Skill point strategies

[Seyavash]

I have played around with different strategies. Most recently I have tried to specialize my generals with one taking on the great warrior role and others more on the strategist side. However with all generals and agents I try to go for the chi and bushido bonuses.

Ninja's I focus on the assassination tree with a few points to the sabotage side. I find that even with an assasination focus they usually don't get caught and killed on sabotage jobs.

Metsuke I focus strictly on overseeing towns.

For all of them I will use a single point to skip to the next skill that I really want. since metsuke tree alternates between town and army oversight I max town and give one to the army so I can get to the next town skill.

I haven't come up with a set strategy for monks yet.

[Zarky]

My plan for monks is stick to the left side. I usually end up hiring most of my monks through holy site province so I build Pilgrim hostel there, already gives +6% to chi research. Then I have them demoralize every single enemy army until they level up and keep at the left side, also putting points to +demoralising armies and maybe character conversion if enemy agents start popping up more than my ninjas can handle.

[Rothe]

My plan for monks is stick to the left side. I usually end up hiring most of my monks through holy site province so I build Pilgrim hostel there, already gives +6% to chi research. Then I have them demoralize every single enemy army until they level up and keep at the left side, also putting points to +demoralising armies and maybe character conversion if enemy agents start popping up more than my ninjas can handle.

I'll have to check which skills are on the left, but seems like a good idea.

Still, I really think it might pay off to get one monk good at converting people to buddhism, to be able to build a Nanban port and/or to be able to take areas with different religion at max (like Ikko Ikki) and convert them really fast. If you can get a monk with 4 stars in conversion, he can for instance support one Nanban port without any christian influence getting through.

[Dead Guy]

What do the stars actually do for generals? What boni do they provide in battle?

I've personally focused a lot on infantry commander, because stand and fight is p. awesome, it's like inspire light for all units in the radius, and the + melee attack is also nice. I had that fear-causing one on one of my generals but never paid attention to see whether it worked. Never gone with the +combat stats for bodyguard ones...

[Zarky]

What do the stars actually do for generals? What boni do they provide in battle?

I've personally focused a lot on infantry commander, because stand and fight is p. awesome, it's like inspire light for all units in the radius, and the + melee attack is also nice. I had that fear-causing one on one of my generals but never paid attention to see whether it worked. Never gone with the +combat stats for bodyguard ones...

Well the stars matter more in auto-resolving as they represent the generals skill. This of course doesn't matter much to me since I try to fight all the 50-50 odd or very large battles myself.

fear causing trait is kinda awesome, using that with stuff like fire arrows and big charges rout ashigaru in a blink of an eye. Though usually enemy general throws in rally and inspire so that it's rather hard to pull off.

[quadalpha]

Yes, there's a good one on the bottom row that reduces enemy morale. Trouble is by the time I get there the strategic situation is under control, so I no longer fight (m)any big battles.

Also, can we possibly stop using "boni" as the plural of "bonus"?

[Rothe]

I agree. Boni is not actually correct. Read up on it if you doubt it.

[econ21]

We are capped at 12 skill points, I think (2 each for level 2, 3 and 4; 3 for 5 and 6). That introduces some hard choices, except for the right hand side column of skills - boosting the bodyguard unit - which seems like junk.

It's worth thinking about saving points and trying to get far down the tree but I would like to max out strategist if I could. Being faster than the other guy seems essential if you want to catch him or evade him.

I am rather taken by the sound of siege expert - cutting sieges down by 3 turns sounds very nice. Having just lost virtually my entire army trying to take a well defended castle, I was thinking about starving them out in similar situations. That would require 2 points plus 3 for the prereqs - strategist(1)/infantry commander(1)/ashigaru commander(1).

I also like the sound of intimidating - lowering the enemy's morale. You can get that ability for one point plus 3 for the prereqs strategist(1)/poet (1)/honorable (1).

For my next game, I'd be inclined to make an intimdating siege expert daimyo - with 2 points in honorable for higher honour which gives a diplomatic + loyalty boost and 3 in strategist for the campaign movement speed. Just doable with 12 points.

If multi-stack forces are a feature of the end game, I'd think hard about stealthy (3) for the night attack ability. I assume that allows you to attack one stack in isolation as in BI and M2TW. I had hoped a ninja's subverting an army could achieve the same effect, but it did not (if the two are close enough, even a subverted army can reinforce).* Indeed, stealthy sounds better than intimidating for a general (for a daimyo, honorable is appealing so intimidating costs only one point). In BI, where multi-stack armies proliferated (hordes), night fighters were golden.

One thing I am not sure about is how important command stars are outside of autoresolve. If they boost attack/defence stats as in some of the early TWs, skills that give command stars would be a no brainer. But I seem to recall therother discovering that in RTW they just boost morale, in which case I'd skip them. Combat seems awfully lethal out of the box - I'm more worried about my men being killed than running away.

The exception to disregarding command star skills may be naval combat. Next game, I'll dedicate a pirate/admiral general to lead my main fleet. I am less proficient at naval combat, so need every edge I can get and morale does seem more of an issue (typically no generals I guess?). Plus I'd be more inclined to autoresolve a sea battle than a land one. Strategist seems even more desirable for an admiral than a land commander if the movement bonus works at sea.

So far, I am finding my daimyo does nearly all my fighting. For secondary generals, I guess poet is the best choice. +12% to bushido research per general is pretty powerful - especially early on in the game for the specialist research missions, archery ammo, naval movement, fire arrows etc. It's probably worth putting only 1 point in strategist for this. Having them tag along to reinforce the main army (and so get XP) is probably worth the hassle, at least until they are level 3.


* Subverting armies by ninjas can achieve the same result.