Oda Troop Numbers...How do I catch up?

[DerKrieger]

So as the Date I'm in control of the Eastern half of Japan and allied with the Uesugi who control the parts that I do not. Recently after I nearly finished off the Hojo, the Oda started attacking the Uesugi en force and I called a coalition to try to reign them in. I'm too far away even with distant diplmacy activated to get anyone in the west to assist us.

Anyways the Uesugi have been dropping like flies as the Oda take over their castles and somehow the Oda just keep getting larger and larger armies. Castles of 16k are common for them and even the recently acquired Uesegui castles seem to swell by a few thousand making the fight harder as we go. What can I do to increase my troop numbers? Is there anyway I can call on my province in the very north of Japan to actually come assist when the battleground is all the way in the old Takeda lands?

[salatrin]

That is the very reason i love playing in central Japan and why i dont like the Northeast and Kyushu( well besides the desolate populations in those 2 areas)

In Central japan, no matter how big your force gets, any war u are involved in, you have full access to ALL your resources at all times but as great as it sounds being in the far east or west, after you expand so much, your backwater provinces becomes next to useless since you cant move troops.

Only one thing i can think of but it will require some time that u might not have if you are stuck in the middle of an all out war with Oda, is to get a couple years of peace time and give your lands a complete total makeover. All your eastern bases that are in the styx away from the action, wipe out all military functions of those bases and make them all into cash cows and food machines and then your front line provinces turn them into pure military strongholds and rely solely on your backwater provinces to fund and feed your army. You could either, make your front line bases all crop and conscript and even them out or depending on what year you are in and which date is your daimyo(earlier Date daimyo's are neutral so this might not be an option unless you tipped them all the way to the progressive tenet side)is to make your base districts into almost ALL conscript districts with maybe a few scattered crops to give ya that little extra food, tho doing it the second way will require the Fixed Society policy to overcome crop limitations for developing conscripts and will also boost your troop count(conscripts) greatly at cost of militia(population based) but as i mentioned this would require that you are going extreme progressive and not neutral.

Also, you could even further increase your troop total by using Deploy draftee. but that helps the second method much more then first but can still help either way, just check the totals and see if it worth it but it will cost ya gold income so make sure you have lots of savings beforehand

[DerKrieger]

Really wish there was a way to bring troops in from elsewhere as if I have the supplies it would make sense that soldiers would march from accross Japan. Hell a few times there were battles with clans from all sides of Japan waging it out.

I've already told my backwater provinces to focus on coin though it looks like I should switch them to food. I am the central part of the Date so I also have my province in front building up purely conscripts as I start to build up all of our roads and any buildings that help with conscripts.

[Tyronis2054]

What year is it? If Historical Events are on, you can cheese it and wait till 1582.. As long Oda controls Hemji, Nijo, and historically what they had in the time, there's a good chance the Like a Dream event will trigger and it will splinter the Oda clan to 4 clans... Which makes your unified bunch a bit easier to handle.

As the Shimazu, myself, starting from the 1570 startpoint, that's how I eventually defeated the Oda, I waited until they splintered, and than struck them with all my might, lol.. Basically I let the Hashiba Clan take Akechi, but than after they got Akechi, stopped them dead in tracks as that's when I started to attack, since I attacked from Kuyshu and Tosa island, along with my allies in the West being the Mori and the East to help as well (Tokugawa and the Shibata Clan), and slowly but surley dwindled them down. The Ironic thing was the Mori was made the leader of the colation which put my plan into motion way sooner than I wanted too, since not being a leader of a colation sucks since I've never seen the AI try to direct other members of the colation to attack certain castles/fortresses... So it mainly me against the Hasiba clan, but the breakup of the Oda clan was huge for me... Cause they went from a force of almost 800K-1 Million, down to like 400K, compared to my 360K I was rocking at the time.

However, I hear what pepole you about controlling major provinces from the Far East or Far West, but honestly if you build your forces right from the get go, you can have insane of amount of base troops in each of your start bases, and while the travel is long, it's not as bad to get around and get them into the fight for the center of Japan. Since I was able to do it as the Shimazu.

Naturally that was only a Shogun victory w/ War Ban, unifaction one may be different perhaps.

Also, not sure if this a good playstyle or not, but I find sometimes controlling a good assortment of starter provinces that you've built up the max, and let your Province Regents handle the frontline battles is pretty manageable for me.

Since what I do is I support my province by attacking myself, and since I use my troops there's a good chance I can save and manage their troop count a bit better since any Mass Battle or Battle I actually get involved in, I'm able to control my province units too... As long as I have a unit from my own daimyo province in the mix.

It probably also helps to put a really overpowered Frontline commander as a Regent... For me it was one of the Shimazu brothers I used, and I controlled the other Shimazu brothers while I supported his attack, along with various assortment of good officers helping... (Tachibana's adopted Son = Overpowered as well... lol)

I find doing that is pretty huge, cause even when you gotta go back to your main province and rearm and let the population of your main base get back up and all, because of the damage you did by minizing your frontline province casulaties, they usually can continue the fight at a easier pace without you, until of course you get more units into the mix.

[さまよう侍]

Here are couple hints: all 3 TENET has policy that help increase your Troops count about 1.5 times. CNSV depends on population and happiness, NTRL and PRG depends on Conscript and happiness. Computer Castles that you usually took over is most likely built heavy on Crops and Crafts, those CNSV castles that you took over might have building like Temples. Get rid of them on the major Castles. On my Soldiers production Castles, i usually build 4/10 Conscript, 4/10 Cropts and 2/10 Crafts.
Here is sample of that ratio:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=531510815

On the smaller castles, I usually leave them to AI because the AI usually produce what needed as support Castles. For money upkeep for my main province, I usually only produce enough for me to activate policies. If 16K spent per month then I produce 17K. If short, I sell supplies and/or steal from my other provinces.

[Aargh Tenna]

If you move your troop to allied castle's circle (but not into the castle), it will replenish its supplies - as long as you have enough overall food. So you CAN actually march troops across Japan if you need to.

[DerKrieger]

Not my Regent's troops as they wont obey. You can sort of trick them by telling them to support one of your further back units but its a hassle.

[zombie2nd]

Oda Troop Numbers...How do I catch up?
You'll never catch up unless you obtain "Progressive" skill soon enough.

Way to increase number of soldiers :-
1. Population will increase number of militia.
1.1 Road, Improvements, Castle upgrade, regent skill "Morality" and officer skill "Civil Defender" improve population growth rate.
1.2 Assimilate a tribe give you some population. (not recommend until you have 70k population in the castle)
2. Conscript development will increase number of troops.
3. Regent skill "Indomitable" (daring capability, tier 3, ~9% increase).
4. Policy those increse troops, militia, and population growth.
5. Castle upgrade, some of them increase number of soldier.
6. Building a fortress (yes 5000 population for 8000 coin, multiple of them should be built as soon as you can in order to deal with Oda)

AI province will not marching troops from far away to the front line,
so make AI provinces hold the front line and you control your province from afar.
Note that you can have 1 daimyo castle/fortress in the front line far away from daimyo province.

[RK47]

There's a reason why most people prefer to play with Unlimited option set for Area of Control. But I've been in that situation before breaking through Northeast against seemingly endless Hojo Horde, it takes a good policy and patient administration to widen zone of control to cover most of your castles and assigning great generals as 'primary strike force. Since you've taken Hojo territory, upgrade those Castles to Square Gates and Extended Tenshus. Fortress can go full Crop then Craft and be ignored for the rest of the game.

As you play Date, go for Innovation builds - Instead of Drill Grounds, go for Church. For Craft, go for Tea House. Change all Temples to Canal. Hit 900 Innovation and enact Lands & Arms + Fixed Society so your Castles can just focus on Conscript every month. Have them change all district to Military as well.

Going into Coalition mode is a mistake, so the objective now is to help Uesugi survive the war. Once the Coalition disbands, stock up Imperial Court 100 Trust to force a six month truce when the momentum is lost, but I'm confident if you organize your 'best forces' correctly, Oda defense will never have much time to recover and eventually you will establish a good hold into his territory.

Tip: If you see Tadakatsu Honda and you have superior number, go for skirmish mode. Tactical mode against Tadakatsu Honda is broken. He will destroy you every time.

[DerKrieger]

Thanks you guys, I will let you all know how my campaign fairs when I can get back to it.

[Kanji Tatsumi]

@RK47

You can beat Tadakatsu Honda with equal number easily. (In Tactical)

I play as Shirakawa (minor clan with average officer) and vassal to Hojo. These are screenshot of mass battle between 35K Shirakawa and 31K Tokugawa Clan. Tadakatsu troop alone is 24K. (Which is a nightmare unless you know how to beat him).

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=539026692
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=539026732

What you really need is a Tactic called INCITE. Without this tactic you will surely be rape by Tadakatsu Honda. This is a tactic where you can nullify enemy strenghtening. Cast Incite on him each time after he activate his tactic.


http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=539121509