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Learning Japanese Geography Through Samurai and Feudalism 2

I started playing this a long time ago, dropped it, but now I decided to try it again, and for real this time. Out of the clans, I was immediately interested in the Otomo from the expansion.

[spoiler="Short version of the report for Arandors"][/spoiler]

And why not, since it's a unique religious mechanic! Not to mention that in Rome I was used to solving all problems with cavalry, and my first playthrough of this game was also an attempt as Takeda -- but here you're supposedly meant to use firearms, which is unusual!
Looking ahead, it was absolutely the right decision in every way.

The first thing I saw was that, according to the game, it was near my capital that the Portuguese were shipwrecked some years ago and established a settlement. And now this settlement is my unique building and, in theory, will allow me to relatively quickly get strong units with firearms, the Portuguese terços (arquebusiers?). At the same time, weaker versions of shooters, namely ashigaru with guns, are available to me from the very start, although they cost more than other ashigaru and have a smaller unit size. In addition, I happened to have an elite kobaya with teppo at sea, instead of bows like everyone else, woohoo! Though I can't build new ones like that right away.

From a religious perspective, Christian churches rule because they provide a better boost to science than Buddhist temples. Building the first chapel immediately gave a good boost to the experience of hired gunners. That's where the good stuff ended. First of all, I might be a bit of a noob, but I initially found it pretty difficult to fight two houses at once (the war starts from the get-go). The AI builds its army pretty quickly and moves it towards you, so you need to fight on two fronts. But at the same time, when you capture an enemy province, you get another problem -- it's impossible to hold it without a serious garrison. Yep, hello, religious discord. At the start of the game, you don't have money for development, the army, AND hiring a bunch of missionaries (I had one), so you end up completely constrained. My attempts to strengthen my position by making alliances resulted in my allies fighting each other and then demanding to know why I wasn't helping any of them. And, I should say, because of the constant religious penalty to diplomacy, making friends in this game was difficult.

Nevertheless, in battle, the guns ruled. As in the picture, my ashigaru quite successfully shot down, maybe not samurai, but all other ashigaru -- halving the infantry ranks -- and also always won shootouts against archers with certainty. But with cavalry, it quickly became clear that I wouldn't really be able to fight with it -- because spears are everywhere. The cheapest ashigaru are yari ashigaru. The most accessible samurai are yari samurai. As a result, for every attempt you make to flank or get behind the enemy, there's bound to be some nasty spearman standing nearby who will thin out your horsemen. And overall, cavalry was only strong on the charge; any prolonged melee, even against archers, ended poorly.

By the way, I said guns ruled in battle -- and that's true. But not entirely. Storming cities with firearms was quite... sketchy. Guns are ideal for defending these same cities, when you stand on the wall and shoot everyone with impunity, but in an assault, the situation is reversed -- you can't shoot over the walls (except at those standing right next to them), and sending ashigaru to climb those walls is suicide. In short, no matter how you look at it, it's a purely defensive faction. Well, all my wars were "defensive" anyway -- they were declared on me, not the other way around...
When I captured my enemy's provinces across the strait, when I captured one province of the Shoni (I left the second one as a vassal -- remember about garrisons, and here money just flows in from trade and tribute), when I defeated the Ito and eventually captured my entire home island of Kyushu... The Mori attacked me, and I realized that what came before was just the prologue, and the real heat was starting now. Of course, in terms of the number of provinces (which was comparable to mine) and armies, the Mori were already a formidable opponent, but the main action was on the water. And then I suddenly realized how strange naval battles are in this game.

They are downright buggy. When you attack an enemy fleet twice your size, their ships just sit in a line and don't move until you approach. You approach them from the side -- the nearest ships start a shootout with you, the rest don't react at all. Moreover, you could easily see that AI ships have preferred targets. That is, if you attack a certain kobaya with two kobayas, you see that their ship only shoots at one of yours. You pull the targeted ship away to the side -- the enemy ship stops shooting, and doesn't care that there's another target right next to it. Exploiting all this, I doubled and then tripled my fleet without any problems (almost, if it weren't for those fire arrows, ugh!), by alternately attacking groups of ships I could handle and capturing them through boarding. The bonus was that Mori ships are better than standard ones -- at least in terms of crew size.
However, the funniest bug was when, after my victory in a naval battle, my house's heir-general sailed away from me on an enemy ship.

On land, everything was generally normal. Just before the war, I received Portuguese terços

as a reward for a mission and transferred them to a city bordering the Mori along with some other relatively free troops. Guess who almost single-handedly shot up and then cold-bloodedly finished off an entire army of samurai in melee combat? I didn't even have a general there; I couldn't take any from the Ito provinces, which were itching to rebel.

In the northwest, I go on the offensive with a small detachment of ashigaru, capture an empty province with a gold mine, and lease the land to the Portuguese (I was sure the Mori would immediately take this province back from me, but here's an easy 4500k money). Happily spend the dosh on building a foreign trade ship in the capital (it's like a normal trade ship, but with cannons and a crew of three hundred, haha, although it costs a fortune). As a result, no one ever tried to take that gold province from me. Okay...

Still, the real problem was with finances. At the start of the game, I didn't understand what was what and didn't capture a single trade post. As a result, they were all taken, which was sad... I still tried to get by by signing trade agreements with absolutely everyone who agreed -- but the Mori kept pirating my trade routes with small flotillas for a long time, adding a considerable fly in the ointment to this strategy. After roughly halving the Mori's provinces, I made peace with them, demanding seasonal tribute, and prepared to rest a bit. The next season, the Mori declared war on me again. I made a "Well, fine, if I must!" face and captured another province from them, making peace again. This time, I demanded all the money at once, not in installments.

This moment became critical for me. Yes, for once, thanks to trade agreements, my diplomacy was finally going well. Yes, I even got a good "friend," namely the Chosokabe clan, who converted to Christianity and became as smooth as silk. Furthermore, constant wars and pirates forced almost everyone (except Chosokabe and Date in the north) to vacate their trade posts, which I immediately filled with a full set of trade ships. I even, albeit with difficulty, captured the European Black Ship through an event! Oh, how panicked I was at first, because this thing only needed one, sometimes two, volleys across the entire map to rout any of my little ships. The strategy that saved me was a shootout with my trade ship, which, though clearly weaker in terms of firepower, turned out to be morally and physically tough enough to distract the enemy. And I spammed the enemy with fire arrows and boarding attacks, and its morale couldn't take it.

And all this was fine, I had about 15 provinces, but the Shogunate was already about to declare war on me. One more province -- and that's it. And if the Shogunate declares war on you, then everyone who isn't your ally declares war too.

At first, I didn't like this approach; I perceived it as dumbly skipping turns while all the interesting stuff happens around me. But in the end, I used this time productively, boosting the economy and saving up money for metuske actions (an agent who keeps order and can bribe), and I didn't regret it. I bought a bunch of agents -- ninjas, and, most importantly, priests. By now, I knew how to handle them -- the most powerful tool is inciting rebellions. Cheap and effective.

By the end of the standoff, I had a powerful alliance consisting of me, my vassal Shoni, Chosokabe, Date, and Yamana. And although everyone except Chosokabe turned out to be absolutely useless, and even a bit harmful, in military terms, the massive trade with them helped me not really feel the exterminatus that the Shogunate declared on me. It was captured in the shortest possible time, after I captured the Mori province adjacent to it and bribed part of the Shogun's troops, and in my favorite way -- I attacked the remaining army in an open field, and the garrison from the city came to that army's aid. Well, almost all of them were wiped out there; I take no prisoners -- although I still took the capital itself through auto-resolve.

Unfortunately or fortunately, even the most correct and perfect assault on a serious fortress is a considerable test of skill, adaptability, micromanagement, and many other things. I was hoping I could buy European cannons and blow everyone away, but -- no such luck. Cannons don't hit living targets very well; in terms of castle structures, you can at most destroy one gate and one tower (and so what? Any infantry does the same without any problems using Molotov cocktails). However, if we digress a bit, cannons are good in an open field -- not so much for their greater killing power (which is true), but because they force the AI to do absurd things; it immediately aggroes and goes on the attack.

Anyway, I became Shogun, everything was fine, then I conquered the Ikko-Ikki (another powerful religious power, though!). Having a good army, plenty of provinces for unit bonuses, and a decent amount of money, I no longer hesitated to build churches, which, together with metuske, helped me get by without particularly large garrisons and advance further. The Ikko-Ikki were a tough nut to crack, and they loved cavalry, but I was doing pretty well too; the carbine cavalry were especially helpful, incomparable to the enemy's light cavalry.

Meanwhile, the diplomacy penalty from realm divide kept growing... And after I officially got crowned and received the elite Shogun ship... And after reaching 25 provinces (short campaign)... And it was already over -100...

I wanted to quickly finish off the Ikko-Ikki and Takeda for fun and have peace and friendship, but no, first Yamana declared war on me, then Date... Both right after I gave them monetary gifts to appease them, hmm. And Shoni rebelled against their liege, but I was ready -- immediately suppressed them.

In short, I spammed everyone with agents, conquering them bit by bit, but it's already less interesting, and everything is clear in principle. Chosokabe won't fight me for a few seasons yet, but it's possible that at the end of the game, their algorithm will force them to rebel too. If the beginning was sweaty, the middle made you think, stop, and smell the cherry blossoms, then towards the end everything became far too algorithmic and mechanical with this endless realm divide penalty. But, I've already formally won, so maybe it wasn't intended for anyone to keep playing and evaluating beyond that )) Although it is logical, you need to make sure the political system you created is stable, lest it collapses like the Macedonian Empire.

Overall, I found it very interesting; I probably spent way more time on it than I should have, but all that planning completely captivated me. As I said, I really liked absolutely all the features of the clan; I could very clearly feel where you have advantages and where you have difficulties that you pay for with those advantages. A good faction, a good game.