Pagans' Requiem: Shimazu (Domination, Legendary)

[Maltz]

And now we finish up the remaining of Imagawa's army. With 2/3 of their stack deflecting to our koku, it seems so easy.



And we suddenly have the second army as well! Can't really blame the mighty koku.

Note: By the way, the constant naval battles created numerous auto save point to ensure our agent's always successful missions.

[Maltz]

Now Imagawa's invasion has turned into a trategy, we can sign a fat peace treaty with them. They even agree to break all their current alliance!



This might give them new enemies to fight, so they won't make another silly invasion later.

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Adding another trade partner to the list - Hojo.



In order to avoiding paying more for the trade deal after conversion (due to the large -40 religious penalty on diplomacy), we must secure as many trade partners as we can before the conversion.

[Maltz]

Back to Otomo again! Otomo has three generals in the army, and our Ninja's effort reduced that number to one.



It really looks like we are outmatched by unit quality - they have 8 units of Samurai and 2 units of Imported Matchlock Ashigaru! But the commander (cough, that's me) makes a lot of difference. Let's fight!

[Maltz]

OK, Otomo really has a peculiar way of thinking. They deploy just behind a little hill... But we have no intention to race to the top of the hill (marked as "1"), since our numerous Bow Ashigaru's arrows will be blocked by trees.



It is better to fight them on open ground. The height advantage on that tiny hill is limited to just a few units, and is not worthwhile. So we will approach them from the open (marked as "2").

[Maltz]

Otomo decides to backup to the corner, on a little hill. The terrain is open - just what we wanted.

As Otomo camps, it is unlikely that it will mobilize its entire army to march at us until we deliver enough damage to its ranged units.



At the front of the Otomo's formation are two units of Imported Matchlock Ashigaru (range 100). So we can probably safely attack it with our Bow Ashigaru (range 150) without taking any bullets. Of course, I would inspire the archers so they aim better than they would normally.

[Maltz]

Wow that one got him in the stomach! Blood splashes on the camera!... what is camera?



Otomo's Matchlock Ashigaru pretty much just stands there to take arrows. Only after they take significant damage would they retreat to the back (and come back later to receive more arrows).

[Maltz]

After we dealt enough damage to Otomo's guns, Otomo sent three units of Bow Ashigaru to challenge us. We sent up five units to accept the challenge!



Should have sent up the entire archer crew, but soon we noticed something...

[Maltz]

We saw that Otomo's entire melee is charging forward!



So we quickly move up the Yari Ashigaru line and ordered them to form a spear wall!

[Maltz]

The two lines made impact! Our spear wal was not long enough to contain all of Otomo's Yari Ashigaru and Samurai, so our reserve Yari Samurai (the unit closest to us) had to come forward extend the line to stop one unit's advance.



There were still more Otomo's Yari Ashigaru coming up, so we sent out the reserve Yari Cavalry (on the far side) to distract them. There is no way Otomo's spearmen can reach them.

[Maltz]

Our line contained Otomo's numerous melee units very well, while our superior number of range units quickly reduced their morale. The Ashigaru units routed, and the samurai followed.



Otomo's Yari Samurai was not really living to their names - this unit routed with 85% of their men alive! Lesson learned: Don't waste money to mix samurai with ashigaru to take the heat.

[Maltz]

Although the Otomo general (the only one who were luckily not assassinated by our ninja) was the last unit to rout. But it was a little late - most of them were trapped by our chasing Yari Ashigaru.



All that's left of Otomo was a very well-aligned white line (their bodies) on the battlefield.

[Maltz]

Even Otomo had a large number of samurai units, our more experience Ashigaru (and a better commander *cough*) took the day.



Actually, there were two units who made it out of the battlefield. So there was more free experience for me!

[Maltz]

Now that we crushed Otomo's short-lived rebellion and Imagawa's short-lived invasion, we can conver to Christianity as planned.

Why did it take this long? We were waiting for the 5th and last Metsuke to be recruited from Tsukushi last season, so we can demolish all Markets and forget about them for a while. When we convert this season (winter of 1550), we can immediately begin the construction of Chapels in all provinces that's not already Christian (all provinces except Buzen and Bungo).



This is a difficult road to travel, but here we are!

This concludes chapter 4 of our story.

[Maltz]

Chapter 05. The contraction before born again

Welcome back, daimyos! I am Shimazu Takahisa, daimyo of the Shimazu clan!

We are now "born again" Christians! But technically speaking, we are still in the womb, because most of my people are still believers of Buddha. Conversion to the nanban religion will take some time, and we will have to endure increasing religious unrest in the provinces, just like the contraction before giving birth. Only after we get through the most violent contraction can we really be "born again", and start to invade others in the name of the Nanban God! Er... cough.



Immediately we can start constructing the Nanban Quarter, which is an upgrade of the Nanban Trade Port. The nice thing about Nanban Quarter is that it does not require any research art, and it allows us to import European Cannons and construct Nanban Trade Ship. The former is a beast on the land. The latter is the ruler of sea. In order to get very accurate European cannons, we definitely chose Buzen to build our Nanban Quarter (only one is allowed).

[Maltz]

Religious unrest increases by about 1 point per season. So eventually our Metsuke cannot control the unrest all by himself. There are too many radical religious zealots to arrest! So we have to start hiring garrisons. Ideally, we maintain a public order at perfect neutral of "0" to minimize our spending in garrison upkeep.



Everything looks good at first until... Ouchi declared war! This is what they do after reviving themselves - not to seek revenge from whom destroyed them in the first place (Mori), but to turn to their friendly trade partners (and leaving their capital completely undefended)?

Otomo is not the only idiot in this world. War it is, then! (Note: it really seems that the AI will prioritize on attacking the human player even if this is totally against their interest of survival... we will just treat them as AIs and mow down all of them anyway.)

By the way, Ouchi managed to upgrade their port to Military port, and started producing Sengoku Bune. This ship is very fast when it rides the wind. This has created some problem for my second son, Yoshihiro's Bow Kabuya while he attempted to play cat-and-mouse with them on the sea. There are still chances to remain unharmed for 20 minutes, but it requires quite a bit of maneuevering.

[Maltz]

There seems to be more trouble with our other Vassal, Ito. Suddenly we observed that Ito's full stack moved away from its caste, and... there is no where else they can tour on Kyushu but in OUR territory! It is very likely Ito is planning for a rebellion.



But that also gives us a perfect chance to er... relief them from their vassal duty without any bad feelings. Hyuga is one of the poorest provinces in Japan, so we have no interest in occupying it, either. This way, we can occupy one more good provinces before pausing for pre-Realm Divide.

[Maltz]

So what do we do to... relief Ito of their vassal duty? You probably have guessed it right!



(1) Ninja: Sabotage army
(2) Missionary: Recite rebellion.

The spawning spot of the rebellion (pointed by the arrow) is right between Ito's army and its defenceless castle. Since their army cannot move, the rebel will have a free shot at the castle. And the Christian rebels happily did.

[Maltz]

This season also saw a rare oppurtunity to pay 2500 koku to train more experienced Bow (+2) infantry for a whooping 10 seasons!



It looks like we will have to put the Import Matchlock Ashigaru on hold for now. We already imported 4 units of Imported Matchlock Ashigaru so far. Maybe Ouchi will march something close for us to do target practice.

[Maltz]

There are plans, and there are... revised plans. Since we expect to lose Ito, our own remaining vassal, we can definitely use something else to boost my honor, so we receive happiness bonus in the provinces and maybe more positive images on the diplomacy table.



So naturally we now look at Tea Ceremony. We will research that first, then go for Chonindo. Then we go for Gun Mastery as planned before.

[Maltz]

You must be joking - Imagawa sent ANOTHER full stack and is now just south of Shigoku. Is the nanban god testing my patience with the stupid designs of this world? What the hack is this absurdity? What can't you find someone else close to you to fight?



But strangely, as we have started mass hiring of garrison units to control religious unrest in all provinces, our military power quickly boosted from Strong to Mighty. Then Imagawa's fleet actually backed off. So... OK, at least there is a way to avoid this absurdity - hire more army!

[Maltz]

Well, not all absurdity of this world brings anger. Sometimes they bring gifts. For example, even if we already lost Ito as our vassal... it is not reflected in the official record! My honor bonus from "Vassal established +1" never disappeared even after Ito is replaced by Christian rebels. Or maybe the nanban god did not think it is my fault to lose this vassal anyway. Hm... isn't He supposed to know everything? So He knows I caused all this...



Note: The real purpose of turning Hyuga to rebel is to create a conveniently located Infinite save point. Now our agent horde can go out in full force! Woohoo!

[Maltz]

Hm, we wished for a target practice for the Matchlocks... here they come! Ouchi's full stack has crossed the strait and is just outside the castle of Buzen. Let's fight!



Ouchi's stack contained a crazy number of 5 generals and a Metsuke. Even if we have three ninjas in Buzen, we could only reduced them to 3 generals and... no Metsuke. Our army is not very well-balanced, with only 4 units of spears, as we just moved away 3 units of Yari Ashigaru to help Tsukushi to maintain order. We have to fight this battle very carefully.

[Maltz]

The battefield features a tall hill, which the Ouchi army happily camped on. It is OK - we have no intention to attack them on the hill anyway.



We chose to march al the way to Ouchi's south side, and camped on the edge of the battlefield. Although it remains a mystery why we can't back off for a few steps more. The reason that we chose this spot is that there are two short cliffs on both side to protect our flanks. So our very short line of four spear units is still sufficient.

But we still prefer not to have the full-army clash too early. We have a lot more arrows than them (as we have completed the Heaven and Earth art, which also increases Gun units' ammo by 50%!), so we want to water down their numbers before the showndown.

We first attempd to lure Ouchi's units with Bow Ashigaru. This Yari Ashigaru, when they realized they were being shot at, gladly charged down the hill, without any support.

[Maltz]

This is Shimazu's famous "Bait and... not hidden" tactics! That Yari Ashigaru chased our men all the way into the range of all of our range units. Hundreds of arrows and bullets made our welcome... capped by Light Cavalry's charge.



Amen. One down, 17 more (3 generals, 5 bows, 9 yari) to go!

[Maltz]

Soon we were able to bait another Yari Ashigaru unit down. This time our bait ran across our line from right to left to increase the exposure of the prey to our fire power.



Amen. Two down, 16 more (3 generals, 5 bows, 8 yari) to go!

[Maltz]

After two units of Yari, we attracted a Bow unit this time. We easily out-duelled it with two Bow Ashigaru units of ours (should have used more, but I was a little over confident).



The Bow unit started fleeing... but there is no time to chase it, because...

[Maltz]

Because Ouchi's entire army was moving to their right (our left)!



We definitely recognizes this as the prequel of a full-force assault. However, if we do not move, our left flank will take most of the heat. We don't want this to happen when we have such a disadvantage in melee. So we have to relocate to a better place... the south-east corner!

[Maltz]

Interestingly, the moment Ouchi's Bow Ashigaru stopped fleeing, Ouchi abandoned their full assault plan, and resumed their camping on the hill. I did not realize this until we have finished our relocation to the south-east corner.



So what do we do? We tried to lure Ouchi's unit all the way from the corner. And it actually worked! This time it is a general! But when our bait (my second son) ran back to hide behind spears, Ouchi's general promptly retreated. He is not that stupid.

But we learn more quickly than he does. They actually can't learn.

[Maltz]

So we tried to lure Ouchi's general again. And this time we welcome him with spears! Four units of spears charging from both sides. As long as contact is made, no matter how small, the entire unit is trapped!



Amen! Three down, 15 more (2 generals, 5 bows, 8 yari) to go!