10 Things I Wish I Knew Before Playing Total War: SHOGUN 2 (2020) 

IF YOU ARE BORED COME CHECK ME OUT LIVE ON :D - www.twitch.tv/totalwarks 7. Army Composition ( Although the composition is good, it is mostly geared towards early/mid game, it can still work during late, but by then you should have a big enough economy to replace the following; Light Cavalry > Yari Cavalry, Yari Ashigarus > Naginata samurai/Katana Samurai, Bow Ashigarus > Bow Warrior Monks ) 10. Foreign Trade (There are actually 6 NOT 5 Trade Routes) 11. Realm Divide ( Very Important but I forgotten to mention !, it is where the game will split into half and everyone will declare war on you regardless of status/relationship once you reach a very powerful stage so be prepared ! )

11. Putting Metsuke in your richest towns will make you literally thousands of extra koku per turn And yes, Yari Ashigaru are Yarimazing

1. choose Oda 2. yari walls yari walls everywhere 3. ... 4. profit

When the battle is over and the enemy is fleeing, make your general's unit chase and kill as MANY of the fleeing units as possible. This gives them a lot of EXP safely. Break the enemy, and once the option to "run them down" appears take that option and just control your general to kill all the running soldiers.

Imagine using infantry.........This comment was made by Takeda gang

1. You don't want to totally depend on ashigaru units. Bow ashigaru units are significantly out ranged by bow samurai and warrior monk units, and thus lose always. And raw recruit bow samurai and warrior monks stats are roughly on the same level as experienced bow ashigaru units. I usually phase bow ashigaru units out pretty much immediately once i get bow samurai or jump straight to bow warrior monks. Yari ashigaru are amazing, or yarimazing, as the unit sometimes yells. In yari wall they can win almost all other melee units in the game but as you said, they get totally non-consensually buttsexed by archers and flanking cavalry/infantry. And later in the game they tend to lose to more experienced samurai's. Also during late game AI tends to bring a lot of archers in their armies, so you'll avoid a lot of unnecessary casualties if you bring at least few samurai units to tank opponents arrows. And during mid and late game your economy should be able to withstand full samurai and warrior monk armies. Oda clan is a exception to this, because you can just go full Stalingrad with your cheaper ashigaru units and drown your enemies in waves of yari ashigaru. Plus they are a little better than normal ashigaru. Still it would be wise to bring few naginata samurai to tank enemy arrows before your ashigaru tide reaches enemy lines 2. I gringed a little when I saw that you had demolished sword school from Satsuma. You denied really really really huge early game advantage from yourself, when you can't recruit those shimazu katana samurai, especially when satsuma holds a blacksmith building. One or two of those with that +2 armour from armoury in your armies make gives you a huge advantage during early game, especially on higher difficulties. You should always if possible center your recruitment into cities that gives your units an advantage. Melee units from cities with blacksmith, archers from cities with fletchers, cavalry from cities with horse breeders, and so on. You get drill. You should build markets and sake den generally only into those cities you don't recruit from. Upgrading your castle brings huge buffs to public order, so you don't really need sake den in those cities. All in all however a solid video. Don't take me for some elitist who says that this game should be played in a certain way. These were just my observations from last 6-7 years i have played this game, and which have saved me from a lot of heartburn playing this game. You do you, and having fun is the main thing

The big strategy key for the vanilla campaign is that you need to pace yourself carefully when your clan status starts nearing legendary, the full bar. If you go legendary unprepared, just casually slip into Realm Divide, you will probably lose. So before taking the last provinces that will trigger the event, spend time making absolutely sure you have maxed income and armies set up to fight _all other clans_ who will suddenly be allied against you. Even vassals are likely to turn, so don't rely on them. Declaring war on a vassal will decrease your global diplomatic score, which doesn't matter when literally everyone is locked into destroying you anyway. When you take Kyoto, you probably want to loot it for a huge payday. When you are nearing your win objective you can start hitting the loot button more, and just leave chaos in your wake. But don't start doing it too early or the rebels and decreased honor will create a big problem. I like to have one army just run rampant looting the enemies mostly undefended provinces, while others focus on holding the win condition.

11: Be careful when you upgrade a castle. Unlike other buildings it can not downgrade. Since it consume lots of food you should be very careful before upgrade it.

Overall good video, however, being a Total War veteran with 1000's of hours with shogun 2, and many other total war games in the series; I can honestly say that I heartily disagree with several of your points. Although the overall advice in general is sound, certain key elements that you included in your tutorial is very easily counted, and can seriously cause a player to be handicapped mid to late game, and be utterly useless against a decent human opponent who has at least a basic concept of military strategy. .. Building construction. As another veteran comrade of the franchise already pointed out, only build stealth chain in towns that are not recruiting other units.. (there is an exception to this which i will explain shortly. ) The key strategy here is to use town specialties to bolster melee/defensive capabilities of your units. Having a master armory in Kaga for example will give a total of +5 with both building upgrades, which if you also build a yari dojo there, can give you naginata samurai with 15 armour! I use them to tank archers or to target generals, they are virtually immune to arrows and wipe cav units almost instantly. Put a monk building there as well, you can recuit warrior monks with a huge boost to armour as well, that offsets their only handicap, and makes them not as vulnerable and can stand against archers, and counter EVERY other unit! Put a weaponsmith in Satsuma and you can get an insane boost to melee for all your units.. i had warrior nuns with a 32 attack, and warrior monks with a 27 attack! Here is where you also can put a stealth building ( putting a ninja building in Satsuma or Kaga would net very high melee or armour bonuses!). You also would be wise to put the yari version of the encampment chain in kai for the insane charge bonus. And if Kai happens to be your stronghold, and future generals you recruit here will have crazy charge bonuses, and if you choose the two cav attack bonus skills that are available on the right side of the skill tree, you would have a general that would mow down any unit like grass!) Army composition: Yari ashirgu are only good early game. Their yari wall formations ( even with lots of experience) get cut to pieces by other units - especially warrior monks, that have attack/defense upgrades. Not only that, yari ashiguru have shit moral, and rout easily (again with monks warcry or monk archer whistling arrows) , they run like bitches when more than half their numbers remain. Of course every army composition will have its counter, that's why it is good to build your armies according to defending a castle, or attacking a castle.. that should be very different compositions. .. for attacking, you want to send units that will counter theirs, ( use agents to discover what their stacks are composed of.) I have a "general purpose " army which i use for practically any situation it consists of (8 warrior monks, 4 naganata samurai, 4 bow warrior monks, 1 kiso ninja, 1 warrior nun, 1 yari OR katana cav and my general. . I usually have 2 or 3 'mirror armies ' of this composition which usually only varies buy removing the ninja and nun specialty units, and adding 2 more yari or katana cav. I usually don't have more than 4 cavalry units total, in any army because they are counted by almost any other unit in the game, and the ai loves building lots and lots of yari inf.... which brings me to my next point. .. Tech trees: I highly disagree with your method of going the left side for general's, and your research priority. .. like I said earlier, if you mix general skills with army composition, building types, and retainer attributes , you can create super units, like if your general has the +15 retainer, put him with an army that has heavy archers like 6 archer units in a stack, and recruit your monk archers in a town that has fletchers and hunting lodge...( i had monk archers with 127 accuracy and a monk hero with 132!) The same goes for generals who you put ALL of their skills in boosting cav attack and charge.. Then recruit those respective units depending on how your encampment arch types and town bonuses are set up. You can have yari cav with max bonuses to charge, and katana cav units with max bonuses to attack or armour. . Then import however much of this type into one stack, in my "general purpose " stack, each unit is specialized in one area. Usually my monks have full bonuses to attack or armour, nag samurai with full armour, warrior nuns full attack, monk archers with both archer buildings and general that has archer retainer...oh, and GET STAND AND FIGHT...it boosts your units melee attack and accuracy of nearby units DRASTICALLY! You can get +15 to your attack and accuracy... using this on my archers i can easily boost their accuracy to over 150.. and my warrior monks to over 40 attack! This simple concept of combining unit type, double specialty buildings, general retainer and skill sets, and stand and fight will create extremely overpowered units which will absolutely annihilate yari ashirgu and any other unit... therefore i highly recommend staying away from yari ash because it's very simple to build units to easily destroy them! Have one to guard your general if you don't like playing your general aggressively (like I do!) But later on you will discover that matching your generals with the right upgrades and unit types, will quickly push the advantage in your favor, even if you are heavily outnumbered... And for the record, this is not an exploit... it's maximizing each unit's ability to kill efficiently, using stacked bonuses combined units, buildings, agents, generals, and retainers... Only put metsukes in your richest towns, and if you have a good trade income and (capture all 6 of the trade nodes and protect them heavily with a stack of offensive ships, ) you don't need to invest in the long waiting farm upgrades to research, and instead research techs that will improve your units in combat... the last thing I'll say that you haven't even mentioned is build a harbour as fast as you can and build a bob kaboya .... then build one every turn for four turns.... as each one spawns, send it to occupy a trade node...then camp there until you build a trading dock...by the time you have the ability to produce these, you should already own 3 or 4 of the 6 nodes... which once occupied by at least one trade ship, will allow you to trade with almost any clan, even if they are hostile towards you, and your general has crap loyalty!... Sorry for the dreadfully long reply, just giving my two cents... But if my reply gets 100 likes, I'll reveal a trading secret that you will not find anywhere else on the internet, and I'm sure the developers didn't intend for you to know! It will get you rich...i had 950,000 gold by turn 70!!🤫

I thought this was like an 8 year old video lol Edit: damn thanks for the likes

The annoying thing about the Stealth Chain Buildings is that every character that ends their turn inside a town with that building has a chance to pick up the "Eye for the Ladies" trait, which reduces their movement range. It never goes away and it is very hard to go an entire campaign without at least one general picking it up.

Big tip in General Skill tree, Rather than going left make sure you get "Stand and fight" its game breaking especially with yari ashigaru, it gives them amazing morale and +3 meele attack which makes them better than most units in game inside the yari wall formation

Couple more points. When signing trade agreements, always try to demand the AI to pay you for it, especially if you have valuable resources like horses, sometimes they will pay 5000+ for it. Another thing is to make sure you have a strong navy before going into realm devide, secure your waters and place them to intercept naval invasions. Nothing is worse when an enemy lands beside your capital while your armies are halfway across the map.

With Shogun 2 specifically, realm divide is one of the unique and important features you left out.

Bonus stacks: Some towns have the infrastructures to that allow you to recruit units with superior stats (armor, attacks, accuracy and charge bonus), you should combine that with the encampment building to further specialize your troop, turn that town into your recruiting spot and build units with massively improve stats (Naginata samurai with *even* better armor, super deadly katana samurai, sniper bow monks and one-charge-kill-all cavalries and best of all: yari ashigaru with samurai-tier armor) With one town that has the armorsmith building I can mass-produce high survivability yari ashigaru that can survive even katana samurai, station them into towns for even easier Heroic victory.

i recently just learned that if you took a castle without destroying anything (gate, the wall too maybe?) the castle stays intact and you can immediately recruit unit after the battle phase is over, really useful for blitzkrieg tactic/naval reinforcement. though that means doing a bit of work and skipping the autoresolve feature on less defended castle, but i think its worth it.

Also, if you wanna win the game automatically, play Oda. The enemies, even on legendary difficulty, might as well surrender.

One most important thing i learned from Shogun 2? Never ran away from the battlefield! Its such a shamfurrr disspraaay

I disagree about the use of points for your generals. In my opinion, you should ALWAYS use your 2 points in Strategist once you reach level 2. Once you reach level 3, use only one point in Strategist and keep the last one. Finally, when you reach level 4, you can put all three points you now have in "Stand and Fight !" which definitely improves your army fighting skills by ALOT :)

I've done like 5 full campaigns on the game and I still learned something here today... For me recruiting the warrior bow monks is a good tactic too... they're just OP... just got to know what to research/build to get them.

Yari wall may very well be the single most game-changing mechanic, making Yari Ashigaru from a meh unit to simply OP, cost-effective-wise. When defending in sieges (or defending in general), two lines of Yari Ashigaru with yari wall can easily hold of 5, 6 attacking Samurai units, providing you also have missile units shooting at them, which you should. They are essentially super cheap and easy to get pikemen, not just countering cavalry, but holding off even superior units for a while, while being damn cheap and easy to get. And yes, I know; when you have the liberty of creating an army of your own, the more flashy choices are more fun, heroes and Sohei everywhere... But trust me, once you go full legendary difficulty and are hard pressed on money all the time, you will start to love those guys. Yari Ashigaru (and to some extent, their Yumi counterpart as well) may be the most underdog unit in games like these that I've seen in a long time. Early, easy and cheap to get, but still useful all the way to the end

Dude I've never seen someone with such an exceptionally well done tips and tricks video before. I've been playing Total War titles for 15 years and all 10 tips you provided were the absolute most important things to know about shogun 2.

Dear TotalWarkS thank you very much for your video 10 Things I Wish I Knew Before Playing Total War: SHOGUN 2 (2020). I am returning to video games and I am 62 yrs old a strategy board gamer and love to play war games. Your comments have really help me a lot returning to PC video gaming and playing Total War Shogun 2. Thanks again, James

There are 6 trade routes not 5, the one that youre missing is in the corner near the date clan

Markets give you extra cash and metsuke, but they use food - if you build too many castles and markets, you'll get famine and rebellions. A ninja's sabotage army feature can effectively split enemy forces by preventing multiple enemy armies from supporting each other. Take down the factions of different religions first, or you will spend the rest of the game converting the population back to shinto.

Good vid, some solid tips here and I'm glad some folks are still making these for new TW players. Shogun 2 may seem overwhelming initially but in reality it's not as complex as it appears, especially compared to some of the titles that followed Shogun 2. But to add a little bit here, all the best tips that are specific to Shogun 2 will relate in some way to managing your economy. The higher the difficulty you play on the more this will prove true. Make sure you recruit the maximum number of metsuke (1 per market you build, to a max of 5), place them in the richest provinces you own and focus those provinces on economic buildings (markets, sake dens, and any other province specialty buildings that add wealth or increase the tax rate). Avoid upgrading markets (other than in those five metsuke territories) or castles (anywhere) unless you need them. Both market upgrades and castles consume food surplus, food surplus contributes to economic growth across all your provinces. If you're thinking of upgrading your castle so you can add a market or sake den, chances are you're actually doing more damage (in the long term) to your economy than good. Unrelated but worth mentioning here that upgraded castles aren't necessarily better at defending your frontier territories. Although they provide more garrison units and more arrow towers, they also increase in size and may become more tricky to defend, depending on the size and types of units you're using. Strongholds (tier 2) are often sufficient. Generally speaking you should only upgrade castles beyond Stronghold level if it's a good province for unit recruitment. Use your armies as efficiently as possible particularly in the early game. Try not to recruit many samurai units or navies, use ashigaru (and light cav, they are extremely efficient units as well) as much as possible. For navies bow kobaya with fire arrows are highly efficient, though unless you're near the western trade nodes you should avoid spending much on navies in early game. Even with ashigaru armies you still want to be efficient, don't recruit too many and avoid engaging on too many fronts so you can keep your armies to a small number. The best economic tip for the mid-late game is simply do not rely on trade income. In most situations you will lose ALL trade income shortly after your Imperial fame maxes out. Be certain your economy can support all your armies and navies WITHOUT any trade income, or you may be approaching an economic death spiral.

Dude great video! 19 Bow warrior monks can rip most armies to shreds, in campaign i go for 10 bow monks, 4 yari ashigaru, 2 yari cavalry and 3 naginata warrior monks

I always think it's really interesting when someone says their first total war game was something past empire or napoleon. I grew up playing nothing but grand strategy games and RTS games and when I started playing the newer total war games I found them so intimidating and a lot to take in despite as much history as I had with other total war games in the past. I always wonder what it's like for someone jumping into these games with 0 background in total war games

When you said this was your first total war game, I felt like a veteran

Yari Ashigaru make a great frontline, but some infantry dedicated for a flank charge is good as well. Some samurai or warrior monks should maneuver for a side or rear charge after the front lines are engaged fighting each other. Cav is fine but infantry can just stay in the fight after the charge, rather than needing micro to not die to stick wielding peasants.

Thank you for the information! just started playing myself and enjoying it immensely.

Great content and production. I was surprised you only have 1.5k subs. You deserve alot more! Keep it up :)

Never know about Group Attack till now. Thank you very much. That make command the frontline units more easier.

7. Army Composition It is definetly true that bow ashigaru are quite bad and it screws your army if you have too many of them. But in the late game I like to have at least one army with around 12 bow monks with upgraded accuracy, one general and the rest naginata samurai as a tanky frontline unit. The bow monks will absolutely demolish any melee units trying to get to your frontline of naginata samurai while they tank the arrows because of their high armor stat. Firerocket units are also very fun to play because they have even more range and deal massive damage. It is always very funny to see your army absolutely massacre the enemy army before they even reach your troops.

watching this video is like watching toddlers learn to walk very wholesome XD Edit: you didnt tell em ybout the highground, it is proportionate so if you put an ashigaru yari wall up on it they beat even their supposed counters like katana samurai easily

Number four is making me want to install this again. I played a lot of Shogun 2 in college, but I never considered myself particularly good at it-- I never dared to try it on advanced difficulties.

I never knew there was a group attack imagine how much i suffered when i made a 40 unit vs 40 unit battle

Great tips! I too got the game recently since it was made free. The main thing I didn't know about was Realm Divide. I thought I was just three provinces (including Kyoto) away from winning and had this army massed outside Kyoto waiting for victory but suddenly realm divide happened and I was taken by surprise and lost. I think you kinda have to play knowing to expect realm divide, so beefing up your economy, leaving borders even with staunch allies defended, investing in lots of ships to prevent drop armies, etc

Thanks so much, just got the game on a steam discount. Very helpful video.

This was a very helpful video! Thank you very much!

9. You can get daymio honor by creating vassals and general loyalty by adopting generals in your family and through the research tree. What you should instead focus on is getting the stand and fight ability on all your generals because it's a massive boost to your army if used right. Afterwards I usually go for the "Instills fear" skill, but really it's up to you and it depends on your economy if you'd rather go for lower upkeep. IMO faster research is just overrated because usually the AI matches your tech tree.

How to win in Shogun 2: Step 1: Bow Warrior Monks Step 2: Naginata Samurai Done

I go entirely on right side of skill tree for some of my generals for role play reasons heheh.... :x

For any shinto-buddhism faction, max the strategist perk first as the general reaches level 3, save the extra one point, and pour all skill points into the stand and fight perk when the general reaches level 4. The research modifier on left hand side is way too insignificant and does not contribute much in the beginning, as most technology you can research only takes a few turns and the small modifier does not have any impact on your research time. The stand and fight skill gives massive bonus to any troops around your general and greatly increases your general's circle of influence and is super useful. Only exception being Christian or ikko ikki clans, who might need the conversion perk on the left.

3:24 Omg Yes! Finally, thank you I didnt know how to do it and it was a bit annoying in huge battles.

This isn't campaign but In multiplayer I wish I knew how much terrain could help you counter matchlock units. Those damn matchlock units.

I've been playing TW games for decades, and I still learned a couple new things. Good job. And yes, Ashigaru (used correctly) are the unsung heroes of Shogun. It took me a loooooong time to trust them-- after their terrible performance in Shogun 1 so many years ago.

Great piece of content. Subbed

A single squad of shimazu katana samurai trained at the blacksmith can kill 300+ ashigaru on field. When you stand on the wall they can kill about 600. I don't see their stat block showing this compared to other samurai, but katana samurai are gods and demons on melee combat. While a single yari samurai squad can vaporize technically any number of cavarly. They murder generals, murder katana cavarly, murder great guards. No horsey can escape their spears. I too like highly ashigaru focused armies, but the superiority of the samurai is clear in the game, at least one core army of 70%+ samurai is needed for very hard battles. If you do Date, you can recruit full no-dachi samurai armies and just make everyone try to run. (They cannot they just die.) You also should not build market everywhere because the income generated by them would be minimal, you need at least one specialized unit training city with armorer and temples are sadly overlooked many times, while they are actually very good stuff. Metsuke and other agents are superimportant especially when the realm divides. To be fair I did not now about the group attack function and looks like good stuff.

The group attack tip really helped me out. I have been playing Shogun 2 wrong for 10 years lmao

Awesome tips. Thanks, long time total war vet just getting into this game tho.

4:45 That surprised me, my impression was that the archers in this game are way better than in Medieval 2 and Rome 1.

I did not know about the manoeuvre arrows, thanks

LOL bow units in shogun 2 are the most OP

Actually in the general tree, the skills in the middle are very useful,,the charge bonus,the ashigaru commander,and one that has the ability of "stand and fight" is awesome

very standard army comp. Good one to learn with for sure. I struggle with taking castles with it however.

Omg this was extremely helpful.

4:15 i wish i knew that years ago. allowing for easier flanking moves and not having to babysit the frontal charge

Never leave yari Ashigaru in a spear wall when idle, it drains their fatigue making them even weaker and more likely to break Also they can move whilst in spear wall, but very slowly. Hope that helps :)

I had this happen in FoTS but I don't know if the same applies to the Vanilla campaign, but, when winning a battle using an army with no general, there's a high chance next turn that a new general will spawn among in said army.

Thank you. You very helped me.

Thank you so much!

Dismount is mentionable. Katana Samurai Cavalry ridden into an area that provides stealth and then dismounted is an effective way to cripple pursuing Yari units; Yari Samurai or Light Cavalry can be dismounted to destroy large amounts of pursuing cavalry, too. I've won many PvP battles with just Light Cavalry, Katana Samurai Cavalry and careful dismounts.

Thanks for a cool video. What is the music playing at the end? Soundhound wasn't able to catch it.

Excellent!!

Another reason to secure foreign trade routes: They not only bring in significant income on their own, they also make other clans both more willing to trade with you (especially if they don't have access to that resource,) and they increase the money you get from trade agreements.

General's level also affects his ministry bonuses. For example, starting general will give you +1% clan-wide tax rate increase and - 2% upkeep cost for units under his command while level 5 general gives you +5% bonus and - 10% upkeep cost. That can save you thousands of koku if you assign your first general to that spot on turn 2 (you can't change it on turn 1).

11. MONKS are a good way to incite revolts on weaker settlements without drawing agro from the owner.

Something extra to add about the 10th point: you don't need a trade ship to secure the trade node, a viable strategy especially as Shimazu and otomo is to create 4/5 kobayas and send them to nodes. After that you upgrade your shipyard and then build trade ships and send them to nodes. You won't get any income when you don't have trade ships there, but neutral nations won't be able to claim the node. That way as Shimazu and Otomo you can control most of the Japan's trade nodes, and slowly build up on them.

Great video, really helpful...any tips on deplomacy ? I can't get any one to make peace or trade. Thanks

I even put highest tax rate, make more garisons in some regions and farm the rebel in other regions, you will get exp for general and high income. It is good in the begining of the game. I played Oda, after taking out Tokugawa, Magawa, Saito, I set tax rate highest and farmed for 5 turns each turn income 4000+ koku with 5 factions.

Really Thankss!

11. Oda is objectively superior. Especially of your army is full of Ashigaru.

On the battlefield, General’s bodyguard units are far more effective as a sort of mobile morale booster. Even without using “Inspire” or “Rally,” just having your general nearby seems to increase the effectiveness of your troops as well as demoralizing nearby enemies. I would recommend Warrior, Die-Hard Fighter, and Master Swordsman from the right side of the skill tree as they improve your general’s chance or survival in case they are forced into melee.

Thanks for the video. Very informative. I just have a few questions and I was hoping I could find the answers. What is the meaning of the research rate? And how exactly the percentage of the research rate is afecting the study of the arts? Thanks

in terms of armies i use 10 ash 2 katana sam 6 bow and 1 cav. then late game i put multiple armies near eachother but only 1 or 2 tend to have archers. it works most of the time

For siege defense....what I've found to be quite effective is a strategy that takes a little micro managing. Have your archers and only your archers man the wall, and station a melee unit behind each. If they're yari, put them in wall formation. Keep shooting the enemy until they are climbing the wall. As soon as the first one makes it over, IMMEDIATELY have your archer unit retreat through the melee unit behind it and take up position behind them. If your melee unit is katana based, have them charge. If they're yari, hold position. This will absolutely DECIMATE units as they make it over the wall, plus it provides your archers excellent cover and they can bleed the enemy significantly until they make it up the wall without taking many casualties in return. Then use your melee unit to block the enemy and have your archers focus fire on the enemy that have made it inside, and it's almost impossible for a unit to climb the wall in enough strength to actually do much besides die.

Shogun 2 would be tough one to start on IMO. It's pretty fast paced in both battles and strategic map.

I knew & assumed of this day one playing except group maneuvers/attack as in 5 & 6 which are really the same point took weeks to stumble across. I do find it interesting how 4cav 10melee infantry & 5 range is your pick being neither a defensive nor aggressive army a jack of all. Personally I prefer 5cav, 12 melee infantry & only 2 range normally bow monks if any as I prefer an aggressive style. Cavalry takes more micro but has far more uses then archers. Light cav is nice but get Yari cavalry as soon as possible. If not using cavalry I like to go pure infantry with warrior monks & supporting ninja with only 1-2 cav in the rear for defending & nothing else. If date I abandon all Cav & archers using support infantry monks & flank naginata samurai to defend the flanks. Date is pure aggressive assault basically the opposite of Oda or Chosokabe that are pure defence though both are strong I find such tactics boring & predictable! Shogun 2 punishes defensive players & ranged unit on harder difficulty settings such as very hard or legendary as the upkeep & ranged effectiveness is significantly reduced. Funnily Siege units & ninja improve on higher difficulty but not by much. Honzo shadows are worth it & so are Fire rockets in limited use as against cavalry or siege they are king. My 1st play & win was Hojo but bomb throwers are meh though have specialised uses but hojo mortars & mangonels are garbage trash units with the only redeeming quality is it forces the enemy to engage due to the high range & peppering irritation but a European cannon & especially the Fire rockets do this better. Cannons at a bridge battle are nice but still a meme subpar unit which it really shouldn't be as in real life cannons even early changed the face of warfare.

#1 I would've definitely picked another province than Setsuma, because with the blacksmith you want your starting province to be the one that recruits the units. + since it's your starting province there isn't any reason you would want to increase people happiness unless in specific circumstances. Like the Hojo's starting 2 provinces, your capital Izu has a gold mine and Sagami has a blacksmith, so you want to make units there. In general, put a market and/or sake den in average/money making provinces, not unit provinces. #7 I wonder how your late game stacks might look like in this campaign. As the Shimazu, tho, you have a complete lack of katana samuraïs. Yes, they're Samuraïs and so the upkeep cost is much bigger, but in the case of the Shimazu the upkeep isn't as big and the unit is better than in other clans. They are the bread and butter a Shimazu army. While your yari ashigarus hold the line in yari wall, the katana can come in and destroy other melee infantry. And you would eventually want to replace light cav for yari cav once the enemy units become too strong for light cav. Same for your bows, you want to eventually replace them with bow warrior monks, unless you turn Christian, in which case you'll have to stick with bow samuraï, or maybe some gunpowder. Bow warrior monks are smaller in unit size and no armor, so skirmish tactics might not work as much. Make Naginata Samuraïs to tank enemy bows while your warrior monks pick them apart.

biggest tip: corruption (decreases your tax rate) gets bigger with the amount of settlements you take, therefore it is important to skill all your metsuke into max "overseeing towns" = higher taxrates and put them into your 5 wealthiest towns, whilst 1 food means every town wealth gets +1 making a huge food supply better in the long run, however if you wanna steamroll it is better to upgrade your 5 wealthy towns building bigger castles is only worth it in recruitment centers (build them where your units get boni), a typical S2 campaign is 99% defending against an army that you sieged out learn to defend well (cavalry outside the wall, and other tactics) and you can beat up to 1:10 odds, therefor if you are really good at the game try setting taxes to max, build up every castle, let the food shortage feed you battles against rebels, take kyoto on turn 0, use only samurai units or mabey just 1 unit of each type per army etc. lots of fun stuff once you're good enough to give the AI wedgies

I thought you are gonna talk about fertility of each province and that you should focus on developing farms firstly in areas with high fertility bonus.

one thing you should have added. Capture not destroy the western ship when able. that ship has cannons, made that my flag ship every game. i did zerg tactic and just swarmed with a ton of large ships. Also, I always used my monks to incite unrest in enemy area. sometimes it works.

thank you so much im new in total war

#12 Don't improve castles unless you intend to create a recruiting center or use it as a defensive front line. Or rice exchanges unless the game will end fairly soon. Unlike Warhammer games, your overall food surplus adds to each province's wealth every turn. So 10 surplus food, over 10 provinces, is 100 province wealth per turn and will quickly overcome the benefits of castles & rice exchanges. #13 to make gunpowder units work you need to skip mostly worthless ashigaru matchlocks (not the imported version, though), and to make Fire by Rank work you need to issue attack orders when the target is outside their range. For some reason they take forever to fire if left standing with Fire by Rank on.

You play legendary, give war access for cash when you see ai army close to your border you deny access. If they declare war they will lose honor. So ussually ai retreats for 10 turns. You can bait again. Also having all the time high tax will create rebels that are great for general farm experience. As they are weak in castle sieges also easy hero victories for clan honor and increased Happiness. Invest into farms, check land fertility, aim to build farms on 3x farm provinces first. Don't invest into mines outside castle they are expensive to repair. Leave them burning forever or repair if cheap damage, or don't allow rebellions in province. You could also put an army close to mine, or bait with 1 single cheap disposable unit. Usually they tend to avoid larger forces, or go chasing weak 1 unit armies. It doesn't apply if it wants to besiege castle in first place...

Sometimes it's better hold off right before realm divide upgrade you your farms and other things that make money save up for a couple of turns because you lose all trade probably and it's expensive capturing too many territories because of increasing admission cost some territories aren't even breaking even at some point

excellent advices

Very late comment, but here's something. Don't just focus on having a land army. Having a Navy will be very important during the last half of the game when you start getting into wars with clans on the other side of Japan. Not to mention that during the campaign Naval invasions and Naval Blockades will prove to be a headache when your land army is somewhere else. Random ememy navies will pop out of the fog of war and blockade a port or land an army. By all means you don't have to fight every naval battle, auto resolve it if you have to, but just remember to repair your ships. If you are lucky, you will be able to capture the Black Ship, which by the way you should use for trade rather than fighting. Sure it can survive a fight against literally everything, but lots of enemy navies will just set the ship on fire and damage it. Leading you to sacrifice a huge sum to repair it.

i like the video. I learned new things.

There are actually 6 foreign trade nodes; the last one is in the far north-east corner of the map, barely visible on the minimap. Offers iron as a resource.

CA would do well to update a few things about the game. I really miss ALT left clicking my army, and i read that the stat to tire infantry units does not work as intended because units are devided as melee and ranged infantry rather than just infantry. They should really look into that

My first total war game was total war arena.😭

DAMMIT I MISSED THE FREE TO KEEP EVENT! Here's hoping for COH2 😭

A few additions to your points: 1) You do not want Sake Den's and/or Markets in EVERY town - only the ones you don't use for unit production/training. 7) While I can agree with that point for early game, Ashigaru units fall off significantly the longer the game goes and you definitily do want to go full samurai / warrior monk armies (except for Yari Samurai because they suck^^). 9) I think it has a far greater impact on the performance of your army to save up points after Strategist to immediately max out Infantry Leader when it becomes available to get the "Stand & Fight" ability. If honour and loyality ever become a problem (which they usually shouldn't in the first place) you can still go into the left side of the tree later on.

I don't know what I'm doing here, I've only ever played Rome and Medieval 2

Hojo are a good faction for beginners. Wealthy, defensible and able to form alliances with nearby clans. Bow cavalry are excellent when attacking, as they can weaken flanks and draw out units

Old, but a little tip: loose formation decreases a bit the effectiveness of your archers. Unless you move much closer to the enemy, your back line won't shoot! Loose formation is best used when you do not have skirmish superiority. If you do have more skirmishers, stay in close formation and shoot straight at the enemy while their back line in loose formation can't shoot you back!

This is also my first and only total war, did you end up preferring medieval 2 to this? M2 seems more popular and has more interesting setting to me, If I get into shogun 2 will I be able to get into any total war?

Thanks for the tips. Downloading the game right now. I hope I'll like it at least as much as I liked Age of Empires 2