Legendary difficulty

[edyzmedieval]

I've tried as Hojo 2 times with Legendary, got my backside busted in less than 6 turns. It's the problem with the Imagawa and Takeda since they're really eager to take your territories. Only if you're lucky and you manage to expand quickly and turtle fast. Hojo has good castles, making use of them is really important.

[crzyrndm]

Got to say that hattori has been the most difficult of my campaigns so far(on VH, legendary is just a step too far for me). Their expensive units mean you have to do the same amount of work with less, while not recieving much of a buff in terms of combat ability(if you count frequent ambushes as a buff). That combined with the ikko's large units bearing down on you after you've cleared out hatakeyama really makes for an awful start(especially if echizen gets fletchers early, 200 arrows/volley is scary powerful at standard accuracy).

[Jacobin]

For Oda the key issue seems to be that Owari is a rich province bang in the middle of the map and thus an enemy stack magnet.

You expand south and east along the coast and you will have to draw troops away from defending it (obv less of a problem on lower difficulties where you potentially have much greater resources and the enemy stacks will be smaller and less tough).

And lose Owari and it really is Game Over - you can probably retake it but that means drawing units from the southern provinces which will then get gobbled up by the Takeda, Hojo or whoever - I've lost and retaken it multiple times but every time its killed the momentum of my expansion and thus the campaign.

My experience with Chokosable at Legendary is proving very different - other than the rebels and clan you start at war with nobody wants to attack Tosa at all and the borders are all far enough away that if they did you could see them coming in time to add extra units to the garrison.

This gives you the option to turtle (I am not even sure it is worth taking Iyo from the enemy clan), build ships, load all your troops on them and simultaneously descend on the three rich provinces at the top of Kyushu (the western island).

So based on this experience I may try something similar with the Oda - turtle in Owari, build a ship as early as you can, stick 2 ashigaru on it and send it along the coast looking for undefended castles to attack - they then either loot and demolish (this will ruin your diplomacy but then everyone will attack you anyway and the money lets you upgrade your castle and food supply a lot faster) or vassalise, add the extra unit and carry on along the coast until you've circumnavigated the entire island.

And you can probably build a new fleet and send it out every move so you have one going east and then north, another going south and west, a third going west and west (along the top of Kyushu) and a fourth west, north and then east along the north of Honshu.

In fact as my Chokosabe campaign is bogged down I will have one last try with the Oda as a pirate kingdom.

[TinCow]

For Oda the key issue seems to be that Owari is a rich province bang in the middle of the map and thus an enemy stack magnet.

You expand south and east along the coast and you will have to draw troops away from defending it (obv less of a problem on lower difficulties where you potentially have much greater resources and the enemy stacks will be smaller and less tough).

And lose Owari and it really is Game Over - you can probably retake it but that means drawing units from the southern provinces which will then get gobbled up by the Takeda, Hojo or whoever - I've lost and retaken it multiple times but every time its killed the momentum of my expansion and thus the campaign.

I created this in part to help plan my next Oda Legendary attempt. Looking at that map, there really is no feasible way to establish a good defense around Owari (44) and Mino (36). Defending that area requires a full stack to be permanently stationed in each province. Defending with only a single stack is extremely risky and will result in the loss of one of the two provinces if both are attacked simultaneously (which is common). However, early-game you cannot afford more than two stacks, and even after a little expansion you cannot afford four. That means that whatever territories you manage to take to the south along the (34, 59, 54 corridor) or to the east (52) will remain completely open to attack by whatever clan you border on that side; or, if you do defend them, Owari and Mino will be underdefended and vulnerable.

Players who are truly superb with battles and who manage diplomacy well enough to keep their west/north borders as friendly as possible might be able to deal with this situation, but it would be very difficult. The major diplomatic roadblock are the Ikko, whose religion and aggression make them very hard to befriend... and even if you do befriend them, you'll probably end up at war with one of their enemies in the region.

I think the easiest method (and the one I am going to try) is to just abandon Owari. I am going to blitz Mikawa (34) early, and let Owari fall to whoever takes it. I will then fortify Mikawa and defend there while pushing along the coast. 59 and 54 can be held perfectly fine by a second army, and further expansion to 29, 26, and 46 will result in a defensive line that can be strongly held by three armies. While that's a lot of armies for six provinces, it includes Izu (26) which has a gold mine and can thus fund an Ashigaru army all on its own. Plus, it also includes a library province and a smith province, which will provide for a good new recruiting specialty castle and a big research boost. From there, pre-Realm Divide expansion could go further along the coast, or you could hold the line and take the not-too-distant Shikoku. Shikoku would be easy to hold once conquered and provides a good base from which to control most of the trade nodes.

[Jacobin]

That is more or less what I've done in today's campaign - I vassalised Mikawa and used ships to get an army behind the Imagawa and take Suruga, the Tokugawa then attacked me and got conquered, the Imagawa advanced from Totomi to take it and I took that castle behind them and eventually I had the strip of provs from Owari to Suruga.

The problem is that at legendary it takes too much time (particularly as you have to keep halting to deal with rebels) so having taken Suruga I got attacked by both the Hojo and Takeda whose stacks had to go through Suruga - so I lost all of these provinces one by one to a full Hojo stack including katana samurai.

I then tried the amphibious approach again and dodging Hojo fleets managed to land an army in Isuzu and took that.

I then went again through the process of reconquering Mikawa, Totomi and Suruga again and even briefly took Sagami.

But with half a dozen rich provinces each the Takeda and Hojo just kept sending more stacks - while the Hattori and Ikko Ikki also very belatedly started threatening Owari as well.

I've just given up with an Ikko Ikki horde attacking Owari while a Takeda horde is attacking Suruga - and when they are gone both my Daimyo and Heir will be dead with both of my decent armies.

So although the Owari to Suruga strip looks defensible it doesn't generate the income to maintain the full stacks you need to hold both ends (and even a full stack won't hold Owari for ever so attractive is it to the AI).

Extending further east opens up more resources - particularly if you take Isuzu and Sagami - but these provs are also enemy stack-magnets so you really need another full stack to hold them as well - and again the economics don't support that.

Really should have stuck with my pirate king idea and carried on raiding and vassalising along the coast instead of stopping and trying to hold Suruga....

[faker01]

I won on legendary difficulty with chosokabe yesterday. It was very easy. I didnt use any guides or so. I have used nearly only ashigaru, but no archers. The beginning was the hardest. I have lost nearly all of them while conquering the small island.
A few years later i began to conquer the westisland with 7000 ashigaru and some ninja. It took some years and some revolts. After this, mori declared war on me, but with less then 5000 troops they had no chance against my 15000 ashigaru. i interrupted conquering, before i had to much fame. When i had 30000 i continued. I was surprised, when i saw the ikko-ikki. They have sent over 10000 troops to the front. I had to seperate my troops, so i had 15000 there(and they were inexperienced). The ikko-ikki have send more and more. When they had nearly 20000 troops there, they made a fault, so i could attack. All off them dieed in the same turn and only 10000 of my troops.
After this, there were nearly no resistance. So i won in 1571.

edit: yesterday a began a game with the oda on legendary difficult. It was very hard, but i didnt play fair (for example I caused many riots) and so i got 14 provinces in 1551. 2 years ago i had war against every neighbor (including ikko-ikki and hattori in the west). I think it's important to hold the starting province and the province north of it. It brings much money and a good position for using unfair tactics. In the east i had in 1571 three alliance partners and only two emenys. I nearly got one of them, he had a great army, but i just needed one turn to finish him. But a bug stole my turn. It just ended a sec after it began. but this was not the only problem the bug caused. The ikko-ikki neary have nearly lost theyr position in the north, but they began a last attack from there. It was a small attack, but, you know, i couldn't react. In the west it would be more expensive to stop them.
So i was very angry and turned the computer off.

My latest attempt was terminated in Turn 23 when no fewer than 3 stacks totalling 9,000 Ikko Ikki descended on my last castle (and I don't even have the DLC so these were regular unbuffed Ikko Ikki).

This goes beyond challenging or even unfair to become just silly - how on earth can an AI faction recruit and send three nearly full stacks against just one of their multiple enemies so early in the game?

Because they fail. Look at the tactics they use, It's not hard to beat that.

[TinCow]

I finally started up my third Oda Legendary attempt last night, and it's been a bit odd, but so far everything is working out well.

On turn 1, I killed the rebel army and returned my main army to Owari. I also began destruction of the Yari spear building, whatever it was called, and recruited 2 ashigaru units. No need to make that province any more useful to my enemies than it need be. On the AI's turn, the Tokugawa main army moved right outside Owari, but did not have enough movement to enter it. A small Saito army also moved into visible range north of Owari.

On turn 2, I ignored the Tokugawa army and marched on Mikawa with my entire force. It was unprotected and taken without any casualties by shooting the defenders to death (which also avoids the damage caused by an autoresolve). The Tokugawa clan was eliminated and, because it was in my territory, the entire Tokugawa army disappeared. Adios, suckers. I recruited 1 more ashigaru in Mikawa and began upgrading it to a Stronghold.

I then sat in Mikawa now for a couple turns, recruiting more units and waiting for the unrest to die down a bit and for the Stronghold to finish construction. Oddly, the Saito completely ignored the totally empty Owari. They just parked a large stack next to it and reinforced that stack with more units every turn. One of the first truly moronic bits of AI behavior I've seen in TWS2 so far. As such, I got about 5-6 more turns of taxation from Owari than I was expecting to.

I defeated an Imagawa stack and then split my army to counterattack, taking about 2/3 to take Totomi with the other 1/3 holding Mikawa. At about this point the Hattori declared war on me and took Owari. The cowardly Saito were eliminated by the Takeda, and their stationary army disappeared. With further recruiting and some careful unit juggling, I defeated a couple Hattori attacks on Mikawa while my main force advanced south and took Suruga, eliminating the Imagawa. I then paused for a breather and to improve my provinces and economy.

After several of their armies were smashed on Mikawa, the Hattori accepted peace with me and gave me a nice breather. I also allied with the Hojo to better secure my southern flank. After a few turns of peace, more oddness occurred. Despite friendly relations, an alliance, and a trade agreement, Hojo declared war with no warning whatsoever. They were strong, so I talked to the Takeda, who were their allies, and got them to break the alliance and ally with me instead in exchange for military access and my youngest son as a hostage. I was very happy with this. However, on the very next turn, despite this new alliance, the Takeda also declared war on me. This resulted in the execution of my youngest son, something I had never seen before. Fortunately, Takeda's armies were nowhere near Suruga (the only one I saw was actually left over from crushing the Saito, and that moved on Mikawa where I defeated it) and Hojo was busy fighting the Satomi. Izu was thus undefended and I grabbed it and the awesome gold mine that comes with it. Unfortunately, Satomi took Sagami before I could get to it. That eliminated the Hojo though, so that was one less enemy to deal with. A few more turns of economic building up then followed, until the inevitable Satomi declaration of war. I only had a half stack in Izu when this occurred and would have lost to a Satomi attack, so I cancelled all construction in Izu (2 turns before the gold mine was about to finish upgrading, bah) and retreated to Suruga. The next turn, the Satomi surprisingly did not move into my lands. I think they were fighting someone to their east, which was distracting them. This allowed the reinforements I had sent south from Mikawa to reach Suruga, at which point I marched on Sagami and took it. That's where I left the game.

Currently there is a Satomi stack just east of Sagami, but I don't think I'll have any problems defeating it. I now have about an 3/4 full stack in Satomi and a 1/2 stack in Mikawa. However, Mikawa is now also upgraded to a Fortress, and I'm not having any difficulty defending it against the ashigaru armies that get tossed at it. Since I have now secured all of the provinces I consider critical, I am going to hold at this current location and build up my economy for a little while, and try and secure a few trade nodes. Due to the blacksmith, Sagami will become my main recruiting station, as well as a fortified forward base as I'll need to upgrade to a Fortress just to fit the basic buildings I want in there. The only concern I have at the moment is a Takeda attack coming south from Kai, as I no longer have an army in Suruga or Izu. However, I've got a ninja stalking around up there so hopefully I'll be able to see any attack a couple turns before it arrives so that I can adjust as needed.

[Arjos]

I started mine as usual with Tokugawa vassal and Owari-Mino as starting provinces (after turn 2)...
I've been very lucky, because the Hattori went on rampage capturing Tamba, Yamato, Omi and Ise, all this while me and the Tokugawa took care of the Imagawa...
Said lucky as the Hattori only had 1 stack at that time, as they declared war on me, I annihilated their army and took Yamato, Omi, Iga and Ise...

At this point I offered peace and left them in Tamba as a buffer state for the expanding Ikko, who went to destroy the Takaoka...
Obviousely they declared war on me and things got scary as 3 armies entered Omi totalling 6k warriors...
All I had were 3 half stacks (1 yari samurai, 4 yari and yumi ashigaru), but I decided to go on the offensive as 1 stack didn't have a general...
The battlefield had a central hill were all the Ikko gathered (to my joy XD) my agile troops sorrounded the hill and a slaughter took place...

Kiso incredibly attacked me and sent a stack to invade Mino, I decided that Nobunaga was enough to hold them and sent him as fort defender, while Nobuhide and Muneyori went to take Echizen and Kaga...
Resistance in the north was non-existant, the Ikko happily accepted a peace treaty and I sent 2 monks to speed up the conversion; while the Kiso offensive failed and I took their province...

By this time I had another general, whom I sent to Yamato with fresh recruits with the same set-up...
At this point Hatakeyama, Takeda and Hojo attacked: Yamato defeated the Hatakeyama, Nobunaga crushed the Takeda and the Tokugawa fought well 'til the death by the Hojo...
Seeing how my vassal was being taken over I sent the Yamato troops and Nobuyuki (who came of age) to capture Mikawa (my vassal was no more :P)...

Now happened a most welcomed event, both Takeda and Hatakeyama after losing 2 stacks each, accepted peace and they became good trading partners...
In the mean time the Hattori rallied and destroyed the Ikko, so they felt strong enought to declare war once again, I hastened to Wakasa with my Echizen troops and won a new peace treaty...

This new strategy of signing peace after major defeats has been very useful, it gave me time to mobilize my armies from east to west...
Now I have 3 armies (1 yumi cav, 1 yari, katana, naginata and yumi samurai, 4 yari and yumi ashigaru) and 2 without the katana, naginata samurai...
War is on one front with the Hojo, I'll see to capture all provinces 'til Sagami and Kai (the Tokugawa took it and the Hojo now controls it), so I'll end up with a solid front fully garrisoned in: Kaga, South Shinano, Kai, Sagami...

Nobuhide in Echizen is free to move, the Hatakeyama shouldn't be a threat as they don't have any troops left, hopefully I'll get another general (I don't like to muster armies without them :D)...

Plan is to wait and repel invaders using peace treaties after defeats, while recruiting more troops (soon I'll be able to get teppo ashigaru), after should be pretty easy to capture 40 provinces ^^

[edyzmedieval]

Good posts TinCow, quite informative.

[Jacobin]

Faker01

Unless you provide some screenshots I literally don't believe you (and your name doesn't inspire confidence).

14 provinces by 1551?

That's two new provinces every three turns.

And given how many castles are more than one turn apart I can't see how this feasible even at medium with no real AI opposition.

If you can really achieve that on legendary with the Oda without the use of cheat codes you are a player of such transcendent genius that you really need to give us a turn-by-turn tutorial.

[faker01]

From 1545-1551 are 28 turns.
If the savefiles wouldn't be crashed, i would have post a screenshot.
A turn-by-turn tutorial wouldn't be very usefull, because it would be damn specific and it would be very long. One reason are the many moves each turn. I had 5 ninjas, all of them had to move every turn(their prime tasks were scouting and causing revolts).
I had over 10 armys, most of them moved every turn. Some of my armys only had 5 units or less(and most of them without a general, i had 2 and soon they had to reduce the cost of defending my 2 provinces at the west). One task of my armys was to quell revolts, because often it's cheaper then preventing them. Another was to spy, because my ninjas were very busy. Further tasks were to lure out armys or to fall them into their back(for example take a province they just have left). Also i have used them to fight off an attack to forts. Let their archers fire into nothing, when defending a fort.
The most important part is attacking. When you are good you can defeat a bigger or stronger army with low costs. I attacked up to 30% bigger armys. You should know the ai is very stupid and how to use that.(on campaignmap and on the battlefield)
It's not good to hold straight lines, when you use only close combat units. For example it's better to seperate your units to attack the first units from two sides, while they are regrouping, after a bit time you will have a straight line there, but your opponent will nearly have lost some of his units. While doing that send units to the flank. Then make it again on both sides, if you have enough troops for it(if not, then make it only at one side again). The moral will break and you can continue slaughtering.I'll post screenshots of this tactic next week if you whish.
Maybe i'll try it in a few weeks again.

[Jacobin]

I still just can't see how your experience and mine of the same game can be so different.

But if all you are doing is spamming ashigaru spearmen and sending them out to conquer every neighbouring province without worrying about province development, diplomacy, building balanced armies etc then maybe it is possible - although I genuinely would like to see screenshots.

But to me its supposed to be a sophisticated multi-level historical simulation not something you beat by exploiting the bugs in the design.

I want my battles and campaigns to look like real C16 Japanese battles and campaigns - even if I lose most of them.

But as I've said I've tried playing it realistically at legendary level and can't win with the Oda so perhaps yours is the only way....

[faker01]

Maybe because we completely have other tactics. Or because of other events.
I didn't just spam ashigaru, i have used them tacticaly. If i would just spam them, i would had lost to many of them. I have used them because they are better then all.
I didn't worry about province development, because i had no money for that, except in the first four turns, so my first three provinces were developed a bit.
I have worried about diplomacy, it brought me a bit money, needed time, negative honour, war against all neighbours, higher costs and finally temporally peace with 2 former rebells and an other neighbor, which was loosing against a further opponent.
The game isn't fair on legendary difficulty, so i don't play fair(but i don't cheat).
btw. i have found the savefile, it seems to be corrupted.

[TinCow]

Alright, I played a lot more on my Oda game yesterday, with a good final result.

Shortly after I resumed where I left off on my previous post, things got very hairy. The Hattori declared war again and attacked Mikawa with about 2 stacks while the Satomi attacked Sagami with three stacks. I won both of those battles, but I must admit that I only won the Sagami battle because the AI bugged out and only attacked with about 1.5 stacks directly, before dribbling in another half stack unit by unit, and then not even moving the third. The victory was via timer. Had it attacked with everything, I would have been obliterated and that would have been the end of my campaign. One further note about Mikawa: that place truly is a superb defense spot. Not only is it a road chokepoint that protects the coast, the battlemap is one of the coastal maps where the enemy can only attack from three directions instead of four. That makes it very easy to get archer coverage on all walls. I highly recommend Mikawa for all your long-term defensive needs.

After the attacks, both Hattori and Sagami had lost enough of their armies that they were willing to negotiate peace. That was fine with me, as I still needed a lot more time to build up my provinces properly. The game then proceeded at a relatively regular pace. I sat still holding Mikawa, Totomi, Suruga, Izu, and Sagami. There were regular declarations of war from everyone who bordered me, but defending become somewhat routine. Sagami was turned into a Fortress to match Mikawa relatively quickly, and with an archer-heavy full stack of ashigaru in each it wasn't too difficult to keep them safe. Sagami was transformed into my recruiting center. It received a maxed out armor-bonus blacksmith and I eventually gave it a Castle, Armory (for more armor), archery dojo, yari dojo, and sword dojo. All dojos were upgraded to the max my tech would allow to increase starting experience.

At some point Uesugi crushed Satomi and took over most of their lands to my east. Inevitably, they came after me as well. After a bit of fighting with them, I got tired of juggling attacks coming from both Kai (Takeda) and Musashi (Uesugi). Even though I didn't have a third army yet, I decided to simplify my defense a bit. I did this by conquering Musashi and creating a vassal there. I didn't particularly care if they lived or died, they were just a speed bump to give me enough time to move the army to protect Sagami. I then took Kai, which was already pre-fortified for my convenience. My speedbump vassal worked well. It got squashed a couple times, but it wasn't difficult to restore it. Kai almost fell a couple times while my army was away, but even if it had it wouldn't have mattered because I didn't build anything important there and my economy did not rely on it. If it had been lost, I would have recovered it quickly so no big deal.

Surprisingly, after bashing their heads against Mikawa another time, the Hattori had so little military power left that they agreed pretty much everything I asked; so, I asked them for an alliance as part of the deal. Even though they were Feeble, they had a lot of provinces and recovered their strength very quickly. Surprisingly, they didn't betray me this time and I stayed allied to them for many, many turns. That left the Mikawa front pretty quiet, which was nice. Eventually I finished my buildings in Sagami and my provinces had grown rich enough to support a third stack. Incidentally, I had tried to grab a trade node at once point, but various clans I was at war with had much stronger navies than I did and destroyed my trade fleet. It seemed like a waste of money, so I didn't bother trying to get it back and instead just lived frugally. I considered converting to Christianity to gain naval dominance, but I've done that a lot recently and was a bit bored of it, so I didn't.

My third stack was my monster 'kill' stack, and the reason I'd invested in Sagami. It was 9 2-chevron Bow Samurai and 9 4-chevron Naginata Samurai, all with +5 armor. I gave that stack to my heir, who had become a 4-star general by tagging along as reinforcements to his dad's battles. He got a new general as his own sidekick, also for training purposes. With this third army read, I parked Dear Old Dad in Kai and sent the kill stack east. I blitzed and took Shimosa and Kazusa in a single turn. Then I waited in Shimosa for a couple turns and blitzed Hitachi and Shimotsuke. By this point, I realized that Uesugi was really weak. Apparently they were busy fighting the Ikko along their own coast and didn't have more than isolated and poorly-led stacks in their southern provinces. My Daimyo moved north and took North Shinano from the Takeda and vassalized it as another 'speedbump' in that area, then moved east Kozuke.

This freed up my kill stack to start moving up towards the north end of the peninsula. Unfortunately, it also reminded my why I hate vassalizing anyone. Hattori (my great, long-term allies) attacked my vassal. I hate the diplo penalties for breaking an alliance, so that was the end of my friendship with Hattori. More blood for Mikawa's walls. By this point, Takeda were reduced to Hida. For no real reason whatsoever, I allied with them. Amazingly, Hattori was so busy bashing on Mikawa that they didn't defend their own rear well. Takeda took North Shinano and South Shinano, then kept pushing west and growing stronger quickly. Soon they had Mino and Owari as well and Mikawa was at peace again for a while. Takeda thus secured my entire west front and remained my allies until realm divide, which was nice.

With the western areas secure, I moved aggressively with both my Daimyo and Heir to take the entire north quickly. Took Echigo with my Daimyo, which was a Castle and thus was capable of stopping anything under a full stack even without an army around. I then sent both armies north, one going Miyagi to Iwate and one going Uzen to Ugo. When Ugo fell, I hit realm divide, and that's where I left the game. By this point I had enough money to support a fourth army (a second mega-armor kill stack). That stack is about 2/3 build and it is currently holding Kai, waiting until the rest of the units arrive. It will be lead by the general who was my heir's sidekick, who is now three stars. I will bring my Daimyo and Heir back south as quickly as possible and advance one along the north coast towards Ikko lands, and one through the mountains. Once I've conquered everything behind South Shinanoy and Kaga, I will begin an even push on all fronts and will finally move forward from Mikawa. I bet that army will like moving, as it hasn't left the province since turn 2.

I still have to deal with the initial rush of armies that happenes with realm divide, but I unless I have serious problems getting my two northern stacks back down to my border quickly, I doubt it will be too much of a problem. I'm confortable predicting victory in this game now, though it's still a long road to 40 provinces. (I play Long campaigns.)

[Arjos]

I won mine this morning, GL on yours TinCow ^^
Oda is very entertaining during the first turns, but once your are all set is just a matter time :P

[Jacobin]

I also tried the SE axis strategy in my last go but just couldn't bring myself to give up Owari (which is your richest province until you've taken Izu) so ended up being squeezed at both ends again.

Also had a similar experience with the Hattori who having lost a string of battles between Owari and Mikawa sued for peace and actually ended up giving me vassalage - a mistake as they probably turned on me sooner than if I'd gone for plain alliance.

[Jarmam]

First a praise to CA for having the balls to invent Legendary. Some of the factions are truly difficult to beat the game with. Its frustrating and unforgiving and I love every second of it. Done with Shimazu (164 turns) and Tokugawa (190 turns) so far.

I imagined Oda would be easier than Takeda or Date, but after reading this thread I decided to try and see just how hard it is. After after having played grueling Ikko Ikki, Takeda and Uesugi campaigns (and losing them all eventually) and after a 190 turn long Tokugawa victory, I was prepared for the worst Legendary of all time. Well... Oda is... piss-easy. Easier than Chosokabe. Its not the location (which is rubbish) or the starting diplomatic standings (which are rubbish) or the lategame "deathballs" (of which Oda has one of the weakest). Its that your clan speciality utterly dwarfs every other faction's to the point where its not even funny.
Oda is not "one of the hardest legendarys". Let me break down a very simple kill sequence that will secure a ton of achievements and a quick and easy legendary win with minimal effort.

Since you start in a barren wasteland of mediocre to weak provinces and hostile neighbors (Ikko and Hattori seem to hate everyone in every campaign) there is little sense in attempting a Choso/Hojo/Shimazu ricing-style of building up a solid infrastructure and slowly creeping forward with solid development until you snap-rush up to whereever the narrowest choke (Buzen, el oh fucking el) is and stay there for 40 turns building up the 2-3 deathballs to go to Divide and beyond. Oda is all about aggression from turn 1 and never looking back. Your Ashigaru are so stupidly powerful that you should have taken out Tokugawa, Saito and Imagawa in turn 6 (5 if you're better than me at not losing troops needlessly). And since you have no need for a strong infrastructure to support your dirt cheap easily-replenishable troops you can just keep going. This is how peasant-based warfare worked, so run with it. There's a reason it worked. To Hojo's goldmine it is!

Arts:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Get WoC, Todufuken and Equal Fields - thats all the Chi Arts you'll need from now 'till the 40 province-mark. Since Tax Reform is expendable (yes it is strong, very strong, but as Oda it is skippable) you can rush for HaE - supplementing Yari+Bow Ashi core armies perfectly - then get WotS if you wish (I did this and I regret it and wont do it in my second go) and get Gunpowder Mastery absurdly fast. In fact, I'd argue that apart from WoC->Todo->Equal Fields and Strategy of Attack, you should skip all Arts to get this. Even Zen. Leave an inexperienced metsuke or yari troop in those 1-invasionresistant provinces and save the 3 turns to get your real Arts faster - your daimyo's honor will eventually do Zen's job in those provinces. You want Gunpowder Mastery and you want it fast. We only grab the Arts that are so fast and effective that skipping them would be silly.

Why it works:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

In the first 15 or so turns (approx) your units are so much stronger than anyone else's - while being so cheap and easily producable (no structural requirement and no reliance on province specialities) - that you can just roll through the south while turtling in the north in Saito's town and your main. The AI loves throwing units at castles that he would much rather besiege but on Legendary Ill take what the AI gives me. This makes Hattori (whose archers get mauled by yours in a keep) and Ikko (whose ashigaru get mauled by yours in any situation ever) very easy to hold off even when they double-stack your cities, since you can fend off 4+k ashi core armies with your own 2k ones 'till the end of time. This means that around turn 25 you should ideally have at least two r4 generals with r5 around the corner and two 2/3 to full stack 3+xp ashi armies for your generals (one from the aggressive south and one from the turtling north). With Stand and Fight and Ashigaru Commander, your Ashis are now basically Yari/Bow Samurai for less than 1/3 the price and upkeep with a significantly higher replenishment rate and available from any town. And since you have no need for unit buildings you should have markets and Sake Dens constructing everywhere to fuel the inevitable move into Takeda lands with your third stack.

Since you can crush Hojo while holding off Takeda in the east, while also taking out Saito, grabbing South Shinado and holding off Ikko/Hattori in the west, you have no need for long-term planning of cities. Get roads, markets and Sake Dens everywhere you can. Prioritize markets->REs in fort-towns and dont bother upgrading the fort except in declared border provinces like your capitol and Saito's capitol - this way you dont need Equal Fields in the meager/barren lands to support strongholds that serve no purpose other that a Sake Den that wont have time to earn its construction cost back if you include the stronghold's price. Thus the entire gameplan boils down to winning fast - before the enemy has time to roll out the deathballs. I'd argue its possible to win a 40 province game (which is what I play) in less than 80 turns with decent patient execution and no ridiculousless in diplomacy or silly stack+generallosses etc (like when Hattori somehow magically wins an unwinnable "close victory" in an autoresolve I did because of lazyness and my 2 r6 generals moved into Kyoto and got sniped along with their half-strength 5xp armies for no reason at all). 100 turns should be doable quite easily. Anything beyond ~125 and you've probably been too passive, too unlucky or both and by now the advantage of Oda starts wearing off and its downhill from here - unless you really like ricing and building optimal deathballs, in which case I must ask why you aren't playing a faction suited for this, you Shimazu dog?

Eventually the AI will switch to Katana cores (or Bow/Yari/Naginata if you're lucky). This is the only earlygame (pre-50 turns) type of army that can threaten an Oda stack. Its expectable, and our path towards Gunpowder Mastery - while picking up Strategy of Attack right after HaE - opens excellent Fire Bomb Throwers. Get them. Two in each stack. Fast. They will crush morale. Pre-Matchlocks Oda has nothing that can stand up to Katana cores except Naginatas (that ideally you skip completely until near or after Realm Divide - plus they're not even that good). So instead we make Katanas run before their killing power comes into effect. Halfway towards Gunpowder Mastery we get the +accuracy for firebomb units, pushing them from around 25 to 65. This cuts friendly fire down a lot and extends the purpose of the Fire Bomb Throwers well into the midgame (which is where you should grab the win). Yes, they still hit like drunken yaks and you'll see yellow banners flying around quite often, but the demoralization only affects the enemy and our Ashis have their morale bonus for a reason - taking a ton of casualties that can be replenished post-battle without running. Now is the only time you might wanna hold back a little and stall for Matchlocks. Dont overdo it, though, as time is punitively against you. Force engagements. AI deathballs dont spontaneously form, they are allowed into existance by passive players.

Army guide
Early:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Start with armies of 1:1 ashi yari to ashi bow. Dont go higher than 6 archers - their purpose is to defend newly taken castles and forcing engagements with your superior Yari Ashis, not to win the battle themselves. Just stack out with yari ashis. Add 2 Fire Bomb Throwers when you can, these replace 2 Yaris. This works until you either take Takeda's capitol and can add upgraded Light Cavalry or you decide to tech cavalry in Toku's old capitol yourself. We lack morale destroyers apart from FBTs and cavalry fit this perfectly - they also secure easy wins against otherwise frustrating archer cores from Hattori (Ikko's Ashigaru archers with their 10 reload skill are complete rubbish). Add however many you need - I personally prefer 3 cavalry units to support my general. This army will demolish anything that isnt a "Sword School in turn 6-stack" for a long time. Engaging is simple. Either clash in favourable terrain (like forests) and run him over if he has archer advantage, or exploit your archer advantage to pick holes in enemy melee before running him over. If melee is engaged and your FBTs didnt throw yet then toss those bombs into the melee. Your Ashigaru will thank you.

Late:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I'd replace the Light Cavs with Yari Cav first (or Katanas if you prefer those). Most importantly I'd phase out archers completely except 5+xp ones, and replace them with Matchloch Ashis - preferably from Echizen (Ikko's capitol), since they benefit a lot from the +10 acc on top of the +5 from a hunting lodge. 6-8 matchlocks per army is core. Dont get me wrong, you'll have at least 4 stacks by now and Matchlocks can come from anywhere, but prioritize making them in Echizen since you need the tech anyway for your pseudo-deathball + Arsenal bonus. This is our common stack core.
I'd say you only need a single pseudo-deathball army for Kyoto and to spearhead the western dominators (usually Hatano and Chosokabe+Shoni post-Divide). Hojo's old lands holds a smith which I'd use with an armory to get the +4 armor bonus (+5 is too expensive and requires trade or trade ships - ships are for Mori or Christians, trade is for Uesugi and our post-Divide vassals). Make Naginatas from this province to replace the Yari Ashis. Use Echizen to make your Gunsmith->Arsenal and get 6-8 Matchlock Samurai from there with the +15 acc (if you can get the +20 acc province structure... then you have Chonindo... why do you have Chonindo, you Chosokabe dog?). So instead of Ashi Matchlocks/Bows/Yaris and Light Cav, we have the upgraded version of each which is what our Arts and tech supplement perfectly + ofc 2 FBTs. After this is done just use the provinces to churn out Ashigaru with the bonuses - Matchlock Ashigaru with +15 acc and Stand and Fight's reload bonus (all your 4-5 generals are at least r4 by now, preferably all r5 for the +4 morale) + arsenal bonus are monsters disguised as men. Try giving them Inspire for fun - preferably on a wall ^^ Besides you dont have time for a second deathball. Its also not necessary. 5-6 self-replenishing stacks rampaging east and west will dwarf 2-2½ strong stacks running from town to town to defend. It does require strong ninjas - from those Sake Dens you rushed 40 turns ago - to manage enemy stacks via sabbing (an ashi stack will not hold up against 2 enemies fielding 20 units each at the same time). Just field 3-4 Yari Ashis and 4-5 Matchlock Ashis in any city you feel threatened in. The enemy will need either a full stack or some really insane troop quality to break Oda's rifled peasants behind walls.

Now you're set. Take Kyoto while... laughing at him? (since you're not awesome and playing Tokugawa, and therefore cannot have a Geisha taking out all of Kyoto's generals for the sake of it). Then just take whatever the enemy gives you and 40 provinces roll in easily. Remember that Vassals count towards your provinces so making a few in the east to stall Date/whoever has Date's lands is fine. They also let you profit on all those trade goods you'll have by turn 70-80. Plus its nice to have "friends" post-Divide :)

After losing half my 5+xp units (including deathball) and generals to that silly run-to-Kyoto-and-die-for-no-reason and then losing my secondlast general next turn to the dreaded deathtrap that is "standing close to a town and therefore having to die in its defense instead of running"-"feature" I decided to scrap my current Oda campaign (had 25 provinces in turn 84, 4 of which were vassals, but too many autoresolves, dumb stackarmy+general losses and overall lazyness/slacking and bad Chi-teching set me frustratingly far back) and Im now trying for the pre-turn 80-win - extending it to a pre-turn 100-domination campaign if it succeeds. Hopefully it'll inspire me to try Ikko Ikki again ^^

Edit: Made less wall-of-texty and clarified some vague parts.

[Arjos]

I have no idea on how to define hard, as I said once you are set to conquer 40 provinces there's nothing that can stop you...
Oda imo have a nice starting location which makes for an entertaining game, I did complete my long campaign in 90ish turns, taking a few to develop economically...
I wouldn't go and say how one faction is far harder than others, so far I completed 4 campaigns and all were very different from eachother, but the difficulty lays at the start and on how the AI performs...

[Jarmam]

Disagreed. The difficulty lies in your starting and ending troop quality and immediate expansion potential. Which is why Oda and Chosokabe are laughably easy (both campaign map and battlefield), Shimazu is easy, Date is pretty simple and Uesugi is like pulling teeth with a pipe wrench. The AI is pretty predictable in diplomacy (usually, there are some odd betrayals now and then), its more the who-kills-who that adds the random element.

I think I wish to present a challenge to a superior Shogun - Uesugi domination campaign. As a Christian! Difficulty is indeed relative :p

[Arjos]

...but the difficulty lays at the start and on how the AI performs...

lol first time I had to quote myself XD
As you can see I said the exact same thing, except for late quality of troops, as imo that's bound to be if the player builds his economy...

By AI performance I mean which provinces it conquers and armies has...
For example in an Oda campaign, ended in a save game corruption due to CTD, I had to face Ikko, Tsutsui and Kitabatake all at the same time, each with 2-3 stacks, at the very beginning of the campaing: there's nothing much that can be done against that...

As for the Uesugi, my very first campaign, I had an incredible easy time, due to my vassal, all I had was to protect him and I was literally free of invading forces in Echigo and Etchu, I went on rampage in the Kanto...
Returning to the Oda, another time I was very lucky to face a depleted Hattori, who somehow managed to get control of southern Kansai and I filled its power vacuum...

Yet again all that matters is how the first 10-20 turns go...

[TinCow]

The blitz strategy does hold some water, and I believe Jarman when he says it can be done. The only disagreement I have with his (superb) post is hiscommentary about how Oda Bow Ashigaru tear up the Ikko. In my two failed Oda campaigns, my problems all came from the Ikko. I was able to hold back the other factions relatively fine, but the Ikko started fielding Bow Ronin very early in both games and it wasn't long before I was facing Ikko stacks with 8+ Bow Ronin. Those units regularly annihilated my Bow Ashigaru, even though my ashigaru were behind ramparts in a siege defense. Still, if Ikko got unlucky against the other factions or were hobbled early by some player cleverness, I agree the blitz would probably work.

I'm surprised with those who say Uesugi is more difficult than Oda though. They have one of the better starting spots in the game IMHO. They were the first clan I finished any campaign with. While I haven't played them in Legendary yet, I don't quite see why they would be so much trouble.

Uesugi domination campaign. As a Christian! Difficulty is indeed relative :p

I will do this. I'll never refuse my precious Nanban Trade Ships, and I never use warrior monks anyway.

[Jarmam]

Oh, there are spoiler tags. Nice.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I have no idea on how to define hard

Then you didnt say the exact same thing. I have no problem defining "hard" and it has nothing to do with random AI movement or whether you take out Imagawa in turn 5 or 6. The AI stacking 10 full stacks against you in 15 turns is something Ikko Ikki can suffer from. It will never happen to Chosokabe. Thus Chosokabe is an easier faction to play. As Oda my clan speciality is both strong and instantly available (and yes the start is most important as any earlygame advantage can be extended into the lategame). As Uesugi its practically nonexistant for a while apart from some demoralization bonuses and slightly better trading early on. Thats what I meant.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

but the difficulty lays at the start and on how the AI performs...

depending on where you start, not how your starting turns develop. Date will always have access to both a smith and an iron mine within 3 turns. Oda will always have access to absurdly overpowered earlygame troops. Shimazu will always have to deal with Christians in the north ruining your town stability (unless you convert... you foreignloving dog). Uesugi will alwa... usually be like pulling teeth with a pipe wrench. Maybe Im playing them wrong, I know Im playing Ikko wrong. Legendary is a constant learning experience.

What I meant with "lategame troop quality" isnt whether you have +5 armor smiths and +25 accuracy fletchers covering your troops in the finest bling. Anyone can get that. I meant that Shimazu will always have access to stronger lategame stacks than Oda. A Shimazu Katana will beat a vanilla Katana - and they both know it. So the v Katana will lose morale due to predicted loss. So when my Yari Cavalry shows up, the cardhouse falls apart a lot easier than if it were vK vs vK. This snowballs even further given that rushing Katana heroes (and thus the clan bonus and recruitment xp) is a lot more smooth and fluid for Shimazu than for Oda. It sounds insignificant, but in my experience it isnt. Ofc the AI doesnt use the +5 armor or +6 melee often enough.
Thats also why Oda is such a strong faction early on. Having better morale, better attack, better defense and cheaper recruitment/upkeep on spammable earlygame units is godlike. Having any one of them would snowball, so naturally having them all is an avalanche :p

To Tincow:

Yes, what I said was that Ikko ashigaru bows are rubbish (10 reload skill? Really?). Bow Ronin are very strong indeed - but if he has Bow Ronin he most likely doesnt have real melee troops. I see this as a clear advantage.

And yeah... ofc the massively imbalanced Christian ships might make it easy. Im open for a more challenging self-imposed restriction on an already difficult faction.

[TinCow]

Im open for a more challenging self-imposed restriction on an already difficult faction.

Oda and don't blitz.

[Arjos]

Mah I must be really awful explaining myself, I said start and AI, to me that's where the faction is, conducts and how the AI moves, don't know why you take it as only AI matters...
You mentioned the Chosokabe, for example they are quite isolated and can't benefit from trade, but luckily they have wood resources, in that campaign a player can find himself in a prolonged war with whichever clan prevails in the east, leaving the player vulnerable to naval invasions, etc...

All I'm saying is that every faction in my opinion is peculiar and has its own experience, plus anything can happen with the AI...
Maybe too much blitzing makes everything similar, as the AI can't progress in time, so all depends on where the faction is...

[Jacobin]

After multiple failed attempts I was finally winning with Oda purely by spamming Ashigaru hordes and had everything from Mino down to Suruga nicely under control when the bloody game crashed and seems unrecoverable.

The Ikko Ikki hordes I faced really early were made up of half bow ronin though and the only time I lost a city was when they just stood outside and shot down all of my veteran ashigaru hiding behind the walls of Mino.

Having previously gone for equal bow and spear ashigaru armies I went for two-thirds or three-quarters spears this time which seemed to work better in an offensive campaign.

I tend to alternate Chi and Bushido arts but agree that you don't need to learn anything other than from the right-hand chi building path.

On the Bushido side the key is getting encampments and armouries asap - after that I go for the naval and gunpowder paths first as the spear, bow, sword and horse masteries only seem to deliver major benefits when you are raising samurai armies much later in the game - and as long as you are spamming ashigaru hordes its more important to get those armour bonuses as early as possible.

Another key lesson in the first 20 or so turns is to develop nothing that doesn't speed up ashigaru production - this for me meant focussing on upgrading Owari's agriculture and castle and only spending money on roads or ports when I had enough left over after filling every recruitment spot.

With any other clan this could be a problem - I tried spamming ashigaru with Chokosabe and went bankrupt during the gap between conquering Shikoku and invading Kyushu - but fortunately Oda's enemies will ensure that you are constantly losing units in battle.

And you really do need to fight every battle yourself - I ended up only autoresolving battles when it was one of those skirmishes wiping out the remnants of a beaten army.

So if it wasn't for the crashes without a save issue legendary Oda would be the most challenging total war experience yet.

[Arjos]

C:/users/name/appdata/roaming/The Creative Assembly/save_game

Imo is a must to back up the .sav file once in a while as corruption of the only autosave means dead campaign, which is not cool at all XD
CA could just make a double autosave for legendary so corruption will lead only to the loss of one...

As for the arts, absolutely, I usually go for the top 3 of Bushido and Chi, and then choose whatever I want my campaign to be, but the economic boost is mandatory for legendary...

Is anyone interested in trying a co-op or head to head legendary campaign? I can host and be online around 22 GMT onwards :)

[Vladimir]

I would love a Co-op eventually but I still have yet to play the game.

Tonight I have a date with Date.

[Arjos]

Enjoy it :D
I think co-op can be even more challenging, as both dominions will be added to the province counter, so RD should happen with 7-8 provinces for each player, therefore less income and many AI faction still around...
But at the same time it can grant a care-free border for both players, still should be fun :P

[Shikezi]

I beat it for the first time on Legendary as the Tokugawa on Domination. I've played it many times on Legendary after beating the game once on Hard as Oda. I have to say, of all of them...Tokugawa is one of the hardest if not the hardest faction to win on Legendary/Domination. Starting off as a vassal, which makes you even more limited in Legendary is a rather interesting feeling. I've come close to beating the game on the same settings as the Tokugawa as both the Date, Hattori, and the Ikko Ikki.....but the games just disappeared. I would back up your game at every chance you get until they resolve the issue.

So if you are looking for a challenge, try the Tokugawa. You think the Oda is hard, or Hattori, but think about trying to grow as a vassal and spread when you can't declare war or make allies. Sure, you can turn against the Imagawa....but then you have to fight the Hojo and Takeda as well as everyone else in Central Japan. Not to mention if either the Ikko or anyone from the west who converts to Christianity and decides to spread...yeah. I dealt with that last part. The Ito decided to go crazy and started making most of West Japan Christian. Needless to say, attempting to fight their 6-10 full stack armies with my 6-8 and still maintain order as you convert the provinces back....and still get 60 provinces before 1600...I have a headache. I'm going to lay down now.....

[Major Robert Dump]

Won with Choskabe in Lgendary/Log last night in year 87.

I knew vassals counted towards prestige for the purpose of realm divide, but I didn't know they counted towards victory total. I made liberal use of vassals after realm divide, and ended up winning by physically owning only 32 provinces. Although I used hte "keep playing" choice and plan to, I should point out that I never had a direct, head-to-head land battle with the other super power, Ashina, who had 19 provinces and reached epic architecture. His armies were far better than mine, but my domination of the sea meant I could hit 6 beaches at once while causing revolts w/ my priests. I had better agents and generals

If I knew vassals counted, I would have played differently. As it stands, they were very effective as meat shields, and since most of them had ports, they liked to spam amphibious assaults. Those would end like the bay of pigs, but it kep Ashina busy while I turtled towards victory.

I did not use ambush nearly enough. I came to love it later game, although I lost my first Diamyo in an ambush as he was riding out alone to reinforce a unit in the woods haha