Discharge the Honourable: Chosokabe (Legendary, Domination)

[Maltz]

Chapter 02. Kono, the sitting dead duck

Welcome back, brave daimyos.

A lot of you predicted that Kono would actively attack us Chosokabe. It also happened in a tutorial, right? Well, maltz-san found that if we take heavy loss in the rebel Ichijo fight (by auto-resolve, etc.), the Kono will detect our weakness and invade, probably followed by the betrayal of the Miyoshi clan. However, if we managed to cut down loss in the rebel fight, Kono would stay in their castle. Miyoshi would also continue trading with us for now. Not that I am suggesting that you are not very good at battles. Maltz-san died at that rebel battle 6 times as well.



Chosokabe's next goal is to take care of the hostile Kono clan in the Iyo province. In the summer of 1545, the Chosokabe army, now reinforced by two fresh units of Bow Ashigaru from Tosa, reaches the border of Tosa and Iyo. The army will be able to reach the enemy's castle in the fall.

By the way, we have demolished the Archery Dojo without even hiring one unit of Bow Samurai from it. It is too expensive and slow for our need. We want something ten times more versatile on the battlefield. Yes. The answer is Man in black. But they will not join the action until next summer.



Since now Kono remain in the castle, they should be more protected than on the field right? Safety is one of the seven deadly illusions in Sengoku Jidai. If you are paranoid about assassins hiding in some tree above you, one in fifty will fail to get you.

Exploit #03 - The predictable AI under siege

We actually LOVE to fight siege battles. In the majority of the cases, our enemy will display very predictable behavior that leads to loss of lives. If you have some time reading, you can see the full description here.

The Kono defender only has 1 ranged unit, a Bow Ashigaru. The AI assign them to defend a wall that faces our initial deployment. We know that this unit is unwilling to move as long as our initial deployment remains still.



The Chosokabe general and a unit of Bow Ashigaru simply march by the castle's west without being attacked. They need to get to the east side of the castle. The Bow Ashigaru were afraid, probably because the bridge was not designed to hold 120 men. What does the general have in mind?



Our general only wants to find a perfect angle to take out the defending Bow Ashigaru. Here is a perfect angle. With the general's Inspiration, our Bow Ashigaru not only regained their confidence, but also all of sudden became expert snipers with telescopes!



None of the enemy's Bow Ashigaru made through the 30 volleys. What a miserable ending of these stupid defenders. Now that the enemy has no more ranged defenders. We can easily shoot down everything else. The trick is wait for a unit to come in range and stand still, release two volleys, and wait for the next oppurtunity. When the arrow finally depleted, the melee units charged in. Easy job!



Kono was defeated, but the province of Iyo was very unstable. Our conquest of Shigoku has to take a one-season break here. We will recruit some more units back in Tosa, so we can leave some guarding Iyo. The next march will start in the winter!

In the meantime, we start sending Bow Kabuya to visit the trade nodes west of Kyushu. If we are lucky, we should be able to reserve a few trade spots. We do not have any spare fund to develop a trade fleet yet. That will have to wait after the conquest of Shigoku.

Thoughts #03: Trade or the rest of Shigoku?

Maltz-san reported that in his initial attempt, he went for the "Trade" strategy. He started selling military access (see strategy here) to Sogo and Miyoshi from the get-go, remain friendly with them, and used the extra funds to developed a prospering trading economy by the third year. However, there was very little to do next, as Sogo and Miyoshi refuses to fight each other despite they just broke the alliance and trade deal. Besides, the monks were successful in setting up revolts, but due to some map feature, the revolts in Awa were stuck and even the town's garrison refuses to do anything to them. We were extremely reluctant to declare war on clans that has our military access as it will make us look bad in all Japan. However, our main army cannot be marched anywhere else and leave the home undefended. So that parallel universe for Chosokabe quickly reached a good-looking dead-end.

So maltz-san wanted to try the brutal approach - take the rest of Shigoku as quickly as possible. There was no military access sale to the rich enemies. So we had to spend very carefully. We could afford very little infrastructure upgrades. We will end up with a poor economy by the time Shigoku is united. However, we will be able to march the main army away from a safe home.

That concludes the story of Chapter 2.