How do you Hattori?

[Hellsteeth30]

OK, so I can't get anything going with these guys at all. Mainly due to severe economic issues, the upkeep is monstorous for anything non peasant. That and nearly everybody wants to jump on you at the slightest show of weakness. Trade is difficult to acquire too,

Politically, it ends up being untenable due to anybody willing to ally with you on the cheap being flattened and I can't maintain anything more than one good stack so I end up only being able to guard one flank.

Of course being right in the middle of Japan isn't entirely helpful due to being in everybody's way.

So, any tips guys? I love free night attacks and deploying nearly anywhere I like but I don't like not having money.

[CMDR Herne]

Have a look at Volounds Hattori legendery campaign for inspiration

https://youtu.be/cOC9XTGPOms

[Hellsteeth30]

Turn one Kyoto strike.......this playthrough shall be a good watch.

[Gness Erquint]

>Everybody is hostile
Isn't limited to playing Hattori
>Middle of Japan is dangerous
In fact, you are guarded by Shogunate from one side and mountain range from another.
Look at Oda, who is quite close by, smack in the middle of a bunch of foes and also has intrinsically trash diplomacy with everyone, but is cheesecake to play as, since his ashigaru are the best and generally ashigaru are the bread and butter of war which serve you victory.

Have you played non-Hattori before?
They are super advantageous in terms of battle preparation tactics but other than that, they are in fact quite lacking.

Anyway here are general advices that should work for Hattori:
- Rush early expansion.
Ideally wipe out a clan in the first turn.
- Use auto-taxing.
Seems to work nice for me.
- Don't recruit any agents until the funds are in stable surplus.
Replacing caught agents drains funds quickly.
- Rush assasination subterfuge skills for ninjas. Then army sabotage.
Those types of missions get your expensive rookie ninjas killed.
Better to just haul their asses with the army until they get a couple extra stars to subterfuge.
- Only use diplomacy for trade and very limited marriage.
Diplomacy in this game is incredibly broken and unfair but most clans should agree to trade even if they hate you. Trade with everyone. Never make alliances — all AI clans are dishonorable and you get huge diplomatic relationship and honor penalties for everything related to alliances. Marriage is an option but try to pick a clan with no enemies. Marriage arrangement in advance is broken though — wait for your son to become an adult general or the option will simply kill the bride. Maybe rush Tea Ceremony and Caligraphy, although that will only help somewhat, not fixing the fact that AI in this game is completely bogus.
Also, it is very easy to get an AI clan to allow you indefinite military access along with the trade(without their access to your provinces) if you have any strategic trading goods.
- Rush Equal Fields.
This allows you to make more food, which lets you build bigger towns and spam markets, which in turn increases province values and thus taxes.
- Don't bother with many expensive units. Ashigaru get the job done most of the time.
Or better yet dump Hattori and destroy Japan with nothing more than a few armies of 9×Oda Yari Ashigaru + 9×Oda Bow Ashigaru + 1×general + 1×?.

[Zonda Zecarius]

Sorta agree with the above, focus on economy and ashigaru usage while going on the offensive near the start.
Whenever it is needed you're also able to set up fairly decent defensive locations, as the mountains and kyoto itself provide plenty of choke points around the map.
One thing I don't really see the point in is assination, I prefer to just train ninjas to sabotage enemy armies.

[Hellsteeth30]

I'm fairly new to shogun 2, so I have one campaign as the Shimazu under my belt (pretty much a loss but I never intended to win it anyway). Took all of western Japan but ran out of time before I hit the Shogun. Easy but I took my time hence I timed out.

I used a lot of agent trickery too as I was rolling in cash.

I know Yari walls are stupidly effective in battle but I like contingency. The AI generals love to charge into them, I see they haven't fixed that over god knows how many years.

I usually go for a leapfrog strategy in TW games, having two big stacks going in the same direction , each taking a break on conquering a province. Stability seems to be better in this game though so I don't have to stay around in a province for too long before it's controlled.

I maybe need to be far more aggressive.

[Zonda Zecarius]

what I usually do is rush the deployment of 2 armies at the start, capture some of the surrounding areas, leaving only the bare minimum to stop rebels, though sometimes I just remove taxation to solve that problem.

use whatever underhanded tactics you can:
Night battle to defeat multiple armies
Ninjas to sabotage enemies so they cant move and then take their province, removing them from the map
Ocassionally backstabbing or going to war on unguarded provinces
you can sell military access to clans around you for some cash, between 500 and 2,000 for 20 turns to make those cheating AI players pay.

eventually when my military seems like it'd be a waste to spend any more on (usually 2 ashigaru based armies with little to no cav) I start focusing on agents and the economy the most.

[Hellsteeth30]

Alright, thanks guys. That's enough for me to go on. I really like this faction but I have a lot to learn about this game in general.

[Gness Erquint]

Originally posted by Sargent179:

One thing I don't really see the point in is assination, I prefer to just train ninjas to sabotage enemy armies.

At some point enemy agents become an unbearable pain in the ass.
I prefer to train assassination first to stop them from training veteran agents early.
And when you got both the army sabotage and assassination subterfuge — you can assassinate generals which is next to disabling an army completely as it will rout as soon as you clash.