Satsuma help please!!

[Thranton]

Hello everyone, I played my first campaign fully on normal with the Tosa clan. And it was way to easy, so I decided to and play Satsuma on hard. Well, what the hell.. My allies always seem to turn on me even with a huge strong relationship.. Leaving me with enemy armies surronding me.

So I said alright, I will just go out and destroy that Island, or at least the people who turned on me. But then everyone hates me cause I attacked on of my own, and then turn on me.. No matter what I do, I seem to get annahilated..

So what I am asking is, what does one do for the Satsume clan on hard?? And tips you can give me?

Right now, I try to build up strong relations with the people of my same faction either by trading and allying.. But that doesn't seem to work since they still turn on me..

[NEXUS12]

Satsuma on hard can be tricky if you don't get it right in the beginning. What I did was make sure I took control of the Shogun-loyalists on Kyushu (I think that's the name of Satsuma's island?), however try not to worry too much about taking all of Kyushu. Get alliances with ALL the Imperial factions at the start. If one declares war on you then chances are other Imp factions will help, or at least break their alliance with the declaring faction (They did on mine anyway).

Naval defence is a must, especially as an island clan. You MUST have military ports in all of your ports except one, which can be a trade port. Defend it from bombardment, have multiple fleets so that the enemy cant get anywhere near your trade port thanks to your zone of control. Try and build your economy while balancing troop and naval production. NEVER leave a coastal city empty, if the enemy land one decent naval invasion then they are in your back door while all your troops are at the frontline.

In terms of expansion, like I said, make sure to rid Kyushu of Shogun loyal clans, and ally with as many Imps as you can. NEVER hit a clan whose 'war declaration would harm other clan relations) cos this p****s clans off. Make sure the coast is clear before delcaring on people. Once Kyushu is safe, focus on the mainland, mainly speaking the southern area where Chosu start. (also the island to the west of Kyushu has a gold mine...)

Daimyo's honour is a nice bonus to diplomatic relations too. Try not to loot cities if you can help it, though I know they are a big bonus to your early fund, its not good in the long run. Dont attack allies or people who will harm your relations, and never threaten people at this stage in the game. Alternatively, you could make one of your small conquered clans a vassal which would give you 50% of their income, a trade partner AND daimyos honour. Though I dont like making vassals on provinces with trade goods such as copper.

Hope all this helps

[Alpedar]

Satsuma long/domination, hard/v hard (so you don't have to madly rush):
Conquering three very rich soil provinces north of satsuma and upgrading their farms = BIG money. And its better to conquer them even though they are in pro imperial hands. Just don't trade with them and don't ally them. This way you don't do something dishonourable. What makes satsuma easier, is placing strong enough fleet to block crossing between Kyushu and Honshu (main island).With the 3 very rich provinces, conquer rest of Kyushu and take either Shikoku (Tosa faction) or part of Honshu.
Build strong navy and wall south of Shikoku, straits between Shikoku and Honshu and patrol/wall north side of Honshu. This way enemy cannot reach your lands with ships, so you can have minimal garrison (for public order only, and mostly none at all). And if fellow imperials hate your guts, gut them. Or declare republic to make it official.

[wrcromartie]

Satsuma Play Guide -

I have actually played the first 30 turns of Satsuma a few times now due to the Darthmod CTD issues. Here's the best set up I have found:

#1 rule to remember is that if a clan only has 1 province, try to draw out their army into attacking you. Outmaneuver their army, often by using your navy, and conquer their capital city. Any armies outside their territory will be immediately destroyed, and armies within their territory turned into rebels, which are less aggressive and usually can be dealt with in a more advantageous position. You can also often assassinate rebels more easily and significantly reduce their stacks before you wipe them out. That way you never have to fight their main army, saving men for the next fight.

For the first 15-20 turns, only build levy armies of levy infantry & levy spearmen. I start out by researching the civic techs while I am taking the first 3-4 provinces, then switch to the low level military techs. I try to hold off on increasing development early because I am spreading myself thin and don't want to deal with a lot of rebellion.
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Start out by taking all of your armies and putting them into the ships at your capital of Satsuma. You are at war with the clan directly to your east, in Hyuga province. Take all of your armies and load them into your ships, then go straight towards their capital. In 9/10 campaigns I have started with Satsuma, the enemy clan will move their armies towards your unguarded cities. This should allow you to take out their Hyuga's capital without a large garrison, and if their armies are in your territory while you take out their city, the armies will be vaporized.

From here, I have noticed Bungo often defects to the Shogun, allowing them to declare war on you immediately. If they do not, you can just declare war on them and attack. I have actually had a game where the clans occupying the Higo and Tsukushi provinces had their armies within my zone of control during the battle for Bungo, and was able to use my allies to soften up the enemy sufficiently to take it without heavy losses for me. Those clans took heavy losses however, enabling me to continue to expand without fear from powerful rivals.

I then immediately loaded up all armies and rushed Tsushima Island, the island located north of Kyushu which has gold. I arrived as the Saga were just failing to take the city themselves, leaving it vulnerable to my follow up attack. I leave this settlement with a light garrison and a tax abatement for the near future, and sail my armies back to ambush the Buzen clan which usually turned on me...I think they felt I was vulnerable because my main army wasn't in sight. Anyway I usually was able to defeat the Buzen clan while their army was marching toward the Bungo province capital & vaporize their army as well.

If you follow this & get a bit lucky you should be able to get 6 provinces by turn 25 or so with minimal tactical genius required. I think I had to win 3 or 4 fairly interesting battles to accomplish this. In my recent campaign the AI decided to make life easier for me at this point by trying to backstab me with both the Saga and the clans controlling Tsukushi and Higo, but I was able to easily outmanoeuvre each of them and take their capitals without a fair fight. Saga made life a little difficult but was overcome with a few decent fights - leaving me control over the Island of Kyushu around turn 40.

From here you can take your pick, turtle for a while, take on the main island from the south, take the Shikoku island from Chokos, or my personal favorite is to try to quietly pile up as many of the little island provinces as you can. That way you have nice little naval invasion platforms ready for you whenever you decide to mix it up with the mainland. Vassals work for this as well, but I've found that in FoTS the AI doesn't respect my vassals and they tend to drag me into wars more often than not.

You should definitely focus on building up a navy - I actually disagree with the above poster, in my successful campaigns I mostly used trade ports, and tried to upgrade them to American districts later on. The only military ports I had were on the eastern side of the Kyushu in Bungo and Buzen.