Ito Clan Overview

A guide to playing as the Ito - their start position, neighbours, expansion options and family tree, plus a historical overview for context. Part of a personal project to make clan overviews of selected notable minor clans.

Introduction

Ito, warlords of southeast Kyushu, long-time rivals of the Shimazu, and usually the first non-playable clan to be steamrolled by new players picking the Shimazu for an easy time.

Hi, my name is NOT Mr Smart Donkey, but I’m going to be mimicking his style and structure anyway because it’s a good organised way to look at the ins and outs of the Ito.

The Ito are not usually playable, but thanks to Sara Temer’s mod to make all factions playable in the vanilla campaign you can now step into their underdog role.

Clan Traits & Unique Units

Start Position

The Ito begin with two provinces: Osumi which has Average Soil and a Coastal Village, and Hyuga with Barren Soil. Neither are particularly productive provinces, so you’re probably better off looking to your neighbours.


Your army is quite meagre and scattered about; Osumi, at the frontlines with the Shimazu, has only a single Bow Ashigaru unit, and Hyuga similarly has no garrison save your daimyo Ito Yoshisuke. Your field army is found slightly south of Hyuga consisting of two Yari Ashigaru and a Bow Ashigaru, but this army takes no less than three turns to reach Hyuga on their own.

Neighbours

To your west are the Shimazu in Satsuma, who you begin the campaign at war with. The Shimazu fortunately do not have the Katana Samurai that they are notorious for yet, but at the campaign start your army is stranded in the countryside south of Hyuga and can only reach Osumi on the third campaign turn at the earliest. When you take the fight to Shimazu lands, though, Satsuma begins with a Coastal Village as well as a Blacksmith (the only one in Kyushu), making it a useful recruitment centre for the early game until you need to repurpose one closer to the frontlines.


To your north along the eastern coast of Kyushu are the Otomo in Buzen and Bungo, both of Average Soil, who you are already trading with at the campaign start. Useful for income, the Otomo lands would be even more useful in your possession to upgrade Buzen’s Craftwork with Fletchers for your bow units. However, the Otomo and their lands are strongly Christian already – Bungo is already upgraded with a Nanban Trade Port in addition to its Naval Tradition, spreading Christianity even quicker – so unless you want to convert to Christianity restoring their territory to Shinto-Buddhism will be a long and arduous task.


To your northwest are the Sagara in Higo, who are indifferent to you. Their Warhorses resource can be useful both for trade and for cavalry in the early game, but actually reaching them would require passing through Shimazu or Otomo lands first.

Expansion Options

Fending off the Shimazu and taking their province of Satsuma should be a safe first priority for producing a superior early-game army. You may also wish to consider investing in an early navy to take advantage of the trade resources west of Kyushu: two Incense nodes west of Satsuma and south of Osumi respectively, and Chinese Silk to the northwest.

Once you’ve taken the Shimazu, the choice between attacking the Sagara or the Otomo becomes its own calculation. The Sagara in Higo possess Very Fertile Soil and Warhorses, and provides a clear path into the Shoni of Hizen and Tsukushi, boasting a Coastal Village with Naval Tradition and a Philosophical Tradition respectively to complement their Very Fertile Soils.

On the other hand, the Otomo of Buzen and Bungo provide their own benefits despite their only Average Soil, with a Nanban Trade Port to allow for quicker Imported Matchlock Ashigaru (you can destroy the Nanban Trade Port when your recruiting is done, or keep it to aid you in a Christian playthrough), and of course the possibility of Fletchers from the Craftwork in Buzen is always a must-have for Kyushu’s archer production lines. There’s also an extra benefit to defeating the Otomo early: with their technological headstart, the Otomo have the potential to expand quicker in the early game, so the longer it takes to destroy them, the more likely you are to have to reconvert provinces they had conquered in the interim.

Either way, your early game strategy is likely going to be similar to the Shimazu or Otomo: conquer and consolidate the isolated and defensible island of Kyushu, and then make your choice of whether to proceed onto the tip of Honshu or take a detour and conquer Shikoku before turning your attention to the mainland.

Family Tree

Lastly, moving onto your family tree, your daimyo, Ito Yoshisuke, is 33 and has no special traits. He has a 10 year old son and heir as well as a 14 year old daughter who will soon be old enough to marry for alliance purposes.

Unusually for a usually non-playable clan, you also have an unrelated 40 year old general Kodama Hiromoto, who begins the campaign as your Commissioner for Warfare but has no special traits of his own.

Historical Overview

The Itō were a clan of Kyushu descended from the Fujiwara, largely entering the political arena from the 12th century onwards as inheritors of Kawazu and Itō Manors in Izu Province, and their descendants achieved slight infamy when two of their out-of-clan descendants were involved in the vendetta known as the Soga Brothers incident. The major branch of the clan later found themselves in Hyūga Province. The Shimazu clan of Satsuma had a long-standing rivalry with the Itō clan in southern Kyushu, even occupying the majority of their lands for long periods in the early Sengoku Jidai.

Itō Yoshisuke became clan head in 1538, and by 1542 had reconquered Hyūga from the Shimazu. However, by 1570 the Shimazu unified Satsuma and Ōsumi and renewed the conflict with the Itō. Shimazu Yoshihiro defeated Itō Yoshisuke at Kizaki in 1572; in 1576 Yoshisuke fled to take refuge with the Ōtomo clan, and by 1578 the Shimazu had completely occupied the Itō lands. Yoshisuke eventually entered Kyoto through Iyo Province, where he and his son Suketaka supported Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the succession crisis following Oda Nobunaga’s death. They both supported Hideyoshi’s Kyushu campaign, with Yoshisuke inheriting Agata Domain in 1584 and Suketaka inheriting Obi Domain in 1587, both in Hyūga, restoring the Itō to their old lands.

Itō Yoshisuke

The Itō retained their holdings in Obi Domain, as well as a cadet branch holding Okada Domain in Bitchū Province, until the abolition of the shogunate in 1868, though under the suzerainty of their old rivals the Shimazu of Satsuma Domain. Even after the Meiji Restoration, the Itō family remained in a prominent role as aristocracy, with Itō Sukeyuki serving on the general staff of the Imperial Japanese Navy throughout the First Sino-Japanese War, during which he was made a viscount, and becoming a full admiral before the Russo-Japanese War, raised to the rank of count for his service.

[Salmon Sashimi 刺身]

i have always liked the ito. been playing as them for years