Rise to power: How I learned to stop worrying and love Realm Divide

[Monk]

We've all been there. Getting close to hitting full reputation, you may be ready for that day, or may not, but when it comes. Bam. The shogun has declared you an enemy of the state. Pow! Around 10 clans have stopped fighting and joined him in his war against you. Crash! You're living on borrowed time. Can you complete the game before your allies become more afraid of the shogun's alliance than of you?

I gotta say realm divide is without a doubt one of my favorite features of this game. I've mentioned it in other threads but i'll say it here: It's amazing. In old total war games (mtw) this was already a coded feature. AI factions would become increasingly worried by your power and size, and would eventually simply dog-pile the player in one final attempt to break you down. There however it was an unspoken rule, Diplomacy would simply "break" without any rhyme or reason, leaving you adrift amidst a sea of enemies.

Here though, Realm Divide is the reason behind that madness. It can come when you're not necessarily powerful enough to take on all of japan, sparking a desperate struggle that bogs down for decades if you're not careful.

What about you all? Have you found Realm Divide to be enjoyable? Not so? Share your experiences here!

[GeneralHankerchief]

I've encountered Realm Divide once so far, on my inaugural Shimazu N/N campaign. I was completely unprepared for it, as I had taken most of my 16 provinces through guile and trickery as opposed to actual military strength. With all of Japan against me, I had roughly one and a half usable armies and suddenly no real way to pay for them, as all of my trade income had mysteriously evaporated. If I was anybody but the Shimazu I would have been ripped apart, but since I didn't have a back door to worry about I went back to an old favorite TW strategy of mine: grinding.

I parked those one and a half armies down in the nearest defendable castle and held on for dear life. I'd add regiments to them whenever time and money allowed and eventually weakened my nearest enemies enough to the point where I could move out and take another city. Lather, rinse, repeat.

It's a very slow process, but it suits my overall playstyle and is pretty satisfying in a grim way. I forget how much time has passed since Realm Divide started, and I am losing the occasional lightly-defended province thanks to a smart AI not impaling itself on my heavily-defended fortresses (usually), but the march to Kyoto is still making progress.

[Dead Guy]

Nice thread title Monk =)

I was frustrated by it at first, my first campaign was on VH/VH and the full sacks just came pouring out of the mountain passes east of Kyoto. I also knew that I had to reach a few select provinces where I could establish choke points, so I could turn some of my armies around to face the ever more disgruntled Shoni, my long time allies who had almost as many provinces as me. I barely made it, and when war broke out I defeated four of their stacks and quickly struck back hard against undfended castle towns to seize enough regions to make my claim to the Shogunate undisputable.

Now, I've stopped worrying. In part because I've learnt to master the economy, and also to love bombs. Bombs thrown a great distance by wooden contraptions.

At the end of my Shimazu campaign my food surplus was 50+ and my income was increasing by significant amounts every turn.

I think Realm Divide actually fixes the problem of previous TWs where you basically had the game firmly in the bag at 10 regions or so.

[Monk]

My first experienc with realm divide was touched on in the "How's your first campaign going" as the Chokosabe. The resulting clash between East and West was so intense i'm currently working on a story about it. It lasted over ten years (fourty+ turns) of deadlocked back and forth until Kyoto was finally taken. I made so many pushes where i'd get within spitting distance of the city only to be turned away. And that was just taking Kyoto - the campaign had to continue, i was still 10 provinces from victory!

Such a frustratingly fun experience.

I think Realm Divide actually fixes the problem of previous TWs where you basically had the game firmly in the bag at 10 regions or so.

Could not agree more.

[Marshall Louis-Nicolas Davout]

lol,how do you master the encomy,its hard for me,the only I way I do it is by looting provinces.They gain a lot of money,and tis helpful for me

[Monk]

lol,how do you master the encomy,its hard for me,the only I way I do it is by looting provinces.They gain a lot of money,and tis helpful for me

Welcome to the org Takeda Shogunate.

I find lots of level 1 markets is the way to go for a basic economic foundation. When i can, I also make sure to upgrade my farms, since trade won't last forever. I typically dont upgrade my castles until i'm really rolling in terms of conquest, since i find them a serious waste of money inside the first 20 turns or so.

[Marshall Louis-Nicolas Davout]

hmm..what you do is wise.

I bow to you aslo.

[nafod]

Monk I'd have to whole heartedly agree with you.

(I play N/N)

Originally I hit RD and my campaign went south quickly. I downloaded Yarkis' RD mod and have played several campaigns since, and it seems more like the classic TW....Easy peasy. Once you have a few rounds of the game under your belt and learn the various nuances - there are alot of them, not a ton, but a good deal - I decided to remove the RD limiting mod to bring the challenge back and have found it fits nicely.

[Monk]

Monk I'd have to whole heartedly agree with you.

(I play N/N)

Originally I hit RD and my campaign went south quickly. I downloaded Yarkis' RD mod and have played several campaigns since, and it seems more like the classic TW....Easy peasy. Once you have a few rounds of the game under your belt and learn the various nuances - there are alot of them, not a ton, but a good deal - I decided to remove the RD limiting mod to bring the challenge back and have found it fits nicely.

That's the spirit, take a deep breath and fall into the abyss!

I have to admit my first realm divide was a.. harrowing experience. When it hit, my treasury went straight down the drain. I was scrambling, disbanding three entire stacks of units, focusing on a strong, but expensive, core of good quality units. My head was barely above water, two stacks against all of japan. Fought from around 1573 - 1588 against a very tough Oda Shogunate, who led all of Eastern Japan against me.

Even when I hit victory I was having so much fun I kept playing passed the victory screen. Which is something i've never done in TW before. I didnt stop until 1605 when the last enemy province fell and the map was a lovely Chokosabe black. I haven't played the main campaign since then. Partly due to lack of time, but largely due to how many incredible memories a single campaign has given me. It's been fun watching replays of the epic battles waged over that 30 year span.

[Leptomeninges]

So, for those of you who turtle a lot before RD, how long do you wait? My nature is to push so this business about waiting a lot runs against the grain for me. Playing a long game, so in theory I think I have until 1600 to get my 40 provinces.

[econ21]

In my first (only) game, I think I waited to about 1570. The game ended about 1575.

I didn't really turtle, as I think that will be very hard: you will be handicapping yourself a lot if you stay small. I expanded quite rapidly early on (H/N as Oda) to get about 12 provinces. But then as I approached RD, I applied the breaks - I wanted to fully secure the trade nodes and enjoy a little peace n quiet. When I finally pushed it, I had about 140k in the bank and had upgraded almost everything in my provinces. Even though my holdings were horribly dispersed and I only had three so-so armies, it was rather easy. There was one central faction that was "terrifying" but once I had defeated their three full stacks, there was no real threat. I didn't feel I was waiting a lot - I was largely at peace in the period just before RD, so the turns flew by.

I've been thinking about moving to VH campaigns[1], but trying that as Takeda, the first 5 years made the Oda realm divide look like a picnic. Trying to hold on to North Shinano reminded me so much of trying to hold onto to Shinano in the original STW. A veritable Verdun in the east.

[1]I could not abide going above normal difficulty for battles, as it seemed to unbalance the naval battles so much (you lose fair match up boarding actions; your ships rout first etc). It's a shame, as I've read the BAI is not fully switched on (does not flank) on normal, which would be disappointing if true.

[Leptomeninges]

Hmm.. One of my dirty little secrets is that I've actually never learned to fight naval battles well at my current or any other difficulty setting. While I fight out almost all my land battles on a skirmish map, for naval I just get numeric superiority and autoresolve them all. (For whatever reason, unlike land battles I usually find it to be pretty easy to get numeric superiority in naval battles.) I suppose I should invest a bit in learning about them. Need to find a thread where a naval expert shares their secrets...

[Next]

Nice info, thanks!

[Gregoshi]

Hello Next and welcome to the Org.

Make yourself at home and don't be bashful about asking questions or sharing your thoughts on the game.

[Toddyvegas]

Hi chaps, couldn't help realising that most players have overlooked what has saved my economy on each RD occasion.

Naval power.

You should have a superior navy at the point of RD. By attacking enemy trade routes, (and seperating your fleets out into single vessals), but close enough to support each other if attacked, you can still keep in the black. I went from earning over 20k per turn, to around 3k per turn after RD. So you can still build armies and slowly build your economy even without a single trade partner.

Just find the most lucrative trade routes and steal their goods.. Makes a lot more money than people realise..

[econ21]

That's a good point about fleets and trade routes, Toddyvegas.

Come to think of it, it seems to be one area where the STW2 AI is strangely weak. As Oda, I was able to secure all trade routes without much effort. This was surprising, as Oda is probably the faction furthest from them at the start. And in ETW, the AI - after patches - made it pretty hard to monopolise trade routes (even when playing GB).