Pagans' Requiem: Shimazu (Domination, Legendary)

[Maltz]

The instant Chosokabe lost their general, the remaining four units of bow units decided to flee, even before they took any damage... but they were automatically killed anyway.



The battle is finally over! This is probably a classic example of the "Bait and not hidden" tactics. We killed 13 out of 17 units this way.

[Maltz]

Both Chosokabe's armies are wiped out on the field - they have 0 units in their only remaining province.



So what are we waiting for? We... asked for war compensation and turn them into our vassal! Immediate profit AND 100+ koku of extra income per season - until they turn against us.

[Maltz]

That chance to break free might never come for Chosokabe, though. Our brother in Christ already prepared a nasty present for them in Awaji.



Technically we can sabotage Chosokabe's army this season and wait for them to vanish when Awaji falls to the rebels. But battles are fun! Plus we get to take the remaining of their treasury. Why not?

This concludes chapter 7 of our story.

[Maltz]

Tactics: "Bait and not hidden"

The famous (but simple) Shimazu tactics Bait and Hidden can be achieved in STW2 for great effects - and it is quite easy to do as you don't even have to hide anything (hence the name "not hidden").

Army Composition - 40-50% ranged units

Anything would do. But the best effect is probably achieved by having 40-50% of ranged units. At least one longer-ranged unit (any bow suffices). However, mixing a couple of matchlock is not a bad idea for they help rout the prey more quickly (followed by cavalry mop up), and thus conserve ammo for the damage dealers.

If we don't have enough ranged power (or our arrows are about to run out), we will rely on melee units to beat down melee-type prey. There might be inevitable casaulties. But this also gives us more chance to play the baiting game as the AI is less likely to charge us until it is really low in ranged power.

Important: More than 50% ranged unit is NOT preferred. This is because that the AI will charge everything at us when our ranged power is significantly better than theirs. The LESS ranged units we have, the longer the baiting game lasts.

So essentially we want to find a balance of maximizing baiting, but also have enough ammo or melee units left to rout the rest of the enemies in the final full assault.

OK. So you did not bring too many ranged units so the CPU decides to camp. Great! Now we can start the baiting. (If they do come to you, you can use the "Machine Grinder" formation explained near the end of the Chosokabe story and hopefully kick their butt.)

Of course, an obvious situation for the AI to actively attack is that it IS the attacker. Initiate the battle yourself - during your turn, or during their turn as the ambusher.

Terrain

Ideally we want the CPU army out in the open. Hill or plain does not matter. But forest is really bad news. This is because the AI sets a very high priority on remaining hidden in the forest. Try to find open terrains. Try approaching them from a different angle - this usually gives you a different battlefield.



Formation and Site

The diagram above is an example. Guns units at front (so they actually have a chance to fire), followed by bow units. A general/cavalry and a bow unit will be the baiting.

In the baiting stage, there is no hiding necessary. Finding an edge/cliff or not is unimportant, but it could be an important advanatge for the full assault, where we need to watch our flanks.

Scout the battlefield in advance (during deployment, there is no camera restriction) and pick the best place for the final stage, and set your baiting ground somewhere in the middle of your final spot and the enemy. This way, you can easily fall back to the designated spot when the final stage begins.

For your baiting site, your army should be at least 2 bow's range away from the enemies. If you get too close, you might accidentally trigger the full assault before you want it. In theory, once a bait is on the hook, you can take them as far as you want. But keeping bow units behind you all the way across the battlefield is very tricky and time consuming, even if you execute it perfectly.

Order of Baiting

(0) Matchlock. If the CPU has guns, they are likely positioned at front for you to shoot. They are easily our first target. The matchlock might run to the back row when they suffer some damage (then you have to move on to other units until they come back), or they remain still. Slap an inspiration on the bows for more efficient kills.

(1) Defensive Infantry. The best bait for melee infantry is cavalry, such as our general's bodyguard. But bows can do the trick if the enemy has no cavalry (or if your bait stay away from AI's cavalry).

If the CPU has Yari Ashigaru, they easily charge at you once you get close (about 1 bow's range). Maintain a steady lead to bring them back to your trap. We can either shoot them with our arrows, or simply arrange multiple melee infantry to charge them at the same time to break their morale. Which one is better depends on how much arrow you have left, and how healthy your melee units are.

Ashigaru rout pretty quickly, so get your general/cavalry ready to kill them off before they flee off the field. Sometimes it is possible to sneak a Light Cavalry unit to the back of the enemy's lines to pick them clean.

After the units at the front rows has charged and died, the AI will regroup and send fresh units to the front row. This re-group may look a little like they are going to attack together. But since they only lost melee infantry, they are very likely NOT going to attack together. From experience, they only do that after they lose ranged units.

You can also try to approach their melee infantry from the sides. Their bows can't fire at you unless they turn to face you, which gives you some time to get closer without being shot at.

It is theoretically possible to make every single unit of Yari Ashigaru charge and die before we start baiting the other units. When we attempt to bait them, the bows might be triggered at the same time, but due to their cautious nature, only the Ashigaru will follow us back.

It is much harder to bait Yari Samurai than Yari Ashigaru, for the former are more disciplined. But as you saw in the story, it was possible to bait samurai after a while. If no matter what you do, the only units that respnded your bait was ranged units, then maybe it is a good time to move on.

(2) General, Cavalry

While luring the melee infantry, it is possible to "accidentally" lure General and Cavalry when our bait gets close to them. This is especially likely if the AI is camped on a high hill - some scripts really favor their general to charge down even if your bait is still far away.

Since cavalry is fast, ranged units alone might not be able to rout them quickly. We better use spear units to lay the trap. If we allow our bait to pass through a gap in the trap, we can easily catch the prey as soon as we make a little contact to the prey with one of the trap units.

If the CPU has fast cavalry (Yari, Light), but you have a slow cavalry (such as general's bodyguard), you need to start running back a lot sooner (especially if your trap is far away), and start charging your spears sooner.

(3) Bows

The best bait for bow units are cavalry, for their speed enable them to escape harm quickly. Bows should be our last target to bait - only after we have destroyed all other units that can be baited. The reason is that once we weaken the CPU's ranged power, they might decide to launch the full assault.

Maintaining the interests of baited bow units is an art. If you are too far away from them for too long, they will turn around. From time to time, you have to wait for them to start shooting at your bait. Once they are about to shoot, or just fired, quickly run in another direction. The arrows are quite easy to dodge even if they already left the bow, as they only target the place where you were, or the place you are about to be if you had not changed direction and speed.

If too many bow units are lured, you can selectively let loose a few of them (just walk back faster) to keep the remainder managable. A good rule of thumb is to duel bows with at least a 2:1 advantage. You can also mop them up with your cavalry and melee horde charging from three directions. But don't do it right in front of the rest of the enemy. Lure them farther away (which is the hard part).

If there are still some AI's melee units left, you may try to lure them again. The loss of their bows might expose them and make them more easily baited.

[Maltz]

You can repeat this bait and trap process until the AI realizes that it is time for them to commit suicide and march everything to you. Whenever you see the entire AI's army suddenly mobilized for no reason after a bow unit starts routing - they are probably coming (even if they may appear to march away initially)!



The Final Trap

The above is a picture of what happens when the AI decides to charge us all together. We have a good defensive line backed up by ranged units. On any exposed flank, we have reserves who can effectively deal with cavalry. We are also prepared to charge their bow units in the back with our own cavalry on the flank (it is OK if we don't - the bows will rout eventually). This is largely identical to the "machine grinder" formation, except that we have two places to place guns - definitely not directly behind our lines!

(1) High ground. It is possible to find a good terrain to leave the guns high up and safe. Then by all means do it - they will help rout the challengers. But after the melee lines engage, they might avoid firing, as it would cause friendly fire casualties.

(2) Flank. If the coast is clear (all enemies' melee engaged), we can march our guns up to take some liberal shots at enemies' back. But this luxury does not happen everyday - if we have not reduced the enemy's melee units effectively, they will have reserves. Hopefully we have reduced the number of their reserves with the baiting tactics earlier.

Happy fighting!

[Maltz]

Chapter 08. Technological Gap

Welcome back, Daimyos! I am Shimazu Takahisa.

Just when we think we can take a little break after defeating two full-stacks from Chosokabe, the Mori clan immediately launched a series attacks! The first wave is eaded by their new Daimyo, a distant nephew of Mori Motonari (the assassinated old daimyo), with again lots off samurais!



And my second son Yoshihiro os responsible for defence! (We shipped him to Honshu, while I stay in Shigoku to take care of the rest.) We have added one unit of Shimazu Katana Samurai in his army. Let's hope they shine on the battlefield!

[Dexter]

A good read, even if I'm half asleep, will have to take another look at it when my brain reboots. Keep up the good work !

One a side note Japan has 4 main islands, from N-S they are: Hokkaidō Honshū Shikoku Kyūshū
Perhaps I misread it (sorry), but you wrote as far as I recall with my misty eyes Shigoku but is it not Shikoku ? Ok now it's time to hit the sack, hope to see more informative reading when I recharged my batteries.

Best regards !

[Maltz]

Since we were attacked, the enemy actively marched toward us, and there is no chance to use our Bait tactics. We scouted the terrain and found a very interesting way to defence. There is a large hill that provides a lot of protection for ranged units stationed up there. Our two Matchlock Ashigaru formed the first line, followed by Bow Ashigaru.



Our melee units formed a thick line on the edge of forest for some added protection. In order to attack us, the Mori army has to march along the cliff while exposed to our ranged attack. For those units that survive the arrows and bullets, our melee units will stop their advance at the end, keeping them in the range of our arrows and bullets.

Ideally, Mori's troops will be funneled into a long line, allowing us to destroy them one by one.

[Maltz]

A good read, even if I'm half asleep, will have to take another look at it when my brain reboots. Keep up the good work !

One a side note Japan has 4 main islands, from N-S they are: Hokkaidō Honshū Shikoku Kyūshū
Best regards !

It must be my akucent! Will correctly use your provided spelling later on.
I also just realized that the small bow ships are "小早", which should "Bow Ko-Haya", but in Sengoku people's accent calls it "Bow Ko-Baya". Will also correct that.

[Maltz]

Here Mori's men come! Some of them might be trying to circle to our back by climbin that huge hill. It should take them a while. Let's focus on what we can kill now.



Ready, fire!

[Maltz]

Even though Mori had brave Samurai, they were easily shattered by all the arrows and bullets. Even if they could reach our Yari Ashigaru's spear wall, they turned around quickly.

[Maltz]

One unit tried to circle to the back of our line! It is actually an accident, as they were chasing our Light Cavalry, which were out in the open chasing routing units. As we pulled the Cavalry back, the Yari Samurai unit naturally circled to the back of our line.



But we have three units of Yari Ashigaru and our Katana Samurai nearby. THe moment we started charging their back, their will broke and started fleeing.

[Maltz]

Mori has abandoned their plan to climb that tall hill to reach our back. They decide to embrace bullets and arrows al together! Let's take their charge!



You can see how far our bullets and arrows cover. This is just perfect!

[Maltz]

The Mori general charged uphill, hoping to reach our guns!



But our bullets handled him in point blank!

[Maltz]

Mori's first wave of invasion ended in disaster. He should have waited for more samurai to get a full stack.



But they would have been funneled into the valley of death anyway.

[HopAlongBunny]

Thank you for this Maltz!

A story well told and illustrated to boot :)

"Bait and not hidden" is truly a winner; if only we had some Turcomans and Jinettes! Actually I'm embarrassed I didn't think of it until reading this; lure and kill has been the "go to" tactic since what? MTW?

[Maltz]

Although Mori's first invasion from the east failed, they soon attacked from the west from Nagato (Ouchi's last province). All of a sudden Mori spawned two generals in the castle to lead the attack.



Upon entering the battlefield, we quickly realized that this is not our day to die. The heavy rain will greatly reduce our ranged units' power, so we would have to rely on melee. But our melee is mostly Yari Ashigaru, while Mori had elite Yari Samurai.

So we promptedly retreated from the battlefield unharmed.

Notes:

(1) If we want to retreat, it is better to enter the battle then retreat, than simply retreat on the campaign map. When we retreat from the battlefield, we retreat further back, and the enemy is likely unable to follow up and force us into a second battle (where we cannot retreat).

(2) Retreat the low-morale ashigaru first, followed by samurai, and finally the general. This way none of our men rout before their exit (and get lost).

[Maltz]

Mori's second invasion granted them a meaningless victory. Then immediately they lauched the first attack! A full stack of Mori's elite fleet attacks a bottleneck in western Kyushu, guarded by two of our Nanban Trade Ships and 2 Bow Kobaya.



We quickly rushed to a upwind corner and parked there, with all of our cannons facing Mori's approaching fleet. Mori's fleet quickly closed in against the wind, but they were unable to find any weakness on our gigantic Nanban ship. The sound of cannon fire rocked the sea. The crossfire area turned into a brutal a ship slaughter yard. The rest of Mori's ships withdrew. We beat a full stack by losing just 1 out of 10 cannon.

Note: Strangely, we cannot auto-resolve with Nanban Trade Ship - they always lose miserably even though the yellow bar almost fills up all the way. That's probably why we can auto-resolve and win fights with the Black Ship.

[Maltz]

Mori is known for the best navy in Japan. In fact, just before this attack, our Bow Kobaya had to retreat from another sea battle because we were simply too slow compared to their Bow Kohaya.



But this this battle proves that the Nanban Trade Ship (beat you up, then force you to trade) is the new ruler of the sea! We will team them up in 2s and destroy everything!

[Maltz]

Summer has come! We have prepared Mori's elite samurai army, which attempted to hide in the forest to setup am ambush but was easily detected, with two ninjas and two missionaries. They are now without the leadership of generals, and they seriously feel the love of Christ (double demoralized).



So here we come!

[Maltz]

Mori has 7 units of Yari Samurai, and 7 units of Bows (3 Bow Samurai, 4 Bow Ashigaru). Let's first see if we can draw out any of their Yari Samurai with our general, the best bait we can offer.



Hm, they are really well disciplined. Nobody turned their head to take a good look at the enemy general.

Next let's try shooting their Yari Samurai in the first line with our Bow Ashigaru...

[Maltz]

As soon as our Bow Ashigaru approaches, two of Mori's Bow units responded. Our bait retreated a little too quickly, so only one of the units followed our bait into the trap.



7 yari and 6 bows left!

[Maltz]

The next time we let our bait retreat a little more slowly...



And we drawed all of Mori's 6 bow units! That's too much to handle. We let our bait ran back for the last bit, but only 1 bow unit turned back. So it became a 5 vs. 8 shootout!

[Maltz]

Oh wait, we have two units of Matchlock. Let's march them up a fire! We have a good chance to win 10 vs. 5. Plus Mori's men are all bunched up. Our bullets might miss the first unit, but they would certainly find somebody in that dense pack.

[Maltz]

Indeed, the shootout went very well for us. We had twice more men, and had the correct (loose) formation to reduce casualty. Rarely can we fire so many rounds of bullets like this!



As Mori's bow units lost the shootout, their Yari Samurai started marching forward. The final clash is about to begin. So we promptly moved up our line of Yari Ashigaru plus one Yari Samurai.

[Maltz]

As all of Mori's yari charged into our line, we pulled back our guns to the flank, ready to have some nice "shoot them in the back" action!



But since we had much more powerful support fire in the back, Mori's line of elite Yari Samurai, who not only had lost their two generals but also had been double-demoralized before the battle, could not hold! They started fleeing like screaming Yari Ashigarus! The battle was over before our matchlock fired another shot!

[Maltz]

It was Mori's men to die. But just enough of them escaped so we could have another easy battle.



Now all of Mori's land invasion was crushed. Let's finish them off on the sea, too.

[Maltz]

So we spotted Mori's reamining fleet! We are not giving them a chance to get repaired.



Here come more iron candies for ya!

[Maltz]

What a productive summer for my general - that's his third victory this season. (But too bad he cannot get the "Summer Son" trait.) Mori's second invasion left its Nagato province defenseless, so a rebel force easily took the castle after they left.



And of course we will take it over from here (auto-resolved).

[Maltz]

Mori's first invasion also left another province defenseless. My son Yoshihiro grabbed this oppurtunity and claimed another Mori's province (auto-resolved) with a landslide win!