Hmmm... Agree that you should not start out with a short campaign. Not only are there time restrictions, but the level at which you draw the ire of the Shogunate is reached must faster, thus bringing on Realm Divide and a whole world of hurt.
So, I would also recommend that you choose the long campaign at first.
Then, choose the Shimazu as a starting point. They are a great learner Clan as they're right on the main trade hubs (which represent trade with foreign powers) - these boost your income immensely as you add trade ships. Occupy as many as possible as soon as possible in sufficient strength to protect them. Add trade ships as you can afford them and once you have sufficiently upgraded your ports. Warning: take note of which of your ports your trade routes are coming into - and guard that port with a fleet a little way out from the port (so that the fleet's zone of control still covers it). In time of war, the enemy will try to kill your trade income by blockading the ports it flows into. While raiding trade routes takes some of the trade value, blockading denies the enemy of ALL it's trade income. Don't let that happen to you, but do it to your enemy by all means. Also make sure you guard your trade nodes as well.
You're never going to avoid the other clans blobbing in vanilla S2 - all that varies is which ones will blob. I must confess it's been a LONG time since I played unmodded S2 - and the mod I like most is the one that revises Realm Divide so that if you ally with a clan and foster that alliance over time, then it will endure after Realm Divide. Not a fan of vanilla Realm Divide - having long standing allies turn on you in the blink of an eye is not funny and spoils the immersion for me. But that's a whole different story... Regardless, take great care when allying with other clans, especially early on - you may like the idea of their protection short term, but you also don't want to be dragged into their conflicts early on either, or the penalities that come from breaking your alliance if you opt out of a war. Always sever trade and/or military ties with a clan before declaring war on them as well. This avoids negative diplomatic effects.
You can't really turtle in S2, or at least not in the begninning. Expansion brings more income and food, all of which are needed to upgrade the province(s) where you're producing troops (and indeed those where your building up economy). My personal play-style is to have a few specialist provinces for troop production and the rest are money and food makers, although all must have adequate defences in place as most parts of the map are vulnerable to armies being landed by sea by your enemies. There isn't always a clear "front line" in S2 due to long coastline. Beware!
Note that as the Shimazu, once you take all of Kyushu, you have everything on the island you need to become a great power.
- Buzen will privide superior Bow and Matchlock troops over time so archery and siege engineer buildings are a must here to take advantage of the local resource.
- Hizen and Bungo can be developed to give superior warships or the Red Seal trade ship depending on how you develop the local resources.
- Higo will provide superior horses - take care as to which buildings you construct here as you will need a sword, yari or archery dojo to recruit cavalry using this type of weapon.
- Satsuma, your capital, has a blacksmith as the local resource and so you can boost melee or armor stats of your troops depending on what you want. For me it's usually better armour to enhance survivability.
At some point early(ish) in the game, especially if you're sailing around exploring the map a bit you should encounter and be offered trade with Nanban traders (event pop up). Now, this is a blessing (excuse the pun) in disguise. If you allow Nanban trade and build a Nanban harbour then you will gain early access to Imported Matchlock Ashigaru. You will also gain the choice of converting your clan to Christianity upon port completion (there really should be an ominous roll of thunder at this point). BIG choice to make. At any rate you're going to have issues once the Nanban trade port is built as it will slowly convert the local population to Christianity whether you want it to or not (and if you don't go Christian then a Buddhist temple is needed to balance out the port if I recall correctly). If you don't do that then unrest will follow. Religious unity is very important.
IMO, going Christian for me is great fun and suits my style of play (and I like things that go boom). It is a double edged sword tho. You get buffs for public order, religous conversion rates, trade (through the building and upgradung of chapels/ports) etc and early access to Imported Matchlock Ashigaru and Nanban Trade Ships - the latter pretty much assures domination of the seas and that any trade nodes you have shouldn't be threated with one or two of these around (they can pull double duty as trade ships and warships but you'd be wasting them as trade ships exclusively). Conversely, faithful Buddhist clans aren't going to be too happy about you going Christian and this will impact diplomatic relations with them, which can make life a tad more difficult. For me, I like offensive defence and getting those Imported Matchlocks early on is a great boost.
Why? Because once you have them, you don't need very many in order to defend your castles and turn them into meat grinders. You can do that anyway without them, but man to do they make it easier as they pretty much ignore armour. Heh. If you are of a mind to, watch Cosmic Contrarian's Oda Campaign (Legendary) vids
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF3thgHGUL4I; the castle defence techniques he uses - in particular the use of missle units at ramparts and spear troops below them - are what I use and they WORK. They work even better with matchlocks at the ramparts and a few archers behind to add ranged attack. You will lose some Yari Ashigaru at times, but you can really chew up attackers if you do it this way. Watch the second vid in the series to see how it works. Don't know if he originated this idea, but wow. Love it. Once you master it, it can let you defend castles with relatively cheap Ashigaru units (Yari / Bow / Matchlock) in almost all cases save for overwhelming enemy force.
I find that when at war your enemy should attack your castles eventually - they'll raid a province a bit, but eventually they'll go for the castle - I like to let them come, use the archer at rampart, Yari Ashigaru below them using spearwall technique to grind the attackers to pieces and then once he's spent his forces on my castles, I counter attack - he will hopefully have spent most of his forces attacking your defences so should be open... Works better early on. Later, you can still work this way, but the bigger Clans will have multiple stacks and the resources to make more quickly so you need to be ready to counter attack on a broader front.
Wise use of your agents will also help, in particular Metsuke - they can oversee towns and boost tax income. Put them in your most wealthy towns if money is tight. Guard your armies with Ninja and help their moral with Priests. The fastest way for your agents to gain experience and level up is to have them either in a town or embedded with an army so they are actively gaining experience points. Unless you're trying to destabilise a neighbouring region this is where I have them. Note that although you can destabilise a neighbouring region and then incite rebellion in order to attack it as a rebel provinve without going to war with it's previous owner, that owner will take note of what you've done and it will count as a diplomatic "minus" in their opinion of you. Bribing another clan's armies, towns or generals when at peace is an act of war. Still, I find destabilising a region then using a priest to incite rebellion is a great way of expanding without having to go to war with your neighbours...
Bottom line here tho is that you need to expand and you just have to pick your battles - use agents and ships to gauge your potential enemy's strengths and weaknesses and you may even have to tailor your armies to suit their force make-up. If you want tips on battles, happy to oblige there too, just say so. One tip tho - never expose your generals until the battle is won and you are asked to quit or continue - by choosing to continue rather than quitting you can boost up your general's experience by chasing down the shatterd troops at no risk to him. This over time allows your generals to more qucikly gain experience and thus traits that can add buffs to their troops etc. Do not use your general as regular cavalry unless you are sure it is safe to do so or the situation is utterly dire. Loosing him is a cardinal sin. You can however use him as bait as he is always visible... ambushes are fun.
The Chosokabe are in fact a good clan to play actually - their superior archers IMO are a great assest and will win many a battle and again suit my defence oriented mind set. Or, try the Oda - their pike Ashigaru are brutally effective - once you get access to them. All-in-all you just need to remember that you really can't turtle too much or everyone will gain a march on you. Good luck and may the force be with you, or something like that...
Please help me not be a shameful failure!
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Originally Posted by DeValiere
