The Shimazu Campaign Guide

[For Victory]

I just tried to return to the game after not playing for a few weeks and tried to start a new campaign as the Shimazu. However, this time I have the Realism mod installed. The former plan I used to have, which was to take out the Ito on turn 1, is no good. When I assaulted their nearby castle on the first turn the odds were dead split 50/50. In the battle, re-inforcements came from nearby and it was cavalry that I had never seen them have before. I was completely crushed and un-prepared. Does anyone else use the Realism mod that can offer advice? I am playing on Normal.

[scribe]

My 1st ever campaign was with Shimazu on Normal and haplessly I did everything wrong. I kept making cheeky offers in diplomacy and was slow to tie up trade agreements, so others barged in. I barely had any friends most of the way. I didn't plan controlling the sea so that became a "lost decade" in financial terms. Defending and invading using 2 fronts, I was up to the neck just creating a continuous stream of Ashigaru. Other than that, I tried to keep 1 or 2 Shimazu Samurai. General was my cavalry. Till the latter half I had some empty building slots and didn't have any agents, just because making Ashigaru took all my money, most of the time. What little I had left, I spent on trying to rebuild the navy (which had become cat-and-mouse) or upgrading farms, but with farms my Chi research was behind and became the bottleneck.

I beat it in the end as I recovered control over the sea consistently and Chi caught up as did my land economy to an extent, but I never really recovered from the under-development and lack of planning. If it had been on Hard difficulty, it may have been impossible. I just did bare minimum to beat the campaign, and it was fun in a bizarre sort of way, but I don't intend on playing in that manner again if I ever use Shimazu - I have a bad impression of this clan now (my fault, I know!)

There was some nostalgia value in this from Shogun 1 era; when I would play Oda I'd used a lot of Ashigaru. So a bit of dejavu here and there, but in every other way it was awful. Don't make the mistake I made.

[LoneEagle013]

I finished the campaign twice as Shimazu, first on normal and second on hard. I discovered that playing as Hard is even easier than Normal if you know what you are doing.

Here's what I did right in the Hard Campaign, based on the order of significance in gameplay strategy. I believe these do apply to other factions as well.

1. Grow large quick, and once you reached 8-10 provinces, stop and build up for a good 10-15 years of stable economy. For Shimazu, I conquered the entire Kyushu island within 8 years by being very aggressive and having monks inciting revolts left and right. Once I held Kyushu, I built my economy for about 5-6 years, while building a strong navy and army to prepare for a major offensive campaign.

2. Make a lot of money from trade, and have a strong navy to prevent wako incursions, and capture the black ship when it shows up. The black ship is such a powerful force in the navy, such that 1 black ship and several medium bunes are the invincible armada as far as the game cares. This armada should patrol the area between kyushu, shikoku and the mainland for any possible naval invasions, and occasionally be a troop transport escort for naval invasions in return.

3. The name of the game is develop and conquer. You capture a few lands until it's secure, and develop the economy to support another stack. And done well, I've managed to have 6-7 stacks of full samurai units while bringing in 7k economy at the end, strictly from taxes.

4. Transition the economy from trade to taxes when realm divide is imminent. Not relying on trade saves a lot of grief when RD occurs, because you are already self sufficient and can run a war versus the entire land without deficit.

Here's how the math works:

a. Your budget should always aim for around 5-8k per turn, such that you can always build army/provinces at any given turn. Early on this is easily reached through aggressive trade. But trade will not be available once RD is imminent.

b. Thus the goal is to transition your economy from a trade based economy to a tax based economy. Ideally, your tax revenue should cover all your military upkeep costs, and then some. Trade should be 100% profit coming in. You know you're ready for RD when you earn 2-3k per turn from tax income alone, while supporting the maximum amount of army/navy possible, ideally 4-5 stacks of full samurai armies. The navy becomes really important to prevent any potential naval invasions, so that you do not need to leave huge garrisons behind that makes it prohibitively expensive to run the country. There are monks and metsukes to do just that: building monasteries, sake dens, and castles in occupied areas that are not for military unit productions have the double benefit of economic boosting and increasing stability in the region while minimizing the military requirement to control the region.

c. A huge tax based economy is possible where the majority of the provinces are focused for economic production through developing farmlands and rice exchanges, while having a few dedicated provinces to dedicate as unit factories. It is significantly faster and easier to build 4-5 units in one turn in a dedicated province with all the bonuses attached rather than having it spread over 3 provinces of mediocre production facilities.

5. Realize that if your tax based economy works as planned, you can pretty much disregard any diplomatic aspect with any other clients, and not even bothering with vassals entirely. You can keep diplomacy to get trade and gain any other economic bonuses, but should not be necessary. You would still have to be somewhat reasonable early on because otherwise you'd be spending too much money on unnecessary wars with other clans. For this strategy to work, you will need long periods of relative peace to invest on your lands and build up armies. However, should your generals need work and experience, you can do so by letting the monks incite rebellions on border regions, and quickly take over the provinces with your army quickly.

6. Agents are practical necessities in the harder campaigns. Once RD triggers, there will be a large amount of metsuke, monks, and ninja traffic all over the border regions. The agents are needed to prevent and eliminate high level enemy agents. High level enemy agents left uncheck can wreak havoc and devastate your yin-yang quickly without the proper countermeasures.

7. For Shimazu, the katana samurais are perhaps the most broken unit in the game given the cost and benefit analysis. Until you encounter large amounts of cavalries (i.e. Takeda), the katana samurais pretty much destroy and shred anything they see in the battlefield, including other katana samurai units because the Shimazus have such large bonuses for their katana infantry (and cheaper too).

7. Here's my typical army config:
*4-5 katana samurai units.
*3-4 yari samurai/ashigaru units. Naginata is OK too, if you can afford them.
*3-4 Cavalry units. I recommend a mix between katana/yari cavalries if possible, but katana samurais do the job well for the most part.
*3-4 Ranged units (Bow/Gun), whichever is ready and affordable.

A balanced stack typically works well against anything the enemy throws at you. My solution for a huge stack of unusual army balance is to throw in yet another full stack of a balanced army. I then mix and match the build to counter the impending huge stack that invades my land. In my campaign, I had an economy that can support up to 7 full stacks of samurai armies. Obviously I could have fielded a lot more if I had more generals and/or used more ashigarus in the army makeup. You will need a good 5-6 stacks for conquest and holding the lines as you reach the central region of the mainland, since by this time you'd be at war with everyone in sight, so no chokepoints and no buffer areas here.

8. Black ship is super important in your navy. Capture one, and you'll be happy you did. Swarm tactics work totally as advertised. Board early, and board again and again until they surrender. Expect huge casualties getting to the black ship though.

9. A strong navy is a must for Shimazu. I would say a 5000-6000 koku navy with the black ship is all you need for a dominant navy that patrols the waters between the three islands. The rest is a matter of seizing ships from victories from fights with the wako and/or hostile navies in your waters.

Domination campaign is competely doable with a strong economy and military build up. Here's my timeline of major events in my playthrough:

1554 - conquered Kyushu in its entirety. Spent about 10 years before landing on Shikoku.

1565 - conquered Shikoku in its entirety. Spent another 5 years slowly developing Shikoku and gaining foothold on the mainland.

1570 - Slowly building and marching toward Mimasaka, to gain Iron to start building swordmaster dojos.

1576 - Realm Divide.

1578 - Reached Kyoto.

1579 - Became Shogun in name and title. Hero units are slowly being integrated to the main army.

1586 - Became Shogun in victory. Only 4 provinces remaining left unconquered.


Those are my 2 cents for my 2 playthroughs of Shimazu. Obviously your mileage may vary, but I believe the underlying principles are sound and proven to work well under the right circumstances.

[Lopus]

Oh man, I've not played Total War since Rome2 and Med2 came out, now that I've time to play again, I got my greedy little paws on Shogun 2. The first clan I tried was the Shimazu on Hard. Wow, I was amazed at how much more "intelligent" the AI is here.

Oh well, as everyone says, take out the Ito first by conquering the adjacent province on round 1 and building 1 each ashigaru yari and ashigaru bows to reinforce on round 2. Build until the Ito reinforcement tries to reconquer their province, then wipe out their army and chase the survivors back to their last province. The daimyo should lead the charge here while your other general returns back to your capital to help build your secondary army to attack up north. Meanwhile you should have a trading port by round 6 at the latest (while upgrading to the trading port use the harbour to build bow ships to placehold in the trading zones). Oh well, as soon as I beat the Shoni I'll probably have a better playthrough in mind.

[eXistenZ]

Little question. i started my first campaign game as Shimazu on easy (to learn). i conquered the two provinces from my enemy, and when the otomo guys where busy with the other ig clan on the island (can't remember their name), i rushed up to their castle and took it. costed me -35 though, cause i sold them military acces for 1000, i needed the money.

But ther eis a christian port. should i keep it? and is that disounouring of the treaty gonna cost me dear later on? (daimo's honour is 4)

[Zetto]

playing on normal as Shimazo (my first campaign since I got the game), Realm Divide is cakewalk, if you prepare for it. I was like 2 steps away from it when I stopped my expansion (18 provinces by that time), and concentrated on economy after reading all the horror stories on this thread. I've accumulated about 200k koku and maxed out all the buildings, plenty of food and money, and 4 stacks of upgraded infantry&cavalry (I've dismissed all peasant spears and only kept two in my most misbehaving provinces, the rest a samurai with a few archers and cavalry mixed in). When I got the realm divide, I've managed to keep both of my allies who, incidentally, are the two largest powers left in Japan - about 8-9 provinces each. My maxed out spys and monks rain havoc in enemy provinces, so none of my neighbors manage to keep more than two or one provinces since they keep rebelling (thanks to my monks, of course). Since realm divide, in first turn I captured three provinces, two turned to vassals (for trade purposes), and I'm still getting over 13k a turn thanks to trade and well-developed economy.

[lsm]

I just tried to return to the game after not playing for a few weeks and tried to start a new campaign as the Shimazu. However, this time I have the Realism mod installed. The former plan I used to have, which was to take out the Ito on turn 1, is no good. When I assaulted their nearby castle on the first turn the odds were dead split 50/50. In the battle, re-inforcements came from nearby and it was cavalry that I had never seen them have before. I was completely crushed and un-prepared. Does anyone else use the Realism mod that can offer advice? I am playing on Normal.

send your army, with your damyo joined into the nearby Ito province. once inside, select a general (they have more campaign map movement) to siege the town, and siege it do not assault.

once besieged, the town won't exert an area of influence anymore, allowing you to move the rest of your little starter army onto the Ito army next to the town. that army will more than likely retreat, then you can besiege the town

or you can just besiege the town, and in deployment put your troops on the side where the Ito reinforcements are going to come in. quickly rush them then you can take your time and assault the castle no prob

[newt]

Yeah, I always deploy near the hill where they come from. Put the archers on the cliff and you yari samurai near the path to the hill. The cavalry will try to reach your archers, but will run into a wall of spears. Keep the ashigaru on spear wall to prevent casualties as well.

[Lopus]

Is it just me but I have yet to get past the 3rd year without losing my Daimyo in battle. Perhaps I shouldn't use him in all my battles.

[newt]

I always use him. I just don't let him actually fight, unless it's an emergency, or to chase down routers.

[Lopus]

Ah, that might be a good plan, I'll restart my campaign and test how it works if I keep him in reserve.

[Genghis San]

I must be missing something because no one seems to mention that towards the end of the game all of the provinces turn on you and declare war and your finances go in the toilet. I controll all the trade hubs and that still doesn't matter. I can't seem to find a solution. I was within 3 provinces of winning the 40 province campaign and quit. It was just to frustrating to try and deal with all the uprisings and no money. If someone has a solution I'd sure love to hear about it. I played as Shimazu twice and no matter what I tried after I controlled 19 provinces it all crumbled.

I just finished Shimazu short campaign. Only at the very end did everybody declare war on me. Maybe if my Daimyo was less honourable more would have joined at an earlier stage? I figured this is Japan where memories last forever so I didnt betray any alliance during my entire campaign.
Realm Divide happened to me when I controlled 20 regions and still had quite a way to go to Tokyo.
When RD happened the Shogun and his allies declared war but my allies (including the Takeda who controlled nearly everything north of Tokyo) sided with me. It wasnt until I conquered Tokyo that everybody including my vassals turned on me. That caused a hiccup because of my rebelling vassals I didnt have enough regions to win and was going into debt.
I was able to solve the debt by looting the next conquered region for enough money to last a couple of turns, and vassalising the next two and opening trade with those.
Key to my victory was my maximum level monk who incited rebellions in about 5 of my allies' provinces after which my army that was waiting just outside the region border easily conquered them. The Chosokabe who had betrayed me earlier on were kind enough to convert to Christianity after which causing a rebellion in their provinces was easy even with a lesser monk.
May sound like it was an easy campaign but I walked a very tight rope at the beginning when the Sagara invaded after I blitzed the Otomo. I could only just get my troops near enough to Satsuma to help defend it and only just won the battle with only 200 men or so left standing.
AI is much better than in previous TW games. I love Shogun2!

[eeeeYooohhh!]

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.

I used this to my great advantage. When I first encountered Shoni they declared war on me the next turn. So I went into to the diplo screen with the Sagara seeing that they had allied with the Shoni I didnt want them to hostile on me as well.

I was able to secure an alliance, trade agreement and one of the Sagura's daughters in exchange for 10turns military access to my lands. This then blocked in the Shoni army that was marching through Sagara lands towards my capital as the Shoni needed to declare ware on the Sagara or retreat to their homeland. No longer having military access to Sagara lands.

So to my delight the shoni stack seiged and destroyed the only Sagara city. I kept my stack in the woods near Sagara and used a Ninja to see when the Shoni stack would move out of the city. Next turn the shoni moved 1/2 way to my capital from Sagara when I moved my stack in and basically pulled the rug out from under them taking Sagara.

Now the shoni army was sandwiched inbetween my main force and my fortress full of matchlock's. They turned around and seiged my main force in Sagara where I heroic'd them reducing the clans power to "feeble".

Ez peazy, dont mess with the Shimazu master of diplomacy.

[Zetto]

I used this to my great advantage. When I first encountered Shoni they declared war on me the next turn. So I went into to the diplo screen with the Sagara seeing that they had allied with the Shoni I didnt want them to hostile on me as well.

I was able to secure an alliance, trade agreement and one of the Sagura's daughters in exchange for 10turns military access to my lands. This then blocked in the Shoni army that was marching through Sagara lands towards my capital as the Shoni needed to declare ware on the Sagara or retreat to their homeland. No longer having military access to Sagara lands.

So to my delight the shoni stack seiged and destroyed the only Sagara city. I kept my stack in the woods near Sagara and used a Ninja to see when the Shoni stack would move out of the city. Next turn the shoni moved 1/2 way to my capital from Sagara when I moved my stack in and basically pulled the rug out from under them taking Sagara.

Now the shoni army was sandwiched inbetween my main force and my fortress full of matchlock's. They turned around and seiged my main force in Sagara where I heroic'd them reducing the clans power to "feeble".

Ez peazy, dont mess with the Shimazu master of diplomacy.

I had it easier: I was trading with both of them and simply used a monk to incite revolts in their provinces - as soon the rebels take over, I move in and capture it. Rinse and repeat, and I was trading them till their last province fell to rebels It took longer but it also gave me time to expand in the sea and capture all but one trade nodes, build a huge navy and become a huge trading empire; while all I had was one and half stack of land troops (many samurai though )

So in my case, Shimazu were the master of clandestine operations

[Lopus]

Well I finally won my Shimazu campaign after 50 hours of playing. The strangest thing is that I didn't actually have a daimyo since he was an underaged child, it was a series of regencies (2 in a row) that ruled my clan. Thankfully, my generals all stayed loyal to me.

I think my biggest boo-boo was hitting RD by conquering the two islands of Kyushu and Shikoku then working my way in from the western end of Honshu, I didn't notice that I had hit 15 provinces by then. Since I was playing the short campaign, RD hit while I was so far from Kyoto. Thankfully I had enough money on hand to keep some vassals happy while I blitzed towards Kyoto.

Now I'm going to restart my campaign, but this time I'll add the 12 months per year mod.

[eeeeYooohhh!]

I had it easier: I was trading with both of them and simply used a monk to incite revolts in their provinces - as soon the rebels take over, I move in and capture it. Rinse and repeat, and I was trading them till their last province fell to rebels It took longer but it also gave me time to expand in the sea and capture all but one trade nodes, build a huge navy and become a huge trading empire; while all I had was one and half stack of land troops (many samurai though )

So in my case, Shimazu were the master of clandestine operations

Hey I didnt even finish my story.. I have 2 great ninja's an assasin and a sabotuer. My favorite thing to do with ninjas is to burn my enemies farm lands.

After my first battle with the Shoni I sent my ninja's north and saw the shoni was mass recruiting more ashigaru. So I set fire to all 3 of the farmlands over 2 turns and by the time the shoni army was reassambled 2 of the provinces had rebelled.. Reducing the Shoni to one province.

I took the province closer to the shoni that had rebelled because the rebel army was weakend from the war with the Shoni. Then I regrouped for a season and stormed the remaining shoni stronghold and wiped them out. I spent the next year regrouping before taking the final rebel holdout and conquering all of kyushu.

Hell I even switched to Christianity with no revolts of my own and less than 2 stacks of ashigaru for an army. Making 10k a turn now and am going to consolidate my lands then push forward onto honsu but lead the way with missionaries to spread the word of God and cause rebellions before I declare war on anybody.

[General Malaise]

Huh. I skimmed through almost this whole thread and I'm pretty shocked. Every one seems to be saying the difficulty with this clan is that you try to take the home island while staying Buddhist and then have to deal with religious revolts in your homelands or convert to Christianity but then have poor diplomacy with the rest of Japan. Am I the only one that actually allied with the Shoni who control northern Kyushu? You don't need every province to meet the victory conditions, so I'm rather surprised everyone seems to find it necessary to take the whole island for themselves rather than try creating a southern power-bloc against the mainland. I tried even allying with the Chosokabe too towards that purpose but unfortunately the Shoni declared war on them and I had to choose sides. Still, me and the Shoni have now been sweeping up towards Kyoto, taking out the Mori, the Kikkawa, the Matsuda, the Amako, the Yamana, and soon the Chosokabe as well. So, just a tip or perhaps for trying something different, simply don't try to take all of Kyushu if you don't have to.

[Zetto]

Huh. I skimmed through almost this whole thread and I'm pretty shocked. Every one seems to be saying the difficulty with this clan is that you try to take the home island while staying Buddhist and then have to deal with religious revolts in your homelands or convert to Christianity but then have poor diplomacy with the rest of Japan. Am I the only one that actually allied with the Shoni who control northern Kyushu? You don't need every province to meet the victory conditions, so I'm rather surprised everyone seems to find it necessary to take the whole island for themselves rather than try creating a southern power-bloc against the mainland. I tried even allying with the Chosokabe too towards that purpose but unfortunately the Shoni declared war on them and I had to choose sides. Still, me and the Shoni have now been sweeping up towards Kyoto, taking out the Mori, the Kikkawa, the Matsuda, the Amako, the Yamana, and soon the Chosokabe as well. So, just a tip or perhaps for trying something different, simply don't try to take all of Kyushu if you don't have to.

you can't rely on allies in this game, unfortunately - and you are giving the perfect example, they declare war on anyone, you get drugged into it or suffer diplomatic consequences. I only ally right before Realm Divide, and I got to it without getting into war a with anyone (still someone got upset about some agreement I broke - prolly a trade agreement which was ended by someone else but due to the buggy coding in this stupid game I'm still blamed)

[eeeeYooohhh!]

So Ive hit RD in my Shimazu campaign and I own about 25 provinces. My Vassal Mori is sticking with me and has about 4 provinces now, I pay them 1000 gold every few turns to keep them happy.

However I found that through converting to christian and ruling the seas as well as upgrading massively in the art of Chi this game is now easy mode. I have about 6 full stacks of samurai-Katana-No Daichi, ashi-matchlock-yari-bow and euro cannons dominating all around the map. I have 200k gold in the bank due to highly upgraded road systems/ports/farms and trading that had me making 20k a turn until RD. Im still making 6-10g a turn even with 1 trade partner due to infrastructure.

Basically a war of attrition now I dont have elite samurai but I have better balanced armies with Cannons(a huge advantage over everything) Matchlocks and highly trained spear ashigaru who can decimate Samurai without having to throw down in a melee battle for very long at all.

Basically just time to steamroll my way to 40 provinces.. This is on N/N I think im going to try Date on hard next. Shimazu ability to take trade nodes, own the seas with euro trade ships and dominate trade with 6-7clans at a time untill RD made economic management ez peazy need a bit more of a challenge.

[General Malaise]

I don't get all the people saying allies betray you. Maybe you are not paying attention to the temperament and honor descriptions of who you ally with? I've played two full campaigns on hard and only been backstabbed once, but my relation had gone to Unfriendly with them (the Asai) and they had questionable honor and aggressive temperament. In the game above I spoke of, with Shimazu, I allied with the Shoni around turn 5 and it's now over 100 and still no backstabbing.