Maltz’ mini guides finaly bundled

[Peasant Phill]

Guide for the Dark Side: How to be Lucky if Luck is involved

This is mostly for those who enjoys the Dark Side. Let's get started!

(1) New random seeds are generated when a new save is loaded.

A lot of games nowadays are like this. What this means is that if you don't like the outcome of anything that involves a roll of dice, simply load a new save made before the event. For example, before your Ninja is about to flip a coin, save the game. If the outcome is undesirable, load the new save (and make another new one) then try again. Repeat until happy.

*Legendary mode? The game's save file can be found on the Hard Drive. Do a quick google search to find the locations, make a desktop shortcut to this folder. Make a habit of backing up this file. (Which is always a great idea regardless of your path. Saves can be corrupted, too!)

(2) Retainers are randomly generated at the experience gaining event

This means that you don't get a new set of retainer choices if you simply make a game save after the general or agent levels up. You have to make the save before the last battle/mission. Now since you keep loading the same save to carry out the level-up mission, you will always get the same outcome.

(3) Wife's trait is rerolled after every diplomatic transaction with that clan.

Save before proposing. If you don't like a bitter wife, load the save, do something else first (trade deals, etc.), then propose again. Repeat until wife is helpful. If only life is like that. :p

(4) Offspring can be randomly born in winter.

For those who get a good wife but now considers fertility clinic: Loading the autosave made at the end of autumn until you have a son. (A new autosave is generated every time you press end turn, so there is no need to make additional save. So you might get different end-turn events by doing so, too.)

*If all you need is additional generals, it is probably much more efficient to simply to promote generals for 1000 koku. It is also a random event available in the winter (maybe also other seasons).

The above are probably the most luck-dependent aspects of the game. Enjoy the force of the dark side! :D
Legendary is meant to be hard because you can no longer manually save the game. But there are work arounds that makes this handicap almost non-existent - it just takes a little time.

First, we need to know when the game makes autosaves:

(1) Before a battle. As soon as you enter the zoom-in view of the armies on the campaign map (and decide whether to fight manually, auto-resolve, or retreat), the game makes a save.

(2) After a battle. The saving action is a little delayed. It is possible to load the autosave made before the battle if you hit Esc fast enough.

(3) At the BEGINNING of every turn. Sadly, no autosave before the end of a turn. So if something screw up, you might have to replay a whole turn.

You can always make a backup of every different autosave above. These are also your oppurtunities to get a new random seed for agent actions. There is also a 100% reliable way to stay lucky even if there is no battle or new turn involved. We have to exploit the feature that moving some unit also generates a new random seed.

(a) At the beginning of a turn (autosave (3) is made), carry out agent #1 action. If succeed, perfect.

(b) If the agent fails, load the (3) autosave, move sometehing else, such as a navy fleet, then carry out agent #1's action. If succeed, write down what and how you moved. If he fails, load the save and move something else. Repeat until success.

(c) If you have more than one agent, simply repeat the steps to make agent #1 successful, make it happen, then do the move-act thing with agent #2, #3.

That's it! No difficulty stands in the way of the Dark Side! (hope it is fun for you)

[Peasant Phill]

Tip: Exploit of "Request to War"

Whenever you don't feel the need for expansion (to delay the Realm Divide), why not extorting some koku from AIs?
Requirement:

(1) An enemy that is badly beaten and is willing to pay for peace. If it is not, try to march anything into their territory. Suddenly it is very willing to pay for peace.
(2) An ally that is warring that particular enemy.

What to do:

(1) Accept the enemy's peace treaty, and ask it to break all other alliances (so you don't complicate things when you declare war on them later). Take their koku.
(2) Go to your ally. Use "Request to War" and offer your service declaring war to the same enemy. Your ally is likely to pay for your effort, too.

So you can simply repeat above and extract koky from both your enemy and your ally, as long as your enemy remains weak and is willing to pay for peace. There is no penalty for breaking the peace treaty. Nice!

[Peasant Phill]

Tip for Beginner Traders: Trade Agreements and trading nodes

Do you find out that the AIs are less and less likely to trade with you?
The tutorial tells you to give them 1000 koku first. This is ridiculous!

AIs are less happily to trade with you once you start occupying the six trading nodes on the sea.
All you have to do is, immediately before negotiating for a trade agreement, manually move your trading fleet slightly away from the trading nodes.
The AI is tricked to think that you have 0 trade nodes, and will be very happy to trade with you. You can even ask them to pay some koku for this privilege.
After the deals are reached, move those fleet back to the trade nodes. Buhahaha.

[Peasant Phill]

Guide for Beginners on High Difficulty: Selling Military Access

This is mostly written for new players who have not appreciated the power of the technique, and for the keeners who insist on squeezing out every penny out of the AI legally (but probably not ethically). Welcome inputs.

I guess a lot of people may call selling military access to willing AI neighbors an exploit. (So is selling open borders to other Civs in Civilizations.) On lower difficulties you can always get away without them. However, selling military access provides much needed initial boost for the top difficulties. Besides, military access still has to be sold carefully so to avoid nasty troubles later.

Summary

- Selling military access is a significant additional income especially in early game. It still generates a steady stream of income from neighboring clans until they turn against you.

- Declaring war on the buyer causes diplomatic penalty to ALL clans.

Whom to sell

- Neighbors who have direct access to your territory. When you offer the access their willingness would be "High", so you can bundle up the deal with a payment demand.

- Neighbors whom you DO NOT plan to attack in the near future. If you attack anybody who bought your military access, you face a diplomatic hit to ALL clans. That includes the case when you are forced to war that clan by your ally.

- Neighbors who will be wiped out immiedately in the end turn. Load the auto-save and sell the military access for eternity, which means 1 turn.

How

- Turn 1: Sell the lowest 5-turn access for about 400-600 koku. You can probably squeeze some additional cash from establishing trades.
- Turn 2: Sell the 10-turn access for about 1000-1500 koku.
- Turn 3: Sell the 20-turn access for about 1500-2000 koku.

The reason not to sell 20-turn access at the beginning is that the AI might not have enough cash/willingness to pay. But if you really need cash that badly, why not?

After that, every few turns come back and re-sell the 20-turn access for about 1000 koku. The military access date will not be extended by 20 turns, but simply reset to 20 turns.

After expansion, you might acquire new neighbors and who are willing to pay to visit your new acquisition. As long as you don't plan to attack them, this is always a good idea.

*Never sell the indefinite access (since you can keep selling the 20-turn access forever) unless the buyer clan is about to attack you, or be eliminated in the end-turn.

How to spend the income

- Hire lots of Ashigaru and mop up your top-priority enemies while the AIs are still relatively weak.

- Get agents. Build temples and hire monks. Demolish temples, build Sake Den and hire ninjas. Demolish Sake Den, build markets and hire the secret police. Agents are just great.

- Get some ships to secure and profit from nearby trade nodes.

Concerns

Q: Suddenly my military ally has indefinite military access to me! Can't sell anymore!
A: This is because you are fighting the same enemy. When that condition disappears, you can sell again.

Q: Will the AI suddenly declare war on me while his army is right beside my defenceless capital?
A: The AI's army will be bumped to the border when it declares war.

Q: Will the AI be more likely to declare war on me?
A: Doing so will greatly damage its reputation. Probably not.

Q: Will I make a jail for myself if I run out of place to expand? Then I will have to pay for military access.
A: Ship your units to jump across your buyer. Or use monks/missionary to incite rebels to take over your target province, followed by your own merger without any diplomatic penalty (yes, that qualifies for another exploit).

[Peasant Phill]

Tip: Sea transport relay chain

I guess most people already know this... just in case. If you played Mass Effect, this is the exact same thing on a smaller scale.

We all know that shipping units from the sea is faster than having them walking on land. But there is a little exploit on sea transport, too. When you merge two navy fleets (A and B), you can double the travel distance of the transported army.

How

(1) Army to be transported boards fleet A.
(2) Fleet A merges with fleet B. Position fleet B within fleet A's range. DO NOT let fleet A use up all its movement while merging with fleet B. Save just a little bit of movement.
(3) Manually moves fleet A away from the merge fleet (so you need just a little of movement left on fleet A). The army transported by fleet A is now left on fleet B, which has full movement.
(4) Extend the chain further if longer travel distance is desired.

Practial Uses

(1) Transport fresh elite troops or a new general from the production base to the front line quickly.
(2) Relocate a powerful army to a new front line.

Concerns

(1) Each relay costs at least 50 koku upkeep.
(2) Can be easily disrupted by enemies/pirates.

[Peasant Phill]

Inciting rebellion

I guess many people already know the technique/exploit to use monks/missionaries let a target province taken over by rebellion. Just in case you don't know yet...

There are a few distinctive advantages about it:

(1) The rebels could successfully take the province if it is poorly defended. Then it does not invade other places. Simple and predictable.
(2) A powerful foe could lose a lot of non-front line provinces in a short time, severely crippling it.
(3) This is a very effective way to take over an ally-controlled province without any diplomatic penalty.

Here are some additional tips:

(1) Only incite rebellion when there is little garrison. The rebels will attempt to attack the castle ONLY IF they think can win. If the garrison is too powerful, the rebels will wonder in the field amd does nothing (waiting to die by the winter cold, basically). So getting a rebellion in AI's well-defended front-line city helps very little, while you might end up dealing with it later. I read from multiple sources that the resulting rebels scale with the size of the defence. But I find the rebel's size does not go over a certain maximum - probably restricted by the agent's level?

(2) The chance of success tops at about 50% if your agent has the same religion as the target province. For example, if you use a six-star monk to incite rebellion from a Shindo-Buddhism province, the best chance you have is only a little more than 50%. However, if you use that monk to incite rebllion from an Ikko-Ikki or Christian province, the success rate could be a lot higher.

(3) Prepare your own army to beat the rebel-controlled province before the AI takes it back!

(4) Your agent has to have a reasonable success rate at this mission or the game would not allow you to even try. Fortunately, it is realtively quick and completely free to train monks (demoralizing armies on plain soldiers).

(5) The rebels do not take the city straight away even if it thinks it can win. Wait for an additional turn.

Ninja + Monk = Win

Teaming up Ninjas with a Monks will achieve some great effect. Use the Ninja's Sabotage army ability to prevent the super army from returning to defend a province, when the incited Rebel marches freely to take a ill-defended castle.