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Shogun 2: for PC - Legendary Coop Mode
Email : Humanvegetableonline2002@yahoo.com
Copyright 2013 Humanvegetableonline
Version 1.0 - 2/24/13
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Dedication
This guide dedicated to Firemagzz, my Co-Op partner. The Jesse to my W.W.

About this game
This game is a really time consuming strategy game. One of the best RTS
game I have ever played.

Copyright Stuff
Do not use this guide unless you ask me. If you wish use it then you
know what to do. My Email and AIM are up there. These websites are
allowed to use this guide.
- http://Neoseeker.com
- http://Gamefaqs.com
- http://wogaming.com
- http://cheats.de
- http://faqs.ign.com

Version 1.0
Guide Complete.

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Table of Contents
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1.0 - Introduction
2.0 - Phase 1
3.0 - Phase 2
4.0 - Phase 3
5.0 - Phase 4
6.0 - Phase 5
7.0 - Phase 6
8.0 - Phase 7
9.0 - FAQ
10.0 - Credits

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1.0 - Introduction
===================
Here's the Steam version of the guide with pictures.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=129308326

Legendary mode is border-line impossible at first. The enemy is basically
cheating. They use ant-like tactics to win. They will continually send
wave after wave of grand armies (Zapp Brannigan). At first, they just
throw grand armies full of shitty-garu units. Then they'll start sending
in the katana samurais, monks, heroes, and a bunch of other stuff won't
normally see on easier difficulties.

For this guide we used the Shimazu clan for their Katana expertise and
the Otomo for their early access to superior gunpowder units/ships. The
Otomo clan isn't normally available but it can be yours... for a low, low
price of $4.99.

My buddy, Firemagzz (Otomo), and I have lost several times playing with
different factions. We eventually started to realize that we needed to
consolidate as close as possible. Which is why we chose these two
nut-to-butt clans. Also, they compliment each other nicely when it comes
to melee/ranged units.

Creative Assembly did not test the coop function properly and you WILL
(95% of the time) experience desync problems which will be catastrophic
and unreversible. The only way to combat this is to back up your
multiplayer auto save every now and then at:

C:/YourUserName/AppData/Roaming/The Creative Assembly/Shogun2
/save_games_multiplayer.

If you didn't do this, and you're having desync problems, you can switch
your saves, so that you're both using either the host's save, or the
client's save. This will buy you some time until the desync problems
occur again.

This challenge is certainly for those with at least 30-40 hours of time,
and this is the short campaign! With all the resistance, your advance
will be slowed to a snail's pace. Patience and calculated risks are the
key. My guide will lay down the foundations of the grand strategies you
will use. You must employ these seven samurai stratagems. If all else
fails, you must alt + F4 and reload the save.

These are the seven samurai stratagems:
1. The Siege Slaughter strategy
Forts/castles are essentially meat grinders. You can easily kill 2 grand
armies in a siege battle and with minimal casualties. The key to siege
battles is to never attack the enemy and let them always attack you.
Rarely will you be sieged to surrender. This usually happens if your army
is more powerful, which is unlikely until you get to the later stage of
the game. You must always allow them to attack you. You can then
counter-assault when they are vulnerable and you are not. If you need to
siege a castle at full enemy strength, you must have double their
strength and a lot of katana samurais. Once you take their city, you must
occupy peacefully. Sacking causes a lot of problems and its short term
gain is not worth it.

When you are being sieged, gunners behind walls = death. They will kill
about a third of an entire unit before they reach the walls... that's IF
they reach the walls. If by the off chance they do reach the walls, you
must move your gunners back and let your katanas slaughter the enemy. In
one siege, I was outnumbered 3 to 1 and took massive casualties (72%) but
lost one unit card. The enemy was in shambles and lost 82% and several
family members. Thanks to my upgraded encampments, it's like the losses
never happened in the next turn.

After the battle, you should be replenished in 1-3 turns, thanks to the
encampments, and you should have more veterancy, which is key. You must
be careful and not let your super elite units be wiped out.

2. Research Heaven and Earth
This is the most important Bushido art you will have. You need this to
build encampments (improvemented replenishment rate). Replementment rate
is almost nonexistant without encampments. You need to have these in
order to be able to withstand the onslaught of shittygaru armies. To
maximize your replement rate, you can also upgrade your forts and your
roads.

3. Economy/ Politics
Make sure your forces are stretched to the limit. At the end of the game,
I had 5 grand armies with no garrisons in the rear. This will help you
save a lot of money. Also, you need to have 10 trade ships in every trade
port you can get. Normally, the computer won't attack the 10 trade ships.
They'll attack 1 trade ship but not 10 normally. As for trading, link up
with Otomo in land and try to trade with only people from far away, as
they are less likely to attack you. Trading also helps improve relations 
in the long run. Also, you must make sure you don't get blockaded as it
will destroy your income.

Research mainly economics like the farm upgrades, tax upgrades, market,
sake den, etc. And when you upgrade farms, you have to upgrade the
fertile soil first before the meager soil. The cost is the same but the
results are vastly different. After this, you have to research happiness
and repression to expand faster. Repression forces you to slow your
invasion down. As the Otomo, you have to build chapels to repress the
religious rebellion. As the Shimazu, you have to build buddist temples in
territories adjacent to the Otomo to prevent Christian uprisings. If you
have no problems, try to build wealth buildings. Farms, markets (if you
have enough food), and then everything else.

As the Shimazu, you must upgrade your blacksmith to the maximum melee
capacity at your capital and you must produce katanas only here.

The enemy should be fractured east of Kyoto. So you don't need to worry
that much about those clans. You should strive to maintain peace with as
many people as possible, if profitable. If a warring faction asks for
peace, you can counter-offer that they pay you thousands of koku. They
normally will say that it's satisfactory before you click the accept
button.

Try not to betray alliances. It soils your Daimyo's honor, and it hurts
your diplomatic standing badly, which could be bad for peace and trading.

4. Grand Armies/ Battles
You must never attack the enemy on the open battlefield if you are
matched 1-to-1. They will do some shit where they go up on a hill and
camp. It should be YOU on a hill and camping. Thus if you want the enemy
to die, let them attack you.

Armies mainly consist of Katanas, 3-4 spears, 3-4 cavalry, 3-4 gunners.
Make sure you always have a general for morale reasons and because the
enemy will try to bribe you in the late stage of the game. The general
must always have maxed out stand-and-fight for that sweet, sweet +3 melee
bonus to all units. Also, you must use the stand and fight ability. It
will add a lot of melee points for your units in combat.

Keep your spears to the side and center, gunners to the front and away
from enemy melee, katanas behind the gunners, cavalry to the side, and
your general in the center using stand and fight. To maximize your
gunner's power, spread them out extremely thin.

Battles are not complex. Fight in forests to weaken their arrows and
cavalry. Use Hammer and Anvil tactics when possible (Fight in the front
and hit them in the flank). Always use the right amount of force. Use
Katanas for melee, spears against horses, and horses for flanking
maneuvers. Gunners should be placed on the side or on top of hills
because they need a clear line of sight to fire. They will not fire if
friendlies are between the gunners and the enemy.

Ambushes are not necessary or recommended.
Introduction 2	 ( edit )
5. Otomo Advantage/ Naval Battles
You need to build the Nanban Quarter as fast as humanily possible. You
may need your ally to give you several massive economic stimulus
packages. You will need to build Nanban Trade ships. Their cannons turn
the enemy ships into swiss cheese. After a few cannon volleys, the enemy
ships will end up looking like they were made on a Friday evening and the 
Japanese workers just wanted to go home.

This alien technology will allow you to kill all enemy grand fleets
single handedly. This is true up until the point where the enemy get fire
arrows. Then you will have to aim directly for their bow kobayas
(fire arrows). If this isn't enough then you will need two or more
depending on your needs. If your ship does catch on fire and surrender,
the enemy won't be able to capture it, because it'll be dead.
Auto-resolve is for the lazy. You can avoid a lot of casualties by doing
the battle manually. The battle devolves into the enemy fruitlessly
shooting their arrows at you and you spinning in a circle shooting at
them with cannons and matchlocks. Boarding is impossible for them as you
have 300 matchlocks, but they sure do try! At the end of the campaign, we
had 10 nanban trade ships each in pairs. Their upkeep cost of 250
koku/turn makes them the most cost effective unit in the game. Two of
them can even beat the black ship! Also, you will be able to capture many 
hips with these ships, heavy and cannon bunes included. Thus upgrading
anything involving fleets is pointless unless you want more fleet
movement.

Then you have to build the Otomo matchlock ashigaru with improved
accuracy at Buzen. The fully upgraded Master Bowmaker will push up the
shooters accuracy up to unprecedented levels. This will allow you to kill
faster on defensive sieges.

6. The Black Ship
This is the most powerful naval unit in the game. They are owned by the
portugese and they are neutral. In our game, the enemy attacked the black
ship with THREE GRAND FLEETS. The fleets disappeared when it was their
turn. The next turn, they moved their fleet into our territory and then
we saw that they had the black ship. It was heavily damaged and had they 
epaired it, it would have made controlling the seas more complicated. So
we took the opportunity and auto-resolved the battle to destroy it.
Luckily, my buddy captured it and used it to destroy everything. When you
attempt to fight any enemy fleet with this one ship, you will have a
99.99% chance of winning except when you have to fight a fleet of cannon
bunes (late game) and it is still an easy battle.

The downside is that the upkeep cost is 1400+. This is a quick way to go
bankrupt and you may need your buddy to supply you with koku. Also, don't
forget about the fire arrow vulnerabilities. You may need some escorts.

7. Teamwork
Don't forget to voice chat and gift units in battle. Since there are all
these battle restrictions (no map, no pause and order, no slow motion),
both of you have to work together to quickly identify the enemy army's
location and capabilities during defensive sieges. By gifiting units,
that's one less thing to micro and look at. This helps a lot. Gifting is
not permanent unless done on the campaign map. Also, if you want to
permanently gift one unit, take them out of the main force and then gift 
therwise you will gift the whole force.

===============
2.0 - Phase 1
===============
Taking Shimazu/Otomo Island (Kyushu)
This is the hardest phase. Once you get past this phase, everything
becomes a lot easier and you will get more wiggle room. Any loss of
territory at this phase is catastrophic.

Shimazu Strategy
The first thing that the Shimazu should do is immediately take Osumi with
all available forces. You should then proceed to place all units
available in there. Start making 4 Katana samurai units at Satsuma and
man them at Osumi. Priority one is building a trading port at Satsuma
and massing enough trade ships (10) to take over the closest trading
location at your direct south. Controlling that trading location gives
you an immediate and extreme boost to your income which will help you and
your ally fund your expeditions. You also need to build a grand fleet to
protect it. The fleet should have some medium bunes and some bow kobayas.

You will hold out at Osumi with everything and at least 4 katana samurais
until the repression is complete and you can move forward with Osumi
ungarrisoned. You should be attacked once by your purple rival clan to
the north from Hyuga. You don't need to worry about the guys at Higo,
they are friendly... for now. Once you can move out of Osumi completely
without any problems, immediately move out and capture Hyuga with
everything you got before they start reproducing more shittygaru units.
Once you capture Hyuga, you should be able to physically and financially
help your Otomo ally at Buzen.

Otomo Strategy
You must mass all of your forces at Buzen. Do not worry about anything
else. You must hold the line at this fortress with gunners and katanas.
If you do not hold the line from all sides until your ally gets there,
Buzen will fall and you will fail. You will be attacked from the west and
east. Once your ally reaches there, you can move to take Tsukushi once
the enemy attacks you, and loses, at Buzen. From there on, you can take
Hizen.

At this point, you will have to stage armies at Bungo and prepare for war
from the last faction on your island. They will declare war on both of
you so be ready to destroy them. Then you will let the Shimazu take their
territory.

Now is the time to build the Nanban Quarter as soon as possible.

===============
3.0 - Phase 2
===============
Securing The Four Western Trade Locations
You must fortify Buzen as much as possible. Upgrade the forts, upgrade
the encampment, and bring more katanas and gunners. You are now nearly
invincible. If you are having problems, have the Shimazu stand next to
Buzen.

You will not advance one step further until you capture and secure all
four western trade locations. The top half will be controlled by the
Otomo. The bottom will be captured by the Shimazu. Declare war if
necessary. Each trade location must have a fleet of 10 trade ships to
maximize profits. And you will need lots of firepower to repel the enemy. 

You need to mass several Nanban Trade Ships. One for each siginificant
home port (to prevent devastating trade blockades) and one for each trade
location, if possible. You must mass these things like hot cakes. You
will need the Shimazu to help you with their economic stimulus packages.

After you secure the area, you will have to swat the mosquitoes that will
come and raid your trading routes. They will siphon several hundreds of
koku per turn and you must continually swat them away into the abyss
where they will take attrition.

After these areas are secure, you'll need to mass even more Nanban Trade
Ships to defend the area between Kyushu Islands (Your island) and the
Shikoku Island (Chosokabe's Island).

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4.0 - Phase 3
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The 1 to 1 Northern Advance
Now you must each build 1 and a half grand armies. The half grand armies
will consist of at least 4 katanas and 3-4 gunners. These two half armies 
will defend Buzen and Satsuma from invading landing forces. Of course,
your super Nanban trade ships will be able to repel all problems, but if
they are to fail, then you will have at least a back up plan.

Each grand army will consist of at least 6-7 Shimazu Katana Samurais, 3
gunners, 4 yari samurai, 2 light cavalry (so you can kill their deadly
bow samurai in the rear), and at least one general (or 3). Keep in mind,
that these armies will be with you until the end of the game. So if you
have any shittygaru units, I advise that you be prepared to get rid of
them in the later stage of the game. Because even maximum veterancy
shittygaru cannot compare with mildly upgraded samurai units.

You will both advance simultaneously beyond Buzen. The Shimazu will take
all the northern territories, and the Otomo will take all the southern
territories. You will advance slowly, and at the same time to prevent any
enemy flanking maneuvers. You must both move only when the front line
town happiness is at minimal levels. Before you advance, you must ensure
the forward enemy area is weak by using agents to scout. That way, you
can auto-resolve your way in with minimal casualties. Then you must
build an encampment if the fighting is non-stop.

You don't really need to build anything except clan-specific temples to
prevent religious uprisings. You do not need to build additional units
unless you have an emergency.

For the Otomo, you can use your missionary to start rebellions to act as
buffers between you and the enemy. Missionaries are also essential for
religion conversion.

You will both advance forward slowly until you get to the fork at Hoki.
Mimasaka, should be ungarrisoned, but if it isn't, wait until the enemy
attacks Hoki and then either capture it or bribe it (expensive and not
always successful). Once you get Mimasaka, you will have access to iron.
With iron, you can upgrade your blacksmith at Satsuma to its final level.
Thus giving every new samurai and General created at Satsuma, an upgrade
of +4 melee.

If the enemy slips through your lines and captures a territory during
this advance, just take your entire army and move backwards.

An invading army landing in this northern area is unlikely.

Both will continue to advance until Satsuma takes Tajima, and Otomo takes
Harima or anywhere close to that area. Fortify the area with encampments,
upgrade the roads, and upgrade the forts.

If you are experiencing too much pressure, you can consider making one
eastern territory your vassal. This is a temporary solution as your
vassals will betray you.

===============
5.0 - Phase 4
===============
Chosokabe Island (Shikoku)	 ( edit )
Before you advance any further toward Kyoto, you will have to take
Shikoku Island.

Each clan should build another balanced grand army. Shimazu should be
able to produce a lot of upgraded samurais for everyone. Otomo Matchlock
Samurai with improved accuracy (Buzen Building Bonus) should not be
available at this point so you better research it now. You will need it
for siege defense during Realm's Divide.

Once you each have grand armies. Otomo should attack Iyo, if it's
vulnerable, and Shimazu should attack Tosa, if it's vulnerable. Once this
is done, hold out to slaughter the incoming resistance. Once the
resistance is taken care of, use your agents to look forward. Otomo
should attack Sanuki, when possible, and the Shimazu should take the
remaining two territories.

You can now move your ships up to defend the eastern and south-eastern
part of the island to stop the incoming wave of mosquitoes.

===============
6.0 - Phase 5
===============
Realm Divide
At this point, you should have tripped off the Realm Divide event. You
must move all four grand armies, with two half armies still protecting
the Satsuma and Buzen (or not, if you can), and move them to the front
lines. You should both have an assload of nanban trade ships with escorts
in key chokepoints and locations. Also, you should also have the central
trading location controlled with 10 trading ships.

Otomo should attempt to advance and take Settsu. Shimazu will attempt to
take Tamba and Wakasa. These areas must then be immediately fortified
with encampements, roads, and castles. You will now hold out until the
enemy brings all their best grand armies to bear.

The faction all the way at the end of Japan, Date for example, will take
a while to get to where you're at.

Your agents must be used as forward scouts. The fourth grand Otomo Army
will move around the front lines and stand next to friendly forts if
they are damaged and need protection while they recover.

At the Wakasa Stronghold, I was able to destroy 2 and half grand Takeda
armies which had 4 family members. The barracks at Wakasa
(upgraded encampment) was too amazing for words.

Once they start sending one star Generals and crappy armies, then it is
time to start the last phase.

Also, the Honma will try to land an enemy army on your homeland every few
turns. You can avoid the land battle by sinking them. Dumbest faction ever.

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7.0 - Phase 6
===============
The Siege of Kyoto
Kyoto is now a sitting duck with only one grand army. Move the Shimazu
grand army out of Tamba, and with the fourth floating grand Otomo army,
attack Kyoto. The armies have be next to Kyoto. The armies don't need to
be near each other. My buddy used 3 European cannons, thanks to his
Nanban Quarter, to send half of their towers, gates, and bow Samurai to
hell. Once all the cannon ammunition is exhausted, the Otomo must climb
one side and the Shimazu must climb an adjacent side. We took the castle
with minimal casualties.

Kyoto has a triple replenishment rate so you should replenish very
quickly. My buddy sacked Kyoto and got 26,000 koku. He gave me half.
Kyoto is the ONLY city you can get away with sacking thanks to its
public order bonuses.

===============
8.0 - Phase 7 
===============
Hold the Line
Now both of you are gods of war. Take Kawachi, Kil, Yamato, and Iga. They
should be easy at this point. Consolidate all forces at Iga, Yamato,
Kyoto, and Wakasa. Reinforce and fortify these areas. 

Muster all the agents you can get and place them in the Kyoto area
because you'll need them to take care of the enemy agents and start
rebellions in the enemy front lines.

Hold the line for 1 year.

A GLORIOUS VICTORY TO LAST 10000000000000000000000 YEARS!!!!

===========
9.0 - FAQ
===========
:-(

================
10.0 - Credits
================
Dedicated to my Co-Op partner, Firemagzz.

Credits to...
CjayC for Gamefaqs.
And you people for supporting my guide.

"IT'S LIKE KLENDATHU"
-Firemagzz's thoughts on Legendary Mode-