Pagans' Requiem: Shimazu (Domination, Legendary)

[Maltz]

This time two are on the hook! Thanks to their super-tight formation, we have little problem of decimating them even with our reduced numbers. Loss is inevitable.

[Maltz]

So with patience and a little fishin skill, we have reduced Ashikaga's Bow Samurai all the way from 17 units to 4 units! The 6 starting Bow Ashigaru units are all damaged andrunning low on arrow.



As planned, it is time to retire them. Thanks for your effort - that was 13 Bow Samurai units they destroyed.

[Maltz]

We brought 12 Bow Ashigaru units. So here comes the second batch!



We don't just hire any Bow Ashigaru. They are absolutely the best availble. Tthis batch has 15% bonus accuracy and level 4 experience, and is led by our best Bow general, providing another 15% accuracy, for a total of 65% accuracy! So they are actually "super" Bow Ashigaru, perfectly comparable to Bow Samurai in performance, but much cheaper and comes in greater 33% extra size.

[Maltz]

We have a feeling that when we reduece Ashikaga's Bow Samurai any further, they will start charging. So we recalled al hidden units, get a formation ready, and moved up the line.



We baited and destroyed another Bow Samurai, and here they come! Ashikaga's general attempted to find our weakness, but they did not see any. On both flanks we have 2 units of Katana samurai and 1 Yari Cavalry.

So the Ashikaga Shogun actually pulled back his melee units, and leave their last three units of Bow Samurai to continue shooting at our Naginata Samurai, while they remained out of range of our bows.

[Maltz]

Our Naginata Samurai has 14 armor! So their arrows had really limited effect. But since now they become "baits", we gladly pulled them back behind the Bow Ashigaru, so we can take shots at the preys.



So essentially we have lured all 17 units of Bow Samurai in one battle. That is a new record!

[Maltz]

The Ashikaga Shogun attempted their final attack! So we again moved up our Naginata line. But even before he reaches our line, our 65% accurate arrows broke their numbers and morale.



They all routed! The battle is over!

[Maltz]

We killed most of Ahikaga's men losing only 1/8 of our own. Most of our melee actually had no chance to swing their weapons. The damaged Bow Ashigaru units will get their number back in no time.

[Maltz]

And we proceed to assault the Kyoto castle. We wil not bother you with details (auto-resolved) - it was easily over.



Note: Should have tried to use the 3 units of European Cannons to blast through the walls and towers! But I got lazy.

[Maltz]

By taking over Kyoto, we started the first phase of Realm Divide. This phase only incur a small diplomatic penalty. But after we become the new Shogunate a year later (the second phase), all existing clans will suddenly hate us very much.



So we have to consolidate our diplomacy. First, we can declare war on Hojo by asking for Date's sponsorship. Just a little extra profit. Declaring war on Hojo is important, as we can now lock Takeda on our side. They will not be able to restablish their alliance with Hojo anymore.

[Maltz]

But since we have a deep pocket, we may as well give Date's sponsor money right back and get some extra friendship. We also paid 2000 koku to Honma to pre-pay peace.



We might be still declared war by them a year later when we become Shogun. But since they are small and weak, there is not too much to worry.

[Maltz]

As we have trigger Realm Divide, our navy has to patrol the costal lines of our front. Here were were attacked by a damaged Hojo full-stack fleet!



Let's see how long they last!

[Maltz]

Hojo's 10 ships lined up perfectly in our cannon's crossfire. But they were fast enough to reach us before we destroyed a good number of them.



Then they started shooting fire arrow at us, and one of our ship immediately caught fire! We had to focus on repair for that ship or the fire will soon burn down the ship! But luckily, ship #2 did not catch fire, and was to successfully reduce Hojo's strength while ship #1 was busy to put down the fire. Hojo's arrows had very limited damage on our crew.

So we still defeated this stack while only losing about a few dozen crew... out of 600. Two Nanban trade ship is just awesome. But to be absolutely safe, maybe we need three.

[Maltz]

Quicky a year has past. We have become the new Shogun!



Right now, we have four ashigaru armies and one samurai army, so we are quickly taking over the rebel controlled Kinki area. We have also called up all our Metsuke to maintain order in more troublesome provinces. We naturally lose a few thousand koku of incomes every season this way. We will soon hit the limit of this wave of expansion, and has to slow down to wait for Christianity to spread and unrest to calm.

By the time we finished resting, we should be able to field an entire line of Heavy Gunners.

That concludes chapter 11 of our story.

[Maltz]

Chapter 12. Our loyal samurai, Takeda

You know, Samurai does not mean anything really spectacular originally - it only means "servant". But since the Honor culture started gettting popular in Japan and the country was essentially ruled by military warlords, the servants of these warlords become a cool thing, too.



Well, now we are the Shogun! Let's try to turn Takeda into our clan's personal samurai, which they probably think is an Honor to them! Here, they gladly agreed to declare war on Hojo FOR NOTHING in return. Nice! There are only three terrifying military powers, and our team has two of them. The result of the war is usually determined before the battles even begin.

[Maltz]

As we expected, Date and Honma has joined the other side of the Realm Divide. Unwise.



Having samurai Takeda is a great thing, as they are the only clan we have land border with! So Takeda will be fighting all the battles with our enemies (or rather, do some idiotic chase-around as we have seen with Hattori), while we sit back and take over the rebel lands and convert the provinces. If we feel mean, we can actually eat up Takeda's provinces from behind with missionaries. It just does not get easier than this!

But we want someone to test our Heavy Gunners. So we will behave and reserve some big major battles for them. Our missionaries are better used for province conversion.

[Maltz]

Interestingly, Date and Hojo had automatically allied together against us although they have been at war for ages.



But team Hojo-Date-Honma is no match for team Shimazu-Takeda. Let's look for some chances to prove that on the battlefield, too!

[Maltz]

This is the moment we have been waiting for a long time - finally, the Heavy Gunners! They have the strange requirement of armory, so we had to demolish the Hunting Lodge and rebuild the Encampment and its upgrade. We lose 5% of accuracy, but gain 2 points of armor. Since the gunners will form our main line, the extra armor might actually be useful.



Since upgrading Gunsmith to Arsenal requires another 6 seasons, we can train 9 units of Heavy Gunners before switching to Fire Rockets. Nine units of Heavy Gunners should be good enough to form a adequate line.

[Peasant Phill]

So far this has been a really good read, especially the diplomacy part.

Just a question, the heavy gunners are those from the dlc?

[Maltz]

Here our Nanban Trade Ship fleet #1 (that patrols the southern shore) intercepted a small Hojo fleet!



They had no chance against the cannons!

[Maltz]

Our Nanban Trade Ship fleet #2 (that patrols the nothern shore) intercepted a full-stack Honma fleet, carrying a full-stack of army!



We have been waiting for this moment forever!

[Maltz]

We have three trade ships in this fleet. One of them was quickly set on fire and had to enter repair mode. But the other two ships provided enough fire support to decimate Honma's ships.



But some of them escaped and entered the open sea.

[Maltz]

By giving chance to that fleet and sink that ful-stack army into the water , our Nanban ships also suffered attrition this season. The attrition was the most damage these ships ever took.



Later on, we learned to use the ships we captured from the 1st battle to give chase to the ships that escaped.

[Maltz]

Takeda is a very powerful and aggressive clan. It has been making steady advances on Hojo's provinces, while our missionaries peacefully facilitate the trasition of Takeda's provinces to ours.



But eventually we have to use our missionaries to convert the population in the newly acquired provinces. So our expansion has to take a long pause, just like before.

Here, Hojo's ninja sabotaged the Confusian Academy under construction, but was quickly arrested and executed by our Metsuke. Hojo's two great casltes are within reach! And we have two 6-star armies nearby!

We still have our Ninjas active on the field! So we took over these two provinces without any significant fight. That full-stack Hojo was sabotaged until we dissolved them with superior forces automatically on the field.

[Maltz]

Hm... didn't we just sink one full stack of Honma fleet 2 turns ago... here comes another one!



This is getting annoying. We have to put a stop to this.

[Maltz]

As mentioned, we are not so dumb to use our Nanban Trade Ship to chase the leftover fleets (which still carry the army, so we must destroy it), and suffer attrition on the open sea.



So we simply used the captured fleet to complete the task, and sink any leftover ships right after.

[Maltz]

We have reached the limit of our expansion - "all of our agents are currently busy on the line" - or behind the line. So our army has nothing else to do... so we started taking over Hojo's defenceless provinces and convert them to our vassals so we can trade with them.



This still counts as "territorial expansion" penalty on diplomacy, though.

[Maltz]

I heard a myth that if we liberate a clan that is not in direct connection with us, we can avoid the "past grievance" penalty when we revive them.



Well, we just busted that myth! The past grievance penalty still applies to Satake, which shares no borders with us.

[Maltz]

Finally, we completed the Arsenal! Now we can start training Fire Rockets.

Let's see if we get the chance to use them at least one before we unite Japan!

That concludes chapter 11 of our story.

[Maltz]

Chapter 12. Appendages galore

Welcome back, daimyos. The only thing that separate us from uniting Japan is time. For me, it was a torture because I had to sit through every season the same way. But lucky for you, my dear readers, we can fast rewind to the more spectacular sections. Let's begin!



First, let's take a look at these Legendary gunpowder units. Very good range at 250. Very poor size at 30 men per unit. Also poor is their accuracy at 45 (that's already after Buzen's +20 accuracy bonus). They also carry a miserable number of ammo, 5. This does not receive the bonus from Heaven and Eearth.

Note: Subsequent field testing revealed that their accuracy at 45 is far worse than Bow Ashigaru's accuracy at 25. At the end of the battle, they usually make less kills than Bow Ashigaru. The only use of them is their range - they can hit the enemy without being retaliated. This does not force the enemy to advance to you as in the case of European Cannon, which is good (so you can bait the enemy and weakend them).

[Maltz]

Okay, Fire Rocket is a let-down but we did not know that at the time, so we happily shipped them to the front line.



In order to put an end to Honma's annoying and endless sea invasion attempts (here they are readying the next wave!), we landed a stack on Sado! We actually ejected two Metsuke out of the castle when we took it. But strangely, these two Metsuke morphed into one Ninja and the end turn, who promptly sabotaged the Gold Mine.

How did they manage to do that?