Discharge the Honourable: Chosokabe (Legendary, Domination)

[Maltz]

Although we only see one full stack of defenders in Kyoto, there is apparently a hidden full stack on the field. So we are up against two full stacks of (almost full) samurai army!



We purposely fight this battle just one stack led by our best general - my father. We don't think we will need any reinforcement anyway. We picked the most versatile army composition for this important battle, with 9 units of Bow Warrior Monks (accuracy +25%), 6 units of Naginata saumari (armor +5), and 4 units of Yari Cavalry (charge +5).

[Maltz]

At the start of the battle, we noticed that the Ashikaga daimyo deployed very close to us, and only slowly marched back to meet with his full stack of reinforcement.



This is a very good opportunity for Yari Cavalry horde - they are one of the fastest units, and they have a large (+10) bonus against cavalry.

My father used himself as a bait, and successfully distracted the Ashikaga daimyo. Our four Yari Cavalry charged forward and trapped him!

Exploit #25: Suicidal general

In battles where the enemy actively approach us (usually happens when we have superior ranged strength - not a smart move, though), the opponent general/cavalry has a high tendency to charge into us when being provoked by an approaching unit (or not provoked at all), without waiting for infantry to catch up.

[Maltz]

It has hard to tell which corpse is which, but this is probably him! The Shogun has died an honorable (and stupid) death!



Now his two full stacks of mostly samurai has to fight us without a leader!

[Maltz]

As the enemy's long line approaches, we backed up to a little hill. My father dismounted and ordered his units to Stand and Fight! This provides a huge boost to his commanding power (larger blue circle), and all affected units receive a large fighting bonus. Our Bow Warrior Monks's accuracy reaches 95%!



Here they come! The clash of the elite!

[Maltz]

Our warrior monks started shooting their whistling arrows!



Our Naginata Samurai at front are also affected by the arrows. But their morale is so high anyway (my father gives +6 morale to everybody) that they are completely unaffected. We want to rout the Ashikaga samurai as quickly as possible.

[Maltz]

Our Bow Warrior Monks quickly switched to flaming arrows to further hit on the enemy's morale. The Ashikaga infantry charged (two units were already wavering)!



Our Naginata samurai takes them head on!

[Maltz]

Our Yari Cavalry charged out from the flanks and routed the Ashikaga Bow Samurai! This attracted a few Ashikaga Yari Samurai units to go after them. But of course they could not catch up.



The massive Ashikaga infantry was stopped by the durable line of Naginata, and shot by the most accurate arrows of Bow Warrior Monks. Their line collapsed!

[Maltz]

Seeing that their samurai comrades have lost their will to fight, the Ashikaga Yari Samurai chose to retreat.



Our Yari Cavalry had a really nice charge on their back. But we unfortunately failed to route them as their morale was locked on wavering. We suffered quite heavy losses before we pulled back.

Lesson learned: Never cavalry charge retreating Yari Samurai.

[Maltz]

Soon the first Ashikaga army has retreated, and the second wave arrived. This wave has a very different composition from the first wave, which was largely melee infantry. The vast majority of them are Bow Samurai, accompanied by some cavalry.



Their cavalry tried to flank us, and we used our own Yari Cavalry to counter. Very soon, the Ashikaga cavalry started retreating (not routing), as they have given up.

[Maltz]

Although their cavalry is gone, their Bow Samurai remains on the spot to shoot our Naginata Samurai line. Not very effective as they were pretty much wearing full plate armor (armor = 14). They can be a lot more productive if they aim at our Bow Warrior Monks, who were having a great time tearing them to pieces.



But we will not stand there and let them shoot. Charge!

[Maltz]

As our Yari Cavalry charged into their flank and our arrow-proof Naginata Samurai ran downhill toward them, there was soon a massive routing of Ashikaga Bow Samurai. The battle of Kyoto is won!



A heroic offensive victory! We killed half of the Shogun's samurai army, 2000 men, losing only 400. Only 1 Bow Warrior Monk died.

[Maltz]

While Ashikaga still had half of their army, they were separated in two stacks. One stack defends Kyoto, and the other retreated far enough so they can't help when we immediately attacked Kyoto with our two (almost) full stacks.



Here it is! The Kyoto castle!

[Maltz]

With more than twice of their men, the assault of the Kyoto castle was quite an one-sided slaughter (auto-resolved - tactical manual fighting may take less casualty but will take too long - we will replenish the lost numbers very quickly anyway).



That's it! The Ashikaga Shogunate is oba!

[Maltz]

We captured Kyoto! The Realm Divide arrives as this is also our 23rd province.



We have been preparing so extensively for it. The realm divide is 3 clans on Chosokabe team, 0 clan on the opponent team. The Chosokabe team advances by default.

This concludes chapter 19 of our story.

[Maltz]

Formation: The machine grinder

Before we continue the story I feel the urge to discuss in better detail of my favorite formation for field battles in this campaign. It is surprisingly effective against the extremely predictable AI. Welcome to modify it to suit your play style.



The biggest problem for a legendary-difficulty battle is that we cannot issue orders during pause. We also can't slow down battle speed. This means that we can issue very limited numbers of command in real time, just like in a multi-player battle. One way to get around this restriction is to be familiar with keyboard short-cuts, as moving the mouse cursor to each icon and unit takes too much time. Another way around this is to minimize the number of commands we need to issue.

In the above anti-AI formation (nicknamed "the machine grinder"), we will have very few commands to issue, perfectly manageable for a non-pausing legendary battle. The army is composed of 45%-55% of ranged units (9-11 units in a full stack), and the rest melee. See more details below.

The key idea is that the AI will actively attack you if you have superior ranged power. What we want is to let the AI come to us. (If they don't come, we can lure their units down their hill one by one. But it takes a lot of time.) Try to find the most steep and tree-less hill to camp on. If this location is at the battlefield's corner, even better.

(1) The defensive line

You need a durable line of defense at front. They will take the AI's ranged units' arrows and its melee units' charge head-on. In early-mid game, Yari Ashigaru's Spear Wall is good enough for this role. Group all "line units" together and enable the spear wall when the enemy starts charging with one mouse click. Then leave them alone.

In late game, you can afford Yari Samurai (if the opponent has lots of cavalry, but you can fulfill that role with Yari Ashigaru anyway) or better, Naginata Samurai (solid defense against almost all units). Just look at your opponent`s melee units composition and decide the best counter. Turn on their Guard mode.

Ideally, we need at least 4 rows of men for enough depth of the defensive line. If you can't get 4 rows, maybe narrow your formation and camp at a corner. The AI will march to you.

When the enemy starts routing, disable the spear wall and order them to charge the shooters in the back.

(2) The ranged unit

The core idea of this machine grinder formation is to use superior ranged power to really punish anything that challenges your line at front. Sometimes the AI's shooters will attack your line, sometimes they will attack your shooters. So to play safe, arrnage them in loose formation of two columns/rows. Keep the healthier/better units at front. If you have Yari Ashigaru and Bow Ashigaru, the AI will probably shoot Bow Ashigaru. If you have Naginata Samurai and Bow Warrior Monk, the AI will probably shoot Naginata Samurai. Both are wrong choices, ha!

Group all ranged units together. Turn on Fire at Will.

In research, quickly get Way of the Bow to unlock flaming arrow. When the enemies start charging, activate flaming arrow for a very spectacular firework and expect some mass routing happening quickly. Bow Warrior Monks' whistling arrow is also very effective.

(3) Flanks

As your line and ranged units only need one or two clicks to jump into action, most of your work in the field battle is to command the flanking units. The AI will actively look for chances to flank you (to get to your loosely packed and defenseless ranged units). That's why you have reserves to kick their ass. If the AI has any cavalry, they will almost certainly attempt to circle to your side or even your back. So you need some anti-cavalry units (Yari Ashigaru, Yari Cavalry). If the AI has no cavalry, which is very rare, they will use infantry to circle to your back. So you can use Katana Samurai or No-Dachi Samurai.

You need to manually order each flanking unit to surround and kill AI's flanking units. Don't let your flank wander too far (chasing the routers), as the AI might make multiple attempts to flank you. Pull them back behind your line as soon as they rout a unit.

If you have no spare units to put into flanks (such as 5 Yari Ashigaru + 14 Bow Ashigaru), you can camp in the corner of the map, so you technically have no exposed flank! The AI's cavalry will charge into your spear wall! But not all battle fields have a good corner for camping. So it is better to always prepare a more balanced army.

If your flank has nothing left to counter, order them to charge AI's ranged units from the side when there are no danger doing so (for example, if you have cavalry on the flank, only use them to attack when all AI's spear units have charge into your defensive line).

(4) General

Shogun 2 general's bodyguards are a lot more fragile compared to previous incarnations. And their numbers replenish rather slowly. It is best not to use them to attack unless absolutely necessary. The general is good for Inspiring a key unit (such as the most attacked unit on the defensive line) when the engagement starts. At 4-stars, you can get a powerful skill Stand and Fight. You won't be able to manually inspire anymore, because everyone in the enlarged radius is automatically inspired.

By the way, sometimes the enemy's ranged units get close enough so they can shoot at your general. Move them away from the harm!

Another frequently mentioned general's ability is "Rally". But during this entire campaign I did not use Rally even once after I get the machine grinder formation optimized to the above form.

Remember to choose to end the battle in your first opportunity, so all routing units will be automatically killed.

That's it! Enjoy the slaughter!

Note: By the way, it is seldom a good idea to be outnumbered on the field (the exception being you are the all-cavalry defender against an all-infantry AI, with the battle timer set at 20 minutes). So always bring a full stack. A full stack of Ashigaru army is very cheap anyway.

[Maltz]

Chapter 20. The Dark Wave named Chosokabe Shogunate

Welcome back to the final chapter of our war story, great daimyos. I am Chosokabe Nana.



After training four of our generals to at least 4-stars, the famous Tosa training ground is about to cease operation. Our general simply starved out the defenders (we used to give them a break whenever it was their last season simply by breaking the siege and immediately resuming it in the same season).

In this last "catch me if you can" skirmish, the rebel defenders ran and thew themselves at us. But our general was still too fast for them. Poor guys.

[Maltz]

As we reclaimed Tosa (Kochi is the name the castle), we automatically relocated back to Tosa.



This means that we will at most have only three trading partners if we do not build any Nanban Port in Tosa. But since there are only two other clans remaining, we are fine with that.

However, if there are still lots of enemies remain and lots of agent actions required, it is probably better to keep the infinite save points alive (Legendary only) until the last moment. It is really useful.

[Maltz]

The Realm divide incurs a -20 relationship penalty at the start, and -5 every season after.



Also, the positive relationship from alliance, marriage, and hostage also fades quite quickly. So if we don't send them any gift, eventually we will lose our two allies.

[Maltz]

As soon as Kyoto is conquered, our 6 full stacks advance very rapidly. The rebel provinces not a match against our well-balance full stacks. If there are too many soldiers defending in the castle and quick combat gives too much losses, we will simply wait for them to sally in the same season and crush them on the field.



Now Jizamurai, or local militia, are willing to help us with either economy or military.
Well, we have hired all the units we need. So 25% income bonus for a year is not bad.

[Maltz]

It has been a year since we beat Ashikaga. The Chosokabe clan is declared the new Shogunate!



We received a bonus in clan-wide tax rate, a quite-powerful ship called Nihon Maru (but its power is not even close to the Black Ship), and a unit of Great Guard cavalry.

We even get a new auto-save file name called the Chosokabe_Shogunate!

[Maltz]

A second general in our clan reached the legendary leve of 6-stars (the first one is my father).



We will develop him into a national celebrity. Wherever he goes, people go crazy about him (+10 happiness). Then we send him to conquer the former Ikko-Ikki provinces.

By the way, my father followed the Intimidation line. That's probably why Ashikaga's samurai army fled so quickly.

[Maltz]

Since we still have the capacity to make one more trade partner, let's make a vassal from one of the poorest provinces (so we have the least income to lose).



The Sakai clan is the lucky winner! Hey, are they not wearing any pants (just red underwear) in that picture?

[Maltz]

Our territory expands extremely quickly as we have so many armies pushing forward without meeting any meaingful resistance. We also prepared very well for the Ikko-Ikki region by brining our 6-star monk squad.



With a religious zeal of 27 (9 x 3), we will convert these Ikko-Ikki heartland back to Shinto-Buddhism quickly.

[Maltz]

The local milita now also gives us better views of neighboring provinces. Not very useful, since our neighboring procines are all rebels and do nothing at all.

[Maltz]

Finally, we have a Geisha! It really took way too long to get the required art and building even if we unecessarily rushed for it.



Hopefully we will find someone for her (to kill).

[Maltz]

Wako pirates never stopped spawning. But now we have the Black Ship, which they strangely never run away from, we can easily reduce all their ships to floating garbage, and the Wako to swimmers.



The trick to wipe out a Wako fleet is NOT to end the combat in the earliest oppurtunity, but to continue to shoot until all ships are disabled. We will automatically capture some ships, too. (Although we might end up scrubbing them right away.)

[Maltz]

Here is another rather useless bonus: +2 experience for all cavalry recruit when we control all provinces that have produce good horses.



Since these provinces are so far apart, by the time anyone controls all horse province, recruiting +2, even +9 cavalry does not matter anymore.

[Maltz]

My brother's Motochika's wife may not be as beautiful as her sister in-law from Hatakeyama, but in the end all that matters is that she is (re)productive. That's the third children!

[Maltz]

The battle of Kyoto took place in Spring, 1563. By the winter of 1565, we have conquered all rebel provinces available. But we are still just 2 provinces short to be the dominating winner (60 provinces) of the Sengoku Jidai. We thought that the fast natural decay of relationship with our two allies will drive them against us, but I guess we expanded a little too fast.



Hatakeyama seems to be impatient, too. Here they send a 5-star Ninja to sabotage our (completely useless) trading port in Echigo. Are you looking for war? Of course, our 6-star Ninja quickly dispatched him. (Too bad, our Geisha was still 2 turns away.)

[Maltz]

Some other amazing feat by the Hatekeyama clan - it has built a Legendary Bajustsu School, which reduces the recruitment time of cavalry by one season.



What a useless building. Unit upkeep is too high to support non-stop hiring.