Satsuma guides, hints and tips

[frogbeastegg]

Please post any advice you have for the Satsuma faction here.

[Graphic]

Invest in a navy ASAP. Not just for defense and because you're on an island, but because Kyushu doesn't get any railroads.

[Voigtkampf]

FotS Faction guide Satsuma

[Liberator]

Invest in a navy ASAP. Not just for defense and because you're on an island, but because Kyushu doesn't get any railroads.

well said. I'm in the early midgame (long campaign, VH ) and have to fight about 2 sea battles per turn on average.

[Minimoto]

Of all the things I've tried, Satsuma was the easiest, delete that police station at the beginning, build a cadet training place (and eventually a cannon factory and a firing range with an upgraded blacksmith-gunnery), and march around the island taking out everyone with line infantry and parrot-or-armstrong guns, replacing all the enemy's stuff with inns and cottage industries (and later on police stations to maintain order versus industrialization).

Steal generals with all the geisha you're gonna have to fill up your roster without making your other generals angry and then plop your geisha in your richest provinces (which are super duper rich).

Make the other little island in the corner a vassal, and kill that little Shogunate island with the goldmine above you (required for Domination), and then take stock of the map while building up three or four big navies (one to defend the top of the map, one for defense on the bottom, and two for troop transport to assault whatever is left of the Shogunate).

In my domination game, the Tsu and Tosa had pretty much cleared the left half of the mainland (and Choshu was long dead), so I left a stack at home and landed at Sagama with two stacks of uber infantry and armstrong guns, fortified and built another uber troop production place with its blacksmith (to build another stack eventually, to cover my backside in case Tsu or Tosa started thinking it looked tasty, although that never happened and I didn't need it), took the nearby goldmine province while I was at it, and then cleared Musashi and the rest of the Shogunate provinces myself (with a ton of years to spare).

If either the Tosa or the Tsu had gone after me it would've taken a bad turn ('cause they were both pretty huge and powerful) but we were old friends and they were busy with a handful of uppity provinces in their midst (the AI doesn't seem to handle converting provinces as well as we do, I've noticed a lot of their recent conquests coming "back to life" with big and painful-to-remove rebel armies, which is something that really slows them down) and I guess that held things together long enough to kick the Shogunate out of Japan.

Anyways I didn't have to use much strategy besides NOT making a lot of deals and getting entangled with all the other tribes (I only had Tsu and Tosa and my two vassals as trading partners, no allies, and I had more money than I felt like taking the time to move the map around and spend by the end of the game).

[Agent Miles]

Building ships is good advice, so here is an analysis of what your navy might be. The smallest/cheapest ship available initially is a gunboat. I divided its price by 3, since it has 3 cannon to get a price per cannon factor. The 6 gun and 12 gun corvettes were spot on this factor. However, the 14 gun and 16 gun corvettes cost less than the factor, as did the frigate. I chose the 14 gun corvette (Kaiten) for my navy, as I could build this ship in one turn after doing some military research, whereas the 16 gun corvette took twice as long and the frigate 3 turns.

The primary use I wanted out of my Navy was to support the Army. Shore bombardment consists of 2, 3 or 4 barrages on the battle map. The max number of shells per barrage is 48. A squadron of 5 Kaiten provide 48 shells in two barrages, so that was what I built. This allowed my navy to bombard the enemy with area fire as they moved to engage my force and then a focused barrage on their line of riflemen firing at my troops from a distance. That's all I really needed in battle, as only one squadron may bombard no matter how many stacks are available. However, I did make more than one stack of 5 Kaiten, to perform shore bombardment during the strategic turn. These can whittle down an enemy rather well before battle. You can even exploit this by sending in one unit to initiate battle and just bombard with your navy and then withdraw your unit. I used three such battles to smash an invasions force in half. I also assembled a full 10 ship stack of Kaiten for sea control operations. It's easy to spam these ships to replace any losses. Eventually you can add larger ships that give the 3 or 4 barrage ability to a stack.

Generals are no longer in a tank like unit capable of single-handedly smashing any enemy unit. Generals should be kept safe behind the lines and perhaps dismounted. In addition to rallying the troops and other traditional abilities, they do have special abilities that make them very useful. You can extend their area of influence for a short time. Do this right before you engage the enemy to aid your troops. Another ability can "Inspire" one specific unit in battle. This should be your best unit as it will have better performance. The unit gets a green icon on its banner to identify it so long as the inspiration lasts. I had all three starting Generals together, so I could inspire two sabre cavalry and my best rifle unit.

In Samatsu province, I increased city size and eventually constructed a firing range and blacksmith to increase rifle/artillery unit accuracy by +35%. I trained line infantry and parrot guns here. In Bungo, I built a Ju-jitsu school (melee attack +4) and trained sabre cav and spear levy. My army stacks eventually consisted of a General, 4 parrot guns in the center protected by 4 spear levy, 8 line infantry ( 2 groups of 4 flanking the spears) and 3 sabre cav (1 on each outer flank and the third in reserve with the General).

Province wealth is never all yours for the taking. The 5000 koku province may only be taxed at 20% for a usable 1000 koku. Governing your provinces efficiently can help though. It makes no sense to have some provinces at +5 and one at -5. You'll have to lose the income of the -5 province or set taxes so low that this one province stays in line. The smart thing to do is to set taxes at the lowest level that keeps them all at least zero. Use Ishin-ishi and garrisons to raise the rebellious provinces and equal out the happiness levels. Then, you want the tax level to increase to the highest possible level with no rebellion. If you so choose, you can even max taxes for one turn and then return to the original level over and over as an exploit to increase income.

Also, a farm increase that states "+1400" when the current farm makes 1200 is a misnomer. You won't get 2600, you'll just get a new total of 1400, or only +200 to wealth...and then you only get to keep the tax. As such, most of the improvements take a very long time to pay for themselves. One exception to income is trade, where X amount of trade is X amount of income. Build enough ports so that you can trade with all 3 foreigners (you'll need to tech up for this) and all of the Imperial factions. Don't let your ports get blockaded or your shipping lanes get raided. Also, trade item production for coal, tea, copper and iron should be maxed out before farms or anything else. The more trade items you produce, the more you have to trade.

Good luck!

[tyreesmuellers]

Thanks for such a great post. Good tips.

[Fisher]

Of all the things I've tried, Satsuma was the easiest, delete that police station at the beginning, build a cadet training place (and eventually a cannon factory and a firing range with an upgraded blacksmith-gunnery), and march around the island taking out everyone with line infantry and parrot-or-armstrong guns, replacing all the enemy's stuff with inns and cottage industries (and later on police stations to maintain order versus industrialization).

Steal generals with all the geisha you're gonna have to fill up your roster without making your other generals angry and then plop your geisha in your richest provinces (which are super duper rich).

Make the other little island in the corner a vassal, and kill that little Shogunate island with the goldmine above you (required for Domination), and then take stock of the map while building up three or four big navies (one to defend the top of the map, one for defense on the bottom, and two for troop transport to assault whatever is left of the Shogunate).

In my domination game, the Tsu and Tosa had pretty much cleared the left half of the mainland (and Choshu was long dead), so I left a stack at home and landed at Sagama with two stacks of uber infantry and armstrong guns, fortified and built another uber troop production place with its blacksmith (to build another stack eventually, to cover my backside in case Tsu or Tosa started thinking it looked tasty, although that never happened and I didn't need it), took the nearby goldmine province while I was at it, and then cleared Musashi and the rest of the Shogunate provinces myself (with a ton of years to spare).

If either the Tosa or the Tsu had gone after me it would've taken a bad turn ('cause they were both pretty huge and powerful) but we were old friends and they were busy with a handful of uppity provinces in their midst (the AI doesn't seem to handle converting provinces as well as we do, I've noticed a lot of their recent conquests coming "back to life" with big and painful-to-remove rebel armies, which is something that really slows them down) and I guess that held things together long enough to kick the Shogunate out of Japan.

Anyways I didn't have to use much strategy besides NOT making a lot of deals and getting entangled with all the other tribes (I only had Tsu and Tosa and my two vassals as trading partners, no allies, and I had more money than I felt like taking the time to move the map around and spend by the end of the game).

Thanks for the detailed review!!!