Pagans' Requiem: Shimazu (Domination, Legendary)

[Maltz]

Let's see what can we lure next... a Yari Ashigaru unit!



Amen! Four down, 14 more (2 generals, 5 bows, 7 yari) to go!

[Maltz]

Somehow I had a feeling that Ouchi wil soon start their total assault, so I rearranged the army formation to allow tighter packing and shorter lines to defend. I also moved the Matchlock units behind the lines to protect them.



But my feeling was wrong - Ouchi is not coming yet.

[Maltz]

So what can we lure next... another general!



Amen! Five down, 13 more (1 general, 5 bows, 7 yari) to go!

[Maltz]

Let's bait more... a Bow Ashigaru unit! Let's shoot at it with 5 Bow Ashigaru!



But I forgot to disable their melee mode! I didn't realize and lost maybe 50 men unecessarily. Then they are easily routed.

Amen! Six down, 12 more (1 general, 4 bows, 7 yari) to go!

[Maltz]

It really seemed that Ouchi was sensitive about losing Bow units. Twice they prepared to assault us with everything when their Bow Ashigaru number dropped to 4. But any melee units lost in the middle did not trigger anything.

So here they come! Although they still have a lot more Yari units than us, ourline was long enough to hold all of them.



Taste the arrows and bullets!

[Maltz]

The sound of gunfire were music to the ears! Ouchi's Yari Ashigaru were routed quickly. Amen many times! Even their general could not save it. Their Bows soon started fleeing as well. The battle is over!



We also made some valuable observation about Matchlock Ashigaru's functions.

(1) Guns to not reduce morale very significantly. Everybody said the sound of gunfire makes men crap their pants. Not true. At most, there is probably only ONE (or NO) point drop of morale per round fired. So four units can't even rout Ashigaru in a short time. Bows, on the other hand, quickly reduced their numbers, and they will rout as soon as they suffer heavily losses. Using bows along with guns do help to rout Ashigaru more quicky.

(2) Guns who are behind the lines, but uphill, CAN fire at the enemies, but they only do so when they have a clear line of sight. For example, when the Ouchi Yari Ashigaru are engaged, our gun did not fire a bullet. However, when they started to flee away from our line, they resumed firing. This means that we better NOT leave the guns behind the lines even if they are high-up enough to not be blocked by our own men. We have to move them to the flank.

But this creates a problem that any enemy reserve (such as their general) may easiy charge into the guns. This is a risk we must take, unfortunately.

[Maltz]

Ouchi's second invasion was crushed as well - with just enough leftover so we had another easy battle for experience purpose.



The opponent definitely has predictable patterns we have learned from this battle. We will have another independent discussion dedicated to the bait and trap tactics.

[Maltz]

Ouchi was crushed yet again, so we can again demand for compensation. They actually agreed to become our vassal, but who wants this ungrateful bastard to become a vassal? They will betray us in no time anyway. For the time being ;let's just keep them as a trade partner.



Maybe soon they will come back with another full stack... but we can use them to come up with good gun tactics.

[Maltz]

The Nanban quarter is completed! We are now connected to one more trade partner.



The Yammana clan stil holds the Warhorse trade node, so they will gladly pay us to dump their product. Of course, they didn't know soon we wil dump our incense, silk, and cotton (Otomo is finished, so we have taken over their Cotton node) to them.

[Maltz]

Our religious unrest builds up, but there is finally a limit of unhappiness. It seems that when the population reaches 33% Christian, the unrest tops off at -7. And it will slowly decline when the percentage of Christian rise further.



This is great! We can start disbanding useless Yari Ashigaru units. Our army missionary can't wait to turn all Japan into chaos... I mean, the land of the nanban god!

That concludes chapter 5 of our story.

[Maltz]

Book 2 - Agnus Dei (Lamb of God)

Chapter 06. Gospel of chaos

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

Our painful contraction of conversion is finally over! We are reborn, to become the second most unpopular clan in Japan! (The first prize was taken by Ikko-Ikki.) While we slowly disband the temporary garrison inside our territory (those low-grade Ashigaru can't really face any enemy), we can afford to spread the nanban religion to the rest of Japan with our agents and gunpowder! Certainly the rest of Japan will fall into the same contraction... Let the gospel of chaos been heard and smelled!



While our Missionaries stepped onto the soil of Honshu, the Ouchi clan has sent a Metsuke to stop us! But soon he realized the love of Christ and decided to resign from this sinful career. Amen.

[Maltz]

My oldest son has finally joined the military - he is already 20! And to apologize for his laziness, he brought a good friend to enlist at the same time.



Now we have 6 generals, but not so much army for everyone to lead. So I will invite them to the "Hyuga training camp" to have some horse riding exercise with me.

[Maltz]

Remember we saw Imagawa shipping another full stack toward us, but turned back when we had more army?



They are back, with TWO full stacks! This is disgusting!

But strangely, Imagawa's fleet and army fell into a circular logical trap here. They keep sailing forward and backward... making no progress at all. Think of how much they could accomplish with these two full stacks if they use it on its two NEW ENEMIES (Takeda and Hojo).

"We should sneak attack Shimazu!"
"That takes too long! We should go back and attack our enemies Takeda and Hojo!"
"That takes too long! We should go forward and attack our trade partner Shimazu!"
"That takes too long! We should...

[Maltz]

Now my oldest son is born, I should find him a wife. Since spreading Chrsitianity to all Japan takes a lot of time, we might actually see the day of our third generations taking the field. Even if not, young boys can be used as hostages, too.



The only worthy clan that has an unmarried daughter is Date! They agreed to marry their daughter to my heir - no strings attached! Date is a good friend to make, as they are located at the opposite end of Japan.

[Maltz]

Although a Bow Kabuya needs to sail 3 years to reach Date's port, Date's daughter was shipped to us immediately! A beautiful wife for my son Yoshihisa. Their age is similar, too.



And suddenly I realized that I gave my second son, Yoshihiro, a wife (from Ashina) who is 10 years older than him. My good Yoshihiro never complained his shrewish wife, although I know he liked me a little less afterwards. Well, at least they are still making baby.

[Maltz]

Now that we have finished reseaching Tea Ceremony, my honor should have returned to maximum (6). Indeed... but it is NOT because of the Tea Ceremony! Unfortunately, we did not realize the fact that Arts, Skils, and Traits all go to the same counter, which max out at 3. Tea Ceremony, which is an art, did NOT increase my honor at all.

If we knew about this, we would have skipped Tea Ceremony. But at least it improves diplomatic relationships with other clans a bit (10). Tea party at my place!



Interestingly, I actually got one extra point of honor from Great Victories. I guess being chased by overwhelming rebels every season is quite a feat.

Note: So Great Victories +1 Is possible, possibly after a few defensive heroic victories?

[Maltz]

Our agents are not wasting tax-payers money. Those who landed in Shigoku immediately incited Chosokabe's Ito province's 1-season-old Christian population to rebel against Chosokabe!



And of course my second son, Yoshihiro's army followed it up before Chosokabe was able to respond... because Chosokabe's army had a little accident on the road. We officially have nothing to do with it.

[Maltz]

The rebels were very well equipped, probably because of the existing military facilities in Ito castle town.



But there are not a lot of them. Yoshihiro took care of them easily (auto-resolved).

[Maltz]

As more of our missionaries come to Honshu, they found a Metsuke from Imagawa! He walked all the way from half a Japan away to mess with us!



... he walks all the way here, only to realize that Jesus loves him. Amen.

[Maltz]

One of our missionary witness the peaceful and indirect transition of Mori's Suo province to Shimazu (via Rebes). This is our second full-stack army, led by my my most experienced general.



That's our first foothold on Honshu the main island! There is a long way to spread Christianity from here.

[Maltz]

Some time ago our trade with Mori was broken for no reason. Now it is time to restore trade. Mori is willing to pay us even if we do not hide any of our trade ships. They pay us... 12810 koku! This is a new record! Thank you very much, come again!



Strangely, when we removed all trade ships and ask again, we actually get less reward from Mori. Not sure what happens here, a short-circuit in their brain, maybe?

[Maltz]

Chosokabe just declared war on their trade partner Miyoshi. So their army is away...



So again our missionary facilitated the we peaceful transaction of Chosokabe's capital Tosa to Shimazu. It seems that Great Clan's capitals all have especially high resistance at the beginning of the conquest. And we still expect scale-7 unrest in a few years... So we probably have to exmpt the tax in Tosa for quite some time.

[Maltz]

Here we completed the mission to acquire any unit of Siege Weapon. Our choice of weapon is nothing else but the BEST siege weapon - European Cannon!



And for that we can recruit even better quality European Cannon for a year and half, plus a free unit of Fire Projecting Mangonels. Must do some field testing for both of them later.

[Maltz]

Our mass hiring of Ashigaru also triggered 2 years of high-quality Ashigaru recruit. Great! We have been planning for the third and fourth full stack.



We will definitely add some more (+15 accuracy) Imported Matchlock Ashigaru in Buzen, and (+5 armor) Yari Ashigaru in Satsuma.

[Maltz]

Ouchi is finally destroyed by Mori. Now we can find another trade partner. Our in-laws Ashina also agrees to pay us to trade! And very strangely they also want to pay more when we do not hide our trade fleets.



Maybe they actually want to have Chinese silk?

[Maltz]

While (again) putting an end to Ouchi, Mori's daimyo and his numerous sons and generals (in total, 5 generals) used a very powerful army.

It would be very troublesome if we allow such a powerful full-stack get so close to us. They might suddenly get the wrong and stupid idea to throw away their 12,000-koku-bought trade partner.



So we were pro-active and... in a year, Mori's daimyo, Mori Motonari, and all his sons died from various food poisoning accidents. What a tragic disruption for the Mori Dynasty.

[Peasant Phill]

Maltz, I've thanked you for a few informative posts.

I've also got an additional question:
It seems that AI factions are very agressive against you. Is this because of the legendary difficulty or because of christianity?

[Andres]

Great stuff, Maltz

Keep it coming.

[Maltz]

It seems that AI factions are very aggressive against you. Is this because of the legendary difficulty or because of christianity?

From experience, AI decides whether to declare war on a clan based on a few things:

(1) Whether they have no one else to attack. I find this to be the primary reason of war declaration. Whenever they have no one else to fight (land locked by you, or they have made allies with all other neighbors), the AI turns on its only target even if it is unwise to do so (such as breaking an alliance, turning on a loyal trade partner, even turning on a vassal).

(2) Relationship level. In the previous Chosokabe campaign, I could avoid a war with Ouchi if I marry into their clan immediately before. Maybe on higher difficulties, a higher relationship is required to maintain peace. But if the 1st reason is fulfilled, we need a really high relationship level (+100 at least) to avoid war. So converting to Christianity definitely makes avoiding war more difficult.

(3) Power difference. Having a weak military is an invitation of attacks. This is probably why in this campaign Imagawa's two full stacks chooses to wait on the sea south of Shigoku. We have also seen vassals breaking loose as soon as they get a full stack back. But if we don't land lock them, they have a healthy outlet of their troops.

[Maltz]

After we made two peaceful transactions of Chosokabe's territory and turned a third province white in the name of the nanban lord, they angrily declared war!



Actually, this is probably because Chosokabe have just wiped out Miyoshi in the past season, and they have no one else to fight.

We, in fact, have no intention to occupy Chosokabe's provinces right now. We need a lot of time to finish building the chapels -> missions in Iyo and Tosa, and we only have 2 missionaries here to accelerate conversion. Taking too many provinces too quicky is definitely bad news.

Our plan is to defend in our current territory, attempt to defeat Chosokabe's invasion (this was their land though), and force a treaty. Hey, maybe we can sneak in a rebellion in their two remaining provinces while their army is away in ours.