Newbie who chose Land of the Bakemono

[RadicalTurnip]

Oh, and once you've gotten the basics down, If you like the mordor feel, I reccomend LA Ermor just to try out. It shows how varied and different each nation can be. You don't have to play this game to completion (like I did) because it may take forever. It's still a fun and interesting nation to see.

[Amhazair]

Originally Posted by thejeff

If you can last awhile and expand it'll go well. If not, it'll be over quickly and you can move on.

Playing around with nations that interest you is probably a better approach than trying to find the perfect starter nation. If you get slaughtered, try out the nation that beat you.

This is probably the best advice anyone could give you.

About Shinuyama specifically: Someone recommended Dai Bakemono to you, and they really are excellent troops, but they are also expensive in gold and especially resources, so you probably can't rely on them early on. Instead why don't you look at the unassuming Bakemono-sho's. They're small, they're weak, they die easily... and they're really good value for their gold cost, and ridiculously good for their resource cost. I really like buying just a few tougher blockers, (Dai Bakemono if you can afford them, otherwise even a few Kappa* can do the job.) and then put a bigger swarm of Bakemono-sho's right behind them. (Preferably the ones with slightly heavier armour, unless you are planning on stealth adventures.) That way the blockers will catch the enemy arrows and absorb the first attacks, but the bakemono-sho's will be right behind so they attack together and the blockers don't become overwhelmed. The Bakemono archer guys meanwhile, are just as good at archery as regular humans, but are significantly cheaper, and again, cost ridiculously few resources, so they're excellent value and you can buy enormous amounts of them in one turn. Against anything with light armour they can dish out good damage.

Meanwhile your excellent mages (Bakemono Sorcers are gold for gold one of the best mages in the game, and recruitable everywhere to boot.) can rush your research, either in evocation (self-explanatory) or enchantment. The big spell in enchantment is flaming arrows. Try casting flaming arrows on a big army of Bakemono archers and you will forever understand the value of big battlefield-wide spells.

* WARNING: Kappa really aren't very good on land, and die quickly, without it being very apparent why, so I really hesitated recommending them to a new player. (hint: it's because they accumulate fatigue quickly on land, and fatigue is a killer) Never, ever recruit them in great numbers, or make an army of them, except to take water provinces if you want to try how that works. They do however just fit the bill to protect the more fragile Bakemono from arrow fire and the crucial fist turn in melee. Once the enemy has made contact and the bakemono rush forward to swarm them the Kappas really have done their job.

[Kref]

"They're small, they're weak, they die easily..."
They are small only in CBM mod, so if you are playing CBM mod with Bakemono you can just read Baalz guide.
If you are going to learn not by guides but by yourself at initial stages, then I reccomend just one thing - take growth scales (at least one, two is enough) to protect your strongest mages from getting diseased from old age.
Generally nation of Bakemono have strong heavy infantry for newbies and strong mage for experienced players; also you may experiment to make strong thugs from your strongest mages, as well as buffing troops with them. Thinking about thugs look at next spells: soul vortex, phoenix power, phoenix pire, fire shield, breath of winter; quicken self is possible if you'll find a way to fight against double encumberance (perhaps with soul vortex it will go). There are plenty of earth spells which contribute to the thugging abilities, find them yourself. Also you can use the fact that your strong mages can bless themselfs.

[Kref]

P.S. Also it would be good to buff your mage-thugs with shields of gleaming gold, horror helmets can be good additions for such shields.

[Amhazair]

Originally Posted by Kref

They are small only in CBM mod.

Damn, I did not remember that. Thanks for reminding me. Most of my advices hinges on this really. At size 2, the way they are in vanilla, they're just thoroughly average at best. Resource cost doubles, so you can't recruit ridiculous numbers anymore. Only thing that remains is that their archers are still decent, 4 resources is still cheap, and thus flaming arrows still rocks.