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warriors of night: a silent wind eluding goddamn granaries (This is not a contest entry)
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Jul 22, 2013 15:12
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my dad posted:warriors of night: After many moons Onna Bushi Heroines Defend a castle (Neither is this)
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Jul 22, 2013 15:34
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Granaries burn bright, Pretty borders a struggle drat hard drive crashes Good to see you back with the LP. Not owning a gaming PC is such a hassle - you really sell this game well!
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Jul 22, 2013 16:15
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Time to play Shogun Summer sun shines brightly, but... Stay indoors you grogs (not a contest entry, already have the game)
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Jul 22, 2013 16:19
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Enemy general falls Levied archer becomes Angel of death (already have game)
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Jul 22, 2013 16:23
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Ruler of Japan Allies rise up against me gently caress time to restart Not a contest entry, just lovely
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Jul 22, 2013 16:29
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Castle gates flung wide The Taira's levy approach my dad - right again
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Jul 22, 2013 17:02
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Consolidate realm March on the Shogunate now What now - Realm divide?
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Jul 22, 2013 17:21
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shalcar posted:The remaining 3 copies of Shogun 2 will be given away to be the best three Haiku's (Suitably awesome or funny entries will be forgiven for not being perfect Haiku's) about why Total War is great. Men spring forth to fight; many creeds, many nations. Digital bloodbath.
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Jul 22, 2013 18:24
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Nakamitsu Strikes! Why Wont That Granary Die? Ninja Jesus Wept. (I already have Shogun 2 but I could not help throwing in a Haiku, please count me out of the competition!) I am very excited for this new saga of Shogun 2 Total War. The effort you put into the last LP was amazing and I look forward to this one rising to the challenge of it's predecessor. Deofuta fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Jul 22, 2013 |
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Jul 22, 2013 18:29
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This one has more to do with Empire, but anyway: Iroquois in Spain Mughals own Rome, England too Goddammit, DarthMod
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Jul 22, 2013 19:10
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Tactical Combat. Our AI Could Use Some Work. It's Total War, Folks! (I haven't played a Total War game for more than a few hours since Medieval... the first one. Heh.)
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Jul 22, 2013 20:33
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I love the way this is being presented, I usually can't get into screen shot LPs, but this totally has my interest. I already own Shogun 2 (And I think the first DLC too) but I wanted to submit some fanart despite the contest. Enjoy! 
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Jul 23, 2013 03:17
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Conquer at random No idea what I'm doing Back to Paradox (Not a contest entry, unless you want to give a copy of Shogun 2 to sommeone who's going to do nothing but lose battles, build cities, and die.  )
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Jul 23, 2013 03:34
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Kavak posted:
Yes, Paradox games. Notably less complex than the Total War series.
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Jul 23, 2013 04:05
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Zeroisanumber posted:Yes, Paradox games. Notably less complex than the Total War series. Less complex combat- I can manage armies on a grand scale, but I am not good at Total War style battles.
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Jul 23, 2013 04:25
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Armor chafes my skin But to sit legs akimbo Looks like I'm making GBS threads http://i.imgur.com/4VuSMAt.png e: Totes in the contest. Ofaloaf fucked around with this message at 05:51 on Jul 23, 2013 |
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Jul 23, 2013 05:14
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I suddenly regret everything.
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Jul 23, 2013 05:26
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I'm going to pretend I never saw that last one. Vigorously.
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Jul 23, 2013 05:43
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You have all gone soft. You mean you haven't seen worse? See FYAD. I'll spoiler tag the image, if that helps prevent future calamities.
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Jul 23, 2013 05:50
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At least this'll mean 5 people with no excuse to not compete in the upcoming blood bath.
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Jul 23, 2013 06:04
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Look into the sky Sword gleams in the summer sun All is for my lord Not a real contest entry--my brother already has Shogun 2--I just like writing Haikus, complete with nature reference.
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Jul 23, 2013 06:43
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Victory is nigh This year, a glorious one Suddenly, ninjas Not actually participating in the contest. It just seemed apropos because I'm playing a campaign as Ikko Ikki and was just about to finally crush the Oda when out of nowhere the Hattori declared war on me and started pushing my flanks in. Then my priests started dying like flies to their assassins. You have no honor 
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Jul 23, 2013 10:43
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Perestroika posted:You have no honor It's true, we really don't. We just win, no matter what.  Peddler of Smiles posted:Amazing. This, this is amazing. You are amazing. Which DLC do you have (No promises!)? Tonight is the night I work on Shogun 2. Let's see if I'm as productive as I would like to be! e: I went ahead and put that art in the OP, I hope you don't mind, Peddler of Smiles! shalcar fucked around with this message at 11:02 on Jul 23, 2013 |
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Jul 23, 2013 10:56
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I don't mind it at all. I don't have Fall of the Samurai. Been interested in trying it, but just haven't had the money. If you can't make that work, it's fine, so long as you enjoyed the picture, I'm happy. ...or If you enjoyed it The art's goal was completed And I am happy I think 5/7/5 is fair game for haiku... ether that or it's been way too long sense English class. (To answer the actual question you asked, I have Rise of the Samurai, that's pretty much it. Oh and base game) Peddler of Smiles fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Jul 23, 2013 |
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Jul 23, 2013 16:38
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Single Player Easy, Playing at multiplayer, Arse owned by Yuki
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Jul 23, 2013 17:12
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Who destroyed that farm Now everyone is starving I will gently caress you up
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Jul 23, 2013 17:35
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Here is a haiku about my experience with this game (not a contest entry). Look at my army poo poo how do I control them Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
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Jul 23, 2013 17:49
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We fight the Spanish Suddenly, Priests everywhere What are you doing
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Jul 23, 2013 17:51
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Not a contest entry. Also cribbed from Bashou. The summer grasses- In Total War: Shogun 2 shalcar is the best Just wanted to show my appreciation for this wonderful thread.
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Jul 23, 2013 17:52
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Brother, ally Once the child at bosom crying Traitor, realm divided Not a contest entry, but my vassal nooo
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Jul 23, 2013 18:04
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shalcar posted:I suddenly regret everything. I join you in regret, as this is the first thing I've written in Japanese for 3 years now and is probably wrong as well as bad. I'll throw in English ones as well, about my favourite TW game. The laughter of Hannibal On War-Elephants Wood-Walled Cities, cherry blooms So easily plucked And carving a swathe through barbarous towns and lands like a blooming rose Unassailable My metal giants conquer The foe autumn leaves And I reach the prize As snow blankets the mountains and Rome will be taken (also i have shogun 2 anyhow)
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Jul 23, 2013 18:16
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Soldiers all fall Like leaves in a dry autumn Dumb autoresolve
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Jul 23, 2013 18:48
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Establishing a claim... Autumn of 1545 (Continued)   The administrator's assistant proved to have far less fortitude under the steely gaze of Yasunaga, quickly spilling everything he knew about the province. Yasunaga smiled, although there was no humour in it. "You have done a fine job" he stated. "I will not only spare your life, but I will give you 10 koku worth of gold and free passage out of the province. Tell all you come across that Yasunaga rewards well those who serve and punishes mercilessly those who oppose him." The assistant boggled. "My.. my lord" he stammered. "Thank you, thank you" Yasunaga waved the man away. "Don't stretch my patience, I have things to do. My guards will see that my words are done." This is the town summary screen and building list for Omi. It's a Ninja Clans speciality province just like Iga, but unlike Iga we have competing religions here, Shinto-Buddhism and the Ikko religion, as well as their relative percentages in the top left. We can see that the vast majority of the province in Shinto-Buddhist like our clan, so unrest from the Ikko population will be minimal (-1 or -2 happiness at most). Obviously if a province religion mismatches with your clan religion significantly, it becomes very difficult to maintain order there. We can also see that the population are slowly becoming more Buddhist. This is because we are a Buddhist clan and so we exert a very small influence on all of our provinces. Since there are no other religious influences at play, our clan influence is enough to slowly shift the population to become more Buddhist. In the Public Order section, we can see some greyed out items of varying strengths which we have not seen before. There are two ways of showing change in the Public Order panel in Shogun 2. The first is that the item is greyed out which indicates this is a change to happiness that will happen in the future (usually the next turn, but not always). The second is an icon that is flashing which indicates that this is a change to happiness that is currently in effect but will not be next turn. To demonstrate this, I had selected the research of the art "Zen", which increases happiness when it is completed. It is this Zen bonus that we see in the top left of the Public Order display, as it will be a boost to our happiness when the art is completed in the future. In the second row, we see two new icons. The first is a pair of hands clasped in prayer and this is the unhappiness icon for religious differences, which is greyed out, indicating that it will occur in the future (in this case, next turn). To the right of that is a hand holding a flag and this represents "Resistance to Invaders", the provinces dislike of their new masters. The leftmost icon of that is flashing, indicating that it will not exist next turn as the province slowly comes to get used to our stewardship. Resistance to Invaders quickly drops the first few points off but the later few will take increasingly long to disappear. Religious Differences, on the other hand, starts at 0 when a province is conquered and increase by 1 a turn until the maximum unhappiness is reached for the proportion of the population not following the clan religion. We can see that Omi is significantly more wealthy than Iga with 2.5 times the province wealth and therefore 2.5 times the tax income. It's a huge prize that with careful development will be a linchpin of our economic engine. The sharp eyed among you might notice that the Farming section of the province wealth is 2250 where in Iga it's 780. This is because the provinces have differing fertilities, with Iga being Meagre (1.3x base) and Omi being Very Fertile (3x base), which means that farming upgrades are significantly more profitable in Omi than they would be in Iga. This makes high fertility provinces very valuable and highly prized. Omi contains a Fort, Empty Building Slot, Rice Paddies, Trails and Mountain Hideout. The yellow arrows to the left of the building indicate that the particular building can currently be upgraded (that is, we have both the arts needed for the upgrade, if any, and the koku for the building).  Mousing over the empty building slot in Omi gives us a list of all the available building chains that can be built in the game, with the crossed sword and brush red icon indicating that we don't have the required art to begin construction. From left to right, the buildings and the benefits their chain provides are: Sake Den: Provides a small happiness and wealth bonus, allows the production of ninja troops and agents Yari Drill Yard: Allows the recruitment of Yari armed troops Stables: Allows the recruitment of cavalry when combined with other troop dojos Sword School: (Requires Bushido) Allows the recruitment of Katana and No Dachi armed troops Archery Dojo: Allows the recruitment of Bow armed troops Encampment: (Requires Heaven and Earth) Reduces the cost of recruiting troops in the province and increases a combat statistic for troops produced here Market: (Requires Chi) Adds town wealth and town growth, the primary wealth generation building chain Siege Engineers Workshop: (Requires Strategy of Attack) Allows the construction of gunpowder and siege weapons Buddhist Temple: (Requires Zen) Increases happiness and allows the recruitment of the monk agent and monk combat units when combined with other troop dojos, spreads Buddhist faith in the province  "The Asai family has fled outside the city, my Lord" reported the samurai captain. "Those who have not already fallen defending it, that is." Yasunaga looked ahead, silently. "They will trouble us no more, Lord" continued the captain. "The Asai expect us to hide behind our walls while they loot the province" replied Yasunaga. "I will not tolerate such destruction and loss of life. We must act." With Omi conquered, the Asai no longer have any provinces and as such are eliminated from the game.   The swift and effective method by which Yasunaga took control of Omi was far more than a mere military coup, it was an economic one as well. Administrators, magistrates and nobles alike were taken completely by surprise by the Hattori forces, leaving them unable to take even the most meagre scrap of wealth or destroy even one parchment. The result was a seamless transition of power, boosting the Hattori coffers like never before. By capturing Omi we have completed our mission and get to enjoy the rewards, a full 25% increase in the wealth generation of buildings for the next 4 turns. The extra income will certainly be very welcome in our rather bare coffers!  "I take it games are afoot then? You are no Asai" came a voice as a man walked into the chambers. A flustered attendant came running in behind him. "I tried to stop him, my Lord" sputtered the attendant, breathlessly. "He just walked in!" Yasunaga looked at the man, coolly. "I am Hattori Yasunaga, Lord of Iga and Omi, Daimyo of the Hattori. Who are you?" The man laughed, a rich, baritone sound filling the room. "Such lofty titles! No man is lord of all" the man stated. "I am the ambassador of the Ikko Ikki and all men are equal, lord, samurai or peasant." "My equal or not, you are still in your gown" noted Yasunaga. "Ambassadors should respect the court of those they negotiate with." "But of course" replied the ambassador, bowing theatrically low and barely suppressing a smile. "Allow me to retire to my quarters to change." With the conquest of Omi we now border a much larger number of clans, 4 of which we have never met before. While this opens up new opportunities for us to trade and make alliances, it also makes us more vulnerable to attack!   Her palms sweaty, absolutely convinced her heartbeat could be heard from the next province, Chisato made her way towards the Asai encampment. "This isn't a game" she thought. "I could die! What if I'm not good enough? What if I don't succeed?". Treacherously a thought flashed through her mind that the people of Omi were famous for their ninja in their own right. Her breathing quickened and she tensed. Willing herself to find the calm within that seemed so elusive, she stopped and took stock of the encampment. Her observation paid off, for she spotted what she was looking for, the supply tent. It appeared hastily erected and was somewhat away from the regular patrols of the central camp. Making her way silently towards the tent, she found to her delight it appeared to be unguarded. Confidence filling her, she made her way to the rear of the tent and started the laborious process of starting a fire. The flames had barely caught when she heard a man talking out the front. She was trapped! "Where the hell did you go off to?" the guard griped to his returning companion. "You said you would cover for me while I met Mikoto" "What was I supposed to do?" the other guard snapped back. "Piss myself?" "Look, keep it quiet or we will both get it" hissed the first guard. "Wait, can you smell something?" Although we have eliminated the Asai, they had an army in a friendly territory lead by their Daimyo. As such, the army doesn't just disappear like all of the other armies that belong to a defeated clan, instead they become a rebel stack dedicated to your destruction. We can't afford to have an enemy army running around burning down our important buildings, so we dispatch Chisato to help eliminate our problem. The first option we have is that we can assassinate the Daimyo, leaving the army leaderless. This is not ideal though, as the army could quite easily still burn down our buildings and flee if we try to engage them. Instead, we opt to sabotage the army, making it unable to move for a turn, retreat if attacked and also lose some small number of men. While our odds of success are hardly great, sabotage is our best option at this point.  "Only your lady-friend's perfume" noted the second guard. "Look, I spotted a good dice game over at Tomohira's tent. What do you say?" "Deserting our post is death" replied the first. "Besides, you still owe me from the last time I won" "Didn't bother you when you were seeing Mikoto" quipped the second guard, sarcastically. "Come on, otherwise we will miss it." As the guards left to play dice, Chisato looked at the rapidly growing fire with a mixture of alarm and elation. "That was close!" she thought as she slipped out of the tent and the darkness rapidly engulfed her. Success! The rebel army is trapped and unable to move, as well as suffering a few casualties. As Ninja get higher ranks, the damage they deal to enemy armies increases, as does their chance of success. In addition, the cost of performing the action goes down, so high level agents can be an absolute terror! Right now though, we would be lucky to kill a dozen enemy troops. While in Shogun 2 Ninja actions get awesome little videos, you sadly don't get any when performing actions against rebels. I have no idea why.  "The Asai once called me friend" thought Yasunaga. "What terrible things we do for our families." "My Lord, we approach the enemy forces" reported the Samurai captain. "What are your orders?" With the rebels unable to flee, we march Yasunaga and his men out to wipe them out.  "We have the numbers and quality advantage" replied Yasunaga. "We advance as close as possible until we are detected, then we force them to engage us where we are strongest. We will show why the Hattori are a force to be feared!" Our forces are fairly evenly matched with Yasunaga leading 1 Hattori Yari Samurai, 2 Hattori Yari Ashigaru and 1 Hattori Bow Ashigaru against the Asai Daimyo and his 2 Yari Ashigaru and 1 Bow Ashigaru. As we can see, Chisato managed to kill only 8 of the enemy troops, but every bit counts. Given that we have a slight numbers advantage of 20 men and a moderate quality advantage with our unit of Yari Samurai, we are in a solid position to simply brute force down the enemy troops and end this threat to Omi.   Identical in every way to Hattori Yari Ashigaru/Hattori Bow Ashigaru except slightly worse at hiding and lacking the ability to deploy outside the your deployment zone, these troops make up for it by being a full 24 koku a turn cheaper in upkeep (25% less!), enabling other clans to afford 5 units of Ashigaru to every 4 of ours (This applies to our samurai as well).  Click here to see the battle! The Hattori forces appeared as if by magic to the Asai. Where before there had been but trees, samurai sprang from the ground and moved on their position. Panicked yelling and barked orders slowly bullied the Asai forces into a battle line, but the deadly silence of the Hattori approaching seemed to somehow drown out all the clatter. Hattori archers loosed their arrows and the battle began in earnest... Taking place in fairly flat plains, our primary concern will be that the enemy forces manage to get a foothold on one of the two hills present and use their superior position to blunt our offensive. To counter that, we will need to deploy aggressively in order to cut off any possible movement towards better ground. Luckily for us, the Hattori Kisho Training is perfect for this scenario. Yasunaga, however, will be a long way out of position, so we will need to be cautious as without being near to the general, our low quality troops will be flighty.  The Samurai captain entered the command tent, a large gash gouged out of his shoulder-plate. "My Lord" he announced. "We have won, not a single Asai left the field alive." Yasunaga sat in his chair, a dried blood spatter on his chestplate. Eventually, he looked up. "Thank you" he replied. "I..." Yasunaga drifted off into silence. "My Lord?" questioned the captain. "I'm going back to Omi" responded Yasunaga. "Send word to Iga to have my family come to Omi for a time. I wish to see my son." "At once, My Lord" stated the captain, saluting. "He's probably not listening to his teachers" continued Yasunaga. "He loves to skip his lessons and play at ninja. I'll need to tell him all about Omi." Yasunaga looked downwards and frowned at the blood on his armour, seemingly noticing it for the first time. "But I don't think he needs to know about this" he continued, as he cleaned the blood off with a cloth. "He doesn't need to know why we must be ruthless. He's too young." A rock solid victory for Yasunaga! Our plan went off without a hitch, although we deployed perhaps a little too close for comfort! Important tip for next time, give yourself some skirmishing room! Regardless, killing 4 of the enemy for every 1 of ours lost is a great result and ensures that Omi is safe for the time being, well worth the cost of any losses.  "Yasunaga is proud of the work each and every one of you did today" announced the Samurai captain, addressing the troops. "We were men of Iga, far better than any other! None can best us!" A cheer went up from the men. "History will forever remember this day" he continued. "When brave men forged the beginnings of a mighty clan! Hattori! Hattori! Hattori!" "Hattori! Hattori!" the soldiers chanted, before breaking into cheers. While both our Ashigaru units are looking the worse for wear (and our samurai is only reasonably effective), the fact that the samurai gained a whole 3 combat ranks drastically increases their ability to fight, probably to the point where they would beat a full strength rank 0 unit. Despite less than 10% more kills than the next unit, they gained substantially more experience. Why is that? Experience gained per kill is based on the cost of the unit killed divided by the number of men in the unit. In this way, a kill from a small, expensive unit (like a General) is worth substantially more than a kill from a large, cheap unit (like Yari Ashigaru). What happened here is that the Yari Samurai killed the enemy general unit (30 kills of their total) and 140ish ashigaru. Given that general units are worth 4 times an ashigaru unit, it effectively killed 740 ashigaru worth of experience, hence it is now rank 3. Each rank takes as much experience to get as the rank before it plus the amount needed to get to rank 1 (20 xp, 40 xp, 60xp, 80xp, 100xp etc).  Yasunaga emerged from his tent and rejoined his officers, but they all noticed something different. He seemed harder, somehow, a little less like the man who laughed as he gave his son piggy-back rides around the great hall. There was a tightness around his eyes, a watchfulness that there had never been before. None could doubt his aptitude for strategy, however, for Yasunaga had made a mark upon Japan. Through winning military victories, our Daimyo has gained enough experience to reach General Rank 2. Each rank works similar to experience in combat ranks, that is, Rank 2 requires 20xp, Rank 3 requires 40 xp, 4 requires 60xp, 5 requires 80xp and 6 100 xp. When a General wins a victory, he gains 10 experience. If he loses, he gains 3 experience. If he is the primary general of a reinforcing army that wins, he gains 1 experience. Given that it takes a whopping 30 victories to make a rank 6 general, it's often a good idea to spread the victories out as you can get 5 rank 3 generals for the same number of victories and with how commissions and Realm Divide work, a super general that is on the other side of Japan doesn't do you any good!  "Motherless son of a dog!" yelled the soldier, throwing a punch at the ashigaru sergeant. "I know you've been sleeping with her!" The sergeant dodged and threw his weight onto the soldier, both men going down in a flurry of punches, kicks and knees. Bursting forth from the mess tent, Yasunaga grabbed the solider and flung him to the side, laying a vicious blow to the groin of the sergeant. With a catlike movement, Yasunaga dodged sideways, the blow from behind going over his shoulder. Unleashing a terrible fury from within, he uncoiled like a snake, gauntleted fist slamming into the jaw of the soldier, shattering teeth in a spray of blood and bone. The soldier fell like a stone. "Send them to infirmary or the cemetery, I have no use for unreliable men" he announced to the quickly approaching guards while massaging his hand. This is the General agent skill tree. Each level gained by the general grants you 2 skill points, with the exception of ranks 5 and 6, both of which grant 3 skill points for a total of 12 skill points to spend. Points can only be spent if you satisfy both the skill pre-requisites and the level pre-requisites. You don't need to spend all the points in a skill to be eligible for the one below it, only a single point is required. You can also keep skill points between levels and spend them once you have gained further ranks (ie. You can save your 2 skill points from level 3 and put those and your next 2 all into level 4 skills if you want). I'm just going to come out and say it, vanilla Shogun 2 skill and art trees are absolutely terribly balanced, with the General tree the worst offender of the bunch. There is one way to spend your points (two if you want to be pedantic) that is just so far above the others that it's absolute stupidity to do anything else. This leads to all your generals in vanilla Shogun 2 being basically cookie cutter versions of each other and that's a real shame. Of course, I won't be doing that in this LP as characters develop skills that are in line with their personalities rather than what is, mechanically speaking, the best. I plan to show off some of the other great synergies that are sadly overshadowed by the "one true build". To that end, we put a point in Strategist and Warrior to unlock all of the possible level 3 skills. Strategist gives us slightly more movement on the battle map, while Warrior makes our general harder to kill in melee combat. If you are a newer player, there is never any reason whatsoever to spend any points in the entire Warrior tree on the right hand side, which is sad, but seriously, don't do it. The Warrior skills have heaps of flavour, but mechanically they just don't hold a candle to everything else that's on offer.      Arrows thudded into targets as the ashigaru performed archery drill. Slowly, less and less arrows arced through that air as all turned to watch one man put arrow after arrow into the dummy, his accuracy uncanny. Eyes widened in shock and men pulled themselves to attention and saluted. "My Lord, that was a masterful shot!" exclaimed the Samurai captain, running over. "I had no idea you were so proficient." "Masanari thinks the coolest thing in the world would be an archer ninja" Yasunaga explained, a touch sheepishly. "Fathers must strive to be the heroes their sons see them to be. It's how we become better men. I don't want to disappoint him." Inspired by example, archery drill was taken a lot more seriously by the troops. Looking at our Daimyo's details sheet, we can see that his newly picked skills have been added to his summary in addition to his other traits, as well as what impact they have listed on the right hand scroll. This is useful as the scroll will collate cumulative effects into a single line (so if you have 2 +1 to morale abilities it will simply read +2 to morale). In addition, we also see that one of his three previously empty retainer slots in the bottom left has been filled. When an agent of any type hits rank 2, 4 and 6 you are given the option of providing them with one of two randomly chosen retainers, most of which provide a boost to an ability or statistic. Normally I would show off the two retainers for each choice and why I picked the one I did, but in this case I didn't. Why, you may ask? Because Gomuyumi (literally Rubber Bow) is arguably the best retainer in the entire game and without a doubt in the top three. It's also one of those retainers that is ludicrous in the early game and transitions to really, really good by the end of the game. Of course, we have got this on turn 3. Why is it so good, you may ask? Because it's a flat boost of +10 accuracy to all our bow units. Our Bow Ashigaru have 25 accuracy base, which this raises to 35 accuracy. It literally increases the killing power of each Bow Ashigaru by 40%, meaning that koku for koku, our extremely expensive Bow Ashigaru are now far better value than their non Kisho cousins. We can now either run less bows and still shut down the enemy or maintain our bows and be a ranged terror. It's less useful with endgame armies as it only increases the killing power of Samurai by 25% and Monks by 16%. These are still ludicrous numbers.  This is the breakdown of all the General Skills that are available in the vanilla tree. There is a lot of information packed in a small space, so feel free to take your time and have a look at it, it can be a very useful idea to pre-plan your generals skills knowing that you have 12 points available to get some unique synergies or some highly desired skill. At least, it would be, if there wasn't one build to rule them all. You will notice that a single skill there is listed in red, Infantry Leader. This is, without a doubt, the most ludicrously broken skill in the entire game. While other skills offer +4 melee attack to your General or -10% upkeep, this skill gives not only +3 melee attack to every single unit in your army (General included, so he's a whole 1 attack lower than he would be if you went Warrior tree) but it also grants you "Stand and Fight", which boosts not only the generals morale aura but grants melee defence and reload skill to every unit caught in it (which is your whole army). Absolutely nothing else in the entire game remotely compares to it. The "one true build" (which is really two true builds) relies on the fact that you need Infantry Leader with 3 points in it at rank 4. This leaves you two possible options. The "best" option is to spend two points in Strategist at rank 2, one point to max Strategist and hold on to one point at rank 3 and then put the full 3 points into Infantry Leader at rank 4 to give you a super fast moving ludicrous stat buffing machine. The other option is to help out your research a little bit by putting 1 point into Strategist and save one point at rank 2, 2 points into Poet for the art mastery boost at rank 3 and then 3 points into Infantry Leader at rank 4 for a more defensive general who doesn't need to zoom his army around. The tree is further hindered by the fact there is a useless rank 6 ability, Living Treasure, which is never worth the points ever. In fact, all the best high rank abilities require Infantry Leader just in case you thought there might ever be a reason to not take it. While other builds are perfectly viable and there is no need to min/max to that extreme (Shogun 2 is pretty forgiving as far as General skill trees are concerned), it's just unusual that in such a polished game something so glaring could get through (It lets Yari Ashigaru beat Yari Samurai and Bow Ashigaru beat Yari Ashigaru in melee).  Our armies have taken losses and are no longer at full strength, but fortunately for us Shogun 2 has a system called "Replenishment". What this means is that any units that are either in a castle or in the field and led by a general in friendly territory will slowly regain troops until they are back at full strength. The small single plus sign above the unit indicates it is currently replenishing troops. Mousing over this plus will reveal windows like the following:   These are the replenishment details of the two Hattori Yari Ashigaru units. Each unit is replenishing 12 men a turn, with the most populous unit taking 7 turns to be back to full strength and the lesser one 9 turns. Units always charge the full upkeep, so we are paying for two units of Hattori Yari Ashigaru but don't have enough men to fill even one! As we pay 95 koku a turn for the units and each one only costs 233 koku to recruit, we can see that waiting for the unit to replenish to full will cost us a lot more than simply disbanding the unit and retraining a new one! Not only that, but unit experience is divided by the number of men in the unit and new recruits come with 0 experience which actually reduces the veterancy of unit as the new recruits fill it up.  To avoid that, we are going to drag the two Hattori Yari Ashigaru units on top of each other and merge them into a single unit. This gives us the average experience of both units (which leaves them all rank 1) and reduces our upkeep by 95 koku a turn. Of course, now that we only have one unit, we will only replenish 12 Hattori Yari Ashigaru a turn instead of 24. In addition, our garrison is smaller so it's harder to keep the peace. Don't make the mistake of merging your units and putting your city into unrest! Since we have no need to worry about this front for a few turns, we will come out ahead by recruiting our replacement Hattori Yari Ashigaru when the time comes. Replenishment amount may seem arbitrary, but it's actually a fairly simple system. Base Replenishment is 8% of the unit's maximum size. Any replenishment modifiers are added directly on (Roads add 2% to replenishment for a total of 10% replenishment, for example). If a unit can not be produced in the province, all replenishment is halved. The number of pluses about the unit card indicate a different rate of replenishment. One plus is less than 20%, two pluses is 20-40% and three pluses is 40%+. It can be difficult to see this early on, but the number of troops is represented by three coloured bars. Green, which indicates how many men are in the unit out of it's maximum, grey, which indicates how many men will be in the unit next turn and white which indicates the remainder. As we can see, our HAttori Yari Samurai are almost all green and white, indicating very slow replenishment, while the Hattori Yari Ashigaru bar is mainly green and grey, indicating that it will be replenished rapidly (2 turns in this case). Our Hattori Bow Ashigaru are all green and grey, indicating they will be fully replenished next turn.  "It's simple" stated Yasunaga to the Ikko ambassador. "We both are surrounded by enemies and we both need the gold. Trade is the sensible arrangement." "Oh, I agree it's simple" responded the ambassador. "But you are only half right. We will accept your offer of trade." "What do you mean, half right?" snapped Yasunaga, rubbing his temples. "You need the gold as much as we do" "Oh, I know" replied the ambassador grinning. "But we are not surrounded by enemies, for we are friends, don't you think?" We need to increase our income and help secure a border that we don't want to expand into just yet. To that end we offer a Trade Agreement with the Ikko Ikki to the north. While the Ikko don't like us (or anyone for that matter) because we are different religions, they are willing to overlook that because the trade agreement is so one sided, as they have trade goods going unsold and we have no trade goods. While I didn't do it here, if you ever find yourself in a trade situation with a clan that has trade goods while you don't (or has more of them) you can get a lump sum payment from the AI for the privilege of trading with you that's worth 3 turns of their trade good income. However, the AI will expect the same from you if you are going to be getting the better deal, so don't be surprised if no-one wants to trade with you if you are the trade good king! It's possible to cheat this a little by organising lots of trade deals while you have no trade goods and then expand into places which have lots of trade goods as that won't cancel your trade agreements but their value will have shot up!  To see what the trade good status of each person in the diplomatic negotiation is, simply look at the bottom of the Diplomacy screen to the left and right. You will see that all of our trade goods are greyed out, indicating that we don't produce or import any trade goods at all. On the other hand, you can see the Ikko Ikki are importing Wood (as evidenced by the red arrow) and exporting Crafts (as evidenced by the green arrow). Since they have more green arrows than us, the trade agreement will make them richer than it will us. Autumn of 1545 (Enemy Turn)  The sunlight flowed softly through Yasunaga's office. "The ambassador of the Ikko Ikki is here to see you, My Lord" announced the attendant. Yasunaga waved him in. "Learnt any manners, ambassador?" he asked. "Not yet, but I have a mutually beneficial arrangement to communicate to you" the ambassador replied, grinning. "The Ikko Ikki will secure your northern borders and offer full military alliance in exchange for your support against anyone who attacks us." Yasunaga blinked, taken by surprise. "Throw in some koku for your terrible manners" Yasunaga replied, gears turning in his head. "Done" responded the ambassador, grinning. "Pleasure doing business with you." Well this was unexpected! The Ikko Ikki have come to us asking for us to have a formal Military Alliance, which is normally only reserved for friends or when the AI feels under threat. It's a good idea because it means that we can be sure of the safety of our northern border for the time being. Although the Ikko Ikki tend to be habitual backstabbers, they generally won't backstab while they are in a war with someone else and given their religious differences, they are almost always in a war with someone else. The big risk with allying with the Ikko Ikki is that they build a temple and spread Ikko faith into your provinces and cause riots, but right now that's a risk I am willing to take to secure a front that I won't be interested in for a while. As with all diplomatic agreements, you can usually extort a little koku out of them as well. Although it might seem silly, given that you can do this a good twenty or so times before Realm Divide, it can be an extra Market or even an extra unit of Ashigaru before a critical battle. It adds up, although it's not really required. Winter of 1545  Masanari oversaw the construction, his young face doing it's very best to look serious as the men put the heavy stone blocks and wooden palisades into position. With his father away, it was his duty to protect all of his people and he took this duty very seriously indeed. Dragging a bow his own size behind him, Masanari walked the perimeter of the newly expanded fortification. Suddenly he ran to the foreman. "I've found a problem!" he announced. "We must fix it!" "What is it, my Lord?" replied the foreman, seriously. "Are the men slacking off again?" "No" responded Masanari. "I can't see over the wall to fire my bow! If we get attacked I won't be able to fight them off!" The foreman smiled. "Well then, we can't be building a useless fortification, can we? I'll see that fixed right away." A little later, Masanari stood on a hastily constructed stone stair, his head popping over the battlement as he pretended to fire his bow at the hordes of imaginary invaders. "It's perfect!" he cried in delight. "This is the best fort in all Japan!" Our first look at the Construction Report seems fairly straightforward, although it does have one nice piece on information that's not obvious at first glance, the dots to the right of the building. These show what level in that building chain that particular building was, so you can see we constructed a level 2 out of 4 farm and a level 2 out of 5 fortification. We need to get more benefit out of the lands that we own, so we have constructed a Stronghold and Improved Irrigation in Iga. Although the extra wealth provided by the farm will be minimal thanks to Iga's meagre soil, the extra food it provides is needed to support the larger fortification, the Stronghold, keeping us food neutral. Although the Stronghold provides towers, bigger walls, faster replenishment, more garrison force and a token research boost, the real reason we upgraded is for the additional building slot, allowing Iga to support two building chains instead of one. While later on Iga will make a better military production facility due to it's poor wealth, early on it's important to have economic boosts everywhere to drive your conquest of the richer provinces.   Improved Irrigation, the second building in the Farming chain, provides an additional +150 wealth (modified by fertility) and an additional food. In-game encyclopaedia - Improved Irrigation posted:Farmers must use every scrap of land as efficiently as possible to grow enough food to survive and pay their taxes. By using water intelligently, more land can be cultivated and to better effect. The result is that the wealth of a province is improved, along with its potential to be taxed.   The second building in the Castle chain, the Stronghold provides additional repression, a boost to bushido arts, bigger walls, arrow towers, a bonus to replenishment, a Yari Ashigaru unit in the garrison and an additional building slot. It is the only way to allow more building chains in your province. Consumption of food is also higher than the Fort, however. In-game encyclopaedia - Stronghold posted:A stronghold looms above the people in their villages, a reminder from dawn to dusk of where their loyalties should lie, and to whom they must pay their taxes. It is a strong base for the local garrison troops, enabling them to control the area, and act as a barrier to any invader. The stronghold also acts as a centre for recruiting new troops to serve in the daimyo's armies, and helps increase the clan's fame.  Taketoshi looked over the new recruits, although he was hiding from Yasunaga's wife as much as doing his duty. He knew giving Masanari that bow would get him in trouble, but he wasn't expecting the fury! From all accounts Masanari had the supervising of the construction well in hand, getting far more work from the men with a childish grin than Taketoshi had ever managed with a mighty roar. He shook his head in disbelief, charm might work on peasants but in warfare only the strong survived. "YOU CALL THAT MARCHING?" he bellowed. "I'VE SEEN DRUNK CATS PARADE BETTER!" We continue to build up our forces by rounding out our Iga army with additional Hattori Yari Ashigaru and the addition of a unit of Hattori Bow Ashigaru to give us some ranged firepower. Our second (rather meagre) stack is now capable to taking an undefended fort and we should really consider seeing if there are any such opportunities available. Although it's tempting in the early game to just sit back and build up a huge army, the more you can do with less, the faster your start can be and the easier the game gets. Don't be afraid to go on the prowl with small armies and see if there are advantages you can seize. Agents can be critical for this style of play.  "I hate the snow" thought Chisato, moving silently through the forests of Yamato. "My feet are freezing, this binding chafes and my eyes sting. Whatever I'm looking for, I doubt I'll find it out here." To that end we move Chisato down to scout the neighbouring province of Yamato and Kawachi to see if any such opportunities look like they might be available (or to possibly help make some!)  The inn was dank, dark and rat-infested, but Chisato sat in the corner pretending to drink the beer like she was part of the furniture. Words of other, nearby clans filtered through the air and she was not going to let any possible piece of information slip by. Chisato's movements have brought us into contact with the clan that controls Settsu to the west of Kyoto, the Miyoshi. We won't want to get too friendly with them, as Settsu is the old Taira clan capital and we couldn't possibly restore their glory without it!   "We have some lovely marching in the snow to do!" announced Taketoshi. "Which I'm sure you all being hardy Iga soldiers will barely even notice!" The troops groaned. "I'M NOT GOING TO WARM YOUR BLOODY SOCKS FOR YOU" bellowed Taketoshi. "FORM UP AND MOVE OUT!" Although we can't put our troops in territory we don't own, we do have military access to our allies, the Ashikaga Shogunate. We move Taketoshi and his force of 3 Hattori Yari Ashigaru and 1 Hattori Bow Ashigaru so that it is a single turns march from both Yamato and Kawachi to the west. Although this will make both clans leery of our motives, it also gives us the most options should one of them make a mistake (or have Chisato happen to them...)   "Are we at Omi yet, Mum?" asked Masanari, for what seemed like the millionth time. "No dear, not yet" his mother replied. One of the guards took a deep breath. "I'm going to show Dad my new bow that uncle Taketoshi got me" announced Masanari. "And tell him about my special wall spot and show him how I'll be able to take on the Shogun any day now and Mum, do you think foxes get cold?" His mother sighed. It was going to be a long trip. With the addition of Omi and our new trading partners the Ikko Ikki, our income has become incredible healthy for so early in the game, a fact I plan to take full advantage of. Our tax income has tripled to 1110 from 354 and our trade income has doubled from 79 to 203 while our army upkeep has also jumped from 665 to 950, giving us a net profit of 1563 compared to 968, a full 50% more! We now also have access to Craft goods due to importing them from the Ikko Ikki, so any buildings that require them would be able to be constructed. You only need access to the trade good to start construction of a building, once it has begun building or is completed, losing access to the trade good won't have any impact. Of course, that's going to be some time away for us! Sneak peek: The silent blade... shalcar fucked around with this message at 11:24 on Aug 1, 2013 |
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Jul 24, 2013 12:00
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Something I've been sure about, does having multiple generals in a single army give victory experience to both?
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Jul 24, 2013 16:00
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Brainamp posted:Something I've been sure about, does having multiple generals in a single army give victory experience to both? It does not, only the primary general gets experience. The primary general is determined in the following way: Daimyo -> Son and Heir -> Highest Ranking General Only the bonuses the primary general grants are applied to the army (Bonus accuracy or movement etc)
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Jul 24, 2013 16:06
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shalcar posted:It does not, only the primary general gets experience. The primary general is determined in the following way: What if there's multiple armies reinforcing each other? Does each army use its own general, or does only the primary one get counted? Also, do additional generals grant their own morale boosting command radius?
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Jul 24, 2013 16:35
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Fangz posted:What if there's multiple armies reinforcing each other? Does each army use its own general, or does only the primary one get counted? Reinforcement generals do get experience, yes, though it's not as much as the main stack. If you want to cheese up some of your generals, you can split your stack and put the additional generals in reinforcement range of the main army just before attacking to get them experience. shalcar most likely won't have to do that this game (the Hattori have more than enough fronts for every general to see action) but it's a viable tactic for clans that aren't surrounded.
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Jul 24, 2013 17:44
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Your little fluff-pieces are great. Wanna swear fealty to that heir 
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Jul 24, 2013 17:52
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| # ? Apr 28, 2024 12:51 |
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I would have liked the advice of expanding early on instead of building an army, when I first started. Fall for that in every 4X.
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Jul 24, 2013 18:03
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