Metsuke: Too niche to be useful?

[hippacrocafish]

I've found that in a lot of my campaigns that I'm not getting a lot of use out of my Metsuke, their role seems far too narrow to be useful in any legitimate way. Supposedly they are the 'Anti-agent' Agents, but they seem to fail even when the odds are heavily in their favor and the other two agents can do the same job with Assassination and Conversion. Bribing armies is either A) extremely costly and not worth the cash/too expensive or B) Only possible with small, inconsequential stacks that could be destroyed through combat and give my generals Experience. I don't see the point in having them oversee armies or towns because enemy agents seem to have no problems with revealing themselves (Hope no one quotes that out of context ).

So any tips for using these guys? Am I going about Metsuke use all the wrong way?

[GambleFish]

Yeah, I'd say there's something you're missing. Overseeing towns doesn't just watch for agents - it gives a significant boost to the tax rate, and thus to the income! I would recommend getting a province with a school, so you can pump out lvl 2 metsuke. At level 2 they can get +2 to overseeing towns, leaving them a respectable 4 skill at overseeing towns. Gives a good 10% boost to tax rate!

Oh, and overseeing armies can be good. Adds loyalty I think, so you can still use those disloyal bastards!

[eXistenZ]

Yeah, I'd say there's something you're missing. Overseeing towns doesn't just watch for agents - it gives a significant boost to the tax rate, and thus to the income! I would recommend getting a province with a school, so you can pump out lvl 2 metsuke. At level 2 they can get +2 to overseeing towns, leaving them a respectable 4 skill at overseeing towns. Gives a good 10% boost to tax rate!

Oh, and overseeing armies can be good. Adds loyalty I think, so you can still use those disloyal bastards!

Might try this, it's true, my metsukes just wander around, and a bit of cash is always nice

[Amaranthen]

I have huge use for them.

Bribing enemy army.

First how I train my secret police:

-When idle: Set them to overwatch town.

-When I see enemy agent: Go arrest. Do it over and over again.

-Once he is 3 stars, I spend all his points into bribing.

-Enemy full stack arrives. Ninja moves in to sabotage. Then metsuke to bribe.

Guess what? Their full stack just became 3 quarters of a stack

Then I use the bribed full stack to attack original full stack.

[Adversity]

I have huge use for them.

Bribing enemy army.

First how I train my secret police:

-When idle: Set them to overwatch town.

-When I see enemy agent: Go arrest. Do it over and over again.

-Once he is 3 stars, I spend all his points into bribing.

-Enemy full stack arrives. Ninja moves in to sabotage. Then metsuke to bribe.

Guess what? Their full stack just became 3 quarters of a stack

Then I use the bribed full stack to attack original full stack.

You must have plenty of money to bribe some of that stack...

I just use my Metsukes in a very different way. I have them travel with my army. When I capture a town, I let my army move on and leave them there, and they make sure its not unhappy. That way I can expand quickly. Also, I put one of them at a high income town. I found that only 1 metsuke affects your income, or so I think. I tried having multiple metsuke oversee my towns ans nothing increased the tax after the first one oversaw a town.

[St. Cyr]

I use them on my best economic cities, well worth the price it costs to recruit them. Otherwise they are perfect if you start getting a disloyal general.

[DeMolay]

You must have plenty of money to bribe some of that stack...

When your metsuke is specialized in bribing , he gets "-40%" to bribe costs , and coupled with the "secret police" art which is "-20% of metsuke action cost " , you can bribe entire samurai stacks for more or less what it would have cost had you produced it yourself .


Ninjas and monks have useful abilities , but i think metsuke are the most powerful agents , while a monk can incite revolts , metsuke can simply buy the settlement instead with immediate effect , also metsuke level up quite quickly and "apprehend" has high success rate even with average level metsuke . When you level them up for town overseeing , they can rack up 80% of taxes instead of default 30% , when your settlement makes over 4000 kokus , it makes quite some difference in your treasury at the end of the turn

[hippacrocafish]

Didn't realize they gave a tax bonus. :l

What happens when the other agents oversee settlements?

I know Ninja has "Establish Criminal Syndicate" but have no idea what it does and Monk has something like "Make Minister to settlement".

[daniu]

What I do is sorting the regions list by income to put the metsukes into the cities that earn most (optimizing the tax bonus effect).
In my current campaign, I have I think 5 overseeing my top towns for money and one near the front to help taking out enemy ninjas and quelling resistance.

[Slaists]

What I do is sorting the regions list by income to put the metsukes into the cities that earn most (optimizing the tax bonus effect).
In my current campaign, I have I think 5 overseeing my top towns for money and one near the front to help taking out enemy ninjas and quelling resistance.

It seems, you have 6 metsukes while the maximum is 5...

[Mabun]

My only complaint is that leveling the Metsuke is a PITA. Getting rid of agents isn't enough to level them since the AI doesn't use all that many of them, and bribing armies is both horribly inefficient if you don't want the units (very efficient if you do, though), and gets you into a war meaning you can't use it to preemptively weaken enemies like you can with the ninja and monk. So my first priority with any game is to get a Philosophical province, pump out 5 3-star Metsuke, then convert it to the +research buildings that are ridiculously sweet.

High level Metsuke are awesome though. Its the only agent that can single-handedly kill outright an enemy stack that makes a naval landing right at your capitol as all your armies are away. When that isn't going on, a free 500-1.5k gold per turn per Metsuke is always welcome.

[DeMolay]

Getting rid of agents isn't enough to level them since the AI doesn't use all that many of them

In my game , the AI use many of them all the time , it's just that it happens after mid-game when AI clans have many settlements .

My metsuke level pretty fast , clearly faster than my ninjas (but slower than monks ) , because i keep sending my metsuke on enemy territory and bribe the AI isolated single units all the time (it's cheap , cripples AI supply lines and IMO superior than sabotaging if you have funds , i use sabotaging for large armies i cannot bribe to win time ) , or apprehend their agents .

I also always have metsuke in my main army to guard against ninja assassination and monk demoralization , it can be useful particularly when you are at war with Hattori or Tokugawa

[Drowsy]

It seems, you have 6 metsukes while the maximum is 5...

If u recruit 5 and then complete the Tokugawa mission u'll end up with 6

[daniu]

It seems, you have 6 metsukes while the maximum is 5...

The maximum is given by the amount of markets you have, is there a top limit of 5?
I might be mistaken and can check again, but I would be quite irritated if that limit existed.

[Xelathur]

All the agents of Shogun 2 are good to recruit.

The Metsuke is great to have in your economic cities

In my recent Mori-Campaign, i draw in about 10k+ koku per turn from trade ( 4 nodes ) at turn 35.
This means I can bribe everything and their grandma to fight for my cause. My Metsuke's going rampant towards Kyoto!

[Lysimachos]

The maximum is given by the amount of markets you have, is there a top limit of 5?
I might be mistaken and can check again, but I would be quite irritated if that limit existed.

The maximum is given by the amount of markets, but only up to five. You can build more than five markets, but not more than five Metsuke.

[Slaists]

The maximum is given by the amount of markets you have, is there a top limit of 5?
I might be mistaken and can check again, but I would be quite irritated if that limit existed.

All agents are limited to max 5. Somebody here suggested though, one faction has a quest for the 6th Metsuke...

[Drowsy]

Though as mentioned already, don't forget to move them from your cities at some point. They are great money makers but even better money spenders Been plenty of times during or just before R/D where i was caught off guard and a quick assassinate > bribe combo saved the day

[♔DARTH LEGO♔]

My way of using a Metsuke is kind like a National prosecutor/bounty hunter.

if there are no enemy/ unfriendly agents chopping around your province have him.

Attached to a settlement or an army with or without a suspect general- this helps if you have a particularly disloyal generals or if your Daimyos honour has any taints or consequently helps you garrison less troops in newlky acquired provinces etc

if there are enemy agents beating on the Sake dens for protection money and irritating the local geisha's get em out there for some good old Japanese street justice!

Either way they are very useful just not overly apparently

[Auditor]

tax bonus... They will boost your income