Discharge the Honourable: Chosokabe (Legendary, Domination)

[Maltz]

Back to the upper route, we discovered a Hatano army right at the border of Izumo. They would have no problem defeating the rebels. But this time we have learned our lesson - our Ninja is still free. So they easily sabotaged the Hatano army, who will hopeless watch their Izumo castle taken by the rebels, then us.



You would think that Hatano must hate us to the bone after seeing so many rebellions incited by us. However, there seems to be a maximum hatred in this category of -40. So our relationship is not that bad yet. Besides, Hatano is also at war with its neighbors on the other end. So they should prefer not to declare war on us.

But we never know - the opponents are sometimes very stupid. So far, we have been betrayed by all our military allies, Ouchi and Ito. Ironically, no one else has declared war on us but our allies. Isn't this strange?

Thoughts #20: Military alliance is for emergency

It seems that in this world, clans have a high tendency to break their alliance. There are just so many conditions that encourage a clan to break an alliance. Maybe they do not want to help an ally in defence. Maybe they have nowhere else to expand. Maybe they are simply stupid.

Making an alliance also has a strange effect on diplomacy - the positive favor actually wears off over time. You would think an old friend is more reliable than a new friend. This leads us to think that if we really want to keep peace with a clan, maybe it is best to stay away from allying with them until the last minute. This way, we will not be dragged into war by them with uncessary clans before we are ready to.

Staying away from alliances also gives us more strategic freedom in deciding what to do.

For example, if we want to be friendly with Oda and Hojo, we only need to maintain trade relationship with them, and stay out of their way. Only when we will amost come into contact with their territory shall we think about an alliance.

[Maltz]

As expected, Sogo moved all their army away from the Awa castle, probably trying to take rebel-controlled Tosa. It seems that any tiny clan in Japan has at least one full stack and half of army.

This is our perfect chance to unite Shigoku (except Tosa)! Our Ninja promptly sabotaged their main stack, while our monk conjured a rebellion right outside the Awa castle.



This is the last season for the Sogo clan. Shigoku is ours! We will stay away from Tosa until maybe the last moment.
We will instead use Awa as the Cavalry recruitment center, since it is better developed than Suo.

[Maltz]

Now we have a Hunting Lodge (upgraded from Encampment) in Buzen, we can recruit one of the most powerful and easily available bow units in Sengoku Jidai - Chosokabe Daikyu Samurai.



Thoughts #21: Range makes a big difference

Let's comapre Chosokabe's more advanced Bow units:

Chosokabe Bow Samurai
Range 150, Accuracy 50, Reoad 50, Ammo 25, Armor 5, Size 120, Cost 675, Upkeep 99

Chosokabe Daikyu Samurai Numbers in brackets are their current stats.
Range 175, Accuracy 55(72), Reload 35(37), Ammo 25(38), Armor 4, Size 120, Cost 950(756), Upkeep 135(176)

Chosokabe Bow Warrior Monk
Range 175, Accuracy 70, Reload 60, Ammo 30, Armor 2, Size 100, Cost 855, Upkeep 117

Chosokabe Bow Hero
Range 200, Accuracy 75, Reload 65, Ammo 30, Armor 7, Size 80, Cost 1700, Upkeep 190

The best thing about Daikyu Samurai is their early availability of extra 25 range (remember how ass-kicking Cretian archers are back in RTW, right?), so we do not have to wait for Bow Warrior Monk, which comes with 20 less men in a unit.

Long range is a huge advantage in many different situations, such as attacking without being retaliated, and forcing the enemy's range units to move forward for our melee units to quickly close in. Or they could draw the enemy's units forward safely.

The big disadvantage of these large-bow users is that they reload slowly. Therefore, they are not suited for defensive field battles (or offensive field battles when the defender actively closes in), even though they can set up screens against cavary charge. Therefore, we probably only need one unit of Daikyu samurai per army, as their job is merely to disrupt the enemy's ranged units.

If we later research Essence of Spirit to unlock Monastery, we could switch to Bow Warrior Monk, for they have better damage output rate, and they have the an additional ability (Whisting Arrows) to lower target's morale.

If we need affordable damage output, it is still the best to stay with beefed Bow Ashigaru, which comes with large numbers and reasonable accuracy when recruited in speciality provinces like Buzen.

[Maltz]

While my father decided to delay his storming of the Bingo castle so Hatano's army cannot save their next province from turning rebel, the defending rebels in Bingo decided to sally immediately. This was really a surprise for us, as they were definitely outmatched by my father's full stack.

My father laid out his usual formation on a little hill. One thin line of Yari Ashigaru spear wall at front, backed by a sea of loosely formed Bow Ashigaru. There were also reserve Yari Ashigaru on both sides, as certainly the rebels will attempt to flank us with light cavalry.



Exploit #20: Rebel in castle? Pick your battle

Since there is no hope of reinforcement, rebels defended in a castle tend to sally in their first besieged season. This allows us to pick our fight between a castle assault or a field defence.

In most situations, manually fighting a castle assault will certainly give better outcome. But they also take a long (real) time. Auto-resolve is instant, while field battle is relatively quick, too. So we are essentially picking between two quick alternatives of a long manual assault.

If our army is not much more powerful against the rebels, auto-resolving might give us higher losses. In such cases, fighting the field battle is more desirable. A reasonable loss ratio in a field defence against rebels is about 10-15%.

If no rebel unit made it to the exit when we choose to end the battle, we will instantly occupy the castle. So there is no loss of progress.

If our general is only two battles from leveling up, fighting the field defence battle might leave some survivors retreating into the besieged castle (easy win for auto-resolve next season), as long as we allow some units to escape. As we already know, this could be useful in generating infinite chances to get an ideal retainer, or keeping our agents always successful.

[Maltz]

This is also the first field battle that we had a chance to use our exotic Matchlock Ashigaru. My father kept them in the back, just in case any rebel breaking through our line. Here comes one light cavalry unit eating the bullet!



Instant rout! (They were already wavering and low in number.)

[Maltz]

A tragic ending for the rebel's saly. We might have achieved similar results with auto-resolve anyway.



The only 7 rebel soldiers made it out alive were not enough to regroup and defend the castle anymore. My father's army walked into the castle instantly.

[Maltz]

As we peacefully and indirectly devour our innocent neighbor, there are important developments in other parts of Japan. Hojo has declared war on Ikko-Ikki. This does not quite makes sense, as the two clans do not have any border provinces at this moment. They are separated by Oda, Takeda, and a revived clan west of Takeda.



Hojo has almost completely destroyed its enemies in the northeast. So it is probably imaginable that it is now ready to turn its strong military west. Can Ikko-Ikki hold them off for long?

And Takeda has been reduced to a weak power under the united pressure of Oda and Ikko-Ikki. We anticipate their downfall anytime.

[Maltz]

The next news is really shocking - the alliance between Ikko-Ikki and Odda is broken. This is probably because that Oda decided not to help Ikko-Ikki in their defence against Hojo. Oda is still Hojo's trading partner. And they are the two most powerful clans in central and eastern Japan.



While Oda and Ikko-Ikki is not at war yet, the end of their friendship already altered the future of Japan. If Oda stays friendly with Hojo for a long time, Hojo might be able to develop into a superpower that Oda will not be able to contain when they eventually fight each other.

Thoughts #22: If there are only 3 superpowers left, better make the other 2 fight each other

The best situation for us is that all remaining clans remain equally weak in their fruitless war against each other. So when we inevitably fight them, they will be all weak and underdeveloped. The worst we want to see is we are up against a single clan owning the rest of Japan. There won't be any Realm Divide for them, so this is bound to happen sooner or later.

So our goal should be to turn Oda and Hojo against each other as early as possible. This would contain Hojo's expansion, and prolongs the life of Ikko-Ikki.

[Maltz]

So let's see if there is anything we can do diplomaticaly to encourage Hojo and Oda fight. Hm... how come Hojo's relationship with us has deteriorated so far? Dishonoring treaties -49? What is this?



Feature or Bug?: Dishonoring treaties

When a clan attacks an ally/vessal, they receive a really bad reputation all across Japan. And this negative image is officially called "Dishonoring treaties", even though this treaty was made with another clan.

In this case, Hojo has probably declared war on Satomi (one of their enemies at the bottom). We know that Satomi used to be Hojo's ally.

Now, Hojo makes itself very unpopular in Japan, as every clan, including Oda and us Chosokabe, receives this Dishonoring Treaty modifier in their relationship with Hojo. However, there is nothing happening for other clans' relationship with Satomi. So we infer that it was Hojo who broke the alliance.

Why would Hojo turn against a loyal ally while it still has other enemies? This is really stupid.

Now it is quite hard for anyone to make friends with Hojo. This is a great news to us - Oda and Hojo is now more likely to fight each other. After realizing how bad military alliance really is, we do not want to ally with Hojo anyway, as this only brings us to unecessary war with Hojo's enemies.

[Maltz]

Let's come back to our own business. Our harmonious expansion in Chugoku continues. In this winter, we will be able to add two more provinces, Bitchu, and Izumo, to our rapidly-growing territory.



Hatano's full stack has been bumped to Bizen. Please note that although that army avatar appears to have run out its movement (sitting on a folded chair), this onlly means that they had run out of movement before they were bumped. They will still be able to move this turn.

Unfortunately, we did not realize this at the time, so we missed the precious chance to sabotage this army for the rebel (instead our Ninja burned their castle gate). The result is that the rebel we called up in Bizen was ruthlessly crushed by the full stack!

Lesson learned: When in doubt, sabotage that army anyway.

[Maltz]

As expected, my father was able to easily overpower the small rebel in Bitchu.

[Maltz]

Similarly, our young finance minister had no problem taking Izumo in the north.

[Maltz]

Our fast growing territory certainly made us famous. The Shogun has been really nervous.



But we will wisely pause just before he gets too nervous. That day should come very soon given our current rate of expansion.

[Maltz]

Our ramen general laid siege on the Awa castle. But he is not keen to assault the castle right away, since there are quite a few defenders in the Stronghold.



The rebels predictably sallied in the same season. Let's see what we can do on the field!

[Maltz]

Since the rebel has a large number of Cavalry but we have limited Yari units, our ramen general camped all the way back to the corner of the battefield, with spear walls completely seal off any possibility of flanking.



So what does the rebel cavalry do? They charged into the spear wall!

[Maltz]

There was a hill obstacle before our line, so the rebel infantry had to readjust their group formation when passing by it.



This delay not only resulted in the total loss of the rebel's light cavalry, but also funnelled most their infantry into the middle, where our always-massive Bow Ashigaru horde had plenty of time showering arrows on them one by one.

[Maltz]

We only lost 75 men. This is way better than storming the castle in the first place.



However, two dying units of Light Cavalry made it back to the castle. So we will have to fight them again next spring. In the meantime, we will suffer from winter attrition. This is not a problem at all - the soldiers will have several years of rest after this. The countdown to the pre-Realm Divide Pause has started!

This concludes chapter 14 of our story.

[Maltz]

Chapter 15. Long road to prosperity

Welcome back, great daimyos. I am Chosokabe Nana. Yes, I am back to narrate our clan's story.



My brother Motochika has become an official adult at a young age of 15, in the Nanban year of 1554. As the heir of our clan, Motochika must receive rigorous military training and accumulate his reputation (honor) as a good daimyo. He has boarded a ship in the Nanban port in Bungo.

We Chosokabe are undoubtedly now the richest clan in Japan, with a financial rating of "Spectacular" in the current issue of Daimyo magazine. We sell products to almost every corner of Japan. With the completion of Terrace Framing upgrade soon in all 21 provinces, we now generate an enormous amount of food surplus.
We still wish to further develop our economy so eventually we will be able to support our armies even without a healthy trading income. Within 3 years, we will be able to start improving our agriculture to its ultimate form - Land Consolidation. This will push our food surplus to about 45. We will have very prosperous towns in all provinces.

Only after we accumulate a tremendous amount of wealth and advanced military power will we take on the rest of Japan.

[Maltz]

In the meantime, we will simply maintain as many trade partners as we can. The best way to business is to be friendly to everyone. So we will try to avoid any kind of alliance, so we do not have to pick sides. No matter who is at war with whom, they buy Chosokabe products.



Interestingly, weaker clans such as Hatakeyama are now especially eager to pay to trade with us. They would pay so much. They probably think that the trading relationship will eventually lead to our "Terrifying" army's protection. But they never explicitedly ask for it. It is to our best interest that they are kept alive, as each trading partner brings in at least 1000 koku per season.

[Maltz]

Here, our financial commissioner takes over one additional province from rebels.



But he has to stop now. Our fame is now dangerously high. We can at most take just two more provinces. We have to pick them wisely. The next province on the upper route of Chugoku has nothing special.

[Maltz]

Finally, our trade fleet has reached the trade node in the northeast. Irons are a must for military. So far we have been buying Iron from other clans. Since whoever supplies us iron might not be our friend after Realm Divide, taking this trade node also help ourselves.



It is a good time to spend some time to discuss diplomacy for the upcoming Realm Divide.

Thoughts #23. Realm Divide Diplomacy

Realm Divide produces an one-time initial penalty at -50 or less, plus a gradually increasing penalty of diplomatic relationship up to -200. It is reasonable to assume that eventually even the best ally will betray us, but if we keep them friendly for long enough so that we can eliminate other hostile clans before they turn hostile, our diplomacy is already successful.

In order to make one clan to lilke us as much as they can, here are the factors to consider:

Military Alliance. Initially +100 relationship, but the effect wears off over time. So it is better to form the alliance at the last moment before the Realm Divide for the best result. While making an alliance, we can bundle it up with sending a Hostage just like we did with Ouchi. This powerful bargaining chip could create a very desired situation that allows us to ask the new ally to break their alliance with another clan, who is about to declare war on us due to Realm Divide.

We are in no hurry to find an ally. Our current favorite choice is Hojo, as they are the farthest from us, so there is little chance that they even want to betray us. However, this does not mean that we will not send agents to slow down their expansion. If we are so good that we can destroy them just by the works of agents, we do not even have to ally with them.

Marriage. Initially +100 relationship, but the effect wears off. While I am not going to re-marry into another clan, we might be able to find wives for my younger brothers from other clans. While we also want to delay the marriage to the last moment, we also want to get the girls before they are married to someone else.

The drawback of marriage is that we will be quite disliked by the clan's enemies. So it is probably a good idea to avoid marriage with an unpopular clan.

Trade. Improves realtionship +1 per season, starting from +15 and goes up to +60. Given that we have just relocated and established trade realtionship with other clans for a few years, we need to wait quite a bit longer for the friendship to develop. It is resonable that we trigger Realm Divide about 10 years (40 season) later.

Territorial Expansion. Each province acquired from another clan gives a penalty, which improves by +1 per season. Currently, we have a -28 modifier on this one. After seven years, all clans will forget about what ever happened to our bloody wars. However, once the Realm Divide triggers, if we take lands from another clan, we will again fill up this mind of hatred quickly. So it is still a good idea to use agents to create rebeled provinces as we move forward.

Monetary Gift. Everybody likes more money, even though they already have plenty. This may be the powerful push we need to improve the relationship of a certain clan to delay their war on us. It is more efficient to give an one-time large gift than many small gifts.

[Maltz]

Currently, we make about 15000 from trades - 13000 from the actual trade, 2000 from unsold resources. This trade income will stay more of less the same if we maintain the same number of trade partners. However, if we start losing trade partners, we will lose trade income.



It is reasonable to assume that after Realm Divide, we will lose a lot of trade partners as they declare war on us. So at that time we better rely almost solely on non-trade income - tax income.

[Maltz]

Let's draw a graph to explain it better.



Currently, our trade income is almost twice as much as our tax income from farming, towns, commerce (Markets, Sake Den, etc.), and mining. However, since we will have a lot of food surplus, we will have rapidly growing towns. Eventually tax income will surpass trade income even at its full capacity.

Thoughts #24. Realm Divide Economy

Most of our post-Realm Divide economy will be supported by tax revenue. But since trade income is still so lucrative, it might be worthwhile to keep a few trading partners, if we can turn a profit from it. If we think about the bright side, we would be supporting an additional ally through trade revenue with this clan. We won't get any extra money, but we get one less enemy.

A very reliable and inexpensive way to generate trade partners after Realm divide is to make vassals of formally destroyed clans. When we conquer a province, we sometimes have the option to revive a fallen clan which used to based in that province. Such clan will immediately become our vassal. If a clan is revived after the realm divide takes place, they will not be affected by the diplomatic penalty. We will be able to enjoy friendship with this clan and trade with it continuously.

Now since there are two Realm Divide triggers - one for having more than about 22 provinces (Domination campaign) and one for taking Kyoto, it would be a good idea to make both happen as quickly as possible, so we can start making vassals/trade partners all over Japan. Our current plan is to coincide the clan fame Ream Divide with our march toward Kyoto.

[Maltz]

Actually, trade income is not always stable. The fluctuation is not that big, but we can always expect one or more trade routes blocked or raided by our trade partners' enemies.

In addition, the Wako pirates always love to raid our trade routes or blockade our ports. Luckily, even one Bow Kabuya can defend a key passage, and keep a lot of ports safe.



In this case, we can effectly stop the Wako pirates from going north to threaten our trade routes base in Bungo, Buzen, etc. The Wako pirates also can't go west, as our full-stack main fleet is there. So it had no other choice but to go east, and eventually destroyed by other clans's navy.

[Maltz]

Here we received an useless mission - in order to Strengthen our Borders, we need to recruit one unit Iyo for a reward of six seasons of defence boost. We have no use of military and garrison as we are not even at war with anybody. So there is no point to hire anything in Iyo.



But later on we accidentally completed this mission by building a trade ship in Iyo. That somehow strengthened or borders.

[Maltz]

Let's take a quick look of our clan's current financial status.



We are generating a huge profit every season. There is no way we can spend that much. Now we are just saving up for the mass upgrade of farms (Land Consolidation) about 2 years and half later, which requires about 70,000 koku. Then we can simply save up and get ready for the Realm Divide. In order to keep army upkeep low, We will only start mass-producing high quality units in the last two years leading to the Realm Divide. We aim to have at least 100,000 koku in savings when Realm Divide kicks in. But the more the better.

In the meantime, we are moving our agents toward Hojo's territory. If there is anything that will cause major problems later, it would be Hojo. We want to weaken them as much as possible before we pull back our agents to weaken Oda.

[Maltz]

At the beginning of this chapter I mentioned that my brother Motochika needs to receive rigorous military training before he can become a respected daimyo. But how do we give him battle experience during peace time?



Well, why don't we use our old home? The rebels in Tosa was at minimal strength, with no cavalry. Motochika only needs to fake a siege to the castle to draw the weak army out to sally, and run in circles for a while. Although he does not have to engage the enemy, he develops a strong heart both from mentally facing a superior army, and physically riding the horse around the battlefield.

Exploit #21. Rebel trainer

When generals have no battle to fight, it is a good idea to level-up generals using weak rebel provinces, which has nothing else but ashigaru infantry defending in the castle. Just like the case of a Bow Kabyua on water, while laying siege to the castle with just the general's unit, the general can easily shake off the chasers and earn a heroic victory (50% more experience). So we can quickly level up generals. The drawback is that we cannot quickly interview potential retainers.

Defensive heroic victory does not increases clan fame, so it does not make Realm Divide happen more quickly.

Laying siege to the castle also has one important use on Legendary - it generates infinite save points within a turn.

If we do not want the general's bodyguard to suffer from winter attrition, simply break the siege (an option when we enter the zoom-in view of the avatar) before ending the winter turn, and walk the general back to our border.

Also, a basic Fort usually only holds a siege for 3 turns, so we have to break the siege in autumn and resume anyway, or we may accidentally take the castle.

The defenders in the castle also slowly suffer from attrition. Eventually they will be wiped out. But luckily there is always the free Samurai Retainer.

[Maltz]

My brother probably had a sore throat because he sounded like my uncle.



Can you tell which one is he? He is the one without the balloon in the back. The balloon "horo" marks the bodyguard so they can be more easily distinguished. They do not carry their tent in there.

[Maltz]

While our agents move toward Hojo's territory while opening every castle gate on their way, they discovered a new clan called Anegakoji.



They are probably revived from Hida, which was occupied by the Takeda clan. Now they actually own a province that has a trading port, and they are willing to sell their pants to trade with us. This is great!

[Maltz]

Now we own five out of the six foreign trade nodes, but apprantly here is an opportunity for complete monopoly. The last trade node (warhorse) used to be reserved by the Honma clan. The Honma clan is at war with the Ikko-Ikki, whose navy bumped out the fleet guarding this trade node, but strangely, Ikko-Ikki's fleet do not take the trade node.

We will gladly take over.



Exploit #22. Waiting in line for trade nodes

It is always a good investment to wait in line for a trade node with a cheap (but invincible) Bow Kabuya. The original reservation might be bumped away by an hostile fleet or Wako pirates, or simply vanish because their clan is defeated. Strangely, none of the attackers of the trade node is smart enough to split just one boat to inherit the trade node.

That concludes Chapter 15 of our story.