Frustrated and wondering whether to continue.

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I want to like Paradox games because they're one of the few companies that still try to make actual strategy games instead of just more mindless shoot-'em-ups, but this is the second Paradox title I've tried, and it's just as infuriating as the other one. Can anybody please answer some questions for me? So I can decide whether or not I want to try to keep playing this game?

Someone keeps damaging my relations with my religion, and when I finally caught a ninja, the report said he was hired by my own heir. 1) WTF? and 2) how can I make the idiot stop?

Can anybody explain to me the weirdness about which missions I can perform where? Sometimes I only get the option to stir up trouble in the territory of friends, or even my own provinces, and that sort of thing.

What effect does a general's military rating have on battle, how do charaters get placed in armies, and what determines which of the people present is in charge?

A note said that the number of provinces I can directly control is determined by my intrigue rating, but it also seems like 5 provinces is the max no matter what my rating may be. Can that province limit be increased?

I started a siege, a vassal added to the troops, and when I chose to assault, the vassal was awarded ownership of the province. What determines that? Relative proportion of troops, or what?

Under what conditions will a foe agree to become a vassal? I've taken all of a guy's other provinces, wiped out all his armies, and my siege on his last province is about to conclude, and he still refuses. Since his alternative is elimination, this makes no sense.

What's the pro-con breakdown on giving daimyo titles to your vassals? There doesn't seem to be any prestige associated with them for my own character, and despite the warning that I will lose direct control, I still personally manage any demesne provinces I keep in that region.

Now the big one. The one that's forcing me to ask whether I want to continue trying to play this game.

I'd just captured some provinces and so was watching my revolt possibilities carefully. Then one arose in a province that had ZERO chance of a rebellion. Was I not warned of this possibility because they were Ikko-Ikkis rather than a normal rebellion? I gathered a larger force and attacked them, but they defeated my superior force. So I began raising another one, but in the pause that required, they captured my level 4 castle. Upon gaining control of the province, they INSTANTLY raised a force of 24,000, which was larger than my entire army at the time. So I raised some more troops and once more attacked them with superior numbers. They kicked my butt, and had 19,000 left over after the battle. Several thousand of my vassals' troops stood around in the adjacent provinces and couldn't be bothered to help. I then raised EVERY available levy in my country, plus a new retinue, and ordered them to collect in the neighboring province. While I was collecting that army, another of my provinces rebelled, though my vassals defeated that. By the time my new army assembled, I was once more outnumbered 23,000 to 21,000. I attacked anyway because it was clear that they were raising troops faster than I could, and time was not on my side. In the ensuing battle, the I-Is wiped out my entirely force while only losing 5,000 of their own. Since it now seems that my whole empire, which comprises 10% of the entire country of Japan, can not raise an army faster or larger than this single frikking rebel province, this event seems to have rendered the campaign unwinnable, and I'll have to give up on it after 2 days of play.

Now can anybody tell me what I was supposed to have done differently?

This combination of interface awkwardness, a manual that doesn't explain most of the game mechanics, and senseless combat resolutions is reminding my why I haven't bought a Paradox game for 11 years.

 

[DarthJF]

Ikko-Ikki appear in random provinces by event and they're not ordinary rebels. They're meant to be tough to beat for historical reasons.

Just expand elsewhere and take the province back when you're bigger and can outnumber them. The amount of troops the Ikki can recruit depends on province improvements (that they are building more of), so there will be a limit to how many troops they can raise. Ikki rebels also sit tight defending, so you don't have to worry about their army attacking your other provinces.

 

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Thank you for the helpful response. I do know a bit about Japanese history and so suspected that the nature of the foe was part of the problem. However, I profoundly hate game situations in which the player is arbitrarily slapped with a disproportional complication simply for the sake of making the game harder, such as a rebel force both larger than AND qualitatively superior to the army my entire clan can field. Even if one accepts that these rebels are able to raise troops capable of defeating professional soldiers (which may have historically been the case), it makes not the slightest bit of sense for this one lone province to be able to out-recruit all of my 32 provinces combined. I do not like being told that there's nothing I can do about it, and I'll just have to write off the loss of this province until such time as I can raise whatever ridiculous multiple of their force size is required to defeat them. What does it take, anyway? If even numbers only kills a fifth of the rebel army, must I raise 6 times their numbers before I can hope to prevail? Seven times? More? And until I can do that, must I now worry about more of my provinces being arbitrarily taken away by random events too strong for me to overcome at this stage of the campaign? It's nice to know that this army won't take over more of my provinces (since there doesn't seem to be a blessed thing I could do to prevent it anyway), but will more of my provinces fall victim to these rebellions?

In my opinion, no game should ever hit the player with a problem that has no solution. A game that leaves me feeling like a helpless victim is simply no fun.

 

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I want to like Paradox games because they're one of the few companies that still try to make actual strategy games instead of just more mindless shoot-'em-ups, but this is the second Paradox title I've tried, and it's just as infuriating as the other one. Can anybody please answer some questions for me? So I can decide whether or not I want to try to keep playing this game?

Someone keeps damaging my relations with my religion, and when I finally caught a ninja, the report said he was hired by my own heir. 1) WTF? and 2) how can I make the idiot stop?

Aye, heirs / vassals and generally all the hangers on tend to do stuff like that. With your son you have the option to send them off to monastery I believe and if he's a poor candidate for a clan head I would do that in first instance. Or just assassinate him ;-)

Can anybody explain to me the weirdness about which missions I can perform where? Sometimes I only get the option to stir up trouble in the territory of friends, or even my own provinces, and that sort of thing.

Sorry mate, never came across those missions? Maybe never played a campaign long enough...

What effect does a general's military rating have on battle, how do charaters get placed in armies, and what determines which of the people present is in charge?

Military rating is of paramount importance during battles and can even overrule numerical advantage (to a point). Sadly, I have no clue how to nominate particular generals to lead specific detachments. I normally just merge all my levies with a ronin general with a killer military stat and go from there. If my daimyo's stats suck I use my retainers separately for sieges only.

A note said that the number of provinces I can directly control is determined by my intrigue rating, but it also seems like 5 provinces is the max no matter what my rating may be. Can that province limit be increased?

5 is all you get. No more, no less, intrigue does nothing to improve / decrease demesne size.

I started a siege, a vassal added to the troops, and when I chose to assault, the vassal was awarded ownership of the province. What determines that? Relative proportion of troops, or what?

Something must have glitched out. Whomever gets there first commands the siege and gets the kori, numerical army ratios don't matter. Someone please correct me on this if I'm talking rubbish.

Under what conditions will a foe agree to become a vassal? I've taken all of a guy's other provinces, wiped out all his armies, and my siege on his last province is about to conclude, and he still refuses. Since his alternative is elimination, this makes no sense.

Indeed, it makes no sense. In short - I've not seen anyone yield yet, all my enemies chose to perish and would never submit. It's the same with hostages, sometimes you will send a hostage exchange offer which, it seems, will be met with a flat out "no" but the other party will send you the same offer 3 secs later... There is something fishy with the way AI weighs up those options because I cannot reliably pinpoint the conditions for them agreeing. Dunno, in other words.

What's the pro-con breakdown on giving daimyo titles to your vassals? There doesn't seem to be any prestige associated with them for my own character, and despite the warning that I will lose direct control, I still personally manage any demesne provinces I keep in that region.

Jury is very much out on this one. I give daimyo titles like candy because it is my preference and makes the campaign less gamey. Some people here will think it's mad to do that and they are probably right. There is certainly a serious risk of a snowball effect here - your vassals conquer kori in their name only and will keep them and give them out to their own vassals in turn so by delegating control over a number of other kokujin to one of your (erstwhile trustworthy) vassal you risk creating a very powerful vassal which will almost certainly rebel at some point, especially that they keep asking you for further title as the game wears on. By creating an extra tier of allegiance you do open a can of worms but, for me, that makes a campaign all the more interesting and definitely gives it proper Sengoku flavour ;-)

Now the big one. The one that's forcing me to ask whether I want to continue trying to play this game.

I'd just captured some provinces and so was watching my revolt possibilities carefully. Then one arose in a province that had ZERO chance of a rebellion. Was I not warned of this possibility because they were Ikko-Ikkis rather than a normal rebellion? I gathered a larger force and attacked them, but they defeated my superior force. So I began raising another one, but in the pause that required, they captured my level 4 castle. Upon gaining control of the province, they INSTANTLY raised a force of 24,000, which was larger than my entire army at the time. So I raised some more troops and once more attacked them with superior numbers. They kicked my butt, and had 19,000 left over after the battle. Several thousand of my vassals' troops stood around in the adjacent provinces and couldn't be bothered to help. I then raised EVERY available levy in my country, plus a new retinue, and ordered them to collect in the neighboring province. While I was collecting that army, another of my provinces rebelled, though my vassals defeated that. By the time my new army assembled, I was once more outnumbered 23,000 to 21,000. I attacked anyway because it was clear that they were raising troops faster than I could, and time was not on my side. In the ensuing battle, the I-Is wiped out my entirely force while only losing 5,000 of their own. Since it now seems that my whole empire, which comprises 10% of the entire country of Japan, can not raise an army faster or larger than this single frikking rebel province, this event seems to have rendered the campaign unwinnable, and I'll have to give up on it after 2 days of play.

Thank you, DarthJF, for sound advice here. I would leave Ikko-Ikki for last, don't bother wasting your troops on a 24k doom stack. I don't know what mechanics govern Shinto / Buddhist / Ikko rebel spawn but I do feel it is random, as Darth said. Leave them be and move on (for now).

This combination of interface awkwardness, a manual that doesn't explain most of the game mechanics, and senseless combat resolutions is reminding my why I haven't bought a Paradox game for 11 years.

He he, the game is hard to love sometimes but many do nonetheless. It definitely has some special charm which is why desperate souls like me still lurk around here and people like chat still work on mods (off-hand but still). Dunno, I keep coming back despite the flaws because the game is packed with really unique info - I know of no other game which would actually bother to accurately (well, kinda) recreate borders of specific large domains in late 15th c. and which portray so many family trees of the time.

Gameplay tends to be pretty fast and brutal but there are moments where everything comes together just right and when that happens, the game is addictive as anything and the flow of the gameplay is incredible. Hopefully PI will remake this title in the future and polish it somewhat; here's hoping...

For the moment all I can say is enjoy the game for what it is and definitely try chat's mod, it makes for a more complex game overall.

 

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Thank you for the info, Brick Top.

With that siege my vassal stole from me, could it be that my assault didn't carry the day, so he mounted one of his own?

I loaded a save to better prepare for the I-I rebellion, and it didn't happen again. I dislike using saves to cheat my way out of a bad spot, but it sure relieved me of a lot of frustration this time. I'm still not sure I like the game's combat resolution, though. I attacked a province of Shinto rebels with a numerical advantage of 44,000 to 14,250, and although I won the battle, I lost 21,000 men. The post-battle report said my force only killed 6000 rebels. Really? I have a 3:1 advantage and still lose half of my army? That doesn't seem reasonable to me.

But my campaign is going gangbusters now, though one of my vassals is getting a bit big for his britches and has been scarfing up provinces for himself.

On the subject of the vagueness of the interface, I somehow managed to screw up the succession and demoted myself to daimyo within my own clan. Fortunately, I was the clan leader's heir, so when he died control of the faction reverted to me. I don't know how I managed that.

 

[DarthJF]

One thing about combat mechanics you might have overlooked is that terrain affects the width of battlefield, which affects how large part of your army can participate in the battle at one time. Only a part of your army is actually fighting, and the rest are acting as reserve that steps in later. So despite your superiority, you and the rebels probably had equal numbers doing the actual fighting all the time, and if they had terrain advantage and/or better leader, then it's not that surprising that you took large losses.

 

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It's possible that the terrain was constricted, but how would I tell?

 

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It's possible that the terrain was constricted, but how would I tell?

Hover over the province and you will see a percentage of each type of terrain present in the province. I know that it has an impact on the terrain "used" in battle calculations but I don't know exact science here, I'm afraid. I work on the assumption that high percentage of hilly terrain and river crossings are good for defence, flatlands are good for attack. Someone please correct me if this is not true.

 

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I just fought some rebels and watched the battle screen for details. There was a -1 modifier applied to my forces for some unspecified terrain affect. Even if terrain does explain the relative proportions of our casualties, rebels will ALWAYS be fighting on the defense, with the advantages of terrain. I did win by mobbing them with over 3:2 odds, but I have to say that the rebels are threatening to ruin this game for me.

I had just started a war with a larger rival to my south, and at a time when the second largest faction in the game was sending 61,000 troops against me, I had to stop and deal with 20,000 rebels behind my lines. Should a single rebel province be able to field a force 1/3rd the size of the army of a small nation? I did defeat the rebels, but in the time it took, the enemy clan took 10 provinces from me. There was scant chance of getting any of them back because I had just depleted most of my levies fighting the flippin' rebels. I gave up on the campaign.

I have a couple of new questions:
1) I'm still playing on easy while I learn the game. Do the rebels get stronger at higher difficulties?
2) Are vassals pretty much useless in warfare? They never come to my aid in battles, even when they're standing around in adjacent provinces, and tend to waste their forces in dribs and drabs instead of concentrating them in powerful armies.

By the way, I also hate it when a new guy comes to a forum and just complains about everything he hates the about game. As odd as it may sound, I'm actually hoping I'm wrong about Sengoku and I'll end up enjoying it, which is why I keep coming back to ask questions. I appreciate that no one has just told me to shut up and go away already.

 

[DarthJF]

Hover over the province and you will see a percentage of each type of terrain present in the province. I know that it has an impact on the terrain "used" in battle calculations but I don't know exact science here, I'm afraid. I work on the assumption that high percentage of hilly terrain and river crossings are good for defence, flatlands are good for attack. Someone please correct me if this is not true.

I think the terrain percentage is directly the likelyhood for that type of terrain ending up as the battlefield. If a province has 50% plains, 30% hills and 20% mountains, then likelyhood that the battle takes on a plain is 50% etc.

And the combat width depends on the type of terrain, so larger armies won't be able to use their full numbers on mountains, forests or hills, but I'm not sure how the exact math goes. A quote from dev diary regarding this:

There are however some new features and changes in Sengoku. One of them is that the battlefield can have different combat width depending on terrain. So while a large army can use its full advantage in plains or in farmlands, it will be much harder to realize that potential in a narrow mountain pass where only a handful of its units can participate at any moment. This will give a small but qualitative army a better chance to withstand a large army of inferior quality.

Basically larger armies get a double negative when attacking in mountains or other terrain favouring the defender. First they get the terrain penalty, and on top of that they can only use a part of their force at a time. So a smaller army defending on mountain terrain can really make larger ones bleed, even more so if they also have a superior general and high numbers of samurai retinue on their side.

 

[Tatsunoshi]

...but I have to say that the rebels are threatening to ruin this game for me.

I believe Oda Nobunaga said much the same thing

Since Sengoku is more of a sim than an arcade-y game like Shogun 2, the rebels (particularly the Ikko-ikki) do play a major part in the proceedings and at times are far bigger threats than other daimyo (just like they were historically). The Ikko-shu groups were based around the Jodo Shinshu school of Buddhism (which is different than the other esoteric brands of Buddhism that are abstracted in the game like Tendai, Nichiren, and Shingon). There were entire provinces that were basically being ruled by these groups in conjunction with local warlords, Shogunal deputies, and other religious groups (the most well known being Kaga and Etchu). They were Oda Nobunaga's greatest foes and also caused massive problems for other warlords like Tokugawa Ieyasu and Uesugi Kenshin. What really made them strong is that because they were based around Jodo Shinshu, they drew their support from all over Japan-the 20000 that suddenly spring up could easily be gathered from one province and way more than that, since the Jodo groups would 'put out the call' and local groups would travel to their province to fight. They were well funded, well led (many Jodo members were regular samurai) and well equipped, often more so than the samurai armies they faced.

So while it can be frustrating to have to deal with these factions, it's an accurate representation of the historical reality. That's what makes Sengoku different-your character faces challenges from within their own lands and retainers as much or more than they do from outsiders. It makes your position at any moment precarious, but at the same time, no position is ever hopeless because disaster can strike the AI factions just as easily (otherwise the Uesugi and Hosokawa would win virtually every game). As you play more, you'll get more used to making allowances and contigency plans to deal with the constant stream of troublemakers in your rear, so don't give up hope just yet.

 

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New question: I had a vassal who was threatening to revolt, so I ordered him to give his province back. He said, "No." So I ordered him to commit seppuku. He said, "No." And then, like the imperious and vindictive tyrant for which feudal Japan is famous, I violently and decisively... Well, I said, "Okay. Sorry I bothered you," because apparently I had exhausted my options at that point. I can't declare war on him, I can't kick him out of the clan, and I believe ninjas will only accept assassination missions against members of other courts, right? The only actions I'm currently allowed to choose are to send him money or offer him a marriage. So what am I supposed to do about this clown? Is there no way to get rid of him?

 

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Hmmm... The only bit of good news is that you can assassinate in your own court; otherwise life would be just too hard in this game. That would be my avenue - send your thugs after the man. I find it odd that you cannot revoke the province, though. In my experience your minions have only 2 options - give up the land or rebel. I've never had a vassal show me up like that, what a crafty sod ;-)

 

[DarthJF]

He can refuse seppuku if he has enough honour left. Refusing costs him honour, but unless he drops to zero, he will refuse the order. If you outhonour him, then you can spam the order until he has no choice but to obey, but that will likely also burn up most of your own honour.

 

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His honor was down to about 8, but I didn't try demanding seppuku again because it was also putting my honor in the dump so early in the campaign. Why should it cost me honor to chastise an insubordinate underling? But it didn't matter, because while I was husbanding my forces in case he should rebel, a larger neighbor declared war and swamped both of us. He never did rebel, by the way, despite having -100 regard for me.

 

[DarthJF]

AI is pretty smart regarding its own survival, so even if vassals hate your guts, they won't rebel unless they have reasonable chance of winning (either by forming a plot among themselves, or if you get weakened in a war). I've had games where most of my vassals have had negative opinion of me, but since I've kept them small (no one with more than 10% military power), no one dared to rise against me.