{"id":13582,"date":"2011-10-03T13:22:45","date_gmt":"2011-10-03T18:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=13582"},"modified":"2011-10-03T13:25:28","modified_gmt":"2011-10-03T18:25:28","slug":"josh-plays-shogun-2-part-4-the-games-afoot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=13582","title":{"rendered":"Josh Plays Shogun 2 Part 4:<\/br> The Game’s Afoot!"},"content":{"rendered":"

splash_shogun2_josh.png<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

Last time, we left off with the Tokugawa sallying-out from their castle to meet our besieging forces.<\/p>\n

shogun60thumb.jpg<\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

As I mentioned last time, besieging a castle and forcing the enemy to sally out to try to break the siege before they’re forced to surrender is almost certainly the best method I’ve found to deal with well fortified castles. It can take several turns longer than it would to simply assault the castle immediately, but you’ll suffer far fewer casualties than you would otherwise.<\/p>\n

This is primarily because in Shogun 2, unlike some of the older incarnations of Total War, the AI is very strict about its role in combat. If the AI is on defense, it will secure a defensive position and wait for you to engage. If it’s on offense, it will attack you directly until all of your units rout or all if its does. <\/p>\n

Of course a quirk of this behavior is that the AI will not actively attempt to dislodge you from a good defensive position if you are defending. Which means we can abuse the hell out of hills and forests to force the AI into a blind, uphill charge.<\/p>\n

shogun4-1thumb.jpg<\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

shogun4-2thumb.jpg<\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

Jumping right in, I deploy my forces to the top of this forested hill. The trees will, again, reduce the damage of my own archers, but the AI isn’t going to sit around and skirmish with me, they’re going to charge the hill, and once the melee is joined, my archers will cease to be relevant anyway. I would much rather reduce the damage their archers can do to my melee troops.<\/p>\n

shogun4-3thumb.jpg<\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

I also have reinforcements coming in from far behind the hill, but they probably won’t arrive before the Tokugawa reach my position.<\/p>\n

shogun4-4thumb.jpg<\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

And here we go. The Tokugawa rush out of the trees and straight up the hill. Their archers stop at the base of the hill and open fire on my own archers, but with my bow ashigaru in loose formation and in a forest, it won’t do a whole lot.<\/p>\n

shogun4-5thumb.jpg<\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, my spear-walled yari ashigaru are making easy work of the enemy infantry. This screenshot was taken only fifteen seconds or so after our lines met, and two of the enemy spear units are already wavering. That’s how much of an advantage higher ground can give you.<\/p>\n

I’m holding my yari samurai in reserve, and you can see my rushing them to the other side of my lines \u00e2\u20ac" at the time it looked like an enemy general might try to slip past. In retrospect, this was probably unnecessary as my reinforcemens, which you can see to the far right, were nearly to my lines and ended up intercepting the enemy general and nearly killing him before my yari samurai even got there.<\/p>\n

shogun4-6thumb.jpg<\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

With one enemy general down and their front lines breaking, my two reserve units rush forward to engage the enemy archers in melee and stop them from firing at my own units. The other enemy general (which you can see in the middle of the above image) couldn’t figure out which unit he wanted to fight, and ended up sandwiched between my front lines and my reserves after the last of the infantry was mopped up.<\/p>\n

shogun4-7thumb.jpg<\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

With both generals dead, the only thing left to deal with are the enemy archers, both units of which quickly break under the pressure and retreat. This battle is over.<\/p>\n

Glory shot of my general hunting down some fleeing, bow-armed peasants:<\/p>\n

shogun4-8thumb.jpg<\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

Of course, since we killed twice as many troops as we lost, defeated essentially every male Tokugawa family member in a single battle, and utterly crippled the Tokugawa as a military force, we got…<\/p>\n

shogun4-9thumb.jpg<\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

…a “close” victory. Thanks, Shogun 2. Keep singing the praise.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately we didn’t quite wipe out every military unit the Tokugawa possessed, so we didn’t automatically take the castle.<\/p>\n

shogun4-10thumb.jpg<\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

Also of concern is the turmoil on our western border. The Tsutsui have wiped out the friendly Kitabatake and taken Ise for themselves, and they’re not nearly so amiable. They’re at war with the Hattori at the moment, which will hopefully keep them occupied for the time being, but I’m not going to take my eyes off of the west any time soon. To help smooth things over, I negotiate a trade agreement with them. Hopefully, that will keep that satiated.<\/p>\n

shogun4-11thumb.jpg<\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

Now, to finally take Mikawa.<\/p>\n

shogun4-12thumb.jpg<\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

No losses, which means the only further damage this siege caused was to the castle itself, which can easily be repaired in a turn.<\/p>\n

shogun4-13thumb.jpg<\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

Capturing Mikawa has completed the mission we received a few turns ago, increasing the number of units we can recruit in a turn from any given castle. Given our tumultuous relationship with the surrounding clans, this will almost certainly prove very useful.<\/p>\n

Lastly, the sake den I commissioned in Mino is complete. Yes, that’s “sake” as in “Japanese rice wine” – I commissioned the construction of a bar. And who hangs out in bars?<\/p>\n

shogun4-14thumb.jpg<\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

Ninjas! It’s the perfect place to practice throwing makeshift farm implements and disguising yourself as a hedge!<\/p>\n

In all seriousness, the image of black-bathrobe-clad legendary shadow warriors that could hide anywhere and kill anything is almost certainly apocryphal, but ninjas \u00e2\u20ac" or shinobi \u00e2\u20ac" did in fact exist. In reality, they were probably utilized in a similar manner to spies and assassins in medieval Europe \u00e2\u20ac" espionage, assassination, and sabotage \u00e2\u20ac" though there are accounts of ninja being used on the battlefield directly as well. The idea that they were strictly peasants who fought exclusively against their “samurai oppressors” is also almost certainly not the case, as the first ninja arose from mercenaries and spies for hire in the Iga and Omi provinces depicted in Shogun 2, and they were probably hired by various daimyo during the Sengoku Jidai.<\/p>\n

In any case, in Shogun 2, they’re one of the four classes of agent (though there is also a battlefield version of the ninja that I’m quite partial to using in multiplayer as well). You can use them to spy, assassinate other characters, sabotage armies and castles, and increase the range and sight of your own army. They’re indispensable for planning campaigns and making sure your enemy doesn’t surprise you.<\/p>\n

shogun4-15thumb.jpg<\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the ninja I recruited was too late to alert me to the absolutely massive Imagawa force marching on Mikawa. The taste of victory may prove very brief for us, as it’s become very clear just how far I’ve overextended myself.<\/p>\n

This is very frustrating to me, as I’ve actually made this very same mistake before, on a prior legendary Oda campaign. I wasn’t able to win, and the Imagawa dealt me a massive setback that eventually spurred me to give up the campaign and start over. Obviously, that isn’t really an option here \u00e2\u20ac" I’m playing this through to the end. I was even expecting a large Imagawa force to show up, but I never expected anything as large as nearly two thousand<\/i> men. <\/p>\n

Well, I suppose there was always going to be a point in this campaign where I would have to step away from the easy battles. Next time, well see just how well things go for us when we are forced to face overwhelming odds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last time, we left off with the Tokugawa sallying-out from their castle to meet our besieging forces. As I mentioned last time, besieging a castle and forcing the enemy to sally out to try to break the siege before they’re forced to surrender is almost certainly the best method I’ve found to deal with well […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[188],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spoilerwarning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}