Yee-Yee-Oh!: Mori (Legendary, Domination)

[Maltz]

Chapter 06. First-time boarding

Motoharu: "Yurinobu san! I heard you are leaving us to lead the navy. What's your task?"
Yorinobu: "There is an Imagawa fleet approaching, and my job is to sink it! Strickly speaking, our navy is not ready yet - we are still waiting for a Sengoku Bune and two Fire-bomb Kobaya. But what we have should be an overkill already."
Motoharu: "Soga... (I see). I just got a report that our Metsuke in Kyoto has intercepted an Imagawa Metsuke. It seems that Imagawa's ambition did not end!"



Note: This looks awefully similar to what happened in the previous Shimazu story. Imagawa declares war with a full-stack army via ship, followed by a Metsuke travelling on land. If the first wave is defeated, they might send the second, bigger wave. The existence of this clan is simply to annoy us. MUST KILL!

[Maltz]

Takakage: "Father, as you ordered, we produced superior (level 3) Metsuke from Tsukushi thanks to their superior school system. Together with their mafia (Yakuza) background and some extra skills in Town Supervising, they have amazing town management skills (6-stars)! We plan to have 4 of them and let them supervise our 4 richest towns."



Motonari: "Hm... but I remember hearing some legendary Metsuke who could supervise towns like giant sweat shops in Indonesia... that's why we get our incense from them practically free, right?"
Takakage: "Indeed. The best and most practically attainable town management comes at level 4, with 3 additional points into town supervision for a total of 10 stars. But that requires either 15 years town-supervision experience (60 turns = 60 EXP), or 1 year of intensive training in agent arresting (15 EXP x 4)."
Motonari: "Too bad, there is no agent nearby for us to catch. Oh wait, the Ashikaga Shogun in Kyoto nontheless hires a new monk every time we arrested the old one."
Takakage: "That seems to be best source of agents. We already sent one Metsuke there to train, but that is our 5th Metsuke, aiming to become a bribery specialist."
Motonari: "Hm, we need some extra manpower to quiet down the Christian populations in the rich provinces in Northern Kyushu anyway. So let's delay the intense training until they can be called away."

[Maltz]

Motonari: "Hm... so how are the stars the Metsuke wear convert to the actual extra tax we collect?"
Takakage: "For a six-star Metsuke, they make an effect of 33% additional tax, subject to administration cost. The admin cost rises with our province count. Currently our admin cost is about 40%."



Motonari: "So... er... What's the actual extra tax we collect?"
Takakage: "33% x 0.6 x total production. In this particular case (Iwami's production = 4313), we get more than 800 koku per season!"
Motonari: "Can't wait to see what a 10-star Metsuke does on Iwami!"

[Maltz]

Motoharu: "Harima taken from rebels! We are getting close to Kyoto!"
Yorinobu: "Lord Motonari's instruction has arrived - the second army is to push east just one more step to Settsu and stop."
Motoharu: "Hm... that could be problematic - the Hatakeyama clan has a huge army like two stacks and half in Settsu. And their base is all the way in the northeast. So there is no easy peace with them if we declare war."
Yorinobu: "Must find a way to distract them..."



Note: This part of the game was completely quite a while ago, and now I really regret not luring out Hatakeyama's army using the rebel's Harima castle (and then turn Settsu into rebel while it is undefended).

[Maltz]

Takakage: "Father, we now have Bungo. Like Buzen it has a huge Catholic population..."
Motonari: "That's why we brought 3 monks here. One for Buzen, one for Bungo, and one extra for incite rebels."
Takakage: "So what do we do with the Nanban Trade Port here?"
Motonari: "This thing spreads the Nanban religion and increases our upkeep cost. What's the benefit of the port?"



Takakage: "Imported Matchlock Ashigaru. There is also a little town growth bonus. But ce can't make use of its trading function as our base Aki is not connected via land route. Plus we are pretty much trading with every costal clan anyway."
Motonari: "Bah. We will recruit much better ranged units than Matchlock Ashigaru. Let's burn it!"
Takakage: "Yeah, burn it!"

[Maltz]

Takakage: "Father, you gotta hear this. The Imagawa clan again asks for peace, if we pay..."
Motonari: "Wait, let me guess. Last time they want us to pay 2700 koku. This time... 5000 koku?"
Takakage: "More."
Motonari: "Hm, they seem to be more stupid than I thought. 8000 koku?"
Takakage: "More."
Motonari: "So they are both stupid and crazy. 10000 koku?"
Takakage: "More."
Motonari: "No way! 12000 koku?"



Motonari: "Wahahaha! Oh I am going to choke on my tea! This is... I don't have any word to describe this!"
Takakage: "Let's show them the reality!"
Motonari: "Yeah. Once Hoki and Bizen gets all their good upgrades, we are going to use our best fleet to ship our best stack to Imagawa and kick their ass! And then we see how much they want to pay us!"
Takakage: "Yes! I will tell admiral Kuchiba to gain some more experience on navy."

[Maltz]

Takakage: "Admiral Kuchiba, an Imagawa fleet is coming your way!"
Yurinobu: "Backed to a shore? So they would not even attempt to escape!"



Note: After controlling the nearby straits with Bow Kobaya, the Imagawa fleet, which was probably tasked to blockade our ports, got stuck in the shore outside Settsu (probably waiting for our Bow Kobaya to sail away).

[Maltz]

Yorinobu: "Just four trade ships? That's easy... can I use a stunt double?"
Takakage: "Please take this as a practice to find good tactics to master naval battle!"
Yorinobu: "Ok!"

[Maltz]

Captain Jaku Subalo: "Admiral Yorinobu! From now on I will be your second-in-command in naval battles. My name is Jaku Subalo."
Yorinobu: "I like your pirate name!"
Jaku: "(In style) You forget one very important thing mate, I am captain Jaku Subalo."
Yorinobu: "... Nice. So Jaku, what can you teach me about piracy, I mean naval battles?"
Jaku: "First, we need to know that the enemy will always come to us under any circumstance."
Yorinobu: "That's silly."
Jaku: "A little. But they tend to find the gaps in our formation and sails behind us, probably in an attempt to surround us."
Yorinobu: "I see."
Jaku: "So that gives us lots of potential ideas we can experiment one by one."
Yorinobu: "Good. So what's our ultimate goal in naval battles?"
Jaku: "Capture or sink every single ship, letting none escape."
Yorinobu: "Great! OK here is an idea. If I line up my Medium Bune in a flat line, but leave spaces in between, wouldn't Imagawa's trade ship inevitably travel through the gaps between our ships... then we can start boarding them?"
Jaku: "Let's try it out!"



Yorinobu: "They get close! Board now! Go go go! Darn, Why are you not going?"
Jaku: "Admiral, I am afraid your method failed. The Imagawa fleet passed through your gap and is now at our back."
Yorinobu: "So what should we do?"
Jaku: "Just break up from the formation and capture it!"

[Maltz]

Yorinobu: "Darn, what a chaos. The Imagawa fleet were everywhere, and we broke up our formation to board random targets..."
Jaku: "But since they are so weak and slow... we still managed to capture all of them! We won!"
Sailors: "Yee-Yee-Oh!"

[Maltz]

Yorinobu: "My trap idea did not pan out. Any suggestions, Jaku?"



Jaku: "I actually like your idea. All we want is to capture enemy ships, so they do not get to flee. So any tactics that focuses on "capture them as soon as possible" is a good one. But Imagawa's fleet was a little too fast, and you issued the board command a little too slow..."
Yorinobu: "I can issue the board command sooner next time, but Imagawa's fleet was already the slowest possible - they are trade ships!"
Jaku: "So we need some thing to really slow them down..."

[Maltz]

Takakage: "Father, Sagara and Ito have finally started to fight. Ito foolishly kept bumping its one full stack into Sagara's two stacks - inside Sagara's territory. It looks like Sagara is going to win this one."
Motonari: "Hm... is Sagara smart enough to counterattack? Maybe not."
Takakage: "If they are stuck, we are stuck, too."
Motonari: "Indeed. Now our monks have arrived to preach in Bungo - our army can move out! Let's interfere and break this stupid stalemate!"



Takakage: "So which side are we on?"
Motonari: "Sagara is winning, so we have to help Ito. They will certainly pay us to fight Sagara."
Takakage: "And just before that, Sagara would pay us for infinite military access. Wow, 5080 koku! And we already sold 5 turns for almost 1000 koku last season."
Motonari: "That's so mean, but I like it!"

[Maltz]

Takakage: "And Ito pays 1970 koku for declaring war on Sagara!"
Motonari: "Good! Let's fight a good one!"