Steep Learning Curve?

[Lockdown]

I am getting discouraged trying to play this game. I am playing a campaign on easy and I am getting slapped around. I feel overwhelmed and am losing interest. Any tips for getting into this game? I want to enjoy it but so far I am far from it.

[The Vagabond Sam]

You just need the basics to win on easy, you just bought the game?

[The Vagabond Sam]

Recently * i mean

[Lockdown]

Originally posted by |THB| Sam:

Recently * i mean

Well, bought it ages ago but am new, yes.

[easytarget]

Play as the shimazu, focus on recruiting armies initially and expanding to take of the island you start on. Once you're at say 5 or 6 provinces or the entire starting island, pause on the military expansion for say a year or two and imrpove the provinces you've captured making sure any on water get ports so you can recruit trade ships and then pump up to 10 per european trade node and cover as many nodes as possible, this will take care of income and keep the money flowing as you start up your expansion again onto the main island.

[Fiona]

Well I dislike telling to play a specific way or method, so I'll just suggest what I tend to do.
Early aggression, generally on turn 1 to 3, can net you a town. Personally, gathering up all my units when I first start the game, attack the nearest rebels and take the nearest town that is in war.
I tend to prepare before invading, so I generally make a one or two towns unit production-only towns. With the proper dojos and such. Any other town can become an income-focused town. The basic market and sake dens give that slight income. I also tend to go to research the first farm upgrade in the Chi tree. That'll boost the income further. I also tend to use a single army with the best units to steamroll most AI armies and towns. So I generally prepare a single general and full of samurai-level units. Any other general can just have the basic ashigaru foot units, say 3 spearmen and 3 archers, in each other town, if possible.
So once my samurai army is fully prepared as much as possible without my income going into the red, I go to war with anyone which dislikes me and without many allies. Kill them all quickily before my army is destroyed. Repeat the preparation phase and repeat.

As for tips, for campaign, personally, basic ashigaru spearmen and archers can hold a town against great numbers, easily. With the town's garrison and if possible, a general, can easily hold an army almost twice as big, so long as they are low morale units that is.
I suggest keeping the income in the positive. Stay in your territories during winter. Resources are required for some really advanced stuff, but I find that would be required later in the game so I wouldn't worry about it too early.

Trading helps but personally, since everyone's going to get killed around me anyways. And as I always use, a balanced army is the most flexible army.

To be fair I haven't played in a long time so I am kind of rusty in some areas.

[Nrmaggs]

moral is your friend
keep your general close by your units

[easytarget]

Fiona,

Generalities aren't likely of much use for someone struggling on easy is my take. I think your suggestion about focusing research on Chi is good, definitely helps on the money side. I don't however put as much stock in your suggestion of one army with best units, as I've found regardless the difficulty numerical advantage wins. So for someone having a hard time I'd always recommend 2000 ash against 1000 of anything and auto-resolve it. Better yet, even stack it even further with 2 full stacks of ash against one stack of whatever the AI brings.

Lockdown,

Keep coming back with questions, we can find an exact plan of attack that works.

[johna]

It might help if you did your own let's play and post it so that we can give you more concrete tips.

[GAMER01]

Originally posted by easytarget:

Play as the shimazu, focus on recruiting armies initially and expanding to take of the island you start on. Once you're at say 5 or 6 provinces or the entire starting island, pause on the military expansion for say a year or two and imrpove the provinces you've captured making sure any on water get ports so you can recruit trade ships and then pump up to 10 per european trade node and cover as many nodes as possible, this will take care of income and keep the money flowing as you start up your expansion again onto the main island.

I agree with this 100 percent :) Also make sure you never run out of food or money ;)

[Lockdown]

Thanks for the replies everyone!

Originally posted by johna:

It might help if you did your own let's play and post it so that we can give you more concrete tips.

Yeah good idea! I just recorded a short 30 minute start to my Easy campaign, it went better this time for sure although I'm still half clueless. I'm sure it will just take time. Uploading it now

[david.]

There're many good guides around, if you're new to strategy of this kind (which you are, if your steam library is truthful). But let me give you some cliff notes.

• Avoid building huge samurai-only armies. Too expensive.
  
• Avoid Bow Ashigarus past the beginning. Use bow samurai. 25% or less of the army.
  
• Spear wielding troops are only effective against cavalry.
  
• Yari ashigaru are cheap meat shields. "Good" in every army, even late game.
  
• Loose formation when you've being bombarded by arrows!
  
  
• Sake Den in every city you capture. Raze all useless buildings.
  
• Invest in roads for quick movement.
  
  
• Trade with clans far away. Fight your neighbours.
  
• Upgrade harbours for trade.
  
  
• Vassals are underrated.
  
  
• Use monks to incite unrest in other cities
  
• Level up ninja with sabotage. Sabotaging armies is more useful than assassination.
  
• Metsukes are dope

[Lockdown]

Well here is my first little video... I have no damn clue what I'm doing.

I got to a point where I have 3 cities and I don't get much money for them at all. Can't figure out how to trade/what to do with my trading ships. I hate being a noob.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B7JDSGgHdI

[Fiona]

Well..you can place trade ships on resource nodes, those will give you that extra income, just be warned that any faction that is in war with you may raid those trading lines. I suggest building those markets and sake dens, if possible bring the tax level higher for those few turns to get those buildings building. Bring them down once your income is stable. Personally, income over 1-2k is generally an all good for me, after army upkeep of course.

As for my tendency for a army of competent units, is not to say, I do not have secondary armies, and I dislike autoresolving most of time, as I have confidence in my control skills. Like I said, an army of samurai-level units will do fine against most levels of unit compositions. That's disregarding any Elite or Hero level units with their insane stats. I generally place those in secondary armies in the event I require them for certain fights. Certainly ashigaru level units can be used to great effect, but falls short against more overall, well-trained armies. My method of having a mid-level army versatility worked for me. But play however you will, opinions afterall.

[Foxeh]

Mods, dude. If i may, i recommend the Expanded Japan mod. It changes turns to 12 turns a year, modify's the diplomacy to make things easier, even adds more provinces, clans and whatnot.

[Foxeh]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=150812711&searchtext=expanded+japan

This is a really good mod. And it gives you plenty of room to grow. Then look for the Deadly mods. Deadly Oda mod gives you an invincible army of Ashigaru, with archers that can fire at 500 instead of 150....with an accuracy and fire rate of 100....lets see you not beat it then