I managed to mess up the Oda!

[Smoothhoof]

But I did everything right! I made the saito a vassal in the first turn, swept down on the tokugowa then took one imagowa province and made a vassal of the other because the takeda showed up and they were allied and I didn't want to tangle with takeda before I had to. Nice, I thought. I'll take a couple of turns to build....

So then the hojo attack my vassal. I rush an army in and leave them on the wrong side of the river in suruga. Hojo had two full stacks it turns out, I had ten units so... I attacked Takeda to get away! Now I am sitting in owari and kai wondering what to do next.

First new campaign in a while.

[meowcedon]

Early on you want to maximize your income, meaning you don't want that many vassals early on, or you don't want any vassals at all to be honest. First turn you should be able to take out Saito, fix castle and alternate tax exemption each turn if needed. Tokugawa will probably move their army towards your main town but they can't reach it in one turn because of roads, but one turn is enough for your army to come back from Saito town. After that, unless you are attacked, go for Tokugawa and Imagawa.
Just don't rely on vassals, as most of the time they cause more pain than you would suffer without them.

[Smoothhoof]

I like vassals. They are handy buffers and it's good for breaking up enemy alliances if you can't take out a clan all in one go. Never tried taking out the saito on turn one, what do you do about the rebels?

Only mistake I will admit to is moving across that damn bridge in suruga. I could have stopped them all there then🙂

[Smoothhoof]

Just tried attacking saito first. Really not convinced it is any easier. The public order in mino is abysmal and the saito rebels will counterattack anyway, so I have to leave a garrison. But if I do that I'm relying on the rebels to raid the port/farms instead of going for owari where my daimyo is by himself.

Then, if I get through that, then I have to defend Mino from the Ikko Ikki myself. Probably really soon!

But I lost my other save so I will have to make it work!

[meowcedon]

Originally posted by Smoothhoof:

I like vassals. They are handy buffers and it's good for breaking up enemy alliances if you can't take out a clan all in one go. Never tried taking out the saito on turn one, what do you do about the rebels?

Only mistake I will admit to is moving across that damn bridge in suruga. I could have stopped them all there then🙂

If I remember correctly if you take out clan, any existing clan army should disappear, or at least ones that are not visible/close to your army.

What difficulty are you playing by the way?
One more thing. I will usually recruit maximum number of Yari Ashigaru that can be available next turn (I think it would be 2 units), then after pulling main army towards main town, recruited YA would be moved to Saito to maintain order and eventually defend it, as 2 YA and Katana Retainers will do the job. I tend to somewhat spam YA recruitment early on. At Mino I would tehnically start building 2nd army, but half stack or bit less would be enough.

[Smoothhoof]

Originally posted by meowcedon:

Originally posted by Smoothhoof:

I like vassals. They are handy buffers and it's good for breaking up enemy alliances if you can't take out a clan all in one go. Never tried taking out the saito on turn one, what do you do about the rebels?

Only mistake I will admit to is moving across that damn bridge in suruga. I could have stopped them all there then🙂

If I remember correctly if you take out clan, any existing clan army should disappear, or at least ones that are not visible/close to your army.

That's not what's happened I'm afraid. I'm playing on legendary.

[markeason]

It's been a long time since I played Oda, they are probably my least favourite clan.

So, I fired up a game and played through 8 Turns.

I have the setting on Legendary, though I play with a lot of mods (mostly bug fixes) and nothing that makes the game easier for me.

Two things I will not do. I will not min/max the tax rate, it makes the game too easy and, for the same reason I will not sell military access.

So . . .

Turn 1: Make peace with the Saito, get a trade agreement. Do not make them a vassal. The Takeda are coming through there eventually and you don't need to get involved with them yet (for reasons that will become clear). Defeat rebels. Demolish yari dojo

Turn 2: Take Tokugawa province, without damaging it (use archer) so unit can be recruited same turn. Recruit metsuke and units. Build market in home province. Public order in Mikawa will take a while to settle and units from home province will need to feed it so build road when you can. Trade with anyone that you can.

Turns 3 to 6 or 7: (can't recall exactly how it played out each turn): First metsuke into Mikawa to boost tax and help with public order. Defeat Imagawa army and take Totomi province. I built a sake den there for happiness and ninja. At some point I recruited a second metsuke and put in Omi for tax boost.

Turn 7 or 8: Takeda encountered when they captured south Shinano. Imagawa only has a small force left defending its final province (Suruga), that I can defeat and eliminate them. Now comes the Diplomacy.

Step 1: Offer Takeda a trade agreement if they break their alliance with Imagawa.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2883865775

Step 2: Eliminate Imagawa and capture Suruga.

Step 3: Because there is now a border with Kai I can offer military access as part of a diplomatic deal that sees the Takeda break their alliance with the Hojo.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2883865818

Step 4: Declare war on the Hojo - so that they cannot renew their alliance with the Takeda.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2883865882


Going forward, the game should play out ok from here. The Takeda are generally good allies, as long as you don't hold a province they need for victory (Echigo, Hida, Kai, North Shinano, South Shinano) and as long as you leave them a path to expand towards Kyoto. Also, if they have a choice of two provinces to expand into, and one of them is yours, make sure that their opinion of you is higher than their opinion of the other option.

A good way to keep on terms with them is to watch for other wars they are in, especially if they are near victory, and offer to join the war (ask for nothing in return). It will boost their opinion of you and you don't need to get involved in the war. Just make sure it won't upset other clans by doing so.

[markeason]

And there we have it.

Turn 9.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2883873831

Hojo is in all sorts of trouble, with no friends or allies. I will take Izu province next turn and probably pause for breath while they struggle against all those enemies.

[Smoothhoof]

Yeah ok, Mark. Your way is good. I guess I always assume takeda will attack Oda eventually no matter what, didn't think they would break with imagawa for a trade agreement. Even with warhorses.

[markeason]

Cool.

Trade with horses is a trump card.

Also, using hostage with them is fine - as long as you leave them a route to expand; or forget the hostage and declare war on them.

I just had the Kitabatake and Saito declare war on me. But, knowing the Kitabatake can't reach me in one turn, I defended the bridge which makes the Saito go round the other way - so they can't reach me and leave their province undefended.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2883914204

I take their province and torch everything - I want it to rebel, I don't want to own it as the Takeda will want it from me now that I (temporarily) own it.

Then turn my army on the Kitabatake for a straightforward field battle rather than getting pinned down in the fort (they have a lot of archers in their stack).

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2883914308

[BastardSword]

When you start, Tokugawa and Imagawa are your main threats, Saito probably won't do anything to you unless you wait too long to deal with them. I always beat Tokugawa ASAP, then build up my first army and wait until Imagawa attacks, wipe them out in a castle defense probably, then go take their two provinces. Then I hole up with my main general in Suruga and build up that army to max, waiting for Hojo and Takeda to come and destroy themselves on my castle. Meanwhile I build up a smaller second army back in Owari, go wipe out Saito as soon as I'm strong enough, then hole up in Owari.

Eventually I start hiring long ashigaru with an armory there to make my army way stronger. Hattori and Ikko Ikki are pretty much guaranteed to come calling, trying to take Owari and/or Mino, but at this point early in the game they are easy pickings especially if I bait them into attacking my castle. It's best to weaken or destroy Hattori and Ikko Ikki as early as you can because they are really the only threats to your west, every other clan in the area are more passive NPC clans.

Hojo, Takeda and possibly Uesugi are your main threats and they will all come to Suruga, and Takeda through Mino. If they declare war just keep destroying their armies one by one so they don't turtle and come back at you with 2 or 3 armies at a time.

Get the blacksmith and gold mine from Hojo, put a third army in Kai or North Shinano as a roadblock, take Musashi, put metsukes in your richest provinces, and you'll be super rich and have great armies and you'll be able to do whatever you want.

[Smoothhoof]

I should have just tried to bludgeon my way through instead of restarting. I had a decent army in owari and one building up in kai and I did do in both hojo stacks and a takeda stack. It was doable, even with the cashflow going through the floor. Not much finesse to it tho.

[markeason]

There certainly isn't any finesse to it. I have expanded too far, too fast and have about 4 or 5 clans against me already. That's not a problem as I have good defensive positions and plenty of cash coming in.

But it means a lot of defensive battles for a while and that gets tedious.

I'm not sure I could have stopped expanding earlier to avoid this, without running into the same problem, just with fewer provinces to support me.

As for my ally, the Takeda are getting whooped by the bloody Anegakoji :(

[markeason]

Well, I've made it trouble free to Turn 65 and the Takeda remain my steadfast ally.

I waltzed through the Hojo as they weren't interested in peace and I planned to stop expanding for a while to improve global relations.

The neighbours were having none of that as first the Satomi, then the Uesugi, then the Satake launching uncoordinated attacks on one front, and minnow clans (Saito, Sakai, Kitabatake) with equally ineffectual attacks on the other front.

All except the Saito were repelled with easy river crossing defences, although one somehow positioned my army almost a full map from the crossing, even though I was stood on the bridge !! The Saito just keep taking the long route and leaving their province wide open. As I look at the map, they are doing it again for the third or fourth time, and they will get the same treatment. (To my shame, one occasion after this happened, I had to jack my tax rate up to get the province to rebel, I still don't want to take it as I am not ready to turn on the Takeda yet).

I don't know who took down the Hattori or the Ikko Ikki, I guess a consortium of minnows. But they gave me no trouble.

Eventually I got fed up with the constant defensive battles and took the war to the Satomi, Satake and Uesugi, only to discover that Hitachi, Shimotsuke, Echigo and points north were held by the Honma. It's not often I see them with that much land before. A rapid war with them has me not many provinces from RD, but I have the capacity to take Sado and probably a couple of others (likely Ise and Omi, though it will depend on ownership).

Now I am starting to figure who should be my ally going into RD when I betray the Takeda. as I don't have good relations with any other clan yet.

I am starting to get the ambitious invasion fleets, the latest being the Ouchi who, in spite of being at war with the chosokabe, have seen fit to send a full stack to my end of the map, even though we are at peace. It will shortly join the Matsuda stack at the bottom of the sea, who recently tried a similar manoeuvre.

BastardSword mentioned the long yari unit. I don't think I have ever recruited this unit. It seems to be a higher price for a unit that doesn't do much more than the base model, perhaps I'm missing a trick here.

On unit pricing, one of the only traits for the Oda, they are supposed to be able to recruit cheaper ashigaru units. Well, by my reckoning, of the 4 ashigaru units that spring to mind, they cannot recruit one (loan-sword), one is their unique unit so there is nothing to compare price to (long yari), basic yari ashigaru is absurdly cheap, and bow ashigaru is the same price as for any other clan. So the bonus is not for ashigaru, but for yari ashigaru alone. [I'm actually playing with a mod that increases the cost of the yari ashigaru a bit (still lower than for other clans) and slightly reduces the cost of the bow ashigaru]. In spite of which, for a Legendary campaign, it is still rather too easy].

I have 5 armies, yari ash, katana samurai and bow ashigaru (in the process of being upgraded to bow samurai), and separate light cavalry units for scouting, triggering ambushes and wrecking province buildings outside the fort. I will probably add a couple of bow monks later, the extra range is always good to have.

Throughout the day I have been regretting not having selected the short campaign option. I may just take this to the Shogunate and park it there.

[Smoothhoof]

As I remember (and it's been a long time) the long yari guys have a much longer reach. When in a spear wall the enemy can't touch them head on until their formation starts to break down. Brutal.

Either that or they are just yari samurai that are cheaper and quicker to recruit.

[BastardSword]

I like Oda long yari ashigaru, the default Oda yari ashigaru are already good and cheap but long yaris have better stats. They are more expensive but early on I like to put a few in my armies to provide more power. They are basically positioned between default ashigaru and samurai in terms of stats and cost, so you can get samurai-esque performance out of a cheap unit that won't break unless you use them wrong, unlike wimpy wako raiders who are kind of the same kind of redo of katana samurai.