Strategy in Sengoku

[Pook]

I've been playing the Conquests in sequence until I beat each one. So far, 6 down, 3 to go, all at Emperor level. Then I got to Sengoku....

I heard through these forums that this scenario emphasized military might, so that's what I prepared my mind for. Since I know NOTHING about feudal Japan, I picked 'random' for my own civ, and the computer gave me the Uesegi. I was shocked to be in the best start location I've ever had playing Civ III, and my Civ II builder instincts took over. Since I started near the North end of Honshu, I figured I'd expand south and west, toward the center. I missed the fact that there was iron about ten tiles NE of my start. My annoying neighbors the Mogami did not miss the iron, and they soon attacked. After a long war, I eliminated them, leaving the Date and myself in control of northern Honshu. My questions thus far:

1) If I had iron, is an early war worth it? Is the bushi that much better than its competitors?
2) Does the AI ever move its Daimyo out of the capital city? I ended a turn with only the AI Daimyo and a settler occupying its capital when I attacked with 6 samural archers. The AI didn't evacuate the Daimyo. quick death next turn.
3) I've found that yamabushi are great for pillaging resources and isolating cities by cutting roads. Any other good uses for yambushi?
4) How do I win this thing? There are about 7 civs building the War Council (UN equivalent), and somebody will finish it before I can get a domination victory. How do I avoid getting 'voted off the island', other than the usual build embassies and pretend to be friendly?
5) Don't you just love the background music? In my opinion, best of all the conquests.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

They way to prevent UN victories si not being nice to everyone, but getting everyone to declare on the owner of the UN

The Yamabushi....many players think that unit is incredibly unbalanced, and because of that the whole conquest is pointless (and that includes me).
They are absolutely deadly in pillaging/ capturing Workers. While the Human occasionally does that, the AI goes absolutely nuts. And, if you're behind in techs, you by no means can defeat the Yamabushis, not even in the open. Pillaging with low-defence units, ok. But ConquistadorImpis on steroids....

 

[rbis4rbb]

That scenario takes too long to complete for me, what, with the 500 or so rival civs

 

[Minstrel]

A force of Ninjas can destroy any civ in the Sengoku Conquest. Its ability to pick out any defender for attack is overwhelming. I generally send a force to the AI capitol and destroy their Daimyo, thus eliminating that civ. If someone builds the War Council before you, send in the Ninjas. While an adequate force of Ninjas can get through an AIs defenses, securing a right of passage before sending them in, escorted by a couple of defenders insures that the civ is going to be destroyed. While the Yamabushi is somewhat overbalanced, (man can those guys pillage and defend!), the Ninja is way overbalanced. I have destroyed civs in this conquest with only a handful of Ninjas. Go Ninja!....Go Ninja!.....

This is actually my favorite conquest. The last time I played it, I won by conquest on Demi-God. Yes, the background music is great. The units are wonderful too. So is the tech tree. Just a great overall conquest.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Aha. And how do you get to the AI capital without RoP-Raping? Yes, sure, I can win Middle Ages with England on Sid in 100 turns by giving away London to oany possible Civ and immediately retaking it (1200VPs each time). I can win Napo with France only with Diplomacy in the opening turn.

But why should I do this?

The Yamabushi and Ninjas may be fun when you have the Tech lead. But they are a major pita when you are at the receiving end. Especially with the HN bug. And the AI is completely nuts here because a) building nothing but HN, Invisible Land units , b) incidentially running in HN, Invisible Land units , c) being allowed to attack other Civ's cities with those HN units (unlike the human!) and because d) they cannot evacuate their non-combat units form anything moving faster then 3 tiles.

This Conquest has a lot of potential, but unlike Mesopotamia, RoR or Middle Ages it was designed without much understanding of the way the AI works. And unlike WW2 or Mesoamerica, the AI was obviously not adapted here in the design process.

 

[Pook]

Thanx for all the help.

Clearly, I have some differences in terminology. To me, 'Unbalanced' only applies if the AI is doing it to me. If I'm doing it to the AI, that's 'Good Strategery'.

I agree that the yamabushi appears unbalanced. It's listed as 2/5/2, but it's effectively a 2/5/6 since it treats all terrain as roads. My Mogami & Date foes haven't built many of them- they've concentrated on Samurai Archers. Let's see- Archers move 3 tiles/turn in their own territory on a road and 1 tile/turn in my land, Yamabushi move 6 tiles/turn anywhere- this seems fair. I liked Doc's description of them as Conquistador Impis- well said. I have used the 'Offensive Pillaging' strategery in epic games with cavalry armies accompanied by 3 or 4 Dora the Explorers. In this scenario, I don't need to get anywhere near that fancy. My Yamabushi pillaged key Date resources and cut their lateral roads to isolate Date cities, and that was just 4 of them in 2 turns! It's a devastating unit.

I haven't developed Ninjutsu yet, when I do....look out! Hopefully far better than those awful MST3K robot-reviewed movies Master Ninja I & II, starring Lee Van Cleef and Timothy Van Patten.

 

[Megabyte]

Hi !

I started this one by taking my king+the warriors to my nearest neighbour and ... managed to defeat him (i´ve later read here the odds for this where not so good). I started as the civ on the right of the Island. So the conquering of my neighbour (cant remember the names) and the fact that i had only one front made it very easy to establish a small kingdom ( i think it was about 10 to 15 cities,tight spacing) and just began stockpiling Yamabushi and Mounted Samurai.
The only really dangerous situation i had was when one of the other ( i think it was the dark-green one) was going for a diplomatic victory with the war council , But after some MA´s and some turns of war , this prob was eliminated. And because all da civs already where waging war against each other , i only had to conquer their ruins , always their capitals last. I won this scenario with dominaton victory ,IIRC.

have fun !

 

[socralynnek]

I've been playing the Conquests in sequence until I beat each one. So far, 6 down, 3 to go, all at Emperor level. Then I got to Sengoku....


1) If I had iron, is an early war worth it? Is the bushi that much better than its competitors?

Yes, if you choose to attack a neighbor without iron, definitely.

2) Does the AI ever move its Daimyo out of the capital city? I ended a turn with only the AI Daimyo and a settler occupying its capital when I attacked with 6 samural archers. The AI didn't evacuate the Daimyo. quick death next turn.

No, it doesn't.(So, if they don't build Barracks in their capital, they will never upgrade their daimyo)

3) I've found that yamabushi are great for pillaging resources and isolating cities by cutting roads. Any other good uses for yambushi?

Yamabushi can detect Ninjas, so it's good to just keep them around.

4) How do I win this thing? There are about 7 civs building the War Council (UN equivalent), and somebody will finish it before I can get a domination victory. How do I avoid getting 'voted off the island', other than the usual build embassies and pretend to be friendly?

Get other civs into war with the one who has the council, so there will never be a vote.

5) Don't you just love the background music? In my opinion, best of all the conquests.

Maybe I should give it a try, I usually listen CDs when playing.

 

[Pook]

To Megabyte: I saw in another thread someone who went Daimyo-on-Daimyo from the start, and managed to lose a game in 45 seconds. To my knowledge, that's a record for someone who is not intentionally trying to lose.
To Socralynnek, thanx for the info on the Daimyo not moving. It makes me wonder if there's much point in doing anything other than making a straight line for the capital.
To both of you, thanx for more help. I lost my Uesegi game by getting too greedy- my Daimyo-5 lost a battle with a damaged Samurai archer.

I started another game, random, the computer gave me the Miyoshi. I grabbed the only iron source around, then took out the ironless Matsunaga. I wanted to take out the ironless Urakami, but they built the Great Wall and I had too many powerful neighbors around me, so I didn't attack. Instead, I'm catching up in tech and building a big civ. My next attack will be at the Oda who have been in a war with the Mori most of the game and have forces scattered all over. The Oda capital is two tiles away from my border. With a large force of Samurai archers and catapults, and a Yamabushi cutting off reinforcements, it should be quick. I will make sure I have settlers standing by the land grab afterwards.

 

[Pook]

One more thought. The basic bombard-of-4 catapult costs 20 shields, the upgraded bombard-of-5 catapult costs 50 shields. What gives? Did the designers just get the numbers wrong?

 

[Pook]

Maybe I should give it a try, I usually listen CDs when playing.

I tried that, but it didn't work for me. My head kept banging into the monitor.

 

[Roi du Culture]

This is my favorite scenario for honing your resource-development skills. When in central Honshu, early development can teach you quite a few lessons about efficient worker use.

 

[Lonkut]

Oops wrong post.

 

[andrewlt]

I chose the Hojo because I played Shogun: Total War and their starting position there was the strongest. Takeda had the most fun faction strength though in that game. I thought it would be the same here if they made it somewhat realistic. Yup. Still the richest part of Japan, farmland wise. Grassland all around. Not to mention that all the 7 luxury resources are nearby. 4 to the immediate west, 1 to the south and 2 more to the north. They also had much more room to expand, especially since Takeda is erroneously located way north than they were supposed to be.

The only problem with them is that jade and horses are closer to their neighbors than them and iron is somewhere in the middle.

Also, I just noticed this. Geisha houses actually act like a factory, they add 50% to your shield production. This was undocumeted. The description only says make 4 unhappy citizens content and reduce war weariness. Has anybody else noticed any undocumented features? Also, ninjas can't attack cities unless you're at war with the other faction. You can however attack any unit outside of the cities. I'm also not sure of the exact bonuses of the Izumo shrine.

 

[KoRnEa]

doesn't it add food, shield, commerce to water tiles?

2nd harbor + offshore platform + commercial dock

 

[andrewlt]

Yeah, I just checked. It also reduces war weariness in all cities, IIRC.

 

[fbouthil]

I also really liked this scenario. Note that golden age can be obtain by constructing ANY wonder. This is the only way to get a golden age as you do not have UU.

I also experience some problems with the UI. On Monarch level, they seem to have a very hard time to keep up in research, especially if you do not research the metal working path; trade for it as the AI prefers that path.

Did anyone find any use for the ronin?

I modified this scenario and added a variant especially for a SG if anyone is interested. Sengoku: Code of honour