Victory is EASY, want a challenge? try this!

[kaltes]

Beating shogun is just plain easy after you do it once or twice. I have tried handicapping myself in various ways, but the fact is the AI is just too stupid. So what do we do to stupid things? We watch em fight, but stop them short of killing eachother so they can fight some more! With this in mind I set a new goal:

Try to make it to 1600 with as many clans intact as possible!

In an expert campaign as Hojo I built spear dojos in all my lands and by year 5 had thousands of ashigaru. With 1 good general leading real troops (i.e. not ashigaru) I had 3 blocks of 960 ashigaru follow him around as he took a scenic route through Japan like General Sherman, giving me a easy and permanent development advantage for the rest of the game.
I had an idea: for fun, I took a few very strategic territories (Satsuma, Harima, Owari) and built ports. Then my goal was to keep all the remaining daimyos alive forever! Whenever one daimyo gets too strong, I can use one of those 3 provinces to launch a punitive expedition and kill his dojos, which halts his reinforcements and lets his target drive his back.
It is still 1560 in that campaign and all but Takeda and Uesegi are alive and well. Takeda was being mindlessly aggressive so I killed him off to give Imagawa more room to grow so he could stop Oda's bullying, and Uesegi was just in my way http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/wink.gif haha.

If anyone is up for a challenge see if you can pull it off, and post comments/ideas etc.

[kaltes]

Comeon I know someone is curious to see if they can pull it off, any luck?

[radan]

I'll give it a try after I finish all clans
in EXPERT mode (Maltz stories inspire me!)
http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

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--radan(ashigaru)--

[Toranaga sama]

that's truly an admirable effort, but I would have to have access to my game to be able to play...

*sob*

[Zen Blade]

hmmm.... interesting idea, but a tough one I think unless you play as Takeda or Imagawa and are both very good and very lucky.

Ninja will be a big threat and Geisha.

I like the following idea. I have done it once or twice, but never to completion as it lends itself to long, boring, monotonous fights...

Play as a clan... and within 5 years of the beginning... self-reduce to one province for atleast a couple of harvests. (you need a decent province).

Then, attempt to expand out and take all of Japan. It is easier with some clans than others...

-Zen Blade

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Zen Blade Asai
Red Devil
Last of the RSG
Clan Tenki Council-Unity

[celtiberoijontychi]

LOL what you are doing resembles beautifully the British Empire in its medium stage: u control the best territories and let the natives fight each other until one gets really strong. Then you throw them back to stone age.

BTW playing with 60-man units is not Expert.

Try Mori with 120-man units. The monks cost 750 Koku nd take 2 seasons to train.

Since the AI has almost unlimited credit, it compensates the longer training times by having twice as many dojos. So the relative numeric and financial advantage of the AI is dramatically sharpened, specially if u play Mori.

I've easily beaten the Expert AI with all Clans in 60- and 80-man unit modes; I've won with Takeda, Uesugi, Oda, Shimazu and Iamagawa eith 120's. But Mori is a different tale, they are soooo poor and have so many enemies!