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Rogue 7 posted:Music's playing. Time to dance. This calls for appropriate musical accompaniment. Deadmeat5150 posted:You hit Realm Divide with far fewer Agents than I usually have running around. Who needs extra agents when you have Chisato? Foe of swordsmen, bane of generals, slayer of granaries! 
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May 15, 2014 17:36
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Looking forward to this. 
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May 15, 2014 17:43
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Agent Interrobang posted:This calls for appropriate musical accompaniment. This is both boss hog and familiar in a way I can't place.
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May 15, 2014 17:58
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I usually try and enter realm divide with one really really friendly ally, to blunt and distract enemy forces. Then I backstab them just before they turn on me for the last few provinces I need.
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May 15, 2014 18:24
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Rogue 7 posted:This is both boss hog and familiar in a way I can't place. You might just recognize them from the old announcement trailer for the Wii if you ever saw that one. They are pretty good though even if I only like one or two songs of them.
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May 15, 2014 18:47
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Welp, now it begins for you. Smart to make the Bessho a vassal right there right as Realm Divide kicked off. Now you have at least one guaranteed trading partner to prevent a total economy collapse due to the new situation. You have armies moving to all of your threatened fronts, so you should be good to move on more enemies relatively soon. Your military tech is rather low for Realm Divide though, and that troubles me. I know you'll be able to pull it off, but better quality troops right now would've helped, I think. Thought you were going to move on Owari first instead of Harima, but I guess you didn't have your army in position for the former. Oh well, that Ikko stronghold will fall sooner rather than later, and the Amako sure did need paying back for their attack on Settsu. Chisato is going to make armies on at least one front move more cautiously there, in a way that only a high level ninja can. She can help protect that front while you get better troops into position.
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May 16, 2014 00:50
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I get that our Super Ninja Abilities let us do all sorts of cunning deployment when fighting for a keep, does it still apply when it's army vs. army?
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May 16, 2014 00:58
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petrol blue posted:I get that our Super Ninja Abilities let us do all sorts of cunning deployment when fighting for a keep, does it still apply when it's army vs. army? Yes it does. Hattori are the best ambushers.
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May 16, 2014 01:13
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So did the Takeda honor there alliance with you and go to war with everyone who went to war with you?
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May 16, 2014 05:09
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Oh boy, now you can have some big fights! ...kind of hilarious that the Shogunate itself isn't mad at you.
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May 16, 2014 06:00
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Agent Interrobang posted:Who needs extra agents when you have Chisato? Foe of swordsmen, bane of generals, slayer of granaries! Even Chisato the Killing Wind can't be everywhere! Yet.
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May 16, 2014 06:23
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Agent Interrobang posted:This calls for appropriate musical accompaniment. This is one hell of a song and it's now my Realm Divide theme. Thanks! cokerpilot posted:So did the Takeda honor there alliance with you and go to war with everyone who went to war with you? They did as you can see in the war declaration screenshots, but their support is far from... solid. Glazius posted:Oh boy, now you can have some big fights! That screenshot is before the AI have had their turns, so they only have the -20 modifier from Realm Divide in there. The Shogunate goes to maximum unhappiness with you as soon as it is their turn (as evidenced by the fact the Ashikaga Shogunate has joined the war against us). Deadmeat5150 posted:
Extra agents are certainly a very high priority, our full cast of characters has not yet been revealed, nor will all the characters we have make it to our final victory! Next update will be a Realm Divide refresher, with a full list of all our provinces, buildings, armies, agents etc as well as our plan for tacking Realm Divide and not only surviving, but crushing Japan under our iron fist. Stay tuned for blood, honour and granaries! Next time on Shogun 2 LP: The Unstoppable Hattori! shalcar fucked around with this message at 11:55 on May 16, 2014 |
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May 16, 2014 11:50
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The Takeda, I have found, are generally pretty solid for the first few turns after Realm Divide and unless they've taken a severe beating all game, take the fight to everyone else in Japan until their sudden but inevitable betrayal as the Realm Divide penalty really kicks in. My favourite moment was getting Kai as my Real Divide hit as Date, restoring the Takeda for the oncoming storm, because their AI is naturally aggressive and they will bring out doomstacks to take their old provinces back from the other AI. Looking forward to watching the world burn.
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May 17, 2014 14:23
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The only way to handle Realm Divide is to invade them first, from behind. The concept of defending your provinces while sending your mass of troops to a far away enemy is lost on the AI.
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May 19, 2014 16:28
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Hi everyone and an apology for the long hiatus! I had hoped to have our Realm Divide recap update out tonight, but it's turning out to take significantly longer than I expected to put the finishing touches on (so much to cover, it's 7mb of pictures already!). I probably should have posted this last week to keep you all informed, but it's been total chaos, primarily at work. Good news is that I've been given substantially improved responsibilities over my old position and I'm in pay negotiations to match my new seniority, but the downside is that I'm absolutely flat out while I adjust to my new role and it's been brutally eating into my LP time. I doubt it's going to be a problem soon enough, but this update is the triple whammy of huge, dry and none of the fun story or battles that normal updates have so it feels a lot like the new work I'm doing right now! The further good news is that it is almost done, so I would be very surprised if I didn't get it out tomorrow. If anyone has anything they want to see in our state of the clan recap, now would be a good time to post it so that I can throw it in, along with anything you want me to talk about! Once again I apologise for the delay and I most certainly have not forgotten you all!
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May 29, 2014 15:01
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Realm Divide mechanics are definitely handled better in the DLC expansions but it's pretty solid even in Shogun 2. This should be good fun to watch.
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May 29, 2014 16:06
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As someone who doesn't play the game, I'd be interested in whether you think you're going to win from this point, and what the main things to look out for are - are there any areas that are particularly weak or strong in you and your neighbours?
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May 30, 2014 02:27
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Realm Divide Update: The Mighty Hattori First off I would like to note that this post is quite long and rather dry in places, being a complete breakdown of everything in the game at the moment of Realm Divide. While the first part of it will cover our overall situation and strategy, the later sections are a detailed breakdown, province by province of our empire. Only buildings that are fully completed are listed in the summary (So while a province might be 2 turns away from building a Rice Exchange, it will show a Market in the summary). petrol blue posted:As someone who doesn't play the game, I'd be interested in whether you think you're going to win from this point, and what the main things to look out for are - are there any areas that are particularly weak or strong in you and your neighbours? Although we have moved at a cracking pace into Realm Divide and so are much less mature than you would be in an ideal world, we are in a great position to win. We won't win without losses and I'm expecting both rocky economic times as well as a few enemy stack breakthroughs, but overall we are in a position where we can expand at a steady pace and simply consolidate what we have. If I was playing sensibly we would button up, build up a force of our best troops and blitz through the softest enemy targets. I'm not going to do that because A) It's functional but a bit boring to watch, B) It's more enjoyable to see just how far I can push it without having it all fall in a heap and C) Neither Korekata nor Yasunaga would settle for anything less than personally taking the fight to our enemies! Our weakness right now is our almost complete lack of military development, with how fast we hit Realm Divide, we really only had a chance to research the economic arts and are still bringing a lot of the benefits of those online, let alone utilising them to their full potential. The core military arts are now slowly being researched, but we don't have the infrastructure built to be able to take advantage of them. We still struggle to produce more than token amount of mid game units (Samurai) and don't even have the option of later game units (monks, heroes, guns). Our strengths are in our relatively large (although more expensive than everyone else) ashigaru compliments, which have seen a lot of battle and so are often quite highly vetted. In addition, our navy is the largest in the southern waters by a substantial margin (when combined) but we don't even have a single ship to the north. With respect to navy, our whole profit margin rests on a stack of Trade Ships in dangerous waters who could any turn be obliterated by our enemies. We have, however, conquered or built certain key strongpoints which are designed to be staging areas to retake lesser defended provinces or be able to rapidly mobilise in an area of Japan if the need arises. In some cases these strongpoints are on the border itself and vulnerable to overwhelming force. In those scenarios I have tried to have an additional strongpoint nearby to organise the retaking of a fallen strongpoint. Always have a plan for what to do if something goes wrong. As to our enemies (ie. Everyone else), we simply have no idea. Our scouting isn't advanced enough to know what all the enemies on our borders are doing, let alone what those beyond our borders are doing. We are going in blind and I'm wondering if maybe I'm not a little overconfident in our abilities. It's going to be tight, it's going to be tense and it's certainly not going to be boring! Overview  With the relatively early turn count, Japan has formed into a few medium size clans, but luckily only one or two major ones. This is a reasonably good situation to be in, as each clan is unlikely to have the resources to muster a full stack of varied elite units. We are looking a lot like the meat in a sandwich though, surrounded on all sides by enemies. But just how bad is it?  It's this bad. That's a lot of red. The only green to be seen on the map is our vassal and even our allies, the Takeda, are barely more than neutral to us. The Takeda trade route is keeping us afloat, which is a bad situation to be in during Realm Divide. We are at war with literally every other clan in Japan. It's going to get worse before it gets better. On the other hand, our power is "Terrifying" which means we have both the biggest army in Japan as well as having at least 3 full stacks worth of troops. I think you also need to be more than ~25% bigger than the second biggest army, but I don't have anything other than gut feeling to back that one up. Whoever we hit is going to stay hit.  We didn't get this far without having a plan and the plan is simple but hopefully effective. Korekata has the job of defending the western provinces and some minor invasion if it will make us more defensible or is an easy target. His job should be made easier by our vassals, the Bessho, blocking off one possible realm of invasion. This means that the Amako will just step up their naval attacks and attempt to get to us that way. We are going to need more boats. The island of Shikoku to the south is expected to hold by itself with no support from the mainland. A strong navy will be key to stopping attacks there before they start, but in all honesty we should be expecting a lot of bloody fighting over it. Taketoshi will be taking the majority of the forces from the island of Shikoku and heading to deal with the Takeda's inevitable betrayal. The Takeda own the last non-Kyoto victory province and so must be invaded if we are to secure victory. In addition, the provinces are straightforward and easy to defend, so Taketoshi should be able to make solid and steady progress in that area. Yasunaga will be continuing his war against the Ikko Ikki, ensuring that every single one of the bastards is wiped out. Pushing down the coast in this manner will also act as a lightning rod for any southern naval invasions, drawing them away from our weaker and more valuable central provinces. Somehow we need to find the koku to build an army of quality to deal with the TWO full stacks of samurai in Kyoto. If I'm totally honest, that's a problem for after we have stabilised the initial attacks and have worked out what our more immediate survival priorities are.          While we have every Chi art you really could want (with the notable exception of monks), our Bushido arts are basically non-existent. At the moment we are really just catching up with the bonuses that the other clans are almost certainly going to have as well as opening up troop choices which will increase our efficiency (A Naginata Samurai unit is worth more than the 2 Yari Ashigaru upkeep it costs for example). As you can see, we are one turn of finishing the Strategy of Attack, which will give our units better charge and open up the almost completely useless Fire Bomb Throwers. Our real reason for going to Strategy of Attack is that it opens up our options to let us research better bows, cavalry or swordsmen. Our current plan is to go for better cavalry as cavalry hero units are the easiest to get in the game and you get 4 of them. This time I'm going to have a hero unit see some damned action (Not to mention that to crack the nut that is the Kyoto double stack, I'm going to need the sort of firepower that 4 hero units can bring). Of course, heroes might be a luxury we can't afford, but right at this moment it is looking like the best option for solving our midterm problems. As a rule, you want to be researching arts that solve your midterm problems rather than your short term ones. Proactive always works much better than reactive. Our Provinces    Buildings:       Army: None Thoughts: Awa is a moderately valuable province that provides Horse trade goods to our empire as well as having the capacity to produce Bow Cavalry and Bow Samurai. Should Shikoku come under attack, it will be part of our capability to retake the island. However, should Shikoku stay untouched, it's unlikely to see much action, instead just producing wealth for us. There are no plans in further develop Awa.     Buildings:    Army: 1 x Hattori Yari Ashigaru Thoughts: Awaji is a tiny province of limited value. Currently it only exists to increase the number of ninja we can field. There are no plans to further develop Awaji. It does, however, serve as a good repair port in the area.     Buildings:      Army: 2 x Hattori Yari Ashigaru, 3 x Hattori Bow Ashigaru Thoughts: Echizen is one of our critical military provinces and acts as a hardpoint for the entire northern region. Heavily fortified and equipped with a full complement of military buildings and the recruitment capacity to utilise them, Echizen is critical to our overall victory. It also contains a Military Port to allow us to generate a naval foothold in the region that we currently lack. Unfortunately, Echizen is almost completely loyal to the Ikko ikki faith and so requires an extraordinary garrison simply to maintain peace. Luckily, the fact it produces Crafts trade goods and increases the accuracy of ranged units produced here means that it is capable of being economically neutral while we get this situation under control. Echizen will be one of our elite cavalry training provinces and so has substantial koku likely to be invested into it.     Buildings:     Army: Muneaki (Metsuke) Thoughts: Iga is our clan capital and the only place in our empire capable of making the deadly Kisho Ninja. Although the Kisho Ninja it makes at the moment are incredibly powerful, I eventually plan to invest into making them even more deadly. Just how likely that is to happen it anyone's guess though, as Iga does everything I need it to do at the moment.     Muneaki was, perhaps, not the most gifted student, nor was he the most diligent, but he had one thing that the others did not. His father is an incredibly rich samurai and was able to secure the job for his son. Luckily for Muneaki, his family connections and friends are there to help him out when he gets in trouble (for a price). Despite this, he's proving he has a feel for the dog eat dog underworld, where money talks and he has enough to be the loudest voice. Despite his less than ideal beginnings, he's proving remarkably competent and has established a exceptional network of spies. As a     Buildings:   Army: 3 x Hattori Yari Ashigaru, 2 x Hattori Bow Ashigaru Thoughts: Ise is a relatively developed province that is where we produce our superior Monk agents, but it also serves as a defensive location in the event of attack by sea. It's currently the only province that is adjacent to the Ikko Ikki and as such will be attacked by them. As of this moment, we are desperately trying to bring the defences up to standard. I had given some thought into turning it into a production province for Naginata Samurai, as it is almost fully equipped to do this task.     Buildings: Army: 2 x Hattori Yari Ashigaru Thoughts: Iyo exists to get invaded as the "soft underbelly" of the island of Shikoku. In reality, it is surrounded by ore valuable and harder to crack provinces as so should serve to funnel the enemy into a location where I can easily deal with them. As bait, it won't be getting any money spent on it.     Buildings:  Army: 1 x Hattori Katana Samurai, 6 x Hattori Yari Ashigaru, 3 x Hattori Bow Ashigaru Thoughts: Kaga is the other half of the Echizen powerhouse province pair, able to produce units with incredible combat effectiveness thanks to the Smith in the province. While this functionality is not online yet and will likely be limited to ashigaru, the fact that it is overrun with support for the Ikko Ikki means that another huge garrison is required which the province doesn't really support economically. Fortunately, it is next to a hostile province, so the garrison was likely required anyway. Construction of a temple is under way in order to help deal with the religious unrest. This province would be a good place to start naginata samurai production thanks to the bonuses of the smith, although it would only be able to create low numbers at best.    Buildings:  Army: None Thoughts: Kawachi is a central province of little wealth but great logistic importance. It is currently undergoing a major upgrade so that it can contribute to our samurai production, as well as be the only province which will create the mighty Katana Cavalry, as well as having the ability to make Katana Samurai in a pinch. Although it won't have the recruitment speed to do more than trickle in these units, it's likely that we won't have the economic power to do much more than steadily gather our strength. Even though it's terrible now, it is going to be instrumental in allowing us to take Kyoto.     Buildings:    Army: 2 x Hattori Yari Ashigaru, Tanesuke (Metsuke) Thoughts: Kii is an economic powerhouse province, producing an enormous amount of wealth for us and slated to produce even more. However, once the current construction is completed it is unlikely to get any more attention unless we somehow manage to get a large windfall to finance the top tier upgrades. Located at the heart of our empire, Kii is about as safe as a province can get.   Tanesuke hates corruption with every ounce of his being. His parents were fairly influential members of society, before they were killed in a blackmail deal gone wrong. He does not believe in mercy or rehabilitation, he believes the world is cold and brutal, but that innocence must be protected like a delicate flower in a field of snow. Showing no fear or compassion, simply doing what needs to be done with a quiet blade or a public beating. Tanesuki is the godsdamned Batman.     Buildings:  Army: 1 x Hattori Katana Samurai, 3 x Hattori Yari Ashigaru, 1 x Hattori Bow Ashigaru, Tokinaga (Metsuke), Tameshige (Ninja) Thoughts: Omi is another keystone economic province that has almost reached investment saturation. Although Omi requires a garrison thanks to being adjacent to non Hattori provinces, it has the single highest income out of any of our provinces. In addition to this incredible wealth, Omi is able to make Ninja agents that are unsurpassed in Japan, starting at rank 3. With the double jewel of incredible wealth and incredible ninja agents, it's easy to say that Omi is the single most important province we have. As long as we hold Omi, there is hope for Hattori victory.    One of the most gifted Metsuke produced in years, Tokinaga came into the role of Metsuke later in life than most. This wealth of experience outside of the classroom has served him well, although he is still nervous around magistrates and powerful nobles for reasons that are unknown to most...      Tameshige is a broken man, a man serving his own pleasures as much as his Lord. Luckily for the Hattori, Tameshige's pleasures involve death and fire, two needs that this war will see sated over and over again.     Buildings:  Army: 1 x Hattori Yari Ashigaru, 1 x Hattori Bow Ashigaru Thoughts: Sanuki is one of the few provinces in the game that can be attacked directly from the boat without waiting a turn, which makes it something of a lightning rod for enemy forces. Luckily it also produces Stone, which not only creates the wealth needed to support the garrison required here, but it also makes buildings in this province significantly cheaper. Sanuki will become a strongpoint province with powerful fortifications and recruitment facilities for our military expeditions in the region.     Buildings:  Army: 8 x Hattori Yari Ashigaru, 1 x Hattori Bow Ashigaru, Fuyusuke (Metsuke) Thoughts: Once one of our most valuable provinces, Settsu is now middle tier at best. However, the value is not the wealth which it generates, but the Library which rapidly increases our mastery of the arts. Settsu is essential in catching us up to our enemies in military tech and is rapidly opening options for us. Despite all that, it is not worth fortifying and is instead going to be protected by the roving force of Korekata.   Fuyusuke is a quietly spoken man with little humour. Believing in actions as the only course of action worth taking, he prefers getting his hands dirty, although he has no objection to getting the hands of others dirty as well. Ruthless and effective, his connections to the local magistrate allow his men to perform actions that would be heavily punished in other jurisdiction. No matter the opinion on the tactics of his underlings, Fuyusuke gets results.     Buildings:   Army: 1 x Light Cavalry, 5 x Hattori Yari Ashigaru, 3 x Hattori Bow Ashigaru Thoughts: Tosa is our primary strongpoint on Shikoku, able to rapidly produce troops of almost every type (Naginata, Yari, Bow, Cavalry) in response to any threat. In addition, it is our only source of the Wood trade good, which makes ships produced in it's mighty Military Port exceptionally cheap. If Omi is our economic crown jewel, Tosa is our military one.     Buildings:  Army: Yasunaga (General - Daimyo), 2 x Light Cavalry, 1 x Hattori Yari Samurai, 5 x Hattori Yari Ashigaru, 2 x Hattori Bow Ashigaru, 1 x Hattori Kisho Ninja Thoughts: Wakasa is a terrible Ikko Ikki infested province that is better in our hands than enemy hands, if only barely. Luckily the Ikko Ikki presence is not as strong as Echizen or Kaga, so the garrison required will not be as substantial, but it's still going to be a solid drain on our resources for some time to come.         Yasunaga is the Daimyo of the Hattori, a powerful figure that will not hesitate to use brutality and cunning to protect his family. Although he is all business and deadly in combat, he is a totally different man when dealing with his family and has even enforced archery training on his own men because his son is inspired by archers. Currently on a vengeance run to obliterate the Ikko Ikki as they threatened his children and he will not rest until they are all dead. Arguably the most powerful man in Japan.     Buildings:   Army: Chikafusa (Metsuke) Thoughts: Yamato is the only province we have that is able to make our Katana Samurai, providing critical backbone to all of our forces. While we have many provinces about to come online with facilities to help Yamato out in it's job of crafting quality troops for our forces, it will be some time before we can reap the benefit of them. Luckily, Yamato also makes a substantial amount of wealth and is doing a solid job to keep us solvent.   Chikafusa is a scholarly man, far more accustomed to dingy libraries than the quarters of a Metsuke, let alone sunlight! His intellect is razor sharp and he can follow a paper trail with a zeal and dedication that impresses all. However, he is terrible at dealing with people and doesn't really understand humour or relationships in general. Wanting nothing more than to be left alone with his scrolls and books, Chikafusa will find the requirements of duty more difficult than he would think. Field Assets             Chisato is our greatest field agent, a supremely skilled ninja, able to tackle any mission with finesse and skill. Although she has a compassionate streak, she shows no hesitation in completing her mission, even if she does sometimes wonder what the greater goal of some of it all is. Her unique talents make her almost impossible to track, let alone capture and she has a real knack for finding things out, be it information on targets or the fastest way to move armies through hostile terrain. With a little more experience, she's going to be a true legend of Japan.      Relatively young for a monk, Nakasada has a inquisitive soul that seeks questions, not answers. Something about his good nature seems to rub off on people and he's exceptionally likeable even as he brings people around to his way of thinking. He loathes staying in one place too long and likes to keep moving, but no matter where he goes, he spreads the truth.   Army: 2 x Hattori Yari Ashigaru Our forces heading to Ise to help fortify it against possible counter-attack.   Army: 7 x Trade Ship Our seriously doomed trade fleet that is making us a stupid amount of money. I'm going to seriously miss it when these guys get sunk. While I've factored in their obliteration, we won't have much margin left when they go!    Army: 3 x Medium Bune Taketoshi (General - Commissioner for Finance), 3 x Hattori Katana Samurai, 6 x Hattori Yari Ashigaru, 2 x Hattori Bow Ashigaru Taketoshi is on half of the western fleet in order to be transported back to the mainland so that he can continue our glorious conquest!       Taketoshi is the most battle tested general in the Hattori clan and quite possibly Japan. No nonsense and not all that good with people, he nevertheless has an aura of command that leaves no room for doubt. Soldiers will follow their orders and enemies will die. This has gone a little to his head, however, and he sometimes interprets his orders from Yasunaga as suggestions, a side effect of being an old friend. Despite all this, none can question his methods, for Taketoshi gets results. Despite this, his unique view on the world makes him an exceptional poet and his faith in the divine is unshakeable, if only because he seems to keep coming out on top.   Army: Korekata (General - Commissioner for Supply), 1 x Hattori Katana Samurai, 1 x Hattori Yari Samurai, 4 x Hattori Yari Ashigaru, 2 x Hattori Bow Ashigaru Korekata, having successfully liberated the Bessho, heads back to Settsu in order to collect the remainder of his forces and see how we can deal with our new enemies to the north of Settsu.   If Taketoshi is the sword of the Hattori, Korekata is the spear. Brutally effective in his command, Korekata prefers to win using everything as a weapon, including the structure of Japan itself and threats of deadly force. While those under his command are not likely to be fond of his tendancy to spend lives to achieve his objectives, none can doubt his effectiveness as a budding strategist. A noble in every sense of the word, Korekata believes strongly in the social order of Japan and will not deviate from it.   Army: 4 x Medium Bune, 2 x Bow Kobaya Our rather impressive eastern fleet in dock for repairs.   Army: 1 x Medium Bune, 1 x Bow Kobaya The damaged ships in the western fleet in dock for repairs. shalcar fucked around with this message at 12:53 on Jun 2, 2014 |
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Jun 2, 2014 08:28
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Well, I'm going to guess you can all see where the delay came in. I'm glad I don't have to do any more of those before the end of the LP! Regular updates should resume this weekend. Hell, I'm beginning to think I'm going to need a new page just to keep this one from getting too huge.
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Jun 2, 2014 08:32
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shalcar posted:Hell, I'm beginning to think I'm going to need a new page just to keep this one from getting too huge. This is an awesome LP! Can't wait to see how you deal with the realm divide. I don't believe I ever finished up the campaign, shamefully.
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Jun 2, 2014 08:43
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We're in a rough situation; we've not spent much time researching bushido arts and have probably expanded a little too quickly, what with Yasunaga going on the warpath to take crummy provinces loaded with potential rebels. Our trade situation is dismal and as soon as the Takeda backstab us our finances are going into the toilet, particularly given the imminent destruction of our trade fleet. However, we've got a HUGE edge in the metastrategy thanks to our disgustingly competent ninja(which we should make MORE of, frankly). Militarily, we're in an odd position since the bulk of our veteran forces are ashigaru, throwaway in every sense of the word. At the same time, Taketoshi and Yasunaga are THOROUGHLY fantastic generals who bring a lot of punch to our armies of stinking peasants. Luckily, kisho training means our ashigaru are basically superior to the ashigaru of anybody else bar MAYBE the Oda, and they're no longer an issue to concern ourselves with. We're currently operating with high-quality commanders and crummy troops, which is generally a better situation than the potential reverse; our budget is going to be dwindling shortly, but we'll need to invest in more quality units to shore up the business-end of our military. Overall, our success is going to rely on refusing to let the enemy fight on their terms. Assassinations, sabotage, ambushes, and making plenty of vassals of conquered provinces to bolster our buffer zones(and our coffers) will be of paramount importance. Agent Interrobang fucked around with this message at 09:04 on Jun 2, 2014 |
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Jun 2, 2014 09:01
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I forgot that we're nowhere near the top of unit tech - looking forward to seeing what nifty units we end up having.
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Jun 2, 2014 15:19
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Much as I fear for the trade fleet, the AI loved to park one ship in the lane instead of fighting them. I always had ships protect them and fight off future attackers by spreading out from there. Might as well focus on provinces with docks.
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Jun 2, 2014 15:21
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Wow, awesome update, and I consider the question well and truly answered! 
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Jun 3, 2014 00:19
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shalcar posted:Well, I'm going to guess you can all see where the delay came in. I'm glad I don't have to do any more of those before the end of the LP! I would suggest just slapping that big old beast into the Test Poster and replacing this update with a link to the test post when you go to post the next update. That way, you don't have to rely on this rather slow moving thread to drop into a new page.
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Jun 3, 2014 01:05
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That certainly does explain the delay! Cripes, man, how long did that take? (I still have to actually sit down and read it, too, gonna need to block up some time...)
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Jun 3, 2014 01:17
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Most people call Trade Ships useless, but I've had a full stack take down a handful of Medium Bunes without much trouble.
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Jun 3, 2014 02:10
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Trade ships in huge numbers can still be useful in combat against an outnumbered enemy, yeah; maybe that's why the AI likes to park fleets on your shipping lanes sometimes instead of attacking your ships directly?
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Jun 3, 2014 03:29
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Third Murderer posted:Trade ships in huge numbers can still be useful in combat against an outnumbered enemy, yeah; maybe that's why the AI likes to park fleets on your shipping lanes sometimes instead of attacking your ships directly? I think the computer likes going off of autoresolve odds, which treats individual trade ships pretty badly, but seems to be pretty kind to large stacks of them. I've lost Nanban trade ships autoresolving against 6-8 regular trade ships, when there was effectively 0% chance of them winning in any actual combat. But I could be talking crazy, since I've seen the computer hurl small squads at giant fleets of mine, with no hope of winning with or without autoresolve.
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Jun 3, 2014 03:40
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Early on at least a trade ship against a computer Bow Kobaya will usually win if you immediately go for boarding actions. I beat a technically superior fleet by sending one trade ship to each bow Kobaya and then sending my own bow kobaya to hit the ships actually made for boarding things*to be fair their boarding ships were trying to win a ranged battle for some stupid reason but hey a win is a win.* *no he didn't mostly post this to see if he could help move the thread to the next page for Shalcar. Totally.*
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Jun 3, 2014 04:05
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I think the main weakness of the trade ships is that their hull is pretty fragile compared to the others.
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Jun 3, 2014 04:07
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I usually have a larger naval force by that point in the game due to the AI's love of raiding behind my front lines and at my most vulnerable provinces. Then again my games relied on the sea trades more so that justify the cost of the extra ships. It does get a bit more complicated for shalcar's game as well since he has provinces on both the northern and southern seas with no ships for the northern provinces.
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Jun 3, 2014 04:29
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It is that small because the other ships are too busy sinking instead of joining your fleet through force.
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Jun 3, 2014 05:46
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I never really got naval combat, so I usually wind up losing most of my trading fleets when any enemy fleet looks at them angrily, especially after Realm Divide hits. I usually have a couple of warships in my stack, but I'm so bad at doing naval combat that I wind up losing the battle anyway. Should probably work to get better at that... Also, with your breakneck pace in taking territory, you're a lot further behind in military tech than I'd like to be when you hit Realm Divide. I know you'll be able to pull it off, but it looks like you'll have a tougher time of it. But I understand that sitting back a few turns to let yourself tech up wouldn't make a good narrative here, and that seems to be the most important part of this LP, so I can't say that I disapprove.
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Jun 3, 2014 06:03
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Naval combat isn't fun in Shogun. At least until Fall of the Samurai. Guns make it far more fun. And quicker, usually.
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Jun 3, 2014 08:42
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Jade Star posted:Naval combat isn't fun in Shogun. At least until Fall of the Samurai. Guns make it far more fun. And quicker, usually. I have to disagree. Shogun 2 Naval certainly has its quirks, but at its core it is no different from land battles. Japan more or less had the same naval paradigm ancient Rome did in that they conducted naval warfare in a way to make it as close to standard land warfare as possible. You come in with light bow koboya to skirmish, then maneuver your heavier naval ships into the best positions to board vulnerable targets and sweep them. Wipe clean enough ships, and the others will chain route and flee. Business as usual, just on water. If I do have a complaint, it's that a lot of the naval toys are locked behind arts most people aren't going to be prioritizing. That and the boarding AI sometimes resulting in the boat spinning around enemy in circles forever.  Also wow, that was quite the monolithic update, shalcar.  I'm going to be honest, you're actually in something of a better position than I thought you were. Mostly all of your choke points are guarded, and there aren't any major clans in the area to throw doomstacks at you. At least until the Takeda inevitably turn, I guess.
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Jun 3, 2014 10:16
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biosterous posted:I forgot that we're nowhere near the top of unit tech - looking forward to seeing what nifty units we end up having. One of my big complaints about Shogun 2 is that while there is an enormous amount of variety within the game itself (especially with all the DLC), you really only get the chance to play with one, possibly two of the top end toys once you have all the incredibly useful economic arts and the later military arts are not enough to justify the opportunity cost of missing the better economic ones. Even so, I'm angling to show off heroes, although it will likely be at the climax of the LP since it's going to be really really tight (provided I don't totally fall in a heap for the next 30 turns). Rest assured, we will have a couple of cool toys to play with if everything goes according to plan. The Mighty Biscuit posted:I would suggest just slapping that big old beast into the Test Poster and replacing this update with a link to the test post when you go to post the next update. I considered that, but in the end I decided I really couldn't have content split between two locations as that would really defeat the purpose, not to mention the SSLP tester provided by Baldurk is meant for testing and I don't really want to abuse that by using it for the actual live content. Luckily, we seem to be making good progress towards the next page. GenericServices posted:That certainly does explain the delay! Cripes, man, how long did that take? (I still have to actually sit down and read it, too, gonna need to block up some time...) Somewhere in the region of about 10 hours all up. It just sort of kept endlessly eating all the time I was throwing at it, but it somehow managed to get done. I'm certainly glad it is done! Deadmeat5150 posted:Most people call Trade Ships useless, but I've had a full stack take down a handful of Medium Bunes without much trouble. Yeah, Trade Ships can work in a similar manner to Ashigaru and swarm the enemy as even a relatively serious ship will panic when surrounded by 6 others, even if it would win in the actual engagement. Trade Ships have only the morale shock as their weapon, but often that can be enough. Genaro posted:I think the computer likes going off of autoresolve odds, which treats individual trade ships pretty badly, but seems to be pretty kind to large stacks of them. I've lost Nanban trade ships autoresolving against 6-8 regular trade ships, when there was effectively 0% chance of them winning in any actual combat. Even though Trade Ships are weighted the lowest of all ships (75% of a Bow Kobaya), once you have 6+ in a stack the AI won't judge it worth the risk to throw anything less than about 4 ships at them since you will win against 2 or less without really breaking a sweat. The computer will sometimes ignore the relative strengths if something is flagged as a priority or if they have nothing else to do (same reason a remnant stack will burn down all your buildings in a province and then throw themselves suicidally against your walls). GhostStalker posted:I never really got naval combat, so I usually wind up losing most of my trading fleets when any enemy fleet looks at them angrily, especially after Realm Divide hits. I usually have a couple of warships in my stack, but I'm so bad at doing naval combat that I wind up losing the battle anyway. Should probably work to get better at that... While it seems like nothing carries across from land combat to naval, a surprisingly large amount does and the rest really is just modifications of the existing. You need to use locally superior force to cause a rout in the enemy ships but you also need to follow up with a fast ship to make them surrender or else they will just sail back at almost full strength, naval units have plenty of time to reform and break at relatively less damage than land units, so you will often find units which fled earlier steaming back into the battle later on. A boarding action is a certain way to knock out an enemy ship and force a surrender but will severely deplete your men if the enemy ship is not under other pressure. Unlike in land battle where a single Katana Samurai can cut through 3 or 4 Yari Ashigaru or an infinite number of Bow Ashigaru, ships like the Heavy Bune can really only take out 3-4 of the lightest ships before they are no longer combat effective and anything heavier will deplete them after 2. Like land battles, veterency can make an incredible difference, but unlike land units, ships do not lose experience when they are repaired to full strength. This means with some careful attention you can have a Bow Kobaya that can fight off a Heavy Bune (try doing that with Bow Ashigaru!). It also means you can be in for some nasty surprises, especially if you don't pay attention to the relative veterency of enemy units. Always engage high level enemy veterans from range as that minimises their threat. It's also important to remember that your Bow Kobaya are a mix of Light Cavalry and Bow Cavalry, they are only for boarding if it's going to secure a kill and they won't survive on their own deep behind enemy lines. Like every ship, they need support. They are also relatively exposed and will get cut up if fired upon by the heavier ships thanks to their open decks and being low to the water. It takes practise, but once you know what each ship is for and can build a force around them, you will find naval actually starts making sense and being a whole heap of fun. Until then though, it often feels like throwing mud at a wall and seeing what sticks. As for the speed, that was intentional. Part of showing off the game is that I want to demonstrate that there is no need to fear Jade Star posted:Naval combat isn't fun in Shogun. At least until Fall of the Samurai. Guns make it far more fun. And quicker, usually. I'm with Sydin on this, Naval is great fun but it needs a different set of knowledge than land battles, so people who are competent at land often do poorly or don't see why their naval fell apart, declare it terrible and then just autoresolve, which I think is a shame. Despite the philosophy being the same it needs a different skillset and that makes it feel worse because you know what you need to do but you just can't do it which makes you incredibly frustrated. Even Rise of the Samurai can have great naval (and the simplicity makes it easier to grasp, albeit at the cost of depth), but I agree with you on the length, especially if you don't grasp the importance of using swift boats as the killing blow to force fleeing boats to surrender. edit: Holy poo poo, Gold thread. Thanks so much everyone! I really appreciate your support and look forward to bringing the Hattori to their rightful glory! shalcar fucked around with this message at 12:39 on Jun 3, 2014 |
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Jun 3, 2014 12:31
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shalcar posted:While it seems like nothing carries across from land combat to naval, a surprisingly large amount does and the rest really is just modifications of the existing. You need to use locally superior force to cause a rout in the enemy ships but you also need to follow up with a fast ship to make them surrender or else they will just sail back at almost full strength, naval units have plenty of time to reform and break at relatively less damage than land units, so you will often find units which fled earlier steaming back into the battle later on. A boarding action is a certain way to knock out an enemy ship and force a surrender but will severely deplete your men if the enemy ship is not under other pressure. Unlike in land battle where a single Katana Samurai can cut through 3 or 4 Yari Ashigaru or an infinite number of Bow Ashigaru, ships like the Heavy Bune can really only take out 3-4 of the lightest ships before they are no longer combat effective and anything heavier will deplete them after 2. Like land battles, veterency can make an incredible difference, but unlike land units, ships do not lose experience when they are repaired to full strength. This means with some careful attention you can have a Bow Kobaya that can fight off a Heavy Bune (try doing that with Bow Ashigaru!). It also means you can be in for some nasty surprises, especially if you don't pay attention to the relative veterency of enemy units. Always engage high level enemy veterans from range as that minimises their threat. Maybe I'll take another hack at it with all this advice. Couldn't hurt all that much. shalcar posted:As for the speed, that was intentional. Part of showing off the game is that I want to demonstrate that there is no need to fear the reaper Realm Divide. A lot of first time players (and second time, third time,...) hit Realm Divide in a less than ideal position, panic and write their game off because it's built up as some terrifying, game destroying monster when really, if you approach it with the same methodical outlook that got you to 15 provinces in the first place, it's nowhere near as deadly as it seems. It also means I get to show that you don't need a whole heap of high level units to stay competitive, you just need to have the right people in the right place. It always stings when your trade empire collapses though, no matter how many times it happens... Yeah, this makes sense. I dunno, I usually try and tech up before reaching the endgame of games like this, building up my armies, generals, agents, techs, buildings, and provinces. Though it does give my enemies the time to do the same and consolidate into blocks rivaling mine, I guess. Which can definitely be a bad thing if not handled correctly. And the whole trade income thing is indeed a killer, you need to learn how to pare down your expenditures heavily for the immediate bunch of turns after Realm Divide hits before you can get your economy back to any sort of working order. I guess seeing you get through a lower tech Realm Divide will teach me a couple things about how to do it. shalcar posted:edit: Holy poo poo, Gold thread. Thanks so much everyone! I really appreciate your support and look forward to bringing the Hattori to their rightful glory! Jade Star posted:Naval combat isn't fun in Shogun. At least until Fall of the Samurai. Guns make it far more fun. And quicker, usually. I never had a good experience with Fall of the Samurai naval combat either. In my first naval battle in that game, one of my ships wound up randomly (well, maybe not randomly, but most likely due to a lucky enemy shell) exploding during battle and I couldn't tell why at the time... It has it's own learning curve that'll make some people reach for the autoresolve button as well.
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Jun 3, 2014 15:15
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GhostStalker posted:I never had a good experience with Fall of the Samurai naval combat either. In my first naval battle in that game, one of my ships wound up randomly (well, maybe not randomly, but most likely due to a lucky enemy shell) exploding during battle and I couldn't tell why at the time... It has it's own learning curve that'll make some people reach for the autoresolve button as well. The extra lethality of Fall of the Samurai naval combat does give it a much different feel compared to vanilla or Rise of the Samurai, which is something I really like. The upsides of this lethality is that engagements are much more decisive and rarely last very long, ships are either sunk/surrendered or victorious in very short order which is something that just doesn't happen in naval combat in vanilla. This means that you can win great victories against the odds or lose despite victory looking certain. This is also the downside though, as losses (especially of individual ships) can feel as though there was nothing you could have done and that the die just came up against you, which is certainly more true than in vanilla. My primary complaint with Fall of the Samurai naval is that the AI just doesn't prioritise Explosive Shell like the players do because it's ludicrously overpowered against wooden ships, so you end up stomping nearly every single engagement where you have anything resembling a fleet to fight with. I won't pretend it isn't amazing fun to do so, though  .It is keeping with the balance in Fall of the Samurai which was based on the war itself, technology beats vastly superior numbers and everything in the game reflects that, compared to the idea that every unit should have a place and you unlock complementing units rather than replacement units in vanilla and Rise.
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Jun 3, 2014 15:37
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| # ? Apr 28, 2024 11:00 |
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Quality update as always man, thanks. Great LP so far and looking forward to seeing the climax. Just want to add that you also write consistently great fluff as well, especially looking forward to your postscript in the same vein as your previous one.
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Jun 3, 2014 16:17
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