Desu Vult part 1: God tells the Otomo to rule Japan

So I promised that I would do this and here it is, my play-through of Shogun 2 with the Otomo Clan.

The only Christian clan in Japan at the start of the game, I plan to not only have the Otomo clan become the ruling family but to convert the entire populace to the one true faith.  The benefits of being a Christian faction are that gun units are cheaper, more effective, and when I upgrade the trade port to its final level I can recruit Portuguese soldiers into my armies to help cleanse Japan of heathens through guns show the Japanese people that Jesus is the one true savior.

So we start off pretty good for ourselves. We have two provinces, both majority Christian with Bungo being 90% and Buzen being 80%.  We also start on Kyushu which has nearly everything you'd ever need to become shogun, it has horse breeders for better cavalry, paper crafts for trading or improving accuracy on ranged units, a philosophical tradition which can improve our metsukes (money making agents) or boost research. It also has only one other major clan, the Shimazu, who usually get taken out pretty fast by the AI which is pretty funny considering they are ranked as easy on clan difficulty.

 Our first mission in the game is to build a chapel in one of our towns. Pretty easy stuff as it will help the conversion of the populace as the peasantry become massively butthurt if so much as 0.01% of the population in their town is not of the clan religion. Love and Compassion for all.  But I always build chapels everywhere to get missionaries for scouting and converting far off provinces I'll eventually attack, or to just destabilize a certain area by inciting rebellion.  Chapels also help with boosting research on the more passive side of the research.

On the subject of research here are the arts of mastery we can get throughout the course of the game.
 
 It's always a good option to go into into the Way of Chi as the first thing to master unless you the clan you play as is specialized in some weapon like the Katana or No-Dachi. I usually get it as no matter how well an army you can make in the game, sheer numbers always will bring it down due to swarm tactics.

Now let's take a look into Clan management.
 
This screen gives an overview on how the clan is doing, from your religion, how much money you have, and capital location.

Clan traits are awards or penalties that you will get depending on certain actions or choices you make on missions. Fame is how large your clan is, if you get too large the Shogun will declare you an enemy of the state having everyone in the game break ties and declare war on you. I have turned this off because it is complete horseshit and nothing but artificial difficulty to have the game slow to a crawl as you fight off everyone.

You can also see that we are at war with two clans but they are both pretty shit and no real cause for concern.

Onto the Family and Council screen:

So here is the entire family at the start of the game, one Daimyo, his wife and son, and a general who can be brought into the family but I never let them unless it becomes dire. You can also appoint members of the clan to council positions such as my general being the minister of war.  I will probably promote to son to being minster of finance or something that brings me money.

Here on the Diplomacy screen you can see all the clans we have encountered, their disposition towards us, and if we can trade with them or not.  The Sagara clan is the only clan available who can trade with us and doesnt hate us so let's see how well our Diplomatic measures go over.

Offend your merchants? WTF? Alright fuck you then.

One last thing before I start to kick this off and that is the honor of your faction leader.

Every faction leader will have a base of 3 honor, which is where you'll have no problems with unrest whatsoever. Unfortunately being a christian faction we take a -1 to honor so our populace is a little upset that we have less honor than others.  There are modifiers to help fix this such as gaining retinue that boost honor, researching chi masteries that grant honor, or taking a vassal instead of conquering them outright all boost honor. Losing honor is also pretty simple to avoid. Just don't loot castles, betray allies, go bankrupt, or get your ass kicked brutally and you'll be golden.

The next update I'll do tomorrow will show you how I go about setting up to take out both clans that are at war with me. See you all next time.