View Full Version : Legendary difficulty
edyzmedieval
06-23-2011, 23:50
Has anyone finished off a Legendary campaign? I fired off one yesterday and I have to say I'm pretty much thinking every move that I make because it can easily be my last. The bonuses for the AI are immense and for every battle is really tough, you have to think every move in advance because the units rout so easily.
Started off as Hojo because of the starting position and richness of the provinces, going to convert soon to Christianity so I can have unlimited access to matchlocks.
Anyone?
Vladimir
06-24-2011, 22:14
Any update? I may try that with Date.
smooth_operator
06-25-2011, 14:11
I don't have the balls to try that just yet
I've tried it with the Chosokabe, but didn't have the funds to afford a navy, and while I was fighting in Kyushu the Mori landed in Shikoku...
Dead Guy
06-25-2011, 17:30
I beat it as Oda. It's a different proposition for sure. I put a lot more archers as garrisons and made good use of diplomacy to divide my rivals and never fight alone on too many fronts.
Borderline cheating for legendary, if you can't stand being unable to save, ever.
You can alt-tab and copy the legendary autosave to another directory if you really want to try something out. Paste it back and overwrite to "load". Sometimes, you can find yourself in deep trouble because an army doesn't do what you expect it to when you tell it to move, etc. Anyway, don't use it to cheat :p
spicykorean
06-25-2011, 18:00
I beat it as Oda. It's a different proposition for sure. I put a lot more archers as garrisons and made good use of diplomacy to divide my rivals and never fight alone on too many fronts.
Borderline cheating for legendary, if you can't stand being unable to save, ever.
You can alt-tab and copy the legendary autosave to another directory if you really want to try something out. Paste it back and overwrite to "load". Sometimes, you can find yourself in deep trouble because an army doesn't do what you expect it to when you tell it to move, etc. Anyway, don't use it to cheat :p
Actually, I recommend backing up your legendary.save even if you're not going to use it. If your campaign becomes corrupted due to a patch or dlc, you might regret it later.
Vladimir
06-27-2011, 18:23
Actually, I recommend backing up your legendary.save even if you're not going to use it. If your campaign becomes corrupted due to a patch or dlc, you might regret it later.
Is this an issue?
Has anyone finished off a Legendary campaign? I fired off one yesterday and I have to say I'm pretty much thinking every move that I make because it can easily be my last. The bonuses for the AI are immense and for every battle is really tough, you have to think every move in advance because the units rout so easily.
Started off as Hojo because of the starting position and richness of the provinces, going to convert soon to Christianity so I can have unlimited access to matchlocks.
Anyone?
I've beaten Legendary with Shimazu (converted to Christianity) and Date. I've aborted two Oda attempts following massive Ikko attacks that I could not repel. Currently working on Chosokabe as a breather before I make another run at Oda.
edyzmedieval
06-28-2011, 01:06
Any update?
Yeah, I failed twice already. :grin2:
Third try, going better but those Ogigayatsu don't leave you much room to breathe. I've managed to set them on the back foot but I'm guessing Takeda is getting impatient and Imagawa as well.
frogbeastegg
06-28-2011, 16:42
I've beaten Legendary with Shimazu (converted to Christianity) and Date. I've aborted two Oda attempts following massive Ikko attacks that I could not repel. Currently working on Chosokabe as a breather before I make another run at Oda.
Does this mean we need to call you IronCow? :laugh4:
Impressive.
Does this mean we need to call you IronCow? :laugh4:
Impressive.
I 'quit' TW after ETW due to the total inability of the AI to provide me with a challenging campaign. I only came back with TWS2 because everyone said the AI was vastly improved. I don't enjoy games where I know I'm going to win when I start playing. In TWS2, Legendary difficulty gives me a true chance of losing. The Oda Legendary campaigns have been, by far, the hardest campaigns I have ever played in any TW game. That's exactly what I want, and for that reason I won't play anything other than Legendary.
phonicsmonkey
07-01-2011, 04:28
I 'quit' TW after ETW due to the total inability of the AI to provide me with a challenging campaign. I only came back with TWS2 because everyone said the AI was vastly improved. I don't enjoy games where I know I'm going to win when I start playing. In TWS2, Legendary difficulty gives me a true chance of losing. The Oda Legendary campaigns have been, by far, the hardest campaigns I have ever played in any TW game. That's exactly what I want, and for that reason I won't play anything other than Legendary.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Legendary the same as VH but just without the ability to save mid-turn? I would like to give Legendary a go but the way I play (getting up, sitting down again, rushing off to do something else), the saving thing is prohibitive for me. I had consoled myself that I wasn't really missing out on anything...
Dead Guy
07-01-2011, 07:38
You also cannot give orders while battles are paused, or move the camera at all IIRC. Don't think that's in VH, or am I remembering wrong?
frogbeastegg
07-01-2011, 09:55
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Legendary the same as VH but just without the ability to save mid-turn? I would like to give Legendary a go but the way I play (getting up, sitting down again, rushing off to do something else), the saving thing is prohibitive for me. I had consoled myself that I wasn't really missing out on anything...
To quote my as-yet-unpublished guide on the matter of legendary difficulty:
Legendary
Legendary is the mode where you should pretty much expect to die unless you play an absolutely exceptional game, and quite possibly even then. This is a new difficulty mode, combining very hard mode with a series of extras to create the ultimate Total War challenge. Some of these extras were available as optional modes in prior titles, such as restricting the camera so it could not move past a set distance from your troops. Others are entirely new. The AI does not gain any new bonuses or capabilities compared to very hard; this mode focuses on curbing the god-like abilities normally available to the player. Once you commit to legendary difficulty you cannot alter the difficulty for that campaign, neither on the campaign map nor on the battle map.
On legendary mode you are only permitted a single save. Each time you save your game your old save will be overwritten. If things go pear shaped, tough! No winding the clock back. The game is saved before and after every battle; if you lost your entire army, live with it! You may find yourself developing a degree of sympathy to the AI, which can never reload.
The remainder of the changes affect the battle map, and are as follows:
No radar map for land and sea battles
While the game is paused no orders can be given
The camera cannot be moved while the game is paused
You cannot move your camera more than 200 meters from the centre of any of your units. The camera will be "rubber banded" to the nearest unit
Enemy units more than 600 meters from your units are treated as hidden
Enemy Tooltips have minimal information
Enemy Unit IDs are removed
Even if you are not keen on tough games it is worth trying this mode at least once, just to see how different the experience is.
The no orders (or even looking around) while paused, combined with the lack of minimap, makes a HUGE difference. I cannot count the number of times I have been flanked or charged in the rear by AI units that I didn't see as a result of these changes.
Is this an issue?
Oh yes have a back up save game, I had a CTD twice and both times had to restart the campaign :S
Major Robert Dump
07-05-2011, 14:16
Legendary has been kicking me hard. Not able to focus like I should and playing bits here and there and just leaving game running nonstop. I'm beginning to think that Christianity is NOT the way to go, at least not until after realm divide, because I cannot afford to lose allies too early.
My games typically fall apart in the area of turn 40-60, as Shimazu, Chosokobe, Date and Uesugi. Keep in mind that these are my first campaigns, I'm still a noob for the most part short of reading the guides. In fact, I only recently realized you still pay full upkeep for a depleted unit. Anwya, horror story to follow:
Had a crazy game as Chosokobe where I had the entire island by year 48, thanks to a diplomatic cluster between everyone. Went on to take the 4 westernmost provinces on the west coast and get all the trade hubs, taking advantage of a 3-way war on the continent that left all the others as rebels. This was by year 53. then -- get this -- Oda takes the Shogunate. I look at the diplomap on the next turn, and he has -- no bull -- 16 provinces, and no enemies other than small clans. But year 60, he had 28 provnices, and no enemies other than small clans. I converted to christianity, and although we were very friendly and I only had 14 provnces by year 62, he and everyone else declared war on me and my game fell apart between losing trade income and mass revolts and amphibious assaults.
Of the 14 or so abandoned games on legendary, only 1 I have seen the shogunate taken like so.
I will probably start backing up save games at pivotal moments, like right before I convert. At this pace I can't keep up with all the restarting
I'm beginning to think that Christianity is NOT the way to go, at least not until after realm divide, because I cannot afford to lose allies too early.
Well, having won 3 Legendary campaigns now, I have a different take on this. The key isn't Christianity per se, but trade nodes. As I play the game, I expect to have NO trade (or allies) whatsoever after Realm Divide. Thus, I focus my pre-divide efforts on creating a stable economy where I can fund my armies and expansion without any financial difficulties despite total trade isolation. This can be done without trade nodes, but it is much harder. If you can secure the trade nodes, you will become very wealthy very quickly, even if you have no trade partners. However, the key to securing the trade nodes is sea power.
It is prohibitively expensive and tactically difficult to maintain dominance at sea with traditional navies. However, once you have Nanban Trade Ships, control of the seas is incredibly easy and you can pretty much sail wherever you want without worrying about much of anything. Thus, Christianity works well because it gives you Nanban Trade Ships, and Nanban Trade Ships give you the trade nodes. What I do is try and grab as many trade nodes as possible early on. Just stick a single trade ship on each to 'reserve' them, and then back fill to increase profits. Once Nanban Trade Ships become available, I retire all my traditional ships (except trade ships). Every single trade node gets 9 trade ships and 1 Nanban Trade Ship. If the node gets attacked, withdraw the 9 trade ships right at the start to keep them safe, and fight with the Nanban. You will win and your trade fleet will remain intact and keep the profits flowing in. In addition, with a Nanban ship on each node, you can easily detach it to clear out any fleet that's raiding the trade route nearby.
For fleets outside the trade nodes, each is made up of a pair of Nanbans. I have not encountered any enemy fleets capable of defeating two Nanbans. With complete control of the seas, you also get easy control of Kyushu and Shikoku. Once those islands are conquered, they can be defended entirely by your Nanban fleets, without the need for any local armies. This gives you a good 12 or so provinces as a base that are never threatened by the enemy. With that kind of a 'base' and control of the trade nodes, you can easily field 3-4 high quality armies. You can then fight wherever you choose to on the mainland with your entire force. Due to the starting location, obviously Shimazu and Chosokobe are the easiest factions to do this with. However, it can be done with anyone. Simply secure a 'core' of about 4-5 provinces that you are capable of defending with your existing armies, then convert and spend a large number of turns converting your provinces over. Then focus on your naval and trade improvement, while making as much money as you can via trade with other clans. When you've got your fleet ready, take the nodes (declaring war to take them from their existing owners if need be). After you have your nodes fully loaded, invade and conquer the islands (if you haven't already). After that, the world is your oyster. With your high income, you can spam missionaries and generals and level them up to further increase tech research rates. You'll eventually be churning out exceptional-level armor and accuracy troops. There's not much out there that can stand up to an army of 9 exceptional armor rank 4 Naginata Samurai and 9 exceptional accuracy rank 4 Bow Samurai.
Another side perk from being immensely wealthy is that it allows you to use agents in a manner you wouldn't otherwise. I cannot over-emphasize how much of a difference bribing armies can make. If you have 100k in the bank, you don't need to think twice about spending 20k on a bribe. It's not uncommon to find yourself being attacked by two or three full stacks to your one stack. As long as you brought your agents along with your main army, you can totally turn the tide. Use your ninjas to remove generals from stacks, then bribe the enemy stack with a metsuke. The situation that was two stacks against your one just turned into your two stacks against their one. Destroy them, then either keep your new army or disband it, depending on your income and military needs. Is there a front that is giving you problems due to multiple avenues of approach? Send your missionaries off to start up revolts everywhere. Rebels are your friends in Realm Divide, as they don't expand. They're a nice road bump for AI armies trying to approach from another directions.
Again, none of this is necessary for a Legendary win (I did not convert in my Date win). The point is simply that Christianity makes it much easier to be wealthy, and being wealthy makes it much easier to win.
Prodigal
07-05-2011, 15:38
Excuse me if this seems a rude question, but I seem to be over come with small sword syndrome, Tin are you playing all the battles on Leg. too?
Excuse me if this seems a rude question, but I seem to be over come with small sword syndrome, Tin are you playing all the battles on Leg. too?
Yes. Max difficulty, 40 minute timer.
My battles all go generally the same way. Long line of spears behind a long line of archers. My armies are usually 50/50 of each. Archers shoot, when enemy closes range the spears move up in front of them to take the melee. If it's early on and the spears are Ashigaru, they go into spear wall. With proper terrain use (and use of loose formation for archers when facing more than a couple AI archers), this is good enough to win. One spear unit on each flank should be ready to deal with flanking cav. Later on, swap the Ashigaru for Naginata and Bow Samurai, but tactics remain the same. Above all, defend as much as possible. When at all possible, let the AI assault while you sit inside a castle. If that's not possible, just use smart positioning to take them apart with your archers. If you stay ranged-heavy, the AI will often attack you even if they are technically the defender. So, when you are attacking, always watch the AI for the first 30 seconds or so of the battle before you move. It will be clear right there if it's going to sit still and defend, move to a different spot and defend, or rush you. If it rushes, move your army backwards to a good defensive terrain spot and pretend it's a defensive battle.
On the campaign map, maximize your replenishment rate. Your highest ranking general should be given the resupply office. Prioritize roads everywhere you go. If you're going to be defending a province for a while, improve the castle as much as you can within your rice limits, and build an encampment/barracks. You can easily achieve 30%+ replenishment rates in a province, which makes your army essentially immune to attrition from multiple battles... all you have to worry about is annihilation in a single battle. If annihilation is a serious risk, just don't fight the battle. A full stack army is far more important than a province. You can recapture the province a lot faster (and cheaper) than you can rebuild your army. Do not be afraid to retreat and let the AI take a province if doing so will get you out of a multi-stack trap and let you kill each enemy stack one at a time.
To quote my as-yet-unpublished guide on the matter of legendary difficulty:
Legendary
Legendary is the mode where you should pretty much expect to die unless you play an absolutely exceptional game, and quite possibly even then. This is a new difficulty mode, combining very hard mode with a series of extras to create the ultimate Total War challenge. Some of these extras were available as optional modes in prior titles, such as restricting the camera so it could not move past a set distance from your troops. Others are entirely new. The AI does not gain any new bonuses or capabilities compared to very hard; this mode focuses on curbing the god-like abilities normally available to the player. Once you commit to legendary difficulty you cannot alter the difficulty for that campaign, neither on the campaign map nor on the battle map.
On legendary mode you are only permitted a single save. Each time you save your game your old save will be overwritten. If things go pear shaped, tough! No winding the clock back. The game is saved before and after every battle; if you lost your entire army, live with it! You may find yourself developing a degree of sympathy to the AI, which can never reload.
The remainder of the changes affect the battle map, and are as follows:
No radar map for land and sea battles
While the game is paused no orders can be given
The camera cannot be moved while the game is paused
You cannot move your camera more than 200 meters from the centre of any of your units. The camera will be "rubber banded" to the nearest unit
Enemy units more than 600 meters from your units are treated as hidden
Enemy Tooltips have minimal information
Enemy Unit IDs are removed
Even if you are not keen on tough games it is worth trying this mode at least once, just to see how different the experience is.
holy mother and i have real difficultly on normal (playing on easy right now) :)
OK have made multiple attempts at the Oda on legendary and it is insanely difficult.
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?
Pity as every legendary campaign I've tried so far has been real fun for the first dozen or so turns - the lack of a invisible helicopter camera makes battles a lot more realistic/interesting and the no save idea does really concentrate the mind and make every decision a life and death one.
But if at turn 20-ish great undefeatable hordes of AI troops are stomping around annihilating everything in their path there really doesn't seem much point in playing at legendary.
And if I can't feel both challenged and still have a chance of winning at the hardest difficulty level then I really feel as if I've wasted my money....
frogbeastegg
07-06-2011, 08:57
There's not much out there that can stand up to an army of 9 exceptional armor rank 4 Naginata Samurai and 9 exceptional accuracy rank 4 Bow Samurai.
That's 18 units. The general makes 19. I'm curious - what's the 20th unit? Or don't you fill the stack up to max capacity?
Dead Guy
07-06-2011, 09:50
Building on TinCow's last paragraph about leaving provinces not to lose an army, and Jacobin's trouble with being overwhelmed, I'd suggest sticking a bunch of ashigaru archers in those forts you leave for the enemy. If you can afford it, fill the walls with them in the smallest two forts. Accept the fact that they won't make it, just use them and perhaps a yari unit in addition to the garrison to decimate the enemy as much as possible for every settlement you allow them to take. Facing them in the field will be much easier this way. Don't underestimate the damage throw-away bow ashigaru can do in a siege defense. If it's on of those forts where the AI attacks from 4-5 directions, they can often rout the 3 units coming at them from one or two directions and you can move them from the wall to fire on enemies locked in combat with your ashigaru garrison inside the fort or enemies on the ground outside the walls.
That's 18 units. The general makes 19. I'm curious - what's the 20th unit? Or don't you fill the stack up to max capacity?
I don't have any strict rules about it, and it's not even always 18 total. I cited that number simply because I tend to stick to a 50/50 ratio of bow/yari ashigaru or bow/naginata samurai. Sometimes it's 8/8, which leaves 3 slots open other than general. What I fill the extra slots with depends on my mood. Sometimes its katana samurai, sometimes No-Dachi, sometimes Mangonels (awesome for battles, but really slows down the army on the campaign map), etc. Sometimes I just pack it up to 19 with my bow/spear units. If that is the case, I always make the 'extra' unit a bow unit. They always have fewer men than the spear units, and thus a 9 unit long line of spears can still cover a 10 unit long line of bows. I think the most effective 'extras' for me are 3 Yari Cavalry on an 8/8 army, but the lack of the pause/orders option on Legendary leads to some neglect of them during the battles. Thus, those units get annihilated more often than I would like in my armies, and I don't always replace them.
Lack of unit annihilation is one of the reasons I use this really simple army combo/formation. The Naginata are just steel walls designed to survive whatever is thrown at them, while the archers rain death on everything. Naginatas built in a province with a Master Armourer and an Armoury have 14 Armour, which makes them last a very, very long time in combat. Bow Samurai can be similarly buffed to make them deadly. If you have the tech that gives archer +10 accuracy and build them in a province with a Master Bowmaker and a Hunting Lodge, vanilla Bow Samurai with 0 experience will start with 75 accuracy, and Chosokabe Bow Samurai with 0 experience with start with 85 accuracy. If you upgrade to a Bow Master Dojo (or better yet a Legendary one), you can churn out Bow Samurai that start with 90+ accuracy. That's the same as a triple-sized Chosokabe Bow Hero with slightly shorter range... and you can have an unlimited number of them. Massed volleys from a line of those units makes entire enemy units not just break, but vanish. I also prefer the Bow Samurai over Bow Warrior Monks, as I find that on Legendary survivability is more important than killing power. Bow Samurai are hardy enough to take a bit of melee if they need to, as well as to defend castle walls. That can't be done with Warrior Monks.
In my current game, I'm about to experiment with a new army that replaces all the bow samurai with matchlock samurai. Built in the same 'accuracy' province as the Bow Samurai, they will be starting with about 80+ accuracy as well. I haven't tested this army yet, but I'm interested to see how well a line of 8 of those guys does in combat. I'm hoping that, with proper use of Rapid Fire, nothing will even reach their ranks. However, I'm unsure about their survivability due to vulnerability to longer range archer fire. I'll post again once I've tested this one.
Dead Guy
07-06-2011, 13:58
I usually take one and never more than one unit of bow warrior monks. They're used for two things: An opening whistling arrows salvo on a unit in the rear and center in field battles after which they withdraw behind the lines, though I don't know how useful that really is, and to attack archers manning the walls without being shot at. I'm torn between recruiting them in my fortress monastery province or artisan province though.
OK have made multiple attempts at the Oda on legendary and it is insanely difficult.
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?
Pity as every legendary campaign I've tried so far has been real fun for the first dozen or so turns - the lack of a invisible helicopter camera makes battles a lot more realistic/interesting and the no save idea does really concentrate the mind and make every decision a life and death one.
But if at turn 20-ish great undefeatable hordes of AI troops are stomping around annihilating everything in their path there really doesn't seem much point in playing at legendary.
And if I can't feel both challenged and still have a chance of winning at the hardest difficulty level then I really feel as if I've wasted my money....
Yeah, this is the exact same problem I have with Oda. I don't think it's so much Legendary that is the problem as much as Oda's location. The religious difference and Ikko's aggressive AI make it pretty much impossible to avoid war with them. It's also generally inevitable that you'll end up at war with the Hattori or whichever other factions ends of taking control of that area. Even if you secure the coastal corridor, that means you still have three different avenues of approach to your 'heartland' of Owari and Mino. These are: (1) road from Omi to Mino, (2) road from South Shinano to Mino, and (3) road from Ise/Omi to Owari. That's a LOT of territory to cover with defensive armies; I generally cannot afford enough armies to take care of that area plus the coastal road. In addition, it's very difficult to make that defense simpler. In many spots on the map a bad defensive location can be overcome by simply blitzing through it to grab the choke-point provinces beyond. That can't be done in the Oda starting area. To the east, expanding to South Shinano helps create a 'speedbump' before an attacker gets to Mino, but doesn't reduce the number of armies you need to defend the area. To the west, moving into Ise and Omi actively increases the number of access points into your territory. In order to simplify the defense, you have to take a LOT of land, namely Ise, Omi, Iga, Yamato, Kii, Kawachi, and Kyoto. I have yet to be able to assemble enough armies to be able to do that while still defending my lands.
For this reason, next time I try Oda I am going to attempt to relocate slightly. I will move south into the coastal corridor. After conquering Mikawa I will abandon Owari and Mino. Mikawa is a good choke-point province and with a strong castle and a full stack I think I can hold it just fine while expanding towards Hojo along the coast. This will also significantly reduce the number of clans I have borders with, which should also reduce the number of wars I have to fight. Not likely to see many Ikko in Mikawa early in the game. The coastal corridor has some super provinces, and I can grab a library province, a blacksmith province, and a gold mine province while still holding a good defensive position. With those in my pocket I think I can tech up, grab some trade nodes, and build up a good enough force to take back Owari/Mino and then blitz into the Kyoto region. I haven't done this yet, but it's what I'm going to try on my third go at Oda Legendary.
frogbeastegg
07-06-2011, 15:58
Isn't Oda the hardest of the playable clans on legendary? A lot of people seem to think so, and from their position on the map I'd agree. At least the other very difficult clan, the Tokugawa, have their overlords to shelter behind if they play the diplomacy game correctly.
Hojo look like they would be an interesting one to try on legendary IMO. The combination of their position in busy central Japan, and their castle related bonus, should combine nicely. Once the guide is done and my current Date campaign concluded, I may give it a go. I'm not sure how I will get on though; I hate having a restricted camera on the battlefield and always used to turn it off in the earlier games. I used to have lots of problems with running my 'face' smack into an invisible wall right where I needed to give a move order.
I wonder if anyone has tried the Ikko-Ikki on legendary?
Based on their location, I think Hattori would be pretty hard on Legendary as well. Possibly rivaling Oda. They've basically got the same problem; too many invasion routes to defend early on in the game, and the Ikko nearby ready to send their gibbering hordes at you. However, since I didn't buy the Limited Edition, I can't play them and thus don't know for sure.
:furious3:
frogbeastegg
07-06-2011, 19:31
Based on their location, I think Hattori would be pretty hard on Legendary as well. Possibly rivaling Oda. They've basically got the same problem; too many invasion routes to defend early on in the game, and the Ikko nearby ready to send their gibbering hordes at you. However, since I didn't buy the Limited Edition, I can't play them and thus don't know for sure.
:furious3:
Not sure, I haven't played as the Hattori yet. The position does not look promising at first glance, however the game rates them as easy. I've found the ratings to be pretty accurate so far, and clans with difficult starting positions are correctly identified as hard. That makes me think there is more to it. I think that if you allied with the Ashikaga, then expanded south into the 3 provinces in the jutting out chunk of land, you might be ok provided you can garrison your castles well. That's a reasonably defensible area as the castles form a neat little chain facing west, all within marching distance of each other. Most of your borders are covered by sea, and can't be landed on. To the east, it's a good distance so you should have notice of any army entering your lands and thus have time to react or beef up your garrison. North is a bigger worry, but there's your capital's castle controlling most of the approach. From that little base I would grow my power as best I could, let enemies break themselves on my walls, and step out to take provinces when opportunity presented itself. On the battlefield you'd have a strong deployment advantage thanks to most units having kisho training, and on the campaign map your ninja are a bit stronger so playing foul with the enemy's armies will be easier. The Ikko-Ikki might be the straw which breaks the Hattori's back though; the DLC has made them very strong.
The Oda don't really have a neat little cluster of castles they can seize and defend like that. Wherever they go, they're stretching their borders.
edyzmedieval
07-07-2011, 00:39
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
07-07-2011, 02:18
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).
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.
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 (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?136629-Chokepoint-and-Province-Access-Map) 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.
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....
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.
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.
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
07-09-2011, 12:39
Good posts TinCow, quite informative. :bow:
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.
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.
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....
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.
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. :2thumbsup:
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.)
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
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.
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:
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:
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:
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:
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.
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...
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
...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...
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.
Oh, there are spoiler tags. Nice.
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.
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.
Im open for a more challenging self-imposed restriction on an already difficult faction.
Oda and don't blitz. :laugh4:
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...
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.
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
07-12-2011, 20:33
I would love a Co-op eventually but I still have yet to play the game. :laugh4:
Tonight I have a date with Date.
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
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
07-15-2011, 12:32
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
The one advantage of vassalising is that it lets you send a raiding half stack army off on a rampage through enemy territory - by vassalising you don't have to stop and get loyalty back up but can take a new province every turn (at least in the west and centre where few castles are more than one turn apart and the AI almost never remembers tto garrison them).
This worked very well for me as Oda - I had started off occupying provinces in the Owari to Suruga arc - and then I was attacked by endless stacks of Ikko Ikki - while I beat them off again and in siege battles my Owari army lost units faster than I could replace them and it was only a matter of time before they sent one stack too many.
So I scraped together a half stack of ashigaru, put them on a boat at Mikawa, landed them in Ise and then went on a rampage through Yamato, Iga and Omi vassalising each one in turn.
As it turned out that they only had those provinces plus Mino which they left undefended for one turn and Echizen which someone else took I destroyed the clan in about 5 turns without having to fight a single proper battle - every time it looked like I was going to get intercepted by an II stack I took the castle first and then it had to leave vassal territory.
In fact this sort of raid is the only safe way Oda can venture westwards in the early game - actually occupy Omi, Iga and Yamato and you'll be endlessly fighting to hold on to them.
And historically this was the grand strategy that Hideyoshi used to unite Japan - he didn't eliminate most of his rivals he just turned them into vassal states.
Vladimir
07-18-2011, 13:53
Destroy them completely by making them his friends? I'm getting bored with the game already. Maybe I'll try Legendary soon and stop autoresolving epic peasant armies.
Vladimir
07-22-2011, 13:56
Played a little as Hojo last night. I didn't know that slow motion was disabled too.
Did pretty well with trade and alliances. Took a few cities to the East and made a vassal. I forgot to discontinue a trade agreement first so the diplomatic hit resulted in loss of alliance and war with Takeda resulting in a net gain of a good chokepoint city. Diplomacy is one of the more interesting aspects of the game as I'm autoresolving most battles. I really enjoyed the combat in M2TW which is why I played it until the CD broke; not so much here. With this lousy reinforcement system I won't be bothered to fight the battles myself. Those little Asian men walk too fast and there's no way to properly manage a battle with the way things are set up.
Still, this should be a good challenge. The Hojo are in a good position and I'm making a lot of money from trade and need to hang out at nodes to wait for them to free up. Loosing my Iron supply was troubling but when you have MASSIVE STACKS OF PEASANTS it's not that important.
Work really cuts down your available game time, but with a fresh PC with more RAM I'm finally going to town on the Oda Legendary again.
A quick word on the recent DLC in regards to Legendary campaigns: It shouldnt really change anything. Im only really afraid of the Shimazu rifles/handcannons/Barretts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_M82)(and Shimazu is destroyed in seconds in the campaign) and the Takeda YariKatanaCavalry (which is a joke to fight when you're a spear-based faction). Maybe the not-so-bulletproof Date Yaris? But if Date uses such expensive Yari units then Im just happy. I do however feel almost insulted at the "Long Yari" guys of Oda. You need more structures than for Yari Samurai... but they're so much worse - a pathetic excuse for an upgrade over the stock Ashis - and they cost twice the upkeep. Wow. Impossible to replenish, hardly an upgrade and to add insult to injury they're expensive as all hell. I would rather buy Yari Samurai in encampment towers while waiting for my Armory+Naginata Dojo to finish. What were they thinking? Well, about MP quickbattles I guess. But for SP I'd rather have 1 less upkeep vanilla Ashis than this. For SP the DLC only really made playing Chosokabe as a Christian a lot more effective since you dont sac your strongest unit for a religious switch anymore. I guess Choso was too hard before.
With that rant out of the way I'll open Pandora's Box and see if my hypothesis on effective Oda openings is correct. I'll be saving SSs and noting timings regularly. Hoping for either an 80 turn victory or a screenshot of me in Kyoto being hammered by 20 Hojo mortar squads. Not sure what would most priceless.
frogbeastegg
08-19-2011, 13:23
Now that the guide is out of the way, I am starting to consider a legendary campaign. Got a few other non-TW games to finish first. After that ...
I'm considering the Hojo and the Ikko-Ikki. Hojo appeal because their theme song goes "Money, money, money!", their starting lands allow defensive steady play, and they have smithing in one of their starting provinces. Ikko-Ikki because of the access to both upgraded armour and upgraded archer accuracy via their starting provinces, and also the slightly changed gameplay which accompanies the clan's unique traits. Does anyone have any comments on those two clans, or suggestions for another which I might enjoy? I have the Hattori and Ikko-Ikki DLC but not the Sengoku unit DLC, if that makes any difference.
I'm looking for a game which lets me play according to my own preferences. After 90+ hours of playing purely for research, I want to relax and have fun. I'm a slow-and-steady type of player. I hate rushing, I dislike rapid expansion. I like to build up my lands and economy. Waiting for - or creating - the ideal opportunity and then striking is the Way of the Frog. In terms of armies, I am looking forward to using units I want to and fighting in a style which I prefer - at long last I can get away from the parade of units added to my armies for testing reasons. That means a clan with the ability to quickly field a strong heavy infantry core and good archers is preferable, either through the clan bonuses or through easily obtained province bonuses. I do not want to play a game which involves a large naval component; that aspect of the game bores me silly and I've endured countless hours of it for the guide. Time to focus on mainly the land, cleanse the palette and hope it counters the exhaustion. No island clans, and no heavy focus on the trade nodes even though that will make my life harder than it need be. Nor do I want to convert to Christianity; the memory of ~30 hours of repeatedly doing the same few missionary, rebellion and conversion tests is far too strong.
Hojo, might work, but Ikko forget it, as you stated you want a slow building game, with that religious difference you will have all your neighbours attacking you...
I completed on legendary so far with these: Oda, Date, Chosokabe...
Since you don't like naval and trade, options could be Hojo and Date...
Hojo have decent diplomacy, but Oda, Satomi or Satake will knock on your door if they build momentum...
Date have spacious land which buys time, but if you act too slow it gets nasty...
frogbeastegg
08-19-2011, 16:29
Date is a possibility I suppose. I hadn't considered them as I started a game with them on hard, mostly for the purpose of testing rapid expansion, pure infantry armies, causing unrest with Buddhist monks, and ways to boost research speed. Never did finish it, and can't really remember what I was planning other than that realm divide was close. If I can't pick that game back up, starting a new campaign with them shouldn't feel too repetitive. The spacious terrain added some extra challenge to the opening phases of that game. Hmm, it's a possibility to consider.
I don't mind a lot of defensive fighting, as long as I don't have to gather provinces quickly. I can do the rapid expansion '1 province every 1-2 turns' style of play, it's just not enjoyable for me. One province every 4 turns is better, or 2-3 provinces in a single year before a period of peace. Some clans need to be more aggressive than others in order to secure their initial position.
Yeah, I pointed those as I reckon they have the "less aggressive" starting position, excluding the 2 island clans...
Uesugi and Takeda come close, but with Ikko DLC they'll have several stacks coming early on...
Vladimir
08-19-2011, 16:55
Date is by far my favorite and good for linear expansion. Once the north is yours you can pretty much take your time. The largest concern is that Takeda or another clan rapidly expands. Then you are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
frogbeastegg
08-19-2011, 17:27
The more I consider a new campaign, the more I wonder if Mori may be a possibility. They are in a nice position to play a land game if they wage a war of westward expansion. There are some nice provinces near their starting position. Since I will not choose to go after Kyushu and Shikoku, the naval aspect should be less prominent than you would expect with this clan. Maintaining two trade nodes will be reasonably effortless due to proximity. The stronger ships should allow me to auto-calc most of the battles if the clans on the smaller islands try to sail over, and I can 'park' the fleets at several strategic spots on the map with no need to shuffle them around.
Decisions, decisions.
It's a shame Chosokabe are on an island. If it weren't for the strong need to mess around with ships they would be well suited to the style of game I wish to play.
Gregoshi
08-19-2011, 17:40
Here are some interesting stats regarding Legendary difficulty from C.I.F (Intrepid Sidekick I think) over at the official forums:
Some folks here might be very very good at beating the game on Legendary but you are in a minority. Approximately 600 of all the players who play Shogun 2 have ever managed to win a Legendary Campaign. The greater majority of players who try Legendary Campaigns have been beaten by the 40th turn. There have been more than 100k of Legendary campaigns started
:jawdrop:
Vladimir
08-19-2011, 18:19
It's not that difficult, it's just not interesting. If you fight the battles and don't autoresolve you evolve simple or cheeseworthy tactics that take a lot of fun out of the game. It's more clickfest than chess game.
Mori (I'm playing it atm) have a quite difficult starting position...
Amako will send stacks after stacks non-stop, Kikkawa will attack you very soon...
You can relay on Ouchi, and it's a must to build diplomacy with the Chosokabe...
Around 40/50+ turns you will be sandwitched between <insert christian clan from Kyushu> and <whoever prevails in the Kinai>, and if the Chosokabe don't like you that's a third front...
Btw the Chosokabe campaign I completed, fyi I didn't own any navy XD
Simply recruited ad hoc little ships for quick crossing and establishing a beachhead ^^
I didn't advise it, as you said you didn't like the islands, but I can assure you a navy isn't that important, all you need is a competent stack to protect Shikoku, and all the reast of your armies can go on rampage wherever they like...
frogbeastegg
08-19-2011, 20:06
That Mori campaign sounds like fun. Fighting to stave off annihilation is so much more engaging than fighting to collect provinces.
Chosokabe was the first clan I played in a campaign, way back in March. Although it was going successfully, I abandoned that game; TosaInu was also playing as the Chosokabe and we were comparing experiences. Continued play felt empty without that dialogue. IIRC I had to maintain an active, strong naval presence in that game. In my completed Shimazu campaign I definitely did. I suppose, like Mori, Chosokabe might be able to get away with minimal naval activity if I limit my interests carefully. Hmm.
I started with 2 possibilities and now I have 4 or 5. At this rate I shall be putting all of the clans into a hat to draw a random choice! :laugh4:
The Blind King of Bohemia
08-20-2011, 15:38
Came pretty close with the Oda. The Uesugi campaign is insanely hard on legendary. I truely hate the coalition of Takeda, Hojo and Satomi that forms. Then the Ikko Ikki often get involved then if you manage to survive long enough you get to be destroyed by the Date. It drives me insane.
Here are some interesting stats regarding Legendary difficulty from C.I.F (Intrepid Sidekick I think) over at the official forums:
:jawdrop: :jawdrop: indeed nice statistics:yes:
frogbeastegg
08-23-2011, 15:01
I managed to salvage my Date research campaign, and turn it into something enjoyable enough to finish. I don't want to play again as them so soon. The other clans (Hojo, Chosokabe, Mori) went into a random drawing. Chosokabe won the draw, which to be honest is the one I'm least interested in trying as I've already played half a campaign as them. Oh well, the gods of random have spoken. Chosokabe it is.
I started and got a few turns in. The only issue was adapting to the lack of pause or slo-mo in the battles. I find battles a bit on the fast side so I tend to use those two features a lot. Without them I was taking a lot more casualties than I needed to; the timing on critical manoeuvres like advancing infantry is different when things are at normal speed. I need to run a lot of practice custom battles, get used to controlling at normal speed. Picking those skills up as I go in legendary is proving too costly. Making that leap is the only part of legendary I'm worried about; I've won campaigns on the harder difficulties, but if I can't control the battles effectively I don't have much chance.
The other aspects of legendary battle mode are quite nifty. The lack of the radar means that you need to pay sharp attention to the enemy's movements. It's really weird not having the detailed tooltip for enemy units. I kind of miss seeing what they are up to (walking, running, firing, etc) however it's easy enough to tell from the animations, even at a distance. The restricted camera isn't nearly as claustrophobic as the one featured in STW and MTW; in several battles I didn't once ram face-first into it when issuing move orders.
Does anyone have any comments on how auto-resolve works on legendary? Does it still work fairly, or have the calculations been skewed towards the AI?
Does anyone have any comments on how auto-resolve works on legendary? Does it still work fairly, or have the calculations been skewed towards the AI?
I didn't notice any difference between autoresolve on Legendary as opposed to any other difficulty. I use it a great deal when I play to mop up simple battles I know I will win (it's very good with giving a proper result when army strength is significantly skewed) or if I don't care about casualties (i.e., non-frontline army that can rest for a few turns after the auto). Be wary of using it if casualties might be important, as I've seen several Pyrrhic Victory results on major battles I was just feeling too lazy to fight. That can cause you serious problems if that army needs to be fighting again in the near future. Also, always remove units with about 15 or fewer men in them prior to an autoresolve. Even with a massive victory with few casualties, it's not unusual for the autocalc to result in the tiny units getting disbanded. Move those units out of the army and outside the reinforcement radius prior to the autocalc, then merge them back in after the battle is over.
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