Pagans' Requiem: Shimazu (Domination, Legendary)

[Maltz]

Although Ouchi's Yari Ashigaru had all their numbers intact, they still had very poor morale due to the loss of their Bow comrades. Soon after impact, they started wavering. The mass route followed momentarily, carrying the last unit of Bow Ashigaru on the hill with them. It happened sooner than we expected - our cavalry still needed a few moments to start charging their back yet! What a pity.



That's it - a classic bait and... not hidden tactics! Let's see if we can ever find something to hide inside later.

[Maltz]

A nice victory!



And there were just enough Ouchi men exiting the battlefield so we can have another easy battle for experiences gathering.

[Maltz]

repeated post.

[Maltz]

After extensive interviews, I picked up another retainer who makes me more honorable with an extra bonus on attacking on land.



Note: The maximum number of honors received from Retainers and Skills combined is 3. So after picking up two +1 honor retainers, I only need to spent 1 skill point in "Honorable".

[Maltz]

Normally we would happily counter attack to take both Ouchi's defenceless provinces, but for the sake of conversion, we do not want to over-stretch. We have two vassals at home, who have been rapidly raising a large army. We have to stay in Kyushu for now.



Ouchi's daimyo still appears uncomfortable from the tea poisoning. Well, now all his army is gone, he is more than happy to sign a peace treaty with all he can offer.

[Maltz]

We also signed a trade deal with Mori.



However, soon Mori defeated the severely weakened Ouchi. Somehow that also broke our trade deal with Mori. How the hack did that happen? It is still a myth.

[Maltz]

For now we have no enemy. Let's get back to the topic of preparing for the conversion.



Nanban Trade Port

As planned, we started working on the construction of a Trading Port in Buzen. The reason we waited for Buzen is that we expect to receive up to 25% Accuracy bonus for Imported Matchlock Ashigaru (and later on European cannons) in this province. This is true as confirmed later. What a HUGE bonus for these miserable inaccurate guys! They will aim better than Matchlock Samurai (accuracy 60 vs. 50)!

Once we convert, we will immediately upgrade that to Nanban Quarters.

[Maltz]

Planning for Guns

There are four types of gun units:

Matchlock Ashigaru: the imported version (35 accuracy, 15 reload, 100 range) has slightly better stats, and is available as early as Nanban Trade Port. Ours will have 45 accuracy at start, and 60 accuracy later. Very nice!

Matchlock Samurai: (50 accuracy, 20 reload, 100 range). Requires Gunsmith. Gunsmith is unlocked by the Bushido Arts Gunpowder Mastery, one of the second-last-tier Bushido Arts.

Shimazu Heavy Gunner: (50 accuracy, 20 reload, 125 range). Better range than Matchlock Samurai. Requires Gunsmith and Armory (one of the upgrades of Encampment). So they are essentially the replacement of Matchlock Samurai.

Firerockets: (25 accuracy, 15 reload, 250 range, 5 ammo). Very good range, but very few ammo. Requires Arsenal, the ugprade of Gunsmith. It won't be available until the very end of the campaign.

Obviously, Imported Matchlock Ashigaru is only the way to go before we pause just before the Realm Divide. Then we rush for the Gunpowder Mastery art to train an elite army of Heavy Gunners from Buzen (+25% accuracy).



Research

Since we need to rush a very high-level tech Gunpowder Mastery to unlock better guns, we need to simplify the research on anything else. Essentially we will only have 4 goals after getting the basic and fast techs:

(1) Essence of Spirit - required at the beginning of the conversion so we can build second-tier Nanban temple called "missionary".
(2) Heaven and Earth - for Encampment and improved quality soldiers for the second wave of expansion (from conversion to the pause before realm divide)
(3) Equal Fields -> Chonindo - for a trade-independent economy.
(4) Gunpowder Mastery - for the elite army after Realm-Divide.

[Maltz]

Agents

5 Ninjas -> 5 Metsuke -> 5 Missionaries: We only have six provinces, so we need to carefully consider the build order of agent buildings. First, we build 5 Sake Dens for 5 ninjas. Then we demolish the Sake Dens and build 5 Markets and hire five 2-star Metsuke from Tsukushi. Metsukes are excellent agents to increase happiness levels, which will come in very handy when we start the conversion. This way we will be able to easily have the provinces under control. Then, we demolish the markets and build Chapels for 5 missionaries.

Training missionaries to become competent converters could be tricky, when we do not have a rebel province to generate infinite save points.



Oh great, trade bonus!

[Maltz]

The Yamana clan took the Warhorse trade node easily. So they would PAY us sell them to us (because we pretended we did not have Chinese silks and Indonesian incense ). Why not?



Unfortunately, Yamana soon lost their port to trade with us, and was unwilling to resume trade. Trading diplomacy needs to become more reasonable and predictable.

[Maltz]

My second son turned into adult before my oldest son! What an impatient dude. Let's get him a wife to put his passion into good use. After some asking around, only the weak Ashina clan has a un-married daughter. Why not? She is a shrewish wife... so my second son will be whipped to travel a little bit (5%) further. The loyalty drop is not a concern at all, since we Shimazu generals are very loyal anyway.



By the way, we have enlisted another general about a year ago. He has been training with the Wako pirates for a while. Picked up a useless little knife as his first retainer, though.

[Maltz]

The Nanban trade port is completed! Can't wait for our extra-accurate Matchlock Ashigaru! But since we will convert very soon, maybe we will put this on hold, and focus on getting the Bow variety first to ready our second army.



We also need to upgrade the Buzen castle all thew way to... a castle (level 4), so we will have 3 recruitment slots and +2 experience bonus on Ashigaru. We are rich now! Wohoo!

[Maltz]

Oh what is this? We received a warning that one of our vasslas, yes the more stupid one, is planning to attack us!



Is that for real? Let's get our army and ninja ready for action again!

This concludes chapter 3 of our story.

[Peasant Phill]

I'm reading this with a blocnote in hand. I'm learning a lot. A bit to much powergaming for my taste though.

So your tactic is:
1) take out enemy ranged units with superior numbers of ranged units of your own
2a) go nuts on the rest of the opposing army until they charge
2b) use fast cavalry to lure enemy units out of formation
3) flank and destroy isolated units.

Glad my old MTW tactic (on the attack) is still succesful.
Any chance you could give your favourite early army?
How will you adjust your tactic when fitting in matchlocks and cannons?

[Maltz]

In older TW games, a great way to route the enemy quickly is to have at least ONE more melee units to effectively backstab an enemy stack, rout them, free up two stacks, and continue the chain reaction. Your tactics 2b and 3 are also very good examples of what works.

But the Legendary mode in STW2 makes these practices really difficult for average-speed fingers like mine. Since we cannot issue any command on pause, not even moving the camera, and without slow motion, managing lots of individual units is quite difficult. Usually I would leave a cavalry to be charged by spears, or allow some melee to chase routed units fruitlessly.

So naturally brining more ranged units make the battle more managable (but less variable).

[Maltz]

Chapter 04. Rebellion doomed by incompetency

It is hard to believe minion Otomo would want to revolt against *cough* master Shimazu AFTER we have controlled all of Kyushu. But we must still give credit to the warning from the mysterious voice from heaven. It would be nice if this warning comes every time before somebody declares war on us.

So to better prepare for Otomo's betrayal, I marched my full stack south from Buzen, and hid in the forest north of Bungo. Since Otomo is our vassal, we have infinite military access to their land. Should Otomo declared war and attack north, we can intercept and ambush them on the way. Should they march west or south, we will steal their Bungo castle easily.



Indeed, Otomo broke free!

[Maltz]

And very strangely we were declared war by the Imagawa clan, which is half a Japan away. We have just met them a few seasons ago.



Why? Did they make a typo in the war declaration press release?

[Maltz]

Maybe it is not a mistake. Imagawa shipped their full-stack army with a half-stack fleet. And they have made their way to the north shore of Kyushu! But why would Imagawa want to attack someone who has absolutely nothing to deal with them?



And judging from the distance of our exploring Bow Kabuya to Imagawa's territory, it seems that Imagawa launched the invasion the monent they met us. What kind of greeting is this?

Note: Maybe (some?) AI is cripted that when it runs out of other AI clans to fight on land, they must launch an invasion on the human player - no matter how far away they are. This could be very important if we want to detect/prepare for invasion later. Maybe we should always leave a Ninja defending home so we can freeze them indefinitely. It will be even better if they declare war before the landing, so our future Nanban fleet can come in for the scream.

[Maltz]

Another interesting news is that the Ouchi clan has revived themselves in Suo. Maybe Mori did not leave enough garrison in the province.



You would think that they would become automatic enemies with Mori as they had to at least fight Mori the occupier to take back their province. But strangely they are not at war with Mori. Maybe they signed a peace deal immediately after? Anyway, they are no longer our enemy, either. So we can charge them to trade with us.

[Maltz]

Yet another trade partner. It is rare to see Honma on Sado island actually ships out its army to attack someone. Honma is willing to pay us so much, because we later found that they have occupied the northeastern Iron trade node. Having access to Honma's foreign iron also enables us to upgrade the Armorer in Satsuma.



Kyushu has 5 ports, and 2 of them can be upgraded to have 2 (Nanban Trade Port) and 3 (Nanban Quarters) trade routes. So in total we can have 8 sea trade partners in a short time. We will easily afford anything we need for the conversion.

[Maltz]

Imagawa would not land until the next season. Back to Otomo.



You'd think someone plotting against their master would at least prepare. Otomo could move their army to the border, so as soon as they declare war, they can attack a defenceless castle within one season's march. They could setup an ambush in their own territory, in the hope to crush a Shimazu invasion. They could use agents to incite rebellion as a distraction, etc.

But Otomo does not do any of that. They declared war, but their full stack sits quietly just outside their castle. It feels like there is a miscommunication between their spokeperson and their chief of defence!

So we will gladly use a ninja to sabotage that army, and march into their undefended castle. We don't even have to break the gate!

[Maltz]

Instant occupation!



Funny that there is actually an option to turn them into a vassal again. Since Otomo's full stack is still intact, they will probably break free immediately after. Now we have another Nanban Port built in Buzen, so there is nothing to prevent us from using Bungo's Nanban Port.

[Maltz]

But we decide not to fight Otomo's army this season (summer), as my army is a little tired from the march. We can finish them off next season.



The Takeda clan did not want to trade with us, but suddenly they think it is a good idea. But no way we will pay them 3700 koku. By pretending that we do not have silk and incense, we easily signed the deal with Takeda - they paid us a few hundred koku.

[Maltz]

The Hattori clan has pretty much controlled the southern Kinki (area surrounding the capital Kyoto). They did not want to trade with us before, but just like Takeda, they suddenly think it is a good idea.



4700 koku? And again, later we signed the deal without having to pay anything.

Note: It seems that all AI trade script is controlled by the same master-mind so they all come to ask at the same time. It also seems that the more army we have, the more likely they would trade with us, as a good trade partner may turn into a good ally later. (But we will never trust an AI ally anyway.)

[Maltz]

By not dealing with Otomo's army in the previous season, we actually received a mission to quench the Otomo's rebellion! The reward is very nice - 8 seasons of +4 repression/happiness across all provinces.



Unfortunately, after jumping from a parallel universe to restart this season, this mission disappeared into thin air.

Note: Come to think of it, this reward is not that important, as the religious unrest from conversion peaks AFTER the 8th seasons. So we will need to the same garrison/agents to deal with the peak unrest anyway.

[Maltz]

The Imagawa army made its landing just north of the Tsukushi castle! We have almost no army nearby!



But nobody panicked. This is our turf! We have 3 ninjas in Buzen and 1 Metsuke nearby. So we easily sabotaged that army (which turned out to be unecessary), wounded their generals, and bribed the general-less army with our Metsuke. Not all army was bribed, but most of them.

All that's left for Imagawa is 4 units of Ashigaru.

[Maltz]

We are not letting their navy go easily, either. Right now we only have Bow Kabuya and Trade Ships, but we assembled a full stack of them. Some of them received some damage from Wako fights which took place a few seasons ago.

[Maltz]

First battle was a success! (auto-resolved)



Also good experience for our generals. We simply have to create training oppurtunities for every general before we find a good rebel province for that purpose.

[Maltz]

Enough of Imagawa's fleet escaped - so now we have the second battle. More experience awaits!



By the way, we purposely approached the first battle from the east, so the defeated Imgawa fleet will retreat to the west. If they retreat east, they will travel a large distance and out of our reach. If they retreat west, they only travel a short distance and can be destroyed immediately after.

[Maltz]

Easily won!



We definitely ended up with more ships than before - so we sank the four captured Bow Kabuya because we have no use of them.