The Shimazu Campaign Guide

[Sir Robin]

Yeah, Osumi. Speaking of which, how quickly do I want to take Osumi castle and defeat the Ito? I usually rush the castle in the first or second turn (if I wait until turn 2, it's to have a larger army), but then the Ito troops counter attack and kill my general every time. Here's the embarassing part, I keep using auto resolve for battles. I tried playing a battle myself last night when I first got the game and it was really hard for me. I feel like I can lose less troops if I do it myself, but I need to learn how to move around the field properly first. I tried to focus on recruiting more troops for the inevitable Ito counter offensive, but I don't get enough of them in time.

You can usually lose a lot less troops if you don't auto-resolve. Seriously, the tactical battles are like half the game. The biggest advice I would give is don't forget to use the half speed setting whenever you want to track the action better.

Taking Osumi immediately is a key part of my Shimazu strategy. Wait and they can reinforce with their larger army from Hyuga. That puts you in to a battle of attrition that is harder for you because you have one province compared to their two.

If you are having a rough time with battles then play a few historical ones and some custom fights to try and get the hang of it. Honestly the battles in Napoleon and Shogun 2 "feel" fundamentally different then the previous Total War games. So they took some getting used to for me too.

However, not playing them is like tossing out half the experience.

[hellheaven1987]

Well, it depends; AI always fortify Osumi quite fast if they do not waste troops to march into your territories. I generally suggest see what AI did at first turn before make your move (if AI did not come to you then you probably should either storm Osumi in third turn or simply turtle a bit for more troops building).

[DeMolay]

I humbly think it is necessary to take Ozumi in the first turn immediately , it's quite important for maximizing the income (and weakening your main ennemy ) in the early part of the game where it is the most difficult . What i did is that during the siege battle , the AI army is split in two : the 2 units inside the small fort and the larger reinforcements force coming from the forest .

What i did was simply to blitz the reinforcements when they were climbing the mountain and finished them with minimal losses ( as they were not a unified force , some units climbed the mountain faster than others ) , then i waited with my troops that they get "fresh" again and launched the fort assault , it's easy to crush one unit of archers and samurai retainers , although you need to also use your general dismounted against samurai retainers if you don't want to lose many ashigarus

[bbad89]

Don't trust the Sagura people(they're right to your north, I think they start out friendly) or at least take caution with them, as when I moved up the east coast of the island, I met the Ouchi and Shoni clans, and after I declared war on the Shoni, I found that both them and Sagura had a military alliance, I now have a full-stack Sagura army in my tender nether regions.

[familyguy1]

So with trade nodes, it actually does increase your income from them if you add more ships?

[Jam3]

Just a few points from my current campaign.

Your initial province has a smithy build it first turn and build all your units there for a nice armor or weapons bonus, you can hold out building troops til its ready your starting force is enough to take the neighboring province and hold until your armory is up and then crank troops. New generals will get the bonus as well. I use the non-upgraded generals as commissoners. Make satsuma your unit hq build a horse breeder and yari dojo and you can make alot of different types of troops with the armor upgrade. Use your other settlements for producing cash and agents with markets/sake dens etc.

Switch your initial non-daimyo general to development or finance for a small boost.

Trade has been covered previosuly but is critical

Katana swordsmen destroy yari ashigaru, its your specialty so make as many as possible, go for way of the sword for the xp boost asap. You'll find a couple of these early will eat enemy armies as they are fielding massive yari ashigaru armies.

[Gulatr]

So with trade nodes, it actually does increase your income from them if you add more ships?

Yes it does. But each following ship brings less and less benefit. A combo that works for me is 6 Trade Ships + 4 War Ships as a guarding force.

[Stormweaver]

I have played the shimatzu twice now, the first time I gave up because Shoni expands rapidly in the north and they get a tad big if you turtle to much against Odi.

Second time I blitzed the Odi castle to the right in the first turn, while upgrading my harbor and making one bow and one pike ashiguari. I made an alliance with Sagara and they havent broken it. I reinforced the odi castle and by this time odi came down with their army. Either defend in siege if they attack or make a few more ashiguari in the second turn and bring them over to the main army. Turn 3 you attack he's army and the second castle, while still upgrading the port in the homeland.

So on turn four I got 3 regions and got a tradeport ready to spam tradeships for the nods. Doing this gave me the chance to actually bring down the shoni, before they get too massive.


As Shimatzu you deffintly have to take out Odi within the first 4 turns.

[Blackthorne]

As Shimatzu you deffintly have to take out Odi within the first 4 turns.

Agreed, in fact I'd go as far as to say you have to take Osumi ( the province next door to you) on turn one. The Oti start with a bigger army and with two provinces they can out produce you with units too. Especially on the harder difficulties you wont be able to recover if you don't take them out fast.

I also think you should go for the Otomo as fast as possible, holding it can be a pain because it's christian but I've found that they invariably get into a war with the Shoni and/or the Sagara. If the Sagara take Bungo then you could find yourself trapped in the lower half of Kyushu, The Shoni and the Sagara seem to ally quite regularly in which case you'll not be strong enough to take on both of them at once. If the Shoni take Bungo and you don't attack them imediatley then they'll be too strong to fight.

Here's what I did on my Legendary game. I made an alliance with the Sagara on the first turn and then blitzed the Ito, After waiting for my troops to replenish slightly I marched up to the border of the Otomo and waited for winter to end. By now the Otomo were at war with myself the Sagara and the Shoni, instead of attacking I let the Shoni have first crack at them, the Shoni won but their army was in tatters. I declared war on the Shoni and took Bungo with very few losses, after that it was relativley easy to take out the rest of the Shoni provinces. Incidentally the Sagara were allied to both me and the Shoni when I attacked them, they stayed allied to me and I think it was because I didn't ask them to join the fight (they're classed as peaceful so presumably anything for a quiet life). So now I control almost all of Kyushu and the game has gotten much easier.

[The Sweeper]

Just to clarify it's the 'Ito' that are neighbouring the Shimazu when the campaign begins. I'd also recommend taking Osumi ASAP and then Hyuga as soon as you can after. Once you have these three provinces you have a base from which to attack either the Sagara (who are dangerously close to Satsuma), or any of the other clans to the north.

My campaign is now balanced interestingly enough. I have around 9 provinces, everything but Higo and the 'B' province just east of it, which belong to the Sagara who have been faithful allies since the beginning. My forays onto the mainland have been successful and I've pushed back the Takoaka (who were the largest clan on the map at that point with around 12-14 provinces), taking Suo and annexing the Mori in Aki. I've also liberated the Ouchi who were destroyed by the Amako. The Ouchi have Nagato, but I decided to take Iwami because of the gold mine located there. Unfortunately the Chosokabe decided to declare war on the Sagara for some reason, and since I feel the Sagara are more likely to back me come realm divide I went on their side. This does just give me an excuse to take the Chosokabe's provinces on their island, which will be useful for staging attacks along the coast against other factions. Once I have eliminated the Chosokabe presence on the island I will attempt to sue for peace with them and turtle, building up my economy and armies. Once I'm ready I'll hopefully be able to attack Kyoto directly via ship and displace the Shogun.

[Marcus1]

<my tips is. ! Get a trade pot and naban trade port. Get christian fast as they make it easy to field matchlocks. Wich is state of the art. I mean. They are more powerful the etw and ntw. The moral up if they use fire by rank. And then a running unit will make them flee.Move eastwords make peace build up econimic for a desive war in your island. Ones island is capured Take the Smizu or the Chsokabe Island. After that you come too the mainland Allicane with the Shogun. But have a good navy form begging. When taking The mori clan. Try not too fight at sea. Fight at LAnd only!

[z0diac]

If your having a hard time getting to the node, make a harbor build bow ships which take a turn and have them babysit the nodes. No clan is ready for sea battle and will not start a war in the beg. to get the nodes. So you should have 2-3 nodes with bow ships sitting on them and than just move your trade vessels to them. =)

[Shabby_Ronin]

I went straight for a trading port and pumped out ships. Sending them north, the owners of Bungo province (can't remember names) secured the bottom node and the Ouchi had beat me to the one right next to my island. I secured the top two nodes and have about 3 ships on each. My plan was to go hard and fast East and take out Bungo to get Christianity. I had quit a good army blocking the pass in case the Sagawa decided to get saucy and sent my other, ever growing army up the coast towards Bungo. As soon as my harbour was ready, I sent a cheap arrow ship east to meet new clans and get trade partners.

I pretty easily took out everybody and got Bungo province, consolidated a little bit and then became Christian, immediately after the Sagawa and the Shoni declared war on me and a town revolted. I really wasn't ready for it, it pretty much brought my campaign to its knees. I was lucky enough to have a hard save from a few turns back and decided on a new course. I made an alliance with the Sagawa so I could move some of the troops doing nothing guarding the pass to Bungo for the inevitable fight with the Shoni. My only problem is the Shoni want to fight before my reserves can get near, and they have over twice the army I have and blockade my ports, ruining me.

Gonna start a new campaign and ally with the Sagawa immediately so I can focus on the fight up the coast and wait till I take out any powerful clans on my island before I go messing around with religion again.

[Calax]

I'm on normal so take it with a grain of salt.

Every time I've ended up in Kyushu (the Shimazu island) the Otomo have been wiped out by the Sagara. Usually this means that they control the christian port and end up going christian (this includes my current Shimazu play through). I've been staying Buddhist and thus found it necessary to counter-act the nanban trading ports with a monk and his monestary just parked in the settlement. If it's a Nanban QUARTER rather than just a port, you're going to need to burn that sucker and rebuild if you want to stay as Buddhist as the Quarter will cause a 3% conversion to Christianity in all provinces adjacent to your current.

If you've got a christian settlement, you can hold it with a smaller garrison if you just have specialists parked in your cities as overseers and have monks wandering around converting everything to the way of Buddha. If you move fast enough you won't have to deal with to many of these.

Also I think that the Sagara will try to attack you 9 times out of 10 if you do nothing to them (most of the time mine was presaged with the "friendly retainer warns of attack!" message).

[Shabby_Ronin]

It sounds like alot of you guys stay small for a long time?

I busted my way all the way to Bungo easily, and if not for a colossal screw up I could have held those regions easily.

Next time I am allying with Sagawa early and going straight for the Shoni.

[Calax]

I was able to grab kyushu pretty fast, but after that I was looking for an opportunity to arise so that I didn't get completely shafted by everyone on the map when I pushed out. Found it in a tiny group who were next to a rebel settlment and under attack by two other nations. So I attacked them and wound up triggering a chain of wars that has be goign against the Tokugawa (who own central Japan at this point, with the Hojo owning the north and a smattering of different smaller clans owning everything west of Kyoto and then me alone on kyushu).

[dipperq]

In my Normal difficulty campaign, Sagara declared war on me a soon as i defeated Ito turn 5-6. I had to pull my army back which took 3-4 turns.

Fought a bloody war since my army is smaller than Sagara's. The replenish rate is SO LOW.

[Calax]

In my Normal difficulty campaign, Sagara declared war on me a soon as i defeated Ito turn 5-6. I had to pull my army back which took 3-4 turns.

Fought a bloody war since my army is smaller than Sagara's. The replenish rate is SO LOW.

Upgrade your castle and roads for replenishment.

As to the Sagara, if they sense that your army is weaker, they'll attack you once they finish off the Otomo (if they finish off the otomo... every time i've played they have). The key is to have built up your army so that you can eventually hit em.

I ended up taking out the Ito, the sagara and shino allied and attacked me almost immediately after so I took the eastern coast and then got Sagara as a vassal when they sued for peace while I eliminated the Shino. Then waited 2 turns and Sagara declared war on me so I killed them and finished my conquest of Kyushu.

[Halie Satanus]

I've almost taken the entire south island, only the furthest northern settlement to take. Biggest problem has been the reluctance of other clans to trade with me, even though I hold all the (nodes?) trading ports bar one.. Cash flow has been completely stalled and I could end up abandoning this campaign due to going bankrupt. Been fun though.

[Maitea]

Hello,

I have started with Shimazu several times now, with the goal to unite Kyushu under my banner.

The problem is how to take out the Sagara Clan for me. I wonder how you guys go about taking them out.

The Ito Clan is no problem, I was able to blitz them in the first year. I moved troops to take out the province to the east on first turn, and ASAP used the army's remaining move points to proceed along the road to the north east. I left my Daimyo behind; due to starting in the stronghold he has fewer moves left. The starting army suffices to take out what remains of the Ito Clan. It is important to NOT stray from the path to do minor fights, the goal is to take the next Ito castle before winter attrition happens.

One other clan is the christian Ottoni Clan. On one playthrough I was lucky, and they had moderate power after I wiped the Ito, and they marched on Sagara; though I only noticed that when I moved my army towards the Sagaran Castle (I had been using the recruiting bonus from the first mission reward to draft a huge army for my daimyo). Was quite funny. I parked my army behind the Ottoni's, watched them reduce each other, and cleaned out who was left.**) In that game I was able to unit Kyushu by 1550; i.e. 5 years (20 turns).
Though most of the time the Ottoni Clan will be at feeble power; at war with Sagara, Shoni, Oushi; thus there is little time to wait and watch, and risk their province fall to someone else. It's a long march from that last Ito province, so I rather take them quickly.

The other Clans are the Shoni Clan to the north west with two rich provinces, and the Oushi Clan (sp?) to the north east, who spills across the gab between Honshu and Kyushu. The Shoni often ally with the Sagara Clan.

Often the Oushi will be at war with the Shoni; thus reduce each others military power. But the Sagara do not have a hostile neighbour, so they can raise their army uncontested.


One attempt I made (after I took the Ottoni's province) was to go straight for Sagara. The Shoni joined them, the Oushi got rebelled off the island. I managed to cleverly bait the hostile clans from their castles and sneak in behind; I managed to have Hizen, Tshuku(something) and Higo in one turn. Hrhr. I succeeded in keeping the Shoni rebels from retaking their castles. My army is sufficient to defeat the Shoni rebels, but will be pretty much out of men afterwards. But the Sagara just have a too huge army, and were able to recover their castle. I could likely struggle thru with this, and the two Shoni provinces I captured are rich, but....

Now my most recent attempt (again after taking the Ottoni's province), is to ally with the Oushi. Shoni and Oushi are not at war yet (Oushi still at Buzen). Sagara are allied to Shoni, but trade with me. Next turn the Shoni attack the Oushi, I join, Sagara stay out. If things run well the Oushi wll reduce the Shoni troops, but have their accident at Buzen, and I can take the Shoni provinces without being at war with Sagara. But.. that sort of is the "usual" play through.

I wonder if there is a way to force the demise on Sagara more swiftly; rather than having to show up with 1+ full stack of experienced troops. x.x


Maybe it is possible to let the Ito prosper, and asap move north against the Sagara Clan and the Shoni Clan. Their provinces are a lot richer than the Ito and Ottoni provinces. But then the Ito will prosper to be dangerous. And the Ito clan's one province is in one-turn reach of your stronghold, so you can quickly take it with fresh troops.

Regards,
Mai


**) note regarding Ottoni sieging Sagara

When that happened I was at war with the Sagara; the Ottoni were at war with the Sagara; I was not allied (neither married nor trade treatied) to the Ottoni. Yet when the Ottoni sieged the Sagara and assaulted I received an invite to reinforce them in that battle! Interresting, no?
Should probably have quicksaved and then joined to see how this actually worked out, as the Ottoni did not do a good job at reducing the Sagaran force.