No Gun Shogun: A Self-Proclaimed Suicidal Campaign in Futility

[Gregoshi]

Looking forward to another update further down your campaign path, Yesugey.

[Yesugey]

Looking forward to another update further down your campaign path, Yesugey.

Thanks mate, my current campaign with Choshu actually gives me a lot of hints to how to succeed.

Yesterday I experienced that archers still decimates line infantry. They are short in numbers but they rain death from longer range and even they might be losing on one-to one, they have a good change of winning on army-scale battles. they may cause mass rout by hitting the enemy unit by unit. Especially with the threat of Horsemen. (Not the attack itself, but the threat of it. I believe only appearance of them at the rear would worry the enemy enough)

I think I might allow myself to only upgrade the techs not modern look alike. Like farms, or taxes maybe.

I decided to allow myself to use the wooden cannons though. They look primitive and useless enough to be allowed

[Yesugey]

I gave it a try with Aizu on Legendary, and it looks very promising.

At turn 1, I disbanded all my riflemen, including matchlocks. I trained 7-8 Spear levies instead. It was not disastrous at all, in fact I was still able to win the battle against two Imperial clans, ally with my northern neighbors and we destroyed several clans.

I made a mistake by having one I just beat as vassal so I might be starting again. But looks very promising.

But of course, I must be careful, still. I see even the riflemen with worst skills is able to kill one third of a unit in single volley, it means one mistake, and my army would melt under fire.

[Yesugey]

Ok everything turned out awesome for me. I now have 3 provinces around turn 40, only by using spearmen.

You see, you get a lot of sympathy bonuses because of the Shogunate-Imperial thing. Once you get strong alliances thanks to +75 allegiance bonus, even your fellas cut each other's throat around you, they don't even think lose friendliness towards you.

Moreover, even you don't use guns, your alliance members do. I am in completely safe zone, surrounded with Shogunate clans. I had to go Aizu to the small island close to Tosa, just to attack someone.

So after I survived from few critical turns, looks like Shogunate might win the battle without my help anyway.

I had to use the ships, as FrostbeatEgg already mentioned. You can't move your army or maintain your facilities because of bombardments. So ignore I use ships to move around, block passages or sink other ships. (I don't use Naval bombardment on Campaign Map of Battle Map of course)

I am fighting against Tosa now. If I don't make a mistake, soon No Gun Shogun will become real.

[Yesugey]

It's a battle I played myself. I was almost losing it, but killed the general at the last minute. I had the number advantage though.

But the game gone crazy, as usual. After eliminating Jozai, Edo, the strongest Shogunate clan went Imperial! It's obvious that there is an algorithm forces the clan to change allegiance, just to make the game harder. (It actually makes the game annoying.) Now I am at war with Edo and few other strongest Shogunate Clans.

My only hope is that once I become the Vanguard, they will rally under my flag and things will make sense again. We will see.

[Yesugey]

* I hit a problem for the first time: What if they attack my castle and I have riflemen garrison? Answer: Bayonets! I switched them to melee mode and they are just another regular infantry now.

* My modernization level is still at 2 around turn 55, thanks to all Shogunate buildings lowering it. Unfortunately after all researches done, it will jump me to 3.

* Another big clan with 8 provinces turned from Shogunate to Imperial! The game does that annoying feature, because I was basically won and it want it to change. I think it will stop once I become Vanguard. (Thanks to the "Too Late to change allegiance" event) I wish I knew that before!

* I am not limiting the build of "Cottage Industry". Yes it gives you some modernization, but it's an essential money maker, and it's just cottage. I always upgrade it with the one doesn't provide modernization though. And I always pick Gambling Den, not Market for my Geisha House.

* The autoresult solves the battles against my odds drastically. I think that's because I have no archers. But since the archers are of little use in self-played battles, I rather play the battles myself.

* I am using all techs on ships. I thought I might not use the fireball upgrade, but then decided to use it because I was winning all the battles anyway, it only takes longer to win.. It's an issue actually, because I think the game is buggy and my ships resists ten times more of a cannon balls because I am able to attack and repair at the same time.

* I haven't seen a battle "Full modern against full katana steel" yet. Because I am still fighting with my Shogunate neighbors, and they train Shogitai more than I do. I expect that type of army from Satsuma, once I become Vanguard and face with him.

[Yesugey]

I don't want to look like a guy talking with himself by posting over and over, (Like our helpful friend Druzhina from Medieval 2 Total War forum.) But I must put a screenshot to show the situation.



As you can see, my realm is divided by too. At west, I am keeping Satsuma at bay with my navy (I just lost a 202 men ship, but she took 8 enemy ships to bottom of the sea with her.) Yoko still bombards my docks brutally, but I am holding them too. They have no intention to send an invasion army so far. That's good news.

In the east, things look more promising. I beat 3 armies of the strongest clans around, by swarming with spearmen and cut down with swordsmen. Their pressure is high, but my new units are arrived to the field and soon I will advance again. It's only a matter of time that I take few more cities and become Vanguard. Only problem is the casualties. But I switch the units about to be depleted with the fresh ones close by. And I always send garrison riflemen as a cannon fodder.
I am disbanding Parrott Guns I captured. Don't want to lose my honor by using gunpowder.

Units trained from the Master Dojo starts with +5 Experience, which is an insane advantage. Before that I thought modern armies were extremely imbalanced because they have a foreign trainer. Moreover, I get %15 speed bonus trait for my general, I think it's an insane advantage too, since my army rely on getting close to the enemy as soon as possible.

Interestingly, Yari Kachi is more expensive than Katana Kachi. Looks like their morale is almost equal, armor difference is only one point. And better attack point of Katanas doesn't matter, since they will be slicing riflemen wearing coats instead of armor anyway. Is it possible that Yari Kachi is better? It's the same for Shogitai, their upkeep definitely doesn't worth the attack advantage.

Anyway that's all for now. I will continue playing whenever I have time.