 <\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\nAt this point, the field has been reduced to four major players: The Date to the east, shown in dark blue, our own clan, the Oda, in gold near the center, the Hatakeyama in green just to the west of us, and the Mori in bright red to the far west. Of these, the Mori clan controls the largest area, with 11 provinces, and we are close behind with our 10. The Hatakeyama control 8, and the Date control 6 of the largest provinces far to the northeast.<\/p>\n While the relatively small realm of the Date may seem like less of a threat than the larger Mori or Hatakeyama, in reality, it’s almost certainly my most immediate concern. The Date are a major clan \u00e2\u20ac" that is, one that can be played directly like the Takeda and the Oda \u00e2\u20ac" and thus has its own special units. Worse, the Date focus is on extremely powerful, high quality samurai shock troops \u00e2\u20ac" the Nodachi samurai unit. Essentially a katana samurai with less armor and armed with a nodachi (or odachi, depending on who you ask) \u00e2\u20ac" a large, katana-styled blade that better resembles a European Zweihà\u00a4nder or Claymore than any other Japanese blade in terms of weight and length \u00e2\u20ac" they are devastating on the charge and have one of the highest base melee attack stats in the game, but possess very little defense. They’re also one of the least historically-accurate units in the entire Total War franchise \u00e2\u20ac" if the nodachi or odachi were ever used on the battlefield at all, they were probably used in a manner similar to the older but similary shaped Chinese zhan ma dao: for chopping riders off of their horses. And it probably wouldn’t have been very effective in such a role anyway.<\/p>\n But hey, it’s a Big Freakin’ Sword unit. I don’t see many people complaining.<\/p>\n In any case, late-game Date tend to use their easily-produced special unit to great effect, and often steamrolls the other major northeastern clans \u00e2\u20ac" as they’re doing to the Uesugi at this very moment. Worse, expanding further to the east or north before realm divide is not in my best interests \u00e2\u20ac" I could unintentionally trigger realm divide before I have time to build a proper besieging army to send against Kyoto. Securing an alliance with the Date, then, should be considered our top priority.<\/p>\n  <\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n <\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\nUnfortunately, they’re not going for our old trick of offering useless military access in exchange for everything we want, so we may actually need to offer something of substance. I know, I know, it’s unfathomable, isn’t it? The audacity of these Date, asking for things in exchange for other things!<\/p>\n All right, fine, let’s see if there’s anything they want… <\/p>\n I’m reluctant to offer money for anything at the moment \u00e2\u20ac" even one season’s profit is that much less money that I can reinvest into our infrastructure. The Date Daimyo, Harumune, has a daughter of suitable age for a political marriage, but I don’t have anyone eligible. Damn, now I’m wishing I hadn’t jumped at the chance to immediately get Nobunaga married. I could wait for Nobuyuki, the next son \u00e2\u20ac" he’s 17 right now and could come of age at any moment \u00e2\u20ac" but I’d rather not risk waiting for a few seasons and coming back to the table with a less interested\/more power hungry Date.<\/p>\n Wait, hang on…<\/p>\n  <\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\nI could offer the third son, Oda Taneyori, as a hostage. He’s five years old right now in 1553, and I have until 1575 to finish this campaign. By the time he’s 18 and ready to come of age, it will be 1566, and I expect I’ll have either won or been wiped out by that point. In other words \u00e2\u20ac" it doesn’t matter if he gets killed, he won’t likely be relevant anyway. And if that sounds unnecessarily cold and manipulative, you can console yourself with the fact that Taneyori is a character made up by the game that never actually existed \u00e2\u20ac" the third son (technically fourth since Nobuhide had a bastard that was older than Nobunaga) was named Oda Nobukane.<\/p>\n In reality, the practice of sending family members as political hostages to other clans in exchange for various agreements was a common practice in the tumultuous, feudal landscape of this period. Indeed, the most famous of all Japanese warlords, daimyo, and Shoguns \u00e2\u20ac" Tokugawa Ieyasu \u00e2\u20ac" was a hostage of the Imagawa clan for much of his childhood. And these affairs were more civilized \u00e2\u20ac" if you can call it that \u00e2\u20ac" than the word “hostage” might imply. While there was always the implicit threat of retaliation against the hostage if the other clan did not comply with the terms of the agreement, the hostages themselves were treated with a great deal of respect, and were often educated and trained in the ways of the samurai with all of the attention and care they would have received in their own family.<\/p>\n  <\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\nThe Date are quite pleased with the suggested arrangement, and will hold Taneyori for the next two years. Let’s try not to muck things up before then, shall we?<\/p>\n Indeed, while the way directly to the east of our borders is still raging between the Hojo, Uesugi, and Date, none of the clans give us much trouble. This gives me a much needed breather to finally focus on building up the infrastructure of our hard-won provinces. <\/p>\n  <\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\nFor once, even the game seems to agree with me, as this sudden and unexpected boon occurs out of the blue the very next turn after my signing of the Oda \u00e2\u20ac" Date Alliance. Full scale production of new ashigaru begins immediately, and in the process I also spread money around for upgrading our training grounds, border castles, and farms all across the Oda realm.<\/p>\n  <\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\nWith winter, Nobuyuki reaches maturity, and I immediately offer to betroth him to Date Harumune’s daughter.<\/p>\n  <\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\nHarumune eagerly accepts, and the marriage cements our friendship with a massive boost to the relationship score with the Date \u00e2\u20ac" to a total of 237 points. As far as Shogun 2 diplomacy goes, this is pretty significant, although it will decay quickly if I don’t keep trying to appease the Date. The ultimate goal here is to create an alliance that will survive \u00e2\u20ac" at least initially \u00e2\u20ac" the onset of Realm Divide. Even a few turns could make a huge difference.<\/p>\n The next year is a productive one for the Oda. Every season brings with it another building project completed successfully, our economy is booming, and we’re producing the best trained troops in Japan.
\n  <\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\nPreferential treatment to merchants has given our economy another solid boost as well, and the army I’m building for Oda Nobunaga’s planned venture into Hatakeyama territory \u00e2\u20ac" to take the fight to the Shogunate before they can take it to us \u00e2\u20ac" is beginning to take shape.<\/p>\n So what about the other two clans I mentioned at the beginning of this post?<\/p>\n Well, the Mori have continued to expand, and now stand far above any of the other clans with an impressive 13 provinces. They are a major clan as well, focusing on naval superiority, and control much of the lucrative southwestern trade. But they’re so far removed from our realm that I do not anticipate any significant problems from them, short of a full scale naval assault \u00e2\u20ac" which is still a possibility, I might add. At some point, I’ll need to build a fleet of sufficient to guard the southern coast of our realm.<\/p>\n Of much greater concern and interest, however, are the Hatakeyama. Masters of central Japan, they control almost every province that directly borders Kyoto, and as such, present an obstacle that cannot be avoided. Fortunately, they are not a major clan by the game’s terms, and have no unique units. Moreover, they are long-standing enemies of our new allies, the Date. We can certainly turn this to our advantage and use it to curry favor with our allies when the time comes. <\/p>\n Unsettled by our lack of specific information about the strength of our soon-to-be enemy, I send one of our ninjas deep into their territory to scout out the division of their forces.<\/p>\n  <\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\nWhat I find could not be more perfect. They Hatakeyama armies are entirely tied up fighting enemies to the West, and they seem to be coming out with only minimal success. If I can finish building up Nobunaga’s army quickly, I could blitz the Hatakeyama and take three or four of their tightly-packed provinces before they could react.<\/p>\n  <\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\nBut let’s not get too ahead of ourselves. The Hojo have won a string of unexpected victories against the middling Uesugi armies, taking Musashi province’s capital Edo (which you may know today by a different name: Tokyo) and have decided to take a bold step forward into our territory, bringing a modestly-sized but well trained force of samurai to bear on Kai province.<\/p>\n It seems the war in the East is not quite as quelled as we had thought…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With the Murakami defeated, the east now looks fairly secure. Though I’ve not had the time to fortify the castles along that border, I have on the order of 45 units in the area split between three different armies. I’m now fairly confident in saying that the first phase of my plan is complete \u00e2\u20ac" […]<\/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-14971","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\/14971","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=14971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14971\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} |
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