Discharge the Honourable: Chosokabe (Legendary, Domination)

[Maltz]

Table of Content

Book 1 - Dishonorably Charged

Chapter 01. Leftover of Ichijo
Chapter 02. Kono, the sitting dead duck
Chapter 03. Sogo, one clan destroyed by one man
Chapter 04. Showdown of Shigoku
Chapter 05. Good things happen
Important Announcement

Book 2 - Prophecy Exodus

Chapter 06. New strategy
Chapter 07. Great leap to richness
Chapter 08. Shoni, the fat meat
Chapter 09. The last stuck samurai
Chapter 10. A daughter for a son
Chapter 11. Ito, Kamizake warriors
Chapter 12. To lose is to gain

Book 3 - Passion of the Buddha

Chapter 13. The curse of Nana
Chapter 14. Harmonious expansion
Chapter 15. Long road to prosperity
Chapter 16. Hunting, hunted
Chapter 17. Infiltration
Chapter 18. Stepping stone to Kyoto

Book 4 - The Black Tsunami

Chapter 19. The Battle of Kyoto
Formation: The machine grinder
Chapter 20. The Dark Wave named Chosokabe Shogunate (the end)



INTRODUCTION

Greetings, honourable daimyo,

My name is Chosokabe Chikakazu, the Chosokabe clan daimyo's daughter. I am here to report my family's epic struggle in this era of war in the hands of maltz-san. In this story, you will find:

(1) Silly, sometimes epic mistakes made by maltz, since it is his first attempt on Legendary.

(2) Dishonorable exploits (hence the name of the story) performed by maltz on the flaws of the other clans and the world's design - I will mention them whenever I am consciously aware of his shameless exploits.

(3) Strategic discussions - Maltz tries to make the most rational choice based on his limited experiences.

I hope this story will help you formulate your own honorable or dishonorable (which is probably more likely) strategies, and possibly provide some entertainment while you enjoy your afternoon green tea. Please do not treat my story as a guide, rather a personal journey of finding fun with the Sengoku Jidai.

Before we even begin, we have to know the most important thing with a Legendary campaign - backing up your progress. Maltz creates a desktop shortcut to this folder for easy access. He makes a backup save every time a new auto-save is created.

Exploit #01: Being always lucky when luck is involved

A Legendary campaign is supposed to be irreversible, but there are loopholes. The mechanics of getting lucky results using a new save game (or not) is explained here. If you are too busy to read it, please let me tell you that the enemy general will always drink their green tea. Please assume that maltz resorted to saved games liberally throughout this dishonorable (but admittingly very enjoyable) journey.



Thoughts #01: Chosokabe Family and Clan Overview

(1) Old Daimyo and General. My father and his loyal general are both more than 40 years old. Since people die young all the time in the Sengoku Jidai, they are already living on borrowed days. We must be mentally prepared for the ascension of my young brother, Chosokabe Motochica, during the course of the campaign, and look forward to promote young generals.

(2) Daughter at peak reproductive capacity. That's me. Poor father was unsuccessful in making survivable offsprings for 14 years. Well, I serve as a powerful bargaining chip to form an alliance with one special clan. Better be a powerful clan that we want to maintain peace with.

(3) Daimyo has good traits. My father boosts his soldiers' morale, which is a great asset for Ashigaru, which starts with 5 morale (Yari) and miserably 3 (Bow).

(4) Cheaper and more effective archers. This is a great trait. We will certainly be training a lot of archers. An archer-heavy army is especially devastating in early-game battles, when enemies can be easily routed by endless arrows during their advance. The Bushido arts Heaven and Earth (50% more arrows) and Way of the Bow (fire arrows) will be top research priorities.

(5) Navy is key. From maltz's past memories on lower difficulty, the winner of Shigoku's inner struggle remained the king of the island for a long time. AI's lack of interest on invading Shigoku is probably explained by the lack of land route access to the island. As a result, a powerful navy would be crucial for homeland security. Developing a strong navy also synergize well with the nearby trade nodes, which should be occupied by Bow Kabuya as quickly as possible. Since we want to occupy trade nodes, we better occupy Kyushu to maintain the dominance of the trades, too.

That concludes the introduction of the story.

[Monk]

The legendary Maltz returns to making campaign stories. I am watching this one with interest.

[Maltz]

Book 1 - Dishonorably Charged



Chapter 01. Leftover of Ichijo

Welcome back Daimyo. It is Tosa, Spring of 1545.

The remnants of Ichijo clan begs to be swept into the Pacific Ocean. But they have roughly the same strength as we Chosokabe. How do we approach this battle?

Exploit #02 - Reinforcement generals get EXP, too

Most of you probably know this already. Generals who participate in a battle leading a reinforcement also gets the same experience. So we split out the general as reinforcement. This also has added benefit that the split general is a cavalry unit, and therefore can travel further then the main infantry army. So they can activate battles without costing the infantry army's movement points. This allows our attack on Kono in the fall (Chapter 2).



Note: The screenshots are taken from Battle Replay, so the radar map is present, but the unit cards are invisible.

The Ichijo army initially deploys on the plain, but as soon as our army gets close, they will relocate to the top of the hill (A). There is absolutely no way to make it to the top of the hill before the Ichijo army. Maltz have died trying 6 times.

Then a Youtube video enlightened him. In that video (also Legendary Chosokabe), the player marched the entire army forward on the plain, and the enemy somehow decides not to relocate to the mountain. So the battle takes place on the plain (B) Sometimes, the simplest way is the best way!

So our Chosokabe army marched forward in formation (Tip: Group all units together to move as one), with Bow Ashigaru in Loose Formation + Fire at Will at front. As soon as the Ichijo army starts relocating to the hill, we sent the Bow Ashigaru forward to start shooting. Some of Ichijo's units, one unit of Yari Ashigaru plus one unit of Bow Ashigaru, were distracted and attacked our Bow Ashigaru, while others continue their journey to the hill.



That charging lone unit of Yari Ashigaru unit was quickly welcomed by two units of Chosokabe Yari Ashigaru. At the same time, my father and his general both rushed forward. The general charged into the back of the Yari Ashigaru, while my father bravely charged into the shooting Bow Ashigaru standing in the back!



Ichijo's over-confident Yari Ashigaru was quickly routed. One guy was sent flying by the general's charge!



The bow Ashigaru was hopelessly charged by my father and his bodyguards. Soon they started fleeing as well.



Ichijo knew they made a big mistake by splitting the army even for a brief moment. Their general tried to save their day by ordering his men down the hill to join the melee. But it was too late. There was no Ichijo men still fighting by the time their help arrives. The Chosokabe army did not chase the routed men all over the place. They have started setting up a trap for the rest of the Ichijo army.



Ichijo made their desperate bid of victory by throwing everything they have at the Chosokabe. Their Light cavalry were greeted by Yari Ashigaru's spears. Their Yari Ashigaru and Samurai also fell in the trap, attacked on all sides.



The Ichijo general, who leads the Yari Samurai, started fleeing even if their men did not suffer heavy casualty yet. None of them made it to the exit of the battlefield.
This was a heroic victory for the Chosokabe clan, losing only a few dozens of soldiers. In no time their wound will heal (or their brothers will take their spot)!

For the few those did escape, they will be quickly hunted down by our army. Both my father and his general are ready to pick up a retainer and will be able to march army farther due to their strategic minds. There is a Chinese saying that "godly speed is army's valuable asset".

Thoughts #02: Picking Retainers

My father was looking for the following retainers in particular:

+2 morale (Legendary x player). Daimyo only. Generals get the +1 morale version. Very useful for leading Ashigarus.
Sword of Amaterasu. Reduce enemy's morale. One of the three Imperial Regalia of Japan. Available for both Daimyo and Generals.
+10 Diplomatic Relations. Daimyo only. Battle is won after Diplomacy fails. How about winning at Diplomacy in the first place?

After numerous interviews and refusal letters that started with (we regret to inform you that...), he ended up picking a Chinese Coutier (+1 Honor, +10 Diplomatic Relationship). However, the +10 Diplomatic Relationship apparently does not work. Maybe it is a feature. My father's general hired a good shooter that blesses his bow units with +5 accuracy.

This concludes Chapter 1 of our story.

[Sp4]

Waiting for more =o I should write one of these myself.

[Maltz]

Chapter 02. Kono, the sitting dead duck

Welcome back, brave daimyos.

A lot of you predicted that Kono would actively attack us Chosokabe. It also happened in a tutorial, right? Well, maltz-san found that if we take heavy loss in the rebel Ichijo fight (by auto-resolve, etc.), the Kono will detect our weakness and invade, probably followed by the betrayal of the Miyoshi clan. However, if we managed to cut down loss in the rebel fight, Kono would stay in their castle. Miyoshi would also continue trading with us for now. Not that I am suggesting that you are not very good at battles. Maltz-san died at that rebel battle 6 times as well.



Chosokabe's next goal is to take care of the hostile Kono clan in the Iyo province. In the summer of 1545, the Chosokabe army, now reinforced by two fresh units of Bow Ashigaru from Tosa, reaches the border of Tosa and Iyo. The army will be able to reach the enemy's castle in the fall.

By the way, we have demolished the Archery Dojo without even hiring one unit of Bow Samurai from it. It is too expensive and slow for our need. We want something ten times more versatile on the battlefield. Yes. The answer is Man in black. But they will not join the action until next summer.



Since now Kono remain in the castle, they should be more protected than on the field right? Safety is one of the seven deadly illusions in Sengoku Jidai. If you are paranoid about assassins hiding in some tree above you, one in fifty will fail to get you.

Exploit #03 - The predictable AI under siege

We actually LOVE to fight siege battles. In the majority of the cases, our enemy will display very predictable behavior that leads to loss of lives. If you have some time reading, you can see the full description here.

The Kono defender only has 1 ranged unit, a Bow Ashigaru. The AI assign them to defend a wall that faces our initial deployment. We know that this unit is unwilling to move as long as our initial deployment remains still.



The Chosokabe general and a unit of Bow Ashigaru simply march by the castle's west without being attacked. They need to get to the east side of the castle. The Bow Ashigaru were afraid, probably because the bridge was not designed to hold 120 men. What does the general have in mind?



Our general only wants to find a perfect angle to take out the defending Bow Ashigaru. Here is a perfect angle. With the general's Inspiration, our Bow Ashigaru not only regained their confidence, but also all of sudden became expert snipers with telescopes!



None of the enemy's Bow Ashigaru made through the 30 volleys. What a miserable ending of these stupid defenders. Now that the enemy has no more ranged defenders. We can easily shoot down everything else. The trick is wait for a unit to come in range and stand still, release two volleys, and wait for the next oppurtunity. When the arrow finally depleted, the melee units charged in. Easy job!



Kono was defeated, but the province of Iyo was very unstable. Our conquest of Shigoku has to take a one-season break here. We will recruit some more units back in Tosa, so we can leave some guarding Iyo. The next march will start in the winter!

In the meantime, we start sending Bow Kabuya to visit the trade nodes west of Kyushu. If we are lucky, we should be able to reserve a few trade spots. We do not have any spare fund to develop a trade fleet yet. That will have to wait after the conquest of Shigoku.

Thoughts #03: Trade or the rest of Shigoku?

Maltz-san reported that in his initial attempt, he went for the "Trade" strategy. He started selling military access (see strategy here) to Sogo and Miyoshi from the get-go, remain friendly with them, and used the extra funds to developed a prospering trading economy by the third year. However, there was very little to do next, as Sogo and Miyoshi refuses to fight each other despite they just broke the alliance and trade deal. Besides, the monks were successful in setting up revolts, but due to some map feature, the revolts in Awa were stuck and even the town's garrison refuses to do anything to them. We were extremely reluctant to declare war on clans that has our military access as it will make us look bad in all Japan. However, our main army cannot be marched anywhere else and leave the home undefended. So that parallel universe for Chosokabe quickly reached a good-looking dead-end.

So maltz-san wanted to try the brutal approach - take the rest of Shigoku as quickly as possible. There was no military access sale to the rich enemies. So we had to spend very carefully. We could afford very little infrastructure upgrades. We will end up with a poor economy by the time Shigoku is united. However, we will be able to march the main army away from a safe home.

That concludes the story of Chapter 2.

[Maltz]

Chapter 03. Sogo, one clan destroyed by one man

Welcome back, great daimyos.

By exempting Iyo's tax, we only needed to leave two units of garrison there, and started marching the rest of our army toward Sogo clan's Sanuki province in the winter of 1545. By the next spring, we stopped just short of the border of Sanuki. War is not to be declared to Sanuki until the summer, as the army will be able to reach the castle in the same season. There is no point to give Sogo one season to prepare.



Chosokobe's very first Ninja has just obtained his undergraduate degree from Tosa's Ninja College. He is on his way for his first assignment. He reports that most of the Sogo clan's force, which is slightly more powerful than ours, is surprisingly stationed outside the castle. This is actually good news for us, since the castle there has been upgraded to a stronghold. A siege battle is undesirable because we will be inevitably shot by the arrow towers on the top and only level. But how do we deal with a more powerful army?

Dai jo bu (No problem).

Exploit #04. Free save points. Initiating a castle siege creates a new auto-save. However, there is no need to fight the siege battle immediately as we can choose continue to the siege, and create another new save the next time we consider attacking the castle. Since loading each new save generates a different parallel universe, we have infinite opportunities to make whatever our wishes come true as long as we have an army besieging a castle.



Our army reached the castle In the summer of 1946. Our army is in no shape to score a great victory against a superior force like this. What should we do? Well, didn't we already plan for this one year ago?

Thoughts #04. Ninja: Sabotage army I have heard Daimyos advocating that Ninja should not be used on a Legendary world because their shadowy missions are too expensive. Indeed, Ninja missions cost an arm and a leg, especially the sabotage army missions. Sabotaging a full stack costs slightly more than 1000 koku. However, a sabotaged army is unable to move for the current turn. During this paralysis, they are also unable to participate any nearby battle as reinforcement. This can create very dramatic outcomes, saving us more than 1000 koku in return.



That's indeed our plan. Our ninja, although fresh from college, was destined to sabotage Sogo's medium-large force because luck, if there is any involved, is always on our side. Now, the Sogo army was unable to reinforce the castle defenders even if they were just outside the castle. There must be a fire breaking out in their ration storage tent.



The siege battle was fought without my knowledge of the details (auto-resolve). But somehow we managed to pull it off without anybody receiving a scratch even though there were arrow towers in the Stronghold. How did we achieve that is a mystery.

Exploit #05. Auto-resolve. If you vastly outnumber the enemy, auto-resolve usually scores the win with 0 loss, which could be impossible to achieve if the battle was fought manually.



After stealing the castle under the eyes of the Sogo army, both my father and his general become even better strategists, and learned to compose basic poems that consists of inconsistent rhymes, fallen-apart parallel structures, and cliche scenic and emotional words. Good enough for our ashigaru to admire so they discover Bushido slightly faster.



Our researchers first followed the Way of Chi for the Emperors' permits to construct Markets and Temples, both enabling the recruitment of useful agents. We did not have the fund to build any yet, though. Our next goal is to switch to the way of Warrior, Bushido, and grab Heaven and Earth, which gives us more 50% more arrows. Not useful during a field battle, but very interesting when dealing with extremely predictable castle defenders.



Now we have the castle, but the Sanuki force remains. The remaining army of a destroyed clan only vanishes if it is outside their own territory. We are in no hurry to deal with it now, since fighting on the field can be problematic. We will not be able to stop the enemy general bodyguards' charge once our extremely limited melee units have engaged the enemy. Our bow-rich army is optimized against castle defenders or an all-infantry army on the field. Cavalry is bad news.

Dai jo bu.

Thoughts #05. Ninja: Assassination In this world (of STW2), clans no longer go extinct once all of their family members are assassinated. There will always be a randomly adopted distant third cousin. Therefore, family genocide is no longer a meaningful practice. The role of assassination is therefore reduced to remove key general's units in an army to (1) remove the threat of cavalry, or to (2) remove the various bonuses the general would have applied to his units if a battle is about to take place on the same turn. Trigger happy on assassination of any general we see only adds financial burden to the clan.

As there are two generals in the Sogo army, we need to take care of both of them before we fight the field battle. A wounded general is a good as a dead general.

In the meantime, we hired one additional unit of Yari Ashigaru to make the total to 2 (the rest of them were left in Iyo), and started the construction of a Buddhist Temple in Sanuki to plan for something further ahead.



Winter of 1546 came. The freed Sogo army managed to sabotage their old quarry in the province, and laid siege to their old castle. We would love to see them assaulting the castle, but they were smart enough not to do so. If we don't do anything about it for this winter, they will suffer attrition in the field. However, as soon as our Ninja wounded their second and last general, the time is ripe for a field battle. Why wait for the next season if we can beat them up this season?



The Sogo army had quite a few units of Yari Ashigaru, with a fewer percentage of Bow Ashigaru. Our army has the opposite composition, but with two additional units of general and the 45 Samurai Retainers that volunteered to join the sally. These guys have a lot of brothers and cousins as replacement, so even if they end up all dead, we will not feel any pain.



The Sogo army, led by an inexperienced Ashigaru commander, was naive enough to march towards us. Maybe that's their honorable way to die under impossible odds? This gives us the pleasure to camp on the highest hill, with six units of Bow Ashigaru in loose formation of a little "[" shaped pocket, taking their best view of the field.

When the enemy approaches, my father and his general inspired two units of Bow Ashigaru. They and the remaining bowmen rained endless arrows on the enemy's head. The Sogo Yari Ashigaru tried to charge uphill, but they were soon stopped by our brave Samurai Retainer and Yari Ashigaru half way. They are arranged in a wide and thin formation so that they can stick with as many units as possible. All enemy units in contact of our melee will be unable to charge our archers, so that our archers can continue to harm them. They ended up sticking with five out of the six Sogo Yari Ashigaru units (the Samurai retainers only had 45 men, so they only managed to intercept one unit).



The only Sogo Yari Ashigaru not entangled in melee rushed toward our archer on the left flank. That's why there are generals! My father bravely charged the flank of this unit. He could not remain a good formation since he had to run through the ranks of archers. His general also charged forward towards the Sogo's Bow Ashigaru.



In a short time, all of Sogo's Yari Ashigaru routed, followed by their Bow Ashigaru. The day is ours!

Thought #06. End Battle or Continue? I have heard a lot of recommendations of not ending a battle when the choice is presented in the first time, but manually chase down the routed soldiers. In fact, if you choose to End the Battle in the first opportunity given, you have a good chance to leave nobody alive. If you choose to Continue, you might not be able to hunt everybody down. Killing everybody might not be always desirable, because leaving weakened remnant army alive could provide another 15 EXP for the generals when there is no time pressure.

Indeed, we purposely let some very weak units escape, only to hunt them down immediately after. This enabled my father and his general to gain more experience. We have no time pressure at the moment, because our next opponent will be so powerful that we need one extra year of preparation.

This concludes Chapter 3 of the story.

[Maltz]

Chapter 04. The showdown of Shigoku

In two years' time, we the Chosokabe clan was able to remove the minor factions of Shigoku. What remains is the Miyoshi clan, our loyal, friendly, and powerful trade partner. Miyoshi holds the provinces of Awa and Awaji, a little island connected by a narrow strait. Both Miyoshi's provinces offer something good - the war horses from Awa, and an additional harbor from Awaji. This will bring a total of our future trading ports to three, greatly increasing our sea trade income.

Declaring war on Miyoshi could create strategic difficulties, though. First, the clan starts with a foot hold in Honshu, the main island, so we will have difficulty eradicating them, and their large naval forces would threaten ours. Fortunately, at this time Miyoshi had already lost their Honshu province. As soon as we take over Shigoku, Miyoshi is forever gone.

The second problem is that Miyoshi is allied with the Bessho clan northeast of our Shigoku island. Declaring war on Miyoshi probably will make us the enemy of Bessho, which we will have to deal with later. Besides, the Bessho clan has other allies, so our trouble might grows larger and larger.



On the tactical side, Miyoshi does not have a weak army like Kono or Sogo. Since two years ago, they have been stock-piling units in Awa. While our total force at this moment consist of half a stack, the Miyoshi's force has reached a full stack of 20 units. We cannot beat them even if we exhaust our wits and less-honorable tricks. We must recruit more soldiers to bring the odds to our side.

Therefore, in the winter of 1546, my father returned to Tosa and Iyo to lead new recruits and old garrisons back to Sanuki. We aim for totally 10 units of Bow Ashigaru, 4 units of Yari Ashigaru, plus the starting 1 unit of Yari Samurai for the winter of 1547. That's not a full stack (20 units), but enough to give us a good chance to hurt Miyoshi's full stack plus whatever reinforcement they have.

Also, as the temple in Sanuki is completed, we hired a monk. He will assist in our struggle against the powerful Miyoshi.

In the meantime, we have sent out 4 units of Bow Kabuya to occupy as many trade nodes as we can. We ended up taking two out of the four western trade nodes. The other two was reserved by no other than Miyoshi. That means if we beat Miyoshi, we will have all of the four trade nodes west of Kyushu.



Soon, our Ninja detected that Miyoshi was upgrading their Awa Fort to a Stronghold, which has arrow towers that can kill a lot of our men. Therefore, we must prevent the completion of their Stronghold. Fortunately, we can easily do that by Sabotaging their Castle Gate with our Ninja. I do not understand why they can't continue working on their Arrow Tower while only the gate is broken. Besides, each time we break the Gate, the work on the Stronghold would be delayed by two turns even though Miyoshi must have infinite funds to hire so many soldiers so quickly. As a result, we can easily keep Miyoshi's Stronghold one turn from completion, while in the meantime, some of Miyoshi's generals would suffer a bad, or something fatal diarrhea from drinking poisoned tea.



We were ready for war by the winter of 1547! Miyoshi's defence had swelled to 25 units of soldiers. (Luckily, their generals are all lying in the hospital or cemetery.) There is no way to avoid a fierce siege battle. This is going to be our final exam of Siege 101: Attacking enemies in a Fort. We need to be able to predict Miyoshi's every move, and use various techniques to trick them to behave in the ways we desire.



Stage 1: Deployment to lock in on wall defenders

Miyoshi is going to have reinforcements. We predicted that their reinforcement is going to come from the west side of the Awa castle, so we deployed everything to the west in order to kill each reinforcement as they enter the battlefield. This would happen later, as the defenders in the castle is already at full capacity. The reinforcement would only arrive if they started losing units.

By deploying everything on the west side of the castle, we attracted all Miyoshi's wall defending Bow Ashigaru to the west and south sides of the castle. (All Bow Ashigarus are pointed by arrows.) There are four units of them. They will not move away as long as our bulk army does not move too close to another side of the castle.

You must have observed that two additional units of Miyoshi Bow Ashigaru remain mobile in the castle. We need to take them out to create a safe shooting spot to the other defenders.



Stage 2: Lure out the mobile shooters

Luring out the mobile shooters is easy. All we need to do is to initiate an archers' duel, and then pull back the duelling unit. The defenders will happily give chase and exit the castle. Soon, they will hope that they were smarter.

Since currently there are no wall defending shooters on the east side of the castle, we marched both generals, one Yari Samurai (in rare cases, Light Cavalry would come out of the castle), and one Bow Ashigaru unit all the way to the east side. Once we started the archer's duel, two Miyoshi Bow Ashigaru units joined the shoot-out.



We quickly pulled back our Bow Ashigaru, and Miyoshi's two Bow Ashigaru units gave pursuit just as expected. Once they were sufficiently far away from the castle, our two generals charged them head-on. (Actually, we kind of screwed up on timing, so my father ended up charging both units before his aids came close. Luckily, no arrow found his face.) The Miyoshi men were quickly routed and hunted down.

By the way, when a castle-defending unit routed outside the castle, they will not attempt to flee back into the castle. Instead, they try to retreat to the edge of the battlefield.

Once an existing unit dies off or flees, the reinforcement will arrive.



Stage 3: Dealing with the reinforcements

Miyoshi's reinforcement showed up on the side we expected, from the western edge of the battlefield. Thanks to our Monk, these soldiers have been contemplating about Zen, and doubts their meaning of life as a cannon-fodder Ashigaru. So we expect them to wave the white flag fairly quickly.

As the reinforcement appeared, my father quickly rushed back from the east to defend the path to the castle along with four units of Yari Ashigaru. Miyoshi's leading Light Cavalry was quickly routed when they ran into spears. Their Yari Ashigaru units suffered a similar fate, outnumbered, surrounded and destroyed in order.



Then two units of Bow Ashigaru appeared. We pulled back our melee units, and used our own Bow Ashigaru to duel them. With height advantage and the daimyo's personal inspiration, we took very reasonable losses when the opponent ran for their lives.

However, since they routed quite quickly, they will remain active on the field after this battle, but probably won't have enough time to cause any problem.



Stage 4: Targeting Practice

All reinforcement has been taken care of. We can focus on the defenders in the castle by shooting just outside the east wall, one Bow Ashigaru at a time. When one unit exhaust their ammunition, they walk back to join the rest of the army on the west side, while the next unit walks up. Our two generals take turn to inspire the shooters, making them think they are Bow Samurais.

Each unit kills more than 200 men, sometimes 300. We had 10 units of Bow Ashigaru. So we should have enough arrows to get them all.



The targeting practices started with the closest wall-defending Bow Ashigaru. We were able to kill all but one man in the Bow Ashigaru unit defending the south wall. That lucky guy was hiding behind a pillar.

For safety, we next disabled the Light Cavalry units. The trick is to only shoot at most two volleys at a unit that has just become stationary (usually after the second volley, they will start running).

After about six units of Bow Ashigaru used up their arrows, the once heavily populated Awa castle has been littered with corpses. The remnants of the melee units are no longer any threat. But we still have not cause any damage to three units of wall defenders, who are on the other side of the wall and is out of range. They have to move for us to shoot.



Stage 5: Reposition the wall defenders for elimination

We need to reposition the wall defenders so they actually enters our range. Ideally, they should face the south side, since the walls on the west and east sides of the castle are not very tall. We successfully tricked them to move when we relocated our idle army to the south side of the castle, close enough but still outside of their range.

Now both the west and east sides of the castle are safe for shooting. However, there too many wall defenders, so when they spread out, they were able to cover a little section of the west and east wall.

After some careful marching (actually not very careful, we lost about a dozen of men who accidentally walked into their bow Ashigaru's fire range), we were able to find a small area on the east wall for our Bow Ashigaru to shoot most of the wall defenders down. Some of them are untouchable due to distance and building protection.

We have to make them move again.



So we moved all of our idle units back to the west side. The defenders follow. Now our shooters could use the south wall for some more easy kills.



But some Bow Ashigaru are still sheltered by the gate house. The only side of the castle that does not have a gate house is the south side. Why not move them back? Their number has been cut down so much, so they will all fall into the range of our arrows.



That's exactly what happened. Can't hide this time! All three wall defenders eliminated.



The last Bow Ashigaru were targeted by an entire unit and had dozens of arrows going through his chest. Really poor guy.



Oh here is a smart guy. Can you tell which one? He is the one hiding just under the little shrine. The battle ended before our Bow Ashigaru ran out of arrow, because they had to run inside the castle to get this smart guy.



Finally, the battle is over. 2800 of Miyoshi's men lost their lives, but only slightly less than 200 Chosokabe men were killed. Apparently we passed the final exam of Siege 101! It is the power of knowledge and patience (this battle took a long, long time even on fast forward replay).



Now Miyoshi's main army is destroyed in Awa. Just a tiny province remains. Shouldn't be any problem... Unfortunately, we have a situation here. Miyoshi's ship is parked on both sides of the narrow straight between Awa and Awaji, so our army cannot pass! All we could do was to quickly queue a Medium Bune from Tosa, and pull back the Bow Kabuya that we sent to explore along the east coast of Japan. Together they should be able to get rid of the two Bow Kabuya.

Strangely, Miyoshi voluntarily moved away both ships in the following two seasons. In the spring of 1948, the second and last ship moved away to attack our Bow Kabuya returning from the east. We had no intention to fight, so we just dragged them in large circles to end this meaningless encounter.



Exploit #06: Battle Timer. A Legendary world does not prevent us from changing the time limit of battles. For small-scale defensive naval battles that we wish to avoid, simply change the battle timer to 20 minutes, and run in great circles on the map. The enemy also does not seem to use the "Battle Speed" ability. So we can even slowly increase our lead off the enemy ship.

By the way, a similar exploit can be used to win siege battles - by laying a siege with just one general unit. Every time the defenders sally, just circle the battlefield while the enemy cannot catch up. After 3-4 fights, the castle defenders will starve out. This works against an all-infantry army. If the enemy has cavalry, though, they might be able to catch up our general when the battle timer is almost up. Maltz-san tried that to the Miyoshi's Awa garrison and his general died miserably at the end.



With the Miyoshi navy gone, our army in Awa quickly laid siege to Awaji and stormed the castle. I am unclear about the details of the battle (auto-resolve), but I do know that we only lost 70 men to kill all of their 700 plus. That's really good.



My father became a really experienced army commander after this battle, so he picked up the ability Stand and Fight, which provides a huge boost to nearby units. He also learned to become more honorable such as by swearing less often, so the other clans will show him more respect.



My father was also able to hire a second retainer. After numerous interviews (which is why the siege of Awaji is auto-resolved), he picked up a... sword as his second retainer. The Sword of Amaterasu, the Okami! (Echo: Okami! Okami! Okami...)



News travels quickly. The Emperor in Kyoto has noted our successful conquest of Shigoku. What lies ahead? Only one thing is certain - we will be facing tougher and tougher challenges.

That concludes Chapter 4 of our story.

[Maltz]

Chapter 05. Good things happen

Welcome back, wise Daimyos.

Notice: It seems that our chapters are getting long, that even the first page of thie war story stretches from the front gate to the out house. Many of you could experience slow load time. Therefore, we are going to have one picture per entry until we get to the next page.



It is the year of Nanban's Lord, autumn 1548. A great harvest arrived, and we decided to stockpile the food so we could have 4 seasons of 5 food surplus. This would translate to +20 growth in the castle town's commerce. At 20-30% of tax and 5 provinces, this means 25 extra koku per season to the end of the campaign. Not so much, but good to have in mind.

Note: Events like these (great harvest, Nanban trade port, etc.) are random. But if this season's auto-save file is loaded, the event is forever lost as if it never happened. The closest solution is to initiate some kind of battle in the turn in order to have a new save that perserves the good event. On the bright side, if we get bad news, it can be easily fixed, too.

We the Chosokabe clan gained controlled of all Shigoku. But in order to compete with other clans of Nihon (Japan), we still have a lot to do.

[Maltz]

Thoughts #06: One enemy at a time

Nihon's #1 "Daimyo" magazine published its latest military power ranking of all clans. Our clan unfortunately ranks very poorly, down to the Weak category, although our economic power is ranked in as Moderate. Therefore, we score quite high on the fat meat index.

Aggressive and ambitious clans would think that Chosokabe is a loose passive fish and declare war on us as soon as they run out of enemies. But in fact, we probably will stay high on the "fat meat" index forever, since we are the only clan in Nihon that does not print its own money and recruit self-replicating soldiers.

We have to be careful not to make multiple enemies, or we will be overwhelmed by their wealth and number. Therefore, the hostility of the Bessho clan, who honorably joined Miyoshi's side against us, must be discharged before we find another enemy to fight.

[Maltz]

Thoughts #07: Cheap Marriage

After Bessho succumbs to our power, our next target of conquest could be Kyushu, literally the nine provinces in the western island, for its isolation and vincinity to our successfully reserved trade nodes. Currently, Kyushu is divided among three clans. The two clans in the north, Shoni and Sagara, are allies. Shoni in addition is allied to Ouchi on the west end of Honshu the main island. Sagara has converted to the religion of the southern barbarian (Nanban). We call them barbarian because their chests are so hairy. The third clan Kyushu clan is Ito to the south, which has no allies.

Attacking Shoni or Sagara will make us enemies of multiple clans. In order to make a successful invasion on Kyushu, Ito would be the best target. Then we can slowly work on the rest.

Shoni is now surrounded by allies, so they must be looking for somewhere to expand. Maltz-san recalled that in his last attempt of this world, Shoni declared war on us Chosokabe despite being a trade partner with us. If this happens again, we will be in deep trouble. So we must do something to prevent it.

One of the ways to befriend Shoni is to propose a marriage between the two clans. Both clans have unmarried daughters. Why waste me if they have a daughter, too? Plus I do not wish to marry to somebody who is going to die in a few years. At least let me finish narrating Chapter 10.

In this Honor-bound world, Daimyos do not cherish their daughters and can sink the virtue-less ones into the bottom of Nihon Sea at any time. In fact, the Shoni clan agreed to marry his daughter to our clan - strangely, to whom we do not know - for merely 50 koku. You have a deal! I really feel sorry for her.

[Maltz]

Now that we have friendly clan to our side. Let's look at Shoni's diplomatic relations. It seems that Shoni has just gained a new enemy - the Mori clan to the east, whom we have not met. This is great, so we know that now Shoni's armies will be directed to Mori.

[Maltz]

Thoughts #08: Imbalanced Trade

We would like to have a stronger army, but we need to find more income. Our first Trading Port is completed, in Tosa, in the winter of 1548. We are ready to sign our first sea trade agreement. Since our clan now has three exportable resources: horses, stone, and wood, it will be a little hard for us to find comparable trading partners.

Many daimyos wonder why the larger clans have to pay the smaller clans to trade. Well, trade treaties in this world is more like free trade treaties - once it is signed, we can sell as many products as possible. If I can use an analogy 460 years later, we will be like the United States of America pushing for Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership, or TPP, among smaller countries in the region, so that we can export a lot of products to them for great profit. The smaller countries's smaller local industries could be overwhelmed and die off, so they might not be really better off. So in thesee treaties we might need to compensate them a little, so everybody is benefited.

But of course the United States can always make up dishonorable excuses like weapon of mass destruction or nuclear threats to invade those who does not obey. Unfortunately, we are not powerful enough to threat smaller clans to trade with us. I am not sure whether it will work at all.

Interestingly, in this world, the profit of trade outweighs the income of actually occupying those lands. This is probably because people only use 30% of their income to pay tax, but use 70% of their income to buy things - hopefully they like to choose our Chosokabe products.



Our new best friend Shoni asks for 2500 koku to sign a trade agreement with us. that's a little too much. They must be one of those bastards who charge more to their friends and relatives. After some shopping around, we go to the Imagawa clan, who only demands 1100 koku. This clan has stable alliance with its neighbors, so it is unlikely that our trade partnership will end any time soon. Our trade with Imagawa turns a profit of almost 300 koku. Why not 493 koku, as shown in the picture? If we don't trade with them, the unsold products is sold for 190 koku, so the net profit is 490-190 = 300 koku. In any case, this is a great deal, as we will start earning a good profit a year later.

Exploit #07. Cheaper Counter-offers

Negotiating clans tend to lower their requirement in a counter-offer, sometimes even making it lower than your initial offer. For example, when we offered to pay Imagawa 300 koku for 5 turns, for a total of 1500 koku, Imagawa said "1100 koku cash at once". Perhaps these clans cherish cash a lot more than per turn income.

Looking back, it might be a better idea to build the trading port earlier and look for a trade partner when they would sign the treaty for free. But we did not have enough koku to invest in ports at that time.

Thoughts #09: Markets and Metsuke

A conventional way to make money is to build economic infrastructures such as Farms and Markets. At this moment, all of our Farms have been upgraded as much as possible, but we only queued one Market. Market increases town growth by about 4 per turn (which translate to 1 extra koku income this turn, 2 extra next turn... so after 10 turns it is extra 55 koku, after 100 turns it is extra 5001 koku), and allows us to hire Metsuke. These secret polices can supervise castle towns and cut down corruption. They are both good investments to be made early.

Thoughts #10: Profit from War?

The fastest way to make a lot of money is actually to have war aimed not to destroy enemies, but to cripple them to extract maximum profit from Peace Treaty, and selling military accesses to any temporary new neighbors (we will then abandon unwanted provinces to rebels). Since the other clans are all so rich, we will be able to get a huge income from it, which can be used to upgrade our infrastructures. We have a perfect candidate for that - the Bessho clan.

Let the battles resume!

[Maltz]

We cannot find a battle blind-folded. Our Ninja and Monk, who excellently disguised as, respectively a Monk and a Ninja , crossed the Seto Inland Sea. They reported Bessho has one and half stacks of army, and three units of navy - two Trade Ship in a trading port, and one Medium Bune patrolling th shore. If we want to make a perfect landing with our fleet intact, we have to take care of Bessho's navy first. So we queued a new Bow Kabuya in Awaji. By winter 1548, we are ready to take on to Bessho navy!



Each side has three ships. The main ship from both sides are both a medium bune. But we hold a very good advantage - the enemy's reinforcement appears in the back. So we can quickly take care of their Medium Bune, then come back to handle the trade ships.

[Maltz]

We let my father's trusted general to lead this Naval battle. The Bessho Medium Bune bravely rowed toward us. We surrounded it with our Medium Bune and two Bow Kabuya. They suffered heavy losses by the arrows, and our Medium Bune's War Cry was just in time for the melee stage.



Our men bravely defeated the Bessho sailors and captured their main ship! We also managed to capture their two trade ships, but they mysteriously ran away. Must be a feature.

Exploit #08: Agreesive AI in Naval Battle

On the sea, the opponent always row all ships toward us as soon as the battle begins. Since they are so predictable, we can deploy accordingly to maximize our advantage. For example, we can easily lure the enemy into the down-wind. In this battle, if we deploy to the far south of the sea, we allow ourselves even more time between the first encounter and the second, making it possible to use War Cry on both melee stages.

[Maltz]

Now the Bessho navy is defeated, we can decide when and shere to ship our units. The more powerful Besso army is to the west, while anbther half stack guards a bridge in the east. If these two stacks do not attack us together on the field, we should be able to take care of each one easily, especially if they are stupid enough to hide in a castle - both are just basic Forts. We killed 2800 Miyoshi men in a fort. So seeing enemies in a Fort is a great news.

In the next seaon, the more powerful Bessho army moved toward the west. We were very surprised to learn that Bessho has just broke into war with their powerful neighbor in the west. This creates a perfect oppurtunity for our landing, which takes place in the eastern province, Settsu.

[Maltz]

Before we move our land army, we capture their escaped trade ships. We reserved four trade nodes, but we have just one Trade Ship so far! Medium Bune is really excellent at capturing these weak ships.

[Maltz]

Now we have a great oppurtunity to cause extreme damage to Bessho. Both of their castles are conquerable - they are so close together we can take them both out in the same season. Is this what we want?

Our original plan is to beat them up so badly that they will sign a peace treaty that ships us thousands of koku. But since Bessho's full stack is away fighting their neighbor, we might not be able to overpower them militarily unless their full-stack is somehow defeated. Or we can simply wipe out Bessho and take their two provinces, both have Trading Ports. That will bring us lots of trading profit. But it might make us additional enemies later, and we will have to get some garrison here.

[Maltz]

To trading profit, it is! We decide to wipe out Bessho and make use of two additioanl trading ports. Maybe later on we will need to give up these two provinces, but at least for now we can enjoy it.

The first province to take is Harima, which has no garrison at all. This battle was over before I finished my tea break.

[Maltz]

In fact, the sequence of conquest matters a lot here. This is because that Bessho's full stack is still within the border of Harima. If we leave Harima the second and last province of Bessho, that full stack will remain there and we will have to fight it later. However, if we take Harima first, by the time we take the second province Settsu, that full stack will be regarded as outside their border, and will vanish forever.

Exploit #09: Vanishing Remnants

When we take the last province of a faction, if its remaining units are out of the border of this last province, it will disappear for good. It might be a good idea to purpose leave alone an enemy's defenseless province to be the last one to conquer.

[Maltz]

Important Announcement

Welcome back, honorable daimyos.

While we successfully eliminated the Bessho clan and grabbed two new trade ports, we found a serious oversight in this world's rules. While we expect to trade with two additional clans with newly acquired ports, and to the newly found neighbors such as the Ashikaga shogun, but the somehow our sailors are unable to move any goods from Shigoku to the main island Honshu, as any good that entered the sea mysteriously sink to the bottom of the ocean.

After some research, we now understand a strange rule of the world - a clan can only trade from ports that has a LAND ROUTE connecting to its capital. Japan has one large land route system that includes the main island Honshu and the western island Kyushu. Shigoku, unfortunately, does not share any land route connection with the rest of Japan.

Essentially, we Chosokabe are limited to a MAXIMUM of 3 trade ports (Tosa, Iyo, Awaji) for the entire campaign, while other daimyos can have dozens. Any trade port we control on the main island is completely useless. Any provinces that we own on the main island cannot trade with its neighbors.

This is terrible.

There are a few possible solutions to this problem:

(1) Enable intra-clan sea route connections. We can add the rule that ports connected by a sea route to the capital can also function as trade ports. We ship goods to other clans' ports anyway, so why can't we ship goods within our own ports?

(2) Add a land route connection between Awaji and Settsu.. The narrowest strait between them are less than 4 kilometers apart. A few hundred years later there will be a bridge above it. It would be stupid if the rest of Japan are all connected by land routes, but Shigoku is excluded from this system.

(3) Enable clans to move capital. Oda Nobunaga moved his capital from Kiyosu Castle (Owari) to Gifu Castle (Mino). Toyotomi Hediyoshi built and moved into Osaka Castle. And he ordered Tokugawa Ieyasu to move to Tokyo. So why can't we move our capital because we found a better strategic location? However, this does not fix the fact that anybody else who conqueres Shigoku and Sado will find no new trade possibility.

The above three solutions require modifying the world, which we have no ability to. Maybe someone with extensive skills and knowledge can help us. In the meantime, we must work out some alternatives based on the current world's rules:

(4) Intentionally lose Tosa. When the original capital is lost to another clan or rebels, a new capital is then randomly chosen among provinces that have the most advanced castle. So we still have some degree over where our new capital will be - as long as it is not on Shigoku.

(5) Bite the tongue. We endure and work with extremely limited trade ports throughout the campaign. We might need to travel back in time and do something different in order to maximize our very limited trade income. For example, conquering Sogo in Sanuki would be a net loss to our income, since there is no port in the province, and therefore they will serve us better buying our products. Conquering Miyoshi is trade-neutral, as Awaji has a port. So the net gain is two additional provinces to collect tax and the warhorse resource.

After some extensive deliberation, we decide to have a combination of (4) and (5). We will not relocate at the very beginning, but actively plan for the move. We also updated the world to its latest version, with various added content. It is still a new world to be discovered.

[Maltz]

Book 2: Prophecy Exodus

Chapter 06. New strategy

Welcome back, daimyos.

As mentioned in the previous annoucement, we planned to restart our campaign due to a serious oversight of this world - our trade routes are limited to the land routes provided on the Shigoku island, unless we purposely give up Tosa. We also updated the world to its latest state with various additional contents such as the Ikko-Ikki pack and the Blood pack.

Before we go further, let's compare what's the major differences in the updated Sengoku Jidai.

(1) My name is 7. The makers of the world probably have found out that my old name actually belongs to my unborn younger brother, the one after Motochika. So they did the right thing to gave me a new name, Nana, which conincidently means SEVEN in Japanese.

(2) Many errors fixed. Many retainers' bonus, such as +10 diplomatic relationship, now correctly applies. Sadly, my father's old favorite Chinese Courtier has been nerfed to +5 diplomatic relationship and no honor bonus, so we consider to hire someone else.

(3) Arrows are less deadly. What can be killed off by 3 volleys of arrows now might require 5, probably also resulted from a weakend general's inspiration. This is a major hit to our clan's power, as we rely heavily on archery. But it can work in our favor, too. We will suffer less casualty in field battles against an opponent that uses a lot of archers.

(4) Defenders are smarter in castle, but more stupid on the field. Some old tricks in castle assault, such as drawing out individual units with archer duels, frequently fail. However, opponent actually becomes more susceptible to this trick in field battles, where individual units charge into us when provoked.

(5) No easy heroic victory. It is now a little harder to be an honorable daimyo. Battles, if not won by a landslide in extraordinarily disadvantaged circumstances, will not be count as Heroic Victory. But... there are loopholes. We can put the Daimyo on a Bow Kabuya to draw attack from any enemy. Run circle in the water for 20 minutes. Heroic Victory!

(6) 1000 extra starting koku. We used to start with just 2000 koku in treasury. But now we have 3000 koku at the beginning.

There must be other changes, but I cannot recall them at this time. Let's continue the story first.

So what's our new strategy here? We want to maximize our trade partners before we move the capital away from Shigoku. When our capital is located on Shigoku, we can have up to 4 trade partners. There are two ways to achieve that:

(1) Three sea trade (eliminate Kono and Miyoshi) and one land route.
(2) Two sea trade (eliminate Kono) and two land route.

The difference is about whether to defeat Miyoshi, our starting trade partner. Taking over Miyoshi gives us two more provinces, but it will make us one additional enemy - the Bessho clan, which we now have absolutely no interest in taking any time soon. Their lands have too many neighbors. On the other hand, sea trade is more valuable than land trade, since we can purposely pick trade partners who have more provinces and hence larger markets for our products.

But keeping good terms with Miyoshi allows us to sell Military Access to them, which provides a huge initial boost in treasury at about 5000 koku, and roughly 200 koku per turn after that. This income boost will certainly give us enough power surge to take over some juicy opponents. Who should we pick on?

[frogbeastegg]

I'm pleased to see that you continued with your quest for a legendary Chosokabe victory.

If this is your first time playing with the Ikko-Ikki pack installed might I suggest that when convenient you attempt to keep a line of sight on central Japan? The tweaks to I-I religion make central Japan a real hotbed, with clans rising and falling and rebellions all over the place. It's fascinating to watch and sometimes there are opportunities for a sharp daimyo to take advantage of.

[Maltz]

Thanks, Frogbeastegg! So Shinto-Buddhism's monks will stir rebellions just like missionaries?

[Maltz]

Ichijo Rebel - Spring 1545

The first battle against the leftover of Ichijo clan looks largely the same. We approached the battle by marching toward them head-on on the plain. The Ichijo army, however, reacted more quickly than before as they rushed for the hill before we got any close. Our archers failed to lure any of their units forward.



But they are not smart after that. When we marched one general close, one Yari Ashigaru unit charged down hill, and chased the general all the way into our trap.

[Maltz]

We then drew another Yari Ashigaru unit with our archers by engaging in an unproductive archer duel in the forest. When no more Yari Ashigaru can be lured down, we dueled the archers on the open and won with general's inspiration and superior accuracy of Chosokabe.

[Maltz]

When Ichijo is left with just two units (Yari Samurai and Yari Cavalry), they honorably charged down hill into our spears. We won an even better victory compared to last time, losing less than 10% of our men. Certainly we will recover to full strength before the next battle.



New Retainers

It is interview time again. After screening hundreds of candiates, my father picked up an old man who trains my father to act in (+1) more honorable ways. His general, whose new look resembles a ramen noodle cook, picked up +10% accuracy for all infantry bow units. The ramen general would be great for castle fights, while my father's morale boost is better for field battles.

[Maltz]

Selling Military Access

We sold 5 turns of military access to Miyoshi in spring, followed by 10 turns in summer, and 20 turns in autumn, for a total of almost 6000 koku. Why would Miyoshi want our military access so badly?



Maybe they want a guarantee of peace from us, as if we attack them when they have our military access, the entire Japan will look down on us for some reason. But in the end, we also want to keep them alive so we can continuly sell our yearly tickets to them. They want peace so they pay. We want them to pay so we keep peace. Everyone is happy!

[Maltz]

Kono Castle - Fall 1545

Same as before, we took Kono clan's castle in the fall of 1945. The fight happened in pretty much the same way as before. The Kono army had only one unit of Bow Ashigaru, which defends whichever wall we ask it to. This makes them very good stationary targets for our Bow Ashigaru.

We also discovered a new little trick for the final castle storming. Right after we entered the castle, we can arrange Yari Ashigaru in spear wall formation, the enemy defenders will bravely chrage toward us and die horribly (and honorably). Perhaps the door to the central keep is locked so they can't get in there to commit Seppoku in the final moment.



The battle ended with three of our Yari Ashigaru twisted their arms.



Note: Kono is very lame for an starting enemy. In a previous parallel world, we abandoned Tosa at the very beginning, thinking that Kono would quickly take over Tosa and help us relocate our capital. But they never came year after year.

[Maltz]

Military Access to Sogo

Starting in Fall 1545, we sold military access to Sogo clan. With all these hot sales of advanced door tickets, we could update the infrastructures of both Iyo and Tosa, especially on farms and trading ports.



Although we plant to lose these provinces later later, we will still be making good profits with them before that day arrives.

Note: A clan at war will attempt to make landings on undefended territory. So it will be important to have a strong navy to intercept any such attempt.

[Maltz]

Looking for a sea trade partner

Our trading port in Tosa is completed. Who should be our first trading partner? We decided to pick Mori, since they were doing pretty well at the time. And they only charged a minor signing fee.



Our decision to go with Mori soon turned into a disaster as they were quickly eliminated in the coming few seasons...

By the Fall of 1546, we have done all the preparation necessary for the next phase of our campaign. Where are we going next?

This concludes Chapter 6 of our story.