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I could post at length about ways to start out with each of the clans in the base game, but it would be a long post.
So, if you specify a clan, I can give you some campaign opening advice for that game, or, if you prefer, send me a request and we c an fire up the start of a co-op campaign and I'll walk you through opening moves for a few clans.
*Get your home province to lvl3 ASAP(this is a rule of thumb, if your're a corner camping faction you don't have to necessarily do this, you will have a better choice which province to get to higher levels for army recruitment. Upgrading the castle will make it far easier to defend ,ai will have to climb two sets of walls and you can garrison it with under half a stack and no more, its cost effiecent and protects you from getting ganked.
For fall of samurai
*Get you defenses upgraded to level 2 (4500) ASAP in home province(again if corner camping you have a better choice or where to upgrade or maybe you wont need). Level two defenses makes the upgrade equivalent to a lvl3 castle in shogun 2 so its a good investment. In obama case it would be far easier to hold with a few units whilst you expand west. Obama is tough though because you also have Tsu coming from south so you need to decide where to put that upgrade I think the first province you conquer is best to upgrade defenses, and leave your home provicne to fend for itself, its lso low yield province anyway.
What do I do to go aggressive early game? Can't really afford much of an army, and you can only recruit crap. How do I move aggressively before my allies take everything?
If we are talking FOTS then they aren't your allies. Until realm divide occurs the whole Shogunate/Imperial thing is more of a slight suggestion. They will switch allegiances at the drop of a hat and attack you. So attack them if you don't have any good targets of the opposite faction.
I try to anchor on a upgraded settlement with defenses with a few units to garrison, I think inn + cottage industry in high wealth is mandatory. loot with daimyo, keep generals managing provicnes, watch out initiating attacks where their honor was 2 or belowl. If your fighting alot with your daimyo and get heroic victory's you earn back the honor you lose from looting, so its circular .
Invest all looted koku into a high wealth. get inn and cottage to increase taxable wealth, that will get you more map presence(its map presence that the most important thing early game)
For units I think some levy's infantry to protect castles and 1:1 combination of yari kachi and yari ki are the best choices, lines are good but to expensive early and would rather have a cottage then barracks. levy spear are total garbage don't waste your koku.
It very likely you will end up just stagnating, whether thats too many enemies, no clear path of expansion, not enough map presence to cover everything, what you need to do is shut up shop and switch tax to very high and fight defensively until you can do something, force peace,invest., map situation changes...
-Nanban trade ships: Is there something specific you have to do with these? I know I've seen people say they're very strong, but so far I've used one a bit and it never reloaded after firing a volley with its cannons.
-At the rate my administrative cost is increasing, it seems like I'll have it eating up 100% of my tax income by the time I control half of Japan. Does it have diminishing returns, or is there something I'm supposed to do to counter it?
-Are gun units buggy? I've had numerous times where I have a gun unit with enemies well within range over flat, open ground and the unit refuses to fire, regardless of whether set to fire at will or told to fire at that specific unit.
In Shogun 2 the main thing is to get two full armies ASAP. Once you get one full army then you can at least stand toe to toe with the AI early on, but you'll need a second army to protect your home province and be able to expand in multiple directions instead of just one direction. You need full armies to fight open-field battles against the AI, just having a half army turtling inside its castle will just sit there being useless 90% of the time. Yes castle defense battles are a great way to destroy big enemy armies, but then you need to exploit their demise by moving out with your full army and taking the land they just left exposed. Trying that with a half army will just end up with them getting wiped out by a full army.
You really need to learn how to use yari ashigaru in spear wall formation properly to get the most out of your armies. The reason for this is that the AI will start using big armies with a LOT of yari samurai fairly early on, and you simply won't be able to afford enough samurai to counter them. Instead let the yari samurai kill themselves on your cheap ashigaru spear walls.
In FOTS you can get away with a lot less because frankly the game is unbalanced. You can literally defeat any AI army in an open field battle by using an army of 10 line infantry who have kneel fire. I always rush tech to unlock kneel fire, this turns line infantry into machine gun units. The AI almost never uses kneel fire so it will just get wiped out.
Early on in FOTS you can have one army of line infantry roving around taking land, and you should keep 6 line infantry in your home province's castle. The AI is hardcoded to try and take your home province (this happens in Shogun 2 but is less obvious) but 6 line infantry will wipe anything out. They can't use kneel fire when they're on the walls shooting at the enemy, so don't worry about teching up for this, you really just need it for your main army that is out fighting open field battles and taking enemy land.
If you want to take nearby lands and aren't at war with anyone, you can park an isshin shishi or shinsegumi in an AI province, he will convert the province's allegiance to your side and when the allegiance is closer to 100% he can easily cause a rebellion, then after the rebels take over you can take the province without technically going to war with anyone.
If you are playing on hard or very hard in FOTS and getting annoyed with the AI endlessly spamming ships, you can just ignore the naval side of the game, just build up your farms and build financial districts in all your towns, and let your ports get destroyed. You'll make enough money from your inland economy and won't be wasting endless amounts of money on repairing ships, building ships, and repairing ports.
- nanban trade ships: yep this is a known bug. If you command them to fire on the enemy then they will often stop firing after one or two cannon volleys. Instead just move the ship and let it auto-fire at the enemy. Do not select the nanban ship then click on the enemy ship to make it fire, it will just bug out most of the time.
- admin costs: just ignore it and do what you can to build up your economy. If you have a big food surplus of like 20-30 then all your provinces will get lots of growth and eventually make lots of money, and you'll still be rich despite the crazy admin costs. Put metsukes with town management skills in your richest towns, build markets everywhere, upgrade all farms even the crappy ones.
- gun units: in FOTS rifle units have a really bad habit of not shooting unless the ground in front of them is completely flat or sloping down towards the enemy. If the ground between them and the enemy is bumpy, even when the bumps are clearly around their ankles and shouldn't be obscuring their shots or their vision, they will just stand there doing nothing because the game thinks their vision is blocked. The AI doesn't seem to have this problem and will fire at you over the lumpy ground while your units just stand there. Before a battle I always zoom in on the ground and scan over it to make sure there isn't a lot of lumpy crap on the ground, and try to find the flattest terrain or a downward slope to put my men. If all else fails you can always select your individual units and click on the enemy to give them a direct fire order, your guys will move forward until they can properly shoot at the enemy.
I made sure I zoomed in all the way and made sure they had a clear firing line, completely flat terrain. And when they're doing that, they won't fire even if I issue an attack order. It doesn't happen all the time, so it's not game breaking,
Should I upgrade markets, or do you not think they're worth the food cost? My guess would be to upgrade them in the towns I have set to be overseen by metsuke.
I'm not sure if you are talking about FOTS or S2, I've described my experience in FOTS with terrain issues. S2 seems to have much more even ground but a lot less rifle units. Matchlocks in S2 can take a really long time to reload. Maybe you have fire by rank on, which makes matchlocks take a LOT longer to fire their first volley. Also make sure you haven't set them to melee mode...
You have to be mindful about your food surplus but you also don't need to be TOO careful about it. markeason here did a detailed look into the food/growth stats a while ago and IIRC he claims that around 20 to 30 is the sweet spot for food surplus, and anything over that gives drastically diminishing returns, and anything less isn't enough to keep your income going up.
Basically you have to balance increasing your food surplus, which slowly but gradually gives a growth bonus to ALL your provinces, against the massive amounts of growth and income that a rice exchange or merchant guild can give to ONE province.
I will usually upgrade markets in my highest-yielding provinces, like the gold mine provinces or any province with very fertile farms. Omi and Kii are the best moneymaking provinces in the game because they have very fertile farms and you can build a smuggling district which gives a big boost in income. Put a merchant guild in them and they'll make a ton of money.
I think it's tempting for a lot of players to put rice exchanges and merchant guilds in low-income provinces to boost their income and compensate for their poverty, but the returns are just not as good especially if you are sacrificing food surplus to upgrade too many markets.
lol 20-30 food, hows your growth strat working out, bastard?
You counter admin costs by raising your tax to high and then very high, ergo public order is the most important thing you can get early game in settlements and the game gives multiple ways to get it, if your on fots you need to use agents and 1-2 garrisons units not much around it. Daimyo honor and tech are passives so will cancel out half of a high tax penalty, you just need to find the extra 2 some where.
First up, congratulations on securing Kyushu, that's a good achievement.
Now is a good time to pause, develop your economy and take stock. Hopefully you currently have missionaries converting all your provinces to your religion.
Are you at war with anyone?
Are you playing the short, long or domination campaign?
The reason I ask is because the Otomo do not need any of the provinces on Shikoku for victory, so you may want to consider allying with the Chosokabe, have them support your move up Honshu towards Kyoto, then isolate their island by blockading their ports when they eventually turn on you.
Nanban trade ships are very good but flawed. As BSword said, don't target with the boat, just have it sail around and it will auto-fire at anything that comes within range. It doesn't sink boats very effectively (unless you play with a mod) but it will rout them or cause them to surrender. Have a few bow kobaya with fire arrows to support it and you will have an invincible fleet. Note: Don't stack the nanban trade ship with other vessels on the campaign map, this causes a bug that prevents movement of the units until you delete either the nanban trade ship or the other boats that are with it. For other units you want with it, have them in a separate fleet - within supporting range.
Administrative costs will never take your income to zero. The more provinces you own the less income you get from each, but you will always receive some income. Before becoming shogun, it is not worth making vassals, they will rebel once you become shogun, if not before. After becoming shogun, it pays to vassalise as many provinces as you are able to. They still count towards your victory tally, they don't increase your admin cost and you will earn about 1500 koku per turn by trading with each of them - which is far more than you would get from taxation of the province and the increased administration cost. Best of all, they are still AI clans, so they get all the bonuses to income, reduced recruitment costs and increased recruitment slots that the AI gets. So each of them provides a full stack army that will fight your enemies. I usually finish a domination campaign with 20 or more vassals. The cost of this? Every now and then you need to kick back a few thousand koku to your vassals to keep them sweet, but it's a drop in the ocean compared to what you are earning.
Kyushu is a great island. Apart from a source of iron and a ninja clans province, it has everything you could possibly want.
To address your economy, you have fertile provinces in Hizen, Tsukushi, and Higo. Upgrade the farms here and put a metsuke in each, with markets and upgrade them. Recruit your metsuke in Tsukushi, after upgrading the School to a Magistrate, so they arrive with level three experience. If/when you expand onto Honshu, Nagato has fertile land and Iwami has a gold mine - so these are ideal for metsukes 4 and 5.
Upgrade all of your harbours to trading ports. You have a source of horses in Higo, every clan that doesn't have horses wants horses and will trade with you. Be sure to be trading from every port. As well as the income, a trade agreement is the best way to improve relations with another clan. [Caveat: Because you own three trade nodes, as well as horses in Higo and Luxury Goods in Buzen, some clans may not agree to the trade agreement as it is too much in your favour. In that case, try moving your trade ships just off the trade nodes, see if they will trade with you (it works if imbalance in the trade agreement was the reason for their not wanting to trade), but remember to move your trade ships back onto the node before ending your turn.
Players will usually move the nanban trade port from Bungo to Buzen, because they can then get increased accuracy for the matchlock units. But it is not essential.
The Blacksmith province (Satsuma) should be developed for recruiting your melee units, Buzen should be developed for recruiting your ranged units. Be sure to get some ninja - if you haven't already. They are your eyes and protect your missionaries from enemy agents.
Matchlocks: The Hattori and Ikko Ikki have a problem with fire by rank because the officer has been assigned the wrong weapon type, so they can never reload after initial round of volleys (there is a mod that fixes this) but that does not apply to the Otomo. The trouble is that the unit takes forever to reload and since infantry units never tire with fatigue, the enemy will generally be upon them before they can reload. To get ranked fire working, deploy the unit on a hill side with a defensive unit (yari ashigaru) in front of them. If it is a defensive battle and your army was stationary in the previous turn, you will be able to deploy screens. These prevent the enemy getting at your matchlocks. So stretch the unit out, set up the screen with a yari ashigaru at either end to prevent units coming around it.
When the battle starts, contract your matchlocks into three ranks, step them back a little from the screen and wait for the shooting to start. Sit back and enjoy.
Anyway, having Kyushu puts you well in control of your campaign. Just keep an eye on your province count for when you will trigger Realm Divide.
Still really struggling with FotS, though. Just feels like every time I try to do something the game throws some mechanic at me to tell me "no." Trying Saga, I go, take Goto Island first, that's easy enough, then I move to take Tsushima, and get ♥♥♥♥♥♥ by my alliance with Hirado because they inevitably get attacked by the rest of Kyushu, so I can choose between losing Nagasaki and losing honor, neither of which are a viable option, because Nagasaki is basically all my income and having a dishonorable daimyo is massively detrimental because public order appears so much more difficult to maintain in FotS. And I can't leave Tsushima alone because they'll spam ships at me and bombard all my buildings.
Battles seem really fun (field battles, at least, offensive siege battles are more boring than Skaven weapon team doomstack offensive sieges in Warhammer), but every time I try FotS I'm getting something like 1 battle per hour when I play due to all the campaign mechanics working against me compared to base Shogun 2.
- with kneel fire, you can defeat any AI army with about 10 line infantry. Kneel fire turns them into machine gun units. The AI very VERY rarely uses kneel fire, so even if it has uber units it just walks them into your kneel fire machine grinder.
- At least early on, you should always keep 6 line infantry in your home province, inside the castle they can pretty much always defeat any AI army. The AI really likes to try and take your home province when you are busy elsewhere.
- especially if you are playing on hard or higher difficulties, don't bother ever trying to deal with the naval side of the game. The AI will just spam more ships than you can ever hope to defeat. Just let your ports get destroyed, it isn't worth constantly rebuilding them every time a single AI ship obliterates it. Focus on your inland economy and your farms and put financial districts everywhere and you'll make plenty of money. If you really want a port, you can barricade the entrance to Satsuma or Nagano harbor with three kaiyo maru with AP shot.
Saga can be kind of a tricky clan to play as because there are a lot of clans mushed together on Kyushu so you have lots of potential enemies surrounding you. You can get stuck on your little peninsula if you don't push forward and take nearby lands. Always keep in mind that any clan in your faction that is bordering you will probably flip to the other side and attack you at some point.
Satsuma are the easiest imperial faction to play as, maybe try them if you just want to get a better handle on the mechanics.
If you are struggling with public order, the techs that give a bonus to repression or happiness are always worth getting, but it takes a while to get them. Consider putting police offices here and there, you can switch them to industrial or financial stuff later on once public order is better. Use the police agents to convert your people and cause rebellions.
And is it really a good idea to just ignore your navy when enemies can bombard your settlements, not just your ports? Seems like I'd just have all of my settlements completely destroyed all the time except for ones inland in Kansai, Chubu, Kanto and Tohoku.
Then I also saw that it's 8 turns to upgrade the settlement to a city. Seems like FotS just has a ton of playing the waiting game.