Started a game in Japan

[volbound1700]

I noticed that Ahikawa is slowly eating all of the Diamyos. How are you supposed to beat them? Any advice?

[Marquoz]

The standard approach always works: make allies and eat the daimyos faster than everyone else. War war war. With a bit of betrayal mixed in for variety, followed by yet more war against your erstwhile allies.

[Totally Innocent Chatbot]

Pretty much the above. The Shogun's goal is to diplo-annex all the daimyos before any of them become too rebellious. The daimyos' goal is to take advantage of the Sengoku Jidai to militarily annex the other daimyos as fast as possible, in order to eventually challenge the Shogun and take Kyoto (and all of Japan) for themselves.

[RCMidas]

I advise devoting one diplomat for the sole purpose of keeping your relationship with Ashikaga up. Literally that, keep them there at all times and make them disinclined to attack you for getting too big too quickly. If you have to pull him off, put him back on asap. Your goal as a daimyo will be to pick your adjacent targets with extreme caution, avoiding any and their allies that have more than just their capital fort.

[MasterYi]

I united Japan in 1462 in my current run as Uesugi. They are one of the strongest alongside Hosokawa and Yamana, but Uesugi has better geographic positioning compared to the other 2 since there are lots of Low Dev Minors in the North whereas ghe South has higher dev and more tags.

Set the weakest available tags as Rivals, show strength wars for 300 mana, humiliate a non-Co belligerent for Age Splendor. I got 600 mana from Show Strengthing Ando and Chiba, could have done more and picked my targets better though.

Show Strength on a rival then hope their other rivals desire their land and attacks them afterwards, then you can attack that other nation after they have annexed your rival, so you get both the 300 mana and the land, fast conquest that way.

Do not Royal Marry anyone, improving relations with Ashikaga should be enough for him not to force you to commit Seppeku, ally other Daimyos just to use them for their troops then disolve the alliance and attack them after 5 years.

I Royal Married Jianzhou to get an heir, but I abdicated my 4 4 4 Ruler in favour of my 6 6 4 Heir, and attacked them straight after. It seems Scornfully Insulting them does not make them break the Royal Marriage, I guess only announcing them as Rivals do.

Coalitions will not form if you conquest fast enough and maintain 2-3 wars all the time. Sell crownlands and do not take Estates Statutory Rights, u gain lots of crownland back upon conquest, just keep crownlands above 5%.

You should be able to form Japan and have your capital in Kyoto before you reach your Mana points cap, best to develop Reinaissance in Kyoto compared to your old capital for the sake of reduced Governing Capacity, Kyoto’s Farmlands and Settsu’s trade centre which give dev cost reductions.

The Mana you received from your Show Strength wars will easily let you develop Renaissance with plenty of points left over.

[Ares]

Pretty much what MasterYI says is my approach. Japan is also divided up in 3 cultures, 4 if you count Ainu, so by taking care of All the northern culture, and have a couple strong allies in the south, you avoid coalitions, get as many show strenght as possible, think i've done 10 as Usegi, and chain wars. Unthil their all swallowed up. Time ahead and cancel your alliance for it to be the next target in 5 years.

Ashikaga should then be the last target who should not stand a chance, and if you've done it fast enough, he will be gone in 1 war. It could be actually preferable if he declears on you, so you don't get the stab hit by declearing on your overlord, but he never does once im too strong.

[MasterYi]

Originally posted by Ares:

Pretty much what MasterYI says is my approach. Japan is also divided up in 3 cultures, 4 if you count Ainu, so by taking care of All the northern culture, and have a couple strong allies in the south, you avoid coalitions, get as many show strenght as possible, think i've done 10 as Usegi, and chain wars. Unthil their all swallowed up. Time ahead and cancel your alliance for it to be the next target in 5 years.

Ashikaga should then be the last target who should not stand a chance, and if you've done it fast enough, he will be gone in 1 war. It could be actually preferable if he declears on you, so you don't get the stab hit by declearing on your overlord, but he never does once im too strong.

How did you do 10 Show Strength Wars? On who?

Unfortunately for me Ando’s and Chiba’s neighbours did not annex them so I was stuck with my rival selection. I probably should have Showed Strength on the southeners and annexed the northeners instead of showing strength and annexing in the same direction.

How big would your rivals be for you to want to annex them instead of Show Strength? I tend not to Show Strength if they are not an OPM.

[volbound1700]

Yeah, issue isn't that Askigawa is attacking me, issue is that they are diplo annexing a lot of people fast, even faster than I can conquer. I have conquered most of northern Japan but they have taken a lot more of Japan. I just lost one of my strongest Allies getting annexing by them. I should have declared earlier. It is only around 1460 so this has been at lightning speed. It sucks because I was doing very well with my Diamyo itself growing but over the course of a 2-3 year span, they ended up annexing a ton of land/states.

[Ares]

Originally posted by MasterYi:

Originally posted by Ares:

Pretty much what MasterYI says is my approach. Japan is also divided up in 3 cultures, 4 if you count Ainu, so by taking care of All the northern culture, and have a couple strong allies in the south, you avoid coalitions, get as many show strenght as possible, think i've done 10 as Usegi, and chain wars. Unthil their all swallowed up. Time ahead and cancel your alliance for it to be the next target in 5 years.

Ashikaga should then be the last target who should not stand a chance, and if you've done it fast enough, he will be gone in 1 war. It could be actually preferable if he declears on you, so you don't get the stab hit by declearing on your overlord, but he never does once im too strong.

How did you do 10 Show Strength Wars? On who?

Unfortunately for me Ando’s and Chiba’s neighbours did not annex them so I was stuck with my rival selection. I probably should have Showed Strength on the southeners and annexed the northeners instead of showing strength and annexing in the same direction.

How big would your rivals be for you to want to annex them instead of Show Strength? I tend not to Show Strength if they are not an OPM.

Well it was a long while ago, but by staying small longer, resetting truces and gaining new rivals, as they were conquered or i became to big or to much ahead in tech compared to them, this wasent my fastest conquest of japan, it was a way to gain the most MP that i could, and be ahead in tech and ideas. I don't know how well this would work on current patch. Or If Ashikaga is annexing faster in this patch.

[Ares]

Originally posted by volbound1700:

Yeah, issue isn't that Askigawa is attacking me, issue is that they are diplo annexing a lot of people fast, even faster than I can conquer. I have conquered most of northern Japan but they have taken a lot more of Japan. I just lost one of my strongest Allies getting annexing by them. I should have declared earlier. It is only around 1460 so this has been at lightning speed. It sucks because I was doing very well with my Diamyo itself growing but over the course of a 2-3 year span, they ended up annexing a ton of land/states.

Sounds like they are annexing faster in this patch. I might try a game again as Usegi.

[Omniconda]

think last time i played here, i allied everyone i could in the first week. setting no rivals.
hired mercs and no CB the shogun.
be first to kyoto to claim the seige.
take kyoto in the peace
GG your shogun and have subjects of your own

[Totally Innocent Chatbot]

Originally posted by Omniconda:

think last time i played here, i allied everyone i could in the first week. setting no rivals.
hired mercs and no CB the shogun.
be first to kyoto to claim the seige.
take kyoto in the peace
GG your shogun and have subjects of your own

Not a very good strategy, as then you're locked into annexing everybody about 5 times slower than you'd normally be able to as a daimyo.

[Omniconda]

daimyos dont take diplo relation slots so your not exactly in a rush to form japan if you want to use their navys to push on Ming or use their strenght to maintain loyaly for vassal swarming the indonesia while you go colonial.
you may have picked your daimyo start for its ideas like Oda so forming Japan isnt want you want anyway

[RCMidas]

Form Japan, keep Oda's ideas.

[Omniconda]

Originally posted by RCMidas:

Form Japan, keep Oda's ideas.

Japans and end game tag, ....

[MasterYi]

Originally posted by Ares:

Well it was a long while ago, but by staying small longer, resetting truces and gaining new rivals, as they were conquered or i became to big or to much ahead in tech compared to them, this wasent my fastest conquest of japan, it was a way to gain the most MP that i could, and be ahead in tech and ideas. I don't know how well this would work on current patch. Or If Ashikaga is annexing faster in this patch.

I could have reset Rivals when I teched up but I never realised that was a mechanic so by the time they were unvalid rivals I was already in chain wars T^T

I don’t think Ashigaka is annexing faster, when I annexed them they only had their starting provinces of Kyoto and Sagami.

Just saw a guide of Show Strength in Japan by Absolute Habibi:

https://youtu.be/-qGenM3aISI

Would you take Tech with an ahead of time penalty? I stopped at around Tech 5 cuz I needed the Admin to core and Diplo to finish Exploration Ideas.

I’m in 1476 with Eastern and Southern Korea (states), Donghai as a Vassal with most of Manchuria, all of the Philippines and 1 state in Borneo