
With enough mastery of the arts, the clan will be able to produce Shimazu Heavy Gunners, gunpowder units that can damage buildings and disrupt formations, making them useful as support for other troops. This gives Shimazu armies a powerful early game advantage over their rivals: no other faction in Kyushu has access to blacksmiths initially, and the katana samurai, buffed with both the clan bonus and the blacksmith bonus, should have an easy time handling the largely ashigaru-based early game armies of the Shimazu's rivals. Additionally, the Shimazu (along with the Date Clan) is one of the only playable factions that can immediately recruit katana samurai, and the Shimazu home region has a blacksmith, granting samurai +1 attack and +1 armor. Militarily, the Shimazu Clan has superior katana samurai thanks to its clan traits. This gives the Shimazu Clan great money-making potential, particularly if it seizes more of Kyushu and gains access to more ports. From here, few factions can mount an attack on it, and it is also has immediate access to the majority of trade nodes in the game. The Shimazu Clan starts the campaign in an excellent position, at the south-west corner of Japan. There is the small matter of a war with the Ito clan in the provinces of Osumi and Hyuga, but once these local difficulties are resolved the distance from Kyushu to the shogun's palace is not so great after all Higo, however, is a tempting target for expansion because of the warhorses to be found there. Their home province of Satsuma is secure, and they are at peace with the Sagara of Higo province to the north. Now, under the daimyo Shimazu Takahisa, the clan has a chance for true greatness.

They did not, however, become hidebound: when their vassals in Tanegashima met a strange, shipwrecked people from the other side of the world, the Shimazu were quick to see that trade with these nanban Europeans might be worthwhile. Thanks to a well-organised army and administration, abundant local resources, and a certain distance between Kyushu and the Kamakura court, the Shimazu clan became rich and powerful. The young man took the name of Shimazu in Hyuga province, his seat of government, as his own. In 1187, Yoritomo appointed his son, Tadahisa, as military governor of southern Kyushu. The clan can trace its ancestry back to Minamoto Yoritomo, the founder and first shogun of the Kamakura shogunate. Shimazu katana samurai are cheaper to recruit and maintain in the field than those of other clans they can also recruit superior katana-armed samurai.

To the Shimazu, loyalty is everything, and their generals are less likely to develop ambitions of their own. The Shimazu are a proud clan, with a long history worthy of their pride.


Loyalty, Bushido, and the brave samurai are powerful assets for an ambitious warlord seeking to be shogun. Shimazu Katana Samurai are cheaper to recruit and maintain in the field than those of other clans they can also recruit superior katana-armed samurai. Their strengths are the ones of any old clan: their samurai and obedience to Bushido. They can trace their ancestry back to the Minamoto, the founders of the Kamakura shogunate.
