What's good campaign progress?

[Fitch3k]

Around what turn do you get to mid game? How many territories/ army stacks/arts researched is common?

I'm at turn 50 as the Shimazu (finding they are pretty boring, but when I think of samurai I think of honor and swords so I was excited to play them).
-I have their starting island Kyosho.
- 2 stacks, plus some
- strong navy
- i felt like I was doing well with the arts (got all the farm side, and traditional building, calligraphy, but I'm starting to realize I probably won't get very far in bushido)
-maxed trade partners, and 3 good allies
- I got into agents late, but one good ninja

I'm just curious what is considered to be making good progress? My clan is rated rich and terrifying, but it seems like this campaign is going no where fast. No one has attacked me since I took the island 15 turns ago, and everyone likes me. I haven't even seen a wakko pirate in over 20 turns. I don't want to just go pick a fight and hurt my honor. Is this normal for a campaign? I heard a lot about the ai relentlessly attacking you.

[Noif de Bodemloze]

You know, sometime good friends will betray you and you should be aggressive player. As you, shimazu. You should start prepare invasion to main island and heading to the Kyoto.

[eXistenZ]

it depends a lot on the campaign difficulty. on hard and higher the AI will attack you way more, and use more troops.

A good thing to look at is the realm divide bar (the yellow bar in the clan page). if it is almost full its likely realm divide will be triggered by capturing one or two extra provinces. So its important to strengthen your position prior to it (recruit more armies, save some money, improve infastructure)

You lose only honour in the following ways: - breaking treaties (like alliances or military acces), big defeat in battle with your daymo, looting, and converting to christianity. so you dont have to worry about starting a war. you just have to be carefull for the alliances/friendships that clan has

[RakeinWaiting]

Hey there,

Funny you should write this, because I'm thinking the same thing.

I'm also playing as the Shimazu and I'm doing (I think) pretty good; Kyushu is mine, as is most of southern Honshu and I'm now in striking distance of Kyoto. I've intermarried with the Chosokabe and have some good friends in northern Honshu.

Problem is, the current date is about 1570. It gives me only 30 years to take Kyoto and conquer the rest of Japan (I'm playing on Hard). Sure wish there were more turns in this game, but its good in a way: I can't just sit around in sieges anymore, I have to conquer and move on.

As for your situation, it sounds alot like mine (early on at least). Difficulty (as said) impacts your game alot, but also the amount of other clans. If there are alot of small ones still alive, the bigger clans will be busy swallowing those up. Try to keep an eye on the big ones and take action early (bribe, assasination or war), because right now, there are only 4 clans left, and only one really likes me.

Hope this helps.

Rake.

[zhiphius]

Shimazu is a easy clan to play with, their challenge lies at the start when you attempt to conquer kyushu.
Once you got kyushu though its cakewalk.... and gets boring unless you spice it up by going christian f.ex.

Clans dislike declaring war on you because you're on a island and its hard to get to you (kyushu is easily defended).

As for progress: I changed my tacs around lately, but standard was: expand in bursts. take a few provinces develope and build army to easier attack and defend then burst expand again. I usually hold 13-14 provinces early on and nearly always take tea ceremony/calligraphy for the diplomacy bonus (mainly for honor/trade income though) to prevent being too hated do to expansion penalty.
Then turtling up until i got a fully developed army before i go for realm divide.
Usual time frame is "hold provinces 1-2 shy of RD at 1550-1555" develope and research til 1565'ish, finish building super army 1570'ish, steamroll map.

Nowadays though im sick and tired of RD since it promotes certain playstyles, im way more random now ^^ beside i added mods too (inc. realm divide removal mods, ai enhancing mods etc etc) =)

Also, AI difficulty depends on the game difficulty you choose. If you find it too easy (and thus boring) increase the difficulty setting and download mods that enhances the AI =)

[zhiphius]

Oh to talk about shimazu: I go for all of kyushu as early as possible. Then i go for shikoku since that allows me to dominate the sea and eliminate the threat of sea invasions. I make sure i build new armies for this though so i can guard kyushu (stationing army in buzen i think the prov is called with navy strategically guarding the shores of the 2 islands). that nets me 13 provinces. Then i turtle up, develope, make my super army, send 2-3 stacks (what i can spare aslong as my kyushu army moves in pairs) to iwate and pincer attack them. (the iwate stacks serves as a good distraction too heh).