman: Go for 2 points in magistrate for +2 overseeing towns; but save a point a level 3 and only invest 1 pt in secret policeman as you won't be overseeing armies. Then at level 4, you can put 3 points in censor for another +3 overseeing towns. And that's it: no other skills will increase your tax revenue. The good thing is that you only need to be level 4. By then you will only have earned 6 skill points and so will have none spare. After that you will probably level so slowly [1XP per turn; 100 turns (25 years) to get to level 5], I would not worry about extra skills.

The corruptor: Save all your points a level 2 and then at level 3, put three into Bribery for +4 subterfuge for bribing. You've then got a long wait until level 6 when you can put 3 into Mercantile Contacts for a 40% cut in action costs. What to do with your four excess points? I'd be inclined to put three into traveller for 9% army movement range as you'll typically be deep in enemy, perhaps near an army. I guess you could put 1 point in counter-espionage so you at least can spend one point when you first ding.

The policeman: This one goes right down the counter-espionage chain, ending up with legendary thieftaker. If counter-spying only frustrates enemy actions, then it is only needed to unlock the chain. I would recommend putting only one point in that at the start and saving a point for level 3. You'll max out thieftaker with one point left over - I'd put it in eyes and ears for a +15 increase in campaign los.

The armyman: This is all about traveller for a +9% army movement range and eyes and ears for a +30 increase in campaign los. They require only 5 points but will be a long wait - being available only at levels 5 and 6 respectively. To unlock eyes and ears you need to go down the counter-espionage chain. I would spend three points in counter-espionage, as I assume counter-spying may help stop other agents messing with your army (not sure though) with only a token point in investigator and yakuza contacts to move down the chain.

Next game, I will try out these variations - although I may skip on the corruptor. Using monks to incite revolts and then metsuke to bribe the rebels created has been recommended as a good way of levelling up these two agents though.

I really think Metsuke are a bit "off" in this game. The reason is that you are really better off putting them to oversee towns where you have the highest wealth level - that also usually means the highest growth. This will lead to them being all over the map far from the action.

I would actually change the Metsuke effect on towns to be growth boosting, instead of tax boosting. That way, you'd benefit from having them in your front line too (grow your new towns) and they'd be closer to the action. As a result, you could actually level them by actions, not just by overseeing, and you could use the other skills as well.

The current tax boosting is a dull... Why not just make it +2 growth per star? That way a maxed out Metsuke would be +20 growth that you could apply to whereever you want. Sure, it would be still less powerful than tax boosting, but more interesting. Including a retainer for +5% tax boost or something like that could still be done, and maybe one of the top overseeing skills could give +5% also, but it would take time to get there and meanwhile you could be arresting enemies and doing a lot more interesting things.

[crpcarrot]

From what Slaists posted on twcenter, the experience of reinforcements varies with the rate of replenishment. If you replenish slowly (e.g. in an undeveloped castle), your reinforcements tend to have higher average experience. If you replenish fast, your 5-exp unit will soon drop down in quality.

However, I think this is largely irrelevant given that you seem to pay full support cost for a one man unit. Given that, it seems much better to consolidate depeleted units after loses and just recruit new ones. That will save you money and give you an elite force of veteran units.

Hi all

frm what i have observed the exp is tracked per one man. i base this on what i saw where after a battle i had less than 10 men left in a Samurai unit and they had 5 exp. (woo hoo) but as the unit was replenished the expdropped down real fast. this seems to indicate they recruits are green and have no expereince and as usual the exp displayed is just the avarage.

the speed (nomber of replenishmentt units per turn) of replenishemnt is probably not relevant as the the speed will affect jus t the avarage not the actual one man unit. the lower the number of replished units the smaller the fall in the avarage exp.

if you wanted to get a high valout unit faster merging depleted high valour units would be the way to go.

[econ21]

Looking at the monk skill tree, it seems the most straightforward.

I'd be inclined to go for the left most branch to max out chi research bonuses, that will spend 7 of your 10 points. You will get +18% to chi research speed and also a handy +6% army campaign move at the start.

You then have two options to spend the other 3 points.

Option A: put the 3 points in pacifist for +4 to demoralising armies. Since the researcher should accompany an army to give it a speed boost, proficiency in demoralising enemies is a good fit well and such missions would help what would otherwise be a slow levelling up process.

Option B: focus on converting Christians. This is situational - Eastern clans might have less use for it, although it might help all in coping with Nanban trade centres. All you need for this are two points in religious advisor, at level 3, and one in persuader at level 6. You will have picked up scripture at level 5 in order to get the sweet +9% chi research from enlightened. They would end up with +3 zeal converting provinces and +4 zeal converting characters.

The alternative to maxing out chi research is to focus on inciting revolts. These may be the most powerful monk missions. To boost them, you need to be level 4 to get agitator; providing (after three points) +4 to inciting unrest. However, if you want to specialise in this role, you won't be able to cover research or conversion skills completely.

The agitator could pick up nearly all the research skills (+15% rather than +18%). Since they need to spend 4 points to max out agitator, they'd be best advised not to put a third point in pilgrim in order to still to be able to reach enlightened.

Alternatively, they could go for evangelical skills - the only one they could not attain would be persuader. They would have + 2 zeal both converting provinces and characters (and +6% chi research).

[blurryhunter]

First post, but I had to mention it since it was a pretty nice realization when placing points into any ninja agent's tree. There is a difference between a successful escape on a failure, and remaining undetected on failure. For those that might not know, if detected on a failure, the attempt penalizes your diplomacy with the target clan (if you're at war it pretty much doesn't matter if you intend to run them to extinction), but if they fail and are NOT detected, as far as the targeted clan is concerned, you were never involved. It is a simple, but important difference when you're on any of the higher difficulties where the AI is eyeballing you for any little reason to declare war and open up those nine stacks they've had sitting around.

I don't remember what skills did which, but I believe the upper one (Infiltrator?) gave a bonus to remaining undetected on failure, with the other branching to the right (don't take my word, look for yourself please, I can't remember the skills for the life of me right now) was chance to escape on failure (meaning you were detected, but avoided capture/execution). With all of that being the case, it's possible that those added points past any possible cap of 10 (I've had it say 10+ on the stars; there is an actual green + at the end of the stars), and that might effect the escape/undetected on failure.

On a side note, so far any success on ninjas (monks, metsuke, or geisha for that matter) that I've had gives no penalty to diplomacy with the targeted clan.

EDIT: I realize the post is almost a month old, but the information is still really important for those that have issues with diplomacy and agent use.

[Gregoshi]

Hello blurryhunter. Thanks for joining us here at the Org and making a nice contribution on your first post.

I have to say I never really paid attention the two degrees of "failed and escaped", though, as you say, there is a big difference in the significant of the result depending upon circumstances. I'll have to look at this more closely in the future.

[Ed TW]

I very much agree with your strategy

[frogbeastegg]

We know what command stars do now. Check post 7 here.

This could potentially change ideas on general's skill builds; command stars are very nice if you get them in the right areas to support your army.