Ninja Skill Tree 1

Every agent has his own personal skill paths. I will sum up these different paths and show how to skill and list the benefits at the end. These builds do not contain any information about upcoming retainers, as these are hard to predict. Just try to decide for yourself which retainers fits you agents best.
As always these are just suggestions, but they helped me out very often and effective.

The Ninja

(The active skills and tasks of the ninja are assassination, army & building sabotage)

- Notorious Killer (Ninja 1 & 2)
(focus on army sabotage and assassination)

Star 1 -
Star 2 - Saboteur (1) - (keep 1)
Star 3 - Misdirection (3)
Star 4 - Assassin (2)
Star 5 - Exotic Weapons (1) &  Exotic Poison (1)
Star 6 - Notorius Killer (2)
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Total of 10 points spend

Skill summary:

Retainer suggestion: 
Early in the game it's paramount not to provoke other clan with your agents actions and causing a penalty towards you if they fail. The first and second ninja should therefore have retainers who minimize the percentage for detections after unsucessful actions.
(Except it's your intention to provoke a war, then you should obviously leave these retainers out)


- Ninjustsu (Ninja 3)
(allrounder ninja, but you need to skill until star 6 to generate the maximum impact)

Star 1 -
Star 2 - Saboteur (1) & Assassin (1)
Star 3 - Spy (1) & Infiltrator (1)
Star 4 - Exotic Weapons (1) - (keep 1)
Star 5 - Escape Artist (1) & Poisoner (1)
Star 6 - Ninjustsu (3)
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Total of 10 points spend

Skill summary:


Retainer suggestion:
Stick to retainer who raise your ability to assassinate or chance to escape following an unsuccessful action.


- Army Spy (Movement)
(focus on army line of sight, army movement, subterfuge when spying and avoidance of any kind)


Star 1 -
Star 2 - Spy (2) 
Star 3 - Spy (1) & Infiltrator (1)
Star 4 - Master of Disguse (2)
Star 5 - Escape Artist (2)
Star 6 - Invisible (2)
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Total of 10 points spend


Skill summary:


Retainer suggestion:
Look out for anything that raises your armys movement. Choose other retainer according to your own preference.


Diplomacy penalty for agents actions:
- Sabotage attemps: -20
- Hostile agent action: -50
- Revolts incited: -20

This was part 1 and 3/7 skill trees I use. Hope it'll help you. Part 2 is coming soon.

Province Building 1 (Military Ressources)

Some provinces have a stragetic ressource that allows you to recruit better units and/or agents, accelerates your research, raises the town wealth, lowers your building costs or contributes in another way.

Military ressources:
> War horses <
This ressource provides you with superior horses and therefore with a better charge for all your cavalary units (and infantry).
To use this resource and the castle to its full capacity you should use the following tree to build in these castles:
Stable - Katana - Yari - Encampment (Proving Grounds/ Armory/; depending on your own preferences).
I do not recommend to recruited Archers here or bow cavalary because they do not benefit from the charge bonus. They should be recruited in a province with an artisan to benefit from more accuracy.

> Artisans <
This ressource provides you with superior bow maker and therefore with a higher accuracy for all your bow units. To use this ressource to its full capacity you should use the following tree to build in these castles:
Archery - Encampment (Hunters Lodge) - Temple - Stables.
Some prefer an Armorer (Encampment) over a Hunters Lodge.

> Smith <
This ressource provides you with superior melee weapons or superior armor. Usually all units benefit from a better armor since this is the only stat which doesn't raise with your units experience ( all the others stats do). All units with a low starting armor benefit strongly from a better armor (except the Naginata Samurai, they are already heavily armored). To use this ressource to its full capacity you should use the following tree to build in these castles:
Katana - Yari - Encampment (Armorer) - Stables (optional) - Archer (optional)

The Realm Divide

The Realm Divide is triggered on three different occasions:

1. Gaining a legendary fame with the current Shogunate by taking more than 15-18 provinces (number depends on difficulty)
2. Taking Kyoto in the first place
3. Being announced Shogun (after holding Kyoto for 4 seasons)

All three types of the Realm Divide trigger a penalty for all clans towards you. That means, making vassals or allies during each of these phases will cause a new penalty.
If you become Shogun before you hold the maximum provinces, then point one becomes obsolete. Taking Kyoto raises your fame to legendary immediatly and there is no going back.
The malus will stop counting at -200 against you and that will probably cause even your longest ally to turn against you in the end. New clans (or rerised) will not suffer of the Realm Divide penalty, but still tend to side against you, although your standing was "friendly".

So triggering the Realm Divide should be chosen wisely and needs a lot of preparation.

Note: If an AI clan usurpate the shogunate it will not suffer any penaltys and its allies will still be there