Pokemon Conquest Part #10 - Hanbei and Kanbei

Part 10: Hanbei and Kanbei

Alacron posted:

ha ha ha ha Ha Ha Ha Ha AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Main Theme

Heyyyyyy... welcome back to Pokemon Conquest... I guessssss. My lack of motivation should tell you how the game's gonna be from now on. We've beaten the main story, so this is technically the postgame, but it's a bit different to the usual postgames we're used to.

If you're familiar with Samurai Warriors and the like, then you know that a good chunk of the game consists of different scenarios from all the playable characters of the game. And it's exactly the same here. EVERY SINGLE WARLORD in this game has a "unique" scenario from their perspective and if you want to play as the main character again, we'll have to go through quite a few of these. Let's start with Hideyoshi's story so we can see what it consists of.

While not every story has a unique win condition, there is a bit of variety depending on the Warlord featured. We'll be going into all these later, but Hideyoshi's story is a good starting point, as is Ieyasu's.

Episode Opening

Known for the constant battles that raged across its 17 kingdoms. In the kingdom of Ignis, situated in the corner of this land...

But it's only some people--Warriors--that can communicate with Pokemon. Don't you think it'd be great if everyone could make friends with Pokemon? What a happy world that would be! It's the kind of world I've always dreamed of! It's the kind of world I've always dreamed of!

Yeah... I'll show ya! And they also say that the one who captures all 17 castles gets to see this Pokemon, right?

You're not...

Yeah! I am! I'm gonna summon the legendary Pokemon, and together we're gonna change this world!

Ransei

...and just like that, we have our goal for the entire scenario. So yeah, after 9 pretty lengthy updates, we conquered the entirety of Ransei after a bit of a struggle and an alright story. Now the game is wanting us to do the same AGAIN. 12 stories expect us to do this and it's pretty rough. But at the same time, how long will it be until we conquer Ransei again in this story? End of next update. So let's see what's new in the postgame.[/i]

All 17 kingdoms are available from the outset and ruled by their main Warlord we met during the story. Everyone takes their turn in a random order each month, with our turn also in a random place, so a fair few of the kingdoms will take their turn before us, though right now they're not doing much. Their turns also go by so quickly it's difficult to get a good screenshot, so ignore anything that looks weird.

Alright, let's see who we're starting with.

Hideyoshi is basically the same as when we first encountered him in Ignis and we've talked about him enough that there's nothing much to really go over!

It's his companions that we're interested in. Hanbei and Kanbei are the only postgame Warlords, so that means we've met all 37 of them! Takenaka Shigeharu was a samurai and strategist under Hideyoshi. While originally serving the Saitō clan, he plotted an uprising and took over the clan's castle at Mount Inaba and then directed the defense against the forces of Nobunaga during the Siege of Inabayama Castle. Hideyoshi was so impressed by him that he invited Hanbei to join his forces. He had a son, Takenaka Shigekado, who would later fight for Ieyasu at the Battle of Sekigahara and secure his family's holdings in Bodaisan. Hanbei died of illness while Hideyoshi was attacking the Mōri clan.

Kuroda Yoshitaka was a daimyo and strategist of Hideyoshi, as well as the head of the Kuroda family, near Himeji Castle. After the defeat of the Saitō clan, Kanbei pledged his loyalty to Nobunaga and served under Hideyoshi, with Hanbei. When Itami Castle's lord Murashige Araki planned a revolt against Oda, Kanbei went to convince him not to defect. Araki imprisoned Kanbei and was eventually defeated in the Siege of Itami, freeing Kanbei. Due to his long imprisonment, Kanbei lost use of one leg and one eye, though he still served as Hideyoshi's strategist. During this time, Hideyoshi became more and more wary of Kanbei, as he had become so powerful only with his help and believed Kanbei wanted to overthrow him, especially due to his deep friendship with Rikyu. Regardless, Kanbei eventually retired after a mostly unsuccessful attempt to conquer the Kyūshū region for Ieyasu.

Oichi is the Warlord of Aurora, instead of Azai... oh yeah, we haven't talked about those two, have we? Oichi was the sister of Nobunaga and sister-in-law of Nōhime and wife of Azai Nagamasa, later marrying Shibata Katsuie. Her marriage to Nagamasa was political to cement their clan's alliance after Nobunaga conquered Mino. When Nagamasa betrayed the alliance to declare war on Nobunaga on behalf of the Asukura family, Oichi remained with him throughout the three year conflict, even after Hideyoshi began besieging the castle. When the castle was surrounded, Nobunaga requested that Oichi and her three daughters were to be saved, which Nagamasa agreed to as he committed seppuku soon after. Oichi was cared for by the Oda clan until Nobunaga was killed by Mitsuhide and Oichi married Katsuie so he stayed loyal to the Oda clan and fought against Hideyoshi. When he was defeated, Katsuie and Oichi retreated to Kitanosho Castle, with Hideyoshi following close behind. This time, Oichi remained behind with her husband and sent her daughters to be cared for by Hideyoshi, while she and Katsuie were killed in the siege.

All the Warlords that have a domain are here, though...

Nobunaga looks a bit different. Guess he was evolved in the main story.

We also have this new building in Ignis. Let's check it out.

"worth visiting!"

By the way, I recommend that you invest your gold very wisely. Make smart choices, and you'll see the rewards! Now then, please choose the location you wish to invest in.

The Bank is a postgame building that lets you upgrade a kingdom's facilities. You may have noticed a small level indicator in the top right when viewing facilities, by investing enough gold with enough Warriors with high enough Wisdom, they'll level up and become very useful. This is the big money sink you'll be using, but best to do it in one big go in a story, since location upgrades don't transfer, as well as your gold. So spend spend spend! Oh yeah, hardly any items transfer between stories, making them even more annoying to use, so don't bother upgrading shops and Ponigiri shops, but do focus on Gold Mines, they're extra good now.

We've got stuff to do in our first month. After all, we've only got an army of 3 right now, so we need to build it back up again. Oh joy.

Let's recruit some peeps!

Hope you don't like big numbers, cause we're super weak again. But we should get pretty strong by the time we conquer the entire region...

And of course we're nowhere done with our historical overviews, did you see how many Warriors we met last time? Nowhere near enough. Naka was Hideyoshi's mother, known as Ōmandokoro. Since Hideyoshi started off as a sandal bearer, his family wasn't particularly important, his father was a foot soldier. So not much is known about her as Hideyoshi left home in search of adventure and he very rarely talked about his past.

We've already met Hideaki. Maa was the daughter of Maeda Toshiie, one of the leading generals of Nobunaga. She became one of Hideyoshi's concubines.

Since we've used Hideaki before, all the Pokemon he linked with are still his, meaning we can use his Whirlipede right out the gate. So even if you see one of your favourites using a Pokemon you never gave them, don't fret, they have everything still, which makes life a lot easier as we recruit more and more people.

Hmm, we need to start beating people up so we can get some link, otherwise it's gonna be a long road.

Terumoto is here and he's got Petilil as a Perfect Link. Let's not bother with him and instead with our Fire and Poison types, go and kick Motonari's ass. The list function is very useful to see who's lurking in kingdom locations so you can decide if you want to recruit them again. The list is your friend.

VS Greenleaf

And just like that, we're in battle. There's no story cutscenes, no preamble, just go straight in. And this does seem familiar...

Ah yeah, I remember that vine bridge. I hope there weren't any maps in this game you disliked cause, uh, there's only one battlefield map for each kingdom. But since we know how they all work, it should be pretty easy now.

Especially since super effective damage is king. There's no story caveats, you can recruit any and all Warriors as soon as you meet them. If you fulfil the recruitment criteria, that is.

We're not going to have any trouble facing these guys down, so this should end quickly.

Still need to claim all the banners, but it was a quick and easy battle.

Gonna be investing in the Ignis Cave whenever I can, we'll need it at max level.

VS Fontaine

Let's beat up water dude.

I think we'll be fine.

If you thought some maps were straightforward before, you ain't seen nothing yet.

This is why you don't bother with the waterways.

With that, we have 3 kingdoms under our control already and we're not even a third of the way through the update yet. We also don't need to recruit literally everyone we come across, since we don't have the need for some Warriors we've already got their Perfect Link with and we don't have a huge amount of space right out of the gate.

When you reach certain milestones such as recruiting enough Warriors, or Pokemon, one of your army will comment about it and increase everyone's Energy. Told you we don't need to micromanage it, it sorts itself out.

VS Aurora

It's Oichi time. We'll go over this kingdom properly since this is the first time we're invading it.

It's a pretty simple kingdom and you may have noticed how strong we are compared to our enemies. They're not really doing much each month, which is fine by me!

We haven't seen too many maps with logs. If you attack them, then they'll move one space in the direction of the attack. Any Pokemon that gets knocked down by one will take damage. The logs also open and close paths and are a fine obstacle, if not particularly exciting.

Ohatsu was the second of Oichi and Nagamasa's three daughters and was a prominent figure due to being a liaison between the Toyotomi and Tokugawa clans. She married her cousin, Kyōgoku Takatsugu, who was a daimyō of the Ōmi Province, under the Toyotomi. He transferred to the Tokugawa and along with Ohatsu, lived an opulent life. When he passed, Ohatsu joined the Jōkō-ji temple and stayed there until she died.

Kōsokabe Chikayasu was Motochika's younger brother and has a jp wiki and fr wiki entries, but not English. I mean, sure.

Slightly annoying, but that'll become our asset soon enough.

Lady Chacha was the eldest daughter of Oichi and Nagamasa and became concubine and second wife to Hideyoshi after she entered his care after Oichi's death. She became mother to Hideyori, who became Hideyoshi's successor and after Hideyoshi's death, she retreated to Osaka Castle and helped Hideyori plot the restoration of the Toyotomi clan. When Ieyasu broke through and attacked Osaka Castle, both she and Hideyori committed seppuku.

Ransei

Welcome to Hideyoshi's army... cutie. Next month!

But it's about time that I thought about retiring. Before I do that, I thought I'd better share some of what I've learned with you young Warriors. If there's anything you want to ask about, youngster, go ahead. This old man has plenty of time on his hands.

Bit late for tutorials, eh? Ah well, let's hear what you've got to say.

Finally, improving a Pokemon's Speed makes it easier for their moves to hit the enemy while also making it easier for them to avoid enemy moves. Got all that?

To increase a move rank to its maximum level, you will need to achieve a 100% link with your Pokemon. Moves whose move ranks are at their maximum level are super powerful, so be sure to work hard and strengthen your link, all right?

Professor tutorial man will appear on May, Year 1 on every scenario. Nice if it's been a while since you've played and want to remember how some things work. But it would've been nice to know about this earlier.

I'll still be going for Perfect Links and all that, but I'm going to be focusing on Warlords a lot more. As a cheeky aside, you should get to using all the Ghost and Poison type Pokemon in this game. WINK WINK.

VS Violight

We've now got enough Warriors to take on TWO kingdoms a month, which will speed things up significantly. You don't need Hideyoshi, Hanbei and Kanbei for all of them, thank god.

A cool change is Muneshige is using an Emolga, though he still has Staravia from the main story. Let's recruit both him and Ginchiyo.[/i]

It will be a bit annoying though, Emolga has Volt Switch which moves it back one space after it attacks, making it annoying to catch up to. This battlefield also makes using Chimchar's Ember tough.

Remember to defeat Warlords with other Warlords, or you'll be quite sad.[/i]

Ah goddammit, guess we'll get Muneshige later. Not that we really have a time limit to get all the Warlords and that, it just makes things easier. Oh well.

Ransei

Hey, Monferno... I feel an even greater strength than I did before... You feel it too, right? Hey, Monferno! We're still a team, right!

Using Hideyoshi in basically every invasion means Chimchar levelled up quickly. Like the main story, using your Warlords in literally every battle gives them a real nice Link boost.

VS Pugilis

Time for Oichi to take centre stage!

Now that we're recruiting old peeps, we've got some real strong Pokemon on our side, like the Gyarados we got at the end of the main story. Oh we will have fun.

I love Samurott. Especially cause I gave it Conqueror. See how I've been preparing for all this?

Tsunokuma Sekisō was a tactician for Ōtomo Sōrin and taught his craft to Dōsetsu Tachibana. He disagreed with Sōrin about attacking the city of Hyūga, but still participated in the siege. He died during the battle.

Man this would seem almost unfair... if I gave a shit. Next month!

Hey, remember swarming Pokemon? Well what if you didn't want to get any cause you didn't have the right Pokeball? Yeah, natural swarming Pokemon suck since they don't happen very often and you might not have the right Warrior to link with them. So we'll be using passwords instead of this bullshit, though I will try and remember to pick them up if I can, to make filling out the Gallery a little easier.

Nice one. It took a little bit since our Warriors have been needed elsewhere and we've been a bit low on cash, but it's all worth it.

"it be...?!"

I have no idea what you're talking about...

Getting a kingdom's main battling locale to level 2 makes another one appear, giving you a lot of different Pokemon. Levelling up the facilities are always useful, but getting the second area appear is always useful if you're looking for a specific Pokemon. Also levelling up one area makes some new Pokemon appear, now Charmeleon, Pignite and Darumaka have a chance of appearing in the Cave.

Surprise surprise the goth guy has a Perfect Link with the Litwick line. Instead of waiting until we conquer Spectra (ugggggggh), they can thankfully be found on the Floating Rock, as well as Chimchar. So getting these new areas is pretty worth it.

VS Chrysalia

Chrysalia is still as fun as always, definitely wanna get Yoshimoto, cause the game just isn't complete without him.

Ah good, I haven't missed this.

Still don't have much a problem here.

Sanada Masayuki was the daimyō of the Sanada clan and father of Yukimura. He originally served under Takeda Shingen as a political hostage, but when that clan faltered, he took control and established himself during the Toyotomi regime amongst the Tokugawa, Hojō and Uesugi clans. With Nobunaga's lands relatively free after his death, Masayuki switched between the Uesugi and Hojō clans and then betrayed Ujinao to help Yoda Nobushige, under the Tokugawa clan. Seeing the shift in power, Ujinao offered peace and Masayuki became prominent as Ieyasu's vassal. But soon after when Ieyasu wanted Masayuki to abdicate Numata Castle, Masayuki resisted and cut ties with Ieyasu, instead opting to join under Hideyoshi. After Hideyoshi's death, Masayuki then joined Mitsunari against Ieyasu and sent his son to the Battle of Sekigahara. He faced Hidetada's forces and prevented him from joining Ieyasu to potentially sway the battle. Masayuki was exiled and died due to illness.

Oh look, I got paralyzed 3 turns in a row.

I don't wanna play this map for a while now.

Perfect Link aside it's now Terrera's turn! Cause fuck Illusio...

VS Terrera

I won't be going for the quick win since I want to recruit people, so let's see how this map plays normally.

Oh, I wonder what will happen?

Seems about right.

Chop that baby. Imagawa Ujizane was a daimyō of the Imagawa clan and the eldest son of Yoshimoto. He married the daughter of Hōjō Ujiyasu as part of an alliance, but after Yoshimoto passed away, Ujizane was attacked by Shingen and Ieyasu. At the Siege of Kakegawa, Ujizane allied himself with Ieyasu in order to recover territory in Suruga and he later went after the Takeda clan with a salt embargo. This was ineffective as Kenshin went around his embargo and with their power faltering, Ujizane accepted the offer by Ieyasu for the Imagawa clan to become Tokugawa retainers.

Mmm that's some good strategy. Always kill the trees.

Ow, Dragon Rage is dangerous again. Maybe this time we can get Kunoichi's Perfect Link.

Up and down the lifts. Make sure you get one of the flags and keep the lift guarded, so the enemy doesn't surprise you, since you can't follow them up the same turn they go up.

I dunno when we'll see this guy again, so Honjō Saneyori was one of Kenshin's teachers in military strategy and played a large role in his growth to adulthood. He was one of his most trusted advisors when Kenshin became head of the clan and followed his master in death when he passed due to illness.

It's not difficult to get the flags after the enemy gets ahold of them, since they get blown off. So we're waiting to take them down.

Easy enough, so gotta clean up the banners.

Would be nice if we could conquer the whole region by the end of the year. Ah, it'll probably be by the second year.

Ransei

Another Energy boost, everyone's doing alright, so off to the next month!

Everyone's been a bit quiet so far. Boy, I wonder what Masamune's up to?

I'm not surprised at that.

Now that's just embarrassing, you just got a boost from beating back birds, brah!

Finally Pichu appeared, now Hanbei can get his Perfect Link. What a couple of handsome boys.

Gotta test out Litwick, of course. Gamō Ujisato was a retainer to Nobunaga after he took over the Rokkaku clan and Ujisato was taken as a political hostage, so Ujisato's father could pledge his loyalty to Nobunaga. He grew into a fine young man and in his first battle sieging Kizukuri Castle, he impressed Nobunaga so much that he gave his daughter Fuyuhime in marriage to Ujisato and was affectionally referred to by Nobunaga as "my little son-in-law." They had two children, one daughter, one son. When Nagamasa betrayed Nobunaga, Ujisato helped his master escape by taking him to Hino Castle and arranging his escape to Gifu. For this feat, Nobunaga posted him under Katsuie with his father and then eventually under his personal command at Hino Castle. When Nobunaga was killed, Ujisato sheltered his wife and children and then submitted to Hideyoshi and was rewarded with Aizu for the pacification of Ōshū, where his family stayed for years.

Rhyperior status: still good. Tanegashima Tokitaka was the man who introduced muskets to Japan, changing warfare forever. When a Chinese ship with Portuguese adventurers were shipwrecked on the island of Tanegashima, Tokitaka purchased two matchlock muskets from them and enlisted a smith, Yaita, to replicate them. He did so easily enough, aside from a tricky screwing technique that didn't exist in Japan in time, so they enlisted a Portuguese blacksmith to solve the problem. Within 10 years, 300,000 Tanegashima firearms had been manufactured. The use of serial firing allowed Shingen and Nobunaga to change Japanese warfare forever and they both heavily invested in firearms.

Ryūzōji Takanobu was a daimyō of the Ryūzōji clan on the island of Kyushu and became the 19th head of the clan after his father, Ryūzōji Chikaie. He expanded the clan's holdings, taking land from the Shōni clan, but when his retainer Arima Harunobu split, several local clans took the opportunity to start an uprising. He led an army to quell them, but was defeated by Shimazu Iehisa, whose clan had allied with the locals. Takanobu was killed by Kawakami Tadakata, a Shimazu retainer.

VS Illusio

...alright it's Illusio time.

More banner fun, let's send over Gyarados to deal with one side.

Kanetsugu took the banner this time, though thankfully there's no Gallade running around. Hōjō Gen'an was a monk, son of Hōjō Sōun and uncle to Ujiyasu, who inherited the clan after Gen'an's brother and Ujiyasu's father, Ujitsuna, passed.

Let's smack some sense into this lot. Due to turn timers, we'll only be recruiting Kanetsugu and Aya (and Gen'an), but it's not a huge deal.

Since we're here, Murakami Yoshikiyo was a samurai and retainer of Kenshin, participating in many conflicts against Takeda Nobutora and his son, Shingen. Shingen severely disliked him due to Yoshikiyo's high kill count, though before he joined Kenshin, he and Shingen were on good terms. He fought many bitter battles against Shingen, with both of them enjoying their share of victories as one outwitted the other. Yoshikiyo killed a fair number of Shingen's generals and after abandoning the village of Shinano, Yoshikiyo went to Kenshin for aid. He fought under Kenshin during the Battle of Kawanakajima, where he is credited for killing Shingen's brother, Nobushige, though Kenshin is also credited with this. He was able to recover Shinano and later died in the town.

We now have over half of Ransei under our command. What a wild ride this story has been so far... oh wait, there hasn't been a cutscene since the very beginning.

VS Yaksha

Next up is Yaksha, I guess and did you just leave him on 1HP??? Ugggggggh, the projected number was 62, but I guess I got the lowest roll.

Well that's neat.

I get ya, Motonari, seeing a new Pokemon for the first time is always a joy.

Nice, finally got scary claw man.

Well that was, uh, fun? Let's not battle in Yaksha anytime soon. Least we've seen all these ninja before, but now we're in the old Nobunaga territory, so everyone we recruit should be brand new in our Gallery.

Ransei

But I think that should do us, we've conquered a lot of Ransei and to be honest, it's been pretty easy and kinda boring. Still, at least we'll get through this story with little trouble.[/i]