3 BIG MISTAKES You Need To AVOID In Shogun 2

[@TotalWarKS]

What other mistakes do you think people commonly make in shogun 2? Share down below!

[@DH_264]

Not destroying the Nanban trade port and replacing it in Buzen for the extra accuracy with Tercos and bows!

[@ryforg]

Not playing shogun 2

[@StaySafeStaySoggy]

Fuck that take all your guys and move all they way down to where the shimazu spawn take their base and have golden armour for your Portuguese they dont need the extra accuracy when they can it all from leveling up

[@lukmaanpratomo6866]

Years of playing Shogun 2 and I didn't know you can actually cheese the Tax Level mechanic that way😂. Good job on figuring it out man!

[@TotalWarKS]

yea its fantastic

[@thebranch4756]

@@TotalWarKS Just won the campaign on 1st 3 difficulties as data & wow i didnt know this either. Wont your town population revolt if you keep screwing them over for extra coin every 2nd turn ? Or should i just do it every 3rd turn instead ?

[@lukmaanpratomo6866]

@@thebranch4756 I guess we just have to experiment with the turn number sequence. I personally went with every 3rd turn since in my game settings that seems to be the "golden" spot between cheese and balanced. Going for every 2nd turn is doable, but it would just mean that you have to have the memory and micromanagement ability capable of tracking/monitoring which settlement you have cheesed.

[@yosuaindonesia]

I know that back to some years after release fots when i desperate with my campaign of choshu and need money. I always built military more than i can afford. Hahaha

[@petruluca6124]

@@lukmaanpratomo6866 You don´t need to remember it. The economy info chart tells you by flashing red. You can also move a metsuke and army between 2 towns and have it always on high taxes. Its only important that every other turn is at least 0 happiness. Letting them rebel with none of your armies in the province makes them spam just a tinny amount of rebels witch you can cheese for units, generals, and agents, quick EXP with autoresolve. And then you get a public order bonus diminishing for some turns. Your target should be to have all the provinces in very high taxes with low garrison, thru tech, honor, agents,sake den. At least for a big part of the campaing. Now on to other topic, do you know how to milk every one of your neighbors for fat stacks of cash every few turns just by selling them some useless military access and be utterly rich? Im doing a Tokugawa legendary campaign with no units hiring at all and its a walk at the park. Have put the nanban trade port just for the Christianity difference religion public order malus, so I can get as many revolts as possible. And bribing the armies all the time for good quality chad ashigaru units. When the province gets to full christianity Oda Matchlock Ashigaru will start spawning also, and that is really sweet.

[@NoireBIanc]

1:42 Taxpayers HATE him! see how you can make koku with this one simple trick!

[@timmyturner327]

笑笑

[@dbz4586]

😂

[@colonelsanders82]

Shogun 2 is a pretty good showcase of how economies win wars. In higher difficulties the AI essentially cheat, and even if you win your battles consistently you can easily find yourself overwhelmed and outnumbered. You need to be able to pay for the numbers of units you have to recruit, and still leave room to grow. As it happens, growth from food in Rise of the Samurai is kind of broken. Get the market upgrade that gives bonus food, and you can easily be seeing 30-50 growth in every province you control, every turn.

[@ardypangihutan3653]

Also the food surplus will benefit you in the long run. It is often overlooked. I'd avoid upgrading fort for non specialised provinces (or choke points) and avoid upgrading market unless it is your top 5 money making province, in which you place your metsukes (preferably province with gold mines, trade port, nanban trade port, law court, burakumin village)

[@kolpere1625]

This. I ve made maths and basically is worth nothing to upgrade non specialized provinces. Its preferable more food. Thing is: you can upgrade them for one final economic push... at the expense of 1.3k of koku to upgrade the castle

[@Toto-95]

i'd agree but forts speed up bushido tree. Markets i do agree not to upgrade them

[@eliasfernandez5073]

​​@@Toto-95 you definitely should upgrade markets while keeping a healthy surplus of food (example: lvl1 fort with max level market for food balance). At level 2 market turns 1 of food into 5 growth Max level market provides you of +20 growth per 3/4 food iirc and +2k of gold

[@TheFlyingZulu]

1:57 the big negative to doing this is any towns that are red for the high tax turn will get a debuff called "discontent" which lowers the growth of the town by A LOT more... like -20. Doing this early game gives you a per turn boost to your income but it will stunt your mid to late game growth. Keep that in mind.

[@AKars1]

No wonder im getting less money, is there anyway to know what time is good to make the tax high?

[@BENJI.M.A]

"They will build a circle" pointing at a square 🤣🤣

[@PhilopateirAnwar]

That's right, it goes in the square hole

[@alessandro.neithad]

The metsuke tax rate bonus blown my mind!

[@QueenAleenaFan]

Another mistake that I didn't know you could even make. If your yari ashigaru are in yari wall, they can run as long as you only issue move orders.

[@tu-estupidez9713]

?

[@QueenAleenaFan]

@@tu-estupidez9713 if you issue an attack order they walk. If you issue a move order, they run.

[@cheems8089]

I did not even know that, I’ve been playing the Oda clan wrong the entire time

[@Ancient_Hoplite]

One exception to not stacking metsuke is when you have many poor provinces and one very rich province for example sado island with a gold mine can be worth stacking metsuke in the early game. Later you can move them to other wealthy provinces.

[@Pilvenuga]

never noticed that upping the tax level with metsuke doesnt increase the town growth loss, neat.

[@DH_264]

For tips I'd add 1. if you are close by, grab trade nodes asap with even just bow ships 2. Maybe don't worry about the Black Ship. It's fun but really expensive. You can easily make do with a stack of cheap bow ships. 3. if you are starting on or near Kyushu, converting to Christianity nets you nanban trade ships, which are useful in combat and also imported matchlock which are good to defend castles etc. 4. Use your agents. As the video says metsuke are great for finance, I try to use the ninja every turn to do something to level up, monks/missionaries can be used for salami-type incite-a rebellion-rebels take over-you expand type tactics. Also spend your points wisely e.g. wait to level up. 5. Replace Yari Ashigaru later on with naginata or similar. Yari samurai can be useful later as a pair of quick blockers/cavalry killers. 6. Finally, exploit selling access/ trade in the early game whenever possible and you're not intending to conquer them!

[@vindik8or]

I don't agree with replacing Yari Ashigaru. Naginata cost 3x as much to recruit and twice as much in upkeep, but they do not give you double performance. The solution to underperforming Yari Ashigaru is more Yari Ashigaru, and to focus on improving your specialist units.

[@DH_264]

Yes, I agree but it depends a lot on your finances. I do find that later on yari ashigaru require too much micro managing and are too vulnerable to missiles, especially in Yari wall whereas Naginata are more resistant and can be left to do their thing. If you're using a complex unit like Otomo Donderbusses you need to focus on them so the extra outlay is maybe woth it. The exception is obviously the Oda with their amazing Longs, which for me makes the Oda one of the best clans to play! @@vindik8or

[@DH_264]

Of course yari ashigaru are very useful as meatshields if faced with lots of missile units, or at the top of a slope or to protect archers/muskets etc They tend to be very useful in defensive sieges in Yari wall to deal with the climbers who get over or to block routing troops at the exits!

[@RG-hx8uc]

Only trade ships that occupy trade nodes will generate income. Its not worthy to focus on naval early on. Its better to invest in land units expansion. If your trade ships are not in the trade nodes when its beginning of your turn, you dont get any income from trade nodes in last turn. Meaning you need to have 1 stack of bowships and 1 stack of tradeship to properly secure yourself a trade node, big investment that are not suitable for early game.

[@DH_264]

For clans which are to the East of the trade nodes bundle I would definitely agree that you should focus on the land campaign. For example, one of the many reasons playing the Oda is so much fun is that you can really virtually ignore the naval aspect except when it comes to not having an enemy force land on your shore. However I think that if you are playing a faction on Kyushu like the Otomo or Shimazu then it can be very worthwhile to grab the trade nodes in the first few turns with even just a bow koboya because that can generate a lot of useful income once you get trade ships up and running and on them. One trade ship on a trade node can generate that essential income you need and also the access to goods can tip the balance when it comes to securing trade agreements and payments from potential trading partners. Of course, it's normally better to concentrate on securing your army-producing and your crops/cash-rich/ very fertile money makers and if possible securing your borders, for example the whole island of Kyushu or a defendable chokepoint like Mino but grabbing the trade nodes without generating more enemies than you want relatively easily in the first few turns or so does pay off, I would argue. 😜@@RG-hx8uc

[@oliverstianhugaas7493]

>Be Ōtomō. >Control your island. >Have 9 tradeships and 1 european tradeship at each trade node. >Have agents in your cities. Now you have won the game.

[@Youngbloodd2]

In my experience you should have 10 trade ships and 2-3 fleets of nanban ships close to the choke points on higher difficulties. When AI unlocks fire arrows, 5-6 bow kobayas can actually sink your nanban ships

[@Byenie0912]

next question is, who will you trade with?

[@deepdungeon8465]

​@@Youngbloodd2because AI is rigged. I also have Kobayas but seldom they do shoot flaming arrows and burn enemy ships unlike the AI always shooting flaming arrows. Only by installing Mod did it fix the bad programming.

[@iatrue6487]

Gets ganged by neighbors

[@dichsedichse]

For the Tax rate: unrest also gives -25 growth from "other events" and unhaply populace will prevemt beneficial events as "spring" or "autumn" to fire. As town wealth taxing will make up most of your income by the late game, flip-floppimg the taxrate is sometging i dont really see as beneficial. Another mistake i see quite often is overleveling the daymio. The Counsillors provide amazing bonusses on higer levels (+X% Tax and replenishment, -2X% building and recruiting, whilst The Daymio gives X÷2 morale to units under his command.) So best is to have counsillors 1 or 2 levels above the daymio (higher difference makes them disloyal so i'd avoid that) and leading in the Front while the daimyo sits back or deals with naval invasions.

[@TotalWarKS]

hmm idk if flping tax rate is a non beneficial thing, it can really help especially early on where growth is pretty irrelevant whys overleveling daimyo a bad thing? EDIT: oh wait i see

[@ardypangihutan3653]

For some cases, squeeze tax technique is useful when you need quick money to build important building like armorer in recruiting province or the metsuke school building or mooney boosting buildings, like very vertile farm, goldmine and burakumin village for instance As for avoiding over-leveling daimyo, I couldn't agree more! The delusion of grandeur trait capped at 3 and by the time they reach Max lvl they tend to have more personal loyalty to cover the grandeur effect. You can also go through honor skill tree for daimyo and his heir to keep it stable in case the daimyo dies (Except for Uesugi Kenshin which rather start at young age and have good morale boost trait, if I wasn't mistaken. I usually take him to frontline)

[@IgorNV]

I gotta go back to Shogun 2, I miss that era of Total War!

[@TotalWarKS]

its epic

[@Sparticulous]

Creative assembly said they put too much effort into shogun 2 so they went c tier. Idk how incompetent a company is lead to do that

[@Mysteryboy0007]

I still play it a decade later lol. I just wish troops have more diversity like warhammer

[@1iRa]

im bored so heres some random advanced tactics for ya, FOTS included. rush bow kobaya to try to occupy as many trade nodes as possible. for example the ikko ikki can get horses, iron and at least one of the western nodes if you do it right. the horse trade node is especially valuable if you dont have horses already since some factions pay incredible amounts for it, and it also opens up trade with factions that wouldve never traded with you. if you border a faction that has an ally and you want to attack that faction, you can still sell military access to it without penalty since you can declare war on its ally and therefore be at war with the faction you sold all the access to (sell 10, then 20, then infinite within 3 turns to get max out of the shortest amount of time). it wont work everytime though. for example you can sell to oda and then declare war on its ally kitabatake, oda will always join the war against you. it probably wont work the other way around. if you want to siege a town with an enemy army in front of it and you dont want the army to retreat into that town, just attack the army from the side so it will retreat laterally and not into the town, which makes it alot easier. in general, the army will stay and fight if armies are equally as strong. even better, if that army is within reach of that town that has weak garrison, just attack the town directly. you can then rush the town, occupy the middle and win against an overwhelming force, easily getting a heroic victory. the best siege defence unit is by far the light cav (yari cav would do fine aswell), since you can go outside the wall and bait a huge part of the enemy army, which means that not the whole army attacks your town at the same time. you also make the enemy tired and drop morale. ofc the cav needs some garrison to do dmg. a faction that at the same time has just 1 town left and stronger enemies next to it is a very good opportunity to make a vassal. it will keep the enemies (except if the enemy is allied to you i believe) and likely get crushed soon after, which means that you have 1 free honour point, getting closer to the very powerful 6 honour points on your daimyo. if an island faction declares war on you and you dont have time to deal with it, just attack all its ports to effectively cripple it forever. especially useful in FOTS where you can just keep the ports of factions like fukue or tsushima damaged forever with 1 gunboat. it doesnt work as nicely in S2 though the gunsmith upgrade for FOTS is not necessarily the best blacksmith upgrade if you go for high tier gun units. they max out at 100 accuracy very fast anyways (you have firing range, general buffs and foreign veteran buffs) so I'd rather go with the traditional blacksmith upgrade for more armour and melee attack. gunsmith is the strongest blacksmith upgrade at the beginning though. if you have a school, go for magistrate first to recruit high lvl metsuke and only after that demolish it and build your library. a unit that has no more movement points left can still be moved, all it needs is to be with another unit that still has movement points left. you can move the unit with no movement points 1 tile outside of the army, and then rejoin that unit with the units that still have movement points. it's a kind of exploit though.

[@umngyr]

the metsuke embedding is gonna make a huge difference for economy, which in turn is going to make a huge difference for EVERYTHING. Very useful tip.

[@TotalWarKS]

hope it helped!

[@Tarik360]

Finally after all these years I get to learn how players made the general do the Square! Thank you!

[@Kalenz1234]

Metsuke increase the tax rate AND reduce the admin costs. And yes they have diminishing returns like everything economy related in Shogun 2. So put em into 5 different towns. Don't waste Ninja on towns though like wtf... Army Sabotage is way too good on the field.

[@tu-estupidez9713]

a few good sabotages can turn a losing field in a murderstreak to all of their armies, basically imagine having 2 ninjas and encountering a 2v3 or something... suddenly you have 3 2v1s. divide and conquer

[@frostyguy1989]

Another tip for newbies: Don't upgrade your forts unless it has a blacksmith, horses or crafting. Those are the provinces where you can recruit your best infantry, cavalry and ranged units respectively. It's best to save your koku as the more you have, the more money you make. Use too much koku and your economy not only withers away, your populace begins to starve and then you have rebellion.

[@LexaproPimp]

New Shogun player here thank you for putting out videos like this it helps huge

[@aegrisomnia]

"they will form a circle" *points at a rectangle *

[@Toto-95]

Good advices.I'd add : - Don't hesitate to burn existing building and build markets, temples and inns - Using agents in general in EVERY role they can have. Sabotage armies and buildings, foment revolts, bribe enemy generals to have more, etc ! - Have general leading separete armies (even by themselves) and participate as reinforcement to farm their XP (one infantery gen and a cav gen do wonders !)

[@ronaldroell9244]

Having played this game for like 1500 hours, if you are safe from attacks early on then keeping the tax rate to the second lowest creates huge growth pretty quickly. This only really works if you are a clan that can easily take a few provinces without much aggression. This does not work in the "hard" clans where you are surrounded by enemies, locked into alliances, and only have one province. Otherwise, yes, the high tax medium tax strat is very good.

[@cowwithinternet]

3:39 weird looking circle but ok

[@NebirosVT]

This your first Shogun 2 video? I learned some things, so please keep it going! I find economy one of the most difficult things to get right in the game and, honestly, I'm still not sure I understand how it all works even with over 500 hours in the game.

[@elih9700]

After stand and fight get the fear attribute unless your character already has the sword of Amaterasu retainer.

[@lawrencekhoo503]

do the fears not stack?

[@elih9700]

@@lawrencekhoo503 No.

[@itachiaurion3198]

I would add on tips for new player: spam ashigaru early game. Quantity is a quality in itself and with the op yari wall it's a really good tactic too defeat opponent. Focus economic building early and don't try to make to many "recruitement" building. If you have a trade node early game rush naval construction to occupy it at the earliest with a single boat even non merchant. Two light cavalry unit can gang on the ennemy general and defeat him with ease wich will crush the moral of the ennemy army making it a good investment to have. Also bow ashigaru are more cost effective than samourai bow. Two bow ashigaru will have more fire power than one bow samourai for less cost and will defeat the samourai in a range duel.

[@robertfeyerharm4296]

Stacking two or more ashigaru spear units in wall formation makes your armies nearly unstoppable - very much like the Swiss pike units of the Renaissance era. Long yari are even better, but not required. I don't think you need other unit types in your army. Double stack ashigaru, maybe attach 2-3 units with your general as bodyguards. Point your units at the enemy army and start marching towards them. March double time to quickly close the distance to missile units. Enemy cavalry units can't break stacked ashigaru, even when attacking from the rear. Going 100% yari ashigaru, you won't be able to chase down most of the enemy's routing units with no cavalry units. Not a big problem if you chase down the fleeing enemy army & wipe them out after the first battle.

[@WrathOfTheShaft]

Not sure if you said this, but when you put your metsuke into the town you want to adjust the tax rate(turn off and on)to see the increased income from him on the first turn he gets into the town. Otherwise you miss out on the cash for that one turn.

[@kolpere1625]

basically stand and fight makes ashigaru samurai level tier. +6 melee in total with both the passive and the general ability.

[@MrKYT-gb8gs]

Been playing for 10y...always wondered what overseer trait did....

[@jrmiles73]

I’m pretty sure there is a thing implemented to stop the tax rate changes. I remember there being something that gives -25 to growth per turn from switching tax law to much.

[@niconilo97]

One big thing whit tax level ! Put them at the minimum ! in this total war lowering the tax will grow your town by ALOT so by mid game you when you start fighting all other clans and wont be able to rely on trade, you will have big enough towns to sustains your armies !

[@Ima184mm]

.Do not aggreesive at begining time(Political risk) .Make vassals protect your trade ships(your economy)

[@StarRider253]

The tax thing is great and will make your campaigns so much easier. Its effect on growth isn't important because the extra revenue you get from the very high tax slider is more than growth could ever reasonably get you for most of the game. Growth is only useful by the time you have like 40 or more settlements and by that point the game is already won.

[@DH_264]

I'd love to see a video/series covering the alternative scenario type Mods available in 2023 for Shogun II/FTS and Napoleon especially The Great War, Pike and Shot, the Zulu and US Civil war related ones. Are they worthwhile? Do they crash/How playable/glitchy are they etc.

[@410ns0]

There is a negative effect on town growth if you increase the tax and in the next turn low it. I tried to do it but there is a negative effect called "-25 other" It happend in FoTS i dont now if in Sengoku campain happen.

[@ZenAndPsychedelicHealingCenter]

Very handy video. Thank you.

[@benpickett1484]

Me and a buddy were on a huge shogun 2 binge recently. Unfortunately around turn 50 we started having desync issues along with battle loading issues. I went ahead and gave him my save file and that fixed the desync issues but now every battle we attempt to fight we get the black screen 299 glitch. We did have one mod that boosted the economy slightly but otherwise vanilla. We both have good internet and both running ssds. Is there anyway you know to avoid this glitch. I figure that campaign is unplayable unless you have any tricks to try. Thanks anyone who can help shogun 2 is one of the best total wars in my opinion I just hate the glitches it comes with.

[@tom4465]

I did not do any of these. Completely avoided Metsuke and Ninja's, since every time I made one they would get killed. Still beat the game, but glad I find out some more depth to it regardless!

[@skettinbutter3635]

I forget which clan but you can send agents to convert enemy cities to your cause it's sick as hell

[@diegolamanya345]

the tax mechanic you mentioned is not a great strategy. It's good for when you need a boost of money, but it's not ideal to do it all the time, as it hampers the growth of your provinces.

[@chokosabe]

still shocked stand and fight is where it is in the tech tree. Clutched many unwinnable fights with it over the years

[@johnboon4212]

Add a few more to the list... Town growth is the mechanic which is practically taxable population income... 1) If you're playing as Christian fraction, build churches all over the place. It keeps public order in check, convert the population, helps with research on the chi tree and it also gives the province town growth which will help the province generate more income over time. 2) Positive food helps increase the town growth. Negative results in negative public order 3) Ports and market generate town growth but market takes up one food in exchange for town growth and income per turn. 2) Conversion to Christianity gives negative daimyo honor. 3) Establishing vassals gives your daimyo honor. This can be used to offset the negative honor if you convert to Christianity, go around looting provinces or break/declare war after signing deals. Vassals created after you become the Shogun don't suffer from realm divide debuff.

[@DH_264]

Also, I hadn't realised that low Daimyo honour affected public disorder. One hint I found useful regarding unrest is that if you let a recently conquered but unruly town rebel and then re-take it, the public order is a lot better.

[@TheWinty]

From playing shogun2 for many many years, im convinced that +3 melee attack is automaticly assigned to all infantry from begining of the battle, since its even stated in description of the perk, +3 for army under generals command, the ability to stand and fight is just another ability in that skill. Also, do you even geometry dude? :D

[@Easternshadow28]

Based on my experience with Total War games for years, I'd say you were right. I've never had any reason to believe it was tied to the ability itself.

[@dagvadorj2195]

I don't do the tax thing because on the long term the growth on my towns really suck.

[@deepdungeon8465]

i played Otomo and conquered all trade notes becoming rich af. Import Tercos and train Dunderbass cavalry. Steam rolls the campaign. 😂

[@Argacyan]

The tax level cheese works on most TW games such as Empire.

[@SplendidFactor]

yea I usually crank taxes to maximum almost every Fall Season.

[@rpgs6218]

I got a rtx3070 twp years ago and still havent played shogun with it. I should one of my fav and i preorder back when it was available

[@jollygreen4662]

Is there a mod for multiple agents?

[@ayhanfedai5013]

are they lvl up in towns ? without some agent action

[@NoireBIanc]

stick em in the towns long enough and they lvl up bc overseeing towns itself is a agent action.

[@ayhanfedai5013]

@@NoireBIanc thanks all thoose years i only used them as anti agents lol

[@sacredxgeometry]

You can kind of do this in Rome 1 as well

[@generalsmite7167]

Growth is important particularly in fall of the samurai so don’t try and cheese to much

[@pyephyoaung7340]

I prefer to go max farm and max surplus and lowest tax and keep minimum army for massive town growth. Currently I am holding only 16 provinces and even normal city such as ito(province) is making 4000 per turn due to super low tax and surplus. The AI highest income province such as Sado, IZU is about 3900… lol my top five highest province is close to 6k with four or five star masutke . I can easily floor entire map with all golden armor and golden accuracy army with level 4 or higher veteran in an instead. I control western side of Japan up to Iwami, control all trade nodes and control the most fertile part of central Japan such as Kil, Omi,. Only sixteen provinces. But even the lowest income province already out perform top provinces AI own. This is on legendary set up. You just need to understand the game and do lots of maths. This playstyle is terrible for ikkoikke. Only suitable for shimazu and otomo, mori. Chosokabe is limited to only a few trade due to home province is lock in an island and trade route is limited

[@TheSentryRob]

I totally thought you were saying asians instead of agents. I'm like, "Which one, though?" Time for some hearing aids 😂

[@Endwankery]

Wtf, why are the mechanics behind metsuke not explained ANYWHERE?! I had no idea how effective they are!

[@yellowegg0]

great mistake is not to kill Honma clan before realm of divide or capture tokyo

[@khornymen7611]

This thumbnail looks like every Otomo campaing.

[@KarlEggers-qe3qt]

The second is basically an exploit. I can see a lot of players choosing not to do it for that reason alone.

[@maximusdecimusmeridious3784]

Shogun 2 should enable the tab cheat sheet

[@izalith5847]

The tax thing is like an exploit to me. I've played for years will never use it.

[@sincerelyjerry244]

Thank you

[@anvos658]

Not exploiting the tax system isn't a mistake.

[@damiandamiano3651]

well... the problem with this agme is that computer have infinite resources and manpower, and you need to do such shid to survive, its boring

[@omgoood]

I think maximum tax trick is cheating, and we should not use this in the game

[@filo8197]

I thought this was about to be a three kingdoms video :(

[@TotalWarKS]

maybe next one, depends whatever idea comes to me first and seems doable

[@AbdulHannanAbdulMatheen]

👏🙂

[@shhea]

Can anyone tell me why switching Tax up and down like that is beneficial? Usually i stick it on Very High and leave it like that all game. Am I missing something here?

[@김근모-t6g]

Continuously using that method can lead to an overall decrease in income