Having trouble surviving

[Derfasciti]

I got Shogun 2 on Steam a week or two ago and I've already dropped close to fifty hours on it. I love it! May be my favorite TW game yet. There's only one problem - I suck at it. Since I've gotten it I have played multiple tries at the Date, Shimazu, and Chosokabe. I have only beaten the campaign ONCE on easy as the Chosokabe clan. The other times I tried it on on Normal and just have so much trouble.

I usually start off doing relatively fine - making money and conquering my way through enemy's lands. But once Realm Divided hits (if not before) I hit some serious roadblocks. As the Date in particular I have found it very difficult to maintain my grip on power for long once Realm Divide hits. For some reason I tend to have limited income because I have to keep quite a few provinces with no taxes in order to allow me to keep up the momentum of my advance, and It seems to be very difficult to maintain a few armies fighting the clan's enemies on the front lines while still maintaining an army or two or three closer to home to protect against the inevitable amphibious invasions. So in my last try, for example, as the Date I stormed almost to the gates of Kyoto, but then various loyalist rebellions behind the front lines started capturing many of my provinces, then I had an enemy amphibious landing close to my starting provinces (again, I had no army to defend those areas with.) My front line armies being bogged down in repressing rebellions and fighting off invaders, combined with so many rebellions and an amphibious assault; I just decided to give up.

So I need some tips on how to deal with these general/clan-specific problems. Having read through some of the guides, I think I'm one of the few who are having so many troubles playing on lower difficulties.

[Dynamo11]

We all struggled with Realm Divide in Vanilla. My best advice? Download a mod that changes it.
I personally use Darthmod as it fixes a lot of other stuff

[DeliCiousTZM]

Im a head to head multiplayer player and i play on Legendary. If your english is good hit me up at Skype Henrik-ELC ill tell you some techniques.

[eXistenZ]

The difference between normal and hard is huge. but assuming you play on normal:

Realm divide is indeed a huge difficulty. but you can prepare yourself. It hits when the yellow bar is full, and the bar gets filled mainly by conquering regions. so just before it hits, stop conquering and start preparing: save up some cash, move troops around, and recruit a few navies to stop incoming naval invasions.

To get more cash, do the following:
-trade with as many clans as possible, for as long as possible. some will ask you a small sum for a trade agreement,but you can win that back in a few turns.
- dont unnecesarily upgrade castles. castles that arent at the frontline, are only good to make money, so build a sake den or level 1 market (higher level markets require more food). and upgrade your farms. that way you will have plenty of food left, adding greatly to your town wealth. Sake dens improve happines, so less need for garrisons.
-put metsukes in the wealthiest regions, so you get the biggest tax bonus. an extra 10% tax in a province with 1000 wealth is a waste if you have a 3000 wealth province.
-roads are vital, not only for trade, but also for fast troop movement en replenishment

The castles you do upgrade, are in provinces with specialities, like smiths, horses and artisans. Make these your unit producing centres. combine them with the right encampment building: a master bowmaker with a hunting lodge gives +25 accuracy.

In order to keep the population happy of newly conquered regions, let a small ashigaru stack follow your main army. they can act as garrison, so you can keep your momentum with your main army. also helpfull is a high honour dyamo, which gives a happines boost


At the realm divide stage, its also usefull to use two stacks combined, to attack one enemy stack (and autoresolve). it reduces casualties hugely. Use ninjas to sabotage armies so they cant reinforce, allowing you to pick them off on by on.

[wolfbane751]

in a hard campaign as uesugi i was able to take on realm divide with an equally strong ally in oda who almost rivalled me except that we were competing for the shimazu region so one turn i decided to save and declare war on them and the next turn a 15k army in like 3 stacks arrived at kyoto with many other full stacks arriving on my borders :/ needless to say i lost kyoto so i reloaded my save and never touched the campaign after that lol would have been to much hassle dealing with oda when i would have to declare war on them

[Lord Dakier]

Ok I'll break this down to help you out.

NAVY - A strong navy is needed for realm divide. The strongest navy is needed should you own the two major islands. Last thing you want is to be in some far off campaign and have a land invasion which the AI is brilliant at in S2. You will also need to protect the trade nodes you have gain should you be more towards the left of Japan. You will want a small navy force that can hinder your enemies plans by blockading ports. I forced Chokosabe into an alliance while previously being at war with them just by blockading a their main port and leaving them with no funds (before realm divide). Remember any way you can lower your oppositions funds while at war means they can't keep as many forces on land or sea.

FINANCES - In S2 losing your main port will quite often bankrupt your entire campaign so you must have it well defended and stead amount of funds in the bank ready for such a crisis or the emergency need for raising an army to defend a new front. Throughout your campaign you should be advancing buildings so you earn more koku. In the Shimazu island of Kyushu I had every province build at least a market place. Advancing it only in major towns. Garrison can be great use when protecting yourself but it's no good in a province nowhere near a front-line. Providing you can raise troops quick enough when you need them your good.

ARMY - You need at least two for realm divide but I recommend having 3-4. This does not have to be 3-4 professional armies. Having Ashigaru mixed with samurai units is vital to keeping upkeep at a low. When you lose too many forces try to keep them in a castle so even if they do get attacked they will have those extra defences to protect them.

ARTS - I like to make sure I at least have all the basic fighting arts, they enable you to win on the battlefield more easily which is always nice. A must for me is the happiness arts, they allow you to blitzkrieg your enemies at a much quicker pace. You'll notice how you can attack a settlement, leave it for the next and in the next turn the damaged fortress will be repaired and the population happy.

DIPLOMACY - There's not much you can do for diplomacy after realm divide unless playing a mod, but it's always nice to have a decent little vassal who will hold your enemies at bay. If your vassal is peaceful then they're usually little help but sometimes they can help push your enemies back or at least hold them off. In any case they can act as a good chokepoint which forces your enemies to move out of your way.


That's really all that comes to my head at the minute. On another note, this was one good comment earlier which I didn't know;
-put metsukes in the wealthiest regions, so you get the biggest tax bonus. an extra 10% tax in a province with 1000 wealth is a waste if you have a 3000 wealth province.