Legendary difficulty

[Arjos]

Is this an issue?

Oh yes have a back up save game, I had a CTD twice and both times had to restart the campaign :S

[Major Robert Dump]

Legendary has been kicking me hard. Not able to focus like I should and playing bits here and there and just leaving game running nonstop. I'm beginning to think that Christianity is NOT the way to go, at least not until after realm divide, because I cannot afford to lose allies too early.

My games typically fall apart in the area of turn 40-60, as Shimazu, Chosokobe, Date and Uesugi. Keep in mind that these are my first campaigns, I'm still a noob for the most part short of reading the guides. In fact, I only recently realized you still pay full upkeep for a depleted unit. Anwya, horror story to follow:

Had a crazy game as Chosokobe where I had the entire island by year 48, thanks to a diplomatic cluster between everyone. Went on to take the 4 westernmost provinces on the west coast and get all the trade hubs, taking advantage of a 3-way war on the continent that left all the others as rebels. This was by year 53. then -- get this -- Oda takes the Shogunate. I look at the diplomap on the next turn, and he has -- no bull -- 16 provinces, and no enemies other than small clans. But year 60, he had 28 provnices, and no enemies other than small clans. I converted to christianity, and although we were very friendly and I only had 14 provnces by year 62, he and everyone else declared war on me and my game fell apart between losing trade income and mass revolts and amphibious assaults.

Of the 14 or so abandoned games on legendary, only 1 I have seen the shogunate taken like so.

I will probably start backing up save games at pivotal moments, like right before I convert. At this pace I can't keep up with all the restarting

[TinCow]

I'm beginning to think that Christianity is NOT the way to go, at least not until after realm divide, because I cannot afford to lose allies too early.

Well, having won 3 Legendary campaigns now, I have a different take on this. The key isn't Christianity per se, but trade nodes. As I play the game, I expect to have NO trade (or allies) whatsoever after Realm Divide. Thus, I focus my pre-divide efforts on creating a stable economy where I can fund my armies and expansion without any financial difficulties despite total trade isolation. This can be done without trade nodes, but it is much harder. If you can secure the trade nodes, you will become very wealthy very quickly, even if you have no trade partners. However, the key to securing the trade nodes is sea power.

It is prohibitively expensive and tactically difficult to maintain dominance at sea with traditional navies. However, once you have Nanban Trade Ships, control of the seas is incredibly easy and you can pretty much sail wherever you want without worrying about much of anything. Thus, Christianity works well because it gives you Nanban Trade Ships, and Nanban Trade Ships give you the trade nodes. What I do is try and grab as many trade nodes as possible early on. Just stick a single trade ship on each to 'reserve' them, and then back fill to increase profits. Once Nanban Trade Ships become available, I retire all my traditional ships (except trade ships). Every single trade node gets 9 trade ships and 1 Nanban Trade Ship. If the node gets attacked, withdraw the 9 trade ships right at the start to keep them safe, and fight with the Nanban. You will win and your trade fleet will remain intact and keep the profits flowing in. In addition, with a Nanban ship on each node, you can easily detach it to clear out any fleet that's raiding the trade route nearby.

For fleets outside the trade nodes, each is made up of a pair of Nanbans. I have not encountered any enemy fleets capable of defeating two Nanbans. With complete control of the seas, you also get easy control of Kyushu and Shikoku. Once those islands are conquered, they can be defended entirely by your Nanban fleets, without the need for any local armies. This gives you a good 12 or so provinces as a base that are never threatened by the enemy. With that kind of a 'base' and control of the trade nodes, you can easily field 3-4 high quality armies. You can then fight wherever you choose to on the mainland with your entire force. Due to the starting location, obviously Shimazu and Chosokobe are the easiest factions to do this with. However, it can be done with anyone. Simply secure a 'core' of about 4-5 provinces that you are capable of defending with your existing armies, then convert and spend a large number of turns converting your provinces over. Then focus on your naval and trade improvement, while making as much money as you can via trade with other clans. When you've got your fleet ready, take the nodes (declaring war to take them from their existing owners if need be). After you have your nodes fully loaded, invade and conquer the islands (if you haven't already). After that, the world is your oyster. With your high income, you can spam missionaries and generals and level them up to further increase tech research rates. You'll eventually be churning out exceptional-level armor and accuracy troops. There's not much out there that can stand up to an army of 9 exceptional armor rank 4 Naginata Samurai and 9 exceptional accuracy rank 4 Bow Samurai.

Another side perk from being immensely wealthy is that it allows you to use agents in a manner you wouldn't otherwise. I cannot over-emphasize how much of a difference bribing armies can make. If you have 100k in the bank, you don't need to think twice about spending 20k on a bribe. It's not uncommon to find yourself being attacked by two or three full stacks to your one stack. As long as you brought your agents along with your main army, you can totally turn the tide. Use your ninjas to remove generals from stacks, then bribe the enemy stack with a metsuke. The situation that was two stacks against your one just turned into your two stacks against their one. Destroy them, then either keep your new army or disband it, depending on your income and military needs. Is there a front that is giving you problems due to multiple avenues of approach? Send your missionaries off to start up revolts everywhere. Rebels are your friends in Realm Divide, as they don't expand. They're a nice road bump for AI armies trying to approach from another directions.

Again, none of this is necessary for a Legendary win (I did not convert in my Date win). The point is simply that Christianity makes it much easier to be wealthy, and being wealthy makes it much easier to win.

[Prodigal]

Excuse me if this seems a rude question, but I seem to be over come with small sword syndrome, Tin are you playing all the battles on Leg. too?

[TinCow]

Excuse me if this seems a rude question, but I seem to be over come with small sword syndrome, Tin are you playing all the battles on Leg. too?

Yes. Max difficulty, 40 minute timer.

My battles all go generally the same way. Long line of spears behind a long line of archers. My armies are usually 50/50 of each. Archers shoot, when enemy closes range the spears move up in front of them to take the melee. If it's early on and the spears are Ashigaru, they go into spear wall. With proper terrain use (and use of loose formation for archers when facing more than a couple AI archers), this is good enough to win. One spear unit on each flank should be ready to deal with flanking cav. Later on, swap the Ashigaru for Naginata and Bow Samurai, but tactics remain the same. Above all, defend as much as possible. When at all possible, let the AI assault while you sit inside a castle. If that's not possible, just use smart positioning to take them apart with your archers. If you stay ranged-heavy, the AI will often attack you even if they are technically the defender. So, when you are attacking, always watch the AI for the first 30 seconds or so of the battle before you move. It will be clear right there if it's going to sit still and defend, move to a different spot and defend, or rush you. If it rushes, move your army backwards to a good defensive terrain spot and pretend it's a defensive battle.

On the campaign map, maximize your replenishment rate. Your highest ranking general should be given the resupply office. Prioritize roads everywhere you go. If you're going to be defending a province for a while, improve the castle as much as you can within your rice limits, and build an encampment/barracks. You can easily achieve 30%+ replenishment rates in a province, which makes your army essentially immune to attrition from multiple battles... all you have to worry about is annihilation in a single battle. If annihilation is a serious risk, just don't fight the battle. A full stack army is far more important than a province. You can recapture the province a lot faster (and cheaper) than you can rebuild your army. Do not be afraid to retreat and let the AI take a province if doing so will get you out of a multi-stack trap and let you kill each enemy stack one at a time.

[frogbeastegg]

There's not much out there that can stand up to an army of 9 exceptional armor rank 4 Naginata Samurai and 9 exceptional accuracy rank 4 Bow Samurai.

That's 18 units. The general makes 19. I'm curious - what's the 20th unit? Or don't you fill the stack up to max capacity?

[Dead Guy]

Building on TinCow's last paragraph about leaving provinces not to lose an army, and Jacobin's trouble with being overwhelmed, I'd suggest sticking a bunch of ashigaru archers in those forts you leave for the enemy. If you can afford it, fill the walls with them in the smallest two forts. Accept the fact that they won't make it, just use them and perhaps a yari unit in addition to the garrison to decimate the enemy as much as possible for every settlement you allow them to take. Facing them in the field will be much easier this way. Don't underestimate the damage throw-away bow ashigaru can do in a siege defense. If it's on of those forts where the AI attacks from 4-5 directions, they can often rout the 3 units coming at them from one or two directions and you can move them from the wall to fire on enemies locked in combat with your ashigaru garrison inside the fort or enemies on the ground outside the walls.

[TinCow]

That's 18 units. The general makes 19. I'm curious - what's the 20th unit? Or don't you fill the stack up to max capacity?

I don't have any strict rules about it, and it's not even always 18 total. I cited that number simply because I tend to stick to a 50/50 ratio of bow/yari ashigaru or bow/naginata samurai. Sometimes it's 8/8, which leaves 3 slots open other than general. What I fill the extra slots with depends on my mood. Sometimes its katana samurai, sometimes No-Dachi, sometimes Mangonels (awesome for battles, but really slows down the army on the campaign map), etc. Sometimes I just pack it up to 19 with my bow/spear units. If that is the case, I always make the 'extra' unit a bow unit. They always have fewer men than the spear units, and thus a 9 unit long line of spears can still cover a 10 unit long line of bows. I think the most effective 'extras' for me are 3 Yari Cavalry on an 8/8 army, but the lack of the pause/orders option on Legendary leads to some neglect of them during the battles. Thus, those units get annihilated more often than I would like in my armies, and I don't always replace them.

Lack of unit annihilation is one of the reasons I use this really simple army combo/formation. The Naginata are just steel walls designed to survive whatever is thrown at them, while the archers rain death on everything. Naginatas built in a province with a Master Armourer and an Armoury have 14 Armour, which makes them last a very, very long time in combat. Bow Samurai can be similarly buffed to make them deadly. If you have the tech that gives archer +10 accuracy and build them in a province with a Master Bowmaker and a Hunting Lodge, vanilla Bow Samurai with 0 experience will start with 75 accuracy, and Chosokabe Bow Samurai with 0 experience with start with 85 accuracy. If you upgrade to a Bow Master Dojo (or better yet a Legendary one), you can churn out Bow Samurai that start with 90+ accuracy. That's the same as a triple-sized Chosokabe Bow Hero with slightly shorter range... and you can have an unlimited number of them. Massed volleys from a line of those units makes entire enemy units not just break, but vanish. I also prefer the Bow Samurai over Bow Warrior Monks, as I find that on Legendary survivability is more important than killing power. Bow Samurai are hardy enough to take a bit of melee if they need to, as well as to defend castle walls. That can't be done with Warrior Monks.

In my current game, I'm about to experiment with a new army that replaces all the bow samurai with matchlock samurai. Built in the same 'accuracy' province as the Bow Samurai, they will be starting with about 80+ accuracy as well. I haven't tested this army yet, but I'm interested to see how well a line of 8 of those guys does in combat. I'm hoping that, with proper use of Rapid Fire, nothing will even reach their ranks. However, I'm unsure about their survivability due to vulnerability to longer range archer fire. I'll post again once I've tested this one.

[Dead Guy]

I usually take one and never more than one unit of bow warrior monks. They're used for two things: An opening whistling arrows salvo on a unit in the rear and center in field battles after which they withdraw behind the lines, though I don't know how useful that really is, and to attack archers manning the walls without being shot at. I'm torn between recruiting them in my fortress monastery province or artisan province though.