Hojo Horde a cheat or just good ashigaru management

[hach]

hi

is the hojo horde really a cheat or just that the hojo mass produces ashigaru.

does he have spear dojo in practically every province and just mass produce the cheapest unit there is'or is there a cheat he uses?

hach

[Doragon_Ajidrik]

The AI can spend money that it doesnt have I think. So they can churn out a lot of units with no reards to economics

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[Nelson]

The Hojo show up with good troops and lots of them. Many units are improved, too. So no, it doesn't just rely on ashigaru.

The AI does get to cheat. The expansion should fix this issue. (I think)

[BanzaiZAP]

I don't think it's a bug. To be honest, when playing AS Hojo, I often end up getting a Horde myself! Isn't that kinda the point? Build up a massive army before your opponents, then steamroller them? Since Hojo is a bit defensive, he'll sit there and build up those massive armies. And if you play as Hojo, you'll often encounter a Red Tide (Mori) moving towards you

Yeah, the AI cheats do kinda suck, but they were originally introduced to help balance a bit. We know that a human can always outthink a computer, so something had to be done to make it a challenge. So the cheats are much more noticable in the higher difficulty levels, since they need to have some kind of edge over the human.

Apparently, the expansion will remove some of the cheats, and improve the AI to compensate. If there was NO form of balancing, I think the game would be way too easy. So yeah, its a cheat, but one I've never had a problem with. Breaking a Hojo Horde gives a deep sense of satisfaction: "He had huge armies, and was even cheating, but I STILL kicked his butt!"

-- B)

[edRonin]

I kind of like the Hojo Horde. Adds a challenge later in the game. Otherwise it would get pretty boring.

I am dealing a interesting situation right now. I am playing Mori on expert. I was facing Imagawa, Hojo and Takeda in the East and Shimazu in the West who all had their own version of a horde. Hojo was the only clan I was actively at war with. I went through Sado to grab some of the koku rich provinces in the East (Dewa, Etchu, Mutsu, etc). I had Hojo almost beaten when Imagawa attacked me in Etchu. I killed his Daimyo and his lands and armies went to Hojo. Hojo now got more aggressive against me since part of his horde was their to protect against the Imagawa horde. Hojo then attacked and I killed off his Daimyo and his land and Armies went to Shimazu. Now Shimazu is attacking me in the East and West and has taken some provinces away from me. I am holding in the West but my Eastern defences are hard pressed right now. I need to juggle my armies to cover the breaks he has made in my lines. It's actually been fun to be thrown such a challenge this late in the game.

The key to defeating a Horde is to isolate the province that has the Horde and then defeat the enemy in that province. Very few of the troops will be able to retreat to the castle (if there is one) and the rest of the horde will disappear.

[solypsist]

The real advantage, apparent to those who have played as the Hojo, are that Hojo start with the the most fertile lands and neighbor provinces that contain a horse dojo and armory (Kai and Shinano), this give a great advantage during the formative early years of the game, if one knows where to go (and the AI always knows where to go and when)