Questions about a FotS tier 1 modernisation campaign

[wealthmonger]

I'm going to be doing a coop campaign where both us will try to stay at tier 1 modernisation and only use traditional units. A legendary, long campaign, imperial clans, large unit size, small fleet size.

Where should each of our domains be located?
I'm thinking one of us should be in central honshu and the other on kyushu but this is only based on good soil fertility and resources in those areas.

Should we loot if it's worth a decent amount?
I'm thinking loot and repair then use the remainder to start the business chain(inn) or traditional chain(dojo)

It seems we'll need tea and silk for those chains so where's a good area to take so that one or both of us can have those resources?

How low should our modernisation be before we take another province?
I'm thinking it should be 1 1/4 or 1 1/2 at the most before taking another province.

Should we keep it strictly traditional or should we allow ourselves to use levy infantry? and I don't recall, do the imperials get something like shinsengumi units and if so should we allow ourselves to use those(can we even get those with tier 1 modernisation)?

Should we take and loot a province that's worth alot in the early campaign like yamashiro or musashi?

Since their aren't any traditional ships, should we put a cap on ship types that we can use, perhaps not have any ship better then a kaiten?

Tax policy what should it be?
I'm thinking fluctuate between very high and normal taxes since we won't be making much money

Should we try to grab provinces with resources that don't add to modernisation like clay, silver, smuggler or go for provinces with the best soil or a mix of both?

What 2 imperial clans would be best for this?
I'm thinking Tsu and either satsuma or saga

How quickly should we expand and when should we hit RD?
I'm thinking expand as quick as we can as long as we don't hit tier 2 and then hit RD after we've built some 2nd or 3rd level buildings from inn and dojo lines

Should we each recruit a half stack and go on a slow rampage thru shogunate territory, loot, destroy everything and move on letting it rebel?
Just a thought to give us some money and reset those provinces so they won't be heavily modernized when we later take and keep them

Anything else you can think of?

[Cruzz]

Sorry, but I'm just going to say this is nearly impossible with an unmodded game. It only takes 4 points of modernization to go from Tier 1 to Tier 2, and the full value of modernization will count for next turn when calculating if you go up a tier or not even if you demolish everything in the town the turn you capture it. You'd have to mod the game to either give a lot more -modernization to some buildings, or raise the cap on the first level (both changes will make the AI easier as they won't be able to tech either). Without modding, you're unable to capture any province that the AI develops early game.

Staying at Tier 2 is perfectly possible, and leads to mostly the same result anyway. The modernisation point threshold for going up to level 3 is an additional 8 points (for a total of 12 modernization points). With this, capturing any single province won't make you level up as long as you were at 0 modernization on the bar (it actually is possible to have over 20 modernization points in a single province, but the AI is hardly going to build that much stuff even on legendary long campaign)

[wealthmonger]

We've almost finished a tier 2 campaign. Despite building a few trade ports, trading district and a few higher level farms, we we're able to keep the modernisation flat lined at tier 2. It's even possible to throw in a few railroads and still be only slightly over tier 2. So I'm thinking it must be possible to stay at tier 1 providing mahjong's and dojo's are built before taking another province. Assuming it takes all the +/- modernisation into account. Shrine provinces like yamato can also give -2 modernisation, that should also help. Just a theory at this point.

[Cruzz]

I'm too used to thinking of the singleplayer experience. Indeed, as you're playing a co-op and a long campaign to boot you hardly have the same amount of pressure to cap certain provinces as I did. That said I've seen some weird behaviour with what order modernization is counted in (if you're 1 modernization away from a level change, and you have both a demodernization and a modernization building finishing that turn, you'll go up a level, for instance) so you really do need to be quite careful with remotely developed provinces when trying to stay on T1.