Pagans' Requiem: Shimazu (Domination, Legendary)

[Maltz]

Completing the Arsenal actually gives us a clan trait to boost 10% of gunpowder units' reload rate! That's nice. Now we can't wait to use Heavy Gunners.



Nine units of Heavy Gunners are still on their way to the frontline.

Note: The Heavy Gunners is a DLC unit unique for Shimazu.

[Maltz]

Now this looks like the perfect foe we can test our new toys on! 2.5 stacks of Hojo army marching toward us!



All we need to do is to keep them on the field (ninja sabotage) until our guns arrive.

[Maltz]

After many seasons - finally our missionaries are freed. But we are no longer interested to hold new provinces, as that will again tie up our agents. Vassals count toward our victory condition as well.



Let us make vassals as much as possible. They do not suffer the Realm Divide penalty as both triggers (23 provinces, taking Kyoto) had happened.

[Maltz]

[TIMER][/TIMER]We used the army that took Sado island to launch a surprise attack on Date, which has very little army. Here we dispatched their only visible stack. We did not even have to fight the battle carefully (manually) to score the victory.



Note: Looks like an interesting fight to play manually, but honestly I just wanted to rush to the gun battle ASAP.

[Maltz]

Here was a battle that had to be played carefully (manually) to avoid loss of units. We used half a stack to besiege a rebel castle. The rebels had superior numbers, but they are all Ashigaru. We had no good ranged units (guns alone are just miserable - the enemy will parked their archers just out of our range).

So we had to rely on melee! How's that for a change.



The battle ended soon after the mass charge began.

[Maltz]

Here is one more vassal under our belt. The problem with Satomi is that their province has no seaport. And since we do not have a land-route connection to them (we are separated by another vassal), we cannot trade with them!



Well, at least they are still paying us part of their income.

[Maltz]

Our guns are... still on their way.



Now our 6-star Metsuke (40% reduced action cost from character skill, 20% further reduced from art) is bored, let's see if we can have some fun with Hojo's army. It turned out that we bribed almost a full stack of samurais with just 6200 gold! That's even cheaper than our gift to Takeda (see note below)!

Suddenly Hojo's powerful invasion falls apart and we took care of it (automatically) with an Ashigaru army... DOH! Now we need to find something else to test the guns on.

Note: Previously we attempted to keep Takeda on our side longer with gift. Every 1000 koku generates +15 relationship. For maximal efficiency, give 6633 koku for a boost of +100 relationship. Please note that one large payment is better than several smaller payments, both in the sense of "pay over X turns", and the sense of multiple diplomatic transactions. The gift effect reduces by 5 per turn.

[Maltz]

And we accidentally won! Without the chance to test our guns!



This is unacceptable. We have to go back and purposely delay our acquisition of Hyuga.

[Maltz]

Okay, let's go to this alternative universe... one more season later, Hojo has been destroyed by our force and Takeda's powerful samurai stack led by their daimyo. Date has also been crushed, and as soon as we revive them, they are just as friendly as any other clan we helped revived, and the effect of Realm Divide has been permenantly erased.

By the way, Takeda is a really good ally. It is super aggressive, effective, and does not betray us even if we purposely let our relationship fall to Unfriendly. You would think that any clan would betray us under this condition after Realm Divide.



So we have accumulated 8 vassals, 1 ally, and 0 enemy! Now were do we find someone to test our guns?

[Maltz]

We have built a Mission in every province. That alone is 550% extra Chi research. Plus we have 21% x 6 from missionaries... in total we are operating on 700%+ Chi Research rate! No wonder we finished almost everything on the tree...



But the late techs are mostly about population control (sword hunt, etc.), which is made harder by the fact that we are a Christian clan. So in the end, we do not really find the extra Chi Research making any useful bonus.

[Maltz]

Okay! So we finally forced Takeda to fight us... of course they don't think it is necessary but for the sake of gun testing - here we go! We field 9 units of Heavy Gunners, 3 units of Fire Rockets, plus Naginata Samurai and one extra Cavalry.



Takeda's army is not particularly powerful. But that's the only thing we can approach on the field at this point.

[Maltz]

As we mentioned, Fire Rockets do not force the enemy to come to us, which is a good thing. Takeda decides to camp on a hill that contains some tree. Let's shower them with rockets, which misses more often than hits.



Together, three units made slightly more than 300 kills, which is not very much. The poor performance might be due to the fact that Takeda is hiding in the forest. But in the second half of the missle test, we asked them to fire at units out in the open. They still missed a whole lot and failed to make any significant kills.

So Fire Rockets are just NOT powerful enough to worth the wait.

[Maltz]

So let's try the Heavy Gunners. We used the bait tactics and got four of Takeda's Bow Samurai. We have 9 units. They have 4. Should be easy right?



Actually, it took us quite a while to rout them - much longer than if we have 9 units of Bow Ashigaru! The light and sound effect were great, though. But we are simply not making kills fast enough. And the Samurai were not really scared by the bullets, even though they were not led by a general.

After we finally depleted the number of the Bow Samurai, Takeda's melee units charged toward us. Our bullets failed to kill them fast enough, so they charged directly into our line. Fortunately we had anticipated for the worst, so we charged up our Naginata Samurai to hold the line and routed the Takeda army.

[Maltz]

So in the end we lost a good portion of the Heavy Gunners, which only have 60 men per unit, to defeat not a very powerful stack.



Maybe there are rooms to make improvement to tactics, but I feel that the Heavy Gunners are just NOT good enough:

(1) They perform worse than Bow Ashigaru in archer duels. This is probably due to their shorter range (125, so they have to run up closer to start firing), their smaller numbers (60 vs. Bow Ashigaru's 120!), and their slower reload rate. Their bullets do not scare the enemies, either.

(2) They cannot stop enemies from charging into them. Unfortunately, they simply do not fire/kill fast enough to route anybody who wants to charge into them. So if we want to use them as the main line, we have to prepare something in their back.

(3) They provide no further fire support once the melee stage begins. We have to move them. This could be impossible if we did not order them to retreat before they get charged into.

(4) They suffer heavy casaulties, because there are so few of them.

So in all, Shiamzu Heavy Gunners are just like any other gun units - not as good as bows at the same level, or multiple levels below! If we can combine their power with Fire Rockets, we might provide the required extra morale penalty to rout the enemy before they reach us. We can also build defensive structures...

But we almost always fight offensive battles. And in offensive battles, we can use the Bait tactics to cut down losses. Bows are very good for this tactics already.

That's the end of our Shimazu story! Thanks for reading!

At the very end, let's summarize the pros and cons about conversion and its unique units:

[Maltz]

Conversion to Christianity - Pros and Cons:

(1) Financially

More foreign trade nodes? same. Less interrupted trade income? Yes. Score: 7/10

Nanban trade ships are invincible on the sea (see note). This allows easily secured trade nodes. But since Bow Kabuya out-run Wako and most other clan's navy anyway, the only thing Nanban Trade Ship does that traditional navy does not is to destroy Wako and AI's fleets as soon as they appear with no effect on trade income (we can put regular trade ships into the trade nodes).

More trade routes? Yes. More trade partners? No. Score: 6/10

Nanban port and its upgrade allows additional trade routes. But on higher difficulty, the number of AI clans reduces quickly. In this campaign, we had MORE open trade ports than the number of AI clans we are able to trade with anyway.

Less markets? Yes. Less income? Somewhat. Score: 4/10

Since we HAVE to build chapels in every province, in most province we cannot build markets. At the "Mission" level, each mission provides +4 town growth, which is only 1 point less than Markets. But of course we need to invest 1400 koku extra in each province, and we also lose the commerce bonus (+200/province) from markets.

From actually looking at income numbers, we do take a financial hit in the Shimazu campaign compared to the Chosokabe campaign at the same time. But that's complicated by the fact that we expand more slowly when we have to wait for the provinces to convert (see below).

(2) Strategically (campaign map)

Diplomatic Hit? Just a little. Score: 4/10

You would think that the extra -40 diplomatic penalty could mean a lot more war. We did notice somewhat more aggression toward the beginning, but as soon as we get more powerful (3 stacks of Ashigaru army), the AIs don't get the wrong idea anymore.

Slower expansion? Yes. More difficult? Yes. Score: 3/10

Conversion takes time (and money, as seen above). The faster we expand, the easier the game is - because we will simply be more powerful if we have more provinces! The final difference is not so much - just 7 more turns to reach the victory condision in the Shimazu campaign than the previous Chosokabe campaign. The work-around is to take LOTS of vassals when we enter the last push to victory condition. Vassals do not require time to convert, and they count toward our victory province count. They will betray us after they get powerful, but we would have won by then.

Better agents? Yes. More efficient agents? Yes/No. Score: 5/10

For a non-Christian province, the missionaries incite rebellions at twice the success rate. If we are not against using exploits to make agents always successful (which is a huge exploit), this bonus can be completely ignored. The worst thing about missionaries is that they have to spend half of their time converting provinces in newly acquired territories. So we see much less of their other actions.

Better navy? Yes. More naval domination? Yes. Score: 7/10

Nanban ships tend to lose in auto-combat, so we need to fight manually. Fortunately, they are very easy to operate - just rotate each one of them to let their cannon face the targets. Three Nanban Trade Ships is enough to destroy any full-stack AI fleet - most of the time two will do the trick. (One is a no-no, because you will be set on fire and get locked down in repair mode).

With Nanban trade fleets, we can kill full stacks of navy one after one even without making repairs in the middle. They are just that powerful. Many people say that the only purpose of conversion is to get Nanban Trade Ships. They are quite right!

But even without Nanban ships, we can still achieve naval domination. The easier but more expensive way - we need to have TWO full stacks functioning as a team, so we can easily win any auto-combat. A time consuming but cheap way - we have to use fast ships like Bow Kabuya more often to avoid fights while we take care of their remaining territories on the land. As soon as their last province disappears, their navy disappears. Another way is to catch the Black Ship as early as possible. We will take a hit by losing many trade ships, but after that we have one super Nanban Fleet.

Or we have to figure out some good naval tactics with traditional units!

Note: Black Ship - I once tried to fight the Black Ship with 2 Nanban Trade Ship but failed - the Black Ship's health stayed at yellow for an eternity and refuses to waive the flag. The AI does not actively attack the Black Ship in its full health, so we do not have to worry about the Black Ship falls into the AI's hand all of a sudden.

Faster Chi resarch? Yes. More income? No. Score: 4/10

The most profitable Chi tech is Chonindo (for Land Consolidation and insane town growth) which should be rushed as quickly as possible. At this time, the enormous bonus of Chi research has not really kicked in as we are not that big and powerful yet. By the time we receive those insane Chi research rate from our vast territory, we were already busy with less profitable Chi techs, which are mostly about some insignificant town growth (even the best Chi tech only gives +10, while our farm bonus are looking at +100!), happiness bonus that is only required when we go Christian, or diplomatic favors that is only required when we go Christian.

If we don't convert, we can simply ignore those high-level Chi techs and use those turns to reseach Bushido.

(3) Tactically (battlefield)

Cheaper and more Imported Matchlock Ashigaru - not useful. Score: 5/10

They are not as useful as Bow Ashigaru - poor range, limited placement, and poor damage output. So why bother using them? (Neutral score because we can simply ignore them.)

European Cannon - not useful. Score: 5/10

They don't do very good damage on units. Before an enemy charge into them all the way from 500 meters away, they can't make 100 kills - probably 50. They also force the enemies to come to us in a field battle. This is uaully bad news, as we can make some extra kills if we manage to bait a few units before the AI decides to attack.

So that leaves us to castle assaults. In the current game design, there are very few situations that we actually need to fight a manual caslte assault. The AI has a tendency to leave their defenders OUT of the castle. So we either steal an empty castle, or sabotage an army that parks just beside the castle and steal the castle. Even if we do not sabotage the army, the reinforcement can be intercepted before they enter the castle. Even if the enemies are already in the castle, we can wait for them to sally (which usually happens immediately) and fight on the field.

No Monks Score: 2/10

Bow monks (range 175) are the ones we especially miss here. Going Christian means that the ONLY thing we can shoot over 150 meters is Fire Rockets (range 250), which are terribly inaccurate. Bow monks provides great damage/accuracy, can fire when they are directly behind the melee lines, imposes morale penalty (whisling & fire arrows), and are available at least 10 years before Fire Rockets.

Overall score: 52/110.

Conclusion: Conversion does not really make you significantly stronger or weaker. It will take longer to finish the game. Nanban Trade Ship is just great, although there are work-arounds. Imported Matchlok Ashigaru is ineffective. Cannons have little practical use.

That's it! Thanks for reading again.

[HopAlongBunny]

Thank you Maltz. An entertaining read and useful analysis.

The story was like reading a guide: This is what you do; this is why you do it; here's how you do it;
see the results :)

Hmm, maybe you could get together with Frogbeastegg for the Compleat Annotated & Illustrated Guide to Shogun2!

[feelotraveller]

Very enjoyable. Thank you.

Perhaps the only thing that could make it better would be to see some of the 'bloopers'. (Here is my battle from the alternate universe where it all went wrong. ) But maybe that didn't happen?

[Maltz]

The blooper story is a great idea. Thanks!

[Jacobin]

Fascinating - particularly impressed by your mastery of STW2 economics and diplomacy - fought several legendary domination campaigns to success but have never had a significant reserve of koku at any point or kept an ally long past Realm Divide.

Starting a new Shimazu at moment so will re-read to see at what point our paths tend to divide.

[edbenedict77]

Maltz Awesome story still reading it like a :) :) Great stuff

[tasanersur]

we could convert to Christianity as soon as we have a Vassal and I reach level 2. However, the instant diplomatic penalty might not be worth the risk. We need to establish all the trade relations first. Maybe a more reasonable timing is until I get to level 4, and have a robust economy supported by prosperous trade network. riteaid survey surveyzop