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I just hit Realm Divide.

I was sorely tempted to say "we'll go it alone" as I'd just consolidated an excellent position and now have several massive offensive armies. My "modern" army setup is General, 6 units of line infantry, 6 units of Armstrong guns and 2 units of Gatling guns, thought I may add in some revolver cavalry as a QRF. I choose the most defensible spot and set Gatlings to hold the centre, cannons on the extreme flanks for crossfire (with shrapnel shot that's devastating) and 2 x 3 Line Infantry units in front if terrain allows or behind if now, ready to screen away anyone who gets too close. Add to that the fact that I rarely have picked a fight where I don't have Naval Bombardment standing by...

The problem is that my major armoury is Satsuma - where I can get superior accuracy and armour added on and have a couple of Veterans focused on recruitment and training. So now that I'm done with the Southern/Western end of Japan, I'm going to need to set up and excellent Ferry Service to start transporting created units to where the South Western railhead is for movement to the front.

I've already got 3 ishin ishi, 3 geisha and 2 shinobi ready to cross into my first neighbour and incite revolts and hold up their armies while mine rush in and restore order and capture the province. I'm going to keep that up until I can get to Musashi, where I can join up with my two beachhead provinces up there and then we'll show the goddamn Shogunate what's up.

A Japanese movie battle scene for Toba-Fushimi. Anyone have any idea what movie this is from?

Those gun sound effects are terrible though. Or is that how they really sound? I seem to recall Zulu also sort of sounding like that so maybe I'm just spoiled by modern movie gun sounds.

@Ando

That's a fuckload of artillery alright. I think the most I ever had in one army was 3 Parrots and 2 Armstrongs.

I'm done with Choshu, endgame and momentum is pretty much unstoppable. Though the enemy has only huge stacks of Shogitai left. Brutal slaughter.

I guess I'll try Aizu or Nagato and maybe try for Republic.

Bizen and Owari have spoilt me in terms of recruiting spots. Satuma is nice but it it's terribly isolated. In my Satsuma game I used the province next to higo, the one with copper as my muster point (my theory was...higo=cannon, since it had iron, satsuma elite infantry since smith, copper province meatshield infantry since reduced cost)

But I live my choshuu game better. Bizen = artillery and infantry, Owari = infantry. i gave one the gunsmith+general headquarters while the oither has armourer + firing range

Urgh.

Realm divide is pretty shit.

Because the front is ALL the way over there, I'm having to rely on ships to bypass friendly provinces as no fucker is building a rail-line.

I HAVE THE MONEY. I'M GETTING LIKE 15k A TURN. I WILL PAY YOU TO BUILD THE RAILWAY SO I CAN MOVE MY ARMIES THROUGH THERE. I ALREADY HAVE FUCKING INDEFINITE MILITARY ACCESS.

I should have just said "Fuck you Shogun, Fuck you Emperor and gone it alone."

Just use agents to stir rebellion in your allies provinces. Then you can walk in in the name if restoring imperial order without diplomatic penalty lol

That's what I've been doing.

Seems like a waste of time.

But hey, unified Japan is going to be fucking unified.

I might have been able to pull off "going it alone" with my Choshu game but it would require some solid pre-planning, what with Satsuma and Yonogo having full stack armies near the very soft and squishy heart of my domain and the fact that half my armies are made out of imperial infantry (and the rest Kiheitai. It's awesome when the kiheitai officer takes out a huge pistol to shoot every now and then ). It would take a while to train up republican infantry to sub for them...

Pretty shit that there's no Republican equivalent to Shinsengumi and Ishin Isshi though, for some reason. Wouldn't be so bad if propoganda chain buildings had influence that go beyond just the next province over.

On a random tangent, I can see why they choose HMS Warrior. The kind of iron gunboats used in the far east stations in the 1870's look pretty ugly. Never mind the battleships...

Won my Saga campaign.

There was no stopping me at the end, with the set-back of having a raiding force land and try to take some of my "home" territories (which did nothing more than make me raise ANOTHER army and fleet) I delayed my plans two years while I rebuilt and consolidated again, then it was an inexorable march from our beachheads up towards Hokkaido.

Just plain murdering fools.

Army template at the end (for newly manufactured forces):
General
3 Revolver Cavalry - acting as QRF
4 Gatling batteries
6 Armstrong batteries
6 Line Infantry in 2 groups who anchor my flanks
Foreign Veteran with many accuracy, reload speed and ammunition bonuses

Hardly anyone ever made it to Line Infantry range. Especially when I had my fleets in support (about 10 fleets of minimum 5 ironclads), would get 135sec cool down and 50 shell barrages.