Pagans' Requiem: Shimazu (Domination, Legendary)

[Maltz]

The "Daimyo" magazine gives Chosokabe's military a ranking of "Moderate". This means that they have at least one full stack, but probably less than two. So my second son may required a little assistance in Shigoku, especially when we have transferred one of the two ninjas there to Chugoku to assassinate Mori's generals.



That means we need the third full stack. We have been hiring non-stop from Buzen and Satsuma, so we can make the shipment to Shigoku in just two seasons.

This will be led by no one else but me. I have to leave the Hyuga training camp (as a 5-star general). My oldest son and his friend will keep training there. The rebels here first had a unit of Light Cavalry, which I handled with two other units of Light Cavalry. Then they are just infantry left, and training has never been so safe and easy.

[Maltz]

We are always looking for ways to spread the love of the Lord. Here, we handed Mori's capital Aki to Christian rebel's hand, and we promptly took over. Amen



The battle was really simple (auto-resolve) and we recovered in full strength within a season or two.

[Maltz]

The acquisition of Aki made us natioanlly famous (or infamous). Well, at least people do not hate us for "territorial expansion".



We still have a long way to go until we pause before reaching the Realm Divide. After occupation, it takes a year or two for a province to reach the maximal religious unrest (7). Only then we consider to move on to the next province. Now we have extracted two Metsuke from Kyushu to help in both fronts.

[Maltz]

Wako pirates spawned yet again! But we already have two Nanban Trade Ships waiting in a trade node nearby. We fought the battle manually just to see how the cannons rock.



Unfortunately, two Nanban trade ship's cannon is not as good as one Black Ship's cannon. Good enough to win this battle almost unharmed (lost 2 sailors out of... 600+).

[Maltz]

After turning another Mori's province to rebels, suddenly Mori declares war on us, too! We had that feeling already (that's why we assassinated all of their 5 generals nearby), since Mori was not at war with anybody else closeby (they were separated from Ikko-Ikki by their ally Yamana). It is in theory the best choice to fight Shimazu. Of course this is a bad decision in reality.



Mori is a much tougher opponent than Chosokabe, as they not only have a lot more military strength, but also a large navy. We might need to sacrifice significant trade income to wipe out their main fleet.

Maybe we could avoid this war if we first asked for an alliance with Mori and asked them to break alliance with Yamana. However, we wanted to expand in Mori's lands anyway, as their remaining large stack (now without a general) in Nagato province has been crushing Christian rebellions. It might be a good thing that now we have a faster way to open Chugoku's north route - when we have the army for it. Right now we don't. We need to finish the fight with Chosokabe quickly...

This concludes Chapter 6 of our story.

[Maltz]

Chapter 07. Dodging the sharpest arrows

Welcome back, daimyos. After declaring war on us, Chosokabe quickly launched an invasion force of almost two full stacks in autumn. The first stack was led by their daimyo, heir, and their best general. The second stack was led by a nobody.

We only had one full stack, led by my son Yoshihiro, and one ninja. Our second full stack, led by myself, is one the way and can arrive on the battlefield next spring. So we need to delay their progress.

First, our ninja there sabotaged the more powerful army, led by the Chosokabe daimyo. Then Yoshihiro laid an ambush inside a forest by the crossroad, hoping to catch the weaker army when it passes by.



Got them! It is by no means a weak army - more than half of the stacks are samurai! Let's fight them!

[Maltz]

Chosokabe's formation is quite similar to what Otomo had (which is similar to what everybody else has) - their Imported Matchlock Ashigaru goes to front, backed up by Spears, then Bows. The two flanks are protected by Spears. The general and cavalry goes to the back. A very standard formation.



While they did not have a lot of bow units (4 samurai + 1 ashigaru), Chosokabe still decided to camp. This is good for us. Our line of Yari Ashigaru will have seriously difficulty holding off the superior Yari Samurai. We need to weaken them a little first.

So although we have the oppurtunity to surround Chosokabe during deployment, we choose to tuck in a corner and possibly bait some Chosokabe units.

[Maltz]

While Chosokabe has three fast cavalry units in the back, we put our money on that they won't move if our bait, a unit of Bow Ashigaru, approaches from the front. We slowly marched forward until we can start shooting at Chosokabe's Matchlock. And... we shot them until they routed.



There was absolutely no reaction from Chosokabe as if they don't care about the guns.

Note: It seems that the AI has no pain nerve in their guns at front. As long as our bow's range coverage does not extend far enough to cover their other units, they generously watch we destroy their guns.

[Maltz]

When our bait walked up a little further to shoot at Chosokabe's Yari Samurai, their Bow Samurai marched forward. We successfully lured them to duel all of our 9 bow Ashigaru. Even if Chosokabe has the best Bow Samurai in all Japan, their suffering ended very quickly.



Now Chosokabe is down to only 3 bow units versus our 9. We suppose that they will launch their full attack...

[Maltz]

And here they come!

Our camping site is located on a slope, backed by the edge of the battlefield. We are also protected on the right flank by a "cliff" that looks no different from a steep slope. So that only leaves our left flank vulnerable. We had one unit of Yari Samurai and Light Cavalry there as reserves.



Seeing that our right flank is well protected by the "cliff", Chosokabe's furstrated cavalry charged right into our spears! Thanks for making our lives easier.

We also decided to leave the guns on the slope, although they did not have a lot of rooms up there to make a wide formation. The advantage of being up there is that they can still fire at the enemy while being completely safe, and we can just leave them on fire at will and expect a very safe right flank.

The alternative is to move the guns to the left flank and wait for their chances to march up to wrap around. But we expected that Chosokabe will attempt to flank our left flank as it has multiple cavalry units.

[Maltz]

And indeed their cavalry tried to flank us!



We are quite prepared for this, as our Yari Samurai has been waiting for the perfectly unfair matchup. But Chosokabe is sending another Yari Cavalry and Yari Samurai this way! This could spell disaster for us if we do not rout the first unit quickly.

[Maltz]

Our line in the middle held very well. Most of Chosokabe's units have routed, and we were only playing an archer's duel there.

But the left flank is turning into a bigger and bigger problem. Our Yari Samurai is now tied up by Chosokabe's Yari Samurai, and their second Yari Cavalry is about to charge into their back...



So we have to throw everything nearby in the fray! The Light Cavalry, the Bow Ashigaru, the Yari Ashigaru... anybody who does not have anything to fight at this moment must charge!

[Maltz]

Cavalry is only powerful when they charge. If the charge fail to route a unit (it probably will not), it will have to stand and fight with spears.



So we were able to rout the two Yari Cavalry with the mob of inferior units. Chosokabe's Yari Samurai was wavering, and they didn't last long after that.

Slightly earlier we also managed to kill the Chosokabe general, who charged into our "inpenetrable" right flank (which is the spear wall). Our right flank was perfectly exposed, but they just can't find a safe path to it.

Seeing their attack had failed, the rest of the Chosokabe army fled!

[Maltz]

It was a heard earned victory for our Yari Samurai, who have reached the 7th level! They should be feared by cavalries from all Japan.



But we can't let our guard down. We still have the more powerful Chosokabe army to fight after this.

[Maltz]

Now Chosokabe's army is away from its remaining two provinces - our missionary has certainly begun what he does best. All of a sudden Chosokabe only has one province left!

Spring has come!



Ops, there was a scandal about nanban missionaries enjoying the company boys. Well, for the sake of cheaper Matchlock Ashigaru and some town growth, we will forgive them this time. We don't need to make people in Osumi happier (+4) anyway, as they are already happy enough without garrison.

[Maltz]

We still have the more powerful Chosokabe army to fight. I am here to help! I also brought two ninjas!



All of Chosokabe's general in that army were removed from duty for various reasons - some suddenly had their throat slit during a meeting, some had tea poisoning and had to be shipped to their capital's hospital. Just before the battle, their men heard the gospel of peace and love.

That's all preparation we can do. Let's fight!

[Maltz]

I actually brought a unit of European Cannon to Shigoku, but after some field testing we found that it is better to leave them out of a field battle.

The worst thing about brgining Cannons to the field is that it forces the enmy to march towards you, but you might not have a good spot to camp as the Cannons are immobile. The cannon balls don't explode in a large area, and can't kill enough of the enemies before the they get too close. If we don't have the Cannon, the enemy might decides to camp, and only charge us after we have weakend them through bait tactics.

So Cannons are only good for castle sieges to blast doors open and to destroy arrow towers, etc.



Chosokabe fields a quite experienced army with 10 units of Bows (6 Samurai, 4 Ashigaru), quite a few spear infantry (1 Samurai, which is the make-shift general, and 6 Ashigaru). There is also a unit of Impomrted Ashigaru. Their formation is very easy to guess.

So where do we begin?

[Maltz]

Indeed, we begin with shooting their Imported Matchlock with our baiting bow Ashigaru.



Standing on Chosokabe's second line are Yari Ashigaru. They have a tendency to charge us all by themselves. Each charging Yari Ashigaru will follow our bait back, to be penalized by 8 units of very accurate Bow Ashigaru and 2 units of Matchlock Ashigaru.

Here goes one!

[Maltz]

Here goes two! We still haven't figured out a good way to put the Mathlocks. Their range is simply too short - the enemy started fleeing way too quickly. Can't blame the peasants.

[Maltz]

Here goes three! Finally, we found a way to at least allow the guns to fire. The bait unit has to retreated to the back of the matchlock from the side (to not block their line of sight), so the prey will head into the bullet's way.

[Maltz]

Here goes four. We are getting better at this, too. With cavalry ready to charge the fleeing men, we allow nobody to leave the trap alive.

You might ask: why hasn't Chosokabe launched the full attack? This is likely because that their numerous bow units (10) are completely unharmed (yet). We don't expect them to come to us until much later. In the meantime, we can enjoy baiting all of their Yari Ashigaru.

[Maltz]

Chosokabe's Yari Ashigaru were too eager to charge us! Finally we had enough arrows on their Matchlock Ashigaru to send them running.

[Maltz]

Here goes the fifth Yari Ashigaru unit!



Seeing some regrouping in the Chosokabe line, We decided to backup to the hill, since they are coming anyway. The height advantage allows our units to fight better should Chosokabe suddenly decide to attack with everything.

It turned out that they were simply regrouping. With all their strong bows intact, they have no intention to launch the final attack. In the meantime, we are consistenly draining their Yari Ashigaru supply.

[Maltz]

That's their last Yari Ashigaru unit!



Now Chosokabe has 10 bow units and 1 spear - their general. We tried to bait their general into charging us, but he is a lot more resistance to the urge of dying a silly death. Probably because his unit is a Yari Samurai, not Yari Ashigaru.

So we should start luring their bow units.

[Maltz]

It is quite a difficult task to lure bow units, since they are much more cautious than Yari Ashigaru. If we are ahead for too much and too long, they turn back.

As a result, we decided to abandon the hill and march closer. A perfect distance between our line and theirs is about 2-3 bow's range. This way there is a good chance for our bait to draw their bows into locking in a shootout with our trap before they decide to go back. This is also a safe distance that no matter how much fire the baited units take, the rest of the army is not coming up to help.

A good bait for Bow is Cavalry, since we can quickly change their running direction to avoid any arrow fired at them.



We managed to draw four units of Bow at the same time. Since Chosokabe has the best bow units in Japan, and the fact that they are quite experienced Samurai units, this is a little tough for our 8 units. But we still managed to rout them one by one with reasonable losses.

[Maltz]

During the quite difficult 4:8 duel, our first row were taking lots of damage, so we moved them back to let the second row take some damage for them.



The idea is to take damage even throughout all units, so we need just one or two seasons to regain full strength after the battle.

[Maltz]

Now Chosokabe still has 6 Bow units left - and they are still camping! That's... a lot of confidence.

Some of our units are running low on arrows (a rare feat after Heaven and Earth). So we regrouped them to move units with more spare arrows to the front row.



And then we repeated the bait tactics and attracted two more bow units. Six down! Only four left!

[Maltz]

Iis a shame that it took me so long to realize that we can sneak in a Light Cavalry to the back of the enemy line to cut down every fleeing man.



You can't make it out alive unless we let you!

[Maltz]

Now Chosokabe is down to 1 Yari Samurai and 4 Bow units. And they are still camping! This is insane!



Our arrows are running low, so maybe they think they still get a better shot by playing defence. (They just don't realize that they have a tendency to be baited and killed one by one.)

[Maltz]

But just when we marched up our bait (this time Bow Ashigaru) again, their general finally decided to charge!



Alone! And they squarely ran into arrows and bullets! To his glorious death!

It also took us this long to realize that the best place to put the guns are right at front (as long as the retreating bait does not block their line-of-sight).