Shogun 2 Strategy Guide - The Otomo Clan 

Or in Buzen for better accuracy

@@formicus6717 You know what, they're good in accuracy from the get go, but they can handle main line very well when upgraded in melee, and you can pick aditional archers instead of melee samurai.

Now this is new to me

Not really well as I tried before, because of low number (120 only), when the enemies rush you in a stacked manner the time it takes to readjust your line will allow enemies to break a big hole in the formation, and you’ll have a hard time. It’s not the era of FOTS yet haha

Armour is better than meele attack as armour , armour is most important in the game

Wow, I had no idea that was even possible! That's why I just ended up taking it with my army for this video. If I had thought of that I would have put in the extra time (and save scumming) to get it to rebel. I'll have to try that for another video. Thanks!

Thanks! Let me know what else you'd like to see. For every one video I publish I make about ten that I end up canning either because I don't think they're good enough or I'm not sure if people would want to watch it.

@@QirnsChannel www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1-Corinthians-Chapter-15/

@@offlinecommando5839 Amen

That's exactly the reason Otomo's it's the campaign I was never able to achieve on hard level. I've experienced even clans of the far est Japan attack me after less than 20 turns...

I went through two failed campaigns (on hard) as the otomo so I decided to try something different and ally with the Sagara. It actually worked out really well. Eventually I had to wait out the timer for when I could attack the Sagara without taking an honor penalty but I was prepared for it and swept aside the Sagara easily

It's hard to be liked when you are Christian clan - the other Daimyo's don't like that your Daimyo converted, and you get a pretty big diplomacy hit because of it. However, you have an extraordinary ability to hold out in defensive sieges because of your matchlock units. Just leaving a couple behind with a yari ashigaru can sometimes be enough to hold off an entire stack of units, and because bullets pierce armor they can even hold their own against samurai. One semi-cheezy thing you might do is to get your Daimyo intentionally killed somehow. I believe this will make the honor penalty go away since your new Daimyo was not the one who converted. And/or this might make it easier to convert back to Shinto-Buddhism.

You can maintain good relations with other clans despite your varying religions if you play it smart (gifts, long standing trade alliances, military alliances, and probably most significantly: marriage). Some clans well end up converting to Christianity on their own, making this a bit easier. You can compel potential or current allies to convert to Christianity by converting their population. Once most or all of their population is converted, their Daimyos are very likely to convert themselves. This is obviously the easiest to pull off on small clans. Keep an eye on your relations, though - I can't remember whether or not you get a penalty to your relationship with them for having your agent in their province. If there is a penalty it's relatively small and will go away after a while. But of course never use your agent aggressively against them by, for example, inciting a revolt or something. That said, trade with other clans is really not that important as a clan that starts out in Kyushu. Once you've taken the island and the surrounding trade nodes your income will be off the charts.

I realized after the fact that I may not have understood the question correctly: the trade that I talk about in the video (the trade nodes) give you income regardless of whether or not you trade with other clans. It is a flat amount of income you get per trade ship (and also might accumulate over time the longer they sit on the node, I'm not positive). These trade nodes do ALSO unlock certain trade goods that you can then make trade agreements with other clans for, but the trade that you get from trade with other clans usually pales in comparison to the direct income you are getting from the trade nodes. So the income I show off in the video is not at all hindered if you don't have trade agreement with other clans.

@RUSSELL lolno

Sorry about that! I added the link as soon as I uploaded this video thinking the matchlock strategy one would be soon to follow. My old machine was really slow in the editor, though, so I have most of the footage but never got around to editing it. With my new machine it's much easier to edit video so I'm hoping to get new Shogun 2 content up soon - but it's good to hear folks are still interested in that :)

It's possible to hold on to all 4 trade nodes if you have a northern and southern defensive navy, positioned a bit in front of the outermost trade nodes. If a warring clan tries to pass your defensive fleet you can easily turn around and chase them down. This can be done with a normal clan like Shimazu but just working up to having a full stack of 10 ships of Kobayas defending both the south and the north (the trade nodes more than supply the income to cover the fleets' upkeep), but the Otomo makes this even a bit more easy to do since you can recruit Nanban Trade Ships which can easily hold the North or the South on their own into the middle- or even late game (until opposing clans research fire arrows, at which point you'll probably want to supplement with a couple of extra support Kobayas). Once the Wako Raiders try to raid you, you can temporarily flee from the node while you bring back when of your defensive fleets. Once I take Kyushu I typically have a third defensive fleet: one to protect the eastern, center part of the island (since those are often the ports receiving your trade income and will get harassed if you don't have a protective fleet there). Having 40 total trade ships will still give you a massive surplus beyond what's needed to support those 3 defensive fleets.

@@QirnsChannel After you take Kyushu, you could easily defend the trade nodes simply by making a sort of naval blockade on the north and south, which would protect all of the nodes.

@@thepizzafoogle5481 I was about to reply that that's exactly what I was trying to say, but now I see where I misunderstood what you were originally saying - I thought by "southern trade nodes" you meant the two to the very south near the Shimazu area of Kyushu - but you're talking about all 4 of the southern trade nodes around Kyushu - lol my bad. Ya, that's also typically what I do, too (and what I was trying to explain before, not realizing I misunderstood your original comment). I agree that it's not really worth it to grab any additional ones because they are so hard to defend. Maybe in the late game.

@@QirnsChannel The reason why is because the whole of Kyushu will declare war on you, which makes it hard to defend them, so I waited until Kyushu was totally under my control, before taking them. At that time, you should have Nanban Trade Ships, so, naval-y speaking, you should dominate at sea. (Though never autoresolve battles with them, the game underestimates them for some reason.)

@@thepizzafoogle5481 Ya, you do have to do a bit of warding off Shoni/Shimazu/Ouchi/etc naval attackers if you go for the nodes early. In my experience it's been worth it to me to do that and take the nodes early rather than risk that a major clan like the Hatakeyama might swoop into those nodes, meaning I either don't ever get them or I need to declare war on a far away major clan which probably has a decent navy in order to push them off of the trade node. I think either approach is totally legit, though, and I personally really enjoy a really aggressive play style because I like the challenges that are created in the game when you start to overreach yourself just a little bit. But I understand that that approach is not for everyone

Good question! I'm pretty sure that the Sado province is not "neighboring" any other provinces, which is why the Honma often don't expand at all and are rarely conquered by other clans (neighboring provinces are how AI evaluate who to hate/envy). It would be easy enough to check, though, by conquering the island and placing a chapel there and then checking out the other nearby provinces.

Looks like I forgot to mention that! It's a feature I never use. Even if you do want to build anything in a town you are usually better off building a market or something that will increase growth and pay off more in the long run, in my opinion. Probably the one situation where I would consider it is in a province I'm intending on leaving and letting rebel or letting my enemies take back, but that is a super fringe scenario which rarely comes up in my campaigns.

@@QirnsChannel I mention it because it's what allows the otomo to speedrun so quickly. The market has a base cost and provides only a couple hundred province wealth (of which you will likely get 20-30% since the penalties for high tax rates are insane) so it takes a market something like 50 turns to break even (and higher tiers are less efficient). The game is usually decided by turn 40-50 anyhow so the instant money is actually worth quite a lot. Later in the game the 60% admin penalty to income you can get makes building new markets basically worthless as well with how long it takes them to recoup costs. Leased land has no such penalty. It's not something you have to use but once you accept the dishonor it is extremely lucrative.

@@shards7992 TIL - I had no idea this was used in speedruns. I'll have to check that out!

@@QirnsChannel it depends. It's probably not meta but it's what I do, to be fair I also do things like 3/4 front wars voulentarily so who knows XD

@@shards7992 Oh, I do the same - that's pretty much where I'm at with my Oda legendary campaign right now: war on 4 fronts. It's more fun that way =P

Any difficulty will work, especially for the trade node part. It's possible you might get kicked off of one of the nodes by a nearby clan, but the Otomo start off with a ship and two ports so you can recruit ships faster than other clans and can usually kick them off if a warring clan takes a node from you.

@@QirnsChannel yeah, I find that it's impossible to gain the naval advantage against the A.I. on legendary, but the superior silks is such an important node to get for ranged units

@@jdawg7374 In my experience, holding the trade nodes against the AI on legendary is mostly about ensuring that only other clans from Kyushu have the nodes. The most important thing is you don't want to go to war with a new, far away clan in order to get the nodes back so beating the far away clans to the nodes is crucial. Then wipe out the other Kyushu-based clans on land and the nodes will be free again. Continuously recruiting both trade ships and actual combat ships is important for holding off against wako raiders, but to truly best the AI's navies I find Nanban Trade Ships to be the best bet, especially since the Otomo are already Christian. In my campaigns, I typically need only 3 Nanban Trade Ships: 1 in the center to defend from Wako Raiders, 1 in the north to ensure enemy navies don't get behind me to the trade nodes, and 1 in the south also to defend against enemy navies. It is possible to do it without Nanban Trade Ships on legendary with similar placement, but it's more expensive and the naval battles get really tedious. I'm recording a series right now that demonstrates some of these strategies for the Shimazu on legendary.

The Missionaries' "Incite Rebellion" option is incredibly overpowered, especially because it's easier for them to incite a rebellion in a province that's not their religion. This also ranks up the missionaries pretty quickly which makes them even better at it. I captured the footage for this video on Easy or Normal mode or something, and captured all the 4 trade nodes in the south so I had massive income to just dump into the "Incite Rebellion" option and pump out missionaries whenever one would get caught/assassinated.