Great video. Having comp'eted the game on Legendary/Domination with each faction, I'd like to add some comments to your tips: 1) Vassals: be careful, as your vassals conquering land adds to your fame score and it might trigger Realm Divide. 2) I personally see selling military access as an exploit and would encourage players to try and beat the game without it. 3) I think that early on you should only recruit Yari Ashigaru AND Light Cavalry. Bow Ashigaru are just not worth it, unless you are playimg as Oda (they have the strongest archers) and maybe Chosokabe and Ikko Ikki. Yari Ashigaru are great, but there comes a point where adding more Yari Ashigaru to your army will give yoy diminishing returns. For example, going from 10 Yari Ashigaru to 15, won't make your army 50% better. Here's were Light Cavalry comes into play. Light Cavalry is the most cost effective unit in the game, after Yari Ashigaru. It gives you the ability to snipe enemy generals, defeat or at least temporarily stop enemy archers, and it wins you battles by either kiting strong units away from the front line, or by charging the enemy rear for that sweet morale damage. In my opinion, the stables are THE FIRST building you should make at the start of the game, regardless of whether you start with a blacksmith/war horses provinces. So, tl;dr: early game go Yari Ashigaru AND Light Cavalry. 4) Smithing provinces. The general consensus is that you should build the armorer, and then either go with the +Attack Encampment for a mixed approach, or double down with the +Armor Encampment. This is TOTALLY SUBJECTIVE, but after having played the game for countless hours... I personally prefer Attack over Armor. Regardless of the unit, +Attack lets you kill things faster, which leads to fewer losses on your side, because the enemy morale crumbles faster. And if you build a rush army and charge the enemy head on, you can minimize the casualties you take from arrows, which is the main reason one would take Armor in the first place. The only scenario where Armor is better is if you are in a DEFENSIVE siege and the enemy has brought lots of archers. That, however, is not a battle you want to be fighting. In all other cases, killing things faster in melee is always preferable to tanking melee/arrows. Btw, I personally prefer to recruit Katana Cavalry in a Blacksmith province, rather than in one with War Horses, as the extra attack makes them extremely deadly in prolonged combat. 5) I prefer to hike taxes even on long campaigns. The reason being that, while you'll be losing money in the long run, the extra money you get NOW will help you snowball faster and kickstart your military machine and your economy. Clans that particular'y benefit from tax hiking, are the ones that start in areas with a lot of good provinces that you want to grab asap. These clans are the Shimazu/Otomo, the Oda/Tokugawa(If you break free from the Imagawa)/Hattori/Ikko Ikki (even though it's probably better you just play defensively for the first years), and the Date. The idea is that you use the extra money from tax hikes, to quickly secure the good provinces around your starting position, and then use that as a base to build your economy. 6) Not building boats: you have a point, especially considering that the AI absolutely loves to spam huge fleets, and you simply don't have the money to keep up with that. However, I would recommend you build your fleet when preparing for Realm Divide, as that will allow you to protect your coastline and detect or even outright prevent those annoying naval invasions. When building your fleet, the consensus is to build ONLY Bow Kobayas, as they are the Yari Ashigatu of ships. I won't argue with that, but my personal preference is to always go QUALITY over quantity. The AI spams ships like no tomorrow, but they're usually very weak ships. If you buid fewer, but better ships, you can manually win engagements against much larger fleets with minimal losses. When building my fleet, I like to go for Heavy Bune/Cannon Bune/Red Seal Ship/The Christian one (forgot the name). If I really need to build weaker ships, personally I'm a fan of Bomb Kobayas, even though I rarely build them. Tl;dr: don't build ships in the early game, when your focus is survival and expansion. Once you're at peace and you're preparing for Realm Divide, get yourself a proper fleet.
Thanks for the feedback/thoughts. I have some responses. 1. Vassals: Highly depends on the vassal's location/aggression, but once the third warning pops (75 fame) I agree it's time to be mindful of things that add fame like what you mentioned, plus heroic victories, more honour, etc. 2. All strategy is about exploiting one mechanic or another. Pre-RD turtling, selling access, tax cycling, yari wall. Extra koku for trade/peace deals? These are all things that can be done since the game came out, that various people might see as "bad play", "OP", "unrealistic"- or that others swear by. It would be a disservice (IMO) to have a strategy guide that said you shouldn't do it based on sentiment alone. 3. Light cav being "more cost effective" and bow ashigaru "just not worth it". Objectively, bow ashi cost less (recruit and upkeep), don't require a building/slot to access, etc. Turn-by-turn early you're spending less on bows than cav and that translates into more armies you can maintain overall to take & control more territory. Additionally, having a handful of bows can give you the means to take forts (ie provinces) without losing any units at all- all the way to the end game. This saves more koku and preserves early momentum. Bows can bait/snipe enemy generals/cavalry, have their own morale penalty, etc. Your general(s) can easily (and for zero cost) stand in for cavalry- since they're cavalry (particularly early game when money is tight). This allows you to stack projectile plus cav plus flank/rear morale penalties AND more easily trigger shock on one unit to start a roll (20% cas over 4 seconds). Any melee unit can give the larger rear attack penalty-btw, so cav (or Gens) are just adding the specific cav pen. It is easier (and cheaper overall) to build a winning strat around the two default/fundamental game units- yari and bows- and add things to it (like cav, etc) when desired and able to be afforded than to hamstring early siege offense by not having bows. You'd have to arbitrarily deem certain uses of bows as "like an exploit" to undercut their actual utility. I find it difficult- even on VH battle setting where the AI gets the highest ranged bonuses, and even just "early game"- to accept that bows aren't "worth it"- when to me they are. (both obviously ultimately subjective) 4. I usually like high armour on yari ashi so that they can distract enemy bows while my bows are busy thinning them out and can resist morale shock from whatever melee hits them using their high numbers/armour. They can get +attack from skilling up. They can't get +armour that way. Bow ashi fire more arrows per volley, which equals more chances at kills per volley and with multiple units focused on one enemy, a higher chance to trigger a shock. This circles back into 3, which I honestly cut a lot from. ;) 5. I only agree with "money now beats money later" if that is actually how it works out. I see a lot of people cycling taxes and sitting on the koku instead of spending all of it- which means they aren't actually investing it into something- which is what "mnbml" comes from. Take the money now and invest it to earn compound returns. There's a twofold problem with applying that investment phrase to this strategy for this game. Honestly if I have the time I plan on doing 2 identical plays on a low difficulty (to aid consistency) and compare cycling to not and track data for each turn. There are spreadsheets that model turns (that I mentioned) but aren't really truly comprehensive to expansion, etc. 6. My latest game as Ikko I thought about boats near the end. Maybe I could take that horse node. Maybe I could build a stack and unblock some ports. Etc. Instead I just built more armies, squashed the couple landings that happened and made more koku by taking provs and making vassals trade with me for the horses/iron/etc I had on land. It's a bit like cav for me. I can put them to use, but for the price maybe I should just hire 3 more yari and go for more territory. Sorry this was long. Thanks again for taking the time. I appreciate anyone willing to put time into laying out detailed positions.
thank you for taking the time to do this video, it has been extremely helpful , for someone who struggles, just on the very hard level , but still loves the game, much appreciated
@ Yeah. Tokugawa can be a special kind of hard. His start in this game reminds me of his start in Nobunaga's Ambition (the old 8-bit Nintendo original). Usually one of two clans come knocking- Oda or Imagawa. You have no way to go but through one or the other.
Amazing insight on the tax cycling strategy, i have more than 15 years as a TW player and I usually use this strategy to (as you say) beat it quickly but never thought about the fact that doing that just eats the growth. Excellent video man, amazing. You got a sub! Thanks for these tips.
Thanks so much! I'm really glad you liked it! Part of the goal of my channel is to look at mechanics like these in games that I love (even "old" games) and give a fresh take on it. I appreciate the support.
Thank you very much for this guide/overview! Helped me a ton during my playthrough on "very hard" difficulty. So much appreciated, and thank you for sharing this resource map link
You're very welcome! That map is great and all credit goes to the persons who originally created/contributed to it. I'm just glad to have been around to benefit from it at the time and be able to promote it to others.
So what do you think? Did this provide any insight into a mechanic you weren't aware of? Do you have some insight to share? Anything I overlooked? Do you wanna build a spreadsheet? (ala Frozen) ;) One editorial note: when I mention "income" for farm fertility, I'm really referring to "wealth". Wealth is the base number. The amount you get from taxes+metsuke on that wealth- that is "income". Technicalities.
@@GameMnke I like your distinction between military and non military provinces. Total War Medieval 2 turned it into a game mechanic. Either you build a town or a castle. It's a good way to organize your provinces and not have to try and guess what to build where.
@@fenrir7878yeah, you really want to use only certain provinces for military, since encampment building tree can unlock production bonuses for ranged accuracy, armor, attack dmg, etc. and you definitely want to find ideally one or two cities for military production with provincial level military bonuses that stack with the encampment bonuses. You can get up to +5 armor on your units, so why would you want to train them anywhere else?
@@FlexingRichPeople No problem. It's pretty straightforward. From the readme.txt: "To install, unzip directly into the encyclopedia folder, making sure to replace the old regions.html when prompted. (regions.html is the only original file that’s been changed.)" You're not putting the BIEM folder in the encyclopedia folder, just the contents after you unzip (i.e. the regions folder and regions.html file). That's all I did. I would do it without having the game launched- I don't know that it matters, but sometimes games can lock resources.
You're welcome. I've been contemplating doing a "first 10-20 turns" type video to help illustrate how to start a campaign off on the right foot (as well as other vids about specific combat tactics). If any of that sounds useful lemme know.
@@playful_banter That's awesome! Congrats! In my opinion, as long as you're enjoying the game it doesn't matter what the difficulty is on, etc. This is why we play games- to have fun. I'm happy that anything I put out there contributed in even a small way to fun/victory for someone else. Again- congrats on a well-deserved win.
I totally forgot that food surplus gives a growth bonus!!! The Econ aspect of this game is deeper than it appears on the surface. I’ve been doing my first very hard run and have learned so much about how to manage my clan more effectively :)
I think they did a good job of layering the economy such that you can make different decisions that have short and long-term consequences. I do wish the vanilla rice mechanic and certain upgrades functioned more like FotS but it creates an interesting juxtoposition where in Sengoku period rice was the lynchpin of the economy instead of just one spoke in the wheel.
Veteran shogun 2 player since 2013 and i have to disaggree one point of ships. Two navies following your armies when you are conquering japan is a great way to nullify surprise armies disembarking on your back line
Hey there! That might be a good suggestion for someone playing with boats. Although if you are rolling from one end (e.g. Date) and using boats, I think they should be up ahead or even with your armies so that you can intercept someone deciding to drop off early. But as I said in the video "by and large boats aren't required to win the game"- that's the only point (claim) I tried to make about them. That claim followed exceptions for 3-4 clans. I could give examples of how putting that money into land units is better than spending it on boats, but I don't feel that is necessary since I'm not sure exactly what the disagreement is. Can boats be useful? Yes- as outlined in the video. Are they required to win on Legendary? Not at all- proven by myself and others back in 2011. Do I feel you'd be handicapping yourself if you played Mori without boats? Yes, probably- because that clan has boat bonuses/etc. But if you're struggling- even as Mori- to field both adequate armies and navies, the sound strategy would be to cut back on ships until your armies are large enough to secure your lands. There's no benefit to having a big navy that can compensate for underfunding your armies and losing land. Ships can't take provinces. Conversely, having big armies deters invasion and is a counter to losing land- regardless of whether the enemy came by land or water. If that was not what you were disagreeing with, please let me know. Thanks!
My vassals tend to build a strong army, then rebel and attack me. My philosophy is, if they are weak enough to accept being a vassal, they are weak enough to conquer.
Good philosophy. A lot of vassal behavior depends on the vassal and what part of the game you're in. Some clans carry a grudge against you (e.g. Imagawa if you're Oda). Once you hit RD all your vassals will get the ticking realm divide penalty and eventually flip- some faster than others. Keeping tabs on their relation score helps with bribing ("gifts") to keep them in line and knowing who you have to revassal and when. The nice thing is if they flip and move their army away from their fort- you can storm the fort with your army, revassal (removing the RD penalty) and their army will stay intact so that they can help you police any subsequent rebels. I had one vassal last game that I was concerned about (the Hatano). They took out one of my vassals that flipped (fine) and wound up with a full stack of their own (also fine), but realm divide was building. The turn before they themselves flipped they put that stack in the way of my main rival (the Hatakeyama). Both armies wrecked themselves making it easy for me to clean up the situation.
Thanks! I really appreciate the comment. I've never really cared for tax-cycling because I generally don't do speed runs. Unfortunately it's been brought out of that context to where people think it's applicable for longer campaigns. This forces them to tack on the "wait 20+ turns to save up extra money before RD" approach as well because they've damaged their economy through years of cycling. Just because it's on my mind and related... I read the other day someone suggesting you want "at least 200k" saved up for RD. Insane. Saving up some money isn't bad, but when the player has 8k surplus per turn pre-RD that's a ridiculous amount of time to wait and not spend anything. Anyway. Thanks again!
Nice summary video, i think most of this principles can be learned naturally by playing TWS2 and analysing mistakes (even on normal diff one can ends up in pretty dire situation) It would be interesting if you'll done a guides on how AI works on different levels or how much it forgives mistakes. And personally i would love to watch a guide on how two campaigns TWS2 and FOS differ and which principles can be adopted and which not.
Thanks for the feedback. I agree in general. I think the game does a good job of hiding some of the mechanics that trip players up. (e.g. thinking a rice exchange is going to make you big bucks, thinking samurai are better than yari ashi) I definitely kept it to core fundamentals, cuz that's really all you need to win. I appreciate the suggestions. I do want to do a video on difficulty- I think it's one thing a lot of players don't realize they can manipulate to dial in the right level of challenge. Thanks again!
Didn't know about the tax rate increase with the Metsuke, doesn't say anything about it in the games encyclopidea. Early on I agree Naval is not worth it, but once you've gotten to the point where you start trading, it becomes worth it, especially if you're close to the trade ports. Also you can transport troops across the entire map in a single turn. As the Otomo you can easily dominate the seas with the Nanban Trade ships, they're like mini Black Ships, A single one can take on an entire fleet (6 ships) by itself. Speaking of Otomo, the Nanban Portor is literally the only military building you need to win so you can focus all your research on your economy, it also has the best town growth in the game I think as well (so def make your merchants guild+ there too). Definetly don't want to do any research into the religious nodes, chapels are all you need unless you want to be able to make rank 4 missionaries. Also the black ship! 2-3 fleets of trade ships will win you the black ship! It's expensive, but it's the only ship that doesn't suffer attrition, has more movement, and unless you're taking on more than 1 fleet, nobody can stand against it with the exception of the unique ships. Something I think you should have added, Ninja and spy networks. Spy networks give you SO much tatical info and help detect Ninjas. A good example would be putting up spy networks in Omi and Kii as the Hattori. You can also stack Ninja to increase the line of sight. You mentioned you want to upgrade your ports to trade ports for trade, you also want to upgrade them for the town growth. Always make your Nanban trade port in your most economic province such as Iwami, it's got +25 to town growth just the like the merchants guild. Just make sure to put a temple up and a monk in there to keep the christians at bay (literally). Also your clans stronghold should be the province you want to make all your military units from with a few exceptions (like the Hattori). I usually have 2 different provinces that I make all my military from, 1 for my melee units and one for my ranged units.
Thanks for the comments. You said a lot, so this'll be quite a long response... In the encyclopedia, it's the "Overseeing" action that metsuke can perform. "increase repression and tax income when in castle towns". Also you can see the changes in the province panel when you put a metsuke in/out. This is the most consequential passive agent ability in the game- by far. I feel like I covered boats thoroughly enough. Play with boats if you want, but they aren't necessary to beat the game and any player struggling should consider cutting back on boats and putting that money into the armies that take land. Obviously I said- and repeat- that clans with boat bonuses, really close to nodes, christian, etc, make a more compelling case for boats. Re: ninjas. The use of ninja, monks, moving armies, ambushing, etc, is what I would consider taking this "overarching strategy" and putting it into practice in a specific game (ie tactics). However, it would have been a glaring disservice to talk about fertility, farms, taxes, etc (ie how to make money) and not to mention the basic action of putting metsuke in town because of how much an impact they have on income. (side-note... Metsuke in towns also detect and protect against ninja) So- separate video for special units, tactical movements, etc. That's what I'm saying. Strategy is building sake dens for ninja, tactics is how to develop/use ninja, etc. Cool? Trade ports: Trade ports don't give but +2 to growth for the specific province. It is not cost effective to upgrade to them for that growth alone. Increasing trade routes and export capacity is where trade ports really bring in money. Post roads cost 1200 koku and also provide +2 growth for that province. Trade ports cost 1800. So you're upgrading mainly to accommodate more trade partners and increase your export capacity (if you have goods like wood/etc). It's also not "worth it" to upgrade trade ports ever, unless you're able to build a nanban port/quarter- which only applies to a single port (unless you're modding/gimmicking) and only applies to those who CAN build it. FYI- the merchant guild is +20 growth (not +25) and +1k wealth (vs 0). And -food. Etc. Recruiting: Unless your "clan stronghold" is a smith or craftwork province, you should always be seeking to take one of those provinces for producing units. The capitol province receives +1 recruit slot. That's it. Ikko Ikki starts with both military provs. All other clans get 1 or none and therefore should be trying to obtain them as mentioned. I'm not sure why you think you should always be making units in your "clans stronghold" unless that means something different to you than it does to me. I hope that addresses your comments. Thanks again, and hopefully knowing that metsuke can double your income will help your future plays. Oh wait- I almost forgot. I don't care for gimmicks like "infinite move your army with boat chains", unit dragging, etc. No point mentioning them in a strategy video- or even a tactics video.
@GameMnke Okay so I've been playing this entire time without any outside influence, never watched any videos up till now. I have discovered that I have been playing on small unit size, which makes Yari Ashigaru have 40 units, and Naval the max size for a fleet is 6. Trade posts give the same amount with the 6 small size as they do with the 10 large size, which you then have the upkeep for the extra 4, and the AI seems to have more ships running around as well. I mentioned the army size cause it also makes drop-in battles so much more difficult for some reason. I've always done auto resolve as I would lose so many more troops if I didn't (percentage wise). Since I've made this comment, I have learned so many things that have made the game 10x easier, the Metsuke being a big one, changing my economic strategy completely.
Hi one question - in regards to vassals. How do you account for the serious strategic risk of having them turn on you during realm divide? How many vassals should a near realm divide clan usually have? There only seems to be two logical outcomes to deal with this: 1 - Reduce vassals to only the absolutely atrocious provinces where you can reliably bring an army to their doorstep. 2 - Don't play the vassal game at all and eat the RD penalty for occupy over vassalize. Reason I ask is because vassals in RD if they are behind your main lines can really wreck your game and force you to reposition vital armies needed elsewhere to crush them.
Great question. Here's a lengthy answer... There is no ideal number of vassals for all campaigns except to note that the first three vassals made nets +3 to honour. This impacts diplomacy, loyalty of generals, etc. It can also help offset certain negative honour tactics (like plundering a province) later on. It is also worth noting that the longer you have a trade agreement, the more income it brings in and the greater the trade diplo bonus is with that clan. This works for vassals as well and is partly why some vassals stick by you longer after realm divide. I tend to find in a lot of my playthroughs that I'm constantly generating reinforcements from my military provs and sending them to the front- as a half-stack or so. Usually these pass through vassal territory at some point. Sometimes I bring back an army or general to meet them partway because that brings them to the front faster. Knowing that we're going to hit RD, or already being in RD, we can open the diplo panel and check vassal loyalty. Usually their loyalty is staggered by 20 or so depending on how fast we were making them and we can predict who will flip first. We can bribe a vassal if need be ("gifts") to help keep them loyal for a time as well. Most of the time we can plan around all this data. We potentially have reinforcements, ninja, a repositioning army, other vassals, and spur of the moment recruiting in nearby provs of basic ashigaru that can all contribute to preventing some vassal from doing much more than minor damage in our tender bits. I've never had a flipping vassal cost me the game. When vassals are next to each other and one flips, usually the neighbor(s) will bring their army over and clobber them. This could buy some time. Eventually that vassal will flip too, but they've been weakened by beating down the other vassal. When they flip- we pop the province they took and revassal it. Then we head to their province (now without an army or very weak) and revassal as well. We lose the longterm trade, but otherwise it's usually resolved quickly and diplo resets with no RD penalty. There are times when things go badly. If there are a number of vassals that are all negative and you're playing a clan like Ikko Ikki, you can have a whole group of vassals flip on you. This happened to me in my recent VH campaign. With another clan the flipping would have been more staggered, but because vassals never convert to Ikko, and because I had been taking provinces pretty much nonstop at that point and in a pitched war with Oda, Shimazu, Takeda, and Hojo (AND Chosokabe by boat- what a mess!) there was a round of 5-6 vassals flipping on me following the first 1-2 being staggered. Now that sounds bad, but most of the vassals were either near or on my fronts with Oda/Takeda/Hojo, or next to my main military provs. There were only a couple halfway between my mil provs and my front with Shimazu, but I held provinces on that front that I didn't really need to hold, so I left one to rebel and fell back to where the former vassals were going to attack. None of them had full stacks. They also didn't have many boats because they'd been warring with my enemies at sea (I didn't have any boats anyway). It added about a year to me finishing the game, but otherwise it's just a fun story about how Hattori tried to attack Kyoto with a half-stack and died to the garrison there. At a minimum I would make 3 vassals for the honour and position them near to where I recruit every turn. This would mean only a couple turns to have some crack units to counter a flip. Have fun!
i prefer having level 3 upgraded forts for all my provinces with fully upgraded farms. For economic provinces, you can build a sake den, a market, and a temple/church. For military provinces, you can build a stable, a yari, and armorer; or a bow, powder, and hunting lodge at least for the 8 core provinces then just vassals to increase trade income
All that fort upgrading is taking a lot of food out of the system (which means less growth/koku across your domain) as well as a lot of koku spent on building. You only need 5 of each market/etc to recruit the max amount of agents and you can spread that around through level 1 fort provs. (that's if you even wanted max ninja/monks) Part of the benefit of upgrading a fort is added recruitment slots, which you're really only going to be taking advantage of (or should be) in military provs. Temples and sake dens alone aren't adding enough to your economy to offset the economic drain of expanding a fort to make room for them. There usually has to be some other reason. Omi would be a good example of a fertile province, with the ninja village, that would make sense for both a market and a sake den. You need the den to recruit the better ninja, the village provides some added income, and it'll probably be one of you wealthier provinces overall- perfect for a metsuke/market. Plus having a stronger fort adjacent to Kyoto helps as you build up when it seems a lot of enemies want to attack you there. Obviously this makes more sense for the clans that are close to Omi (e.g. Oda) and less sense for clans that are only reaching it closer to mid/end-game. They probably already have whatever ninja/money provs set up. It's that level of intentionality that I think is important when deciding what fort to upgrade- particularly on Very Hard or Legendary difficulty. On lower difficulties it probably doesn't matter as much. Units cost less to recruit/upkeep, etc.
@@GameMnke i see.. i'm just comfortable defending sieges with level 3 forts. that additional layer gives me security from full stacks... the additional garrison units of spears and archers with a naginata warrior monks are a godsend right now, i'm doing a VH Ikko Ikki revolt only campaign until realm divide triggers. it's fun to just do a turtle strategy
@@Byenie0912 Well the Ikko Ikki is a different play in many ways. I'm also on an Ikko VH campaign atm. I definitely like the jodo shinshu temple's warrior monk garrison. I do agree that defending sieges with a level 3 fort is great. Particularly Kaga with the back door so you can run down the generals. But that's the military prov- and a great bottleneck- so I always upgrade that province. In my game I just took Owari and Oda stacked that place out. However the farm was barely upgraded, so it ended up sucking up some of my excess food. It'll be a great bottleneck for that region though. I plan on putting a temple in there as well. That's always one of my concerns late game in that sometimes you'll be taking over forts that the ai has upgraded but with crappy farms. On one hand there's less reason to make room for markets- so there's that. On the other hand, the Ikko struggle with money once RD hits, and markets give some money without much downside. At this point I haven't actually built any myself. I just inherit ones occasionally. Ikko is definitely a fun campaign. I'm already past the realm divide penalties. I just have to revassal a couple who turned on me- the rest are fixed or new. Good luck with your game!
Yes. Good idea. Sake dens are a good pick, particularly if you just want to shore up happiness in a newly taken province so you can leave less garrison. Not a ton of wealth per turn, but happiness has value that uh... money uh... can't... buy? Something like that!
the problem with the strategy is in legendary difficult the ai always destroy merchant guild or rice exchange and replace it with yari drill yard or archery range pro player usually only build rice exchange or merchant guild in province that already has sword school or any other unit training facility
Hey thanks for the comment. I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to- making vassals? Not upgrading market chain buildings? Focusing military in military provs? Can you be more specific?
@@GameMnke what i mean is pro player not upgrade castle or make special province for training unit especially if you use mod to make ai only training katana samurai instead of yari samurai
@@GameMnke usually on real legendary difficult with mod ai you will never win decisive victory or heroic victory the enemy ai daimyo only move with 40 army and its un defeated army because full katana samurai match lock and yari cavalry and the enemy raid squad always destroy market or rice exchange even destroy farm
@@GameMnke basically pro player saving the money and play defensive they make lot of sword school in almost every province then when 2 stack of un defeated enemy daimyo army come with 25 katana samurai 10 naginata and 10 yari cavalry you play defensive sabotage army and defend castle
@@GameMnke believe me standard legendary difficult is very easy for anyone play this game 10 years we install mod to make enemy ai only move with 40 unit army full of katana and naginata samurai and yari cavalry
I wouldn't avoid vassals until RD. There are many reasons to have vassals earlier and to accept and deal with that shortcoming later. Each of the first 3 vassals you create gets you +1 honour. This helps with a lot of things- diplomacy/trade, general loyalty, province happiness. Having a vassal not only gives you a guaranteed trade partner, it also doesn't increase the administration penalty to your taxes- making your metsuke/etc more effective. Particularly nice considering you're usually vassaling the crappiest provinces. You stand to make more money from a crappy vassal (and having higher honour to secure trade/etc) than owning a bad province outright. As for betrayal... everyone eventually turns on you after RD. Vassals with strong ties (increasing turns of trade and peace) will take longer to turn on you. Knowing it can/will happen means you can prepare for it. It's just a revassal and then keep on rolling. Ikko Ikki on long/dom campaign will tend to have more "post RD" problems with vassals because of religious penalties coupled with the expansion penalty, even after revassaling to remove the RD penalty.
No need to exaggerate. There are a number of buildings you can/should build- far more than 2. However, on higher difficulties and early game, you need to focus on optimizing. That means not starting by spending thousands of koku on a building so you can spend thousands more on a half-dozen katana sams and wind up broke from upkeep and outnumbered on the battlefield. It wouldn't be realistic for a 2 province daimyo to be sending out stacks of samurai. It wouldn't be realistic for any daimyo to do that because peasants were far more numerous than samurai and it would make more sense to just equip them with spears- which is what they did. Until they had guns- then they equipped them with guns. You want to play all cavalry? Go for it. All samurai- I'm sure there's a mod that helps boost your money. But I'm not covering mods- just core gameplay. Have fun!
Look, I appreciate the feedback. If you'd like me to give a strategic breakdown of a specific mod/modpack, maybe suggest one and if I like it, maybe I'll do that. Otherwise, I'm not sure what you want me to do with your feedback. There is no specific chapter you can point to that is, or even might be, "null advice" because it totally depends on what mods someone is using- agreed? If you're just doing the bug fixes like I am (oda umbrella, kisho ninja, etc), then it's all applicable. If you just mod to make boats cheaper, maybe only that element changes. If, however, you're playing with total conversions/overhauls (MoSS, Radious) then CLEARLY there are going to be many elements that have to be adapted- just like how not all of the strategy is wholecloth applicable to RotS or FotS (or WH3). Because it's not an identical game at that point. I don't think it's incumbent upon me to make such a disclaimer though- because it's obvious. I don't find myself compelled to post on MoSS videos "hey this doesn't work like that in vanilla- null advice!". ;) More importantly... I think there is HUGE value in the core/default/vanilla game and understanding the default mechanics. If all you play is a mod, without understanding what the mod is changing, then you really don't have a basis of comparison for anything in Shogun 2 because you can't speak to what things were to recognize what is different. In that regard when you look at the core strategy I present and you note "hey my mod does this different", you now know something more than you did before. And then you can make a value judgement- do you like the change? Do you find the change necessary to your enjoyment? Etc. That's the best I can do with what you gave me. If you shared "hey I play with mod X and this is different in Y way", then we could have a more substantive exchange over a specific issue. I'll point out, for example, that one of the big economic "features" of Shogun 2 is, I feel, badly implemented. It's how rice fields and market chain buildings work. RotS and FotS addressed this. I love Shogun 2, but it's one of the biggest flaws- err... features. I still like to play the game with this "feature" because if you're talking to people and they are asking questions about vanilla play (which happens plenty on reddit), if you're not able to speak to vanilla play/strategy, then really... what good is the advice you're giving? You might struggle to tell someone the benefits of vassals or how to use a matchlock if your only context is playing with mods. So that's what I have to say about that. Have fun!
Great video.
Having comp'eted the game on Legendary/Domination with each faction, I'd like to add some comments to your tips:
1) Vassals: be careful, as your vassals conquering land adds to your fame score and it might trigger Realm Divide.
2) I personally see selling military access as an exploit and would encourage players to try and beat the game without it.
3) I think that early on you should only recruit Yari Ashigaru AND Light Cavalry. Bow Ashigaru are just not worth it, unless you are playimg as Oda (they have the strongest archers) and maybe Chosokabe and Ikko Ikki. Yari Ashigaru are great, but there comes a point where adding more Yari Ashigaru to your army will give yoy diminishing returns. For example, going from 10 Yari Ashigaru to 15, won't make your army 50% better.
Here's were Light Cavalry comes into play. Light Cavalry is the most cost effective unit in the game, after Yari Ashigaru. It gives you the ability to snipe enemy generals, defeat or at least temporarily stop enemy archers, and it wins you battles by either kiting strong units away from the front line, or by charging the enemy rear for that sweet morale damage.
In my opinion, the stables are THE FIRST building you should make at the start of the game, regardless of whether you start with a blacksmith/war horses provinces.
So, tl;dr: early game go Yari Ashigaru AND Light Cavalry.
4) Smithing provinces. The general consensus is that you should build the armorer, and then either go with the +Attack Encampment for a mixed approach, or double down with the +Armor Encampment.
This is TOTALLY SUBJECTIVE, but after having played the game for countless hours... I personally prefer Attack over Armor. Regardless of the unit, +Attack lets you kill things faster, which leads to fewer losses on your side, because the enemy morale crumbles faster. And if you build a rush army and charge the enemy head on, you can minimize the casualties you take from arrows, which is the main reason one would take Armor in the first place.
The only scenario where Armor is better is if you are in a DEFENSIVE siege and the enemy has brought lots of archers. That, however, is not a battle you want to be fighting.
In all other cases, killing things faster in melee is always preferable to tanking melee/arrows.
Btw, I personally prefer to recruit Katana Cavalry in a Blacksmith province, rather than in one with War Horses, as the extra attack makes them extremely deadly in prolonged combat.
5) I prefer to hike taxes even on long campaigns. The reason being that, while you'll be losing money in the long run, the extra money you get NOW will help you snowball faster and kickstart your military machine and your economy. Clans that particular'y benefit from tax hiking, are the ones that start in areas with a lot of good provinces that you want to grab asap. These clans are the Shimazu/Otomo, the Oda/Tokugawa(If you break free from the Imagawa)/Hattori/Ikko Ikki (even though it's probably better you just play defensively for the first years), and the Date. The idea is that you use the extra money from tax hikes, to quickly secure the good provinces around your starting position, and then use that as a base to build your economy.
6) Not building boats: you have a point, especially considering that the AI absolutely loves to spam huge fleets, and you simply don't have the money to keep up with that. However, I would recommend you build your fleet when preparing for Realm Divide, as that will allow you to protect your coastline and detect or even outright prevent those annoying naval invasions.
When building your fleet, the consensus is to build ONLY Bow Kobayas, as they are the Yari Ashigatu of ships.
I won't argue with that, but my personal preference is to always go QUALITY over quantity. The AI spams ships like no tomorrow, but they're usually very weak ships. If you buid fewer, but better ships, you can manually win engagements against much larger fleets with minimal losses.
When building my fleet, I like to go for Heavy Bune/Cannon Bune/Red Seal Ship/The Christian one (forgot the name).
If I really need to build weaker ships, personally I'm a fan of Bomb Kobayas, even though I rarely build them.
Tl;dr: don't build ships in the early game, when your focus is survival and expansion. Once you're at peace and you're preparing for Realm Divide, get yourself a proper fleet.
Thanks for the feedback/thoughts. I have some responses.
1. Vassals: Highly depends on the vassal's location/aggression, but once the third warning pops (75 fame) I agree it's time to be mindful of things that add fame like what you mentioned, plus heroic victories, more honour, etc.
2. All strategy is about exploiting one mechanic or another. Pre-RD turtling, selling access, tax cycling, yari wall. Extra koku for trade/peace deals? These are all things that can be done since the game came out, that various people might see as "bad play", "OP", "unrealistic"- or that others swear by. It would be a disservice (IMO) to have a strategy guide that said you shouldn't do it based on sentiment alone.
3. Light cav being "more cost effective" and bow ashigaru "just not worth it". Objectively, bow ashi cost less (recruit and upkeep), don't require a building/slot to access, etc. Turn-by-turn early you're spending less on bows than cav and that translates into more armies you can maintain overall to take & control more territory.
Additionally, having a handful of bows can give you the means to take forts (ie provinces) without losing any units at all- all the way to the end game. This saves more koku and preserves early momentum. Bows can bait/snipe enemy generals/cavalry, have their own morale penalty, etc. Your general(s) can easily (and for zero cost) stand in for cavalry- since they're cavalry (particularly early game when money is tight). This allows you to stack projectile plus cav plus flank/rear morale penalties AND more easily trigger shock on one unit to start a roll (20% cas over 4 seconds). Any melee unit can give the larger rear attack penalty-btw, so cav (or Gens) are just adding the specific cav pen.
It is easier (and cheaper overall) to build a winning strat around the two default/fundamental game units- yari and bows- and add things to it (like cav, etc) when desired and able to be afforded than to hamstring early siege offense by not having bows. You'd have to arbitrarily deem certain uses of bows as "like an exploit" to undercut their actual utility. I find it difficult- even on VH battle setting where the AI gets the highest ranged bonuses, and even just "early game"- to accept that bows aren't "worth it"- when to me they are. (both obviously ultimately subjective)
4. I usually like high armour on yari ashi so that they can distract enemy bows while my bows are busy thinning them out and can resist morale shock from whatever melee hits them using their high numbers/armour. They can get +attack from skilling up. They can't get +armour that way. Bow ashi fire more arrows per volley, which equals more chances at kills per volley and with multiple units focused on one enemy, a higher chance to trigger a shock. This circles back into 3, which I honestly cut a lot from. ;)
5. I only agree with "money now beats money later" if that is actually how it works out. I see a lot of people cycling taxes and sitting on the koku instead of spending all of it- which means they aren't actually investing it into something- which is what "mnbml" comes from. Take the money now and invest it to earn compound returns. There's a twofold problem with applying that investment phrase to this strategy for this game.
Honestly if I have the time I plan on doing 2 identical plays on a low difficulty (to aid consistency) and compare cycling to not and track data for each turn. There are spreadsheets that model turns (that I mentioned) but aren't really truly comprehensive to expansion, etc.
6. My latest game as Ikko I thought about boats near the end. Maybe I could take that horse node. Maybe I could build a stack and unblock some ports. Etc. Instead I just built more armies, squashed the couple landings that happened and made more koku by taking provs and making vassals trade with me for the horses/iron/etc I had on land. It's a bit like cav for me. I can put them to use, but for the price maybe I should just hire 3 more yari and go for more territory.
Sorry this was long. Thanks again for taking the time. I appreciate anyone willing to put time into laying out detailed positions.
thank you for taking the time to do this video, it has been extremely helpful , for someone who struggles, just on the very hard level , but still loves the game, much appreciated
You are very welcome!
Same - helpful. This game is hard on hard lol! Tokugawa basically getting ganked on every side.
@ Yeah. Tokugawa can be a special kind of hard. His start in this game reminds me of his start in Nobunaga's Ambition (the old 8-bit Nintendo original). Usually one of two clans come knocking- Oda or Imagawa. You have no way to go but through one or the other.
Amazing insight on the tax cycling strategy, i have more than 15 years as a TW player and I usually use this strategy to (as you say) beat it quickly but never thought about the fact that doing that just eats the growth. Excellent video man, amazing. You got a sub! Thanks for these tips.
Thanks so much! I'm really glad you liked it! Part of the goal of my channel is to look at mechanics like these in games that I love (even "old" games) and give a fresh take on it. I appreciate the support.
Instructions unclear, took Kyoto turn 1, bought samurai, looted the entirety of Japan while tax pulsing and still won
As long as you had fun, I think you understood the most important lesson... Fly free, little bird. Fly...
Bet you didn’t do it on legendary vanilla
Brother this is an awesome video, thank you for laying this out in an easy to understand way! This is what good YT content looks like.
Thanks so much! I'm always glad when someone gets something useful out of my content. This really makes my day!
Thank you very much for this guide/overview! Helped me a ton during my playthrough on "very hard" difficulty. So much appreciated, and thank you for sharing this resource map link
You're very welcome! That map is great and all credit goes to the persons who originally created/contributed to it. I'm just glad to have been around to benefit from it at the time and be able to promote it to others.
So what do you think? Did this provide any insight into a mechanic you weren't aware of? Do you have some insight to share? Anything I overlooked? Do you wanna build a spreadsheet? (ala Frozen) ;)
One editorial note: when I mention "income" for farm fertility, I'm really referring to "wealth". Wealth is the base number. The amount you get from taxes+metsuke on that wealth- that is "income". Technicalities.
@@GameMnke I like your distinction between military and non military provinces. Total War Medieval 2 turned it into a game mechanic. Either you build a town or a castle. It's a good way to organize your provinces and not have to try and guess what to build where.
@@GameMnke how do I handle vasals pulling me into wars and betraying me in Realm divide? I haye vasals in this game
@@fenrir7878yeah, you really want to use only certain provinces for military, since encampment building tree can unlock production bonuses for ranged accuracy, armor, attack dmg, etc. and you definitely want to find ideally one or two cities for military production with provincial level military bonuses that stack with the encampment bonuses. You can get up to +5 armor on your units, so why would you want to train them anywhere else?
Great video, I’ll definitely try these ideas out next play through
Thank you! Good luck on your campaigns!
Ive been playing Shogun 2 for a year and never knew about the downsides of tax pulsing. This video was really helpful and well done! TY
Glad you appreciated it!
this video really help me a newcomer of the game
Awesome. Good luck on your campaigns!
@@GameMnke dude i try to instal the better in game map and when i open the game the map region didn't show in the game can you help me out
@@FlexingRichPeople No problem. It's pretty straightforward. From the readme.txt: "To install, unzip directly into the encyclopedia folder, making sure to replace the old regions.html when prompted. (regions.html is the only original file that’s been changed.)"
You're not putting the BIEM folder in the encyclopedia folder, just the contents after you unzip (i.e. the regions folder and regions.html file). That's all I did. I would do it without having the game launched- I don't know that it matters, but sometimes games can lock resources.
i've been trying to win shogun 2 for like past 10 years and never had any luck, thx for this video
You're welcome. I've been contemplating doing a "first 10-20 turns" type video to help illustrate how to start a campaign off on the right foot (as well as other vids about specific combat tactics). If any of that sounds useful lemme know.
@@GameMnke well, yeah, actually. I would watch it for sure!
@@GameMnke won my first campaign with otomo clan thanks to your video, easiest one lol but nevertheless
@@playful_banter That's awesome! Congrats! In my opinion, as long as you're enjoying the game it doesn't matter what the difficulty is on, etc. This is why we play games- to have fun. I'm happy that anything I put out there contributed in even a small way to fun/victory for someone else. Again- congrats on a well-deserved win.
@@GameMnke thank you :)
I totally forgot that food surplus gives a growth bonus!!! The Econ aspect of this game is deeper than it appears on the surface. I’ve been doing my first very hard run and have learned so much about how to manage my clan more effectively :)
I think they did a good job of layering the economy such that you can make different decisions that have short and long-term consequences. I do wish the vanilla rice mechanic and certain upgrades functioned more like FotS but it creates an interesting juxtoposition where in Sengoku period rice was the lynchpin of the economy instead of just one spoke in the wheel.
Veteran shogun 2 player since 2013 and i have to disaggree one point of ships. Two navies following your armies when you are conquering japan is a great way to nullify surprise armies disembarking on your back line
Hey there! That might be a good suggestion for someone playing with boats. Although if you are rolling from one end (e.g. Date) and using boats, I think they should be up ahead or even with your armies so that you can intercept someone deciding to drop off early.
But as I said in the video "by and large boats aren't required to win the game"- that's the only point (claim) I tried to make about them. That claim followed exceptions for 3-4 clans. I could give examples of how putting that money into land units is better than spending it on boats, but I don't feel that is necessary since I'm not sure exactly what the disagreement is.
Can boats be useful? Yes- as outlined in the video. Are they required to win on Legendary? Not at all- proven by myself and others back in 2011. Do I feel you'd be handicapping yourself if you played Mori without boats? Yes, probably- because that clan has boat bonuses/etc. But if you're struggling- even as Mori- to field both adequate armies and navies, the sound strategy would be to cut back on ships until your armies are large enough to secure your lands. There's no benefit to having a big navy that can compensate for underfunding your armies and losing land. Ships can't take provinces. Conversely, having big armies deters invasion and is a counter to losing land- regardless of whether the enemy came by land or water.
If that was not what you were disagreeing with, please let me know. Thanks!
My vassals tend to build a strong army, then rebel and attack me. My philosophy is, if they are weak enough to accept being a vassal, they are weak enough to conquer.
Good philosophy. A lot of vassal behavior depends on the vassal and what part of the game you're in. Some clans carry a grudge against you (e.g. Imagawa if you're Oda). Once you hit RD all your vassals will get the ticking realm divide penalty and eventually flip- some faster than others. Keeping tabs on their relation score helps with bribing ("gifts") to keep them in line and knowing who you have to revassal and when.
The nice thing is if they flip and move their army away from their fort- you can storm the fort with your army, revassal (removing the RD penalty) and their army will stay intact so that they can help you police any subsequent rebels.
I had one vassal last game that I was concerned about (the Hatano). They took out one of my vassals that flipped (fine) and wound up with a full stack of their own (also fine), but realm divide was building. The turn before they themselves flipped they put that stack in the way of my main rival (the Hatakeyama). Both armies wrecked themselves making it easy for me to clean up the situation.
This is such a good guide. I'm tired of "experts" telling you to tax-cycle as if they've discovered something unique and good.
Thanks! I really appreciate the comment. I've never really cared for tax-cycling because I generally don't do speed runs. Unfortunately it's been brought out of that context to where people think it's applicable for longer campaigns. This forces them to tack on the "wait 20+ turns to save up extra money before RD" approach as well because they've damaged their economy through years of cycling.
Just because it's on my mind and related... I read the other day someone suggesting you want "at least 200k" saved up for RD. Insane. Saving up some money isn't bad, but when the player has 8k surplus per turn pre-RD that's a ridiculous amount of time to wait and not spend anything.
Anyway. Thanks again!
Nice summary video, i think most of this principles can be learned naturally by playing TWS2 and analysing mistakes (even on normal diff one can ends up in pretty dire situation)
It would be interesting if you'll done a guides on how AI works on different levels or how much it forgives mistakes.
And personally i would love to watch a guide on how two campaigns TWS2 and FOS differ and which principles can be adopted and which not.
Thanks for the feedback. I agree in general. I think the game does a good job of hiding some of the mechanics that trip players up. (e.g. thinking a rice exchange is going to make you big bucks, thinking samurai are better than yari ashi) I definitely kept it to core fundamentals, cuz that's really all you need to win.
I appreciate the suggestions. I do want to do a video on difficulty- I think it's one thing a lot of players don't realize they can manipulate to dial in the right level of challenge.
Thanks again!
Really solid and concise advise.
Didn't know about the tax rate increase with the Metsuke, doesn't say anything about it in the games encyclopidea.
Early on I agree Naval is not worth it, but once you've gotten to the point where you start trading, it becomes worth it, especially if you're close to the trade ports. Also you can transport troops across the entire map in a single turn. As the Otomo you can easily dominate the seas with the Nanban Trade ships, they're like mini Black Ships, A single one can take on an entire fleet (6 ships) by itself. Speaking of Otomo, the Nanban Portor is literally the only military building you need to win so you can focus all your research on your economy, it also has the best town growth in the game I think as well (so def make your merchants guild+ there too). Definetly don't want to do any research into the religious nodes, chapels are all you need unless you want to be able to make rank 4 missionaries. Also the black ship! 2-3 fleets of trade ships will win you the black ship! It's expensive, but it's the only ship that doesn't suffer attrition, has more movement, and unless you're taking on more than 1 fleet, nobody can stand against it with the exception of the unique ships.
Something I think you should have added, Ninja and spy networks. Spy networks give you SO much tatical info and help detect Ninjas. A good example would be putting up spy networks in Omi and Kii as the Hattori. You can also stack Ninja to increase the line of sight.
You mentioned you want to upgrade your ports to trade ports for trade, you also want to upgrade them for the town growth. Always make your Nanban trade port in your most economic province such as Iwami, it's got +25 to town growth just the like the merchants guild. Just make sure to put a temple up and a monk in there to keep the christians at bay (literally).
Also your clans stronghold should be the province you want to make all your military units from with a few exceptions (like the Hattori). I usually have 2 different provinces that I make all my military from, 1 for my melee units and one for my ranged units.
Thanks for the comments. You said a lot, so this'll be quite a long response...
In the encyclopedia, it's the "Overseeing" action that metsuke can perform. "increase repression and tax income when in castle towns". Also you can see the changes in the province panel when you put a metsuke in/out. This is the most consequential passive agent ability in the game- by far.
I feel like I covered boats thoroughly enough. Play with boats if you want, but they aren't necessary to beat the game and any player struggling should consider cutting back on boats and putting that money into the armies that take land. Obviously I said- and repeat- that clans with boat bonuses, really close to nodes, christian, etc, make a more compelling case for boats.
Re: ninjas. The use of ninja, monks, moving armies, ambushing, etc, is what I would consider taking this "overarching strategy" and putting it into practice in a specific game (ie tactics). However, it would have been a glaring disservice to talk about fertility, farms, taxes, etc (ie how to make money) and not to mention the basic action of putting metsuke in town because of how much an impact they have on income. (side-note... Metsuke in towns also detect and protect against ninja) So- separate video for special units, tactical movements, etc. That's what I'm saying. Strategy is building sake dens for ninja, tactics is how to develop/use ninja, etc. Cool?
Trade ports: Trade ports don't give but +2 to growth for the specific province. It is not cost effective to upgrade to them for that growth alone. Increasing trade routes and export capacity is where trade ports really bring in money. Post roads cost 1200 koku and also provide +2 growth for that province. Trade ports cost 1800. So you're upgrading mainly to accommodate more trade partners and increase your export capacity (if you have goods like wood/etc).
It's also not "worth it" to upgrade trade ports ever, unless you're able to build a nanban port/quarter- which only applies to a single port (unless you're modding/gimmicking) and only applies to those who CAN build it. FYI- the merchant guild is +20 growth (not +25) and +1k wealth (vs 0). And -food. Etc.
Recruiting: Unless your "clan stronghold" is a smith or craftwork province, you should always be seeking to take one of those provinces for producing units. The capitol province receives +1 recruit slot. That's it. Ikko Ikki starts with both military provs. All other clans get 1 or none and therefore should be trying to obtain them as mentioned. I'm not sure why you think you should always be making units in your "clans stronghold" unless that means something different to you than it does to me.
I hope that addresses your comments. Thanks again, and hopefully knowing that metsuke can double your income will help your future plays.
Oh wait- I almost forgot. I don't care for gimmicks like "infinite move your army with boat chains", unit dragging, etc. No point mentioning them in a strategy video- or even a tactics video.
@GameMnke Okay so I've been playing this entire time without any outside influence, never watched any videos up till now. I have discovered that I have been playing on small unit size, which makes Yari Ashigaru have 40 units, and Naval the max size for a fleet is 6. Trade posts give the same amount with the 6 small size as they do with the 10 large size, which you then have the upkeep for the extra 4, and the AI seems to have more ships running around as well. I mentioned the army size cause it also makes drop-in battles so much more difficult for some reason. I've always done auto resolve as I would lose so many more troops if I didn't (percentage wise). Since I've made this comment, I have learned so many things that have made the game 10x easier, the Metsuke being a big one, changing my economic strategy completely.
very nice video, you got yourself a new sub. picking the game up again, gonne play vanilla and after that darth mod i guess.
Awesome, thank you and good luck in your campaigns!
play MOSS!!
Hi one question - in regards to vassals. How do you account for the serious strategic risk of having them turn on you during realm divide? How many vassals should a near realm divide clan usually have? There only seems to be two logical outcomes to deal with this:
1 - Reduce vassals to only the absolutely atrocious provinces where you can reliably bring an army to their doorstep.
2 - Don't play the vassal game at all and eat the RD penalty for occupy over vassalize.
Reason I ask is because vassals in RD if they are behind your main lines can really wreck your game and force you to reposition vital armies needed elsewhere to crush them.
Great question. Here's a lengthy answer...
There is no ideal number of vassals for all campaigns except to note that the first three vassals made nets +3 to honour. This impacts diplomacy, loyalty of generals, etc. It can also help offset certain negative honour tactics (like plundering a province) later on.
It is also worth noting that the longer you have a trade agreement, the more income it brings in and the greater the trade diplo bonus is with that clan. This works for vassals as well and is partly why some vassals stick by you longer after realm divide.
I tend to find in a lot of my playthroughs that I'm constantly generating reinforcements from my military provs and sending them to the front- as a half-stack or so. Usually these pass through vassal territory at some point. Sometimes I bring back an army or general to meet them partway because that brings them to the front faster.
Knowing that we're going to hit RD, or already being in RD, we can open the diplo panel and check vassal loyalty. Usually their loyalty is staggered by 20 or so depending on how fast we were making them and we can predict who will flip first. We can bribe a vassal if need be ("gifts") to help keep them loyal for a time as well. Most of the time we can plan around all this data.
We potentially have reinforcements, ninja, a repositioning army, other vassals, and spur of the moment recruiting in nearby provs of basic ashigaru that can all contribute to preventing some vassal from doing much more than minor damage in our tender bits. I've never had a flipping vassal cost me the game.
When vassals are next to each other and one flips, usually the neighbor(s) will bring their army over and clobber them. This could buy some time. Eventually that vassal will flip too, but they've been weakened by beating down the other vassal. When they flip- we pop the province they took and revassal it. Then we head to their province (now without an army or very weak) and revassal as well. We lose the longterm trade, but otherwise it's usually resolved quickly and diplo resets with no RD penalty.
There are times when things go badly. If there are a number of vassals that are all negative and you're playing a clan like Ikko Ikki, you can have a whole group of vassals flip on you. This happened to me in my recent VH campaign. With another clan the flipping would have been more staggered, but because vassals never convert to Ikko, and because I had been taking provinces pretty much nonstop at that point and in a pitched war with Oda, Shimazu, Takeda, and Hojo (AND Chosokabe by boat- what a mess!) there was a round of 5-6 vassals flipping on me following the first 1-2 being staggered.
Now that sounds bad, but most of the vassals were either near or on my fronts with Oda/Takeda/Hojo, or next to my main military provs. There were only a couple halfway between my mil provs and my front with Shimazu, but I held provinces on that front that I didn't really need to hold, so I left one to rebel and fell back to where the former vassals were going to attack. None of them had full stacks. They also didn't have many boats because they'd been warring with my enemies at sea (I didn't have any boats anyway). It added about a year to me finishing the game, but otherwise it's just a fun story about how Hattori tried to attack Kyoto with a half-stack and died to the garrison there.
At a minimum I would make 3 vassals for the honour and position them near to where I recruit every turn. This would mean only a couple turns to have some crack units to counter a flip. Have fun!
I am debating with myself wether to play this alongside Red Alert 3!
Thanks alot for making this video :)
No problem! Have fun!
i prefer having level 3 upgraded forts for all my provinces with fully upgraded farms. For economic provinces, you can build a sake den, a market, and a temple/church. For military provinces, you can build a stable, a yari, and armorer; or a bow, powder, and hunting lodge
at least for the 8 core provinces
then just vassals to increase trade income
All that fort upgrading is taking a lot of food out of the system (which means less growth/koku across your domain) as well as a lot of koku spent on building. You only need 5 of each market/etc to recruit the max amount of agents and you can spread that around through level 1 fort provs. (that's if you even wanted max ninja/monks) Part of the benefit of upgrading a fort is added recruitment slots, which you're really only going to be taking advantage of (or should be) in military provs.
Temples and sake dens alone aren't adding enough to your economy to offset the economic drain of expanding a fort to make room for them. There usually has to be some other reason. Omi would be a good example of a fertile province, with the ninja village, that would make sense for both a market and a sake den. You need the den to recruit the better ninja, the village provides some added income, and it'll probably be one of you wealthier provinces overall- perfect for a metsuke/market. Plus having a stronger fort adjacent to Kyoto helps as you build up when it seems a lot of enemies want to attack you there.
Obviously this makes more sense for the clans that are close to Omi (e.g. Oda) and less sense for clans that are only reaching it closer to mid/end-game. They probably already have whatever ninja/money provs set up.
It's that level of intentionality that I think is important when deciding what fort to upgrade- particularly on Very Hard or Legendary difficulty. On lower difficulties it probably doesn't matter as much. Units cost less to recruit/upkeep, etc.
@@GameMnke i see.. i'm just comfortable defending sieges with level 3 forts. that additional layer gives me security from full stacks... the additional garrison units of spears and archers with a naginata warrior monks are a godsend
right now, i'm doing a VH Ikko Ikki revolt only campaign until realm divide triggers. it's fun to just do a turtle strategy
@@Byenie0912 Well the Ikko Ikki is a different play in many ways. I'm also on an Ikko VH campaign atm. I definitely like the jodo shinshu temple's warrior monk garrison. I do agree that defending sieges with a level 3 fort is great. Particularly Kaga with the back door so you can run down the generals. But that's the military prov- and a great bottleneck- so I always upgrade that province.
In my game I just took Owari and Oda stacked that place out. However the farm was barely upgraded, so it ended up sucking up some of my excess food. It'll be a great bottleneck for that region though. I plan on putting a temple in there as well. That's always one of my concerns late game in that sometimes you'll be taking over forts that the ai has upgraded but with crappy farms. On one hand there's less reason to make room for markets- so there's that. On the other hand, the Ikko struggle with money once RD hits, and markets give some money without much downside. At this point I haven't actually built any myself. I just inherit ones occasionally.
Ikko is definitely a fun campaign. I'm already past the realm divide penalties. I just have to revassal a couple who turned on me- the rest are fixed or new. Good luck with your game!
Build a bunch of sake dens in areas that dont have ports and something else
Yes. Good idea. Sake dens are a good pick, particularly if you just want to shore up happiness in a newly taken province so you can leave less garrison. Not a ton of wealth per turn, but happiness has value that uh... money uh... can't... buy? Something like that!
the problem with the strategy is in legendary difficult the ai always destroy merchant guild or rice exchange and replace it with yari drill yard or archery range pro player usually only build rice exchange or merchant guild in province that already has sword school or any other unit training facility
Hey thanks for the comment. I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to- making vassals? Not upgrading market chain buildings? Focusing military in military provs? Can you be more specific?
@@GameMnke what i mean is pro player not upgrade castle or make special province for training unit especially if you use mod to make ai only training katana samurai instead of yari samurai
@@GameMnke usually on real legendary difficult with mod ai you will never win decisive victory or heroic victory the enemy ai daimyo only move with 40 army and its un defeated army because full katana samurai match lock and yari cavalry and the enemy raid squad always destroy market or rice exchange even destroy farm
@@GameMnke basically pro player saving the money and play defensive they make lot of sword school in almost every province then when 2 stack of un defeated enemy daimyo army come with 25 katana samurai 10 naginata and 10 yari cavalry you play defensive sabotage army and defend castle
@@GameMnke believe me standard legendary difficult is very easy for anyone play this game 10 years we install mod to make enemy ai only move with 40 unit army full of katana and naginata samurai and yari cavalry
Don't all your vassals betray you during realm divide? So shouldn't i avoid vassals until realm divide?
I wouldn't avoid vassals until RD. There are many reasons to have vassals earlier and to accept and deal with that shortcoming later. Each of the first 3 vassals you create gets you +1 honour. This helps with a lot of things- diplomacy/trade, general loyalty, province happiness. Having a vassal not only gives you a guaranteed trade partner, it also doesn't increase the administration penalty to your taxes- making your metsuke/etc more effective. Particularly nice considering you're usually vassaling the crappiest provinces. You stand to make more money from a crappy vassal (and having higher honour to secure trade/etc) than owning a bad province outright.
As for betrayal... everyone eventually turns on you after RD. Vassals with strong ties (increasing turns of trade and peace) will take longer to turn on you. Knowing it can/will happen means you can prepare for it. It's just a revassal and then keep on rolling. Ikko Ikki on long/dom campaign will tend to have more "post RD" problems with vassals because of religious penalties coupled with the expansion penalty, even after revassaling to remove the RD penalty.
@GameMnke thank you for all your advice. I took a lot of notes from this video lol
@@IsaacEsquivel-Pilloud You're very welcome. Good luck in your campaigns!
build 2 buildings, 1 type of unit all game, and people say this is the best total war?
No need to exaggerate. There are a number of buildings you can/should build- far more than 2. However, on higher difficulties and early game, you need to focus on optimizing. That means not starting by spending thousands of koku on a building so you can spend thousands more on a half-dozen katana sams and wind up broke from upkeep and outnumbered on the battlefield.
It wouldn't be realistic for a 2 province daimyo to be sending out stacks of samurai. It wouldn't be realistic for any daimyo to do that because peasants were far more numerous than samurai and it would make more sense to just equip them with spears- which is what they did. Until they had guns- then they equipped them with guns.
You want to play all cavalry? Go for it. All samurai- I'm sure there's a mod that helps boost your money. But I'm not covering mods- just core gameplay. Have fun!
@@GameMnke thank you for your reply
Nice
I think mostly everybody are going to play with mods installed, so some advice is null.
Look, I appreciate the feedback. If you'd like me to give a strategic breakdown of a specific mod/modpack, maybe suggest one and if I like it, maybe I'll do that.
Otherwise, I'm not sure what you want me to do with your feedback. There is no specific chapter you can point to that is, or even might be, "null advice" because it totally depends on what mods someone is using- agreed? If you're just doing the bug fixes like I am (oda umbrella, kisho ninja, etc), then it's all applicable. If you just mod to make boats cheaper, maybe only that element changes.
If, however, you're playing with total conversions/overhauls (MoSS, Radious) then CLEARLY there are going to be many elements that have to be adapted- just like how not all of the strategy is wholecloth applicable to RotS or FotS (or WH3). Because it's not an identical game at that point. I don't think it's incumbent upon me to make such a disclaimer though- because it's obvious. I don't find myself compelled to post on MoSS videos "hey this doesn't work like that in vanilla- null advice!". ;)
More importantly... I think there is HUGE value in the core/default/vanilla game and understanding the default mechanics. If all you play is a mod, without understanding what the mod is changing, then you really don't have a basis of comparison for anything in Shogun 2 because you can't speak to what things were to recognize what is different. In that regard when you look at the core strategy I present and you note "hey my mod does this different", you now know something more than you did before. And then you can make a value judgement- do you like the change? Do you find the change necessary to your enjoyment? Etc.
That's the best I can do with what you gave me. If you shared "hey I play with mod X and this is different in Y way", then we could have a more substantive exchange over a specific issue. I'll point out, for example, that one of the big economic "features" of Shogun 2 is, I feel, badly implemented. It's how rice fields and market chain buildings work. RotS and FotS addressed this. I love Shogun 2, but it's one of the biggest flaws- err... features.
I still like to play the game with this "feature" because if you're talking to people and they are asking questions about vanilla play (which happens plenty on reddit), if you're not able to speak to vanilla play/strategy, then really... what good is the advice you're giving? You might struggle to tell someone the benefits of vassals or how to use a matchlock if your only context is playing with mods.
So that's what I have to say about that. Have fun!