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BurningStone posted:As a new player, the deep swords and spears do indeed look the same to me. What's the big difference? The logistics upgrades along the spear/gun path mostly. Form is worse than Heaven and Earth for example. Personally, I like going deep along the chi arts.
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Aug 22, 2013 18:41
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Also the fact that deep spears benefit your yari ashigaru. And your gonna have a metric fuckton of those.
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Aug 22, 2013 22:05
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Sword units generally tend to be FRAGILE, largely, and yari ashigaru are your most common unit no matter who you're playing. Combine that with sword units being useless against cavalry, arguably the biggest threat to non-mounted troops, and swords, realistically, just aren't as useful or versatile as spears.
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Aug 22, 2013 22:09
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Sword units being useless against cav isn't exactly true, it is just spears get unholy loving bonuses against horsemen
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Aug 22, 2013 22:52
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I just bought the game a week ago, and when I saw the LP I thought I might learn a thing or two. I think I've learned more from this LP than randomly searching the encyclopaedia(I wish it had a search function or something). Thanks for all the good tips! Now I just have to incorporate them into my current Campaign. Although, I would probably be better off starting over since I think I made the mistake of overextending without defending my core territories. I hope you cover navies soon, because I just can't get into the naval aspects of the game.
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Aug 23, 2013 08:12
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That said, enough cavalry (assuming they're heavy enough) can win fights against yari even when outnumbered so long as you either have grouped up your cav to be able to just run straight over the enemy line and out the other side, or hit them in the flank and break them. This is offset by cavalry being huge expensive and useless at taking castles, so you can't make an army entirely of cavalry and abuse their sweet sweet range on the campaign map to conquer everything.
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Aug 23, 2013 15:05
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So it's not that the spear tree gives a better advantage than the sword tree, it's that it gives an advantage you can use a lot more frequently. Thanks.
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Aug 23, 2013 15:23
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BurningStone posted:As a new player, the deep swords and spears do indeed look the same to me. What's the big difference? Yukitsu posted:The logistics upgrades along the spear/gun path mostly. Form is worse than Heaven and Earth for example. I wouldn't say this exactly. Heaven and Earth is good, but it's hardly spear exclusive. vuk83 posted:Also the fact that deep spears benefit your yari ashigaru. And your gonna have a metric fuckton of those. This is closer to the reason why, but it misses the mark a little as well. The issue is, like many bonus balance issues, one of the availability of the ashigaru unit or similar low quality unit. In this case, Yari Ashigaru. With the way the combat system works, adding a flat boost to any low quality unit will increase it's power relative to it's cost significantly compared to the same boost in a higher tier unit. In simple terms, a rank 3 Yari Ashigaru represents a better boost in combat effectiveness than a rank 3 Katana Samurai does over a rank 0 one. This is because a rank 3 unit gains a flat +2 morale, +3 melee attack, +3 melee defence (and +6 accuracy and +6 reload skill, but these are irrelevant for melee units). In real terms, this means that 2 rank 3 yari ashigaru can rout a rank 0 katana samurai (or most other units, really) with relative ease, gaining you an advantage, where a rank 3 katana samurai is no more effective against it's counter units. (namely cavalry and archers). In addition to this, sword units are (for everyone except the Ikko) quality and so are only found where you expect there to be fighting (be it a key chokepoint or in your primary armies), but you don't lose fights where you are expecting to have them. Instead, your major source of province loss is from unexpected avenues like naval invasions or alliance betrayals, where you won't have katana samurai chilling because they are not only too expensive to just have sitting around, but they are tricky to produce on demand, taking 2 turns each and requiring a dedicated building slot. Yari Ashigaru are the garrison unit of choice, so in your emergencies, you gain the extra power (and 3 ranks on yari ashigaru which won't rout in a siege defence translates into easily twice the killing power of a rank 0) where you need it, in addition to gaining the ability to rapidly raise cheap and powerful armies to respond to critical flaws in your plan. This is why that even though the Sword upgrades are identical to the Spear upgrades in mechanical terms, the very nature of the game makes them nowhere near parity for going deep in their respective trees. e: BurningStone posted:So it's not that the spear tree gives a better advantage than the sword tree, it's that it gives an advantage you can use a lot more frequently. Thanks. No, it's a better advantage in actual results and real terms, it just looks like they give the same benefit. shalcar fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Aug 23, 2013 |
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Aug 23, 2013 15:40
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For those of you who do prefer swords, you can get more mileage out of the sword tree than the spear one, but the manner in which you do it is kind of meta gamey, not that that's bad. The AI tends to build a lot of weak infantry, and a lot of bow ashigaru. The reason you don't necessarily want to commit to the spear path here, is because the AI doesn't build enough cavalry, and because yari ashigaru are the best spear unit. However, what makes the yari ashigaru great is relatively stat independant, so you either are upgrading relatively weak units, or you're upgrading a unit that doesn't strictly speaking need upgrades. On the other hand, two or three really BS sword units can cause an enemy to chain route really, really fast. You can't really get the same sort of effect with a more sort of middling spear unit, even if the spear army would be more efficient stats wise. The other reason this is great, is that you can safely stack armour on your sword units, and shrug off a ridiculous amount of bow ashigaru fire without having to spec all the way to naginata samurai. If you go the sword route, it's possible to win fights a lot more decisively, and take less casualties, but it's also possible to bungle the attack and wind up in a far worse position, as relying on a few key units to instantly shatter an enemy inherently has that greater risk of failure for the much greater reward. So if you do think you'd prefer the sword path, you can actually still get a ton of power out of it, but it's less straightforward than what you get out of the spear path. The key thing to remember is, the spear path is still probably ultimately better. Reliability is a huge advantage here, but if you're confident that you can always, 100% cause an instant chain rout in your enemy, the sword path can give you a slight edge to make that a bit easier compared to the spear one. Yukitsu fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Aug 23, 2013 |
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Aug 23, 2013 19:49
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shalcar posted:No, it's a better advantage in actual results and real terms, it just looks like they give the same benefit. Essentially, the bonus gained by swords against what they're already strong against isn't as impressive as the bonus gained by spears that makes them better all-around. A veteran spear has its' weakness against swords shored up without losing anything vs cavalry. A veteran sword is, say, 10% more capable vs spears, with no correlating increase vs Cavalry [their weakness]; it may cut through spears 10% faster, but it'll still die just as readily vs cavalry. The spears, on the other hand, will last far longer vs their counter [swords] while still punching their targetted opponent [cavalry] in the gut.
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Aug 23, 2013 19:53
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Huh, all these charts will probably be useful once I get around to resuming my Shogun game as the Shimazu which I mentioned a couple of pages ago... I was already prioritizing building better farms in provinces with richer farmland, but seeing it being broken down like that will help with deciding what farms to upgrade when and where. Sure, I'll still upgrade them when I need more food to get bigger castles to build more buildings, but I guess I'll hold off on doing so until I really need the buildings in question and just upgrade where it generates the most profit. Sure, a larger food surplus means more town growth per turn as well, but at some point, the returns aren't making that big of a difference for it to matter. I also knew that having Metsuke were important, but I didn't expect them to be that important... Now when I look back on my earlier turns, I can only shake my head at missed opportunities. Need to train a bunch of them fast and then put them to work powering up my richest provinces, I think... Also, seeing those Shimazu Heavy Gunners in action made me salivate there. Can't wait until I go deep enough in the tech tree to where I can field those guys... Looking forward to seeing enemy melee troops just melt in front of them... Speaking of the tech tree, the note that going deep into spears is better than swords is making me rethink my own tech path, which I could graciously describe as schizophrenic, since I didn't know what the good techs were and just grabbed things that looked good to me. Pretty much forgotten which ones I've grabbed, too... Probably should've decided to upgrade my starting Blacksmith in Satsuma to an Armorer instead of Weaponsmith in that same vein of thought, but I figured that making my troops more killy would be the better route to go. But since they're already pretty killy themselves, what with them being Shimazu Katana Samurai, I guess going too deep into their killing power isn't efficient, as investing in having more of them survive arrow volleys would be better than making them kill things even better than they already do... Also, this is from a while back, but I figured I should respond to it, since it is addressed to me: TyphoidLarry posted:Also, have you considered making use of your special characters? The monk is able to incite rebellions, which will nearly always succeed in wresting control from the rightful owner in any province with a small garrison. Rebels are at war with everyone, so you can then conquer the province with no diplomatic problems whatsoever. Be sure to park your invasion force right on the border with your targeted province before you try to incite a rebellion, lest your opponent quickly stamp out the rebels before you get a chance to invade. If enemy forces are present in the province, but not serving as garrison for the capital, other characters can be used to lock those forces in place, preventing the enemy from using them to defend or retake the capital. Huh, so those are the agents that are able to foment rebellions in vanilla Shogun 2, huh? I knew I should've read the relevant encyclopedia entries more clearly... I know about the tactic mentioned because I used it in my Fall of the Samurai Satsuma campaign by employing Isshin Shishin to foment rebellions in provinces that were pro-Emperor and owned by allies of mine, since I felt that everyone had blobbed so much I was worried I wouldn't be able to have the required number of provinces owned in order to win the game within the time limit. In lightly garrisoned provinces, I would park an army near the border after getting an alliance or military access agreement, foment a rebellion, wait for the rebels to take over the province, then move my own army in to take control. Worked pretty well in Fall, so I guess I should get on that in vanilla. Should've just asked which agents do that in my initial post asking for advice. Guess I'll need to build a couple of Temples and hire some Monks then. Need them anyway to deal with the constantly simmering tensions around the former Otomo home province I conquered with the Nanban Port constantly causing trouble for me by spreading Christianity... Guess I have the monk build up some XP by having him preach Shinto-Buddhism there to counteract the Nanban Port's influence, then move him off to friendly provinces once he's built up some experience to foment rebellions, then have my own armies move in. Thanks for that!
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Aug 25, 2013 07:18
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If you're already pretty hard into the attack side of things, you can make it work, but you need to be very confident. Stacking attack to a very high level lets you basically wipe low morale units far far faster. If that's where you've already gone, keeping a mass of cheaper units on the center, a strong group of katanas on each flank, you can basically do a repeat of Marathon or Cannae using your troops. It's an astonishingly efficient way to fight, and relies on having a huge attack bonus on your flanks.
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Aug 25, 2013 07:37
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I'm now running an entire army of Shimazu Heavy Gunners and it's everything I dreamed it would be. I don't know how they let this get into the game, but holy gently caress it's fun to watch the little pixel men go flying.
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Aug 25, 2013 08:27
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Hi everyone, sorry I've been so quiet this week, it's been absolute total chaos at work. Unfortunately, I've had a huge case of writers block this weekend and despite spending a substantial amount of time this weekend on the update I'm not going to be able to get it out, so I'm delaying it a few days to try to get everything back under control. Sorry for the delay, but rest assured you will all see the update in a few days at the latest.
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Aug 25, 2013 08:39
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GhostStalker posted:Need them anyway to deal with the constantly simmering tensions around the former Otomo home province I conquered with the Nanban Port constantly causing trouble for me by spreading Christianity... Guess I have the monk build up some XP by having him preach Shinto-Buddhism there to counteract the Nanban Port's influence, then move him off to friendly provinces once he's built up some experience to foment rebellions, then have my own armies move in. Thanks for that! I'm pretty new (I bought the game after seeing this and the last LP, right before the sale  ) and only playing on Easy, but I conquered a province with a Nanban Port, and a single preaching Monk managed to stop any Christian growth in the area.
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Aug 25, 2013 21:23
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Coucho Marx posted:I'm pretty new (I bought the game after seeing this and the last LP, right before the sale Fair enough, I guess I should have hired a monk immediately to counteract the religious influence of the port immediately after I conquered the Otomo home province and pulled down the Chapel to further stop the Christian growth there. Sure, I might lose some bonus to research, but I'd rather not have to deal with increased dissent due to religious differences and I didn't want to convert and cause the rest of Japan to start hating my guts. Had a Metsuke built there in order to suppress dissent (without taking care of the underlying problem, stupid me!), and he had ranked up once or twice doing so, but he wound up getting killed by an enemy Metsuke and then an enemy stack started rampaging around the province, burning down the farms and Nanban Port there when my own army was out of position to deal with them... My resulting lack of funds due to that damage made me unable to repair the port in a timely manner, and I decided not to bother until I could get my own army in a position to deal with the enemy stack there, but in the intervening period of time, Shinto-Buddhism kept growing in the province due to the lack of influence via the Nanban Port, letting me not have to worry about dissent due to religious differences. Now that the enemy stack is destroyed and the Nanban Port repaired, I need to worry about Christian influence spreading again, so I guess a Monk will just the thing I need to deal with that, and then once he ranks up once or twice, use him to foment rebellions in "friendly" provinces owned by "allies" and then move in with my own armies to take the province once the rebels evict defeat the garrison. A net positive for me in both areas!
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Aug 25, 2013 23:24
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Actually, if you feel that the Nanban Port is making more trouble then it is worth you can just tear that down aswell. Sure you have to rebuild the port back up from Fishing Village (or whatever the lowest form is called) to where you want it, but I find that a small price to pay for not having to think about countering it all the time to prevent rebels.
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Aug 25, 2013 23:55
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Coucho Marx posted:I'm pretty new (I bought the game after seeing this and the last LP, right before the sale The Nanban Port needs a rank 4 monk or better to prevent Christianity growth in the province. The same thing can be achieved by a rank 3 monk and a Buddhist Temple or a rank 2 Monk and a Monastery. It can be quite difficult to keep under control if you are not expecting it and the growth is quite rapid. Note that you can stack multiple monks in province for the same effect (4 rank 1 monks instead of a single rank 4 monk).
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Aug 26, 2013 05:44
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Hey shalcar, are you planning on taking a break from this LP to get stuck into Rome II? (I don't think anyone would notice since we'll all be doing the same thing).
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Aug 26, 2013 06:06
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Krazyface posted:Hey shalcar, are you planning on taking a break from this LP to get stuck into Rome II? The official answer is no, I won't be putting the LP on hold for Rome 2. I might take the week that Rome 2 comes out off from updating, possibly the week after. I don't have the sort of time these days to dump into bulk playing video games like I did when I was younger, so I'm probably going to take a more measured approach to playing Rome 2, just having a single campaign on and off over a couple of weeks and maybe the odd multiplayer game. Rome 2 will be a minor interruption at best to the update schedule of this LP (hopefully).
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Aug 26, 2013 06:22
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Hard Choices Spring of 1547  "Dad, the guards said that the ninja in Omi are smugglers!" exclaimed Masanari. "Is that true?" "The people of Omi are wealthy" replied Yasunaga. "With such wealth comes those who would take advantage of such a ready market. Yes, the ninja here are smugglers." Masanari frowned. "They must be bad at fights, then." Yasunaga laughed. "No-one can match an Iga ninja in combat, it is true. It would be foolish to think that smugglers are soft men, for their skills are many and varied." "But smuggling is bad, dad!" Masanari protested. "They are criminals!" "Of a sort" conceded Yasunaga. "But if we must have crime, it will be organised. We collect tax from their smuggling and everyone is happy." Our economy continues to go from strength to strength as more economic buildings come online, providing vital income to fund our ever expanding needs for military forces. With Yamato now containing an Improved Irrigation, all of our provinces have level 2 farms, making us unable to further expand our food production until we discover the art of Equal Fields. The Burakumin Village in Omi provides a small boost to wealth, but more importantly, increases the rank of all ninja agents recruited there, giving us the capacity to create rank 3 ninja agents right out of the gate. Omi currently doesn't have the required building chain to actually create ninja at the moment, so it's just a small money boost at the moment, but being able to take advantage of such enormous boosts is high on the priority list.   Cost: 1250 One of two possible second buildings in the Assassin Chain building, Burakumin Village further increases the ranks of ninja agents recruited here and provides a small boost to town wealth. Ingame encyclopaedia - Burakumin Village posted:Although ninja may be regarded as dangerous, troublesome and underhanded, there is no denying their usefulness to a daimyo. An enemy who meets a knife in the dark will be just as dead as one killed in battle. The ninja here can be encouraged along two paths: to become better killers, or to act as smugglers, and improve the income of the province.  "YOU CALL THAT ARCHERY?" bellowed Taketoshi. "I've seen Masanari shoot better! You had best improve if you want to serve in the Hattori forces!" We further bolster our defensive garrison in Omi by a Hattori Bow Ashigaru with a look to not only ensuring peace on the eastern front but also so that Yasunaga has sufficient troops available to him when we need to expand in that direction. Taketoshi's forces in Yamato are also bolstered by 1 Hattori Bow Ashigaru to help us push to the west and finish up our war there.  "My Lord, an urgent missive for you" announced the messenger, rushing into the room. "Our neighbours are at war!" Yasunaga took the scroll and opened it. "The Takeda, the vultures they are, have swooped on the crippled Oda." "Why would they do that?" asked Masanari. "I thought they were friends." "Once" replied Yasunaga. "But in this bloody war, there are no longer true friends." Well, this could be the death knell for the Oda. Reduced to a mere 1 province by the Imagawa, now the Takeda want the last piece of this shattered clan. Hopefully the Oda can hold out, as division in the eastern provinces buys us time to finish up our war to the west.   The darkness was oppressive, the moon obscured by clouds, inky blackness so complete that Chisato could feel it upon her. The courtyard seemed fairly empty, the odd lantern of the irregular patrols visible from her spot atop the wall. Idly, she shifted the firepowder satchels strapped to her waist. "I hope they have not changed the patterns" she thought to herself. "I would hate to have spent a month working them out for nothing." Another lantern passed through, before moving out of the courtyard. Taking a deep breath, Chisato started climbing down. She had mere minutes to get to the gates to sabotage them with her packages. "Observation looks like it pays off!" she thought, grinning to herself as she made it to the mighty hinges of the gates. Working quickly, she planted her satchels and the fuses. Striking her flint, once, twice, three times, but the fuse wouldn't light! "Come on! COME ON!" she cursed under her breath. "LIGHT! LIGHT drat YOU!" Now here is something very interesting! With the poor, low value province of Kawachi heavily defended and likely to stall our offensive, we need to look for other expansion options. The province of Settsu is currently poorly defended and quite a prize, containing a very high base town wealth and the always sought after Philosophical Traditions speciality. It's imperative that we lock this province down and prevent it from strengthening, so we send in Chisato to sabotage the gates, hoping to prevent recruitment there this turn. It's also the clan capital of the Taira from our last LP and I'll be damned if I don't return it to it's former glory before this LP is done!  Click here to see the mission!  Suddenly the fuse flared into life and Chisato took off at speed. Hiding in an out of the way spot at the base of the wall she waited. "Had they found it? Had the fuse gone out?" she thought. "She I be climbing out now?" Two dull thumps answered her question as cries of alarm burst out from all around the castle, red flames leaping towards the sky. Amidst all the confusion, no-one noticed a small black shape climbing the wall out to her safety. Glorious success! With the sabotage of the castle in Settsu, they will be unable to recruit troops here and so it will remain vulnerable to attack. Of course, we must move quickly, because we will not be the only clan with an eye towards easy expansion.   Taketoshi opened the report from Chisato, a slow smile creeping across his lips. "Settsu's garrison is a mere three regiments and her castle is crippled. I'll keep the chaos going as long as I can, but the Hattori have a valuable opportunity here to reclaim lost Taira glory. - Chisato" As we can see, Settsu is only defended by a single General, Yari Ashigaru and Bow Ashigaru, plus their garrison of Samurai Retainers. Given the way the AI handles autoresolves, they will be able to knock that over with a mere 5-6 units, but as I have to fight the battles manually and face the full force of the castle, I will need far more.   "Right you lot!" bellowed Taketoshi. "It's wonderful weather for a little march! Cherry Blossoms, Sunshine and my cheery morning face! MOVE OUT!" Taketoshi is more than up to the challenge however, moving his army of 5 Hattori Yari Ashigaru and 2 Hattori Bow Ashigaru to meet the 2 Hattori Yari Ashigaru moving down to reinforce him.   "We set up camp outside Kawachi" order Taketoshi. "I want the Hatakeyama and Miyoshi to think we plan an assault on Kawachi proper." "We don't attack Kawachi, my Lord?" questioned the ashigaru commander. "Then what are we doing here?" "Taking Japan by storm" replied Taketoshi. "Fortune favours the bold." With the combined force of 7 Hattori Yari Ashigaru and 2 Hattori Bow Ashigaru, Taketoshi marches as far as he can through Kawachi to put himself in striking distance of Settsu. While this does leave Yamato open to attack from the Kitabitake, I have to bank on the fact that our trade agreements will keep them from attacking me. Even if they do, Yamato for Settsu is a fair trade this early in the game. Summer of 1547  The markets of Kii bustled. Rice merchants hawked their wares by the granary-load, metalsmiths offered fine blades and the thousand little luxuries of home could be found, for a price. A clan's wealth was its people, but the gold from trade was its power. Another one of the big money making provinces begins its journey into bankrolling the entire Hattori armed forces with the Market being completed in Kii. Another market means another Metsuke in this Very Fertile province and that means big, big koku in 8 turns.  "You are Iga Hattori!" the drillmaster announced to the recruits. "None fight better, none are braver and none can stand in your way!" Yamato is critically short of troops to defend it and we don't want to give the Kitabitake too much of an opportunity to see how weak we are in one of our good provinces. While Yamato produces no troops this turn (See if you can guess why!), we produce 2 Hattori Yari Ashigaru in Iga, able to ferry them rapidly to where they are needed.   Tanesuke stood in the alley, the blending in with the associated rubbish that had accumulated here. Every town had slums and Kii was no exception, a fact Tanesuke knew all too well. A sound reached his ears, something brushing against a wooden crate. Tanesuke smiled, this alley was a favoured escape route of local thieves and lowlife. His hunch had proved correct, as a man slunk through the alley, constantly checking to see if he was being followed. His caution towards his rear did not translate to watching where he was going, as Tanesuke burst forth from the shadows, his dagger against the man's neck. "I think you and I are going to have a little chat down the station" stated Tanesuke. "Any sudden moves and you will be breathing through your neck." Our first order of the day is to recruit our newly available Metsuke in Kii. Some of you might be wondering if Metsuke are such a good idea to put in provinces, why don't you just stack them all in your best provinces? The answer is simple, not only do towns have a maximum of 3 agents that can be put in them, but each agent of the same type after the first only operates at half the agent before them. So while the first Metsuke increases tax rate by 5% per star, the second only increases it by 2.5% and the third by a mere 1.25%. This means that stacking Metsuke in a single province is only a good idea if it has literally double the wealth of your best Metsuke-less province. This diminishing returns applies to all agents (visibility radius from ninja, happiness from monks etc) in both cities AND armies.   "Marching orders to Yamato, lads" the ashigaru captain announced. "Look on the bright side, it's lovely weather." Yamato is desperately short of troops, so we march out our newly recruited troops from Iga and send them there. They won't arrive until next turn, so we are still vulnerable, but if the Kitabitake were going to strike, I would have expected it to have already happened. The AI rarely sits around if you give it an opening they can exploit.   Chisato smiled to herself. The patrols had not changed! Sending a silent thanks heavenwards, she waited for the opening she knew was coming. Sure enough, right on time, the old faithful lantern moved into the courtyard and then out again. She started her descent... If I have a hope of taking this castle, I need those gates open. Chisato will need to demonstrate her sabotage skills again in order for me to have a chance. The nice thing about using a ninja to do your dirty work for you is that if we fail, I don't have to declare war and march Taketoshi in, I can quite happily wait until she succeeds. Having said that, her death will kind of mess this entire plan up, so I hope she is as good as she was last time! Click here to see the mission!  "Unbelievable!" she thought to herself, as she climbed over the wall, the flames consuming the gate for a second time in as many months. "How could the commander be so stupid as to not change the patrols?" Chisato wondered. Her luck had held out so far, but there was only so long she could keep getting lucky. Thankfully for us, her reliability comes through and we have a castle open for the taking. We have been very lucky this game, so I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. Nevertheless, I'll take whatever luck the game wants to throw my way quite happily.  Slowly, she was beginning to understand what her teachers had been talking about. Observation was the key. Knowledge kept you alive far more reliably than a fast sword arm or lightning reflexes. Attention to detail was the true virtue of a ninja, the spark that turned the impossible, possible. Chisato zooms into rank 3 and the seriously dangerous levels are now behind us. Although the risk of ninja death is still quite high, we can send her on more important missions and expect the job to be done as well as being able to send her on easy sabotage runs for experience with minimal risk of death. Having said that, I'm sure she's now going to die doing something like sabotaging a granary. All your good ninja tend to die from really, really stupid missions. It's the Shogun 2 curse.  Idle talk of off duty soldiers in taverns giving away vital clues to make missions easier, how to read a room and replace moved items without drawing attention, being able to spot when a guard was distracted. These were the skills that separated the rookie ninja from the experienced. These were the skills that made missions possible. I'm quite fond of Chisato and right now she is critical to me alive. The best way to ensure that stays the case is a point in Infiltrator, further increasing her chance to avoid detection when she is unsuccessful. A ninja that was not detected is a ninja that was not killed on a mission, so it's a direct boost to her survivability, albeit one that doesn't increase her odds of a successful mission (Any mission you come back alive from is successful in my book, but the game disagrees). We also take a point in Military Spy, making her even more effective at increasing movement and preventing hostile agent action if she is placed inside a friendly army. While right now that is no use to us, the extra movement a ninja provides can be critical in times of war, as well as meaning that your ninja can be useful and on-hand for your key armies.      The legend of Chisato did not grow, for no-one outside the Hattori even knew of her. What they did know, was that the Hattori employed vengeful ghosts, creatures that wielded terrible fire and flame against their enemies. No other explanation seemed to be possible, for those so affected could never find a trace of mortal action. No retainer is gained this level, as you only get them on even ranks. Experience (the yellow bar to the right of the portrait) carries over between levels, as you can see here. Despite the fact Chisato only just reached rank 3, she is already 10 of 60 experience towards rank 4. While that's still a full 4 successful missions away, every bit counts for getting to the elusive rank 6.  "The lands of Settsu are ours by divine right" stated Yasunaga to the Miyoshi ambassador. "You must cede them to us or we will be forced to take our claim by force." "Then we shall watch the lands of the Hattori burn" sneered the Miyoshi ambassador. "Those lands are ours. This is war!" "Your allies are few and your armies weak and scattered" responded Yasunaga. "You can't win this." "You are mistaken" retorted the ambassador. "We will not only win, we will crush you. You have no fleet, no way to touch our holdings. We need only wait for you to fall." The Miyoshi are decently sized, with 2 of their provinces on the island of Shikoku and only Settsu on the mainland, meaning they have no real way of bringing forces against us quickly. Unfortunately, the reverse is true and they are unlikely to accept peace from us, so we will be constantly invaded by sea until we get a fleet of our own. Despite that, Settsu is worth it. We bring in our allies (who will do nothing and be absolutely useless) and they bring in theirs (who are located to the west of Settsu and so will cause us some troubles but gives us another expansion direction). I don't really want to expand any further west than Settsu, so some diplomacy will be required to extract ourselves from this sticky situation.   "We march to war!" announced Taketoshi. "The lands of Settsu belong to the Hattori, history belongs the Hattori! Japan is ours, we need just reach out and take it!" With the formalities of war out of the way, Taketoshi marches on Settsu, ready to claim the province for the invincible Hattori!  "The gates are jammed open" Taketoshi briefed his commanders. "We hit from both sides, overwhelm the garrison and take the castle." "Equal forces on both sides, my Lord?" the ashigaru commander questioned. "The men only feel secure in numbers when attacking a fortification, I suggest all our forces brought to bear at a point." "Then pick your two bravest companies and have them march into the trees near the eastern gates" ordered Taketoshi. "All our other troops will mount an open attack on the western gates. We will draw the defenders there." The battle is more even than the strength bar would give it credit for, as the strength bar (and auto-resolve) always criminally underestimate the strength of defensive fortifications. With Taketoshi's force of 7 Hattori Yari Ashigaru and 2 Hattori Bow Ashigaru against the defenders General, Yari Ashigaru and Bow Ashigaru and Samurai Retainers, we will have one heck of a fight to win. Luckily for us, the castle gates are open courtesy of Chisato, as shown by the open door icon to the left of the Battle Deployment banner.  Click here to see the battle! "Hattori!" the battle cry went up as the ashigaru charged the open gates. The defenders fought valiantly, holding the Hattori forces down, but they couldn't stop them all. Hattori forces slowly pushed through, bringing their mass of numbers into play. Yet the battle held in the balance, as the Hattori assault lost momentum and started to falter, the men tiring. "HOLD, YOU MOTHERLESS SONS OF DOGS!" Taketoshi bellowed from the thick of the fighting, shoulder to shoulder with the ashigaru. "IF YOU RUN, I'LL HAUNT YOU FOR TEN THOUSAND YEARS!" Despite the fury of Taketoshi's wrath, the attack began to falter... A Fort design we have not seen before, this castle is long and thin, providing maximum frontage for archers and allowing rapid redeployment of melee troops inside. It's one of the more difficult forts to take, especially if the defenders have a strong ranged advantage, but it's key weakness is to being overwhelmed through sheer numbers hitting it on all fronts. We don't have the numbers to really do that *and* hold down the garrison, so another plan will have to be improvised.  "Hattori!" came the cry from behind the defenders, as Hattori forces crashed into their rear. "The enemy is behind as well!" one defender yelled out in panic. "We are defeated! WE MUST FLEE!" Hearing the panic of the enemy, new energy surged into the Hattori forces, as they fell upon the defenders in fury. The ferocity of the attack broke the defenders lines, letting Hattori troops flood through the gates. Bloody fighting, but well within what you would expect for taking a castle. We lost 1 man for every enemy down, an impressive feat except when you consider that we had literally every advantage we could without the odds being farcically in our favour. To give you an example of how little autoresolve takes castle walls into account, I would have lost a whole 30 men if I autoresolved this fight. Literally an order of magnitude less than what we managed. Always fight your castle battles even against hopeless odds, as you will put far more pain on your opponents than otherwise. By the same token, if you are having trouble in Shogun 2 and maybe want "training wheels" of a sort, then auto-resolving your castle assaults will give you more of an edge than taking personal command.  "The castle is ours!" announced Taketoshi. "Together, the Hattori are invincible!" A cheer went up from the troops. "There are no finer warriors in all Japan!" boomed Taketoshi. "We are Hattori!" Our Bow Ashigaru did well considering the poor terrain for attacking ranged troops, while the Yari Ashigaru that did most of the killing also did most of the dying. This is pretty standard with castle fights, as there is literally no option other than a slog to slaughter the defenders before your morale collapses. 2 Yari Ashigaru worth of casualties for Settsu feels like a pretty good deal on this end, especially as it provided rank ups almost across the board, something that is critical with ashigaru.  "Secure the area and find the province attendants" ordered Taketoshi. "Move my possessions into the fort. The Hattori are here to stay." We take the province for our own! Looting would serve no point and it's far too good to vassalize!   "The scholars of this province are legendary, my Lord" the attendant announced. "Settsu was once the heart of the Taira Shogunate and although they have fallen, her glory still resides here." "The Hattori will forge a new Shogunate, soon enough" replied Taketoshi. "But there is much work still to do." "Settsu is wealthier than most would think" continued the attendant. "A legacy from the past, but one that I am sure you will be happy to have." Settsu has exceptional town wealth, boasting a full 955 (compared to Kii, for example, which is 261) making it competitive with richer provinces despite it's average soil. It also has the highly sought after Philosophical Traditions province speciality and is the first province we own with a port! This province speciality increases the rate at which we master arts as well as increasing the rank of all Metsuke recruited in this province! This means that any Metsuke recruited here skip the 8 turns of being average and start off being great. This is critical later on when a key Metsuke gets taken out by hostile action and you need to replace him, as you can't really afford to have a key province staffed by a rank 1 in mid to late game. You might be wondering why the castle repression icons are greyed out in the happiness display and that even with all our troops there the happiness is 0. Damaged buildings don't give any of their happiness benefit, meaning the sabotage Chisato performed now works against us! In addition, we can't recruit troops or replenish ashigaru at the full rate until we repair it. Luckily, castle gate repairs tend to be about 50 koku, but it's important to factor in this delay if you plan on using ninja for your expansion plans. Settsu contains a Fort, Empty Building Slot, Rice Paddies (Average Soil), Trails, Trading Port and School.   Cost: 1800 The third building in the Port Chain, the Trading Port adds a sea trade route, increases the value of goods traded through here by 80 koku and allows the recruitment of Trading Ships and Siege Tower Bune (with Gunpowder Mastery). Ingame encyclopaedia - Trading Port posted:Trade and warfare are vital to the success of a clan, and each supports the other. Warships built here can protect the port's trading vessels, which in turn earn money to buy more warships. A busy port encourages growth in the province too.   Cost: Free Available only in provinces with the Philosophical Tradition speciality, the Intellectual Chain may be upgraded in two separate ways providing different bonuses. The School, the first building in the Intellectual chain, increases the rate at which all arts are mastered and increases the rank of Metsuke recruited in this province. Ingame encyclopaedia - School posted:The people of this province are noted for their cultural and intellectual attainments. Their skills may be developed along one of two paths: firstly, they can be encouraged to contemplate and develop the many arts and techniques a clan needs to stay ahead of their rivals. Secondly, their skills can be used for the more prosaic business of espionage and counter-espionage. In this case, the quality of metsuke training will be markedly improved. Art bonus rate in Shogun 2 Each turn in Shogun 2 you earn 100 points towards mastering your current art. Events, buildings or characters that boost your rate at which arts are mastered add their value to this figure. This means that if you had 2 Schools, you would generate 120 points a turn towards mastering arts. This does lead to some counter-intuitive events, however, as an art which takes 10 turns (1000 points) would still take 10 turns even with a School, despite it being a 10% boost. This is because after 9 turns you have earned 990 points towards mastering the art (100 base + 10 from the School per turn) and so don't *quite* have enough to get there. Points in excess of those required to master the art are wasted.  Taketoshi strode into the study in Settsu to find two ambassadors waiting for him. "That you wear Hattori colours must mean you are the new masters of this province" noted one. "I am the ambassador from the Yamana." "I am the ambassador of the Urakami" replied the other. "While I suspect you are busy now, we will have much to discuss." Having taken Settsu, we come into contact with new clans, the most worrying of which has a quite respectable force in Tamba, just north of Settsu.  "I'm so glad I could find you, my Lord" stated Chisato, bowing. "I have an urgent report." "Chisato!" replied Taketoshi. "Yasunaga said you would be a most useful asset and he was right. This victory is as much yours as it is ours." "Thank you, my Lord" replied Chisato, standing tall. "The Bessho, several weeks march to the west and allies of the Miyoshi, have suffered a massive defeat and their army is in tatters. Their clan capital is defended by fewer than 50 men. They have never been so weak, nor so ready to fall." Taketoshi laughed. "I like you. I am beginning to think you are blessed by Benzaiten. Have them send the Bessho ambassador to my quarters." The Bessho, the owners of Harima and also at war with us, appear to have their only province completely undefended and adjacent to Taketoshi and his army of doom. While we could simply take it next turn, it's a great opportunity to demonstrate how the AI behaves differently when it's under direct threat.  "You will submit to our rule, ending this pathetic excuse for a war and obeying us in all things" demanded Taketoshi. "A quarter of your income as tribute and the immediate opening of trade routes." "This is ludicrous!" exclaimed the Bessho ambassador. "The Bessho will never accept such terms!" "On my order, the Bessho cease to exist" Taketoshi stated, his voice low and full of menace. "I know Harima is defended by less than 50 men and your armies are shattered. This is your chance to live. I don't give them twice." The ambassador visibly paled. "I... uh.. I... I'll need to get confirmation, of course, but we... we accept your terms." We have the power to take their only province from them, with our forces able to strike next turn and wipe them out. That would leave us critically overextended and wouldn't really help us in the long run, as we have few enough troops to protect the valuable provinces we have without having to stretch them even further. Instead, because the AI has something directly threatened by us it rates any offers we give it significantly higher. We take advantage of this by demanding they become our vassal and open trade with us, meaning that instead of costing us money to garrison a province we don't want right now and over-extending ourselves, we gain money from the trade and secure a front. By pressuring the AI, we were able to turn a negative into a positive. It's important to note that if we didn't have our forces a single turn from their castle, they would have never accepted this offer. A common mistake players make is to take the province from the AI and then demand peace, which confuses people when the AI refuses. Didn't you just demonstrate they could take their provinces? Well yes, you did, but the AI is now no longer threatened by your troops. It's already lost what it wanted, so now you are a much lesser threat. If you really want peace with an AI because you can't afford to fight a war on that front, move your troops out as if to take the town and negotiate from a position of strength. You will find the AI much more likely to listen to you! I also try to peace out with the Miyoshi now that I have what I want, but the fact we can't hurt each other plays against me, as they refuse since I can't really hurt them now and they know it. Vassals in Shogun 2 There are two ways of creating a vassal in Shogun 2, military or diplomatic. A military vassal is formed by taking over a home province of an eliminated clan and electing to restore them to that province. Military vassals lose all previous modifiers to their diplomacy and start very friendly towards you. In addition, you receive one free military unit of the type that province can produce. It's important to note that military vassals made after Realm Divide will not suffer the Realm Divide penalty. Diplomatic vassals are created by demanding vassalage as part of a diplomatic deal. All previous modifiers to diplomacy remain, so any made after Realm Divide in this way will still turn against you. You do not receive a free military unit when you make this sort of vassal. Regardless of how you make a vassal, you will get the following benefits: A vassal will always trade with you, no matter what +1 honour to your Daimyo 25% of that clan's base income Vassals can not refuse your request to assist you in war The vassals size is added to your own to determine enough provinces for victory However, there is a downside to a vassal. If someone declares war on your vassal and you don't join the war to defend them, you lose 1 honour from your Daimyo. In addition, a vassal can only declare war on you, so make sure you either keep your vassal busy fighting your wars or have some token garrison nearby to make sure they don't get any fancy ideas. A standard Daimyo starts off with 3 honour and honour can be between 1 and 6. Honour in Shogun 2 Your Daimyo has Honour instead of loyalty and this represents how your clan is viewed by Japan and how your Generals and people feel about him. Honour has the following effects: 1 Honour - -1 loyalty to all Generals, -20 Diplomatic Penalty, -2 population happiness 2 Honour - -10 Diplomatic Penalty, -1 population happiness 3 Honour - +1 loyalty to all Generals 4 Honour - +2 loyalty to all Generals, +10 Diplomatic Bonus 5 Honour - +3 loyalty to all Generals, +20 Diplomatic Bonus, +1 population happiness 6 Honour - +4 loyalty to all Generals, +30 Diplomatic Bonus, +2 population happiness Honour can be gained by making vassals, reaching sufficient general rank on your Daimyo, events, arts and skills/retainers Honour can be lost by betraying military alliances (no matter who broke it!), events and looting To see an example of honour in action, here is Yasunaga having freshly made a vassal of the Bessho. As we can see, his Honour is now 4.   Here is Taketoshi, note that his loyalty has been boosted by the honour of our Daimyo.   Sneak Peek: The finest Hattori blades... shalcar fucked around with this message at 10:25 on Aug 26, 2013 |
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Aug 26, 2013 10:01
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shalcar posted:
I'm sorry. I really do try to avoid being a grammaryan. But you want the word "its" in this context. "It's" is short for "it is"; "its" means "belonging to it". Normally it's not a big deal, but seeing the mistake three times in a row like that made my eye twitch. EDIT: shalcar posted:
I think you meant 'to the right of the portrait'. Hope this helps! 
FredMSloniker fucked around with this message at 10:24 on Aug 26, 2013 |
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Aug 26, 2013 10:19
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FredMSloniker posted:I'm sorry. I really do try to avoid being a grammaryan. But you want the word "its" in this context. "It's" is short for "it is"; "its" means "belonging to it". Normally it's not a big deal, but seeing the mistake three times in a row like that made my eye twitch. The way this is written is incredibly condescending. Perhaps you might consider an alternate scenario where my delays and schedule meant that I have had to cut my normal proofing time short knowing that some minor issues would slip through, rather than the fact that I was functionally illiterate. Cheers for assuming I don't know about contractions, though! e: The bit that really blows my mind is your second correction of a minor error is perfectly civil in tone  .e2: Just to clarify for everyone, I really appreciate it when people point out spelling errors, grammatical mistakes or character naming errors as I feel it makes for a stronger and more enjoyable LP. While I do proof my updates, there is a real limit to how much time I can spend on that and mistakes will slip through. All I ask is that pointing out such errors is done in a short and simple way so that I can correct the errors. For those who have already done so, thanks for your help, it is appreciated. shalcar fucked around with this message at 10:56 on Aug 26, 2013 |
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Aug 26, 2013 10:45
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shalcar posted:
Wait, what? Your Daimyo loses honour if the other guy breaks a military alliance? How is that remotely fair?
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Aug 26, 2013 10:51
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JosephWongKS posted:Wait, what? Your Daimyo loses honour if the other guy breaks a military alliance? How is that remotely fair? Honour is as much about what Japan thinks about you as it is about what you really are. If the other guy breaks the alliance, they are not going to go around saying that they are the reason it fell apart, so alliance breaking really is a "he said, she said" situation that makes all of Japan look on both parties less favourably. You can break an alliance without penalty if you are allied with two clans who go to war with each other and you side with the defender. There is a sunset clause of 20 turns on alliances and 10 turns on trading agreements after which they can be broken with no penalty.
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Aug 26, 2013 10:59
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shalcar posted:The way this is written is incredibly condescending. Perhaps you might consider an alternate scenario where my delays and schedule meant that I have had to cut my normal proofing time short knowing that some minor issues would slip through, rather than the fact that I was functionally illiterate. Cheers for assuming I don't know about contractions, though! 
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Aug 26, 2013 11:00
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shalcar posted:
Is it possible for Honour to drop below 1 (to 0 or even a negative number)? What are the effects if it does drop to 0 or lower? Have you ever gotten to a point where your Daimyo's Honour was so low that you deliberately tried to kill him off by marching him into a stack of yari ashigaru, so that his heir could take over?
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Aug 26, 2013 12:14
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JosephWongKS posted:Is it possible for Honour to drop below 1 (to 0 or even a negative number)? What are the effects if it does drop to 0 or lower? Have you ever gotten to a point where your Daimyo's Honour was so low that you deliberately tried to kill him off by marching him into a stack of yari ashigaru, so that his heir could take over? I find that in most cases, Daimyo honour starts out at 3 and generally rises. The only practical way I've lost honour is through converting to Christianity. Looting is just a bad idea in most cases, and alliances you intend to break (or are obviously going to be broken) are better off not being made in the first place. Another thing to note is that high Daimyo honour helps speed the approach of Realm Divide, IIRC. One thing that I've never really gotten is General loyalty mechanics. Does it really matter much, at all? I've never seen a situation where it comes into play, though, usually my Generals are all very loyal anyway.
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Aug 26, 2013 12:57
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quote:One thing that I've never really gotten is General loyalty mechanics. Does it really matter much, at all? I've never seen a situation where it comes into play, though, usually my Generals are all very loyal anyway. I wouldn't say it happens often, but a disloyal General can and will desert you (taking a portion of his army with him) at the worst possible times. I'd say leveling up your starting General (Who is often not a family member) at the expense of your daimyo is usually the primary culprit for new players especially.
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Aug 26, 2013 13:23
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JosephWongKS posted:Is it possible for Honour to drop below 1 (to 0 or even a negative number)? What are the effects if it does drop to 0 or lower? Have you ever gotten to a point where your Daimyo's Honour was so low that you deliberately tried to kill him off by marching him into a stack of yari ashigaru, so that his heir could take over? Killing off bad family members was a crucial family management strategy in Medieval 2 to keep bad traits from spreading. Because Shogun 2 takes place over at most 50 years compared to 250+ of Medieval 2 the family management aspect is much reduced. That said, if you manage to get to 1 or 2 honor and don't have many ranks on your Daimyo, it is definitely worth it to kill him off to get a new one.
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Aug 26, 2013 18:14
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Xenoborg posted:Killing off bad family members was a crucial family management strategy in Medieval 2 to keep bad traits from spreading. Because Shogun 2 takes place over at most 50 years compared to 250+ of Medieval 2 the family management aspect is much reduced. I'm not sure how Medieval 2 was, but Medieval 1 had a thing for giving traits fairly randomly to your Nobles, which made for hilarious and annoying times, as your carefully groomed successor would suddenly pick up the most horrifying traits or your favorite general suddenly became insanely corrupt and easily bribe-able. It got so out of hand, I eventually gave up on the trait system, flung their sisters at their brothers, and concluded that six toed chinless wonders seemed to be BETTER than my carefully groomed picked that inevitably picked up even worse traits. I'm kinda glad that Shogun doesn't have any of that whole "Find a Princess for your Prince to marry" thing.
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Aug 26, 2013 19:11
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Vaga42Bond posted:I'm kinda glad that Shogun doesn't have any of that whole "Find a Princess for your Prince to marry" thing. I'm glad that your generals in Shogun 2 don't turn into gibbering, inbred wrecks the moment you leave them in a city for more than 2 turns (gently caress you Rome). Even Fall, which loves to throw around Eye for the Ladies and Likes his Food, never got so bad. While the loss of an extensive trait list for your generals does have some drawbacks (no more insane speeches before battle about the moon people) I think Shogun's system is 100% better than the way Rome/M2 handled it. JosephWongKS posted:Is it possible for Honour to drop below 1 (to 0 or even a negative number)? What are the effects if it does drop to 0 or lower? Have you ever gotten to a point where your Daimyo's Honour was so low that you deliberately tried to kill him off by marching him into a stack of yari ashigaru, so that his heir could take over? The lowest it can drop is 1. On the flip side, it as well as loyalty can never go above 6, no matter how much you do. In pretty much all cases, it's better to send your Daimyo on a murder spree and form some vassals to get your honor back up over just straight murdering him, unless you're really in an unhappiness crunch with no other recourse. A good trick if you have a dishonorable Daimyo or otherwise very disloyal generals is to put the generals in charge of ship fleets. Generals won't desert if they're on ships. I use this trick a lot in Fall late game when I have like seven generals and my oldest ones have "-6 Loyalty Due to Upstart Generals" modifiers but I don't want to kill them because they're 4-5 stars.
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Aug 26, 2013 19:37
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Shalcar, you asked for guesses about why you didn't recruit everywhere. Was it because you were saving cash to build up Settsu after you took it? Or just saving cash on having too many ashigaru sitting around eating upkeep koku?
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Aug 26, 2013 20:43
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Vaga42Bond posted:I'm not sure how Medieval 2 was, but Medieval 1 had a thing for giving traits fairly randomly to your Nobles, which made for hilarious and annoying times, as your carefully groomed successor would suddenly pick up the most horrifying traits or your favorite general suddenly became insanely corrupt and easily bribe-able. It got so out of hand, I eventually gave up on the trait system, flung their sisters at their brothers, and concluded that six toed chinless wonders seemed to be BETTER than my carefully groomed picked that inevitably picked up even worse traits. And now you know why there was so much inbreeding among medieval nobility; it was the only way to keep the heir from becoming a corrupt gluttonous pedophile prone to bitter black rages. :P
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Aug 26, 2013 20:55
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Arcturas posted:Shalcar, you asked for guesses about why you didn't recruit everywhere. Was it because you were saving cash to build up Settsu after you took it? Or just saving cash on having too many ashigaru sitting around eating upkeep koku? The last line tells you the answer.
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Aug 27, 2013 03:15
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How much money are you actually going to make off of a trade route with a destitute province? Probably more than you'd spend on upkeep, anyway.
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Aug 28, 2013 11:49
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Glazius posted:How much money are you actually going to make off of a trade route with a destitute province? The value of Trade Routes is based on how many Trade Goods you produce, primarily, the size of the trading partner tends to be a lesser concern (In simple terms each trading partner consumes X trade goods and an extra Y per province they own, but the X is pretty large and the Y is fairly small. I think it's 5 goods and 1 per province, but I would need to confirm that). The actual value of that trade route with the Bessho is 123 koku and their tribute is an additional 136 koku, meaning that deal was worth 259 koku (or a province of roughly wealth 1100). The key issue is that it's totally upkeep free, jumps ludicrously when we get access to a trade good and provides additional protection to a front that we don't really want to over-extend on (we are a little overextended right now already). The big coup is the extra honour point for our Daimyo granting not only the additional loyalty to our generals but bringing us closer to that elusive bonus happiness from honour (which will reduce upkeep costs and increase our possible expansion speed) and the extra +10 diplomatic bonus to offset all of our current expansion.
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Aug 28, 2013 12:07
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shalcar posted:This means that stacking Metsuke in a single province is only a good idea if it has literally double the wealth of your best Metsuke-less province. This diminishing returns applies to all agents (visibility radius from ninja, happiness from monks etc) in both cities AND armies. I understand this as it applies to Metsuke, but I'd like some clarification on the visibility radius, specifically, is the diminishing returns on ninja visibility really that bad a thing? Even a 50% of normal increase to visibility radius still translates to a much larger area of visibility (πr2), and unless a lot of that visibility is wasted (by being over water or something) isn't it still helpful to stack ninja at least once if your goal is sight lines? I've never actually played this game but I love all the tactics talk, it's my favorite part of this LP.
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Aug 28, 2013 19:56
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Mzbundifund posted:I understand this as it applies to Metsuke, but I'd like some clarification on the visibility radius, specifically, is the diminishing returns on ninja visibility really that bad a thing? Even a 50% of normal increase to visibility radius still translates to a much larger area of visibility (πr2), and unless a lot of that visibility is wasted (by being over water or something) isn't it still helpful to stack ninja at least once if your goal is sight lines? I'd only consider that if I have a province sort of surrounded on multiple sides and I don't know where it will be attacked from, but know for sure that it will be attacked. Otherwise, using the spare ninja to scout the area outside the city is generally the best option to get vision.
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Aug 28, 2013 21:21
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Nice job taking Settsu there. You need to hold that province in order to return to the previous glory of the Taira Shoguns!shalcar posted:The Nanban Port needs a rank 4 monk or better to prevent Christianity growth in the province. The same thing can be achieved by a rank 3 monk and a Buddhist Temple or a rank 2 Monk and a Monastery. This is some very helpful information. I've currently got a Monk ministering in the former Otomo home province, trying to lessen the influence of Christianity there, but it's slow going. Probably will pick up once he picks up a couple of ranks, though... Should probably upgrade the castle when i get the chance and build a Buddhist Temple there to improve the conversion rate... Also, training and plopping down Metsuke in the provinces with the most worth has definitely improved my income. Thanks for letting me know that! Sydin posted:A good trick if you have a dishonorable Daimyo or otherwise very disloyal generals is to put the generals in charge of ship fleets. Generals won't desert if they're on ships. I use this trick a lot in Fall late game when I have like seven generals and my oldest ones have "-6 Loyalty Due to Upstart Generals" modifiers but I don't want to kill them because they're 4-5 stars. Speaking of this, is there any way to lessen the Upstart Generals Loyalty debuff? I only ask because in my Fall game, Saigo Takamori, my first general, now has a pretty serious malus to his Loyalty because of that. He's at Rank 5 and I don't want to lose him. Probably won't anytime soon since he's still at 3 Loyalty due to a Loyal trait that he picked up as well as a bonus from my Daimyo's honor. I guess hiring those two Generals in the late game to command a couple of additional stacks would have some negative consequences, but screw it, I needed leadership for those armies...
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Aug 29, 2013 02:49
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