Heavenly Spear: earn Bushidō without losing the economy
By AoM Guides · retold
A practical Japanese foundation: resource-aware Shrines, supported Dojo units, and battles that justify their cost.
Two systems, one army plan
Bushidō develops your army through battle, while Miko tend resource-aware Shrines to generate favor. Keep both systems working: preserve workers and support, take useful fights, and use the resulting progress to strengthen the surviving army.
Place Shrines for usable income
Evaluate the resources around a potential Shrine, then evaluate whether you can protect the position. The richest theoretical location may be a poor investment if enemy units can repeatedly force the Miko away or destroy the infrastructure. Begin with an area close enough to defend while your first army develops.
Keep an eye on how gathering changes the location over time. Resources that support a good early position may become depleted, and the front line may shift. Reassess whether a support unit should remain, move, or receive protection. Shrine management belongs in the normal economy cycle alongside worker production and scouting.
Do not allow favor planning to starve the ordinary resources needed for soldiers. A large divine stockpile is not a complete army. Keep enough food, wood, and gold income for the troops and supporting structures your chosen strategy actually needs.
Treat Bushidō as a reward for useful battles
Choose fights because they offer a good trade or a lasting objective. Experience or progression can make an already worthwhile engagement more rewarding; it does not make the destruction of your whole army efficient. Preserve damaged troops when a retreat is possible, and regroup before enemy reinforcements arrive.
Dojo units have powerful abilities and a distinctive progression. Add them to a composition that protects their approach and supports their target selection. An elite unit surrounded by the wrong opponents can still be lost inefficiently. Learn one ability interaction at a time, then add more simultaneous control tasks as your attention allows.
When an upgrade becomes available through Bushidō, check which existing units benefit and whether production should change. A transition is most effective when it uses the army and income you already have, rather than abandoning both for a newly attractive unit icon.
Bring the hero that can reach the problem
The Japanese have heroes associated with different human production buildings. Choose support for the enemy myth threat’s range and movement. A melee specialist and a ranged specialist do not provide the same access to a flying or screened target. Keep ordinary counter troops available to deal with the human escort while your hero performs its anti-myth role.
Avoid assuming that the first myth unit you see defines the entire opposing composition. Continue scouting reinforcements and production. If enemy heroes are concentrated on your own monsters, shift those monsters away from the worst contact while your human troops punish the response where possible.
Match the god power to the next decision
Amaterasu’s Solar Shield can preserve a valuable unit during a critical moment. Plan the unit’s movement afterward; brief protection is not a substitute for an escape route. Tsukuyomi’s New Moon rewards inspecting which technologies are currently available at the intended building, and coordinating the result with production. Susanoo’s Kusanagi provides area disruption that is more useful when your army is ready to exploit it.
Do not spend a power merely because its button is ready. Identify the lost unit, won fight, or secured position it should create. Then check whether ordinary movement and reinforcement can achieve the same outcome without committing the power.
A focused practice session
Choose Amaterasu and play a modest, defensive opening. Keep one Shrine position working, produce a supported army, and take one fight for a visible resource. In the replay, compare the troops lost with the position gained and the progression earned. If the economy stopped during the fight, fix that attention problem first. Later, test Tsukuyomi or Susanoo with the same discipline so their differences become clear rather than disappearing inside uncontrolled combat.