Shogun 2 takes its players through three stages of gameplay: early game hell, middle game heaven, and late game hell. To get out of early game hell, the player needs to conquer and successfully defend a set of core provinces from the AI; to do this, the player needs to gather the funds to recruit enough troops for a successful campaign. These "core provinces" include your starting territory and typically include 3 to 4 provinces in total. They may or may not include the provinces which are listed in your clan's victory conditions; what matters is that these provinces have the income and recruitment capacity to support your campaign.

While it is technically possible to become Shogun and conquer all of Japan within 5 turns, as Reddit user u/AxiomRazer proved, a Shogun 2 player of average skill will face the following challenges in trying to emulate this achievement. I will discuss these challenges as an introduction to this guide.

Each playable clan starts with a fund of 2000 "koku", a flat subsidy of +1200 income per turn, plus the income earned from trade and tax. Army recruitment, building construction and agent recruitment incurs a one-time expense to your funds, while army upkeep incurs a recurring expense. Managing your income is crucial in the early game, because the fundamental question of Shogun 2's early game is the minimum army size you need to conquer your core provinces, and the fundamental challenge of the early game is finding a way to afford that army. The newer you are to Shogun 2 (and the Total War series in general), solving that question and that challenge will be correspondingly more difficult.

Let's move on to the income sources I mentioned, trade and tax.

Trade income will typically be small in the early game until you can sign (more) trade agreements and you can dispatch trade ships to "trade nodes", thus gaining access to valuable commodities like incense, silk, cotton, horses and iron.

The only playable clan who can recruit trade ships on turn 1 is the Otomo; every other clan with a port needs to invest more than 2500 koku and wait for 6 turns before they can launch their own trade ships. The Otomo's trade advantage is slightly lessened by the distance between its trade port and the trade nodes (the nearest one is 2 turns away). A bigger penalty is inflicted by the Otomo's poor diplomatic relations with the rest of Japan. Otomo's adherence to Christianity is disliked by all other clans since no one else is Christian at the beginning of the campaign, & hence the Otomo player will find it more difficult to enter into trade agreements in the early game. For these reasons, we will disregard trade income for the rest of this guide.

Tax income is also typically small in the early game. Tax is computed as a percentage of a province's wealth. A province's wealth, in turn, comes from farming, commerce, mining and the castle town's inhabitants; in the early game, the biggest share of a province's wealth typically comes from farming. Farm wealth depends on the fertility level of the province, and one of the playable clans, the Chosokabe, enjoys a 10% bonus to farm wealth.

The player can increase a province's wealth by constructing certain buildings. Farm upgrades improve farming wealth by a flat amount, while markets both improve commerce wealth by a flat amount and improve the growth of town wealth by a flat amount. One of the playable clans, the Otomo, starts the game with a farm upgrade built in one of their provinces. Markets also allow the recruitment of metsuke agents, which boost a province's tax rate if they are assigned to a castle town. One of the playable clans, the Tokugawa, starts the game with a market built and a metsuke agent recruited.

I said earlier that tax income is typically small. How small is it? I have listed below the wealth and income details of the starting provinces of all playable clans.

Wealth and Income of Playable Clans


This table tells us that not all playable clans are equal in terms of wealth and income in the early game. Clans with lower wealth and income will need to manage their money carefully. We can group the playable clans by their income, as follows:

Playable Clans Grouped by Income

As mentioned earlier, the fundamental question of Shogun 2's early game is the minimum army size you need to conquer your core provinces, and the fundamental challenge of the early game is finding a way to afford that army. All playable clans can recruit yari ashigaru (spear infantry) and bow ashigaru (bow infantry), and these are the mainstays of your early game army. In addition, generals and their bodyguards are sword-wielding cavalry in this game (though they have the option to dismount when you're playing in Shogun 2's real-time battle map).

Unlike wealth and income, the difficulty level you choose for your campaign has a direct impact on your army recruitment and maintenance. The higher the difficulty, the more expensive army recruitment and maintenance becomes. Below are the details for each difficulty level.

Ashigaru Recruitment Cost by Difficulty Level (One-time Expense)


Ashigaru Upkeep Cost by Difficulty Level (Recurring Expense)


Shogun 2 guides and word-of-mouth emphasize the utility of the yari ashigaru unit. It has the least recruitment cost and the least upkeep cost in the Shogun 2 army roster, and its "yari wall" ability allows it to minimize casualties when facing a frontal melee attack. One of the playable clans, the Oda, gets discounts on both costs. However, players still need to include bow ashigaru in their early game army because of the advantages they bring.

Bow units allow the player to attack the enemy from a distance, whether during an open field battle or a castle siege. The number of bow units in your army is also taken into account by the AI; thus, the player has an opportunity to influence how the AI behaves. Early game army management will always have to deal with these two kinds of units. One of the playable clans, the Chosokabe, gets discounts on both recruitment and upkeep of bow infantry.

All playable clans apart from the Chosokabe, the Tokugawa and the Uesugi start the game with the option of recruiting more kinds of units. However, none of these other units play a unique and necessary role in the early game army, and all of them are more expensive than yari and bow ashigaru. Players who choose to recruit other units in the early game must bear in mind that they add cost and complexity in managing the early game army.

When your army conquers a province, it always has a negative impact on your diplomatic relations with all clans. The former owner of the province will hate you the most, but even your other neighbors will dislike you too. This negative impact is temporary, and fades away over time at a fixed rate. However, this negative impact is also cumulative, which means that conquering many provinces in a short amount of time will quickly increase the risk that your neighboring clans will become hostile and go to war with you.

Beware of falling into this situation in the early game! The AI will gang up on clans which are at war with many of their neighbors, and you won't be treated as an exception. In my experience, the Amako, Ikko-ikki and Hatakeyama clans are often the targets of an AI dogpile. While it's not necessarily a game-ending situation, depending on the difficulty level and your game skill, fighting with too many neighbors at the same time can delay your expansion.

The smart player will therefore encourage positive relations with some of his neighbors. Thankfully, most methods of improving diplomatic relations are available to the player in the early game. These methods are discussed below:

Peace agreement - Wipes away the negative impact caused by an ongoing war. It does not, however, wipe away the negative impact of your army's conquests.
Trade Agreement - Causes a tiny positive impact that increases over time at a fixed rate, until it reaches a ceiling value. In the early game, this would be a negligible value.
Military Alliance - Causes a positive impact of +100 that fades away over time at a fixed rate. The alliance itself lasts for 20 turns, or 5 game years.
Exchange hostage - Causes a positive impact of +100 that lasts for 8 turns (the duration of the hostage agreement). This can only be proposed together with other peaceful diplomatic agreements, such as signing a military alliance, a trade agreement or a peace agreement.
Arrange marriage - Causes a positive impact of +100 that fades away over time at a fixed rate, until it reaches a floor value. Like exchanging a hostage, this can only be proposed together with other peaceful diplomatic agreements. If you ever go to war with your clan's in-laws, the diplomatic bonus will vanish and not reappear even if peace is once again reached.

For more details, please see this guide[forums.totalwar.com] by Steam user dribbs.

I already talked about one aspect of Japan's physical geography earlier, the differences in fertility across provinces. A more obvious aspect which constrains player expansion is the shape and terrain of Japan. Shogun 2's campaign plays out over three big islands: Honshu (the biggest and longest), Kyushu and Shikoku (the smallest); each of these islands are then further divided by mountains and forests that armies can't cross. A player who chooses to move his troops solely by land will find himself traveling along coasts and valleys most of the time, and will thus have little leeway in setting his army's direction.

For more details on the land routes available in the game, please check this map by user TinCow from the TotalWar dot Org forum[forums.totalwar.org].

Japan's physical geography is a heavy influence on the political geography in Shogun 2. 51 out of the campaign map's 65 provinces are found along the coast; out of the 14 landlocked provinces, 6 of them are in the plains of Kansai region, the heart of medieval Japan (and where the capital of Kyoto is located). All playable clans except for the Takeda, the Uesugi and the Ikko-ikki have 4 neighbors or less. Diplomatic relations at the start of the game are limited to these neighbors; relations with more distant clans will only start once your units see their territory or their units. I have listed the neighbors of each playable clan in the table below.

Neighbors of Playable Clans at Campaign Start


Because the province borders in Shogun 2's campaign map are generally in line with history, I was able to use a blank map of Japan during the game's setting to create the below colored map of Shogun 2's clans. The rest of this guide will focus on Kyushu, the southernmost island.

Japan at Campaign Start
Note: This illustration is slightly inaccurate in northern Japan. Credit to JoanK for the underlying province map.

Kyushu at Campaign Start

Shogun 2's campaign map splits up Kyushu into 8 provinces held by 5 clans, as illustrated by my map above. These clans are listed below, in clockwise direction:

• The Otomo. A playable clan if you own the Otomo DLC. They own Buzen and Bungo provinces. Their capital is in Bungo.
  
• The Ito. A non-playable clan in the base game. They own Hyuga and Osumi provinces. Their capital is in Hyuga.
  
• The Shimazu. A playable clan with the base game. They own Satsuma province.
  
• The Sagara. A non-playable clan in the base game. They own Higo province.
  
• The Shoni. A non-playable clan in the base game. They own Hizen and Tsukushi provinces. Their capital is in Hizen.

Note: Ito, Sagara and Shoni can become playable after installing a game mod.

Conquering Kyushu gives the player a solid footing for expansion during Shogun 2's mid-game. This is because the area has a lot of game bonuses. The advantage of holding Kyushu is so great, in fact, that there are game strategies for the playable clans outside Kyushu which advocate migrating/relocating to Kyushu anyway! Let me list down examples of players who've suggested this strategy:

Uesugi players

• User Maltz from the TotalWar dot Org forum[forums.totalwar.org]
  
• User dgg32 from the official Total War forum[forums.totalwar.com]
  
• User jmatt from the official Total War forum[forums.totalwar.com]

Ikko-ikki players

• User Darklion74 from the Total War Center forum[www.twcenter.net]
  
• User sfcalimari from the GameFAQs boards[gamefaqs.gamespot.com]

Mori players

• User Omegazxi from the Total War Center forum[www.twcenter.net]

A variant of this strategy has also been suggested by players who want early access to Christianity and cheap gunpowder units.

However, not all provinces in Kyushu are equally valuable. The value of each province is derived from its wealth and its game bonus. By this metric, we can conclude that the least valuable provinces on Kyushu are Hyuga and Osumi, both owned by the Ito clan; Hyuga has the lowest fertility level, Osumi has an average fertility level, and neither province has any game bonus. All other provinces on Kyushu have an average fertility level at minimum and a game bonus.

For a visualization of the game bonuses per province, I highly recommend checking this online map by wicked-chibi.ninja[www.wicked-chibi.ninja].

So we've talked about the least valuable provinces. How about the most valuable ones? Given what we discussed in section 1 of this guide, "Early game challenges", let me propose the following truisms:

• The higher the fertility level, the more valuable a province becomes.
  
• A game bonus you can exploit earlier is more valuable than a game bonus you can exploit later.
  
• A game bonus you can exploit more cheaply is more valuable than a game bonus that's more expensive to exploit.
  
• The benefit of game bonuses is least powerful in the early game, when your sole priority is to conquer your "core provinces".

By these metrics, it's clear that the most valuable provinces in Kyushu are the 3 provinces with the highest fertility level: Higo, Tsukushi and Hizen. Their farm wealth, at 1800, is double the farm wealth of Satsuma and Bungo provinces, and hence they would yield a greater tax income. Higo is the most valuable province because its horse resource is valued highly by the AI; the AI becomes significantly more willing to make a trade agreement if your lands can export horses. Tsukushi is the next most valuable province because its base 10% bonus to technology research does not require any building investments. Finally, Hizen is the third most valuable province because exploiting its bonus does requires building investments.

Players who want to conquer lands in Kyushu should therefore prioritize conquering these 3 provinces. For Shimazu and Otomo players, turning these into your core provinces will put you in the best position as you head into Shogun 2's mid-game. I will discuss my proposed early game steps for the Shimazu in the next part of this guide.

The advantages in following my Shimazu early game walkthrough will become apparent if we first bust a couple of myths about Shimazu game strategy.


This is a myth which readily ensnares new players for two reasons. One: the game steers the player into a conflict with the Ito clan. Shimazu is at war with them at campaign start, and the first game mission Shimazu players receive is the conquest of Osumi province, one of Ito's two territories. Conquering the Ito's territories is also part of the Shimazu victory conditions. Two: this was the advice players were sharing when Shogun 2 was launched[www.twcenter.net]. There is genuine wisdom in this approach to the game, and following this approach won't put you in a bad position by the mid-game. But this is absolutely the sub-optimal approach.

Let me explain why. First, we've discussed earlier that the provinces held by the Ito clan, Hyuga and Osumi, are the least valuable provinces in Kyushu. Hyuga has the lowest fertility level at 600, while Osumi's fertility level is average at 900. Neither of them also have any game bonuses.

Second, Shogun 2 imposes penalties on provinces you conquer later in the game. Your tax rate drops as you conquer more provinces. Similarly, the permanent public order/happiness penalty in conquered provinces rises as you conquer more provinces; while the first province you conquer would have a zero permanent penalty, the next provinces would have a penalty of one, then two, then three. Since Ito's provinces are already crap, the maximum benefit from conquering them is achieved when you delay conquering them as long as possible.

Third, the game mission to conquer Osumi province does not actually have any time limit. In fact, the only ways you can fail the mission are as follows:

• Making a military alliance with the Ito
  
• Vassalizing the Ito

[08 Nov] Correction: If the Ito are eliminated by other AI clans, it still doesn't disqualify you from achieving the mission! Thus, the only ways you can fail the mission are as follows:

• Making a military alliance with the AI owner of Osumi province
  
• Vassalizing the AI owner of Osumi province

Don't be fooled by the "4 seasons" information in the mission screen! It actually refers to the duration of the game bonus when you complete the mission, not the time limit.

And lastly, the game bonus from completing your mission is actually more valuable later in the game, when you have more provinces and hence more recruitment centers. Triggering the game bonus when you own only one province gives you one extra recruitment slot; triggering it when you own three provinces gives you three extra slots.

I hope these reasons seem convincing. But if this is the case, why did I acknowledge that there is wisdom in the standard strategy of conquering the Ito in the early game? It's because Shimazu needs to be at peace with the Ito before conquering the juicy provinces to the north. You can't have an enemy Ito army marching on your capital while your own army is busy elsewhere. So before you embark on your conquest, you need to inflict enough casualties on the Ito army to convince the AI daimyo to accept a peace agreement. The AI will stick to the peace agreement for at least 10 turns, and that's enough time to conquer the north and build up a secondary deterrent army in Satsuma.


The other myth I want to disprove is that holding off on conquering the Ito deprives Shimazu of its only expansion opportunity in the early game. By the time a Shimazu army reaches the north of Kyushu, according to this myth, the AI clans there would have built up half-stack or even full-stack armies that are beyond the player's skill to defeat. As with the first myth I debunked, there are genuine grounds for this concern.

Travel Times from Satsuma by Land Routes

Let me direct your attention to my illustration above. This shows that the Shimazu army will take 4 turns before reaching Higo's castle town. It will then take 2 more turns to reach its next destination, whether it's Hizen's castle town or Tsukushi's castle town. If the army heads east instead, as per the standard game strategy for Shimazu, it will take 4 turns to reach Hyuga's castle town, 2 more turns to reach Bungo's castle town, and another 3 turns to reach Buzen's castle town. Marching from Satsuma in southwest Kyushu to Buzen in northeast Kyushu would therefore take anywhere from 7 to 10 turns, and that is with the assumption that the Shimazu army can win all the battles it will have to face.

Let me explain why this is not the end of the story.

Travel Times from Satsuma by Land and Sea Routes

First, let me direct your attention to my illustration above. This shows that sailing from Satsuma's port to Hizen will take 3 turns. Since a naval landing consumes one turn, this means that the travel time from Satsuma to Hizen can be reduced by 1/3rd! Similarly, sailing from Satsuma's port to Buzen will take 4 turns; this means that the travel time from Satsuma to Buzen can be reduced by almost half.

Second, let me direct your attention to this useful Shogun 2 exploit. Please watch the Youtube video below for more details.


Because of this exploit, building up the port infrastructure in Satsuma province on turn 1 makes total sense. Once you're able to recruit the most basic ship units, you can station them along the western coast of Kyushu, thereby enabling your army to travel the distance between Satsuma and Hizen in two turns! (One turn to complete the naval landing, and another turn to reach Hizen's castle town.) And after all, the idea of a Shimazu naval invasion on Hizen province is very much in line with history; in real life, Shimazu Iehisa, the fourth son of Shimazu Takahisa (your starting daimyo), led such an invasion and defeated the Ryuzoji clan in the battle of Okitanawate[wiki.samurai-archives.com].

The next parts of this guide will discuss my Shimazu early game in further detail.

As mentioned earlier, the Shimazu clan is at war with the Ito in the beginning of the game. The AI will not entertain our peace proposals until it's suffered enough losses on the battlefield; hence, our armies will have to march east first, before they can go north.

We start the game with the following units:

• two units of general's bodyguards (sword-wielding cavalry)
  
• one unit of yari samurai (spear-wielding samurai)
  
• two units of yari ashigaru (spear infantry)
  
• one unit of bow ashigaru (bow infantry)

It doesn't seem like much, but we have enough to deal with the enemy forces in Osumi province. The Ito's garrison consists of the following units:

• one unit of light cavalry
  
• one unit of yari ashigaru (spear infantry)
  
• two units of bow ashigaru (bow infantry)

Our goal for the first two turns is to whittle down the Ito's garrison force in Osumi province. We'll try to kill as many of the enemy bow infantry as possible because once the Ito daimyo marches down from Hyuga province, we should still have more archers than him. If we can achieve such a situation, the enemy AI will perform a predictable set of behaviors in the real-time batlle map.


We begin by sending our daimyo, Shimazu Takahisa[wiki.samurai-archives.com], our yari samurai and our yari ashigaru to beseige Osumi's castle town. It's important to keep our supporting general and the bow infantry unit away from this siege, because if they are present, the enemy garrison won't sally out and chase our units.


A bow unit chases the retreating Shimazu.

As expected, we are chased by a garrison unit (a bow unit!) after we cancel the siege.


Victory for the Shimazu!

If our army's strength is overpowering, using the auto-resolve battle mechanic yields acceptable results, i.e. minimal casualties on our side.


Kill count and casualty details for this battle.


We'll be repeating our tactics from last turn.


Army recruitment in Satsuma province.

This time, we can expect that the entire remaining garrison will chase our army once we cancel the siege. The upcoming battle will be harder, so it's time to recruit more troops to replace our upcoming losses. And yes, while I could have done my recruitment earlier, the delay minimized my army upkeep costs and thus helped me afford my building plans.


The Shimazu army versus the Osumi garrison.


Victory for the Shimazu!

More casualties on our side, but because we wiped out the Osumi garrison, I'm still pleased with how the battle turned out.


Kill count and casualty details for this battle.


The command skill of my daimyo increases.

Because I used the auto-resolve battle mechanic to fight this battle, I have the option of resetting the random seed of my save game and quickly replaying this battle. This allows me to generate a choice of retainers that I'm ok with.


The Ito clan's daimyo has now reached the outskirts of Osumi province. Postponing the final battle of this campaign postpones the end of the 10-turn truce that peace agreements impose, so we'll avoid confronting the Ito army for the next couple of turns. In the meantime...


The increase in my daimyo's command skill is publicized.


My choice of retainers after the battle last turn.

In real life, our daimyo's dad, Shimazu Tadayoshi[wiki.samurai-archives.com], was skilled in Japanese poetry. He composed the locally famous Iroha na uta poem. So picking the waka poet is very much in line with history.


My goal is to declare war on the Shoni the next turn, so it's time to wrap up this campaign.


The final battle against the Ito clan's daimyo.

If you notice, I did achieve my mini-goal of having a superior number of archers in this battle. When I play this battle on the real-time battle map, the typical AI behavior in this situation will allow me to shoot down a significant portion of their infantry before the melee fight. We have to avoid bringing too many units against the enemy army though, because if your army's strength is overpowering, the enemy will retreat into Osumi's castle town. To avoid having to capture Osumi province, we have to fight the enemy on the field.


Victory for the Shimazu!


Kill count and casualty details for this battle.

Notice the high kill count of my bow units.


The peace terms.

The loss suffered by the Ito clan in this battle is enough for them to accept my peace terms. The Ito won't breach the 10-turn truce that peace agreements impose, so I'm ok to send Shimazu Takahisa's middle son, Shimazu Yoshihiro, as a hostage. In real life, Yoshihiro was indeed fostered with the Ito[koei.fandom.com] when he was young.


The Shimazu armies withdraw from Osumi province.

A side benefit: our army was kicked out of Ito territory once the peace deal is signed. I could have requested military access in the peace terms; however, in this instance, I actually want our army to go back to Satsuma, so we can embark them on our navy without delays.


The peace declaration.

Before discussing our war with the Shoni in detail, let's discuss first our relations with the Sagara clan. Sagara is friendly with the Shimazu in the early game, but it has a preference for allying with the Shoni. Because of this, our friendly neighbor will likely become an enemy once launch our conquest of northern Kyushu. However, if we manage our relations with this clan carefully, we can both boost our resources in the early game and minimize the threat from this clan once our war finally kicks off.


We start the game with a trade agreement between Shimazu and Sagara. We thus receive a small amount of trade tax from our relationship with Sagara. However, to maximize our benefit from this relationship, we need to leverage our ability to sell military access to Satsuma province.


Shimazu's first deal with the Sagara.

The AI starts the game with a small amount of money. So we sell military access for the shortest duration available.


Building up the port infrastructure in Satsuma.

This amount of money, once added to our starting fund, is enough for us to afford a couple of building projects. The first project is the construction of a port in Satsuma on turn 1. As discussed previously, this can allow the Shimazu army to travel the distance between Satsuma and Hizen in two turns.


Building up the blacksmith in Satsuma.

The leftover money is enough for us to afford a second building project, an upgrade to the blacksmith in Satsuma. In real life, Satsuma is known for swordsmithing[studyingjapaneseswords.com], so this choice is in line with history.



Shimazu's second deal with the Sagara.

Shogun 2 allows us to sell extensions to the duration of military access. So we will take advantage of this mechanic to extract more money from the Sagara. Since the AI has no concept of saving money to fund building projects or army recruitment, the money paid by Sagara actually delays the clan's growth. Fantastic!



Shimazu's third deal with the Sagara.

We sell a second extension to the duration of Sagara's military access to Satsuma.


Building up Satsuma's castle town.

Our accumulated funds are enough for us to afford three building projects, this time around: an upgrade to Satsuma's castle town, Kagoshima, the development of Satsuma's farms, and further improvements to Satsuma's port.


Building up Satsuma's farm infrastructure.


Building up the expansion of port infrastructure in Satsuma.


The first Shimazu ship is being recruited.

The leftover money is enough for us to afford recruiting our first ship, a bow kobaya. At this point in the game, the bow kobaya's selling points are its swift recruitment speed and its cheap recruitment cost.


By this point in the game, we are now ready to declare war against the Shoni. Sagara is now allied to the Shoni (as are the Ouchi); hence, Sagara will declare war on us the moment we send our war declaration. As you can imagine, once we are at war with the Sagara, they will no longer see the need to pay for military access to Satsuma; thus, we have to sell a final extension to our military access agreement before triggering the war.


Shimazu's final deal with the Sagara.

The money from this final deal will help us afford our building projects once we win our war with the Shoni. Thanks for the koku, Sagara!


Sagara joins the war between Shimazu and Shoni.

As expected, the Sagara clan joins its ally Shoni and thereby flushes the money it just paid down the drain. Now, if Sagara had an aggressive attitude to expansion, and if the travel time between Satsuma and Higo was short, this tactic would be risky... but that's not Sagara's attitude, and it takes four turns to march an army between these two places.


The trade agreement with Sagara is broken.

Why should we care, we don't intend to leave Sagara on the campaign map anyway. Let's talk about our war with Shoni next!

We declare war on the Shoni in Summer 1546, or turn 6 of the game. Six turns may not sound like much, but in reality, this is enough time for Shogun 2's RNG to introduce some variation in the campaign situation. Before I detail what actually happened in this walkthrough, let me describe a few alternate scenarios which I've experienced in earlier runs of the game.

Scenario 1: The Shoni overcome the Otomo and take over their lands.
This happens when the Otomo AI declares war against Sagara, and the Sagara AI recruits a big enough army to defeat the Otomo invaders. The defenseless Buzen and Bungo provinces are then swiftly taken over by the Shoni. This is the most difficult scenario for a Shimazu player attempting to snowball in Kyushu.

Scenario 2: The Otomo hold off the Shoni and conquer Sagara afterwards.
I was able to make this happen once Sagara spent enough money on military access to cripple their army recruitment; after which, I'd enter into a military alliance with them to fool their AI into thinking that their starting army, plus my reinforcing forces, would be enough to hold off the Otomo. When the Otomo army marches west, I laugh at the idiots in Higo and don't do anything to help them.

Scenario 3: The Otomo defeat the Shoni and launch a counter-invasion.
This is one of the reasons why we shouldn't delay our war against the Shoni, once we can launch a naval invasion; if we wait too long, the Otomo can beat us to Tsukushi and even to Hizen.

Let's now discuss the progress of our war on the Shoni. How long will it take for us to win this campaign? Read on and find out!


The Shoni AI prioritizes building up the port infrastructure in Hizen province, so by the time we go to war against the Shoni, they have usually recruited a ship unit by then. Because our navy has recruited multiple ship units, our odds of winning a naval battle are good if we can concentrate our forces and lure the Shoni navy.


The Shimazu and Shoni navies clash.


Victory for the Shimazu!


The remnants of the Shoni navy join the Shimazu.


Our army landed in Hizen province in Summer 1546, right after our declaration of war. This allowed them to march on the castle town on the next turn.


The Shimazu army besieges Hizen's castle town.

Generals who are given the role "Commissioner of Development" inflict less public order penalties when capturing a town. Hence why our daimyo led the Shimazu navy, and why our general leads the Shimazu army now.


Victory for the Shimazu!


The benefits of peaceful occupation versus looting.

I played this battle on the real-time battle map to avoid damaging the castle town's fortifications, and thus, to minimize the public order penalty inflicted during the town's capture. The current situation actually allows me to start collecting taxes in Hizen, even as part of my army marches on to Tsukushi!


Hizen is now ruled by the Shimazu.


Our general and his army marches from Hizen to Tsukushi in the same turn. Thankfully, the invasion of Tsukushi is unopposed. The Otomo must have inflicted a devastating defeat on the Shoni army just before our invasion.


The Shimazu army besieges Tsukushi's castle town.


Victory for the Shimazu!


The command skill of my general increases.


The benefits of peaceful occupation versus looting.

The army that invaded Tsukushi is too small to enforce peace throughout the province, even though I did everything to minimize the public order penalty inflicted when I captured the castle town. We will have to exempt the province from taxes in this turn.


The increase in my general's command skill is publicized.

Increasing a general's command skill also increases the game bonus from roles like "Commissioner of Development". So this is welcome news.


Tsukushi is now ruled by the Shimazu.


The Shoni clan has been crushed!
Any straggler Shoni units outside Tsukushi province will now disband. And that's it -- we've won the war against Shoni in a single turn!

Tsukushi and HIzen under Shimazu rule.

The Shimazu in this walkthrough are now in possession of some of Kyushu's most valuable provinces, Tsukushi and Hizen. They remain at peace with the Ito, and they are at peace with the Otomo. They are still at war with the Shoni's allies, the Sagara in Higo province, and the Ouchi in southern Honshu island. What happens next? Let me describe a couple of possible scenarios.

Scenario 1: The Shimazu army goes south to defeat the Sagara.
This approach benefits Shimazu players in three different ways. One: Sagara's Higo province is the last Kyushu province with the highest fertility level that remains outside Shimazu rule. Two: Higo province's horse resource is valued highly by the AI; a Shimazu player with horses to trade would find it significantly easier to make trade agreements with other clans. And three: connecting the two halves of Shimazu's territories would enable an additional sea trade route through the port at Hizen province.

Scenario 2: The Shimazu army goes east to defeat the Ouchi.
In the beginning of the game, the Ouchi clan of southern Honshu island is at war with the Otomo and allied with the Shoni. The success of the Shimazu war against the Shoni means that northern Kyushu is now held entirely by Ouchi's enemies. If the Ouchi haven't suffered losses yet, they could now send an army to capture Buzen province. The Shimazu army at Tsukushi will need to be capable of defeating this enemy army marching west from Buzen.

In both scenarios, recruiting a ninja is essential because ninja agents have the ability to sabotage an enemy army's movement. If the previous Shoni owners of Hizen province had not built a sake den there before your conquest, build one now.

My Shimazu early game walkthrough was based on numerous Shimazu games at H/H difficulty. I acknowledge that at higher difficulty levels, the AI recruitment bonus and the combat handicap on the player might be too difficult to overcome.

While I wish I could claim that my Shimazu game strategy is completely original, this isn't the case at all. Credit should go to user grumph from the Total War Center forum[www.twcenter.net] for proposing the idea behind my strategy.

Writing this guide during this ongoing pandemic was a labor of love. It's my small way of giving back to the Shogun 2 community, just as purchasing my game copy back in 2012 was me giving the game developers what they deserved from a Total War fan who was finally earning his own income. In the final words of this guide, I would like to highlight three members of the Total War community for inspiring me to think deeply about this game:

• User frogbeastegg from the TotalWar dot Org forum[forums.totalwar.org]
  
• User shalcar from the Something Awful forum[forums.somethingawful.com]
• User doccit from the Total War reddit