How do I avoid getting swarmed on multiple fronts?

[Crazy Bananazzz]

As any faction starting in the center I'm getting wrecked on the campaign map. It's so easy to get overextended, get declared on by all neighboring factions, and get destroyed when you don't have enough armies to defend everything. I'm thinking now I should just invade Kyushu every single game. I'm playing on Very Hard.

[markeason]

The basics:

Manage diplomacy to make the other clans more friendly to you than to another neighbour - this means trade, and trade needs horses. Get horses and they will trade with you.

Choose your route of expansion so that it takes you away from Kyoto towards a map end. Go as far as necessary without triggering RD (depending on campaign duration). When you have the armies that you need to take you to the end of the game, take Kyoto to trigger RD, but wait until there are very few clans left in the game - it will make your life easier. The direction you are not expanding needs to be an easily defensible place (whether upgraded fort or, my preference, a river crossing).

Go easy on your rate of expansion. Each province you take gives you a -6 penalty to your diplomatic relations, and it decays by only +1 each turn. If you have negative clan traits (different religion, daimyo is impolite etc), or alliances / trade agreements have been broken, then negative modifiers stack very quickly. You want to be getting all clans to at least indifferent -20 to +20, and better yet friendly. There's a lot more to this, but figure how to manage your diplomacy so that any clan likes you better than their neighbour.

Make an alliance, or two, with clans that are not at war with everybody and, if with two clans, it is better that they are separated such that it will be a while before they go to war with each other. But it's best to ally with just one. The Takeda are a good choice (unless you are playing as them obviously).

Do not take provinces that are on a playable clan's must have list for victory (if you were playing as them). Even if they are your long standing ally, they will eventually declare war on you because they want those provinces.

Always leave a route of expansion for an ally towards Kyoto. If the only land route left to them is via one of your provinces they will declare war on you sooner or later.

Vassals, before becoming Shogun, any vassal you make will betray you eventually. Some sooner, some at Realm Divide. Recognise that and that their support is going to be time limited and is likely to get you into unwanted wars to defend them. They are best made in a crisis when you need to kick a large enemy army back to its own land to buy time to gather your forces.

Try to avoid declaring war, especially if the clan you want war with has an ally or two. Instead, get yourself an ally that is already at war with your target clan, and offer to join your ally's war against them. This way, the target clan's allies will not be at war with you.

That might help get you started, I could give more specifics if I knew which clan you were playing.

One final question.

If you are playing on Very Hard, did you manage the campaign playing on Hard or Normal? Because if you did, then it is probably just a matter of doing the same thing but paying more attention to your economy.

[Crazy Bananazzz]

Originally posted by markeason:

The basics:

Manage diplomacy to make the other clans more friendly to you than to another neighbour - this means trade, and trade needs horses. Get horses and they will trade with you.

Choose your route of expansion so that it takes you away from Kyoto towards a map end. Go as far as necessary without triggering RD (depending on campaign duration). When you have the armies that you need to take you to the end of the game, take Kyoto to trigger RD, but wait until there are very few clans left in the game - it will make your life easier. The direction you are not expanding needs to be an easily defensible place (whether upgraded fort or, my preference, a river crossing).

Go easy on your rate of expansion. Each province you take gives you a -6 penalty to your diplomatic relations, and it decays by only +1 each turn. If you have negative clan traits (different religion, daimyo is impolite etc), or alliances / trade agreements have been broken, then negative modifiers stack very quickly. You want to be getting all clans to at least indifferent -20 to +20, and better yet friendly. There's a lot more to this, but figure how to manage your diplomacy so that any clan likes you better than their neighbour.

Make an alliance, or two, with clans that are not at war with everybody and, if with two clans, it is better that they are separated such that it will be a while before they go to war with each other. But it's best to ally with just one. The Takeda are a good choice (unless you are playing as them obviously).

Do not take provinces that are on a playable clan's must have list for victory (if you were playing as them). Even if they are your long standing ally, they will eventually declare war on you because they want those provinces.

Always leave a route of expansion for an ally towards Kyoto. If the only land route left to them is via one of your provinces they will declare war on you sooner or later.

Vassals, before becoming Shogun, any vassal you make will betray you eventually. Some sooner, some at Realm Divide. Recognise that and that their support is going to be time limited and is likely to get you into unwanted wars to defend them. They are best made in a crisis when you need to kick a large enemy army back to its own land to buy time to gather your forces.

Try to avoid declaring war, especially if the clan you want war with has an ally or two. Instead, get yourself an ally that is already at war with your target clan, and offer to join your ally's war against them. This way, the target clan's allies will not be at war with you.

That might help get you started, I could give more specifics if I knew which clan you were playing.

One final question.

If you are playing on Very Hard, did you manage the campaign playing on Hard or Normal? Because if you did, then it is probably just a matter of doing the same thing but paying more attention to your economy.

I probably mismanaged the economy somehow. Built farms and roads early and had horses as the Tokugawa. Was trying to build up income and turtle. Had trade with almost all the neighbors. Took the Oda and Imagawa cities and had a decent army although most of it in the west. It seemed like a good start. Then I got declared on by the Takeda and the Ikko ♥♥♥♥♥. The Takeda moved really quickly taking my settlements in the east. My garrison was demolished by their full stack. That's another difficult thing about this game: siege defenses have basically no chokepoints. A fort gives no advantage whatsoever as far as I can see.

I had a successful Date campaign before this. I swear Atilla is easier than this game at times.

[Crazy Bananazzz]

Thanks for the advice in any case, I'm going to try again :)))

[markeason]

Sounds like you are doing the right thing.

With Tokugawa I would go for an alliance with Takeda. It will take some fancy foot-work to keep it going, don't be afraid to give them a hostage, they are fine with that (as long as you don't declare or join a war against them). Be sure to have them break any other alliances they have (with Imagawa / Hojo) as part of any agreement - when you can get it.

I agree about forts and siege defence, plus I find those battles particularly dull. I much prefer to go for a river crossing defence. Owari province has crossings to defend so it makes a great place to have as your anchor while you expand north (right) on the map. Don't take Mino province from the Saito if Takeda is your ally, it is on their expansion route towards Kyoto and they will go to war with you over it.

Mino is also on the must have province list for the Hattori and the Ikko Ikki and they will both be going for it. If you do have to take the province, let it rebel and let one of those clans take it. If, for example, the Ikko Ikki take it, it will likely bring them into contact with the Takeda in South Shinano and that will bring them into war with each other - which is to the benefit of the Tokugawa.

Expand aggressively to take out the Imagawa and Hojo. This will give you the gold mine, a blacksmith and the magistrate building chain for recruiting experienced metsuke - use these with overseeing towns to boost your tax revenue.

On agents, you want at least one of each agent as early as possible. You start with a metsuke but get a monk and ninja or 2 very quickly. If you don't dominate the early agent war the AI will - and it can be a struggle to come back from that. The harder game difficulties make the value of agents significantly greater.

If you are playing a domination campaign, it pays to expand along the east (bottom) coast all the way to Date country before taking Kyoto, (leave the other coast for the Takeda as they have Echizen on their must have province list). If a short campaign then probably stop shy of Fukushima.

I've not played Atilla so I don't know how they compare. Shogun 2, once you get used to it, is pretty straight-forward, but provides a decent challenge.

Sorry, I had my Oda head on when I wrote this. I have started up a new Tokugawa campaign and will post thoughts later.

[Sn3z]

Originally posted by Crazy Bananazzz:

My garrison was demolished by their full stack. That's another difficult thing about this game: siege defenses have basically no chokepoints..

Then upgrade to lvl3, spending the koku early is well worth it, you wish you would have the upgrade when you find yourself getting ganked.

[markeason]

Sorry, I was thinking more of the Oda than the Tokugawa in my earlier replies - although a lot remains the same.

One of the key things to avoid is declaring war on the Imagawa - this will get you a -50 opinion penalty with every clan which decays very slowly and will make diplomatic relationships difficult to establish or maintain.

Instead, wait for them to declare war on you. If necessary hide an army in your home province in the woods so they think the place is undefended, when they attack, defeat them and the path will be clear to expand through their land. You can reduce the Imagawa opinion of you, and make a declaration of war by them more likely, by breaking your trade agreement with them.

A cool trick at the start of the campaign is, after you have defeated the Oda and taken Owari, the Saito will threaten, and then declare war on you.

When you get the threat, move an army to defend the bridge between Owari and Mino province. The Saito will send their army around the long way and be unable to reach your fort, leaving their own fort undefended. Advance some units, besiege their fort and offer them peace, a trade agreement and demand a payment of about 3 to 4,000 koku from them. Don't make them a vassal though, or you will get sucked into needless wars. The Saito always seem to make this move, leaving themselves wide open, rather than attack you at the bridge. Other clans may not be so stoopid.

[kesa822000]

For future reference -- After Realm Divide , if you take Kyoto , hold it for a year and get the Shogun title , then AFTER that any vassals you create don't get the Realm Divide diplomacy penalty. At that point you can use vassals to replace the trade agreements you inevitably lose with Realm Divide. And at that point keeping vassals happy and friendly isn't particularly difficult.

Worst case scenario , as Markeason alluded to above , you can use vassals as temporary time buffers between you and your enemies . While your enemy is trying to deal with a newly created enemy , you have time to marshal your forces.

In other cases ( I'm not sure what the precise diplomacy mechanic is here ) your enemy is not at war with your newly created vassal , or else ignores your vassal anyway. In that case , if the vassal is in the right location , the enemy has to take the long way around to march around your vassal to get to you , or , if it is a choke point , has to go for a seaborn invasion.

I have ended the game with a victory , with no more real estate than I had at Realm Divide. Everywhere else I created vassals . I ended the game with almost as many factions as at the start , ( but with all those factions happily under my thumb ) and with as many or more trade agreements than I had before Realm Divide.

[kesa822000]

You might consider it an exploit or a cheat ? But I strongly recommend that at some point you deliberately create at least one rebel province .

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=155424116

Rebel provinces serve as good buffers between you and your enemies / deprive your enemies of real estate.

Rebel provinces do not count against you for Realm Divide.

Last but not least Rebel provinces serve as the perfect training ground for your monks and Ninja. Rebel provinces do not spawn their own agents . You can camp your Ninja and monks around the rebel castle and level them up to five stars danger - free and quickly.

( The above trick is not in the linked guide. It was pointed out by Markeason in another thread. )

[BastardSword]

I would play on Hard first until you feel like you have mastered it. I play on Hard and it feels challenging but fair most of the time, and I still always have to be careful about what I'm doing.

When I'm a central clan, I find that having two armies as early as possible is really important, and then later on a third army. Positioning my armies so they can move to defend all my territories is really important. You basically want a triangle set up between them so all your vulnerable areas are withing a turn's march. Pay attention to the map, the area around Kai (Takeda's home province) has a lot of mountain passes that you can easily block off with an army somewhere like North Shinano or South Shinano, but the plain areas around Kyoto and Musashi (Tokyo) are a lot more open.

This is important because the AI always knows how strong/weak you are, and knows where your weak points are. If you control all of central Japan and all your armies are in the west, the clans to your east will attack you while the ones to the west will probably leave you alone.

If you play as a peripheral clan that basically has only one front, like Date or Shimazu, then the game becomes much easier because you really only have one vulnerable border area, not two or three, and your army/armies is probably right on that border area because it's the only place you can expand from.

[Crazy Bananazzz]

Originally posted by BastardSword:

I would play on Hard first until you feel like you have mastered it. I play on Hard and it feels challenging but fair most of the time, and I still always have to be careful about what I'm doing.

When I'm a central clan, I find that having two armies as early as possible is really important, and then later on a third army. Positioning my armies so they can move to defend all my territories is really important. You basically want a triangle set up between them so all your vulnerable areas are withing a turn's march. Pay attention to the map, the area around Kai (Takeda's home province) has a lot of mountain passes that you can easily block off with an army somewhere like North Shinano or South Shinano, but the plain areas around Kyoto and Musashi (Tokyo) are a lot more open.

This is important because the AI always knows how strong/weak you are, and knows where your weak points are. If you control all of central Japan and all your armies are in the west, the clans to your east will attack you while the ones to the west will probably leave you alone.

If you play as a peripheral clan that basically has only one front, like Date or Shimazu, then the game becomes much easier because you really only have one vulnerable border area, not two or three, and your army/armies is probably right on that border area because it's the only place you can expand from.

Thanks for the advice everyone. I'm going to try again on Hard and take your suggestions about the two army thing and expanding away from the center.

[markeason]

Thoughts on Tokugawa.

Because you start as a vassal, you are unable to declare war, or make alliances. So you are dependent on joining the Imagawa clan's wars and picking up what you can, or hoping for clans to declare war on you.

You can overcome this limitation by breaking your vassalage with the Imagawa. This will incur a big diplomatic penalty (with every clan) if you declare war on them or, you are at the mercy of RNG if you are hoping to encourage them to declare war on you. This can be accelerated by acts of sabotage against them, cancelling trade agreements and the like - but all this takes time and delays your early game expansion.

Unlike the Oda, that starts at war with the Imagawa and has that route as a logical expansion, after experimenting with several start strategies, I think the best bet for the Tokugawa is, when the Saito threaten war, cancel a trade agreement with them to ensure it happens, defeat them and occupy Mino.

I would never take Mino as the Oda, because of the wars it will get you into. But, for the Tokugawa you want those wars as you cannot declare your own.

It won't be long before someone declares war on you if you own Mino, but you will be joined in the war by the Imagawa and, the chances are that early in the game, the clans that declare war on you will already be in wars with 2 or 3 other clans already.

So be aggressive against them. I like to send light cavalry units to pillage holdings and besiege forts, while my army goes for the least well defended province without engaging the enemy main army. I get agents out early knowing where other clans' armies are is invaluable.

After grabbing a province or two, I negotiate peace, insisting they break any alliances, give me a trade agreement and pay me a lump sum. The Imagawa will remain at war with them so I can rejoin later if I desire.

It means that the expansion route is at the mercy of whichever clan attacks you, though there is also the option to join an Imgawa war.

In my game I chose to join the Imagwa war against the Takeda because my ninja had found that Echizen and Kaga provinces were undefended - and they were at war with the Imagawa and Hojo, so all their forces were otherwise engaged.

I negotiated access with the Hattori in Omi and sent an army (8 yari ash + 4 bow ash) which secured these two provinces - the army subsequently grabbed the undefended Etchu and Hida provinces from the Takeda as well.

But, after the passage of my army, the Hattori cancelled my access and declared war - I was expecting this - it was not the smart move as their armies were tied up in wars on the other side of Kyoto. So I sent another army, same composition, to take Omi and Iga provinces, while my third army (same composition) took first Ise then Yamato. All of which were undefended. At this point I ran into a full stack of quality Hattori units, so I made peace ensuring they ended their alliance with the Ashikaga and anyone else.

So, it's turn 38, I am still a vassal, but in a fairly good position. I need to stop expanding for a while to allow diplomatic relations to expand and get some infrastructure built for some better quality additions to my armies.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2902106263

The Hojo are a concern as, after the Takeda are gone, they will be coming for me as I have not left them an expansion route to Kyoto. If I was not a vassal, I would be looking to ally with Date to give them 2 fronts to fight on. But that will not be an option.

But I would advocate this as a better strategy than hoping for the Imagawa to declare war in order to end the vassalage. [That does work but can take some time to achieve].

[Kamiyama]

Research Bushido first and build a sword dojo ASAP. Katana samurai are strongly favored by the computer when auto-resolving battles. Especially in the early game when you're up against stacks of ashigaru.