Overview
Heya this is Alpha. This guide is meant for use with the full Master of Strategy Version 3 suite. It will be covering in detail one optimal approach to the new Date Clan starting position. This is not a general guide on the mod suite itself. This will be covering the first 10-15 turns and the steps necessary to set up a solid position in the early game. It will also provide suggestions on where to progress to after those early turns.
Introduction and Awknowledgements
Heya reader this is Alpha. Before we get into things here are some important details on the mods being used and where they come from.
Master of Strategy Version 3 – Steam workshop page, Total War Center Page[www.twcenter.net]
Modders:
Weierstrass: Uploader and mod suite composer
Uanime5: Expanded japan
The_Yogi: Artillery, naval mod, and Saya
Frodo45127: Himeji, Kyoto, Emfab, Real Armies and some units
Kami: 3D models, Improved saya, Animations
Dunestyler: Text editions (buildings descriptions)
Junaidi83 de Bodemloze (Dogjr): Arrow system + campaign bombardment
Twcenter: Knowledge and tools
Notes: I was using the German/English language pack and screenshots will contain some german. However all of the important words and figures are in English.
Better Maps 0.45 Beta – Steam workshop page, Total War Center Page[www.twcenter.net]
Creator:
Frodo45127
Notes: This mod has been discontinued by the creator as of 18/4/2015 after the most recent version was released. I have played with it in many Master of Strategy battles and it is stable and compatible BUT NOT REQUIRED.
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Thank you so much for your time and efforts modders.
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Overview
Game Options
This guide is done for a game as the Date Clan using the Master of Strategy mod suite.
Difficulty is Very Hard / Very Hard. (I do not regularly play Shogun 2 on Legendary)
Clan Bonus
+2 Charge Bonus to ALL units
Can recruit Date specific No-Dachi Samurai
Date No-Dachi recieve: +2 Melee Attack, +2 Charge Bonus (stacking), +1 Melee Defence
Date No-Dachi recruitment cost and upkeep are reduced: Either 10% or 20%
Generals – Date Harumune (Daimyo), Date Yoshinori (Brother), Oniniwa Yoshinao
Allies – None
Trade Partners – Nihonmatsu
At War – Mogami
Military Units – 1x Jumonji Yari Samurai, 3x Yari Ashigaru, 3x Yumi Ashigaru
Starting Position
In MoS the Date Clan no longer starts in Iwate province (which has been split into 3 new provinces). Instead they begin in Okitama province which is significantly south and west.
Pros
+ Unique Holy Site: Provides you with 3 high statline unique units, with built in 20% recruitment and 50% upkeep cost reduction.
+ Fortress from the start
+ Natural choke points: Bridge to the north-east and slow forest trek to the south-west.
+ Productive Province: x2 wealth on Province Lands buildings
Cons
– No buildings in either castle town slot
– Expansion directions are very limited
First Turn
Two Problems
The first thing you’ll recieve is a mission to kill rebels that are making a nuisance of themselves in your home province. It’s the same stock standard mission everyone gets. However this time it is the most simple of your first two problems.
Step 1: Move Date Harumune and the units in your castle just outside to the south so that they are within range to assist in a battle with the rebels. See the above screenshot and keep an eye on the yellow marker arrows.
Step 2: Have Oniniwa and his army attack the rebel army, then Auto Resolve.
An annoying quirk of those first rebel fights is that unless you fight them in the field the auto resolve only ticks once before ending the battle. The difference here is that the army is trapped inside Oniniwa’s zone-of-control from the beginning and has nowhere to go even though roughly half the army surives the auto-resolve tick.
Step 3: Rebels die. Move Date Harumune into your castle. Move his brother and Oniniwa towards the castle.
One problem down
The second problem with Date in the beginning is choosing which way to go. Mogami are set to being at war with you from the start and block your expansion to the north-east. Ashina are a long forest trek to the south-west, but do have a nice province and the Wood resource.
A few things to consider. In Shogun 2 any faction you begin the game at war with will be open to diplomacy. Sometimes they are even marked as Friendly in the diplomacy pane because they lack cetain negative modifiers that are usually added when the war is declared.
The AI in Shogun 2 considers the forest paths in between certain provinces totally viable connections even if there isn’t a road connection between your faction and theirs. In this case the Ashina is prone to Declaring War and then marching through the forest to your home Castle later on in the game.
The solution we’re going to use
The easiest path is the one with least resistance. The turns you will lose trekking that forest to Ashina are risky and painful especially with the Movement Point reductions in MoS.
Deal with the Ashina first. We’ll use that viable connection without a road to be able to create an overland Trade Agreement with the Ashina. They might still attack later in the game but in the meantime you’ll make a small bit of money, build up a positive relation modifier and best of all Import that vital Wood resource for building many of the early tier buildings.
Next step is to deal with the Mogami and set yourself up for further expansions. MoS adds in unit caps and you’ll already be at max for Yari and Yumi Ashigaru at 3 each.
Step 4: Recruit 1x Naginata Ashigaru (1 turn), 1x Katana Ashigaru (2 turns)
Mastery of the Arts
Step 5: Date has a Clan Bonus to their military and you need to quick expand in order to give yourself a stable platform to work from. The first four arts you’re going to want are the Military Arts; Bushido -> Strategy of Attack -> Strategy of Defence -> Conscription System
Dealing with Mogami
Honour Hunting
In Shogun 2 there is one particular faction wide bonus that you will want to get as soon as possible because it is very very useful. That bonus is for having a High Honour Daimyo. At 5 honour all of your cities recieve a +1 Happiness mod and all generals recieve a +1 Loyalty mod. At 6 honour those increase to +2. A high honour daimyo also grants +10 to +40 honourable daimyo relations bonus with clans that have a daimyo with lower honour than yours.
Most Daimyo start at 3 base (except Otomo, poor guy). Date Harumune starts at 3.There are three ways to increase your honour:
Through retinue items gained at Ranks 2/4/6.
Winning Heroic victories (Manual battles fought against 1:2 or greater odds with minimal casualties and using weaker unit types).
Establishing Vassals through diplomacy.
Honour items are nice but can potentially take away a slot for a better or more useful item. If there is no better option at the time then always take an Honour item even if you are at 6. You might need to Loot/Pillage somewhere later for the cash hit.
Heroic Victories are hard to trigger. Especially in Vanilla with or without mods. The easiest way to get them is by playing Otomo because Vanilla considers guns to be an inferior unit type to archers when calculating advantage. A siege defence using guns against 2 stacks is still hard but entirely possible.
Vassals. I consider these to be the easiest method. In MoS there is an abundance of smaller and weaker factions to prey upon. If you can find the best ones that don’t have any diplomatic connections and mediocre provinces all the better. A common method is to declare war when they have their full stack built up. Wait for them to attack your neighbouring Castle and defeat them on the siege defence. During your turn march at them as menacingly as possible and watch them beg for peace during their turn. Counter Offer – Vassal, Trade and maybe give them Indefinite Military Access if you think they can be useful. There’s your +1 Honour.
Mogami Time
Turn 2: You need to march towards Mogami with everything you have available. That Katana Ashigaru won’t be ready but he’s important for later. You’re still operating inside the 2-3 turn grace period where the AI won’t recruit or build anything.
Turn 3: Besiege Mogami and maintain the siege. Do not destroy him. Move your Katana Ashigaru out of Okitama and into assist range of your besieging force.
When you besiege Mogami 90% of the time he will request peace in his next turn. His province is technically worse than yours. The only thing that’s good about is it is productive with x2 Province Lands wealth. When he does ask for peace you should Counter Offer – Vassal, Trade and give Indefinite Military Access. You’re going to need him later and his province has Medium wealth so he builds his army quicker than others.
Congratulations you now have a small trade income boost to offset the extra unit upkeep, full sight on his province and a connection between the north and south coasts of western Japan. Not to mention that +1 Honour. 100% casualty free. Time to move on.
Golden Shores
Two new targets
Next turns: March your army toward the southern coast, meeting up with the Katana Ashigaru. Declare war on the Osaki clan when you have to enter their land.
Here’s the point where it stops being simple. The grace period for AI recruiting and building is over and behaviour is going to vary between games. As of Version 3 of MoS there are normal and harsh seasons to be mindful of.
Those new targets are the two closest coastal provinces.
Miyagi: Osaki Clan – Extremely high wealth. It has a Surface Gold Mine (The richest building tree in the game) and a Port. This place is going to be your early money maker.
Isawa: Tamura Clan – Medium in wealth and it has a Port. The main reason you want this is because it has an Iron Mine. One more of the three core construction resources (Wood, Iron, Stone).
There is potential for danger with the Tamura clan as it’s AI always builds a Dojo (Sword or Spear). If dealing with the Okita takes too long or you have heavy casualties your early units might not be enough. When you have enough money, start a recruitment of the Naginata Yamabushi unique unit from your home province. It will take 3 turns and has a low troop count but it has very high base stats and the ever reliable Resistant Morale trait, if no special abilities. It’s a potent all-rounder unit you’re going to want.
Siege the Osaki
They might have 1 or 2 new units by this point and they get a Tier 1 Garrison but that doesn’t matter as your army is pretty substantial and has 3 Generals. Which means 3 Inspires, 3 Rallies and 2 heavy sword cavalry units you can use to flank with minimal risk.
Ideally you’re going to want to siege -> maintain -> fight in the field. After the stat adjustments in MoS, siege attacks are things to be avoided unless they have minimal ranged units or you have artillery or guns with their superior piercing and slight range advantage.
In my MoS Version 2 Date game they sallied and it was a simple fight. In my current Version 3 game they did not. The siege starve times are much longer now with a 12 turn year. If they stay inside the walls then you’ll have to plan ahead for when the Tamura have a larger force.
Waiting Game
The Tamura are your priority but you’ll have to be mindful of the Oshika Clan up the coast from the Okita who you are besieging. Both will have more time to recruit if you get stuck in an extended siege. I’m not a fan of Draft Ashigaru units. Their morale is terrible and the larger unit size only means they can get attacked by more enemies at once. If you have to recruit any Draft units I suggest ONLY get Draft Katana or Draft Yumi. Katana units have an inherent bonus against other infantry which means they are the most reliable of the Draft units (provided you protect them from cavalry). While Draft Yumi don’t have to worry about their awful morale because they are only there to sit back and shoot.
While waiting on the siege recruit a draft unit or two. Base it on how your income is going vs the potential upkeep cost (I went with x2 Yumi and 1x Katana). When units are ready march them towards your main army.
Home is kind of boring
Date’s home province of Okitama is an inland, medium wealth province with some unique monk units. Even with the Dewa Sanzan temple it’s just ordinary. Early on you’re not going to be building anything there. Don’t bother. Your money should be going to more important things.
When you do eventually have the money to spare consider using it as a Strategic Resource location. It’s not special as a recruitment location outside of the Yamabushi of which you can only recruit one of each. The home province bonus of +1 to recruitment slots helps you out early but in MoS it’s not that big of a deal.
Make use of that Productive x2 modifier and build one of the more wealth heavy resource buildings. I suggest you go for the following setup.
Castle Town:
Slot 1 Wise Man House ->->-> Military Academy
Slot 2 Traders -> Artisans -> Washi Mill
Province:
Province Lands -> Silk Workshop
Village -> Farmer’s Village
Fortress is -2 Food. Silk and Farmer’s are +2 and Farmer’s Large Town makes it +3 eventually. You’re going to want a Military Academy somewhere for the clan wide bonuses and the Silk and Washi Paper resources are necessary for certain specialist buildings. It’s a highly defensible province and a good place to put those things.
Striking Gold
As the hold-out count on the Osaki clan’s castle drops they will likely sally out to attack you after 3-4 turns. During this waiting time the Mogami will finish building their army up and will march to join you in your war. Vassals will always join you in wars, even if you aren’t the one who starts it.
In my game the Mogami and my new recruits weren’t close enough to help before the Osaki sallied.
Didn’t need them though. Like I said it’s a simple fight and you have the advantage.
Iron Clad Start
In battles as the Date you’re going to want to be the one charging 100% of the time. Even on the defense try to set yourself up in a position where you can charge down a slope, out of trees or over a rise. Set up somewhere that reduces the effectiveness of the ranged units or use your own to soak fire. Get them to come as close as possible.
If you manage to blitz the Osaki clan during their turn on the sally then you get to walk in to their castle, get a turn of replenishment and deal zero damage to facilities.
Don’t wait till Tamura
If the Mogami are out of their castle heading towards the newly taken Miyagi province then DO NOT WAIT. You’ll want to declare war against the Tamura immediately and march out from Miyagi towards them. Otherwise the Mogami will turn around back home and you’ll waste time and a valuable opportunity to have them support you.
You’ll also want to keep an eye on whether or not the Tamura are upgrading their castle. The bigger garrison is something you don’t want to have to deal with this early. In my game they had already started.
Winter is coming I’m sorry I’ll stop
Depending on how long everything took up to this point it might be winter. Or just becoming winter.
If you’re super lucky then during Mogami’s turn he’ll move far enough to be in assist range straight away. But to balance out my luck I got a Severe Winter this year…
Ordinarily I would suggest waiting a turn of Winter and trying to provoke the Tamura into sallying and fight them on the field but Severe Winter has 1000% increased attrition… so nope.
With Mogami’s help however the Tamura shouldn’t be a hard fight. Either you fight it on the field and let Mogami go first (Vassals have 99 uses, inlcuding pincushion and meat shield) or auto resolve. With the advantage bar stacked 2/3 in your favour you won’t suffer many losses.
Congratulations! You now have a solid 3 province base from which to forge ahead for the glory of the Date clan. Once you get public order issues ironed out (which might involve stopping taxes in Miyagi temporarily) then you’ll be making a decent bit of money for 10-15 turns into the game.
Tips on Expanding
+ Use the Provinces tab.
Knowing how wealthy your neighbours are and what resources they have is useful for planning out which way to send your armies or who to make trade agreements with. Once you have a ninja you can send him off scouting for the resources you don’t have yet. A freebie, unless you want to build a Stone Mine then go north. You’ll have to fight through a 2 clan alliance that is potentially tricky but it’s that way.
+ Look for strategic resources.
Master of Strategy’s building system is built on inter-dependencies across multiple tiers. Tier 1 of something needs Wood. Tier 2 might need Stone now or Washi Paper. One Tier might need a resource you can only get from an earlier Tier. Even if you have to build secondary source buildings in a back end province you are going to need those resources and need to keep them. The Veteran units and Heroes each need one of the rarer resources so plan ahead.
+ Always check on Diplomacy.
Who has allies. Who is a vassal or has vassals. Who has enemies, how many? What is a factions military strength. Feeble -> nothing. Weak -> 4-7 units. Moderate -> 8 to 20. Strong -> 21 to 30s. Are some rough indicators.
+ Don’t take out everyone.
Every province you take increases Administrative Costs which directly reduce Tax Rate percentages. Also sometimes it’s better to have a trade partner, or a vassal (+Honour) or a buffer state between you and multiple others. Plan ahead. Total war can go from totally peaceful to total mess in a few turns and the slower armies in MoS can make thoses messes into nightmares if you’re not careful.
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That’s it for now. If you’d like me to add in more detail somewhere or want to ask questions about the mod or Shogun 2 in general then don’t be a stranger. Thank you for reading. -Alpha
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